The Samurai's Daughter (32 page)

A head poked out of the crowd and launched into an impassioned rant. Eijiro was still too full of his own humiliation to pay attention to what the man was saying or even notice whether he knew the voice. There were shouts of anger and yells of agreement, then someone bawled, ‘To Iso! To the factories, to the docks!’ Fists and rifles waved in the air as the men took up the chant: ‘The factories! The docks!’

They surged forward, hundreds of straw sandals crunching over the icy ground. Swept up in the crush, Eijiro stumbled along with them.

‘Here.’ Someone thrust a rifle into his hand and a pair of sharp eyes peered at him in the lantern light. It was Ito, a wiry young fellow with hair sticking up in tufts above his white headband. ‘Oh. It’s you, Kitaoka-
sama
. Got better things to do, I’m sure, than muck in with us rank and file.’

Eijiro felt the blood hot in his cheeks. He knew he had a reputation for keeping clear of the action but tonight he wanted to make sure everyone knew he was as committed as the rest of them.

‘I’m with you.’ He gripped the rifle as the men quenched the lanterns, marched out of the grounds and headed through the sleeping city. Feet crunched and breath rose in the cold air as they broke into a run and swept like a divine wind out of the samurai district and into one of the townsmen’s quarters, darting along narrow alleys, between houses and shuttered shops, past shrines and temples, thickets and trees. They pounded across a bridge and up and down a rocky hillside covered in a tangle of trees. Eijiro cursed as he stumbled on a stone, sending it clattering into the darkness. It was good to have nothing more to think about than keeping quiet.

At the seafront they broke into twos and threes and darted from wall to wall, moving like cats, keeping to the shadows. Water rippled, black and oily, and ships bobbed gently at anchor. The great volcano filled the sky, its plume of ash blotting out the stars.

Abruptly the men stopped. Voices hissed, ‘There. Over there.’

A shadow loomed in the lea of the volcano. As they watched there was a sparkle of white and a faint splash as something hit the water beside it. Eijiro stared into the gloom, puzzled. Whatever this vessel was, it didn’t have the shape of a warship. There were no gun ports, it wasn’t a sleek low-lying ironclad. It looked more like a solidly built merchant craft. But in that case why was it docking so late? Even stranger, there were no whistles or bells or gongs. It was docking in silence. Whoever the newcomers were, they didn’t want to be seen.

‘That’s it. Quickly, let’s go.’

As the men pounded along the quayside, Eijiro ran with them, taking in lungfuls of salty air. He was beginning to wonder what the hell was going on.

At the far end of the wharf was a cluster of massive stone buildings with pointed roofs and hefty wooden doors. Eijiro grabbed Ito’s arm as the others jostled past.

‘What are you doing? That’s the naval arsenal.’ Ito tried to shake him off but Eijiro kept his huge hand closed around the man’s bony wrist. ‘That’s government property. We can’t be planning …’

Everyone knew the government had taken over every arsenal in the country, ready for use if there was even the hint of unrest. The biggest stockpiles of all were in the most troublesome province, Satsuma. The Satsuma had the most sophisticated weapons factories and produced more weapons and powder than any other clan. Iso, right beside the Satsuma lords’ summer villa where they could oversee proceedings, was an industrial complex the old lord had established more than thirty years earlier, with blast and reverberatory furnaces, a cannon-manufacturing plant and armaments factories. It also produced chemicals, medicines, glassware and textiles.

To demonstrate his loyalty to the new government which he had helped set up, the present lord of Satsuma had handed control of the entire complex to the Army Department, who had stationed a small contingent of the navy here to guard the weapons stocks. But now, to the weapons-starved rebels, the arsenals were glittering treasure boxes crying out to be seized.

But no one had yet suggested actually breaking in. That would be outright rebellion and Eijiro knew his father, for one, had no intention of pushing things that far.

‘Do as you please, Brother,’ Ito spat. ‘No one’s forcing you to join us. Let go of me.’

‘Just tell me. What’s going on?’

Ito tried to wrench his arm free but Eijiro was bigger and stronger.

‘You saw the ship,’ Ito growled. ‘They’re sneaking in by night, sending launches. Those police spies …’ Eijiro’s blood ran cold at the mention of spies. ‘Took some beating, but confessed in the end. Sending messages to Tokyo, they were, telling them what we were up to; government ship on the way, they said, come to load up with arms and take them away. A merchant ship, so as not to look suspicious.’ So that explained why the supposedly innocent merchant vessel had been lowering a launch in such a surreptitious way. ‘We’ll beat them to it. This is war. It’s us or them.’

Foam crested the waves as a dark shape, long and narrow, cut across the water towards them. Eijiro made out the splash of the oars and two rows of pale faces, getting closer and closer.

‘This is war …’ he repeated to himself. Something was niggling at him, a memory. Then he remembered.

It had been when he was a little boy, on one of those rare occasions when General Kitaoka had come to visit. They’d taken out wooden practice swords and sparred together. He could hear the crack of blade on blade and see motes of dust whirling in the sunlight as he’d backed cautiously down the narrow street, between dark wooden geisha houses, his father with his barrel stomach towering above him, as huge and terrifying as a mountain-dwelling giant.

Several times the general had let him beat him back as Eijiro flayed about with his little sword. But then he bore down on him and forced him to his knees. Eijiro had wriggled away and tried to run, then pouted and stamped his feet and started to wail. His father had crouched and taken him on his massive thigh.

‘Listen to me, little Eiji,’ he’d said, his expression stern. ‘You’re a samurai, a Kitaoka and a samurai. Sometimes you’ll win, sometimes you’ll lose, but you must never run away. A townsman is allowed to run away but a samurai never. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Eijiro had said, sitting up very straight, proud that his father thought him worthy to be spoken to in such a serious way.

His father put his jowly face close to Eijiro’s. ‘A samurai never
worries
about losing his life. He worries about losing his honour. Being shamed is far worse than losing your life. A samurai is always ready to die – for his lord, for his honour. That’s the samurai way.’

Eijiro scowled as ferociously as he could, knitting his brow in the way his older brother Ryutaro did. ‘
Hai
. I understand.’

‘Now, Ryutaro.’

Ryutaro was waiting in the shadow of the geisha houses. He’d just shaved his pate and bound his hair into his first topknot whereas Eijiro, four years younger, had a tuft of hair tied in a forelock, as little boys did. Ryutaro was grave and serious. He worked hard at his studies and found playmates to practise his swordplay with, while Eijiro was heavy like his father and always getting into trouble – beating up the other boys who roamed around the geisha district, cutting through their strings when they flew kites together, stealing coins from his mother’s purse.

The general picked up his stick. Ryutaro faced him, his stick in his hands, balancing his weight. This time there were no concessions. In a single blow their father had Ryutaro on the ground and raised his stick for what would have been the death blow. Ryutaro didn’t flinch.

The general patted him on the shoulder as he scrambled to his feet and bowed. ‘Good lad.’

He broke into a grin, turned to Eijiro and chucked him under the chin with his big hand. ‘I wish I could stay and train you too in the samurai way.’ He sighed. ‘But I have to go away again. Ryutaro is coming with me and one day I’ll send for you too. For now you’re the man of the house. Take care of your mother and little sisters.’

Eijiro ran his chubby hand across his father’s bristly cheek. ‘Will you come back soon?’ he asked.

‘As soon as I can.’ But in fact he never sent for him and years would go by before Eijiro saw him again. Later he heard that his father had been in exile, then in prison, and then that he was a great general, at the head of an army. In the last great battle of the
civil
war the Satsuma and their allies had been victorious but then news had come that Ryutaro had been killed. For the family it was a bittersweet victory. By then Eijiro already knew that his father had another family and other sons – sons he acknowledged, not sons, like Ryutaro and Eijiro, that he kept secret.

It had been a strange childhood, growing up in the geisha district surrounded by women, with his father far away. Perhaps that was why he had ended up whiling away so many of his days in the pleasure quarters. It was just as people warned: hanging around with women sapped your strength and made you weak, like a woman, too. In the end he’d completely forgotten what his father had told him.

But now he remembered. He was a samurai, of warrior stock. Despite the lazy, profligate ways he’d fallen into, he bore the Kitaoka name, the Kitaoka blood ran in his veins. With Ryutaro dead, the responsibility for upholding the honour of the Kitaoka name lay in his hands. And here was he, a Kitaoka, holding back, letting others charge before him into the fray. He felt as if he’d suddenly woken up. His whole life so far had been nothing but a dream.

He released Ito’s arm. ‘Let’s go!’

As they pounded across the quay towards the mob baying outside the arsenal, he let out a war cry that felt more like a whoop of elation.

The naval officers charged with guarding the arsenal had backed up against the doors. There was just a small contingent, ten or fifteen of them, burly fellows with cropped heads and scowling faces, staring around at the crowd of attackers, fingering their weapons. One tried to cock his rifle but five or six of the rebels sprang forward and wrestled it away from him.

A voice rang out above the shouting and arguing and scuffling of feet. ‘Stand clear! We’re seizing this arsenal in the name of Masaharu Kitaoka!’

A shiver ran along Eijiro’s spine and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. His father was a long way away. He had no
knowledge
of this adventure and hadn’t sanctioned it. But it was too late to turn back now, way too late.

‘We got reinforcements on the way,’ yelled a guard. ‘You’ll suffer for this.’

There was a flash and a bang. One of the guards had let off a shot that screamed harmlessly into the air.

There was a sudden silence. The stand-off had been breached. Ito looked at Eijiro and one by one other faces turned towards him. They were waiting for him to make the next move.

He took a breath, then thrust his arm in the air, rifle in hand. ‘The arsenal!’ he shouted.

There was a moment’s pause, then the youths piled on to the guards and beat them out of the way in a mass of flailing fists.

Eijiro stared up at the hefty wooden doors. They were held in place with thick wooden bolts and huge rusty padlocks. The others stepped back and he gripped his rifle by the barrel and brought the butt down hard on one of the locks. His hands were ripped and bleeding but the lock didn’t budge. He took a breath, raised his rifle again and whacked it down.

‘Wait,’ said Ito. He grabbed a hammer and with three or four others smashed at the lock till it gave way. Eijiro beat at the second until it too fell apart.

As the men pushed back the bolts and shoved the door open, a smell of dust and oil puffed out. They pressed into the clammy darkness. The place was far larger than it looked from outside. Someone lit a lantern on a tall pole and held it up. Peering around in the wavering light, Eijiro saw stacks of wooden crates, some big, some small, some square-sided, some oblong, piled to the ceiling, row upon row of them, disappearing into the cavernous depths of the warehouse.

There were a couple of crates at floor level, pushed up against a wall. Some of the men tugged at them but they didn’t budge. Eijiro squatted behind one and shoved it out into the middle of the room. The contents rattled as it scraped across the floor. He thrust a crowbar under the lid and leaned hard. There was a creak
as
the bolts gave, the nails tore loose and the lid sprang open. The crate was full to the brim with bullets.

Scowling with the effort, stopping to wipe their brows and grunt, the men started shoving boxes against the stacks, clambering up and lifting down the crates. It took four men to shift each one. Besides crate upon crate of bullets and wooden boxes full of gunpowder, there were crates of rifles, boxes of pistols, breech-and muzzle-loading guns and even cannons and Gatlings. Among them were models Eijiro had never even seen before, more deadly by far than any of the old-fashioned ordnance they had. Ito took out a revolver and spun the barrel and cocked it. He straightened his back and turned to grin at Eijiro. It was a treasure trove.

There was a warning shout from outside where the men were standing guard at the dock. Eijiro grabbed his rifle and sprinted out. The launch sat unmoving like a sinister black fish, bobbing up and down a little way from shore. Waves sparkled in the moonlight as the rowers put up their oars. A faint red glow lit the clouds, marking the top of the volcano.

Silence fell. Each side was waiting for the other to make a move.

Eijiro strode to the dockside. ‘This is Satsuma territory,’ he shouted. ‘We can’t allow you to land. Go back to your ship.’

A voice yelled back across the water. ‘That’s government property and you’re trespassing on it. Surrender your arms and it’ll go easier on you.’

‘If you come any closer we’ll shoot.’

The men aboard put their heads together.

‘We’re unarmed. We’re on government business. Stand back. We don’t want trouble.’

‘This arsenal belongs to the people of Satsuma. It’s been seized in the name of Masaharu Kitaoka. Go tell your bosses that.’

The rowers picked up their oars again. They were so close now that Eijiro could see their faces and the buttons on their uniforms glinting in the moonlight. As the launch edged closer to shore
there
was a crack. One of the Satsuma lads had fired off a warning shot.