'By the deep ten and a half!' calls the leadsman.

The Phoebus Phoebus is almost level with the guard-posts on either shore, upon which the Captain now trains his telescope. The walls are thin, the stockades low, and the cannons more dangerous to their gunmen than their targets. is almost level with the guard-posts on either shore, upon which the Captain now trains his telescope. The walls are thin, the stockades low, and the cannons more dangerous to their gunmen than their targets.

'Mr Malouf, pray ask Mr Waldron to give the order to fire our salute.'

'Aye, sir: telling Mr Waldron the order to fire the salute.' Malouf goes below.

Penhaligon has his first clear sightings of the Japanese. They are as short as Malays, facially indistinguishable from the Chinese, and their armour brings to mind Major Cutlip's remarks about medieval jousters.

The guns fire through the ports, the noise ricocheting off the steep shores . . .

. . . and the acrid smoke blows over the crew, disinterring memories of battle.

'By the mark nine,' calls the leadsman, 'and a half nine . . .'

'Two boats embarking from the city,' reports the watch in the trestle tree.

Through his telescope, Penhaligon finds blurry images of the two sampans.

'Mr Cutlip, I want the marines to row the longboat, dressed in landsmen's slops, with cutlasses hidden below the thwarts in sackcloth.' The Major salutes and goes below. The Captain proceeds to the waist to address the coxswain, a cunning Scillies smuggler pressed from the shadow of the Penzance gallows. 'Mr Flowers, lower the longboat but tangle the ropes, so as to buy time. I want the greeting party to meet our longboat closer to the Phoebus Phoebus than to shore.' than to shore.'

'A proper Frenchman's fanny l'll make of it, Captain.'

Walking back to the bow, Hovell asks permission to air a thought.

'My esteem for your aired thoughts is why you are here, Mr Hovell.'

'Thank you, sir. I posit that the Governor-General's and the Admiralty's twin orders regarding the present mission - to paraphrase, "Plunder the Dutch and seduce the Japanese" - do not correspond with the scenario we find here. If the Dutch have nothing to plunder and the Japanese prove loyal to their allies, how are we to carry out our orders? A third strategy, however, may yield a more fruitful result.'

'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 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 of my younger, stronger self.

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

'The Phoebus 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 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 this bay would shelter a fleet.

His heart quickens as the vision grows. A British Pacific fleet 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 . . . could follow India into our sphere . . .

Midshipman Malouf returns with Smeyers.

. . . and the Philippines, too, would be ours for the taking. 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? 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.'

Van Cleef cups his hands to his mouth and hails Hovell, a hundred yards off.

Snitker keeps talking. Smeyers says, 'Van Cleef is human rat, he says, sir, a true . . . a damned coat-turn? And Fischer is a sneak, a liar, a cheat whoreson, he says, sir, with big ambition. I don't think Mr Snitker like them, sir.'

'But both men,' opines Wren, 'sound amenable to our proposal. The last thing we need are incorruptible men-of-principle types.'

Penhaligon takes his telescope from Snitker. 'Not many of them hereabouts.'

Cutlip's marines stop rowing. The longboat glides to a dead stop.

The boat of the three Japanese officials touches the longboat's prow.

'Don't let any of them board,' murmurs Penhaligon, to his first lieutenant.

The prows of the two boats nudge one another. Hovell salutes and bows.

The inspectors bow and salute. Via the interpreter, introductions are made.

One inspector and the interpreter now half stand, as if preparing to transfer.

Delay them, Penhaligon urges Hovell, silently, delay them . . . delay them . . .

Hovell is bent over with a coughing fit; he presents one hand in apology.

The second sampan arrives, pulling up to the longboat's port-side.

'A disadvantageous position,' mutters Wren, 'wedged in from both sides.'

Hovell recovers from his cough; he doffs his hat at van Cleef.

Van Cleef stands, and leans over the prow to take Hovell's hand.

The spurned inspector and interpreter, meanwhile, half sit back down.

Deputy Fischer now stands, clumsily, and the boat rocks.

Hovell swings the large van Cleef over on to the longboat.

'One in the bag, Mr Hovell,' mutters the Captain. 'Deftly done.'

Faintly comes the rumble of Chief van Cleef's thunderous laughter.

Deputy Fischer takes a step towards the longboat, wobbly as a foal . . .