Once There Was Fire

by Stephen Shender

  Once Davis had healed sufficiently, he and Young tried to escape. “They went to the beach in the night and attempted to take a canoe,” my father said. “But anticipating such a development, Kamehameha had posted guards there and they were quickly apprehended.”

  The two haoles were brought before Kameha again. The guards had handled them roughly and were now gripping them tightly about their necks.

  “Release them, now!” Kamehameha ordered. He motioned to Young and Davis to sit and called for Ka‘iana. Turning to my father, who had joined him at his hale, he said, “It is natural that these haoles should try to flee.”

  Ka‘iana arrived to interpret. “Tell them that I understand why they would want to leave us,” Kamehameha said. “Tell them also that if they remain here and serve us well, they will be richly rewarded. And tell them that if they try to flee again, they will be slain.”

  Young and Davis thereafter settled into life among us.

  Some days later, Kamehameha commanded Young to accompany him, my father, Kame‘iamoku, and Ka‘iana to Ka‘ūpūlehu, where the Fair American remained grounded in the offshore shallows. At his bidding, Young dove into the water to examine the damaged hull and pronounced the ship salvageable. “Give this haole whatever he needs and whatever assistance he may require to repair this great canoe,” said Kameha. “Tell him I want him to teach our people how to paddle it and how to fight with the mūk‘e and kano‘ono. And tell the haoles that they must teach my brother and me how to speak the haole talk—this Ī‘īklī.”

  Ka‘iana saw to it that Young had as many craftsmen and laborers as he required to repair the Fair American. Under Young’s supervision, the Hawai‘ians hauled the schooner onto the beach and set to work. “Fortunately,” said my father, “the planking was still intact. The ship only needed some minor work to seal some cracks.” The Fair American carried sufficient pitch and other materials required to make these repairs and the Hawai‘ians had the ship afloat again within a fortnight.

  Davis soon joined Young at Ka‘ūpūlehu and the pair set about training the Hawai‘ians to sail the Fair American properly. “As our people were already excellent sailors, they learned quickly,” my father said. The Hawai‘ians were soon as adept at handling the schooner as any haole.”

  Leaving Young to continue training the Hawai‘ian sailors at Ka‘ūpūlehu, Ka‘iana and Davis returned to Kealakekua to resume schooling Kamehameha’s warriors in the use of haole weapons. The Hawai’ians soon coined their own names for these new weapons, whose sound they mimicked by saying “pū,” the Hawaiian word for conch. They began calling muskets pū po‘ohiwi—shoulder guns. Cannons they called pū kuni ahi—fire-kindler guns. Firearms in general soon became known throughout our islands as pū.

  “You are too familiar with Ka‘iana,” Kamehameha snapped at Ka‘ahumanu. “You must keep your distance from him.”

  “What? Is it now kapu for me to talk to other men?” Ka‘ahumanu rejoined.

  “No, it is not kapu,” Kamehameha said. “But I do not like the way you talk to Ka‘iana, or the way he talks to you.”

  “Then tell him it is kapu to talk to me.”

  “I have already decreed that it is kapu for other men to approach you familiarly,” Kamehameha replied. “And Ka‘iana well knows this.”

  “You decreed that it is kapu for other men to lie with me; you never said it is kapu for other men to talk with me, and Ka‘iana well knows that,” Ka‘ahumanu retorted.

  Kamehameha threw up his hands in frustration and stormed out of the hale he often shared at night with his youngest wife.

  “She vexes me to no end,” Kameha later complained to my father.

  “Perhaps you should speak to Ka‘iana,” my father said.

  “He is aware of the kapu,” Kamehameha said. “There is no point in reminding him.”

  Kamehameha was caught in a dilemma; he could not tell Ka‘ahumanu it was kapu for her to flirt with other men, else he would have to severely punish her, and he could not order Ka‘iana to ignore Ka‘ahumanu, lest he offend him at a time when he required the other man’s help. Thus, he said nothing to either of them and Ka‘ahumanu’s flirtation with Ka‘iana continued.

  Eventually, Ka‘iana responded; he could not help it. When Ka‘iana and ‘Olohana drilled Kamehameha’s warriors in the use of muskets, Ka‘ahumanu was always a ready audience. She would cast coy smiles in Ka‘iana’s direction and make provocative comments. “You are so adept with that pū po‘ohiwi,” she said to Ka‘iana one day. “Is there no end to your prowess?”

  “My prowess extends to many matters,” he said, grinning and flashing his teeth. “I have many skills I could teach you.”

  My father, whom Kamehameha had delegated to observe the drills in his place, overheard this exchange. “You should be more circumspect with Ka‘ahumanu,” he warned Ka‘iana. “Kamehameha will brook no violation of his kapu, not even by you, Ka‘iana.”

  “Can I help it if that wahine chooses to speak to me?” Ka‘iana replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I cannot ignore her; it would be rude.”

  My father could only shake his head and walk away.

  The arrival of Young and Davis so close together troubled Kamehameha.

  Thus, one morning, when his English had improved sufficiently to interrogate the Englishmen, Kamehameha summoned them to his hale. He also sent for Ka‘iana.

  “Ī‘ona, ‘Aikake, you say me: How many are your people?” Kamehameha asked the two haoles. “Are they many more than ours? Please, you speak true.”

  “You mean us English?” asked Young. They were all seated cross-legged on mats in Kamehameha’s courtyard at Ka‘awaloa. The day was still cool; a soft breeze played in the palm fronds overhead. A single dolphin broke the surface in the middle of the bay beyond and spun several times in mid-air before falling back to the water.

  “No, not you Ī‘īklī people only,” replied Kamehameha. “All haole people. How many there are?”

  “Many, many, Tamaahamaah,” said Davis. “English people, French people, Spanish people, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Americans—many more people than be here.” His voice trailed off.

  “Where they all come from?” my father asked.

  “Many come from England; many come from Europe and some others, like my captain, Simon Metcalf, come from America,” said Young.

  Kamehameha said nothing for a while. Then, in deliberate English, he asked, “All haoles, they have mūk‘e and kano‘ono?”

  “Oh yes,” Ka‘iana interjected, losing patience with this tedious exchange. “They all have muskets and cannons—more than you have ever seen, bigger ships than you have ever seen. But I have seen them in China and other places.”

  Kamehameha turned to Ka‘iana and narrowed his eyes as if to say, I did not ask you. But Ka‘iana’s intelligence had registered with him. Turning back to Young and Davis, he asked slowly in his ponderous English, “These haoles, who are so many, with so many great canoes and mūk‘e and kano‘ono, they come more here?”

  “Aye,” replied Davis. “Ye can count on that y’er highness. They be co-min’ here, an’ more ‘n more of ‘em fer sure.”

  “Why they come?” my father asked.

  Young made to reply, but before he could answer, Ka‘iana broke in once more. “They will come for the same reason the others have already come,” he said, again in Hawaiian. “Our islands are a convenient place for them to stop on their way to Kahiki, to China, where I have been.”

  Pointedly ignoring Ka‘iana, Kamehameha turned to Young and asked, “You say me true now, Ī‘ona, will these haoles want stay here?”

  “Mayhap they will,” Young said. “Y’er land is quite pleasant fer them.”

  “La‘ana?” my father hazarded. This word was new to him.

  “Āina!” snapped Ka‘iana. “Our own islands! The haoles like our islands.”

  Kamehameha glowered at Ka‘iana but said nothing. He signaled for him and the haoles to leave. When they had gone, Kame
ha turned to my father and said, “Keli‘i, we must stop fighting among ourselves before more of these haoles come. Otherwise, I fear we will grow weak as they grow strong.”

  “But Kameha,” my father said, “our people have fought each other for generations. Who will stop it?”

  “I will,” replied Kamehameha.

  Wailuku, Maui, 1790

  Kamehameha’s warriors had pushed their foes deep into the narrow ‘Īao Valley above Wailuku and hauled the Fair American’s bronze cannon and swivel guns behind them. It had taken them several days of hard fighting to reach this point from Kahului. Every foot of ground gained by Kameha’s warriors was soaked with the blood of Hawai‘ian and Maui fighters alike. Now the cannon, named “Robert” by ‘Olohana after his own father, and called Lopaka by the Hawai‘ians, was in position, along with the other guns, cannon balls, canister shot, kapa-cloth wads, and powder.

  Kamehameha and my father stood a short distance from the cannons. ‘Olohana and ‘Aikake stood directly behind the gunners, observing as they loaded the weapons with the practiced motions that the haoles had taught them. “Now!” Kamehameha shouted. The warriors holding smoldering kukui-oil-soaked cords lowered them to the weapons’ touch holes. Lopaka and the smaller guns roared, and the slaughter of Kalanikūpule’s people commenced.

  With Kahekili away on O‘ahu and his son still ruling Maui in his stead, Kameha had judged the time opportune for another invasion of the neighboring isle—especially now that he had secured muskets, cannons, a haole ship, and the aid of Young and Davis.

  First, however, he sought to unite his Big Island rivals behind him. Kamehameha sent Holo‘ae and my father to Ka‘ū and Hilo to seek their support. “Go to Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula and Keawema‘uhili.” he said, “Tell them that the time has come to avenge the eight hundred warriors of the ‘Ālapa and the Pi‘ipi‘i, including Keawema‘uhili’s own nephew, whom Kahekili’s people slew on Maui. Tell them I request their assistance, as their mō‘ī. Tell them that I have pū po‘ohiwi and pū kuni ahi, and a haole great canoe. Tell them that I will be forever in their debt if they lend me the assistance that I ask, and tell them that there will be a reckoning if they should refuse. This I vow, as their mō‘ī.” Holo‘ae and my father delivered Kameha’s message as directed. ”

  Keōua Red Cloak scorned Kamehameha’s request. “My cousin may call himself whatever he wishes,” he said, “but he does not rule in Ka‘ū; I do. You tell him that until the day comes when I no longer rule Ka‘ū, he is not the mō‘ī here. Tell him that I do not care about his haole weapons and I will not send him any of my people or canoes.”

  Keawema‘uhili—distrustful of Red Cloak and seeking an alliance with Kamehameha against him—was more amenable. “I will help Kamehameha avenge the deaths of the ‘Ālapa and the Pi‘ipi‘i,” he told my father and Holo‘ae. “Tell your mō‘ī that I will send him all the people and canoes I can spare, save for those I require to protect Hilo.”

  With the Fair American leading the way, Kamehameha’s fleet had landed at Kahului Bay in a hail of musket and cannon fire. Kamohomoho, who had become Kalanikūpule’s leading adviser after his victory over my father at Hana, had anticipated that the Hawai‘ians might attempt a landing at Kahului, with its wide sweep of sheltered beaches. Accordingly, he positioned several thousand of his warriors there to repulse them.

  “Kalanikūpule’s people rushed to the shore to oppose us,” my father said, “but Lopaka and our pū po‘ohiwi quickly drove them off.”

  Unopposed now, Kamehameha ordered the Hawai‘ians to haul their double-hulled canoes high onto the shore. When some of his commanders protested that this would impede their people’s escape should the enemy succeed in pressing them back to the bay, Kameha replied, “There will be no retreating from this battle. We conquer or we die.”

  Young and Davis supervised the offloading of the cannon and swivel guns from the Fair American. Using the ship’s block and tackle, a device previously unfamiliar to them, Kamehameha’s warriors lowered the weapons into canoes and ferried them to shore, where they placed them on wooden sleds designed by Davis.

  Ka‘iana’s musket warriors loaded and primed their weapons. They were in the first rank, with Lopaka and the swivel guns, under the command of ‘Olohana and ‘Aikake, at the center. Fighters armed with slings came next. Behind them came the spear throwers. Warriors armed with clubs and daggers formed up behind them.

  My father told me that ‘Olohana had advised this order of battle. The musket warriors and gun crews would discharge their weapons; the sling bearers would then move forward to protect them while they reloaded their guns, whereupon the musket warriors would move to the front again, and the deadly cycle would repeat. “Throughout, we were to continue moving forward,” my father explained. The warriors manning Lopaka and the swivel-guns were expected to keep pace with the rest of the army.

  At a signal from Kamehameha, conch shells sounded from one end of the Hawai‘ians’ line to the other, and the army commenced its advance on the village of Wailuku, where Kalanikūpule’s people waited for them. Spread across a wide front, the Hawai‘ians advanced steadily and deliberately on both sides of the shallow stream that flowed to the sea from the ‘Īao Valley, They moved forward in good order, though the gun crews lagged behind the rest. Kalanikūpule’s people were drawn up in front of the village, also on both sides of the stream.

  Now the two armies faced each other, unmoving. “We were separated by a distance of perhaps no more than the longest throw of a pololū spear,” my father said. Silence reigned. There were none of the customary insults and taunts. The Hawai‘ian artillery crews were just getting Lopaka and the swivel guns into position at the center of the front line when, with fearsome shrieks, the men of Maui charged.

  Young’s tactics worked, for a while. Ka‘iana’s musket warriors and gun crews discharged their weapons, killing many Maui fighters outright. Then sling stones flew from the Hawai‘ians’ ranks. With these missiles now falling among and all around them, the Maui warriors were slow to close with the Hawai‘ians, giving Ka‘iana’s people time to unloose another volley of musket fire. But this time, Lopaka and the swivel guns did not join them.

  Kamohomoho understood what was happening after the second volley. He exhorted his men to ignore the sling stones and spears and rush the Hawai‘ians before they could reload and fire their muskets again. “Close the gap! Close the gap!” he cried. “The enemy cannot strike you with stones if you close with them!”

  The warriors of Maui now released a volley of sling stones as they charged the Hawai‘ians. Many of these missiles found their marks. Meanwhile, as Kamohomoho had anticipated, Ka‘iana’s musket fighters were unable to reload and fire their weapons in time to repel his warriors. Moreover, they made easy targets for their foes’ stones and spears as they stood in place, struggling to reload and fire their guns.

  Observing these developments from behind his own lines, Kamehameha ordered his commanders to direct their sling fighters to pull back and give way to the warriors with spears, clubs, and daggers. They rushed through the musket bearers’ formation, scattering them in all directions. With their ranks dispersed and their own people now between them and the enemy, those musket bearers who had reloaded their weapons could not fire them. They were reduced to wielding their muskets like clubs.

  A shower of spears from the Hawai‘ians slowed the oncoming Maui warriors, who were soon engaged at close quarters by many more Hawai‘ian fighters armed with clubs, daggers, and often no more than their own hands. Men on both sides were impaled, stabbed, and beaten to death. Many on both sides died at the hands of lua adepts. The bloodletting continued without resolution for the balance of the day, by which time the two sides remained where they had been at the battle’s outset.

  “What good are these haole weapons, these pū kuni ahi, these pū po‘ohiwi?” Kamehameha demanded that night as he and his commanders assessed the day’s fighting. “We made too little progress today, and we trade
d the lives of too many good warriors for it.” Kameha addressed the entire group, but his eyes were fixed on ‘Olohana, ‘Aikake, and Ka‘iana.

  “We failed to take full advantage of our weapons because Lopaka and the other guns were silent,” said ‘Olohana.

  “Why did they not speak?” Kamehameha asked.

  “We had no more ammunition,” ‘Olohana replied. “This was our fault.” He gestured at ‘Aikake. Intent on supervising the cannon bearers, ‘Olohana and ‘Aikake had neglected the powder and cannon-shot bearers, who had fallen behind the rest of the army. “We will not repeat this mistake and our guns will speak loudly tomorrow,” ‘Olohana promised.

  In the morning, the two armies took the field once more, forming their ranks opposite each other, this time separated by a distance greater than the range of spears, sling stones, and muskets. As on the previous day, neither side moved for some time. The Maui warriors thrust their spears at the Hawai‘ians and hurled insults and jeers at them, thinking to provoke their foes into a headlong charge. They were met with silence. At length, Kalanikūpule ordered his own people to advance.

  Kamehameha’s commanders had ordered their front-line warriors to feign weariness. Some men even pretended to cower in fear. Mindful of the enemy’s musketry, but less fearful of it than the previous day, Kalanikūpule’s people came on warily but steadily, their confidence building with every step. They were about to unleash their sling stones and spears when Lopaka and the swivel guns spoke.

  The Hawai‘ians had drawn the guns close behind their front ranks and loaded them with canister shot. At the Hawai‘ian center, and screened by the warriors in front of them, they were not visible to the advancing foe until, on command, the Hawai‘ian fighters fell away. The warriors of Maui mistook this movement for the beginnings of a retreat and quickened their own pace. Now Lopaka roared and discharged a shell casing that disintegrated in mid-air just yards in front of the Maui warriors, spewing lethal iron balls and nails in all directions. The swivel guns fired next.