of reserve supplies on which to draw. Furthermore, no Fijian could be persuaded to carry these arms into battle. Lockerby once did persuade Tui Bua to discharge a pistol, but the latter never again attempted this.
Even so, had Lockerby desired the position, he and his friend Tui Bua could have built up a large stock of arms and armament stores from the sandalwood ships, and made themselves masters of the sandalwood coast with the help of beachcombers and deserters, whose numbers were already increasing. But Lockerby, although brave and resourceful enough in battle, was not anxious to stay and be the commander in chief of the forces of Bua; he wanted mostly to return to his home and desired no native lands or title.
Tui Bua, his lands already showing the depredation of the sandalwood cutters, had only a short time left in which to trade before all his assets would be gone. This he did not realize, nor did he heed the lessons he had taught his enemies. He never regained the power that had been his before the attack on Tavea.
But another chief was to learn and utilize the advantages of the new arm of warfare through another sailor, who not only waged war on the chief's behalf but also was able to service and repair the weapons he used.
This chief was Ratu Naulivou Radonodono, or Ra Matenikutu (the lice killer), and chief of Bau, and his gunner was to become famous as Charlie Savage.
Little is known of Savage's early days except that he was Swedish and hailed from Udwala. His real name was Kalle Svenson, the first name becoming easily corrupted to Charlie when he subsequently served on American or British ships. He arrived in Fiji in the American brig Eliza in june, 1808, while Lockerby was at Bua. Savage had joined the ship at Tongatapu a few days previously, having been beachcombing in Tonga, for how long is not known, but at least long enough to acquire a smattering of the language of Tonga and a few words of Fijian. There were at that time a considerable number of whites in Tonga-shipwrecked sailors, deserters and beachcombers. It is not certain from which of these categories Savage was recruited, but he appears to have been a competent seaman as well as an interpreter for the Eliza after the brig was wrecked at Nairai.
It is probably at about this period that he had adopted the name "Savage" which may have been the diminutive of a nickname "Charlie the Savage." His later actions seem to bear out the possession of a roistering, undisciplined character. Anyone earning such a name among the depraved men on the beach would have had to be as fierce and ruthless as Savage was shortly to prove himself to be.
When the Eliza was wrecked the crew was, for a while, marooned at the village of Lawaki on Nairai Island. Soon afterward, the captain persuaded the chief to allow him to take the whaleboat and some of the officers and crew to try to reach Sandalwood Bay about eighty miles away. During this period on the island, Savage lived with the Tui Lawaki away from the remainder of the crew. The men complained bitterly of their treatment at Lawaki, but the red-haired giant Swede as the chief's guest was suffering no such discomforts. He seemed to have had the knack of getting along well with Fijians. When the other crewmen left to go to the island of Batiki, Savage stayed on as the chief's guest, though he had left the island before the captain of the Eliza returned in his attempt to recover the lost dollars.
While Savage was living in splendour at Nairai, an impressive fleet of canoes called there, manned by Levuka people, a clan that formerly resided at Bau but which was now scattered all over the islands. Under their chief, Daulakeba, they were on their way from Lakeba to install the Vunivalu of Bau, Ratu Naulivou, as Tui Levuka.
Daulakeba suggested to Tui Lawaki that he should take the vigorous red-haired young man, who was so attractively coloured, to serve the Vunivalu. So when the fleet sailed from Nairai in the chief's canoe there traveled a young man far from his own home and people, entering an almost unknown world. For Bau was at that time a small chieftaincy surrounded by larger and much more powerful neighbours-Rewa and Verata.
Ratu Naulivou had had several of his canoes aiding the enemies of Tui Bua, and his warriors had brought back reports of the superiority of firearms over the conventional weapons of the Fijians. On arrival at Bau, Savage was quick to realize the ambitions of Ratu Naulivou to enlarge the Bauan territory. Anxious to make a name for himself, Charlie brought up the subject of the "crooked things like a gala (snake) club" that the white men used to such good effect in battle. Before long, at the behest of the chief, Savage returned to Nairai to search for muskets, but everything that had been taken off the Eliza seemed to have disappeared. Obviously some had been taken by various members of the crew when they left, and possibly other articles had been picked up by Lockerby's boat party. Savage and his companions were just about to leave empty-handed when the young seaman noticed a musket that had been placed on the ridgepole of a yam house as a decoration. The musket was taken down and found to be in repairable condition.
Back again at Bau, Savage shut himself up in his house and thoroughly cleaned and checked the weapon before he demonstrated it to the warriors. When he emerged he set a thick canoe deck plank on its edge and, training the musket on it, opened fire. The report both deafened and temporarily stunned the onlookers, whose first reaction was anger that they had been frightened and that Savage had not warned them what to expect. Seizing the initiative, before he was clubbed for his temerity, Savage now drew their attention to the hole in the thick deep plank of the canoe and invited any of the warriors present to try to pierce it with a spear, or to break it up with a club.
Thus the warriors of Bau were made aware of the potentialities of the new weapon, but only Savage knew of its present limitations—the supply of powder, wad-ding and ball. He managed to convince Ratu Naulivou of this limitation before using the new arm in battle, and he was soon off to Lau, again in the care of Daulakeba, to search another wreck from which he returned triumphant, not only with powder, ball and more muskets, but also with a supply of cloth for wadding.
His first employment of the new weapon was a masterpiece of the conservation of ammunition and tactical use of the musket. It was the attack on the fortifications of Nakelo, Rewa.
Nakelo, on the Rewa River delta, was an important place on the water highway between Bau and Rewa. For a long time Bau canoes had been forbidden to pass Nakelo, resulting in a much longer voyage around the byways of the delta. The village was surrounded by a stockade, as were all the delta villages, and was considered to be impregnable, never having been breached.
Instead of pouring musket fire haphazardly through the wickerwork breastwork, Savage had a high platform built which enabled him to see over the stockade. From the platform, and protected from spears by a small shelter with an embrasure where he could sight and fire, he discharged deadly fire on the defenders, picking off the chief and the most important warriors first. All were easily identified by their dress. Terrified, the Nakelo people stampeded out of the fort to be cut down by the waiting Bau warriors. The Bauans suffered no loss; after burning the fort and village, they forced the remaining Nakelo men to dig a ditch through the peninsula. Successive tides widened the canal until it was possible for Bau canoes to pass through. This cutting has endured through the years.
Confident now of their new power, the Bau warriors roved farther afield on their canoe voyages, and it was not long after this that Savage and his companions came across a large party of Verata fishermen. Because of the discrepancy in numbers and the lowly status of Bau, it would normally have been necessary for the Bauans to seek safety in flight. But Savage, with the musket from which he was never parted, routed the fishermen.
MAP 4: Rewa and Bau Regions on Viti Levu
After this fight a full-scale attack was launched on Verata itself, using the technique developed at Nakelo. After the first few well-placed musket shots, the Verata defenders began to pour out of the fortified stockade in full flight. Savage, exulting in the apparent easy victory, rushed forward to tear down a portion of the stockade
