David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Master Wetz calls from the wheel: ‘Am I to drop the anchors, Captain?’

Penhaligon lines up the questions. ‘Hold her steady for a minute, Mr Wetz. Mr Hovell, pray ask Mr Snitker why the Dutch would hide their ship from us despite our Dutch colours. Might there be a code signal we have failed to fly?’

Snitker sounds uncertain at first, but speaks with increasing confidence. Hovell nods. ‘He says, sir, that there was no code-signal arrangement when the Shenandoah departed last autumn, and he doubts there is one in place now. He says that Chief van Cleef may have hidden the vessel as a precautionary measure.’

Penhaligon glances at the sails to gauge the breeze. ‘The Phoebus could reach the inlet in a few minutes, but tacking our way out again would be much slower.’ Spinach-green waves slurp at cracks between kelp-matted rocks. ‘Lieutenant Hovell, ask Mr Snitker this: suppose no ship arrived from Batavia this year, due to shipwreck or the war, would the copper intended for her hold be stored on Dejima?’

Hovell translates the questions: Snitker’s ‘Ja, ja’ is firm enough.

‘And would that copper be Japanese property or Dutch?’

Snitker’s reply is less committal: the answer, Hovell translates, is that the transfer of ownership of the copper depends upon the Chief Resident’s negotiations, which vary year on year.

Deep bells begin ringing in the city and around the bay, and Snitker explains the noise to Hovell. ‘The bells are to thank the local gods for the safe arrival of the Dutch ship and the money it brings to Nagasaki. We may assume our disguise is working, sir.’

A cormorant dives from steep black rocks a hundred yards away.

‘Verify once again the procedure that a Dutch ship might observe at this point.’

Snitker’s reply is accompanied by gestures and pointed fingers.

‘A Dutch Company ship, sir,’ says Hovell, ‘would sail in another half-mile past the fortifications, which are saluted by a round from both bows. The longboat is then rowed out to meet the greeting party, consisting of two Company sampans. Then all three boats return to the ship for the customary formalities.’

‘Exactly when may we expect our greeting party to embark from Dejima?’

The answer, accompanied by a shrug, is ‘Perhaps a quarter-hour, sir.’

‘To be clear: the party is composed of Japanese and Dutch officials?’

Snitker answers in English: ‘Japanese and Dutch, ja.’

‘Ask how many swordsmen accompany the greeting party, Mr Hovell.’

The answer is involved, and the First Lieutenant must clarify a couple of points. ‘All the officials on the boat carry swords, but primarily to denote their rank. For the most part, they resemble a country squire at home who talks tough but wouldn’t know a sword from a darning needle.’

‘If you’d like us to bag you a few hostages, sir,’ Major Cutlip has no inhibitions, ‘we’d have those jabbering monkeys for a second breakfast.’

Curse Cornwallis, thinks the Captain, for encumbering me with this ass.

‘Dutch hostages,’ Hovell addresses him, ‘may strengthen our hand, but-’

‘One bloodied Japanese nose,’ agrees Penhaligon, ‘may dash any hopes of a treaty for years, yes, I know: Kaempfer’s book has impressed upon me the pride of this race, if nothing else. But I judge the risk worthwhile. Our disguise is a short-term expediency, and without better and less partial intelligence,’ he glances at Daniel Snitker, who is studying the city through his telescope, ‘about conditions ashore, we are blind men trying to outwit the sighted.’

‘And the possibility of a concealed Indiaman, sir?’ asks Lieutenant Wren.

‘If there is one, let it wait. She shan’t slip past us without our knowledge. Mr Talbot, bid the coxswain ready the longboat, but not to lower her yet.’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘Mr Malouf,’ Penhaligon turns to a midshipman, ‘bid Mr Wetz take us in past those toy fortifications by a half-mile, but bid him take his time…’

‘Aye, sir: in by a half-mile, sir.’ Malouf hurries to Wetz at the wheel, leaping over a coil of crusty rope.

The sooner I can have the deck scrubbed, thinks the Captain, the better.

‘Mr Waldron.’ He turns to the bovine Master Gunner. ‘Our guns are ready?’

‘On both bows, Captain, aye: tampions out, charge in but no shot.’

‘Customarily, the Dutch salute the guard-posts as they pass those bluffs – see?’

‘That I do, sir. Shall I have the lads below do the same?’

‘Aye, Mr Waldron, and though I neither want nor desire action today…’

Waldron waits patiently whilst his captain chooses his words with care.

‘Keep your key to the shot-lockers to hand. Fortune favours the prepared.’

‘Aye, sir, we’ll be ready.’ Waldron goes below to the gun deck.

Aloft, the top-men shout to one another as a topgallant is lowered.

Wetz is firing off a volley of orders in all directions.

Canvas stiffens, the Phoebus moves forwards; her timbers and cordage creak.

A cormorant preens its gleaming feathers on the frigate’s dolphin-spiker.

The leadsman calls, ‘By the mark nine!’ The number is conveyed to Wetz.

Penhaligon studies the shore through his telescope, noting the lack of a castle keep or donjon in Nagasaki. ‘Mr Hovell, pray ask Mr Snitker this: were we to bring the Phoebus as close as we dared to Dejima, land forty men in two boats and occupy the factory, would the Japanese consider Dutch soil to be taken or their own?’

Snitker’s brief answer has a matter-of-fact tone. ‘He says he declines,’ translates Hovell, ‘to guess the mind of Japanese authority.’

‘Ask whether he’d be willing to join such a raid.’

Snitker’s interpreter translates his reply directly, ‘ “I am a diplomat and merchant, not a soldier”, sir.’ His reticence assuages Penhaligon’s fears that Snitker is hurrying them into an elaborate trap.

‘By the deep ten and a half!’ calls the leadsman.

The Phoebus is almost level with the guard-posts on either shore, upon which the Captain now trains his telescope. The walls are thin, the stockades low, and the cannons more dangerous to their gunmen than their targets.

‘Mr Malouf, pray ask Mr Waldron to give the order to fire our salute.’

‘Aye, sir: telling Mr Waldron the order to fire the salute.’ Malouf goes below.

Penhaligon has his first clear sightings of the Japanese. They are as short as Malays, facially indistinguishable from the Chinese, and their armour brings to mind Major Cutlip’s remarks about medieval jousters.

The guns fire through the ports, the noise ricocheting off the steep shores…

… and the acrid smoke blows over the crew, disinterring memories of battle.

‘By the mark nine,’ calls the leadsman, ‘and a half nine…’

‘Two boats embarking from the city,’ reports the watch in the trestle tree.

Through his telescope, Penhaligon finds blurry images of the two sampans.

‘Mr Cutlip, I want the marines to row the longboat, dressed in landsmen’s slops, with cutlasses hidden below the thwarts in sackcloth.’ The Major salutes and goes below. The Captain proceeds to the waist to address the coxswain, a cunning Scillies smuggler pressed from the shadow of the Penzance gallows. ‘Mr Flowers, lower the longboat but tangle the ropes, so as to buy time. I want the greeting party to meet our longboat closer to the Phoebus than to shore.’

‘A proper Frenchman’s fanny l’ll make of it, Captain.’

Walking back to the bow, Hovell asks permission to air a thought.

‘My esteem for your aired thoughts is why you are here, Mr Hovell.’

‘Thank you, sir. I posit that the Governor-General’s and the Admiralty’s twin orders regarding the present mission – to paraphrase, “Plunder the Dutch and seduce the Japanese” – do not correspond with the scenario we find here. If the Dutch have nothing to plunder and the Japanese prove loyal to their allies, how are we to carry out our orders? A third strategy, however, may yield a more fruitful result.’