Tokyo Bay (42 page)

AS THE LEADING
barge of the American flotilla touched the makeshift jetty of rice-straw and sand, the commander of the
Susquehanna
stood up. Many thousands of eyes stared fixedly at him as he scanned the beach, and from his seat amidships in the barge Samuel Armstrong was struck anew by the silence and utter stillness of the massed Japanese forces. The nearest ranks consisted of helmeted
foot soldiers
garbed in ribbed armour of iron and leather, and they clutched pikes and lances in their hands. At close range Armstrong could see that their dark faces were scowling and hostile, and twin
-
sworded officers positioned in front of them at intervals also glowered menacingly towards the jetty from beneath horned helmets.
After pausing for a moment, the commander of the
Susquehanna
stepped lightly and confidently over the gunwale. Seconds later Major Pearsall drew his sword and leapt ashore. As the booted feet of the two American officers sank into the soft sand of the beach, a slow growl of anger rumbled from the throats of the watching Japanese warriors
-
but still none of them moved.
‘You’d best be quick,
Mr.
Armstrong: called the major. ‘And try to keep your head high as you alight.’
The missionary, who had remained pale-faced in his seat until that moment, stood up abruptly and strode forward with an outward confidence not matched by his inner feelings. He realized suddenly that the massed ranks of Japanese were watching the first foreigners they had ever seen step down officially onto their soil, and he took care to ensure that his sword did not entangle his legs as he jumped down from the barge.
‘Christopher Columbus must have felt something like this when he landed in Jamaica four hundred years ago,’ murmured Armstrong, nervously glancing up at the tall medieval pennants and banners which swept fluttering to the ground amidst the dense concentrations of soldiery
‘Maybe,’ replied Major Pearsall dryly. ‘But unlike the cacique chieftains, I don’t think these particular natives will be much impressed with a handful of glass beads.’
With his hand held tentatively on his sword-hilt, Armstrong moved to take up position between the two ramrod-straight officers. Glancing seawards, he was glad to see the reassuring black hulk of the two towering steam frigates anchored broadside across the mouth of the bay. Because they were ready for action, thick smoke spiralled skyward from their tall stacks, and the gaping black eyes of their cannon kept an unblinking watch on the shore. Although he felt comforted by their presence, Armstrong also realized, as he stood defenceless on the sand, just how o
m
inous and fearsome the ships must look to all those Japanese at his back who were armed only with puny bows, spears and ancient flintlock muskets.
He felt suddenly ashamed, too, of his confident assertion, made a few days earlier on the flagship, that good would certainly flow from the venture if it led to the further spreading of the Christian gospel in this new region. From the beach, he could see for himself
just how malevolent the American threat of force seemed and, although he was directly endangered by them, he realized that he sympathized strongly with the Japanese in making such emphatic preparations for war.
‘We shall wait here,
Mr.
Armstrong, until the commodore has landed,’ said Major Pearsall as he glanced appraisingly around the beach. ‘Then we shall fall in behind him to march in procession to the pavilion.’
The missionary nodded, and began to breathe a little easier as he watched the hundred-strong contingent of marines spring nimbly ashore. They shouldered their carbines, fell quickly into their allotted ranks and marched briskly over the jetty to form up into two lines on either side of it. They were followed by a similar number of armed sailors and two bands who advanced jauntily along the jetty, carrying only their musical instruments. Some two dozen officers had taken up their places on either side of Major Pearsall and ‘the commander of the
Susquehanna,
and a complete hush fell over the Americans and Japanese alike as all eyes turned to watch the approach of the barge occupied by the US Navy squadron’s commander-in-chief.
The Governor of Uraga and his entourage were standing apart on the beach, waiting to lead the parade to the reception pavilion, and Armstrong saw the governor crane his neck to stare intently towards the barge as it neared the jetty The fact that, during several visits to the warships, neither he nor his staff had ever caught a single glimpse of the American first described to them as the ‘Most High Lord of the Interior’ was evident in the undisguised curiosity of his usually impassive face. Around him most of his extravagantly robed aides were also raising themselves on their toes to catch sight of the man who, as far as they were concerned, had previously surrounded himself with an emperor-like screen of secrecy. But, with a start, Armstrong saw that again Haniwara Tokuma was not among them. Standing slightly apart, the interpreter was not looking towards the jetty His shoulders still sagged” in what looked like dejection, his head was lowered and he appeared to be staring listlessly at the sand in front of his feet. Glancing round, Armstrong realized that the interpreter was the only man on the beach whose eyes were averted from the momentous landing of the foreign barbarian chieftain, and in that instant he felt his unease turn to a deeper and more certain foreboding. Something in
H
aniwara Tokuma’s manner spoke silently of his utter despair, and the missionary felt a cold shiver of fear crawl up his spine.
But the next moment a voice yelled, ‘Present arms!’ and hundreds of
American
hands slapped in unison against the stocks of their loaded carbines. Armstrong turned back towards the jetty; in time to see the oarsmen of the commander
-
in-chief’s barge sweep their blades erect and allow their craft to glide accurately to rest. A flurry of drums and brass instruments then crashed out the familiar opening strains of ‘Hail Columbia’, and Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry rose to his feet to step majestically ashore.
The breeze fluttered the gold tassels of his cocked hat as he strode along the jetty; followed by his flag lieutenant and the commander of the
Mississippi.
He paused with his head held proudly erect while Major Pearsall and the
Susquehanna’s
commander saluted and offered the customary honours; then his officers fell into place behind him and his two towering black bodyguards moved to flank him protectively on either side. The two young sailors clutching the scarlet
-
covered letters of the President were already waiting in position behind the bearers of the United States flag and the commodore’s blue pennant. They watched expectantly while the Marine Corps major paced to the front of the leading contingent of blue- jackets with his sword drawn; then, when a loud command was given and the t
w
o bands in the rear of the parade struck’ up a boisterous march, they swung briskly forward, taking great care to keep strictly in step with the other three hundred uniformed Americans, as they bore the official letters proudly towards the reception pavilion.
Marching a few paces behind Commodore Perry, Samuel Armstrong watched the Governor of Uraga and the other Japanese officials closely. Their role was to guide the parade towards the pavilion but, as they walked on ahead of the marines, he could see that Haniwara Tokuma’s mind was elsewhere. Remote and distracted, the interpreter looked about himself constantly, giving Armstrong a strong impression that he anticipated some unscheduled interruption to the proceedings, and every so often he glanced up nervously towards the ‘hills rising behind the bay.
‘Don’t be surprised,
Mr.
Armstrong, if we don’t follow precisely in the governor’s guiding footsteps,’ murmured the commander of the
Susquehanna
at the missionary’s side. ‘Major Pearsall has orders to lead us to the pavilion by a broad, circular route. So, for a few minutes, our weapons and our discipline will be clearly exhibited for the benefit of the watching natives
-
and it won’t be lost on them that our men are manoeuvring just as if they were marching into enemy territory.’
As the well-ordered column of three hundred armed Americans curved away across the beach beneath their fluttering national flag, Armstrong tried to memorize every detail of the extraordinary scene around him, realizing he was living through unique moments. Close up, he could see that the watching Japanese fighting units were drawn up in battle brigades, each composed of units of infantrymen armed with ancient muskets, pikemen, archers and cavalry On the tall, multicoloured banners and pennants that curled overhead in the breeze he could see a variety of heraldic designs
-
rings of stars, castles, emblematic leaves and flowers
-
which confirmed that the troops had been drawn from armies of several different
daimyo.
Ranged on either side of the reception pavilion itself he could see contingents of sentinels garbed very differently in white turbans, broad sashes of yellow silk and flowing grey tunics and trousers drawn in tight below the knee. Evidently the personal guards of the imperial dignitaries, they were armed with antique matchlock muskets, and the missionary could see that they carried fuses for these old-fashioned weapons coiled on their right arms. On either side of the entrance to the pavilion, which was flanked by long, funnelling screens, equally ancient four-pound cannon of apparent Spanish design had been set up; nothing within the shadowy interior was visible and, with the sun shimmering on the two brass cannon at its mouth, the pavilion to Armstrong seemed suddenly as inviting as the gaping, gold-fanged jaws of a dragon.
‘Try to look as though you’re enjoying it,
Mr.
Armstrong,’ remarked the commander in a jocular undertone as the bands struck up a new march. ‘It’s unlikely that you’ll experience anything like this ever again.’
The missionary nodded quickly but made no reply. Ahead of him, filling his vision, were the broad, confident shoulders of Matthew Ca
l
braith Perry; beyond him, the massed white plumes of the marines moved rhythmically as the tempo of the music increased and every marcher, relieved to be ashore after many long days at sea, swung his limbs with renewed vigour. Feeling the raw, pent-up energy of trained fighting men flowing all around him, Armstrong lifted his head and quickened his own step. But although he marched with his eyes open, he had begun to say. a fervent prayer inside his mind, and he went on praying hard as the armed column swung across the beach in a broad arc, heading towards the pavilion.
‘Keep very still and make no n
o
ise,’ hissed Prince Tanaka, pressing himself deeper into a thicket of low
spreading trees and bushes that sprouted from the side of the winding ravine. ‘We won’t have long to wait!’
His bare chest heaved from the intense physical effort of scrambling halfway down the ravine at the front end of the
norimono,
which was now concealed beneath the trees. His six disguised bearers, who were crouching closely around him in the thicket, were also gulping air gratefully into their lungs after their fast run with the cumbersome carrying-chair and a desperate, slithering descent of the near- precipitous slope. Once they reached the thicket they had quickly torn branches from some of the bushes to camouflage the
norimono,
and now all were staring anxiously through the mist towards the track which zigzagged downwards in a double hairpin through a narrow, rocky defile no less than twenty feet below them.
‘By running straight, instead of following the curves of the ravine, we may have gained two or three minutes on them: gasped Tanaka, staring fixedly at the rock around which he expected the Makabe armed column to appear. ‘But
it
can’t be more.’
Now that they had stopped running, they could hear the insistent thud of drums, and the stirring martial strains of the two American bands, rising from the beach. In the still morning air the noise from the unfamiliar instruments rang strangely in their ears, and they looked at one another mystified as they waited.
‘The foreign barbarians have certainly landed now,’ whispered Tanaka. ‘There’s very little time left!’
He glanced up over his shoulder to a high outcrop of rock above them where he had stationed the samurai who had acted as their guide. Lying prone amidst the scrub on top of the rock, the man had a bird’s-eye view of both the narrow defile below and the following hairpin bends that led on towards the fork in the track above Kuriha
m
a. Around those double bends Gotaro and the rest of his troop of Kago guards had concealed themselves in another clump of trees that jutted from the steep slope. They had tethered their horses a safe distance away above the ravine, and were now waiting tensely for a signal that the men of the Makabe clan had come in sight.
‘We shall have very little time to do what is necessary,’ murmured Tanaka, lifting his hand towards the rock in a prearranged signal to indicate that both the
norimono
and his men were ready. ‘So our actions must be calm and natural in every way.’
He continued to watch until he saw the samurai lookout raise his head briefly above the edge of the rock and wave once in acknowledgement of the signal. The mist around the heights, Tanaka noticed, was beginning to disperse more rapidly, and he turned back to watch the track below, hoping desperately that the sun would not break through too soon. Across the entire hillside the natural noises of the morning remained muted; no birds sang and no animals moved among the trees. The curious marching music from the bay remained the only intrusion on the strange stillness, and Tanaka and his loin-clothed samurai strained their ears in vain for some sign that the Makabe warriors were approaching.
‘Could they have taken another route we don’t know about,