Gai-Jin (6 page)

Struan stirred. At once Babcott said, “Give him more of the ether … that’s right, don’t press too firmly … good. Well done. How do you feel?”

“Dreadful.”

“Never mind.” The fingers began again, almost outside the doctor’s will, then stopped. Gently they exposed the other part of the severed intestine. “Wash your hands then give me the needle that’s already threaded-there, on the table.”

Tyrer obeyed.

“Good. Thanks.” Babcott began the repair. Very accurately. “His liver’s not hurt, bruised a little but not cut. His kidney’s all right too.
Ichiban—
that’s Japanese for ‘very good.’ I have a few Japanner patients. In return for my work I make them give me words and phrases. I’ll help you learn if you like.”

“I’d … that would be wonderful—
ichiban
. Sorry I’m so useless.”

“You’re not. I hate doing this alone. I … well, I get frightened. Funny, but I do.” For a moment his fingers filled the room.

Tyrer looked at Struan’s face, no color now where an hour ago it was ruddy, and strong where now it was stretched and ominous, eyelids flickering from time to time. Strange, he thought, strange how unbelievably naked Struan seems now. Two days ago I’d never even heard his name, now we’re bonded like brothers, now life is different, will be different for both of us, like it or not. And I know he’s brave and I’m not.

“Ah, you asked about Dutch,” Babcott said, scarcely listening to himself, all his attention on the repairs. “Since about 1640 the only contact
Japanners have had with the outside, apart from China, has been with Dutchmen. All others were forbidden to land in Japan, particularly Spaniards and Portuguese. Japanners don’t like Catholics because they meddled in their politics back in the 1600s. At one time, so legend says, Japan almost went Catholic. Do you know any of this?”

“No, sir.”

“So the Dutch were tolerated because they’d never brought missionaries here, just wanted to trade.” For a moment he stopped talking but his fingers continued the fine neat stitches. Then he rambled on again. “So a few Hollanders—men, never women—were allowed to stay, but only with the most severe restrictions and confined on a man-made island of three acres in Nagasaki harbor called Deshima. The Dutch obeyed any law the Japanners made, and kowtowed—growing rich meanwhile. They brought in books, when they were allowed, traded, when they were allowed, and carried the China trade that’s essential to Japan—Chinese silks and silver for gold, paper, lacquer, chopsticks—you know what those are?”

“Yes, sir. I was in Peking for three months.”

“Oh yes, sorry, I forgot. Never mind. According to Dutch journals of the 1600s the first of the Toranaga Shōguns, their equivalent of emperors, decided foreign influence was against Japan’s interests, so he closed the country and decreed that Japanners could not build any oceangoing ships, or leave the country—anyone who did could not come back, or if they returned, they were to be killed instantly. That’s still the law.” His fingers stopped for an instant as the delicate thread parted and he cursed. “Give me the other needle. Can’t get decent gut, though this silk’s fine. Try to thread one of the others but wash your hands first and wash it when you’re done. Thanks.”

Tyrer was glad to have something to do and turned away, but his fingers were helpless. His nausea was growing again, his head throbbing. “You were saying, about the Dutch?”

“Ah, yes. So, warily, Dutch and Japanners began learning from the other though the Dutch were officially forbidden to learn Japanese. Ten-odd years ago the Bakufu started a Dutch language school …” Both men heard the running feet.

Hasty knock. The sweating Grenadier Sergeant stood there, trained never to enter while an operation was in progress. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there’s four of the rotten little buggers coming down the road. Looks like a deputation. They’s all samurai.”

The doctor did not stop sewing. “Is Lim with them?”

“Yessir.”

“Escort them into the reception room and tell Lim to look after them. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Yessir.” The Sergeant took one last glazed look at the table, then fled.

The doctor completed another stitch, knotted it, cut the thread, swabbed the oozing wound, and began anew. “Lim’s one of our Chinese assistants. Our Chinese do most of our leg work, not that they’re Japanese speakers or—or very trustworthy.”

“We … it was the same … we found it was the same in Peking, sir. Dreadful liars.”

“The Japanners are worse—but in a way that’s not true either. It’s not that they’re liars, it’s just that truth is mobile and depends on the whim of the speaker. Very important for you to learn to speak Japanese very quickly. We don’t have even one interpreter, not of our own people.”

Tyrer gaped at him. “None?”

“None. The British padre speaks a little but we can’t use him; Japanners detest missionaries and priests. We’ve only three Dutch speakers in the Settlement, one Hollander, one Swiss who’s our interpreter, and a Cape Colony trader, none British. In the Settlement we speak a bastard sort of lingua franca called ‘pidgin,’ like in Hong Kong and Singapore and the other China Treaty ports and use compradores, business intercessors.”

“It was the same in Peking.”

Babcott heard the irritation but more the underlying danger. He glanced up, instantly saw into Tyrer that he was near to breaking, ready to vomit again any second. “You’re doing fine,” he said encouragingly, then straightened to ease his back, sweat running off him. Again he bent down. Very carefully he resettled the repaired intestine into the cavity, quickly began to stitch another laceration, working outwards. “How’d you like Peking?” he asked, not caring but wanting Tyrer to talk. Better that than an outburst, he thought. Can’t deal with him till this poor bugger’s closed up. “I’ve never been there. Did you like it?”

“I, well…yes, yes, very much.” Tyrer tried to collect his wits through a blinding headache that racked him. “The Manchus are quite subdued at the moment, so we could go anywhere we wanted quite safely.” Manchus, a nomadic tribe from Manchuria, had conquered China in 1644 and now ruled as the Ch’ing Dynasty. “We could ride around without … without any problems … the Chinese were … not too friendly but …” The closeness of the room and the smell crested. A spasm took him and he was sick again. Still nauseated, he came back. “Sorry.”

“You were saying—about Manchus?”

Suddenly Tyrer wanted to scream that he cared nothing about Manchus or Peking or anything, wanting to run from the stench and his helplessness. “The devil with—”

“Talk to me! Talk!”

“We…we were told that … that normally they’re an arrogant, nasty lot and it’s obvious the Chinese hate Manchus mortally.” Tyrer’s voice was
phlegmy but the more he concentrated the less he felt the urge to flee. He continued, hesitating, “It … it seems they’re all petrified the Tai’ping Rebellion will spread up from Nanking and engulf Peking, and that will be the end of …” He stopped, listening intently. His mouth had a dreadful taste and his head pounded even more.

“What is it?”

“I … I thought I heard someone shouting.”

Babcott listened, hearing nothing. “Go on about Manchus.”

“Well, the, er, the Tai’ping Rebellion. Rumor has it that more than ten million peasants have been killed or died of famine in the last few years. But it’s quiet in Peking—of course, burning and looting the Summer Palace by British and French forces two years ago, which Lord Elgin ordered as a reprisal, also taught the Manchus a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry. They aren’t going to murder any more British lightly. Isn’t that what Sir William will order here? A reprisal?”

“If we knew who to carry out the reprisal against we would have started. But against who? You can’t bombard Yedo because of a few unknown assassins …”

Angry voices interrupted him, the Sergeant’s English at odds with guttural Japanese. Then the door was jerked open by a samurai and behind him two others threatened the Sergeant, their swords half out of their scabbards; two Grenadiers with breech-loaders levelled stood in the passageway. The fourth samurai, an older man, came forward into the room. Tyrer backed against the wall, petrified, reliving Canterbury’s death.

“Kinjiru!”
Babcott bellowed, and everyone froze. For a moment it looked as though the older man, furious now, would pull out his sword and attack. Then Babcott whirled and faced them, a scalpel in his enormous fist, blood on his hands and apron, gigantic and diabolical.
“Kinjiru!”
he ordered again, then pointed with the scalpel. “Get out!
Dete. Dete … dozo.”
He glared at all of them, then turned his back on them and continued sewing and swabbing. “Sergeant, show them the reception room—politely!”

“Yessir.” With signs, the Sergeant beckoned to the samurai who chattered angrily amongst themselves.
“Dozo,”
he said, muttering. “Come on, you rotten little bastards.” Again he beckoned. The older samurai imperiously waved at the others and stomped off. At once the other three bowed and followed.

Awkwardly Babcott wiped a bead of sweat off his chin with the back of his hand, then continued his work, his head and neck and back aching.
“Kinjiru
means ‘it is forbidden,’” he said, making his voice calm though his heart was beating violently, as it always did when samurai were near with drawn or even half-drawn swords and he had no pistol or gun in his hands, cocked and ready. Too many times he had been summoned to the result of their swords, against both Europeans and themselves—fights and samurai
feuds were constant in and around Yokohama, Kanagawa and the surrounding villages.
“Dozo
means please,
dete
, go out. Very important to use please and thank you with Japanese. Thank you is
domo
. Use them even if you shout.” He glanced at Tyrer who was still against the wall, shaking. “There’s whisky in the cabinet.”

“I’m … I’m all right …”

“You’re not, you’re still in shock. Take a good dose of whisky. Sip it. Soon as I’m finished I’ll give you something to stop the sickness. You-are-not-to-worry! Understand?”

Tyrer nodded. Tears began streaming down his face that he could not stop and he found it difficult to walk. “What’s…what’s the matter with … me?” he gasped.

“Just shock, don’t worry about it. It’ll pass. It’s normal in war and we’re at war here. I’ll be finished soon. Then we’ll deal with those bastards.”

“How … how will you do that?”

“I don’t know.” An edge came into the doctor’s voice, as he cleaned the wound again with a fresh square of linen from a dwindling pile—still much sewing to be done. “The usual, I suppose, just wave my hands and tell them our Minister will give them bloody hell and try to find out who attacked you. Of course they’ll deny all knowledge of the affair, which is probably right—they never seem to know anything about anything. They’re unlike any other people I’ve ever come across. I don’t know whether they’re just plain stupid, or clever and secretive to the point of genius. We can’t seem to penetrate their society—nor can our Chinese—we’ve no allies amongst them, can’t seem to bribe any of them to help us, we can’t even speak to them directly. We’re all so helpless. Are you feeling better?”

Tyrer had taken a little whisky. Before that he had wiped the tears away, filled with shame, and washed his mouth and poured water on his head. “Not really … but thanks. I’m all right. How about Struan?”

After a pause Babcott said, “I don’t know. You never truly know.” His heart surged at the sound of more footsteps, Tyrer blanched. A knock. The door opened immediately.

“Christ Jesus,” Jamie McFay gasped, his whole attention on the bloody table and the great gash in Struan’s side. “Is he going to be all right?”

“Hello, Jamie,” Babcott said. “You heard about—”

“Yes, we’ve just come from the Tokaidō, tracking Mr. Struan on the off chance. Dmitri’s outside. You all right, Mr. Tyrer? The bastards butchered poor old Canterbury into a dozen pieces and left the bits to the crows…. ” Tyrer lurched for the basin again. Uneasily, McFay stayed at the door. “For Christ’s sake, George, is Mr. Struan going to be all right?”

“I don’t know!” Babcott flared, his never-ending impotence at not knowing erupting as anger, not understanding why some patients lived
and others less wounded did not, why some wounds rotted and others healed. “He’s lost pints of blood; I’ve repaired a severed intestine, three lacerations, there are three veins and two muscles yet to be done and the wound closed, and Christ alone knows how much foulness has got in from the air to infect him if that’s where disease or gangrene comes from. I don’t know! I-don’t-bloody-know! Now get to hell out of here and deal with those four Bakufu bastards and find out who did this, by God.”

“Yes, certainly, sorry, George,” McFay said, beside himself with worry, and shocked at the violence from Babcott, who was usually imperturbable, adding hastily, “we’ll try—Dmitri’s with me—but we know who did it, we leaned on a Chinese shopkeeper in the village. It’s damn strange, the samurai were all from Satsuma and—”

“Where the hell’s that?”

“He said it’s a kingdom near Nagasaki on the south island, six or seven hundred miles away and—”

“What the hell are they doing here, for God’s sake?”

“He didn’t know, but he swore they were overnighting at Hodogaya—Phillip, that’s a way station on the Tokaidō a few miles from here—and their king was with them.”

Sanjiro, Lord of Satsuma, eyes slitted and pitiless—a heavyset, bearded man of forty-two, his swords priceless, his blue over-mantle the finest silk-looked at his most trusted advisor. “Was the attack a good thing or a bad thing?”

“It was good, Sire,” Katsumata said softly, knowing there were spies everywhere. The two men were alone, kneeling opposite each other, in the best quarters of an inn at Hodogaya, a village way station on the Tokaidō, barely two miles inland from the Settlement.

“Why?” For six centuries Sanjiro’s ancestors had ruled Satsuma, the richest and most powerful fief in all Japan—except for those of his hated enemies, the Toranaga clans—and, as zealously, had guarded its independence.