Seas of Fortune(152)
Saburo admitted that this was the case.
“So there is no immediate need for my presence in Monterey, after all. Indeed, it would be best that we can report to my father that Captain Haruno has succeeded in entering the Bay. Otherwise a third ship will need to be sent out, to look for him, too.”
Saburo looked at the troop commander, who looked at Matsuoka.
“All right, one more week,” said Matsuoka. “But after that, if there’s no sign of the Ieyasu Maru, you will ride with us to Monterey if I have to tie you onto the saddle.”
Near the Farallone Islands, outside San Francisco Bay
“What great luck, Captain Haruno!” Jiro exclaimed. “No fog today!” He paused. “Why are we slowing down? Shouldn’t we hurry through while we can?”
“We must check for hidden dangers, honorable samurai. I am lowering a boat to take soundings, I don’t like the look of the water ahead. If you want a better view of what it’s doing, you may go forward.”
When Jiro walked out of earshot, Haruno snorted, and whispered to Tokubei, “The grand governor expects us to be bold. He does not desire that we be stupid.”
Kinzo, the Ieyasu Maru’s coxwain, reported back a few hours later. “There seems to be a very large bar in the shape of a folding fan, in front of the strait. I wouldn’t want to cross it during a storm, but it won’t be a problem with the seas as they are now.”
“What was the current like?” asked Haruno.
“When I started, the waters were a bit confused; the swells were from the northwest, and they seemed to be meeting a tidal ebb. But I think the tide has nearly slacked off by now.”
“We’ll go a bit deeper in, and anchor,” Haruno announced, “and then you’ll take the boat in all the way in and find an anchorage. I’ll not trust my ship to the word of a landsman as to where we can pass the night safely.”
* * *
Kinzo and his men raised a sail and, under both sail and oar, steered their longboat toward the mouth of San Francisco Bay. Jiro had insisted on joining them, saying, “For the honor of Lord Matsudaira, at least one member of his party should be on the boat that is the first to enter San Francisco Bay by the sea.” Apparently, he felt that the shuttling of supplies around Fort Point by the surviving boats of the Sado Maru was best left out of the chronicles.
They rounded Fort Point and continued east, passing cautiously between Clark’s Point and Yerba Buena Island. The peninsular coast pulled inward here, forming a cove overlooked by Telegraph Hill.
This seemed an eminently satisfactory anchorage, and they tried to return to the Ieyasu Maru. That proved easier said than done. The tide had turned, and the waters of the Pacific were now pouring into the Bay.
With the wind against them, and the current too strong to fight with oar power, they returned to the cove and beached their boat.
* * *
In the meantime, the Ieyasu Maru was having trouble holding its position. The wind had picked up, and the inward tidal current had strengthened. Its anchor lost its grip on the bottom and the Ieyasu Maru lurched forward.
“Up anchor!” Captain Haruno ordered. “Make sail!” His junior officers shouted out the step-by-step instructions to get the ship under way.
“Better to go in now, under control, then be carried willy-nilly by wind and tide,” he told Tokubei.
Riding the flood tide, and with the wind at their back, the Ieyasu Maru sped eastward, like a traveler running to reach the gate of a city before it closed for the night. Iwakashu’s miners were stationed all along the railing, as extra lookouts. Iwakashu, at least, was glad to be on this rescue mission to San Francisco Bay. Which, he hoped, would give him the opportunity to see the fabled American River—and perhaps its gold.
* * *
At last, the Ieyasu Maru passed between Lime Point and Fort Point. For the first time in history, a sailing ship had entered San Francisco Bay.
Off to port, Haruno could see Horseshoe Bay, and beyond it, the stretch of open water leading to Angel Island. Richardson Bay and Raccoon Strait were hidden by the northern headlands, but shown on his copy of the encyclopedia map of San Francisco.
Alcatraz Island was directly ahead, and, on starboard, the coast of what would become the modern city of San Francisco. It didn’t look much like what was shown on the map.
Studying the color of the water, and the behavior of the waves, Haruno was leery of the narrow passage between Alcatraz Island and the San Francisco peninsula. “Reduce sail!” he ordered. He wanted more time to decide how to proceed.
“Any sign of the longboat?” he called up to the lookout in the crow’s nest.
“No sign, Captain!”