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Corean Dawn excerpt (Page 5)
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struction, with its ruined and crumbling walls, testimony to past glories of an ancient, earlier dy¬nasty. He quietly stared at the massive Yankee ship in the harbor, aware that passing Japanese be¬hind him were pointing at him, babbling. Reality was that the Japanese knew that the only Westerner in Chaoshien had slain one of them, while Corean officials protected yet denied his existence even as he stood before them. Tubert made no effort to conceal the weapon or the pouch that so evoked their interest.
Pusan’s Japanese consul general administered law to some ten thousand Japanese, half of them among the floating population whose sole business was fishing. The valuable fisher¬ies laying off the coast and in the adjacent archipelago were turning an annual yield of ten million herring, and half a million cod.
He overheard the contemptuous words “bakka” for crazy, and “gaijin” for barbarian, from the passing Japanese.
‘Mihashi's younger brother has done a masterful job with his posters, pledging to destroy me on the streets here and, more recently, in Chemulpo, though my unclear status protects me,’ Tubert thought, smiling, deriving satisfaction from a reputation for deadliness among these supposedly reformed warrior-bandit intruders, patting the hide bag in view of the people who approached no closer than fifty paces. ‘Good for these back-stab¬bing pirates to see my trophy of justice and revenge. I hope it continues to keep them at a distance and thinking twice before coming at me.’
He was early for that day’s meeting Corean officials not yet visible for the trip to the American ship. Tubert watched junks and sampans in the harbor’s waters, aware that crews and water craft of China Kang were among them, and that only his status as a liaison between the foreign devils and Corean officials prevented Kang’s people coming at him for turning his back to the Corean smuggler years earlier. Then his thoughts turned to the night he had seen the beautiful, nude Corean sea goddess on the smuggler’s boat coming to shore, and the sweetness of her memory saddened him.
‘I’m past the age when most Corean males marry,’ thought Tubert. ‘And the best years are surely past. But there’s been no time, and no family, to arrange that and the operations have prevented even Crane from marrying. The permanent ground at Chemulpo should change that. That kisaeng in Seoul is as beautiful as the girl Pae was years ago, but the kisaeng will never be as sweet and is dangerous. I can’t go without female companionship forever. Somehow, someday, I'll have my place, my fortune and my own woman.’
He drove the scent and memory of the kisaeng from his mind.
Tubert idly watched the tumble down Japanese steamers running between the ports of Chaoshien moving behind the American flagship. Within two days, Shufeldt would sail from Pusan, and begin coordinating the papers and efforts that would open Chaoshien.
That day or the next, Tubert knew, T’ang and his sampan would arrive here for him. He brushed aside the vision of his future trading post and home, and the enjoyed with pleasure the thought of Pak chaffing that he was not here in Pusan, at Tubert’s side.
The sight of the immense vessel, one hundred and sixty feet in length, and looming almost twenty feet above the water line, overwhelmed him, and once again, although
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