Read Tokyo Bay for Free Online
Authors: Anthony Grey
Tags: Fiction, Historical fiction, Historical, Japan, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), English Fiction, Politics and government, 1600-1868, Historical & Mythological Fiction, United States Naval Expedition to Japan; 1852-1854, Tokyo Bay (Japan), (1852-1854), United States Naval Expedition to Japan
‘If you stay, you’ll be killed!’
Running feet could be heard growing louder on the inside stairs, and Tokiwa rose from the tatami with a look of alarm in her eyes. But, after taking a few steps in his direction, she hesitated, aware suddenly of her total nakedness. Rushing across the room to where she had laid out the midnight-blue kimono, she snatched it up and hurried to join him on the balcony.
Outside, he beckoned her to follow, and dashed ahead down the steps. As she ran, Tokiwa could do no more than fling the kimono about her shoulders. A moment later they were swallowed up by the crowds fleeing heedlessly for their lives and in the seething throng only the silken, star-spangled folds of the glossy garment billowing behind her marked their frantic progress.
2
AS DAWN BROKE, Lieutenant Robert Eden was standing watchfully beside an open gunport on the main deck of the Susquehanna. In one hand he clutched an unsheathed cutlass and his other hand rested on the holster of his .36 calibre Colt Navy pistol. He was staring hard towards the shore, straining his eyes for a first glimpse of unknown Japan, but a dense shroud of white mist clung to the spars and furled sails of the slow-moving flagship, making it impossible for him to discern the slightest detail of the coastline.
The sea was flat and calm: the night breeze had dropped suddenly and there was no hint of wind. An eerie silence had descended with the morning mist, as though nature, aware of the drama of the moment, was watching a unique event with bated breath. In the stillness even the thumping of the steam frigate’s engines and the slap of its paddle- wheels against the water seemed muted. From the tall, single funnel amidships, dark smoke was billowing lazily upwards to dissolve fro m sight in the mist astern.
‘It’s a ghostly looking dawn, sir murmured a young marine nervously at Eden’s side. ‘Do you think we’ll find armed troops on the beaches, when this fog lifts?’
‘It’s anybody’s guess, marine,’ replied Eden shortly. ‘You’d best maintain discipline and stay silent:
All along the length of the flagship’s rails, other United States marines stood pugnaciously alert at their battle stations. Dressed in peaked caps, blue jackets and white twills, their chests crisscrossed with white bandoliers, they held filly loaded carbines at the ready as they peered expectantly towards the shore. All the other gunports had already been opened, and their heavy cannon had been loaded and run out. Beside every weapon lay a neat pile of round shot and four stands of grape; muskets had been stacked on the quarterdeck and all boats had been armed with carbines, pistols and cutlasses. Sentinels who had been posted fore and aft and at the gangways were leaning out over the rails and bulwarks, their bodies tense, their eyes straining for the faintest glimpse of trouble.
As Eden peered vainly into the mist he found himself pondering in which direction Mount Fuji lay. Would the volcano that had dazzled his eyes so overwhelmingly during the night still be visible by day, he wondered. And could it possibly prove to be as extraordinary a vision in daylight? While he was reflecting on these questions, the first memory of his dream about the mountain rushed back into his conscious mind, and the force of this waking recollection was so strong that he started inwardly. For several moments the starkly beautiful dream-image of the peak filled his thoughts to the exclusion of all else. The very clarity and vividness of this image seemed initially to imbue it with the quality of genuine memory; then he remembered gathering in the star-filled night to wind about his body and he smiled faintly with relief at recognizing the dream for what it had been. But then he recalled the dream’s strange climax, and saw again the temple and the giant mirror at the volcano’s peak. In its silver surface the disturbing reflections of Japanese faces that had replaced his own swam
Running feet could be heard growing louder on the inside stairs, and Tokiwa rose from the tatami with a look of alarm in her eyes. But, after taking a few steps in his direction, she hesitated, aware suddenly of her total nakedness. Rushing across the room to where she had laid out the midnight-blue kimono, she snatched it up and hurried to join him on the balcony.
Outside, he beckoned her to follow, and dashed ahead down the steps. As she ran, Tokiwa could do no more than fling the kimono about her shoulders. A moment later they were swallowed up by the crowds fleeing heedlessly for their lives and in the seething throng only the silken, star-spangled folds of the glossy garment billowing behind her marked their frantic progress.
2
AS DAWN BROKE, Lieutenant Robert Eden was standing watchfully beside an open gunport on the main deck of the Susquehanna. In one hand he clutched an unsheathed cutlass and his other hand rested on the holster of his .36 calibre Colt Navy pistol. He was staring hard towards the shore, straining his eyes for a first glimpse of unknown Japan, but a dense shroud of white mist clung to the spars and furled sails of the slow-moving flagship, making it impossible for him to discern the slightest detail of the coastline.
The sea was flat and calm: the night breeze had dropped suddenly and there was no hint of wind. An eerie silence had descended with the morning mist, as though nature, aware of the drama of the moment, was watching a unique event with bated breath. In the stillness even the thumping of the steam frigate’s engines and the slap of its paddle- wheels against the water seemed muted. From the tall, single funnel amidships, dark smoke was billowing lazily upwards to dissolve fro m sight in the mist astern.
‘It’s a ghostly looking dawn, sir murmured a young marine nervously at Eden’s side. ‘Do you think we’ll find armed troops on the beaches, when this fog lifts?’
‘It’s anybody’s guess, marine,’ replied Eden shortly. ‘You’d best maintain discipline and stay silent:
All along the length of the flagship’s rails, other United States marines stood pugnaciously alert at their battle stations. Dressed in peaked caps, blue jackets and white twills, their chests crisscrossed with white bandoliers, they held filly loaded carbines at the ready as they peered expectantly towards the shore. All the other gunports had already been opened, and their heavy cannon had been loaded and run out. Beside every weapon lay a neat pile of round shot and four stands of grape; muskets had been stacked on the quarterdeck and all boats had been armed with carbines, pistols and cutlasses. Sentinels who had been posted fore and aft and at the gangways were leaning out over the rails and bulwarks, their bodies tense, their eyes straining for the faintest glimpse of trouble.
As Eden peered vainly into the mist he found himself pondering in which direction Mount Fuji lay. Would the volcano that had dazzled his eyes so overwhelmingly during the night still be visible by day, he wondered. And could it possibly prove to be as extraordinary a vision in daylight? While he was reflecting on these questions, the first memory of his dream about the mountain rushed back into his conscious mind, and the force of this waking recollection was so strong that he started inwardly. For several moments the starkly beautiful dream-image of the peak filled his thoughts to the exclusion of all else. The very clarity and vividness of this image seemed initially to imbue it with the quality of genuine memory; then he remembered gathering in the star-filled night to wind about his body and he smiled faintly with relief at recognizing the dream for what it had been. But then he recalled the dream’s strange climax, and saw again the temple and the giant mirror at the volcano’s peak. In its silver surface the disturbing reflections of Japanese faces that had replaced his own swam