The Samurai's Daughter (30 page)

‘You’ve worked hard. Well done.’ The instructor clicked his heels and bowed politely, sinewy calves gleaming beneath his hiked-up kimono skirts.

‘Thanks.’ Eijiro knelt on the icy ground and made a perfunctory bow, then stood up, brushing black volcanic dust off his knees. ‘I’m off. I’m on dock duty today.’

The snow was coming down hard as Eijiro headed through the streets of Kagoshima. It dusted the broad leaves of the palm trees and settled in the fibrous crevices of the trunks, etched the tiles on the castle roofs, frosted the
tori
gates in front of the shrines and lay thick in the curving eaves of the temples. It crusted the stone foxes and small Jizo images along the road and collected in tiny
pyramids
on the offerings of Satsuma oranges and bottles of shochu in front of them. The hills that rose behind the city, where the training camps were, glistened white. Cocks crowed and woodsmoke drifted from thousands of houses as women lit breakfast fires.

Eijiro hurried along, head bowed and shivering, pulling his coat closer around him and rubbing his hands up and down his arms. He hadn’t realized it could snow in this tropical place. He thought back to his handsome western clothes and grimaced. He’d had to leave behind his smart woollen-worsted topcoat and expensive waistcoats, shirts, cravats and trousers. These days all he had to wear was a cheap cotton kimono with leggings, an overcoat and wooden geta clogs. He could feel the snow crunching under his toes.

Life in Kyushu had come as a terrible shock. He hadn’t expected it to be so primitive and tough, apart from which he couldn’t understand a word anyone said; but now, four months on, he felt like an old hand. In the end most of his pals had come along with him, even that little bastard Suzuki who’d let Yamakawa down so badly. For all their Tokyo airs, they were Satsuma lads after all. Like it or not, they were from Satsuma families, they had Satsuma blood in their veins, and with the government sending hired killers after them they’d had precious little choice but to clear out fast.

It had taken almost a month to get here – a miserable trek down to Yokohama, then a much more miserable ten days on board ship. None of them had ever been on a long journey by ship before and they had spent most of the time in their cabins, throwing up. It was a relief to see palm trees swaying along the seafront in Kagoshima and the spectacular hulk of Mount Sakurajima – Cherry Island – squatting over the bay, spewing out ash and smoke. Now and then there’d be a rumble and black ash would shower down on the city, so much that people put up umbrellas.

They’d arrived in September, the eighth month by the old calendar, just in time for the typhoon season, and been separated
straight
away, sent off to different schools around the city or in the countryside. He hardly saw any of his Tokyo chums any more. But it was only little by little that he had begun to grasp what was really going on.

As far as the people here were concerned, Satsuma was an independent country. Orders came from Tokyo – ‘Disarm the samurai! Take away their stipends!’ – but the governor, a fierce warrior called Tsunayoshi Oyama, paid not the slightest attention. After all, they had their own army and a damn strong one at that, well armed and well trained. There was no need to take orders from anyone, particularly not a bunch of corrupt bewhiskered bureaucrats in some distant city who were completely opposed to everything they stood for.

Down at the port, a group of men stood gazing out to sea. Eijiro greeted them and pulled out his timepiece, the one thing of all his possessions he’d managed to salvage. The thick gold chain and big round face marked with foreign characters sparked a rush of memories and for a moment he was back in Tokyo, in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters, sinking into the lavish bedding of Tsukasa’s magnificent chambers. Tsukasa, the most desired courtesan in the whole country. He could smell her scented hair, feel her soft flesh … Of all that distant, almost unimaginable life, it was her he missed the most. She sent him letters every now and then, on paper drenched in perfume, going on about tears and eternal love. But he was no fool, he knew what courtesans got up to. No doubt she already had plenty of lovers to console her. He could barely restrain a groan.

He came back to the present with a start. Hoving round the headland was a small triangular speck. It grew larger and larger until Eijiro could see sails, white on the horizon. Steam poured from the funnels, echoing the huge plume of smoke that lay ominously above the volcano. The men peered through their telescopes. They always kept a watch out to make sure the approaching vessel was not a warship loaded with troops.

Eijiro was on the reception committee who vetted new arrivals. There’d been a big influx a few months after he arrived, after the summer break, when the army cadets were due to go back to the Military Academy in Tokyo. As one, the Satsuma lads had upped sticks and headed for home instead.

They all had to be interviewed to find out their allegiance, their reasons for coming, what their skills were and to check their height, health and strength. Once everyone was satisfied there were no bad eggs in their midst, they were packed off to one of the military schools and training camps in the area. There were over a hundred schools and several thousand men, all fighting fit and ready for action.

Since then refugees had continued to arrive. Eijiro had been on duty when his mother and sister had turned up a month ago. He’d had to put up with a lot of ribbing from his colleagues as they’d climbed out of the launch in their fancy clothes, with a bevy of servants with suitcases on their heads straggling behind them. He’d scolded them. ‘What are you doing here? This is no place for women,’ he’d said. But in fact he’d been mortifyingly pleased to see his mother’s plump face and reassuring bulk and hear her voice and be reminded of home. He’d had to wipe his nose on his sleeve and blink back tears as he’d bowed.

The committee had packed them off to the farming village at Yoshino, which his father had founded. The people there were supposed to live a simple, pure life according to samurai ideals, working the land, growing rice, millet and yams, studying Confucian texts and practising martial arts. Quite how his pampered mother and sister were going to get on in a place like that he didn’t know.

The ship that was approaching was the regular mail steamer from Yokohama. Eijiro watched as a group of men climbed into the launches and headed for the quay. The committee counted them in. Besides the crew and shoremen there were some fifty others, including a few police officers and cadets, straight-backed in their
western-style
uniforms, knee-high boots, greatcoats and caps. As everyone knew, half the Tokyo police force was Satsuma men. The policy was to use men from distant clans so no one would be put in the position of having to arrest their own clansmen. Quite a few police deserters had already shown up.

They shepherded the new arrivals into a holding area they’d set up in an empty warehouse and the men lined up, shivering, in front of the officers’ desks. Eijiro and his colleagues deliberately made the process as harsh and long-drawn-out as possible so as to weed out from the very beginning anyone who was less than wholeheartedly committed to the cause.

Eijiro enjoyed interviewing new recruits. It was a pleasure to meet men fresh from Tokyo, hear their Tokyo accents and catch up on the news. All too soon they’d become stiff and self-righteous like everyone else round here.

The last man to end up in front of Eijiro’s desk was Corporal Hisao Nakahara of the Tokyo Police Department. He seemed a pleasant enough fellow. He had hair cropped in the fashionable
jangiri
cut and a pointed beard which made him look a bit like a fox. He bowed deferentially. Eijiro responded with a haughty jerk of the chin. In normal times a corporal would never be able to come anywhere near the son of General Kitaoka.

Nakahara was a Satsuma man, though he’d been in Tokyo so long he seemed more comfortable speaking Tokyo dialect. Eijiro interrogated him about his origins and work and how he’d ended up in Tokyo, then quizzed him about what people were saying there and what the government was up to. Satisfied, he closed his ledger.

‘Welcome. Glad to have you with us.’ He glanced over his shoulder and checked that his fellow committee members were all busy barking questions and out of earshot, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘So … What other news?’

‘Let me see now.’ Nakahara stared at the ground respectfully. ‘Kitaoka-
sama
no doubt heard about the revolts in Hagi and Kumamoto? Maybe you heard that Maebara and the others were
executed?
Terrible business.’ He frowned and shook his head. ‘The government is cracking down on the samurai and anyone else who dares stand up to them. We’ve been ordered to round up anyone breaking the new laws. I could see they’d be sending us down here next to kill our own people. That’s when I decided it was time to come home.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Eijiro impatiently. The fellow didn’t have to keep proving he was on the right side. ‘What about real news? How’s Umegatani getting on? When I was there he hadn’t lost a bout.’

One of the things Eijiro missed most about Tokyo was the regular sumo wrestling tournaments at Eko-in Temple, in the East End. Umegatani was a phenomenon, a hulking fellow yet light on his feet. He easily toppled giants a lot heavier than he was. He ranked low still but anyone could see he had the makings of a grand champion.

Nakahara grinned. ‘Still unbeaten. He took on Makuuchi the other day. It was over before you could count to ten.’

‘Makuuchi, huh? He wouldn’t have a chance; anyone could tell you that. Umegatani’s much the better man for weight and skill. No one put any money on that one, I shouldn’t think.’

Nakahara started plying him with bouts, scores and form, but Eijiro had something else on his mind. ‘What about the Yoshiwara? How’re things there? You’re a policeman, you must get around a bit.’

‘Got called to take in a foreign sailor a few days ago. He’d found his way over there, got a bellyful of sake, barged into the Matsubaya and demanded a woman. The Matsubaya, imagine that!’ Eijiro nodded knowledgeably. The Matsubaya was one of the grandest houses in the Yoshiwara and never accepted foreigners. Nakahara waved his hand in contempt. ‘You know what happened? The madam showed him the door and he stabbed her – right in the face. Not a pretty sight. Blood all over the place. We took him off to Kodenmacho and locked him up. These foreigners think they own the world.’

‘He’ll get tried in one of those foreigners’ courts and they’ll dismiss the case, fine him a yen or two and that’ll be the last we hear of it.’

‘And there’s the government cosying up to foreigners. So tell me, what’s going on down here?’

‘You’ll find out soon enough.’ Eijiro had taken a liking to the man. ‘I’ll have a word with the captain at our school. I’m sure there’s a spare tatami mat for a fellow like you.’

‘I’m a bit old for school,’ said Nakahara. He had an open, easy smile.

‘We call them schools but they’re more like private military academies, training camps,’ said Eijiro. ‘But you’ll recognize the sleeping arrangements from your schooldays – one man, one mat.’

23

IN FACT THE
men had less than half a mat each. With upwards of eight hundred students, the school was hard pressed to fit them all into the rickety old stable buildings and they spent the nights squashed together or curled up on the wooden floors of the corridors. But comfort was the last thing they were worried about. Some were youngsters, others battle-hardened veterans who’d proved themselves in the campaigns to bring down the shogun and smash the resistance up north. Young or old, they loathed the corrupt bureaucrats up in Tokyo who were out to destroy the entire samurai class. They couldn’t wait to take up arms and teach them a lesson.

Nakahara settled in quickly enough. He shaved off his beard and started growing his hair, though it would be months before it was long enough to tie back in a samurai ponytail, and took to wearing a rough cotton kimono and leggings like everyone else. Handy with a sword, staff or rifle, he chipped in cheerily with kitchen and cleaning duties and was soon a popular figure around the school. He was a good-humoured fellow, always ready with a joke.

He frequently joined Eijiro for a quick pipe. Like Eijiro, he was not afraid to express doubts about what they were doing – in private, of course, where no one could overhear them. It was a long time since Eijiro had had a real friend and very soon he felt as if he’d known him since he was a boy.

One morning, about a month after Nakahara had arrived, the wake-up call sounded as usual, well before dawn. Eijiro had been dreaming of the pleasure quarters; he could almost smell Tsukasa’s perfume. It was a shock to find himself back in the freezing hall, surrounded by sweaty male bodies. As the men climbed over each other in the darkness, groping for their over-kimonos and hakama, he groaned and pulled his quilts over his head. He was the last to roll up his futons and stumble out to the practice ground.

Outside, the drill sergeants were already lined up, standing smartly to attention, as the first streaks of light coloured the sky. The hillside rose steeply behind, a tangle of bamboos and skeletal trees etched in frost, eerily silent. After roll call, men picked up rifles or heavy packs and headed off around Mount Shiroyama at a good clip; some sprinted down to the ocean for a bracing winter dip. Eijiro volunteered for kitchen duty. The others probably took a dim view of such skiving but he was the son of Kitaoka, he told himself. He could do as he pleased.

After breakfast there were classes in the Confucian classics and foreign languages, English, French or German. In the breaks most of the men were out in the practice ground, sparring, and in the afternoon they headed to the firing range for musket training. The infantry had Snider-Enfield rifles, carbines and pistols and there were two artillery units equipped with field guns and mortars. At the end of the day local Kagoshima lads arrived from the city to join the students for more study and military drill and in the evening there was to be a debate. War hung over the city like a dark cloud and everyone wanted to be sure that when it came they’d be good and ready.