The Birkenhead Drill and Other Stories

Otokichi

(elements of this story had been incorporated into the upcoming Volume Three of my "The Year of the Dragon" saga, "The Islands in the Mist")

It was a tiny speck on the horizon at first but, as soon as he had seen it, Otokichi knew he was saved.

   He lost count of months since his ship, a simple cargo boat bound for Edo, had gotten caught in a terrible storm. The winds had pummelled and battered the vessel for days. The mast and rudder snapped away, half the crew had been swept off the deck. By the time the winds had eased, they found themselves in the middle of the vast Eastern Ocean, drifted aimlessly by the relentless currents, moving ever eastwards, away from land, away from hope.

   Days turned into weeks, and these into months. With nothing to eat but raw rice and salt from their hold, one by one the men succumbed to madness and disease, worst of all – the dreaded scurvy.

   He was the one who had thrown all their bodies overboard, including that of his brother. Otokichi, the last man alive of the once fourteen-strong crew. The only one to survive long enough to see land again.

 The waves and winds had cast the ship onto the reefs, half a mile from the beach. Otokichi rowed ashore in a tiny, makeshift dinghy. The short journey exhausted all his strength. As he set foot on the sand, he fell down and his mind drifted off into darkness.

   Thirst woke him and he set forth to investigate his landing place. Beyond the beach, wide, golden and beautiful, rose a tall, forested slope of a cone-shaped mountain. Boulders enclosed the crescent-shaped beach on both sides, forming a wind-sheltered cove. He soon stumbled upon a small stream emptying into the sea and, dropping to his knees, quaffed the warm, briny water as if it was the finest of sakés.

   He gazed around, elated. The island, though small, seemed bountiful. There would be fruit and roots in the forest, and game. There would be birds’ eggs and clams on the rocks hanging over the beach. Water he found already. He would live. He dropped to his knees in a thankful prayer to the ancestors and bodhisattvas that chose to care for him.

   A strange, hissing and gurgling sound came from beyond the spur of rock to the south. It was too loud for an animal – and he knew of no animal that made a noise like that. Perhaps a hot spring was bursting out from among the stones? It would have been a miracle among miracles…

   Carefully, conserving his strength, Otokichi climbed the sharp, man-sized boulders. He raised his head over the edge of the rock and looked down. Another, larger cove spread before him, surrounded by sheer basalt walls on three sides. Waves roared, battering against a round entrance to a cave. On a narrow strip of sand, three men were sat by the campfire, tall, pale and fair haired, in hooded cloaks of dark grey cloth.

   Beside the strangers, half-submerged in the sea, coiled a monstrous creature, the likes of which Otokichi had not imagined in his worst nightmares. As big as his cargo ship, its reptilian body, massive head and long, spiked tail were covered with jet-black, glistening scales. The terrible jaws, dripping foul slobber, seemed capable of easily swallowing a human whole. Leathery, bat-like wings, folded along the sides, heaved up and down as the beast breathed. The hissing was the sound of  a plume of steam and smoke, wafting from the monster’s nostrils with its every breath. 

   Otokichi knew enough of the old legends and fairy-tales to realize where he had found himself. This island had to be within the realm of the King of the Sea, the Watatsuni. A mere mortal like him would certainly be destroyed at once for daring to enter. Heart pounding, he stepped back. A small stone escaped from under his feet, triggering an abrupt avalanche.

   It would have been too quiet for any human to hear. But one of the grey cloaks stood up in an instant and turned towards Otokichi, his blue eyes searching the precipice for an intruder. The black monster paused between gulping one deer carcass and the next and also looked up, curiously.

   Otokichi now ran, tumbling and skipping, down to the beach where his dinghy rested in the white sand. He pushed the boat into the waves, jumped inside and started rowing frantically. He was rowing for his life, far away from the cursed island, far away from the monsters, far away from the King of the Sea.

   A reverberating roar shook the skies, but Otokichi did not look back, just kept on rowing. A second roar finally made him turn his head – there were now two monsters in the sky, the second rising from the forest, further up the mountain. And then more launched from the mountainside, until there were seven of them altogether. He could see tiny silhouettes of the grey cloaked men riding atop the beasts, three on each, as they swooped towards him.

   It was futile to try to escape. The first of the creatures was almost upon him. He now saw clearly the jaws lined with rows of dagger-sharp teeth, he felt the hot air buffeting off the leathery wings, and then the beast’s long, crooked claws reached out, grasping him by the shoulders like an eagle grasps a prey in its talons. The monster lifted him off the boat like a rag doll, and he was taken into the air, high, above the clouds, into the realm of the Gods.