Clavell, James - Shogun.pdf - Angielskie [EN](1) - superarrow

James Clavell's

SHŌGUN

For two seafarers, Captains, Royal Navy,

Who loved their ships more than their women

--as was expected of them.

PROLOGUE

The gale tore at him and he felt its bite deep within and he knew that if they did not make

landfall in three days they would all be dead. Too many deaths on this voyage, he thought, I'm

Pilot-Major of a dead fleet. One ship left out of five—eight and twenty men from a crew of one

hundred and seven and now only ten can walk and the rest near death and our Captain-General

one of them. No food, almost no water and what there is, brackish and foul.

His name was John Blackthorne and he was alone on deck but for the bowsprit lookout—

Salamon the mute—who huddled in the lee, searching the sea ahead.

The ship heeled in a sudden squall and Blackthorne held on to the arm of the seachair that was

lashed near the wheel on the quarterdeck until she righted, timbers squealing. She was the

Erasmus , two hundred and sixty tons, a three-masted trader-warship out of Rotterdam, armed

with twenty cannon and sole survivor of the first expeditionary force sent from the Netherlands

to ravage the enemy in the New World. The first Dutch ships ever to breach the secrets of the

Strait of Magellan. Four hundred and ninety-six men, all volunteers. All Dutch except for three

Englishmen—two pilots, one officer. Their orders: to plunder Spanish and Portuguese

possessions in the New World and put them to the torch; to open up permanent trading

concessions; to discover new islands in the Pacific Ocean that could serve as permanent bases

and to claim the territory for the Netherlands; and, within three years, to come home again.

Protestant Netherlands had been at war with Catholic Spain for more than four decades,

struggling to throw off the yoke of their hated Spanish masters. The Netherlands, sometimes

called Holland, Dutchland, or the Low Countries, were still legally part of the Spanish Empire.

England, their only allies, the first country in Christendom to break with the Papal Court at Rome

and become Protestant some seventy-odd years ago, had also been warring on Spain for the last

twenty years, and openly allied with the Dutch for a decade.

The wind freshened even more and the ship lurched. She was riding under bare poles but for

storm tops'ls. Even so the tide and the storm bore her strongly toward the darkening horizon.

There's more storm there, Blackthorne told himself, and more reefs and more shoals. And

unknown sea. Good. I've set myself against the sea all my life and I've always won. I always

will.

First English pilot ever to get through Magellan's Pass. Yes, the first—and first pilot ever to

sail these Asian waters, apart from a few bastard Portuguese or motherless Spaniards who still

think they own the world. First Englishman in these seas. . . .

So many firsts. Yes. And so many deaths to win them.

Again he tasted the wind and smelled it, but there was no hint of land. He searched the ocean

but it was dull gray and angry. Not a fleck of seaweed or splash of color to give a hint of a

sanding shelf. He saw the spire of another reef far on the starboard quarter but that told him

nothing. For a month now outcrops had threatened them, but never a sight of land. This ocean's

endless, he thought. Good. That's what you were trained for—to sail the unknown sea, to chart

it and come home again. How many days from home? One year and eleven months and two

days. The last landfall Chile, one hundred and thirty-three days aft, across the ocean Magellan

had first sailed eighty years ago called Pacific.

Blackthorne was famished and his mouth and body ached from the scurvy. He forced his eyes

to check the compass course and his brain to calculate an approximate position. Once the plot

was written down in his rutter—his sea manual—he would be safe in this speck of the ocean.

And if he was safe, his ship was safe and then together they might find the Japans, or even the

Christian King Prester John and his Golden Empire that legend said lay to the north of Cathay,

wherever Cathay was.

And with my share of the riches I'll sail on again, westward for home, first English pilot ever

to circumnavigate the globe, and I'll never leave home again. Never. By the head of my son!

The cut of the wind stopped his mind from wandering and kept him awake. To sleep now

would be foolish. You'll never wake from that sleep, he thought, and stretched his arms to ease

the cramped muscles in his back and pulled his cloak tighter around him. He saw that the sails

were trimmed and the wheel lashed secure. The bow lookout was awake. So patiently he settled

back and prayed for land.

"Go below, Pilot. I take this watch if it pleases you." The third mate, Hendrik Specz, was

pulling himself up the gangway, his face gray with fatigue, eyes sunken, skin blotched and

sallow. He leaned heavily against the binnacle to steady himself, retching a little. "Blessed Lord

Jesus, piss on the day I left Holland."

"Where's the mate, Hendrik?"

"In his bunk. He can't get out of his scheit voll bunk. And he won't—not this side of

Judgment Day."

"And the Captain-General?"

"Moaning for food and water." Hendrik spat. "I tell him I roast him a capon and bring it on a

silver platter with a bottle of brandy to wash it down. Scheit-huis! Coot! "

"Hold your tongue!"

"I will, Pilot. But he's a maggot-eaten fool and we'll be dead because of him." The young

man retched and brought up mottled phlegm. "Blessed Lord Jesus help me!"

"Go below. Come back at dawn."

Hendrik lowered himself painfully into the other seachair. "There's the reek of death below. I

take the watch if it pleases you. What's the course?"

"Wherever the wind takes us."

"Where's the landfall you promised us? Where's the Japans—where is it, I ask?"

"Ahead."

"Always ahead! Gottimhimmel , it wasn't in our orders to sail into the unknown. We should

be back home by now, safe, with our bellies full, not chasing St. Elmo's fire."

"Go below or hold your tongue."

Sullenly Hendrik looked away from the tall bearded man. Where are we now? he wanted to

ask. Why can't I see the secret rutter? But he knew you don't ask those questions of a pilot,

particularly this one. Even so, he thought, I wish I was as strong and healthy as when I left

Holland. Then I wouldn't wait. I'd smash your gray-blue eyes now and stamp that maddening

half-smile off your face and send you to the hell you deserve. Then I'd be Captain-Pilot and we'd

have a Netherlander running the ship—not a foreigner—and the secrets would be safe for us.

Because soon we'll be at war with you English. We want the same thing: to command the sea,

to control all trade routes, to dominate the New World, and to strangle Spain.

"Perhaps there is no Japans," Hendrik muttered suddenly. "It's Gottbewonden legend."

Clavell, James - Shogun.pdf

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