Casca 17: The Warrior (11 page)

The return of Sonolo's canoe with its cargo of ten muskets was an occasion for great rejoicing in the village. Semele, Mbolo, and Casca each rode in the stern of a twenty-man canoe to greet Sonolo at the opening in the reef, while every other craft in the village hung back a little behind them

The three canoes traveled abreast from the shore, Semele and Mbolo pulling as lustily on their paddles as Casca was on his. If any one of the three was tired when they got to the reef, it was Casca, and he resolved once again that he must spend more time in the canoes. It irked him to see these old men plying their paddles so effortlessly when he was starting to tire.

Sonolo dropped his sail as soon as he had negotiated the opening to the reef, and lines of plaited vines were passed aboard to be taken up by the three canoes. The sixty men ceremoniously towed the sail canoe to the beach below the village, and where every man, woman, and child who could not fit into one of the boats waited.

The three canoes ran up onto the beach and a hundred hands seized the lines to haul the sail canoe ashore. Semele, Mbolo, and Casca took up positions on the beach, and the single crate containing the guns was placed before them with great ceremony. Casca was impatient to inspect the contents, but was forced to sit in silence while Sonolo told the entire story of his voyage from Levuka to the island. The great kava bowl was brought from the chief's house, the whale's tooth on its long rope placed at Sonolo's feet, and he was offered the first bib of kava.

The second bib was offered to the crate, and Mbolo clapped in acceptance on its behalf, took the bib and poured it over the crate, clapped his hands three times, intoned "matha," and returned the cup.

Now, thought Casca, but he was deceived. The bibo passed next to Semele, then to Mbolo, then to himself, and then it seemed around the entire population of the village. Although it was not yet noon, Casca began to wonder if he would get to see the guns by daylight.

Eventually, when some protocol that Casca could not even guess at had been satisfied, Sonolo shouldered the crate and the whole village headed for the chief's house.

Casca looked around for a keg of gunpowder, and not seeing one, began to feel very uneasy.

At the chief's house the whole procedure was repeated again, this time Casca noting that his own importance had somehow been subtly diminished, although only very slightly.

"The hell with rank," he muttered to himself, just so long as he got the full works."

But still Casca had to wait.

Sonolo now went into a detailed description of the island of Ovalau as seen from the sea when he approached it on the deck of the
Rangaroa
. This was followed by an immensely more detailed description of the town of Levuka.

In spite of his impatience Casca was moved to admiration. A trained engineer surveyor in Caesar's legions could not have done better, could not even have done as well.

Sonolo described the arc of buildings that spanned the waterfront, and the British fort that guarded the harbor, although most of its guns were trained inland as a precaution against insurrection; Cakabau's white palace with its flag flying, a miniature replica, it seemed to Casca, of Buckingham Palace in London, where the King of England lived. Sonolo described the many ships that jammed the roads in the harbor, the dress of their seamen, and the strange cargoes he saw unloaded.

He explained his interview with the CSR Company agent, the signing of the contracts, and then, to Casca's
complete astonishment, he recounted the auctioning of each of the hundred men, ending each individual tale with the amount for which each man was sold.

As he got to this piece of information everybody in the room would cheer at the figure, and then there would be some spirited conversation as all of the sold man's most intimate friends confirmed that he was well worth the price.

These prices ranged between three and ten pounds, amounts which meant nothing to the islanders, but they cheered just the same. But to Casca the sums indicated that human flesh was indeed cheap in these parts. Assuming that the plantation owner also had to pay Captain Bentley a pound or two for the transportation of his men, he would be buying his slaves for less than fifty American dollars each.

"Too damned cheap," he muttered to himself, and quickly realized that the company agent had probably organized a closed auction to swindle Sonolo of the true price of his tribesmen.

As far as Casca could tell, Sonolo had been similarly swindled in the price of the muskets, as almost all of the money received for the men had apparently gone to their purchase.

At last, and after much more ceremony, the crate was opened, and Casca was relieved to see that they were first class, muzzle-loading, cap and ball muskets made by Bonehill, one of the best English gunsmiths. He was even more relieved to see that the crate contained ramrods, a plentiful supply of shot and caps, and ten powder horns.

Sonolo set up a demonstration of the power of the weapons. He used a number of men to represent the logs of the outer palisade of the village, and set up his musketeers behind them. Other men representing Cakabau's warriors took up some of the muskets and went through a dumb show of expending their charges uselessly on the stockade logs, each of which reacted comically by clutching at himself as if hit with something like a flying stone, while the defending musketeers crouching behind him laughed lustily.

Then the men with the muskets came out from cover and gleefully dispatched Cakabau's men, each of whom clutched at himself somewhere to indicate that he had been hit.

They clearly had no real idea of the efficacy of gunfire, as the defenders also made great show of clubbing the shot men, who presumably were merely dazed by musket balls through the stomach, ribs, eyes, genitals.

Casca enjoyed the show immensely, and so did everybody else. But Sonolo was not finished.

At a signal his crewmen produced a number of other crates, which held all manner of trade goods. There were cheap, gaudy lengths of cotton from Manchester, vastly inferior in quality and design to the tapa cloth made on the island; mirrors, beads, some shovels and hoes and other farming tools; a few axes and several knives.

The goods were gleefully passed from hand to hand around the room, and within a few minutes there was blood all over everything as one after another they cut themselves on the sharp edges of the steel tools. It didn't at all dampen their enthusiasm or spoil their fun but rather added to it, each new wound being greeted with shrieks of delighted laughter from both victim and those around him.

Sonolo had one more surprise, and at first Casca was as delighted as anybody to see it. His crew men dragged in one more large crate and opened it to reveal several dozen bottles of Scotch whiskey.

The first bottle was opened, poured a cupful at a time into the bilo, and passed back and forth as if it were kava. Casca was the fourth to be treated, and downed the several ounces of whiskey at a gulp, as was the custom with kava.

He clapped his hands happily as he passed back the bib, saying "matha," it is empty, with gusto.

But somewhere along the line the ceremonial distribution of the liquor faltered, and soon bottles were being opened all over the house and passed from hand to hand, everybody gulping the whiskey greedily from the neck of the bottle.

Semele saw what was happening and had the good sense to quickly secure half a dozen bottles for the chiefs. Indeed, Casca wound up with a bottle to himself, which suited him very well.

It was Casca's first drink since leaving the railroad camp many months earlier, and he savored each mouthful, pleasurably feeling it warming his gut all the way down and then rising back up to his brain. By the time he had consumed about a quarter of the bottle he was starting to feel pretty good.

A number of the villagers were even more enthusiastic, and quite unaccustomed to the firewater, were soon reeling more or less senselessly about the room, giggling and stumbling and having a great time.

Sonolo especially was very quickly the worse for the liquor, and Casca reflected what a stroke of luck it was that the man's sense of duty had brought him home before he had opened the case. Had he done so on Ovalau, it was clear the muskets would never have left that island.

Around the room the liquor was taking more and more effect. The young girls were all very quickly affected, and left the back of the room to dance lewdly before the chiefs. Several young men jumped up to dance with them, the dance quickly degenerating into hugging and fondling. The normally modestly behaved girls responded willingly to the pawing, and several couples only managed to make it outside through the intervention of the older women, before coupling.

But soon some of the older women were up there dancing, too, and being pawed, and in turn dragged off.

Casca was amused and highly entertained. Numerous girls danced before him and tried to drag him to his feet, in spite of Vivita's manifest disapproval. But Casca was in no mood for coupling with a drunk. He was enjoying his first drink in many months and was content to sip away at his bottle, and be entertained by the antics going on around him.

Semele and Mbolo seemed to have the same idea, and so did their women. Ateca and Duana sat alongside their men, talking to Setole, Mbolo's sister, and taking an occasional appreciative sip from their bottles, but clearly with no intention of getting drunk. Casca was pleased (he couldn't quite understand why) to see that Vivita, too, behaved in this dignified, chief's wife fashion.

Most of the chiefs' wives were similarly abstemious, and by no means due to their men's example. All of the minor chiefs were making pigs of themselves, like Sonolo.

Sakuvi, the farmer chief, a quiet, dignified man, became surly and glowered at Sonolo. Casca had been told that the farmer was a formidable warrior who had fought with considerable distinction in many battles throughout his life. It seemed now that the firewater had brought out some deep-seated resentment toward the warrior chief.

Sonolo sensed Sakuvi's temperament and reacted similarly, the two sneering and snarling at each other, striking aggressive poses in which they mimicked and ridiculed each other.

Casca had seen a thousand situations like this result in murderous fights, and he glanced at Semele, expecting the wise old man to ameliorate the situation. But either he, too, had been affected by the alcohol, or possibly a fight between chiefs was nobody's business but their own.

Casca was furious. The battle with Cakabau's force might be only days away, could happen tomorrow, and if the men from Bau arrived in force, the village would not have one man too many for its defense. Yet here were perhaps the two best warriors about to try and kill each other. His anger grew at his powerlessness. Hell, he was Casca, the war chief, but his limited knowledge of the customs and the language made him a powerless onlooker.

Sakuvi and Sonolo were now quite close, within arm's reach of each other, muttering insults, sneering, snarling, but so drunk that much of what they said was meaningless mumbling, their threatening poses becoming absurd as one or the other of them would stumble and almost fall.

Suddenly they were grappling. For the moment their drunkenness was overcome by their exertion as each strained for the advantage.

To Casca it was pretty poor wrestling. There were no recognizable holds or subtle use of leverage, but merely a push and pull dispute between two very strong men.

But what the contest lacked in sophistication was made up for in drunken malice. In a moment the two were on the ground, kicking, biting, punching, clawing at each other. Sakuvi grabbed Sonolo by the balls, Sonolo butted him heavily in the face, and he let go. Sonolo brought up his knee to catch Sakuvi in the same place, and he doubled up in pain. Then Sonolo had him in a strangle hold, Sakuvi too drunk and too hurt to get out of it.

Sakuvi's eyes bulged from his head, his tongue protruded; there was little chance that Sonol
o could break the great, columnar neck, but he could certainly crush the windpipe and keep it closed.

Which is just what happened.
The primitive hold worked for Sonolo, his opponent drunkenly incapable of countering it. Very soon Sonolo was strangling a corpse, too drunk to realize that the fight was over.

And it wasn't. All over the house new fights were breaking out as partisans of the two chiefs attacked each other. And then people were attacking each other for no reason at all.

Casca saw a number of men who were not drunk striving to break up the fights and only succeeding in getting involved in them.

The axes and knives, forgotten while everybody was drinking peaceably, now began to appear. One shambling, stumbling drunk with an axe falling about in every direction, flailing with it as he went, slicing off an ear here, a hand there, a few fingers somewhere else, didn't even realize what he was doing. People were stabbing each other, gouging out eyes, hacking off arms and legs. Their nervous systems, desensitized by the unaccustomed dose of the second most powerful anesthetic known, caused them to be not only unaware of the extent of their own injuries, but totally disinterested in the pain they were inflicting. The entire room was one gigantic bloodbath.

Casca looked at Semele and Mbolo, but neither of the big chiefs made a move.