Tokyo Bay by Anthony Grey Page A

deputy governor may come aboard to parley briefly with one of our junior officers!’ he announced ringingly in Dutch, and stood aside as two ratings summoned by Eden ran forward to fix the gang-ladder in place.
When the guard-boat had manoeuvred to its foot, the Japanese interpreter ushered the Vice-Governor of Uraga ahead of him onto the ladder. Among a retinue of three bodyguards who stood up in the boat to follow them, Eden spotted the face of the same young samurai who had so deftly caught the scroll which he had tossed back unopened half an hour earlier, and again his eyes locked with those of the disguised Prince Tanaka. Then he noticed that another, ta l ler samurai wearing a similar anonymous brown kimono, was also gazing balefully up at him. The features of Yaka m ochi, son and heir of Lord Daizo of Haifu, however, were set in more aggressive lines and as the small group of Japanese climbed slowly up towards the entry port, Eden instinctively dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword.

8
    ‘ANATATACHI WA Amerika-jin desuka?’ This first question from the Vice-Governor of Uraga was uttered in a hesitant, uncertain tone. Perched on the edge of an upright chair in the oak- panelled captain’s cabin, aft on the main deck, the solemn, round-faced official looked ill at ease inside his flamboyant sea - green silks. While his interpreter, Haniwara Tokuma, who was seated beside him, translated the question haltingly into Dutch, the eyes of the vice-governor flickered nervously back and forth around the cabin, settling only occasionally on Flag Lieutenant Rice, who sat ramrod straight behind a plain polished table on which he had placed his tasselled ceremonial sword secure inside its leather scabbard.
Samuel Armstrong, seated beside Rice at the same table, was puffing relaxedly on a briar pipe. After listening to the Japanese interpreter’s Dutch translation, he smiled faintly and leaned back in his chair, before repeating it with mock formality in English.
‘The deputy governor asks us if we are Americans.’
Lieutenant Rice nodded formally. ‘You may confirm to the deputy governor that we are.’
‘Yes, we are Americans,’ said Armstrong in Dutch, and waited patiently while Haniwara Tokuma conveyed this reply to his uneasy superior in their own language.
‘Why have Americans come to Japan?’ asked the vice-governor after a short pause. ‘What is your purpose here?’
‘We have come here for one reason only: replied Rice carefully. ‘And that is to deliver a letter of the utmost importance from the President of the United States to the Emperor of Japan.’
Midshipman Harris and another of the Susquehanna’s fresh - faced cadet officers were standing stiffly to attention behind the flag lieutenant’s chair. Armed with unsheathed cutlasses tucked into their belts, they stared straight ahead and gave no impression that they heard anything of what was being said. To one side of the table Robert Eden had taken up a watchful position, his feet planted astride and his left hand resting on the pommel of his sword. Although listening carefully to the exchanges, he kept his attention focused on the three Japanese samurai who were ranged in a small semicircle behind the chairs of their two official representatives.
The samurai who had eyed him so intently from the boat, he noticed, was the only one who wore the traditional t w in swords in long and short scabbards at his waist. Prince Tanaka was standing motionless, with his hands at his sides between the two other escorts, who appeared to be unarmed. These two men gazed steadily at the cabin floor and only Tanaka’s eyes flicked from face to face around the cabin. Whenever they came to rest on Eden, as they often did, the American officer felt he detected a lively intelligence as well as wary hostility in his expression.
But as Eden scrutinized the other two escorts, who stood with their hands clasped within the wide sleeves of their kimonos, he noticed that Daizo