Bloody Sunrise Read online

  BLOODY SUNRISE

  Christopher Nicole

  © Christopher Nicole 1993

  Christopher Nicole has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1993 by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  BOOK THE FIRST

  THE SAMURAI

  Chapter One – The Barbarian

  Chapter Two – Bushido

  Chapter Three – The Bride

  Chapter Four – The Bride

  Chapter Five – The Guns

  Chapter Six – The End of an Era

  BOOK THE SECOND

  THE RISING SUN

  Chapter Seven – The Emperor

  Chapter Eight – The Last Stand

  Chapter Nine – The Admiral

  Chapter Ten – The Yalu

  Chapter Eleven – The Disillusion

  Chapter Twelve – The Rivals

  Chapter Thirteen – War

  Chapter Fourteen – The Triumph

  ‘All things they have in common, being so poor, And their one fear, Death’s shadow at the door. Each sundown makes them mournful, each sunrise Brings back the brightness in their failing eyes.’

  Edmund Blunden.

  BOOK THE FIRST

  THE SAMURAI

  ‘The painful warrior famoused for fight,

  After a thousand victories once foil’d,

  Is from the book of honour razed quite

  And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.’

  William Shakespeare.

  Chapter One – The Barbarian

  ‘There’s weather about, Mr Thompson,’ remarked Captain Longmore. ‘The glass has fallen another inch in the past six hours. You’ll make all secure.’

  ‘Aye-aye,’ the First-Lieutenant acknowledged. ‘Mr Barrett, you’ll have deadeyes in every port, secure all guns, and double lash all hatches.’

  ‘Aye-aye,’ Sub-Lieutenant Nicholas Barrett replied, and slid down the ladder from the bridge deck of the five hundred ton steam sloop.

  ‘Is there really going to be a storm, Nick?’ Midshipman Ebury was eager.

  Nicholas nodded. ‘Look at the sky.’ This had taken on a curious glassy appearance, as the sea also had assumed an almost molten hue; the wind was light and there were no waves, just a great swell which lifted the warship up and then took her down gently again. ‘It’s not too far distant, either.’

  Twenty-two years old in this autumn of 1861, Nicholas Barrett was a big young man, tall and well-shouldered. He had been a sailor since the age of thirteen, three years younger than Ebury now was. He had seen action in the Black Sea seven years ago, against the Russian batteries defending Sevastopol, and for the last three years he, and HMS Juno, had been part of the British squadron in the China Sea, their vigil climaxing only a few months previously when they had helped batter the Taku forts to open the mouth of the Peiho, the river which led from the Gulf of Tientsin to Peking, the capital of the Dragon Empire of China.

  It was not for a serving officer in the Royal Navy, and a junior one at that, to hold an opinion on the moral issues involved in the determination of the British and French governments to ‘open’ the moribund Ch’ing Empire to the penetration of their traders and missionaries. The Navy obeyed orders, and had carried out its allotted task, while still being able to admire the courage and determination with which the Chinese had defended their ancient forts. So well had they fought, indeed, that British casualties had been high, and might have been higher had not Commodore Josiah Tattnall, commanding an observing American squadron, entered the fray – although the United States was neutral in this conflict – and towed several of the beleaguered British ships to safety, remarking as he did so, that ‘blood is thicker than water’.

  That had been two years ago, in the summer of 1859, and since then the war with China had been brought to a victorious conclusion, the Emperor’s summer palace burned, and a huge indemnity as well as vast trading concessions claimed for the Western Powers. But now there was another Eastern nation to be ‘opened’ for western exploitation.

  *

  Nicholas reported to the bridge. ‘All secure, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Barrett. You’ll take a sight.’ It was just on noon, and Commander Longmore never missed an opportunity for practising his officers in seamanship. Nicholas and Ebury joined Lieutenant Thompson and the captain at the rail, sextants to their eyes. The sun was still visible, although momently becoming diffused by the thin cloud which was spreading across the sky. ‘Mr Barrett?’ inquired the captain.

  ‘Twenty-eight degrees, six minutes North Latitude, sir.’

  ‘And the chronometer gives us one hundred and thirty-two degrees fourteen minutes East Longitude. Very good, Mr Barrett. You’ll mark it, if you please.’

  Nicholas hurried into the chart house aft of the bridge, used his parallel rule, and made a small pencil x on the chart of the West Pacific Ocean. Then frowned as he studied the position.

  ‘Yes,’ Longmore commented, at his shoulder.

  In confirmation there came a hail from the lookout on the masthead. ‘Land-ho, broad on the port bow.’

  Longmore tapped the chart. ‘That will be the island of Tanega. Twenty miles due south of Kyushu. We are nearly there, gentlemen.’ Lieutenant Thompson looked out of the starboard porthole, at the huge swell rising out of the south-east. Juno was making north-east, for Edo Bay on the main Japanese island of Honshu. Thus they were now on a lee shore, and would be until they reached their destination – even if they were still well off. ‘You think we should keep the sea, Mr Thompson,’ Longmore remarked. ‘Well, we shall, when the weather breaks. But for the time being we’ll hold our course. We are required to be in Edo Bay by Saturday morning. That is all of five hundred miles off, sir. We’ll hold our course.’

  Today was Thursday, and Japan would not wait.

  *

  Eight years before, on 8 July 1853, the American Commodore Matthew C. Perry had dropped anchor in Edo Bay, and insisted upon being received by the Shōgunate, the military government which had ruled, in the name of the impotent Emperors, for more than seven hundred years. And which, during the last two centuries, when the Tokugawa family had held supreme power, had shut Japan away from the outside world, forbidding foreign travel to their own citizens on pain of death, and forbidding all foreigners from Japanese territory, again on pain of death, save for a tiny Dutch trading post off the city of Nagasaki.

  The very idea that there existed a secret country, perhaps containing untold wealth, hidden away on the north-east coast of Asia, had titillated the imaginations of those British and Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese sailors who had first explored the East Indian islands, and then followed their ambitions even into the South China Sea, whatever the risks. And the risk had been real enough, for the Japanese ruthlessly murdered every foreign sailor found on their shores. Ever since the turn of the Nineteenth Century, the Western Powers had sought to change the situation. But it had been a dilatory and un-coordinated process. The coming of steam had altered the tempo. With China now lying passively, awaiting the march of what the Westerners called progress, the United States had realised that, as the closest ‘civilised’ power to the Far East, she could have the best pickings – could she only get there and back quickly enough. But while the six thousand miles from San Francisco to Shanghai was only half the twelve thousand miles from Plymouth to Canton, the voyage round Africa and India could be assisted by coaling stations. There was no coaling station in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But such a port located on the north-eastern coast of Japan would make a regular steamship route poss
ible. Thus Perry had dropped anchor in Edo Bay on 8th July 1853.

  It might have been supposed that the Japanese would have reacted angrily to this sudden invasion of their privacy. But they had not. Some said they had been overawed by Perry’s ‘black ships’, with their heavy armament and their auxiliary steam power. More realistically, others pointed out that Perry had arrived in Japan, fortuitously, just as one Shōgun was dying, and before his successor had taken a firm grasp of the government. However, when Perry had returned, a year later, he had been granted the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening two trade ports, and guaranteeing the safety of castaway American sailors. Where the Americans had so boldly plunged, the rest of the world was quick to follow. Great Britain had been next to force a treaty on the Japanese, followed quickly by Russia and Holland. It was, apparently, to be the same story as in China. The Japanese had no modern weapons to compete with the foreign warships, and they had the awful example of China to set before them, of the death and destruction the foreign devils were capable of inflicting on those who resisted their encroachments.

  But since the total success of those early advances, the situation had changed again. As more and more Europeans had travelled to Japan, seeking to exploit people they regarded as savages, so they had become more vulnerable. There had been incidents, murders and robberies, where the victims had penetrated beyond the protection of the black ships or the newly installed consular officials. Now crisis had been reached, as the Americans, regarded as being the progenitors of the whole Japanese adventure, had fallen into a civil war. Their ships had been withdrawn to blockade the rebelling Confederate States, their power in the Far East suddenly dissipated. British nationals in Japan had called for help; Juno was part of the answer. She was what was known as a screw sloop; that is, she was sloop-rigged for sailing, but also had an engine and a screw propeller. She displaced sixteen hundred tons and was armed with ten guns, two smooth-bore muzzle-loading seven-inch Armstrongs, and eight sixty-four-pounders, also smooth-bore muzzle loaders; she had a normal complement of two hundred and six officers and men, although for this voyage she was only half-manned, most of her crew having been used as replacements for other ships remaining on the China station. She was not expected to fight before reaching Edo, and there her own replacements would be awaiting her.

  Juno was a fast ship; she could make thirteen knots under steam. But she was constructed of wood, and was therefore already becoming obsolete. All the navies of the world, following the lead given by France, had begun to think in terms of iron-clads. However, the Japanese, like the Chinese, so far as was known, did not possess shells, and Juno had performed satisfactorily on the Chinese coast. No member of her crew doubted that she would be able to overawe the Japanese, or deal with them if they were not overawed, once her complement was brought back up to strength. But no man had any idea how she would cope with a hurricane.

  *

  Nicholas Barrett leaned on the bridge rail and looked, first to the north-west, where there was a cloud shadow immediately above the horizon, marking the land, and then to the south-east. Juno was under both sail and power in an effort to make all possible speed across the face of the approaching storm, but now the wind had dropped to a flat calm, and the sloop rolled as she forged ahead under steam alone, black smoke belching from her single funnel, while her sails slapped idly against their booms. The weather was intensely soporific; even the coxswain seemed half-asleep as he leaned on the wheel, one eye on the binnacle to make sure he maintained his course.

  Nicholas swung his binoculars over the southern horizon, and swallowed. He could see a new cloud bank, and this was no land, but rather immense and black, rising out of the ocean . . . the sun was now past the meridien, and therefore continued to bathe the scene in a gentle light. It was incredible, to be so serene . . . and see death and destruction approaching. He blew into the voice tube. ‘Captain!’ came the reply.

  ‘Bridge, sir. I have the storm.’

  Commander Longmore had been enjoying a siesta, but he had left instructions that he was to be called the moment the storm could be discerned. He was on deck in five minutes, levelling his glasses. Then he bent over the voice tube himself. ‘Engine room! Mr Moultrie, I propose to heave-to under steam, to take the weather bows on. This may be for some time.’

  ‘Aye-aye,’ the Engineer-Lieutenant replied.

  Longmore closed the tube. ‘Use your dead reckoning, Mr Barrett, and enter our position. You will maintain a dead reckoning from now on, and enter our position every thirty minutes.’

  ‘Aye-aye,’ Nicholas said, and went into the chart room. Dead reckoning, DR to a seaman, was a means of calculating a ship’s position when astral sights, or coastal bearings, were not possible. It consisted of relating the ship’s course to her speed to tidal or current movement to leeway, and arriving at a distance covered, which was then related to the last known position. Given an accurate tidal atlas and a steady speed and course, it could be remarkably accurate. Unfortunately there were no tidal atlases for the Japanese coast, and leeway, which would result from the ship being driven from her course by the wind and the waves, was the most difficult of all the DR factors to be ascertained, as without a mark on which to take a compass bearing, or a clear wake from which to draw conclusions, it had to be guesswork. He was not likely to have a clear wake with a typhoon blowing. But he was pleased with the responsibility.

  Lieutenant Thompson was by now on the bridge, as well as Midshipman Ebury. Orders were given to hand the sails and the sloop came about, steering south-east, towards the approaching weather. Nicholas checked the speed, which had been reduced to dead slow, just to maintain steerage way. Then the quiet was broken by several peals of thunder, and looking out of the chartroom port, he could see, only a few miles away, a sudden seethe of whitecaps. A few minutes later the wind was upon them, driving before it what seemed a solid wall of pouring rain. For a few minutes it was almost uncanny, because the sun was still shining, then the sun was also lost behind the spreading blanket of cloud, and the afternoon turned as dark as night, while the rain limited visibility to only a few hundred feet on any side.

  The noise was almost sufficient to overwhelm the senses; it made Nicholas think of every large bird in the world clustered around him shrieking and beating its wings in unison; even pointing as she was, directly into the wind, Juno began to roll violently, and as yet the seas were small. But they were growing. Within an hour the ship was climbing its way up mountains of green water topped by tumbling, six-foot-high white crests, pausing for a moment amidst the foam while she shuddered beneath the force of the wind, and then sliding down into the troughs, while other water mountains reared before her. Mostly she coped very well, but every so often a trough was deeper than before, and the advancing crest would break, to hurl thousands of tons of water on to the decks. When that happened the ship would stop dead, engine racing, before growling her way forward again.

  Calculating her speed through the water was next to impossible in these circumstances; Nicholas could only assume she was just about standing still, and as long as she did that, she was in no danger. As the afternoon wore on, however, he began to have doubts. He told himself it was entirely an impression; the huge waves and the screaming wind seemed a stronger force than the power of the Maudsley horizontal single-expansion engine, which could mean she was being driven astern more often than she was forging forward, while of the leeway there could be no doubt. He peered through the ports, but could see nothing further than a few hundred yards because of the rain, while the evening was now drawing in.

  He went on to the bridge, where the Captain and Lieutenant Thompson, together with Midshipman Ebury and the coxswain, were bending their heads before the wind and the driving rain – there was neither roof nor screen on the small control platform. ‘I think we’re losing ground, sir,’ he shouted.

  Longmore glanced at him. ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘No, sir. I cannot prove it. It’s a feeling.’

  Longm
ore looked over the bows, and Nicholas looked with him, and caught his breath. It was quite dark now, but even in the gloom the seas were bigger than anything he had ever seen before, green monsters streaked with white foam, and out here the noise was even more extreme; while the rain continued to pound on their heads. Longmore opened the voice tube. ‘Engine room.’ Moultrie’s voice was indistinguishable to anyone without the earpiece. ‘We’re losing ground, Chief,’ the captain said. ‘Give me another knot.’ He listened. ‘Very good, Chief. The responsibility is mine. I need another knot.’ He closed the tube, looked at Nicholas. ‘I hope you are right, Mr Barrett.’

  Nicholas gathered that Moultrie had suggested that an extra knot might prove a strain on the engine in these conditions. And that despite the captain’s words he was now carrying the responsibility for increasing speed. But it would have been a criminal dereliction of duty not to report his assumption.

  *

  Nicholas returned into the chartroom, grateful for the escape from the rain and the wind, and checked his calculations. If he had been right over the past six hours, and they had lost even half a mile an hour . . . he peered at the chart as he made his mark: they were now within seventeen miles of the Japanese coast, as it bulged outwards on the island of Kyushu. That was close enough to be affected by any onshore current there might be, as well as by the tidal streams. But now the noise of the engine was louder, even as the racing of the propeller on the crests was louder too. They had to be holding their own now . . . there was a sharp sound from beneath him, and the reassuring growl ceased, to be followed by a huge hiss of steam as Moultrie released the pressure in the boilers. Juno lost way, and failed to make the next crest; the wave broke on her beam, and hurled her over. Nicholas, starting for the bridge, clung on to the table for a moment before losing his grip and being thrown against the lee bulkhead. For a moment he was dazed, and then surrounded by screaming noise as the chartroom door burst open, and his eyes took in an immense wave about to burst on the superstructure.