The Confusion

“When night falls we shall be desperately vulnerable to boarders,” Dappa returned.

 

“We are in high latitudes for once—it is near the middle of the year (though you’d never guess it from the temperature)—and the day is long,” Jack said, stepping around to a new position where he could get a clear view of the sun rising over the mountains of Japan. The water of the harbor was glancing light into his eyes so that it looked like a sheet of hammered copper. A longboat was clearly silhouetted on it, headed their way. “Damme, these Japanese are punctual—it is not like Manila.”

 

“Chinese smugglers they accept grudgingly. It pleases them not to have a Christian ship drop anchor here. They want rid of us.”

 

Van Hoek came by and said, “I had Father Gabriel write, in his last communication, that the transfer of metal would continue until the sun was four fingers above the western horizon—not a moment longer.”

 

Every man on the ship who was not manning a cannon gravitated to the rail to watch the Japanese boat approach. As it drew closer, and the sun came clear of the rugged horizon, they were able to see a dozen or so commoners in drab clothing pulling on the oars, and, in the middle of the boat, three men wearing the same hair-do as Gabriel Goto, each armed with a pair of swords, and dressed in kimonos. Packed in around them were half a dozen archers in outlandish helmets and metal-strip armor. The boat was moving almost directly up-wind and so had not bothered raising her one sail, but from the mast she was flying a large banner of blue silk blazoned with a white insignia, a roundish shape that like the art of the Mahometans did not seem to be a literal depiction of anything in particular, but might have been thrown together by a man who had seen a flower once.

 

A fresh breeze was rising up out of the Sea of Japan as the day got under way, and no one needed to consult a globe to guess that this air had originated over Siberia. It was the first time Jack had felt cold since he had left Amsterdam—a memory that caused him to rub absent-mindedly at the old harpoon-scar on his arm, which at the moment was all covered with goose-pimples. The crew of Filipinos, Malabaris, and Malays had never felt anything like this, and muttered to one another in astonishment. “Make sure they understand that this is only a taste of what will come when we are crossing the Pacific, or rounding Cape Horn,” van Hoek said to Dappa. “If any of them desires to jump ship, Manila will be his last opportunity.”

 

“I am giving thought to it myself,” Dappa said, rubbing and spanking himself. His eyes crossed for a moment as he gazed in alarm at steam rising from his own mouth. “I could be a publican at the new Bomb and Grapnel…and never feel cold, except when I had snow brought down from Eliza Peak, and scooped a handful of it into a rum-drink. Brrr! How can those men stand it?” He nodded across fifty yards of chop to the Japanese boat. The Samurais were kneeling there stolidly, facing into the wind, which made their garments billow and snap.

 

“Later they will go boil themselves in vats,” Enoch said learnedly.

 

“When I saw Goto-san’s get-up,” Jack said, “I supposed that he’d had it pieced together of scraps collected from Popish Churches and whorehouses, such are the colors. Yet compared to what those sour-pusses in the boat are wearing, Father Gabriel’s togs look like funeral-weeds.”

 

“They put French Cavaliers to shame,” Enoch agreed.

 

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