David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

‘Describe what you have in mind, Lieutenant.’

‘That the Dutch incumbents of Dejima be viewed not as a barrier to an Anglo-Japanese treaty but, rather, as its key. How? In short, sir, instead of smashing the Dutch engine of trade in Nagasaki, we help them repair it, and then requisition it.’

‘By the mark ten,’ calls out the leadsman, ‘ten and a third…’

‘The Lieutenant,’ Wren heard everything, ‘has not forgotten that we and the Dutch are at war? Why would they co-operate with their national enemy? If you’re still placing your hopes in that scrap of paper from the Dutch King Billy at Kew-’

‘Might the Second Lieutenant be good enough to let the First Lieutenant speak, Mr Wren?’

Wren performs an ironic bow of apology and Penhaligon wants to kick him…

… but for your father-in-law admiral and the damage it would cause my gout.

‘The Netherlanders’ sliver of a republic,’ continues Hovell, ‘didn’t defy the might of Bourbon Spain without a genius for pragmatism. Ten per cent of profits – let us call it the “brokerage fee” – is a sight better than a hundred per cent of nothing. Less than nothing: if no ship arrived from Java this year, then they are ignorant of the Dutch East Indies Company’s bankruptcy…’

‘… and the loss,’ realises the Captain, ‘of their accumulated wages and Private Trade channelled through the Company’s books. Poor Jan, Piet and Klaas are paupers, stranded amongst heathens.’

‘With no means,’ adds Hovell, ‘of seeing home or loved ones again.’

The Captain gazes at the city. ‘Once we have the Dutch officers aboard, we can reveal their orphaned status and present ourselves not as aggressors but godfathers. We can send one ashore both to convert his countrymen and act as an emissary to the Japanese authorities, explaining that future “Dutch sailings” shall come from Prince of Wales Island in Penang rather than Batavia.’

‘To seize the Dutch copper as prize would kill the golden goose of trade. But to trade the silks and sugar in our hold and leave with half as a legal cargo would allow us to return each year – to the ongoing enrichment of Company and Empire.’

How Hovell reminds me, Penhaligon thinks, of my younger, stronger self.

‘The men,’ Wren says, ‘would cry havoc at losing their prize money.’

‘The Phoebus,’ says the Captain, ‘is His Majesty’s Frigate, not their privateer.’ He returns to the coxswain, the pain in his foot now difficult to conceal. ‘Mr Flowers, pray untangle your French fanny. Mr Malouf, ask Major Cutlip to start loading his marines. Lieutenant Hovell, we rely on your skill in the Dutch language to charm a pair of plump Dutch herrings into the longboat without catching a native fish…’

The Phoebus’s anchor is lowered five hundred yards past the guard-posts; the longboat, rowed by marines in sailors’ slops, makes leisurely progress towards the greeting party. Coxswain Flowers has the tiller, and Hovell and Cutlip sit at the prow.

‘This Nagasaki,’ notes Wren, ‘is an anchorage the equal of Port Mahon…’

In clear water a shoal of silver fish changes direction.

‘… and four or five modern placements would make it quite impregnable.’

Long and curving rice paddies stripe the low and laddered mountains.

‘Wasted on a backward race,’ laments Wren, ‘too idle to build a navy.’

Black smoke rises from the hunchbacked headland. Penhaligon tries to ask Daniel Snitker if the smoke could be a signal, but Snitker fails to make his answer comprehensible so the Captain sends for Smeyers, a carpenter’s mate who speaks Dutch.

The forests of pines might yield masts and spars.

‘The bay presents a beautiful prospect,’ ventures Lieutenant Talbot.

The womanly adjective irritates Penhaligon, and he wonders at the wisdom of Talbot’s appointment, necessitated by the death of Sam Smythe at Penang. Then he recalls the loneliness of his own Third Lieutenancy, caught between the resentment of a frosty captain’s cabin and his former comrades in the midshipmen’s cockpit. ‘A fair sight, yes, Mr Talbot.’

A man in the heads, a few feet down and a few feet forwards, groans wantonly.

‘The Japanese, I read,’ says Talbot, ‘give florid names to their kingdom…’

The unseen sailor issues an almighty orgasmic bellow of relief…

‘… “The Land of a Thousand Autumns” or “The Root of the Sun”.’

… and a turd hits the water like a cannonball. Wetz rings three bells.

‘Upon glimpsing Japan,’ says Talbot, ‘such poetic names sound precise.’

‘What I see,’ says Wren, ‘is a sheltered harbour for an entire squadron.’

Never mind a squadron, the Captain thinks, this bay would shelter a fleet.

His heart quickens as the vision grows. A British Pacific fleet.

The Captain imagines a floating city of British men-of-war and frigates…

Penhaligon pictures his chart of North East Asia, with a British base in Japan…

China herself, he dares to think, could follow India into our sphere…

Midshipman Malouf returns with Smeyers.

… and the Philippines, too, would be ours for the taking.

‘Mr Smeyers, be so good as to ask Mr Snitker about that smoke -’

The toothless Amsterdammer squints at the smoke from the galley stove.

‘- that black smoke, there, above that hunchbacked headland.’

‘Aye, sir.’ Smeyers points as he translates. Snitker’s reply is unworried.

‘No bad, he says,’ translates Smeyers. ‘Farmers burn fields every autumn.’

Penhaligon nods. ‘Thank you. Stay nearby, in case I need you.’

He notices that the flag – the Dutch tricolour – is tangled around the jib-boom.

He looks for someone to right it and sees a half-caste boy with a wiry pigtail picking oakum under the steam grating. ‘Hartlepool!’

The youth puts down his rope and comes over. ‘Yessir.’

Hartlepool’s face speaks of fatherlessness, name-calling and resilience.

‘Pray disentangle that flag for me, Hartlepool.’

‘Sir.’ The barefoot boy slips over the mainrail, balances on the bowsprit…

How many years, wonders Penhaligon, since I was so nimble?

… and darts up the round timber angled at nearly forty-five degrees.

The bereaved Captain’s thumb finds Tristram’s crucifix.

At the spritsail yard, forty yards out and thirty yards up, Hartlepool stops. Gripping the boom between his thighs, he untangles the flag.

‘Can he swim, I wonder?’ Lieutenant Talbot asks himself aloud.

‘I’d not know,’ says Midshipman Malouf, ‘but one doubts it…’

Hartlepool makes the return trip with the same lithe grace.

‘If his mother was a Blackamoor,’ comments Wren, ‘his father was a cat.’

When Hartlepool jumps on to the deck in front of him, the Captain gives him a new farthing. ‘Ably done, boy.’ Hartlepool’s eyes widen at the unexpected generosity. He thanks Penhaligon and returns to his oakum-picking.

A look-out shouts: ‘Greeting party nearly at the longboat!’

Through his telescope, Penhaligon sees the two sampans approaching the longboat. The foremost carries three Japanese officials, two in grey and a younger colleague in black. Three servants sit at the back. The rearmost sampan conveys the two Dutchmen. Their features lack much detail at this range, but Penhaligon can make out that one is tanned, bearded and rotund, the other is stick-like and pale as chalk.

Penhaligon hands the telescope to Snitker who reports to Smeyers. ‘Grey-coats is officials, he says, Captain. Black-coat is translator. The big Dutchman is Melchior van Cleef, Chief of Dejima. The thin one is a Prussian. His name is Fischer. Fischer is second in command.’