Unfortunately, the Quatsino and Klaskino claimed to know nothing of any iron, copper or gold deposits in the area. If they existed, Tokubei was told, they were deep in Hoyalas territory, and the Hoyalas were presently at war with the Klaskino. It would not be prudent to proceed further.
Assuming the Indians were telling the truth, of course.
July 1634,
Pacific Ocean
Jacob de Veer, first mate of the Dutch ship Blauwe Draeck, had his ear to the wall that separated the kirishitan quarters from the rest of the ship’s hold. One of the sailors from the watch below had anxiously summoned him, reporting a “commotion” forward.
De Veer had first rushed to the similar barrier that lay above deck, to make sure that the kirishitan were not already seeking to take over the ship. The deck lay deserted in the moonlight, seemingly belying his concerns. Nonetheless, he had doubled the wall guards.
Then he had gone back down to the hold, hoping that his ears could find a clue that his eyes could not. It was clear from the outset that the kirishitan weren’t attempting to break through the lower wall; what the sailor had heard was the sound of many voices, not that of axes or other tools.
De Veer had been to Hirado often enough to learn a smattering of Japanese. He could only make out a few words, but those were enough to cause him to flinch: “dead . . . dead or dying . . .” And once he thought he heard a woman say, “. . . the poor little ones . . .”
The sailor was close beside him, so close that de Veer could feel the heat of his breath. “What are they saying, sir? Should the captain be called?”
De Veer carefully composed his expression. Blandly, he assured the sailor, “nothing for you to worry about. Go back to your duties.”
Once the sailor was out of sight, de Veer made his way to the captain’s cabin by a different route. As he walked, his mind was in turmoil. Had some dread disease taken hold among the kirishitan? If so, it had acted suddenly; they had seemed healthy on his last watch.
Would it just as suddenly inflict itself upon the Dutch?
De Veer couldn’t help but wish that he could somehow cut loose the forward third of the ship, and leave the Japanese to their fate.
After a walk that seemed to take hours, but surely was just a few minutes, he knocked on the captain’s door. Rap. Rap.
He heard the muffled voice of the captain. “Whoever’s bothering me better have a damn good reason, or I’ll give him cause to regret it.”
“De Veer, sir. And it’s important.”
“Enter, damn your eyes.”
De Veer made his report as matter-of-factly as he could.
“I wonder if it’s the smallpox,” said Captain Campen. “It’s always hardest on the young. And I heard that some Chinese doctor blew old pox dust into our colonists’ noses, so they would get a weak form of the disease. Maybe it didn’t work as it was supposed to.”
“I’ve had the pox, sir.” De Veer’s pockmarked face confirmed the truth of this declaration. “So has the ship’s surgeon. We can go forward and check out the situation.”
“Not tonight, you won’t. You’ll need to wait until daylight, so we can see that it’s safe for you to do so. Perhaps they have the flux, or the ague, or something else that you could succumb to. Perhaps they’re just faking illness. Get some sleep now. At daybreak, you can go forward, call for just one of the Japanese to come above to speak.”
De Veer went below and crawled into his hammock. The hammock swung back and forth, and the sea seemed to murmur with each upswing: “Dead . . . Dying . . . Dead . . . Dying . . .”
The next day, de Veer summoned the surgeon and the two of them were assisted over the barrier. Both were weaponless; a pistol or cutlass would hardly allow them to escape a hundred Japanese, and there was no sense in delivering weapons into the hands of potential mutineers.
De Veer went to the forward hatch, knocked, and shouted in Portuguese, “Send up one man to speak with us. One only, or we’ll shoot!” He and the surgeon then backed away a bit, to give the wall guards a clear line of fire.
One of the kirishitan emerged. “What is the problem? Why can’t we all come on deck for our morning exercise?”
“You’re not all sick?” said de Veer. “With the pox, perhaps?” He said this quietly; he didn’t want the wall guards to hear him. “I have brought our physician.” That was something of an exaggeration, since the ship’s surgeon was hardly that.
“Sick? No more and no worse than you’d expect, in a group this large, cooped up in a ship for so long. And no cases of pox, thank Deusu. Why would you think otherwise?” He made a Shinto gesture of aversion against evil, without any apparent awareness of his theological faux pas.