‘My great-grandfather’s, but it’s been in my family since Calvin’s day.’

Marinus reads the title page. ‘Psalms? Domburger, you are a two-legged cabinet of wonders! How did you smuggle ashore this rattle-bag of uneven translations from the Aramaic?’

‘Ogawa Uzaemon turned a blind eye at a crucial moment.’

‘ “It is he that giveth salvation unto kings:” ’ reads Marinus, ‘ “who delivereth David his servant from the hurtful sword.” ’

The wind carries the sound of orders being relayed about the Phoebus.

In Edo Square, an officer shouts at his men; a chorus replies.

A few yards through the air behind them, the Dutch flag flaps and rustles.

‘That tricoloured tablecloth wouldn’t die for you, Domburger.’

The Phoebus bears down: she is sleek, beautiful and malign.

‘Nobody ever died for a flag, only what the flag symbolises.’

‘I’m agog to learn what you are risking your life for.’ Marinus thrusts his hands into his eccentric greatcoat. ‘It can’t just be because the English Captain dubbed you a “shopkeeper”.’

‘For all we know, that flag is the last Dutch flag in the world.’

‘For all we know, it is. But it still wouldn’t die for you.’

‘He…’ Jacob notices the English Captain watching them through his telescope ‘… believes we Dutch are cowards. But starting with Spain, every power in our rowdy neighbourhood has tried to extinguish our nation. Every power failed. Not even the North Sea has dislodged us from our muddy fringe of the continent, and why?’

‘Here’s why, Domburger: because you have nowhere else to go!’

‘It’s because we are stubborn sons-of-guns, Doctor.’

‘Would your uncle want you to demonstrate Dutch manliness by dying in a crush of roof-tiles and masonry?’

‘My uncle would quote Luther: “Whilst friends show us what we can do, it is our enemies who show us what we must.” Jacob distracts himself by studying the ship’s figurehead of the frigate – a mere six hundred yards away now – through his telescope. Its carver endowed Phoebus with a diabolic determination. ‘Doctor, you must go now.’

‘But consider Dejima post-de Zoet! We’d be reduced to Chief Ouwehand and Deputy Grote. Lend me your telescope.’

‘Grote is our best merchant: he could sell sheep-shit to shepherds.’

William Pitt snorts at the Phoebus with a very human defiance.

Jacob takes off Kobayashi’s straw coat and puts it on the ape.

‘Please, Doctor.’ Rain wets wooden boards. ‘Don’t add to my debt of guilt.’

Gulls vacate the roof-ridge of the boarded-up Interpreters’ Guild.

‘You’re absolved! I’m indestructible, like a serial Wandering Jew. I’ll wake up tomorrow – after a few months – and start all over again. Behold: Daniel Snitker is on the quarterdeck. It’s his hominid walk that betrays him…’

Jacob’s fingers touch his kinked nose. Was it only last year?

The Phoebus’s Master shouts orders. Sailors on the yards furl the topsails…

… and the warship drifts to a dead halt, three hundred yards out.

Jacob’s fear is the size of a new internal organ, between his heart and his liver.

A gang of the top-men cup their mouths and shout at the Acting-Chief, ‘Scrub, little Dutch boy, scrub scrub scrub!’ and wave the reverse of their index and middle fingers.

‘Why…’ Jacob’s voice is taut and high ‘… why do the English do that?’

‘I believe it goes back to archers at the Battle of Agincourt.’

A cannon is run through the aft-most port; then another; then all twelve.

Lapwings fly low over the stony water; their wingtips drip with seawater.

‘They’re going to do it.’ Jacob’s voice is not his own. ‘Marinus! Go!’

‘As a matter of fact, Piet Baert told me that one winter – near Palermo, I believe – Grote actually did sell sheep-shit to shepherds.’

Jacob sees the English Captain open his mouth and bellow…

‘Fire!’ Jacob’s eyes clench tight: he puts his hand on the Psalter.

Rain baptises each second until the cannons explode.

Staccato thunder bludgeoned Jacob’s senses. The sky swung sideways. One tardy cannon fired after the others. He has no memory of throwing himself on to the Watchtower’s decking, but here is where he finds himself. He checks his limbs. They are still there. His knuckles are grazed and, mysteriously, his left testicle is aching, but he is otherwise unharmed.

All the dogs are barking and the crows are crazed.

Marinus is leaning on the railing. ‘Warehouse Number Six needs re-building; there’s a big hole in the Sea Wall behind the Guild; Constable Kosugi shall probably -’ from Sea Wall Lane comes an almighty sigh and crash ‘- shall certainly be lodging elsewhere tonight, and I pissed my thigh from fear. Our glorious flag, as you see, is unhurt. Half of their shots flew over us…’ the doctor looks landwards ‘… and caused damage ashore. Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, Auri sacra fames.’

The frigate’s smoke-shroud is being torn by the breeze.

Jacob stands up and tries to breathe normally. ‘Where’s William Pitt?’

‘Ran off: one Macaca fuscata is cleverer than two Homines sapientes.’

‘I didn’t know you were a veteran of battle, Doctor.’

Marinus blows out a mouthful of air. ‘Did close-range artillery knock any sense into you, or are we staying?’

I can’t abandon Dejima, Jacob knows, and I am terrified of dying.

‘Staying, then.’ Marinus clicks his tongue. ‘We have a short interval before the British resume their performance.’

Ryûgaji Temple intones the Hour of the Horse, as on any other day.

Jacob watches the Land-Gate. A few uncertain guards venture out.

A group run from Edo Square, over Holland Bridge.

He remembers Orito being led away into the palanquin.

He wonders how she is surviving and prays a wordless prayer.

Ogawa’s dogwood scroll-tube is snug in his jacket pocket.

If I am killed, let it be found and read by somebody in authority…

Some of the Chinese merchants are pointing and waving from their roofs.

Activity in the Phoebus’s gun-ports promises another round.

If I don’t keep talking, Jacob realises, I shall crack like a dropped dish.

‘I know what you don’t believe in, Doctor: what do you believe?’

‘Oh, Descartes’ methodology, Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas, the efficacy of Jesuits’ bark… So little is actually worthy of either belief or disbelief. Better to strive to co-exist, than seek to disprove…’

Clouds spill over the mountain ridges; rain drips off Arie Grote’s hat.

‘Northern Europe is a place of cold light and clear lines…’ Jacob knows he is spouting nonsense but cannot stop ‘… and so is Protestantism. The Mediterranean world is indomitable sunshine and impenetrable shade. So is Catholicism. Then this…’ Jacob sweeps his hand inland ‘… this… numinous… Orient… its bells, its dragons, its millions… Here, notions of transmigrations, of karma, which are heresies at home, possess a – a-’ The Dutchman sneezes.

‘Bless you.’ Marinus splashes rainwater on his face. ‘A plausibility?’

Jacob sneezes again. ‘I am making little sense.’

‘One may make most sense of all when one makes no sense at all.’

Up a slope of crowded roofs, smoke haemorrhages from a cleft house.

Jacob tries to find the House of Wistaria, but Nagasaki is a labyrinth. ‘Do believers in karma, Doctor, believe that one’s… one’s unintentional sins come back to haunt one not in the next life but within this one, within a single lifetime?’

‘Whatever your putative crime, Domburger,’ Marinus produces an apple for them each, ‘I doubt it can be so bad that our current situation is a measured and justified punishment.’ He puts his apple to his mouth-

The artillery blast this time knocks both men over.

Jacob comes to, curled up like a boy under blankets in a haunted room.