Free Tokyo Bay by Anthony Grey

steadily up the bay. We shall anchor before the township of Uraga. Until then, his orders are that nobody should be allowed to board us without observing the strictest standards of respect and protocol. But you are all to use the utmost discretion. We don’t want to provoke a fight to the death.’
Eden nodded quickly and turned to his nearest gun crew. Gesturing towards the sharpened pikestaffs stacked in a pyramid on the deck nearby, he spoke to the men briskly, without shouting.
‘Gun drills are finished! Arm yourselves now with pikes. This is the real thing!’
The flattened steel of the pike heads glittered and flashed in the sun as the sailors seized one apiece, then looked expectantly towards Eden.
‘Prepare to repel boarders on the port side!’ he snapped, and led the squad in a dash along the deck to the nearest open gunport.
Without fuss he formed the men quickly into a tight line and, bracing themselves, they thrust their pikes out threateningly towards the encroaching guard-boat. All over the ship si m ilar orders were shouted, and within moments all the gunports and rails of the Susquehanna were bristling with clusters of pike blades.
Amidships in the heaving Japanese boat, an official wearing a gown of sea-green silk had stood up. On catching sight of Eden’s gold-braided officer’s cap above him, he plucked a giant scroll from his sleeve. Holding it up above his head with one hand, he let it fall open vertically, and gestured with his free hand in Eden’s direction. The turbulence created by the Susquehanna’s huge paddle-wheels caused the Japanese boat to pitch and toss, but the official managed to remain upright and he turned so that the words on the scroll became fully visible. At first sight they appeared to be written in English but, as the boat moved nearer, Eden could see that a message had been scrawled in large letters in some other European language. From the bridge platform built athwart ships between the two giant paddle-wheels
Eden heard the sonorous tones of Matthew Perry asking his interpreter to decipher the scroll for him.
‘It’s in Dutch, Commodore,’ replied Samuel Armstrong, the China missionary-linguist who had joined the ship somewhat reluctantly at Hong Kong to act as the squadron’s interpreter. ‘It says: “Depart at once! Foreign ships are forbidden to anchor here.” What shall I reply?’
‘Say nothing at all!’ commanded Perry, who was taking care to remain invisible to the Japanese. ‘We shall ignore all inappropriate communication.’
After waiting in vain for a response, the Japanese official rewound the scroll around its batons and secured it with ribbons. Along with all his fellow occupants of the moving boat, he continued to stare intently up at the American sailors, as though trying to turn the warships from their aggressive progress by a silent act of will. On realizing that his message was to be completely ignored, the same official suddenly began making further dramatic gestures.
First he pointed angrily towards the Susquehanna’s anchor, then towards the mouth of the bay, clearly urging the warships to turn back to sea again. To augment his demand, he drew back his arm and sent the furled scroll wheeling in a high arc over the port bulwark. It clattered onto the deck, close to the gun crew, and one man quickly laid aside his pikestaff to rush over and pick it up. He handed it to Eden, who immediately looked up towards the bridge platform for guidance.
‘Toss it back to them right away, Lieutenant; boomed the still invisible Perry ‘We don’t want it aboard.’
After a moment of hesitation Eden leaned out through the gunport and looked down into the guard-boat below. Beside the official in the green gown, he noticed a topknotted samurai staring up at him unblinkingly. The samurai’s expression was watchful and intensely curious, rather than hostile, but this first sight of a Japanese warrior close up reminded Eden immediately of his dream and of the