The crew in the eta village

Through the marshy outskirts of Yedo, Blackthorne finds his crew: van Nekk urinating drunkenly off the veranda under a limp Dutch flag, Vinck, Sonk, Salamon, Croocq, Ginsel and sour Jan Roper, in a filthy room with a fly-crusted haunch of meat, a still, lice, and six cowering "doxies". The crew did nothing to the ship: Toranaga's samurai careened her, copied her sails in silk and put the cannon back. He promises the high seas in a month and prizes beyond dreams, but says nothing of hatamoto, Fujiko, Mariko or Nagasaki. Then he realises where they live: an eta village, and sits befouled while Vinck praises the eaters of meat. Walking back he tears off his flea-infested kimono, bathes twice and sleeps in the bath house. At dawn he dives under Erasmus's keel and in his empty cabin plans to snatch Rodrigues and buy rutters at Nagasaki. Fujiko slides open the shoji.

The crew in the eta village is the book's comic and sour counterweight to the samurai ethic. Clavell has Blackthorne see his own men through Japanese eyes and then wash twice, the conversion made visible as hygiene. The chapter closes on a plan for Nagasaki that the rutters and the priests will overtake.