Shōgun (The Asian Saga Book 1)

‘Isogi!‘ Blackthorne shouted, urging the oarsmaster to increase the beat.  He looked aft at the frigate that was bearing down on them, close-hauled now under full sail, then for’ard again, estimating the next tack that she must use.  He wondered if he had judged right, for there was very little sea room here near the cliffs, barely a few yards between disaster and success.  Because of the wind, the frigate had to tack to make the harbor mouth, while the galley could maneuver at its whim.  But the frigate had the advantage of speed.  And on the last tack Rodrigues had made it clear that the galley had better stay out of the way when the Santa Theresa needed sea room.

Yabu was chattering at him again but he paid no heed.  ‘Don’t understand—wakarimasen, Yabu-san!  Listen, Toranaga-sama said, me, Anjin-san, ichi-ban ima! I’m chief Captain-san now!  Wakarimasu ka, Yabu-san?’  He pointed the course on the compass to the Japanese captain, who gesticulated at the frigate, barely fifty yards aft now, overtaking them rapidly on another collision path.

‘Hold your course, by God!’  Blackthorne said, the breeze cooling his sea-sodden clothes, which chilled him but helped to clear his head.  He checked the sky.  No clouds were near the bright moon and the wind was fair.  No danger there, he thought.  God keep the moon bright till we’re through.

‘Hey, Captain!’ he called out in English, knowing it made no difference if he spoke English or Portuguese or Dutch or Latin because he was alone.  ‘Send someone for saké!  Saké!  Wakarimasu ka?‘

‘Hai, Anjin-san.’

A seaman was sent scurrying.  As the man ran he looked over his shoulder, frightened by the size of the approaching frigate and her speed.  Blackthorne held their course, trying to force the frigate to turn before she had gained all space to windward.  But she never wavered and came directly at him.  At the last second he swung out of her way and then, when her bowsprit was almost over their aft deck, he heard Rodrigues’ order, ‘Bear on the larboard tack!  Let go stays’ls, and steady as she goes!’  Then a shout at him in Spanish, ‘Thy mouth in the devil’s arse, Ingeles!’

‘Thy mother was there first, Rodrigues!’

Then the frigate peeled off the wind to scud now for the far shore, where she would have to turn again to reach into the wind and tack for this side once more before she could turn a last time again and make for the harbor mouth.

For an instant the ships were so close that he could almost touch her, Rodrigues, Toranaga, Mariko, and the Captain-General swaying on the quarterdeck.  Then the frigate was away and they were twisting in her wash.

‘Isogi, isogi, by God!’

The rowers redoubled their efforts and with signs Blackthorne ordered more men on the oars until there were no reserves.  He had to get to the mouth before the frigate or they were lost.

The galley was eating up the distance.  But so was the frigate.  At the far side of the harbor she spun like a dancer and he saw that Rodrigues had added tops’ls and topgallants.

‘He’s as canny a bastard as any Portuguese born!’

The saké arrived but it was taken out of the seaman’s hands by the young woman who had helped Mariko and offered precariously to him.  She had stayed gamely on deck, even though clearly out of her element.  Her hands were strong, her hair well groomed, and her kimono rich, in good taste and neat.  The galley lurched in the chop.  The girl reeled and dropped the cup.  Her face did not change but he saw the flush of shame.

‘Por nada,‘ he said as she groped for it.  ‘It doesn’t matter.  Namae ka?‘

‘Usagi Fujiko, Anjin-san.’

‘Fujiko-san.  Here, give it to me.  Dozo.‘  He held out his hand and took the flask and drank directly from it, gulping the wine, eager to have its heat inside his body.  He concentrated on the new course, skirting the shoals that Santiago, on Rodrigues’ orders, had told him about.  He rechecked the bearing from the headland that gave them a clean, hazardless run to the mouth while he finished the warmed wine, wondering in passing how it had been warmed, and why they always served it warm and in small quantities.

His head was clear now, and he felt strong enough, if he was careful.  But he knew he had no reserves to draw upon, just as the ship had no reserves.

‘Saké, dozo, Fujiko-san.’  He handed her the flask and forgot her.

On the windward tack the frigate made way too well and she passed a hundred yards ahead of them, bearing for the shore.  He heard obscenities coming down on the wind and did not bother to reply, conserving his energy.

‘Isogi, by God!  We’re losing!’

The excitement of the race and of being alone again and in command—more by the strength of his will than by position—added to the rare privilege of having Yabu in his power, filled him with unholy glee.  ‘If it wasn’t that the ship’d go down and me with her, I’d put her on the rocks just to see you drown, shit-face Yabu!  For old Pieterzoon!’

But didn’t Yabu save Rodrigues when you couldn’t?  Didn’t he charge the bandits when you were ambushed?  And he was brave tonight.  Yes, he’s a shit-face, but even so he’s a brave shit-face and that’s the truth.

The flask of saké was offered again.  ‘Domo,‘ he said.

The frigate was keeled over, close-hauled and greatly pleasing to him.  ‘I couldn’t do better,’ he said aloud to the wind.  ‘But if I had her, I’d go through the boats and out to sea and never come back.  I’d sail her home, somehow, and leave the Japans to the Japanese and to the pestilential Portuguese.’  He saw Yabu and the captain staring at him.  ‘I wouldn’t really, not yet.  There’s a Black Ship to catch and plunder to be had.  And revenge, eh, Yabu-san?’

‘Nan desu ka, Anjin-san? Nan ja?‘

‘Ichi-ban!  Number one!’ he replied, waving at the frigate.  He drained the flask.  Fujiko took it from him.

‘Saké, Anjin-san?’

‘Domo, iyé!‘

The two ships were very near the massed fishing boats now, the galley heading straight for the pass that had been deliberately left between them, the frigate on the last reach and turning for the harbor mouth.  Here the wind freshened as the protecting headlands fell away, open sea half a mile ahead.  Gusts billowed the frigate’s sails, the shrouds crackling like pistol shots, froth now at her bow and in her wake.

The rowers were bathed with sweat and flagging.  One man dropped.  And another.  The fifty-odd ronin-samurai were already in position.  Ahead, archers in the fishing boats either side of the narrow channel were arming their bows.  Blackthorne saw small braziers in many of the boats and he knew that the arrows would be fire arrows when they came.

He had prepared for battle as best he could.  Yabu had understood that they would have to fight, and had understood fire arrows immediately.  Blackthorne had erected protective wooden bulkheads around the helm.  He had broken open some of the crates of muskets and had set those who could to arming them with powder and with shot.  And he had brought several small kegs of powder up onto the quarterdeck and fused them.

When Santiago, the first mate, had helped him aboard the longboat, he had told him that Rodrigues was going to help, with God’s good grace.

‘Why?’ he had asked.

‘My Pilot says to tell you that he had you thrown overboard to sober you up, senhor.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, he said to tell you, Senhor Pilot, because there was danger aboard the Santa Theresa, danger for you.’

‘What danger?’

‘You are to fight your own way out, he tells you, if you can.  But he will help.’

‘Why?’

‘For the Madonna’s sweet sake, hold your heretic tongue and listen, I’ve little time.’

Then the mate had told him about the shoals and the bearings and the way of the channel and the plan.  And given him two pistols.  ‘How good a shot are you, my Pilot asks.’

‘Poor,’ he had lied.

‘Go with God, my Pilot said to tell you finally.’

‘And him—and you.’

‘For me I assign thee to hell!’

‘Thy sister!’

Blackthorne had fused the kegs in case the cannon began and there was no plan, or if the plan proved false, and also against encroaching hostiles.  Even such a little keg, the fuse alight, floated against the side of the frigate would sink her as surely as a seventy-gun broadside.  It doesn’t matter how small the keg, he thought, providing it guts her.

‘Isogi for your lives!’ he called out and took the helm, thanking God for Rodrigues and the brightness of the moon.

Here at the mouth the harbor narrowed to four hundred yards.  Deep water was almost shore to shore, the rock headlands rising sharp from the sea.

The space between the ambushing fishing boats was a hundred yards.

The Santa Theresa had the bit between her teeth now, the wind abaft the beam to starboard, strong wake aft, and she was gaining on them fast.  Blackthorne held the center of the channel and signed to Yabu to be ready.  All their ronin-samurai had been ordered to squat below the gunwales, unseen, until Blackthorne gave the signal, when it was every man—with musket or sword—to port or to starboard, wherever they were needed, Yabu commanding the fight.  The Japanese captain knew that his oarsmen were to follow the drum and the drum master knew that he had to obey the Anjin-san.  And the Anjin-san alone was to guide the ship.

The frigate was fifty yards astern, in mid-channel, heading directly for them, and making it obvious that she required the mid-channel path.

Aboard the frigate, Ferriera breathed softly to Rodrigues, ‘Ram him.’  His eyes were on Mariko, who stood ten paces off, near the railings, with Toranaga.

‘We daren’t—not with Toranaga there and, the girl.’

‘Senhora!’ Ferriera called out.  ‘Senhora—better to get below, you and your master.  It’d be safer for him on the gundeck.’

Mariko translated to Toranaga, who thought a moment, then walked down the companionway onto the gundeck.

‘God damn my eyes,’ the chief gunner said to no one in particular.  ‘I’d like to fire a broadside and sink something.  It’s a God-cursed year since we sunk even a poxed pirate.’

‘Aye.  The monkeys deserve a bath.’

On the quarterdeck Ferriera repeated, ‘Ram the galley, Rodrigues!’

‘Why kill your enemy when others’re doing it for you?’

‘Madonna!  You’re as bad as the priest!  Thou hast no blood in thee!’

‘Yes, I have none of the killing blood,’ Rodrigues replied, also in Spanish.  ‘But thou?  Thou hast it.  Eh?  And Spanish blood perhaps?’

‘Are you going to ram him or not?’  Ferriera asked in Portuguese, the nearness of the kill possessing him.

‘If she stays where she is, yes.’

‘Then, Madonna, let her stay where she is.’

‘What had you in mind for the Ingeles?  Why were you so angry he wasn’t aboard us?’

‘I do not like you or trust you now, Rodrigues.  Twice you’ve sided, or seemed to side, with the heretic against me, or us.  If there was another acceptable pilot in all Asia, I would beach you, Rodrigues, and I would sail off with my Black Ship.’

‘Then you will drown.  There’s a smell of death over you and only I can protect you.’

Ferriera crossed himself superstitiously.  ‘Madonna, thou and thy filthy tongue!  What right hast thou to say that?’

‘My mother was a gypsy and she the seventh child of a seventh child, as I am.’

‘Liar!’

Rodrigues smiled. ‘Ah, my Lord Captain-General, perhaps I am.’  He cupped his hands and shouted, ‘Action stations!’ and then to the helmsman, ‘Steady as she goes, and if that belly-gutter whore doesn’t move, sink her!’

Blackthorne held the wheel firmly, arms aching, legs aching.  The oarsmaster was pounding the drum, the oarsmen making a final effort.

Now the frigate was twenty yards astern, now fifteen, now ten.  Then Blackthorne swung hard to port.  The frigate almost brushed them, heeled over toward them, and then she was alongside.  Blackthorne swung hard astarboard to come parallel to the frigate, ten yards from her.  Then, together—side by side—they were ready to run the gauntlet between the hostiles.

‘Puuuull, pull, you bastards!’  Blackthorne shouted, wanting to stay exactly alongside, because only here were they guarded by the frigate’s bulk and by her sails.  Some musket shots, then a salvo of burning arrows slashed at them, doing no real damage, but several by mistake struck the frigate’s lower sails and fire broke out.

All the commanding samurai in the boats stopped their archers in horror.  No one had ever attacked a Southern Barbarian ship before.  Don’t they alone bring the silks which make every summer’s humid heat bearable, and every winter’s cold bearable, and every spring and fall a joy?  Aren’t the Southern Barbarians protected by Imperial decrees?  Wouldn’t burning one of their ships infuriate them so much that they would, rightly, never come back again?

So the commanders held their men in check while Toranaga’s galley was under the frigate’s wing, not daring to risk the merest chance that one of them would be the cause of the cessation of the Black Ships without General Ishido’s direct approval.  And only when seamen on the frigate had doused the flames did they breathe easier.

When the arrows stopped, Blackthorne also began to relax.  And Rodrigues.  The plan was working.  Rodrigues had surmised that under his lee the galley had a chance, its only chance.  ‘But my Pilot says you must prepare for the unexpected, Ingeles,’ Santiago had reported.

‘Shove that bastard aside,’ Ferriera said.  ‘God damn it, I ordered you to shove him into the monkeys!’

‘Five points to port!’ Rodrigues ordered obligingly.

‘Five points aport it is!’ the helmsman echoed.

Blackthorne heard the command.  Instantly he steered port five degrees and prayed.  If Rodrigues held the course too long they would smash into the fishing boats and be lost.  If he slackened the beat and fell behind, he knew the enemy boats would swamp him whether they believed Toranaga was aboard or not.  He must stay alongside.

‘Five points starboard!’  Rodrigues ordered, just in time.  He wanted no more fire arrows either; there was too much powder on deck.  ‘Come on, you pimp,’ he muttered to the wind.  ‘Put your cojones in my sails and get us to hell out of here.’

Again Blackthorne had swung five points starboard to maintain station with the frigate and the two ships raced side by side, the galley’s starboard oars almost touching the frigate, the port oars almost swamping the fishing boats.  Now the captain understood, and so did the oarsmaster and the rowers.  They put their final strength into the oars.  Yabu shouted a command and the ronin-samurai put down their bows and rushed to help and Yabu pitched in also.

Neck and neck.  Only a few hundred yards to go.

Then Grays on some of the fishing boats, more intrepid than the others, sculled forward into their path and threw grappling hooks.  The prow of the galley swamped the boats.  The grappling hooks were cast overboard before they caught.  The samurai holding them were drowned.  And the stroke did not falter.

‘Go more to port!’

‘I daren’t, Captain-General.  Toranaga’s no fool and look, there’s a reef ahead!’

Ferriera saw the spines near the last of the fishing boats.  ‘Madonna, drive him onto it!’

‘Two points port!’

Again the frigate swung over and so did Blackthorne.  Both ships aimed for the massed fishing boats.  Blackthorne had also seen the rocks.  Another boat was swamped and a salvo of arrows came aboard.  He held his course as long as he dared, then shouted, ‘Five points starboard!’ to warn Rodrigues, and swung the helm over.

Rodrigues took evasive action and fell away.  But this time he held a slight collision course which was not part of the plan.

‘Go on, you bastard,’ Rodrigues said, whipped by the chase and by dread.  ‘Let’s weigh your cojones.‘

Blackthorne had to choose instantly between the spines and the frigate.  He blessed the rowers, who still stayed at their oars, and the crew and all aboard who, through their discipline, gave him the privilege of choice.  And he chose.

He swung further to starboard, pulled out his pistol and aimed it.  ‘Make way, by God!’ he shouted and pulled the trigger.  The ball whined over the frigate’s quarterdeck just between the Captain-General and Rodrigues.

As the Captain-General ducked, Rodrigues winced.  Thou Ingeles son of a milkless whore!  Was that luck or good shooting or did you aim to kill?

He saw the second pistol in Blackthorne’s hand, and Toranaga staring at him.  He dismissed Toranaga as unimportant.

Blessed Mother of God, what should I do?  Stick with the plan or change it?  Isn’t it better to kill this Ingeles?  For the good of all?  Tell me, yes or no!

Answer thyself, Rodrigues, on thy eternal soul!  Art thou not a man?

Listen then: Other heretics will follow this Ingeles now, like lice, whether this one is killed or not killed.  I owe him a life and I swear I do not have the killing blood in me—not to kill a pilot.

‘Starboard your helm,’ he ordered and gave way.

‘My Master asks why did you almost smash into the galley?’

‘It was just a game, senhora, a game pilots play.  To test the other’s nerves.’

‘And the pistol shot?’

‘Equally a game—to test my nerve.  The rocks were too close and perhaps I was pushing the Ingeles too much.  We are friends, no?’

‘My Master says it is foolish to play such games.’

‘Please give him my apologies. The important thing is that he is safe and now the galley is safe and therefore I am glad.  Honto.‘

‘You arranged this escape, this ruse, with the Anjin-san?’

‘It happened that he is very clever and was perfect in his timing.  The moon lit his way, the sea favored him, and no one made a mistake.  But why the hostiles didn’t swamp him, I don’t know.  It was the will of God.’

‘Was it?’ Ferriera said.  He was staring at the galley astern of them and he did not turn around.

They were well beyond the harbor mouth now, safely out into the Osaka Roads, the galley a few cables aft, neither ship hurrying.  Most of the galley’s oars had been shipped temporarily, leaving only enough to make way calmly while the majority of the oarsmen recuperated.

Rodrigues paid Captain-General Ferriera no heed.  He was absorbed instead with Toranaga.  I’m glad we’re on Toranaga’s side, Rodrigues told himself.  During the race, he had studied him carefully, glad for the rare opportunity.  The man’s eyes had been everywhere, watching gunners and guns and the sails and the fire party with an insatiable curiosity, asking questions, through Mariko, of the seamen or the mate: What’s this for?  How do you load a cannon?  How much powder?  How do you fire them?  What are these ropes for?

‘My Master says, perhaps it was just karma.  You understand karma, Captain-Pilot?’

‘Yes.’

‘He thanks you for the use of your ship.  Now he will go back to his own.’

‘What?’  Ferriera turned around at once.  ‘We’ll be in Yedo long before the galley.  Lord Toranaga’s welcome to stay aboard.’

‘My Master says, there’s no need to trouble you anymore.  He will go onto his own ship.’

‘Please ask him to stay.  I would enjoy his company.’

‘Lord Toranaga thanks you but he wishes to go at once to his own ship.’

‘Very well.  Do as he says, Rodrigues.  Signal her and lower the longboat.’  Ferriera was disappointed.  He had wanted to see Yedo and wanted to get to know Toranaga better now that so much of their future was tied to him.  He did not believe what Toranaga had said about the means of avoiding war.  We’re at war on this monkey’s side against Ishido whether we like it or not.  And I don’t like it.  ‘I’ll be sorry not to have Lord Toranaga’s company.’  He bowed politely.

Toranaga bowed back, and spoke briefly.

‘My Master thanks you.’  To Rodrigues, she added, ‘My Master says he will reward you for the galley when you return with the Black Ship.’

‘I did nothing.  It was merely a duty.  Please excuse me for not getting up from my chair—my leg, neh?‘  Rodrigues replied, bowing.  ‘Go with God, senhora.’

‘Thank you, Captain-Pilot.  Do thou likewise.’

As she groped wearily down the companionway behind Toranaga, she noticed that the bosun Pesaro was commanding the longboat.  Her skin crawled and she almost heaved.  She willed the spasm away, thankful that Toranaga had ordered them all off this malodorous vessel.

‘A fair wind and safe voyage,’ Ferriera called down to them.  He waved once and the salutation was returned and then the longboat cast off.

‘Stand down when the longboat’s back and that bitch galley’s out of sight,’ he ordered the chief gunner.

On the quarterdeck he stopped in front of Rodrigues.  He pointed at the galley.  ‘You’ll live to regret keeping him alive.’

‘That’s in the hands of God.  The Ingeles is an ‘acceptable’ pilot, if you could pass over his religion, my Captain-General.’

‘I’ve considered that.’

‘And?’

‘The sooner we’re in Macao the better.  Make record time, Rodrigues.’  Ferriera went below.

Rodrigues’ leg was throbbing badly.  He took a swig from the grog sack.  May Ferriera go to hell, he told himself.  But, please God, not until we reach Lisbon.

The wind veered slightly and a cloud reached for the nimbus of the moon, rain not far off and dawn streaking the sky.  He put his full attention on his ship and her sails and the lie of her.  When he was completely satisfied, he watched the longboat.  And finally the galley.

He sipped more rum, content that his plan had worked so neatly.  Even the pistol shot that had closed the issue.  And content with his decision.

It was mine to make and I made it.

‘Even so, Ingeles,’ he said with a great sadness, ‘the Captain-General’s right.  With thee, heresy has come to Eden.’