ARRESTED AS SPIES IN JAPAN
FOR two weeks we led an indolent life in Kyoto. Then the craving for
the trail struck us again and with the help of an American, who had
long resided in Japan, we mapped out an itinerary that would carry us
into a remote country, penetrated by less than half a dozen foreigners.
In the early morning we set out from Kyoto on foot, and we did not
know that we were plunging headlong into an adventure which would
reverberate clear into the Department of State at Washington before we
again mingled in the bustling crowds of Kyoto.
On the shore of Lake Biwa we boarded a steamer and sailed fifty miles
to the village of Imasu. A night in a Japanese inn, and we walked
twenty-five miles, the following day, to Obama on the Sea of Japan. We
passed through an endless chain of picturesque villages. Our entrance
to these small towns was a great source of interest to the inhabitants,
who rushed to the doors or windows of their shops and houses, or
poured into the streets to look us over. They scanned our clothes
with the frankest sort of curiosity. They were especially impressed
with our heavy leather shoes which they examined carefully, usually
turning away to hide their smiles. In village after village we caused a
cessation of business and household duties until we were out of sight.
Our advent and departure were probably the main topic of discussion the
rest of the day.
At Obama we devoted a full hour to vigorous gesticulation with
our hands before we could convey the idea into the head of an inn
proprietor that we wanted a bed.
That night we slept on the footstool of adventure.
At dawn we sailed out of the narrow cove into the Sea of Japan. The
coast on this run is a beautiful panorama of bays and inlets supported
in the background by richly wooded hills. Green and pretty villages
stud the shore.
Richardson was taken with the beauty of these villages. He unslung his
camera and snapped a picture of one of them from the steamer deck. The
kodak was barely back in its case before a deck hand skipped to the
captain's cabin and made a report. The captain summoned Richardson
posthaste. The whole ship bristled with excitement.
It developed that we were in Maisuru Bay, the chief naval base of
Japan, and therefore one of the zones in which it is unlawful to take
pictures. Richardson refused to get excited. He gave the captain the
roll of films, together with his Kyoto address, requested him to have
it developed, destroy the illegal picture and return the others. The
captain said he would. We thought the incident was closed.
But it wasn't. It had just begun. In a few minutes our steamer was at
the dock and we went down the gangway to board a train for our return
trip to Kyoto. I had sunk comfortably down into my seat and opened a
book when a Japanese in uniform rushed up waving his hands and shouting
at me in his native language.
"Beat it," I said. I thought he was crazy. The excited officer stood
moving his hands in a manner which would indicate in a western country
that he wanted me to remain where I was. The impatient man finally left
the car. Richardson came in.
"What in blazes is the matter with that Jap? He must be drunk," I said.
"He's a cop. We are both under arrest for that picture," said
Richardson. "The captain reported it to the police."
The officer in uniform came back twisting his hands in the air like an
insane man. I didn't realise that these movements were equivalent to
the American beckoning sign, so I remained seated. He lurched over and
gripped my shoulder. Richardson had gone out. I got up and in three
seconds found myself with him in the midst of two hundred incensed
natives.
Other police and a couple of military officers had come up.
Richardson's camera had been taken from him. We stood in the midst
of this gathering while the uniformed officers held a conference. We
couldn't understand a word. They finally led us away. For an hour
Richardson and I, accompanied by two policemen, marched abreast. We
concluded that they had decided to walk us to death. At last we arrived
at an edifice from which a Japanese flag was flying, and in front
of which two sentinels stood on duty. This was the military police
court and prison. We were ushered in and were greeted by half-a-dozen
officers in uniforms who bowed and bobbed around with as much ceremony
as though we were two caliphs of Bagdad. They were the politest lot of
policemen we ever saw.
The military judge was on the bench and we were taken into his presence
with many smiles and salaams. We tried to tell the judge that we loved
the Japanese people very dearly and we wanted to go back to Kyoto. He
couldn't understand a word. No one else could. We had nothing to do but
wait for an interpreter, whom one of the clerks of the court was sent
out to obtain. The Japanese were very serious. We were not impressed
and made irreverent remarks about the judge and the court officials.
We waited until noon and as we were hungry we made this fact known by
means of writing, for one of the clerks could read English, after a
fashion, but could not speak it. Permission was granted us to dine.
Richardson asked the court to pay the bill. The request, after an
half-hour conference, was refused. We set out with two policemen to a
Japanese hotel where we ate a fifteen-minute meal in an hour and a
half while the two officers remained on guard at the door.
In the afternoon the "interpreter" came. We expected to see an American
or, at least, some one who understood the English language. Instead
there stood before us a little Jap who looked like a miniature pugilist
and knew about as much English as a two-year-old child. He started his
cross-examination by the regular preliminary bows and genuflections and
kept at this performance for so long a time that when he began to speak
we expected a masterpiece. His first utterance was,
"I am sorry the _e_-vent has happened."
"So are we, old top," put in Richardson. "But cut out this nonsense. We
have a date in Kyoto." Richardson might as well have been talking to a
parsnip.
The cross-examination finally got under way and proceeded laboriously.
We were asked every conceivable question,--our names, ages,
nationalities, occupations, parents' names and their occupations, our
reasons for being away from home, the length of time we had been away
from the United States, where were we going and why, had we ever been
convicted of any crime in America, our reason for taking the picture,
our domicile and acquaintances in Kyoto. These and many more questions
were asked us extending over a period of six hours.
Under the heading of occupation, we stated that we were school
teachers, being the first and most harmless vocation we could think
of. Right here, the court found a huge inconsistency. This vocation
did not compare with the records received from the hotel registers.
Every guest, on arrival at an hotel, is required to give his occupation
when registering and this is turned over to the police with the other
information. Richardson and I, not having any definite vocation, signed
up under different callings in each hotel. We dug up all the antiquated
and unusual means of earning a living that our imaginations could
muster. The list included ventriloquist, crutch-maker, chiropodist,
clairvoyant, boilermaker, hypnotist and wig-maker. The judge confronted
us with this array of honourable vocations, which he had obtained from
the police records, and demanded an explanation. Richardson rose to
the occasion. In a short time he had us out of the trap. He explained
that English was very flexible; that it was a language replete with
synonyms; and that it contained numerous words which meant the same
thing. He went into a lengthy dissertation in which he thoroughly
convinced the judge that crutch-maker, chiropodist, etc., all meant
school teacher and that each simply emphasised a different phase of the
vocation.
The questioning convinced the court that it had little hold on me
except as an accomplice of Richardson. The latter was the man caught
in the act. On my suggestion they allowed me to return to Kyoto
accompanied by an officer. Richardson was held all night for further
examination.
I arrived in Kyoto about midnight and immediately retired. In the
morning I met the advisory secretary of the Y.M.C.A. who had heard of
our trouble by telegraph, as the Maisuru authorities had referred our
story to him for verification. The news of the incident had spread
throughout Japan. Great crowds gathered in front of the Kyoto newspaper
offices where bulletins announced that two American spies had been
arrested at Maisuru and that in their possession were found pictures
of battleships, sketches of harbours and plans of forts. The newspaper
accounts described us as poor men, due to the fact that Richardson,
expecting he would have to put up a bond, said he had but twelve yen,
when asked the amount of money he had. The report that we were poverty
stricken was also due to the fact that we wore blue flannel shirts,
the proper attire for walking--but not one in which the Japanese are
accustomed to see Americans. The press reports also referred to us
as suspicious looking characters and stated that we did not take the
matter seriously, as we jested in the courtroom.
The following account under the heading, "The Spy Scare--American
Photographers Arrested," was taken from an English paper in Kobe and is
a translation of an article which appeared in a Japanese journal:
"We learn from a Maisuru despatch to the _Asahi_ that two foreign
passengers of the _Daiichi Hashidate-maru_, which arrived at Maisuru
at 9:20 A.M. on the 21st from Obama, photographed the first section
of the Maisuru Naval Station when the steamer approached the entrance
to the harbour of Shin-Maisuru. They took over ten pictures, which
distinctly showed even the warships in the harbour. The action was
observed by some members of the crew of the steamer and, upon arrival
at Maisuru, they reported the matter to the Maisuru gendarmerie station
through the Maisuru Water Police. Gendarmes immediately appeared on
board the steamer and arrested the foreigners and conducted them to
the gendarmerie station. Upon examination they were found to be two
Americans from California named Richardson (aged 24) and Fletcher
(aged 26). Mr. Richardson, continues the despatch, is the son of a
doctor, and was teaching at a school in Honolulu. In October he left
Honolulu with Mr. Fletcher for a tour around the world, and they
arrived at Yokohama on the 1st instant. Proceeding to Kyoto, they
took up their quarters at the Christian Institute at Sanjo-dori, and
on the 19th instant left Kyoto for a tour in the interior. They took
a steamer at Otsu and proceeded to Imasu and Obama. They spent two
days at the latter place and left there on the morning of the 21st
by the _Hashidate-maru_ for Maisuru. They stated that they had no
ulterior motives in photographing the Naval Station, but, concludes
the despatch, their behaviour when they took the photographs was
suspicious. The fact that the two foreigners were not very well
dressed, and had no more than twelve yen in their possession, appears
to have aroused suspicion. Eventually they were handed over to the
Procurator's office, where they are now being examined by Procurator
Ogata."
[Illustration: THE PICTURE THAT CAUSED OUR ARREST]
On the morning after my arrival in Kyoto I was interviewed by the
Chief of Police of that city, assisted by an interpreter. During the
examination the door opened and outside stood Richardson who had been
escorted from Maisuru by an officer. We, however, were not allowed to
get together and discuss the matter for fear we would frame up a story.
The Chief of Police first finished with me and then called Richardson
in for a session.
We were advised by the American secretary of the Y.M.C.A. not to
volunteer the statement that we had been in the employ of the United
States Navy Department in Hawaii. He said if the Japanese authorities
got this information, it would be very difficult for us to prove that
we were not spies and in that event the case would have to be handled
by the American Embassy. This, he thought, would mean our detention in
the country for a couple of months. Fortunately, a question of this
nature was not asked us.
Accounts of the affair were printed in all the leading papers of the
Far East, including Japan, Korea, China and the Philippines. The
Associated Press obtained the news and the dailies of the Pacific
Coast in America displayed several columns of distorted accounts. A
Honolulu journal considered it of sufficient importance to give it
the following full front page headline: "Honolulu Men Languish in a
Japanese Jail."
This was not all. The news had found its way to Washington, and our
little incident of Maisuru Bay set the wheels of diplomacy of two
nations in motion. My brother, reading the Associated Press reports in
the San Francisco papers and imagining that we were being subjected to
Oriental tortures in a Japanese jail, telegraphed the State Department
at Washington. He received the following reply from Mr. Huntington
Wilson, Acting Secretary of State at that time, under President Taft:
"Department telegraphed Embassy at Tokyo to-day to ascertain facts
and endeavour to secure your brother's release." The ambassador in
Tokyo got in touch with the situation and replied that Richardson and
I were being well treated and that as soon as proved innocent would
be liberated. This information was sent to my brother by the State
Department.
In the meantime we were battling with the Japanese authorities in
Kyoto. We wanted to get back our camera. It was a regulation to
confiscate all cameras which had been used in taking illegal pictures.
We finally convinced the police that we had no ulterior motives and,
after promising to leave Japan at once and giving an itinerary of
our route out of the country, we were released. The Kyoto Chief
of Police returned the camera, with an impressive speech, and the
two of us retired from the courtroom without ceremony, while the
numerous officials nearly broke their backs bowing. By a mistake the
objectionable picture was left in the camera and we departed with the
film of the little Maisuru Bay village in our possession.
Nor did the incident end here. We left immediately for Kobe, and
from there took the Inland Sea trip as far south as Miajima. We had
supposed that all the nonsense over our arrest had ended and that we
were free from the pest of Japanese police. But there was more to come.
We spent a day at Miajima, undisturbed by officials, the first time
in several days, for the reason that we omitted to put this place on
the itinerary. From Miajima we went by train to Chimeneseki and thence
across by boat to Fusan in Korea. Being still in Japanese territory we
were greeted by two policemen, who had received a cable to watch out
for a couple of Americans and keep them moving. After a few hours in
Fusan, under competent guards, we went on to Seoul.
We arrived after dark, and as our train was pulling into the station
we saw two policemen on the right hand side of the track. We stole a
march on these officers of the law by getting out on the left side.
We scrambled around the rear of the train and were soon in rickshaws
and in a few minutes were registered guests of a Japanese hotel. The
proprietor sent the usual records to the police station, but before the
officers were detailed on our trail we were up and out at an early hour
the next morning. We went to the Y.M.C.A. where we were the guests of
two young Koreans.
The police spent the day looking for us and did not locate us until
evening, when they found us dining at an American private home. They
had evidently been given instructions to watch every movement we
made, for during the rest of our week's stay in Seoul we were each
accompanied by an officer.
To add to our reputation as undesirable citizens, a Japanese guide,
travelling with a Thomas Cook and Son party on our train into Seoul,
reported to the police that there were two suspicious looking
characters on board. This information, coupled with our already
unsavoury reputation, made the officers exceptionally vigilant. What
we could do to harm the innocent inhabitants of Seoul or damage their
meagre possessions is a mystery.
Day and night these little fellows kept watch. They marched by our side
as we took in the sights of the city and at night two of them were
stationed on the steps of the Y.M.C.A. building to see that we didn't
make a midnight getaway and shoot up the town. They went so far as to
regulate our engagements. We were invited to be guests of a prominent
Japanese family during our stay in Seoul but the police issued an order
that we could not accept. They gave as their reasons that we were
moving about too much and that it would be embarrassing for a respected
household to entertain two criminals.
I had received an invitation to dine with some English friends and had
accepted, determined to keep this engagement even if doing so caused
international complications. While the policemen were at their posts
on the front steps of the Y.M.C.A. I left the house by the back door,
climbed over the fence, jumped into a rickshaw and was on my way. After
a good meal and a pleasant evening I returned to the Y.M.C.A. about
eleven o'clock and walked up the front steps between the two officers.
From a semi-doze they were instantly transformed into two of the most
excited and enraged men I have ever seen. The characteristic etiquette
of the Far East was forgotten and they bestowed upon me numerous
epithets which, if translated, would probably have taught me all the
profanity in the Japanese language. I left them on the steps and went
to bed.
This incident made the police especially watchful next day, but in
spite of their precautions we played horse with them. We had had enough
of this nonsense and decided to leave Seoul without notifying our
escorts. We framed up a scheme for our escape which we carried out in
such a manner that it appeared as though we were experienced crooks.
Through an American we made arrangements to ship our baggage to
Chemulpo and, relieved of our belongings, we thought we could make
short work of the police. It was about ten o'clock on a dark night. We
were in a native shop buying fruit. The police stood at the entrance
engrossed in conversation.
"Now is the time to make our getaway," I said.
"I am ready," said Richardson. "What's your plan?"
Our train would not leave for an hour. In a few hurried words I
suggested that we slip out the back door, light out separately for the
station and meet as soon as we could.
"All right," said Richardson, "if we can't outrun these short-legged
pests we are no good."
We stole out into the alley and made a dash, each in an opposite
direction. The shop-keeper called to the police but our flight had been
too sudden for them. They stood petrified. The moment's hesitation was
all we needed. By the time they had come to a conclusion that they
should pursue us, we were out of sight. We ran down alleys, hurdling
fences and seeking the dark streets. Richardson plunged through some
one's private yard, mutilating the flower beds, tearing his trousers on
the garden fence and before long was at the station. I completed the
home-stretch of my escape by grabbing a rickshaw, placing the coolie in
the seat, giving him my hat and playing the part of horse myself. It
took ten minutes' persuasion and five yen to induce the man to agree to
such an arrangement. A coolie will do anything for money. In this way
I sauntered down the street, unnoticed, pulling an Oriental overcome
with amazement. Two blocks from the station I discharged the rickshaw
and walked towards the freight yards. In three-quarters of an hour we
found one another and crawled into a box-car to wait for the departure
of our train.
The police had lost the scent and we were free. We spent a few hours
in Chemulpo, the first real freedom we had enjoyed for weeks. From
Chemulpo we took a steamer and after a day at Dairen in Southern
Manchuria, _en route_, we turned our attentions to China and forgot our
Japanese troubles.