blew it, and he was big enough to be a link with the adult world of
authority; and partly because they enjoyed the entertainment of the
assemblies. But otherwise they seldom bothered with the biguns and their
passionately emotional and corporate life was their own.
They had built castles in the sand at the bar of the little river.
These castles were about one foot high and were decorated with shells,
withered flowers, and interesting stones. Round the castles was a complex of
marks, tracks, walls, railway lines, that were of significance only if
inspected with the eye at beach-level. The littluns played here, if not
happily at least with absorbed attention; and often as many as three of them
would play the same game together.
Three were playing here now. Henry was the biggest of them. He was also
a distant relative of that other boy whose mulberry-marked face had not been
seen since the evening of the great fire; but he was not old enough to
understand this, and if he had been told that the other boy had gone home in
an aircraft, he would have accepted the statement without fuss or disbelief.
Henry was a bit of a leader this afternoon, because the other two were
Percival and Johnny, the smallest boys on the island. Percival was
mouse-colored and had not been very attractive even to his mother; Johnny
was well built, with fair hair and a natural belligerence. Just now he was
being obedient because he was interested; and the three children, kneeling
in the sand, were at peace.
Roger and Maurice came out of the forest. They were relieved from duty
at the fire and had come down for a swim. Roger led the way straight through
the castles, kicking them over, burying the flowers, scattering the chosen
stones. Maurice followed, laughing, and added to the destruction. The three
littluns paused in their game and looked up. As it happened, the particular
marks in which they were interested had not been touched, so they made no
protest. Only Percival began to whimper with an eyeful of sand and Maurice
hurried away. In his other life Maurice had received chastisement for
filling a younger eye with sand. Now, though there was no parent to let fall
a heavy hand, Maurice still felt the unease of wrongdoing. At the back of
his mind formed the uncertain outlines of an excuse. He muttered something
about a swim and broke into a trot.
Roger remained, watching the littluns. He was not noticeably darker
than when he had dropped in, but the shock of black hair, down his nape and
low on his forehead, seemed to suit his gloomy face and made what had seemed
at first an unsociable remoteness into something forbidding. Percival
finished his whimper and went on playing, for the tears had washed the sand
away. Johnny watched him with china-blue eyes; then began to fling up sand
in a shower, and presently Percival was crying again.
When Henry tired of his play and wandered off along the beach, Roger
followed him, keeping beneath the palms and drifting casually in the same
direction. Henry walked at a distance from the palms and the shade because
he was too young to keep himself out of the sun. He went down the beach and.
busied himself at the water's edge. The great Pacific tide was coming in and
every few seconds the relatively still water of the lagoon heaved forwards
an inch, There were creatures that lived in this last fling of the sea, tiny
transparencies that came questing in with the water over the hot, dry sand.
With impalpable organs of sense they examined this new field. Perhaps food
had appeared where at the last incursion there had been none; bird
droppings, insects perhaps, any of the strewn detritus of landward life.
Lake a myriad of tiny teeth in a saw, the transparencies came scavenging
over the beach.
This was fascinating to Henry. He poked about with a bit of stick, that
itself was wave-worn and whitened and a vagrant, and tried to control the
motions of the scavengers. He made little runnels that the tide filled and
tried to crowd them with creatures. He became absorbed beyond mere happiness
as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them,
urging them, ordering them. Driven back by the tide, his footprints became
bays in which they were trapped and gave him the illusion of mastery. He
squatted on his hams at the water's edge, bowed, with a shock of hair
falling over his forehead and past his eyes, and the afternoon sun emptied
down invisible arrows.
Roger waited too. At first he had hidden behind a great palm; but
Henry's absorption with the transparencies was so obvious that at last he
stood out in full view. He looked along the beach. Percival had gone off,
crying, and Johnny was left in triumphant possession of the castles. He sat
there, crooning to himself and throwing sand at an imaginary Percival.
Beyond him, Roger could see the platform and the glints of spray where Ralph
and Simon and Piggy and Maurice were diving in the pool. He listened
carefully but could only just hear them.
A sudden breeze shook the fringe of palm trees, so that the fronds
tossed and fluttered. Sixty feet above Roger, several nuts, fibrous lumps as
big as rugby balls, were loosed from their stems. They fell about him with a
series of hard thumps and he was not touched. Roger did not consider his
escape, but looked from the nuts to Henry and back again.
The subsoil beneath the palm trees was a raised beach, and generations
of palms had worked loose in this the stones that had lain on the sands of
another shore. Roger stooped, picked up a stone, aimed, and threw it at
Henry - threw it to miss. The stone, that token of preposterous time,
bounced five yards to Henry's right and fell in the water. Roger gathered a
handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round
Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which, he dare not throw. Here,
invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting
child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law.
Roger's arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and
was in ruins.
Henry was surprised by the plopping sounds in the water. He abandoned
the noiseless transparencies and pointed at the center of the spreading
rings like a setter. This side and that the stones fell, and Henry turned
obediently but always too late to see the stones in the air. At last he saw
one and laughed, looking for the friend who was teasing him. But Roger had
whipped behind the palm again, was leaning against it breathing quickly, his
eyelids fluttering. Then Henry lost interest in stones and wandered off..
"Roger."
Jack was standing under a tree about ten yards away. When Roger opened
his eyes and saw him, a darker shadow crept beneath the swarthiness of his
skin; but Jack noticed nothing. He was eager, impatient, beckoning, so that
Roger went to him.
There was a small pool at the end of the river, dammed back by sand and
full of white water-lilies and needle-like reeds. Here Sam and Eric were
waiting, and Bill Jack, concealed from the sun, knelt by the pool and opened
the two large leaves that he carried. One of them contained white clay, and
the other red. By them lay a stick of charcoal brought down from the fire.
Jack explained to Roger as he worked.
"They don't smell me. They see me, I think. Something pink, under the
trees."
He smeared on the clay.
"If only I'd some green!"
He turned a halt-concealed face up to Roger and answered the
incomprehension of his gaze.
"For hunting. Like in the war. You know-dazzle paint Like things trying
to look like something else-" He twisted in the urgency of telling. "-lake
moths on a tree trunk."
Roger understood and nodded gravely. The twins moved toward Jack and
began to protest timidly about something. Jack waved them away.
"Shut up."
He rubbed the charcoal stick between the patches of red and white on
his face.
"No. You two come with me."
He peered at his reflection and disliked it. He bent down, took up a
double handful of lukewarm water and rubbed the mess from his face. Freckles
and sandy eyebrows appeared.
Roger smiled, unwillingly.
"You don't half look a mess."
Jack planned his new face. He made one cheek and one eye-socket white,
then he rubbed red over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar
of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw. He looked in the pool for his
reflection, but his breathing troubled the mirror.
"Samneric. Get me a coconut. An empty one."
He knelt, holding the shell of water. A rounded patch of sunlight fell
on his face and a brightness appeared in the depths of the water. He looked
in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger. He spilt
the water and leapt to his feet, laughing excitedly. Beside the pool his
sinewy body held up a mask that drew their eyes and appalled them. He began
to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He capered toward
Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated
from shame and self-consciousness. The face of red and white and black swung
through the air and jigged toward Bill. Bill started up laughing; then
suddenly he fell silent and blundered away through the bushes.
Jack rushed toward the twins.
"The rest are making a line. Come on!"
"But-"
"-we-"
"Come on! I'll creep up and stab-"
The mask compelled them.
Ralph climbed out of the bathing pool and trotted up the beach and sat
in the shade beneath the palms. His fair hair was plastered over his
eyebrows and he pushed it back. Simon was floating in the water and kicking
with his feet, and Maurice was practicing diving. Piggy was mooning about,
aimlessly picking up things and discarding them. The rock-pools which so
fascinated him were covered by the tide, so he was without an interest until
the tide went back. Presently, seeing Ralph under the palms, he came and sat
by him.
Piggy wore the remainders of a pair of shorts, his fat body was golden
brown, and the glasses still flashed when he looked at anything. He was the
only boy on the island whose hair never seemed to grow. The rest were
shock-headed, but Piggy's hair still lay in wisps over his head as though
baldness were his natural state and this imperfect covering would soon go,
like the velvet on a young stag's antlers.
"I've been thinking," he said, "about a clock. We could make a sundial
We could put a stick in the sand, and then-"
The effort to express the mathematical processes involved was too
great. He made a few passes instead.
"And an airplane, and a TV set," said Ralph sourly, "and a steam
engine."
Piggy shook his head.
"You have to have a lot of metal things for that," he said, "and we
haven't got no metal. But we got a stick."
Ralph turned and smiled involuntarily. Piggy was a bore; his fat, his
ass-mar and his matter-of-fact ideas were dull, but there was always a
little pleasure to be got out of pulling his leg, even if one did it by
accident.
Piggy saw the smile and misinterpreted it as friendliness. There had
grown up tacitly among the biguns the opinion that Piggy was an outsider,
not only by accent, which did not matter, but by fat, and ass-mar, and
specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor. Now, finding that
something he had said made Ralph smile, he rejoiced and pressed his
advantage.
"We got a lot of sticks. We could have a sundial each. Then we should
know what the time was."
"A fat lot of good that would be."
"You said you wanted things done. So as we could be rescued."
"Oh, shut up."
He leapt to his feet and trotted back to the pool, just as
Maurice did a rather poor dive. Ralph was glad of a chance to change
the subject. He shouted as Maurice came to the surface.
"Belly flop! Belly flop!"
Maurice flashed a smile at Ralph who slid easily into the water. Of all
the boys, he was the most at home there; but today, irked by the mention of
rescue, the useless, footling mention of rescue, even the green depths of
water and the shattered, golden sun held no balm. Instead of remaining and
playing, he swam with steady strokes under Simon and crawled out of the
other side of the pool to lie there, sleek and streaming like a seal. Piggy,
always clumsy, stood up and came to stand by him, so mat Ralph rolled on his
stomach and pretended not to see. The mirages had died away and gloomily he
ran his eye along the taut blue line of the horizon.
The next moment he was on his feet and shouting.
"Smoke! Smoke!"
Simon tried to sit up in the water and got a mouthful. Maurice, who had
been standing ready to dive, swayed back on his heels, made a bolt for the
platform, then swerved back to the grass under the palms. There he started
to pull on his tattered shorts, to be ready for anything.
Ralph stood, one hand holding back his hair, the other clenched. Simon
was climbing out of the water. Piggy was rubbing his glasses on his shorts
and squinting at the sea. Maurice had got both legs through one leg of his
shorts. Of all the boys, only Ralph was still.
1 can't see no smoke," said Piggy incredulously. "I can't see no smoke,
Ralph-where is it?"
Ralph said nothing. Now both his hands were clenched over his forehead
so that the fair hair was kept out of his eyes. He was leaning forward and
already the salt was whitening his body.
"Ralph-where s the ship?"
Simon stood by, looking from Ralph to the horizon. Maurice's trousers
gave way with a sigh and he abandoned them as a wreck, rushed toward the
forest, and then came back again.
The smoke was a tight little knot on the horizon and was uncoiling
slowly. Beneath the smoke was a dot that might be a funnel. Ralph's face was
pale as he spoke to himself.
They'll see our smoke."
Piggy was looking in the right direction now.
"It don't look much."
He turned round and peered up at the mountain. Ralph continued to watch
the ship, ravenously. Color was coming back into his face. Simon stood by
him, silent.
"I know I can't see very much," said Piggy, "but have we got any
smoke?"
Ralph moved impatiently, still watching the ship.
"The smoke on the mountain."
Maurice came running, and stared out to sea. Both Simon and Piggy were
looking up at the mountain. Piggy screwed up his face but Simon cried out as
though he had hurt himself.
"Ralph! Ralph!"
The quality of his speech twisted Ralph on the sand.
"You tell me," said Piggy anxiously. "Is there a signal?"
Ralph looked back at the dispersing smoke on the horizon, then up at
the mountain.
"Ralph-please! Is there a signal?"
Simon put out his hand, timidly, to touch Ralph; but Ralph started to
run, splashing through the shallow end of the bathing pool, across the hot,
white sand and under the palms. A moment later he was battling with the
complex undergrowth that was already engulfing the scar. Simon ran after
him, then Maurice. Piggy shouted.
"Ralph! Please-Ralph!"
Then he too started to run, stumbling over Maurice's discarded shorts
before he was across the terrace. Behind the four boys, the smoke moved
gently along the horizon; and on the beach, Henry and Johnny were throwing
sand at Percival who was crying quietly again; and all three were in
complete ignorance of the excitement.
By the time Ralph had reached the landward end of the scar he was using
precious breath to swear. He did desperate violence to his naked body among
the rasping creepers so that blood was sliding over him. Just where the
steep ascent of the mountain began, he stopped. Maurice was only a few yards
behind him.
"Piggy's specs!" shouted Ralph. "If the fire's all out, well need
them-"
He stopped shouting and swayed on his feet. Piggy was only just
visible, bumbling up from the beach. Ralphlooked at the horizon, then up to
the mountain. Was it better to fetch Piggy's glasses, or would the ship have
gone? Or if they climbed on, supposing the fire was all out, and they had to
watch Piggy crawling nearer and the ship sinking under the horizon? Balanced
on a high peak of need, agonized by indecision, Ralph cried out:
"Oh God, oh God!"
Simon, struggling with bushes, caught his breath. His face was twisted.
Ralph blundered on, savaging himself, as the wisp of smoke moved on.
The fire was dead. They saw that straight away; saw what they had
really known down on the beach when the smoke of home had beckoned. The fire
was out, smokeless and dead; the watchers were gone. A pile of unused fuel
lay ready.
Ralph turned to the sea. The horizon stretched, impersonal once more,
barren of all but the faintest trace of smoke. Ralph ran stumbling along the
rocks, saved himself on the edge of the pink cliff, and screamed at the
ship.
"Come back! Come back!"
He ran backwards and forwards along the cliff, his face always to the
sea, and his voice rose insanely.
"Come back! Come back!"
Simon and Maurice arrived. Ralph looked at them with unwinking eyes.
Simon turned away, smearing the water from his cheeks. Ralph reached inside
himself for the worst word he knew.
"They let the bloody fire go out."
He looked down the unfriendly side of the mountain. Piggy arrived, out
of breath and whimpering like a littlun. Ralph clenched his fist and went
very red. The intent-ness of his gaze, the bitterness of his voice, pointed
for him.
"There they are."
A procession had appeared, far down among the pink stones that lay near
the water's edge. Some of the boys wore black caps but otherwise they were
almost naked. They lifted sticks in the air together whenever they came to
an easy patch. They were chanting, something to do with the bundle that the
errant twins carried so carefully. Ralph picked out Jack easily, even at
that distance, tall, red-haired, and inevitably leading the procession.
Simon looked now, from Ralph to Jack, as he had looked from Ralph to
the horizon, and what he saw seemed to make him afraid. Ralph said nothing
more, but waited while the procession came nearer. The chant was audible but
at that distance still wordless. Behind Jack walked the twins, carrying a
great stake on their shoulders. The gutted carcass of a pig swung from the
stake, swinging heavily as the twins toiled over the uneven ground. The pigs
head hung down with gaping neck and seemed to search for something on the
ground. At last the words of the chant floated up to them, across the bowl
of blackened wood and ashes.
"Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood."
Yet as the words became audible, the procession reached the steepest
part of the mountain, and in a minute or two the chant had died away. Piggy
sniveled and Simon shushed him quickly as though he had spoken too loudly in
church.
Jack, his face smeared with clays, reached the top first and hailed
Ralph excitedly, with lifted spear.
"Look! We've killed a pig-we stole up on them-we got in a circle-"
Voices broke in from the hunters.
"We got in a circle-"
"We crept up-"
The pig squealed-"
The twins stood with the pig swinging between them, dropping black
gouts on the rock. They seemed to share one wide, ecstatic grin. Jack had
too many things to tell Ralph at once. Instead, he danced a step or two,
then remembered his dignity and stood still, grinning. He noticed blood on
his hands and grimaced distastefully, looked for something on which to clean
them, then wiped them on his shorts and laughed.
Ralph spoke.
"You let the fire go out."
Jack checked, vaguely irritated by this irrelevance but too happy to
let it worry him.
"We can light the fire again. You should have been with us, Ralph. We
had a smashing time. The twins got knocked over-"
"We hit the pig-"
"-I fell on top-"
"I cut the pig's throat," said Jack, proudly, and yet twitched as he
said it. "Can I borrow yours, Ralph, to make a nick in the hilt?"
The boys chattered and danced. The twins continued to grin.
There was lashings of blood," said Jack, laughing and shuddering, "you
should have seen it!"
"We'll go hunting every day-"
Ralph spoke again, hoarsely. He had not moved.
"You let the fire go out."
This repetition made Jack uneasy. He looked at the twins and then back
at Ralph.
"We had to have them in the hunt," he said, "or there wouldn't have
been enough for a ring."
He flushed, conscious of a fault.
"The fire's only been out an hour or two. We can light up again-"
He noticed Ralph's scarred nakedness, and the sombre silence of all
four of them. He sought, charitable in his happiness, to include them in the
thing that had happened. His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the
knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig,
knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon
it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.
He spread his arms wide.
"You should have seen the blood!"
The hunters were more silent now, but at this they buzzed again. Ralph
flung back his hair. One arm pointed at the empty horizon. His voice was
loud and savage, and struck them into silence.
"There was a ship."
Jack, faced at once with too many awful implications, ducked away from
them. He laid a hand on the pig and drew his knife. Ralph brought his arm
down, fist clenched, and his voice shook.
"There was a ship. Out there. You said you'd keep the fire going and
you let it out!" He took a step toward Jack, who turned and faced him.
"They might have seen us. We might have gone home-"
This was too bitter for Piggy, who forgot his timidity in the agony of
his loss. He began to cry out, shrilly:
"You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have
gone home-"
Ralph pushed Piggy to one side.
"I was chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you
can't even build huts-then you go off hunting and let out the fire-"
He turned away, silent for a moment. Then his voice came again on a
peak of feeling.
"There was a ship-"
One of the smaller hunters began to wail. The dismal truth was
filtering through to everybody. Jack went very red as he hacked and pulled
at the pig.
"The job was too much. We needed everyone."
Ralph turned.
"You could have had everyone when the shelters were finished. But you
had to hunt-"
"We needed meat."
Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand. The two
boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics,
fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled
common-sense. Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood
over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair.
Piggy began again.
"You didn't ought to have let that fire out. You said you'd keep the
smoke going-"
This from Piggy, and the wails of agreement from some of the hunters,
drove Jack to violence. The bolting look came into his blue eyes. He took a
step, and able at last to hit someone, stuck his fist into Piggy's stomach.
Piggy sat down with a grunt. Jack stood over him. His voice was vicious with
humiliation.
"You would, would you? Fatty!"
Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Piggy's head. Piggy's
glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror:
"My specs!"
He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Simon, who got there
first, found them for him. Passions beat about Simon on the mountain-top
with awful wings.
"One side's broken."
Piggy grabbed and put on the glasses. He looked malevolently at Jack.
"I got to have them specs. Now I only got one eye. Jus` you wait-"
Jack made a move toward Piggy who scrambled away till a great rock lay
between them. He thrust his head over the top and glared at Jack through his
one flashing glass.
"Now I only got one eye. Just you wait-"
Jack mimicked the whine and scramble.
"Jus' you wait-yah!"
Piggy and the parody were so funny that the hunters began to laugh.
Jack felt encouraged. He went on scrambling and the laughter rose to a gale
of hysteria. Unwillingly Ralph felt his lips twitch; he was angry with
himself for giving way.
He muttered.
"That was a dirty trick."
Jack broke out of his gyration and stood facing Ralph. His words came
in a shout.
"All right, all right!"
He looked at Piggy, at the hunters, at Ralph.
"I'm sorry. About the fire, I mean. There. I-"
He drew himself up.
"-I apologize."
The buzz from the hunters was one of admiration at this handsome
behavior. Clearly they were of the opinion that Jack had done the decent
thing, had put himself in the right by his generous apology and Ralph,
obscurely, in the wrong. They waited for an appropriately decent answer.
Yet Ralph's throat refused to pass one. He resented, as an addition to
Jack's misbehavior, this verbal trick. The fire was dead, the ship was gone.
Could they not see? Anger instead of decency passed his throat.
"That was a dirty trick."
They were silent on the mountain-top while the opaque look appeared in
Jack's eyes and passed away.
Ralph's final word was an ungracious mutter.
"All right. Light the fire."
With some positive action before them, a little of die tension died.
Ralph said no more, did nothing, stood looking down at the ashes round his
feet. Jack was loud and active. He gave orders, sang, whistled, threw
remarks at the silent Ralph-remarks that did not need an answer, and
therefore could not invite a snub; and still Ralph was silent. No one, not
even Jack, would ask him to move and in the end they had to build the fire
three yards away and in a place not really as convenient. So Ralph asserted
his chieftainship and could not have chosen a better way if he had thought
for days. Against this weapon, so indefinable and so effective, Jack was
powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was built,
they were on different sides of a high barrier.
When they had dealt with the fire another crisis arose. Jack had no
means of lighting it. Then to his surprise, Ralph went to Piggy and took the
glasses from him. Not even Ralph knew now a link between him and Jack had
been snapped and fastened elsewhere.
'I'll bring 'em back."
"I'll come too."
Piggy stood behind him, islanded in a sea of meaningless color, while
Ralph knelt and focused the glossy spot. Instantly the fire was alight Piggy
held out his hands and grabbed the glasses back.
Before these fantastically attractive flowers of violet and red and
yellow, unkindness melted away. They became a circle of boys round a camp
fire and even Piggy and Ralph were half-drawn in. Soon some of the boys were
rushing down the slope for more wood while Jack hacked the pig. They tried
holding the whole carcass on a stake over the fire, but the stake burnt more
quickly than the pig roasted. In the end they skewered bits of meat on
branches and held them in the flames: and even then almost as much boy was
roasted as meat.
Ralph's mouth watered. He meant to refuse meat but his past diet of
fruit and nuts, with an odd crab or fish, gave him too little resistance. He
accepted a piece of half-raw meat and gnawed it like a wolf.
Piggy spoke, also dribbling.
"Aren't I having none?"
Jack had meant to leave him in doubt, as an assertion of power; but
Piggy by advertising his omission made more cruelty necessary.
"You didn't hunt."
"No more did Ralph," said Piggy wetly, "nor Simon." He amplified.
"There isn't more than a ha'porth of meat in a crab."
Ralph stirred uneasily. Simon, sitting between the twins and Piggy,
wiped his mouth and shoved his piece of meat over the rocks to Piggy, who
grabbed it. The twins giggled and Simon lowered his face in shame.
Then Jack leapt to his feet, slashed off a great hunk of meat, and
flung it down at Simon's feet.
"Eat! Damn you!"
He glared at Simon.
"Take it!"
He spun on his heel, center of a bewildered circle of boys.
"I got you meat!"
Numberless and inexpressible frustrations combined to make his rage
elemental and awe-inspiring.
"I painted my face-I stole up. Now you eat-all of you -and I-"
Slowly the silence on the mountain-top deepened till the click of the
fire and the soft hiss of roasting meat could be heard clearly. Jack looked
round for understanding but found only respect. Ralph stood among the ashes
of the signal fire, his hands full of meat, saying nothing.
Then at last Maurice broke the silence. He changed the subject to the
only one that could bring the majority of them together.
"Where did you find the pig?"
Roger pointed down the unfriendly side. "They were there-by the sea."
Jack, recovering, could not bear to have his story told. He broke in
quickly.
"We spread round. I crept, on hands and knees. The spears fell out
because they hadn't barbs on. The pig ran away and made an awful noise-"
"It turned back and ran into the circle, bleeding-"
All the boys were talking at once, relieved and excited.
"We closed in-"
The first blow had paralyzed its hind quarters, so then the circle
could close in and beat and beat-
"I cut the pig's throat-"
The twins, still sharing their identical grin, jumped up and ran round
each other. Then the rest joined in, making pig-dying noises and shouting.
"One for his nob!"
"Give him a fourpenny one!"
Then Maurice pretended to be the pig and ran squealing into the center,
and the hunters, circling still, pretended to beat him. As they danced, they
sang.
"Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in"
Ralph watched them, envious and resentful. Not till they flagged and
the chant died away, did he speak.
"I'm calling an assembly."
One by one, they halted, and stood watching him.
"With the conch. I'm calling a meeting even if we have to go on into
the dark. Down on the platform. When I blow it. Now."
He turned away and walked off, down the mountain.
CHAPTER FIVE
Beast from Water
The tide was coming in and there was only a narrow strip of firm beach
between the water and the white, stumbling stuff near the palm terrace.
Ralph chose the firm strip as a path because he needed to think, and only
here could he allow his feet to move without having to watch them. Suddenly,
pacing by the water, he was overcome with astonishment. He found himself
understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an
improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent
watching one's feet. He stopped, facing the strip; and remembering that
first enthusiastic exploration as though it were part of a brighter
childhood, he smiled jeeringly. He turned then and walked back toward the
platform with the sun in his face. The time had come for the assembly and as
he walked into the concealing splendors of the sunlight he went carefully
over the points of his speech. There must be no mistake about this assembly,
no chasing imaginary. . . .
He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his
lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again.
This meeting must not be fun, but business.
At that he walked faster, aware all at once of urgency and the
declining sun and a little wind created by his speed that breathed about his
face. This wind pressed his grey shirt against his chest so that he
noticed-in this new mood of comprehension-how the folds were stiff like
cardboard, and unpleasant; noticed too how the frayed edges of his shorts
were making an uncomfortable, pink area on the front of his thighs. With a
convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay, understood how much
he disliked perpetually flicking the tangled hair out of his eyes, and at
last, when the sun was gone, rolling noisily to rest among dry leaves. At
that he began to trot.
The beach near the bathing pool was dotted with groups of boys waiting
for the assembly. They made way for him silently, conscious of his grim mood
and the fault at the fire.
The place of assembly in which he stood was roughly a triangle; but
irregular and sketchy, like everything they made. First there was the log on
which he himself sat; a dead tree that must have been quite exceptionally
big for the platform. Perhaps one of those legendary storms of the Pacific
had shifted it here. This palm trunk lay parallel to the beach, so that when
Ralph sat he faced the island but to the boys was a darkish figure against
the shimmer of the lagoon. The two sides of the triangle of which the log
was base were less evenly defined. On the right was a log polished by
restless seats along the top, but not so large as the chiefs and not so
comfortable. On the left were four small logs, one of them-the
farthest-lamentably springy. Assembly after assembly had broken up in
laughter when someone had leaned too far back and the log had whipped and
thrown half a dozen boys backwards into the grass. Yet now, he saw, no one
had had the wit-not himself nor Jack, nor Piggy-to bring a stone and wedge
the thing. So they would continue enduring the ill-balanced twister,
because, because. . . . Again he lost himself in deep waters.
Crass was worn away in front of each trunk but grew tall and untrodden
in tile center of the triangle. Then, at the apex, the grass was thick again
because no one sat there. All round the place of assembly the grey trunks
rose, straight or leaning, and supported the low roof of leaves. On two
sides was the beach; behind, the lagoon; in front, the darkness of the
island.
Ralph turned to the chief's seat. They had never had an assembly as
late before. That was why the place looked so different. Normally the
underside of the green roof was lit by a tangle of golden reflections, and
their faces were lit upside down-like, thought Ralph, when you hold an
electric torch in your hands. But now the sun was slanting in at one side,
so that the shadows were where they ought to be.
Again he fell into that strange mood of speculation that was so foreign
to him. If faces were different when lit from above or below-what was a
face? What was anything?
Ralph moved impatiently. The trouble was, if you were a chief you had
to think, you had to be wise. And then the occasion slipped by so that you
had to grab at a decision. This made you think; because thought was a
valuable thing, that got results. . . .
Only, decided Ralph as he faced the chiefs seat, I can't think. Not
like Piggy.
Once more that evening Ralph had to adjust his values. Piggy could
think. He could go step by step inside that fat head of his, only Piggy was
no chief. But Piggy, for all his ludicrous body, had brains. Ralph was a
specialist in thought now, and could recognize thought in another.
The sun in his eyes reminded him how time was passing, so he took the
conch down from the tree and examined the surface. Exposure to the air had
bleached the yellow and pink to near-white, and transparency. Ralph felt a
land of affectionate reverence for the conch, even though he had fished the
thing out of the lagoon himself. He faced the place of assembly and put the
conch to his lips.
The others were waiting for this and came straight away. Those who were
aware that a ship had passed the island while the fire was out were subdued
by the thought of Ralph's anger; while those, including the littluns who did
not know, were impressed by the general air of solemnity. The place of
assembly filled quickly; Jack, Simon, Maurice, most of the hunters, on
Ralph's right; the rest on the left, under the sun. Piggy came and stood
outside the triangle. This indicated that he wished to listen, but would not
speak; and Piggy intended it as a gesture of disapproval
"The thing is: we need an assembly."
No one said anything but the faces turned to Ralph were intent. He
flourished the conch. He had learnt as a practical business that fundamental
statements like this had to be said at least twice, before everyone
understood them. One had to sit, attracting all eyes to the conch, and drop
words like heavy round stones among the little groups that crouched or
squatted. He was searching his mind for simple words so that even the
littluns would understand what the assembly was about. Later perhaps,
practiced debaters-Jack, Maurice, Piggy-would use their whole art to twist
the meeting: but now at the beginning the subject of the debate must be laid
out clearly.
"We need an assembly. Not for fun. Not for laughing and falling off the
log"-the group of littluns on the twister giggled and looked at each
other-"not for making jokes, or for"-he lifted the conch in an effort to
find the compelling word-"for cleverness. Not for these things. But to put
things straight.''
He paused for a moment.
"I've been alone. By myself I went, thinking what's what I know what we
need. An assembly to put things straight And first of all, I'm speaking."
He paused for a moment and automatically pushed back his hair. Piggy
tiptoed to the triangle, his ineffectual protest made, and joined the
others.
Ralph went on.
"We have lots of assemblies. Everybody enjoys speaking and being
together. We decide things. But they don't get done. We were going to have
water brought from the stream and left in those coconut shells under fresh
leaves. So it was, for a few days. Now there's no water. The shells are dry.
People drink from the river."
There was a murmur of assent.
"Not that there's anything wrong with drinking from the river. I mean
I'd sooner have water from that place- you know, the pool where the
waterfall is-than out of an old coconut shell. Only we said we'd have the
water brought And now not There were only two full shells there this
afternoon."
He licked his lips.
"Then there's huts. Shelters."
The murmur swelled again and died away.
"You mostly sleep in shelters. Tonight, except for Sam-neric up by the
fire, you'll all sleep there. Who built the shelters?"
Clamor rose at once. Everyone had built the shelters. Ralph had to wave
the conch once more.
"Wait a minute! I mean, who built all three? We all built the first
one, four of us the second one, and me 'n Simon built the last one over
there. That's why it's so tottery. No. Don't laugh. That shelter might fall
down if the rain comes back. We'll need those shelters then."
He paused and cleared his throat.
"There's another thing. We chose those rocks right along beyond the
bathing pool as a lavatory. That was sensible too. The tide cleans the place
up. You littluns know about that."
There were sniggers here and there and swift glances.
"Now people seem to use anywhere. Even near the shelters and the
platform. You littluns, when you're getting fruit; if you're taken short-"
The assembly roared.
"I said if you're taken short you keep away from the fruit. That's
dirty."
Laughter rose again.
"I said that's dirty!"
He plucked at his stiff, grey shirt.
"That's realty dirty. If you're taken short you go right along the
beach to the rocks. See?"
Piggy held out his hands for the conch but Ralph shook his head. This
speech was planned, point by point.
"We've all got to use the rocks again. This place is getting dirty." He
paused. The assembly, sensing a crisis, was tensely expectant. "And then:
about the fire."
Ralph let out his spare breath with a little gasp that was echoed by
his audience. Jack started to chip a piece of wood with his knife and
whispered something to Robert, who looked away.
"The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be
rescued except by luck, if we don't keep a fire going? Is a fire too much
for us to make?"
He flung out an arm.
"Look at us! How many are we? And yet we can't keep a fire going to
make smoke. Don't you understand? Can't you see we ought to-ought to die
before we let the fire out?"
There was a self-conscious giggling among the hunters. Ralph turned on
them passionately.
"You hunters! You can laugh! But I tell you the smoke is more important
than the pig, however often you kill one. Do all of you see?" He spread his
arms wide and turned to the whole triangle.
"We've got to make smoke up there-or die."
He paused, feeling for his next point
"And another thing."
Someone called out.
"Too many things."
There came mutters of agreement. Ralph overrode them.
"And another thing. We nearly set the whole island on fire. And we
waste time, rolling rocks, and making little cooking fires. Now I say this
and make it a rule, because I'm chief. We won't have a fire anywhere but on
the mountain. Ever."
There was a row immediately. Boys stood up and shouted and Ralph
shouted back.
"Because if you want a fire to cook fish or crab, you can jolly well go
up the mountain. That way we'll be certain."
Hands were reaching for the conch in the light of the setting sun. He
held on and leapt on the trunk.
"All this I meant to say. Now I've said it. You voted me for chief. Now
you do what I say."
They quieted, slowly, and at last were seated again. Ralph dropped down
and spoke in his ordinary voice.
"So remember. The rocks for a lavatory. Keep the fire going and smoke
showing as a signal. Don't take fire from the mountain. Take your food up
mere."
Jack stood up, scowling in the gloom, and held out his hands.
"I haven't finished yet"
"But you've talked and talked!"
"I've got the conch."
Jack sat down, grumbling.
"Then the last mine. This is what people can talk about."
He waited till the platform was very still.
"Things are breaking up. I don't understand why. We began well; we were
happy. And then-"
He moved the conch gently, looking beyond them at nothing, remembering
the beastie, the snake, the fire, the talk of fear.
"Then people started getting frightened."
A murmur, almost a moan, rose and passed away. Jack had stopped
whittling. Ralph went on, abruptly.
"But that's littluns' talk. We'll get that straight. So the last part,
the bit we can all talk about, is kind of deciding on the fear."
The hair was creeping into his eyes again.
"We've got to talk about this fear and decide there's nothing in it.
I'm frightened myself, sometimes; only that's nonsense! Like bogies. Then,
when we've decided, we can start again and be careful about things like the
fire." A picture of three boys walking along the bright beach flitted
through his mind. "And be happy."
Ceremonially, Ralph laid the conch on the trunk beside him as a sign
that the speech was over. What sunlight reached them was level.
Jack stood up and took the conch.
"So this is a meeting to find out what's what, I`ll tell you what's
what. You littluns started all this, with the fear talk. Beasts! Where from?
Of course we're frightened sometimes but we put up with being frightened.
Only Ralph says you scream in the night. What does that mean but nightmares?
Anyway, you don't hunt or build or help-you're a lot of cry-babies and
sissies. That's what. And as for the fear- you'll have to put up with that
like the rest of us."
Ralph looked at Jack open-mouthed, but Jack took no notice.
'The thing is-fear can't hurt you any more than a dream. There aren't
any beasts to be afraid of on this island." He looked along the row of
whispering littluns. "Serve you right if something did get you, you useless
lot of cry-babies! But there is no animal-"
Ralph interrupted him testily.
"What is all this? Who said anything about an animal?"
"You did, the other day. You said they dream and cry out Now they
talk-not only the littluns, but my hunters sometimes-talk of a thing, a dark
thing, a beast, some sort of animal I've heard. You thought not, didn't you?
Now listen. You don't get big animals on small islands. Only pigs. You only
get lions and tigers in big countries like Africa and India-"
"And the Zoo-"
"I've got the conch. I'm not talking about the fear. I'm talking about
the beast. Be frightened if you like. But as for the beast-"
Jack paused, cradling the conch, and turned to his hunt" ers with their
dirty black caps.
authority; and partly because they enjoyed the entertainment of the
assemblies. But otherwise they seldom bothered with the biguns and their
passionately emotional and corporate life was their own.
They had built castles in the sand at the bar of the little river.
These castles were about one foot high and were decorated with shells,
withered flowers, and interesting stones. Round the castles was a complex of
marks, tracks, walls, railway lines, that were of significance only if
inspected with the eye at beach-level. The littluns played here, if not
happily at least with absorbed attention; and often as many as three of them
would play the same game together.
Three were playing here now. Henry was the biggest of them. He was also
a distant relative of that other boy whose mulberry-marked face had not been
seen since the evening of the great fire; but he was not old enough to
understand this, and if he had been told that the other boy had gone home in
an aircraft, he would have accepted the statement without fuss or disbelief.
Henry was a bit of a leader this afternoon, because the other two were
Percival and Johnny, the smallest boys on the island. Percival was
mouse-colored and had not been very attractive even to his mother; Johnny
was well built, with fair hair and a natural belligerence. Just now he was
being obedient because he was interested; and the three children, kneeling
in the sand, were at peace.
Roger and Maurice came out of the forest. They were relieved from duty
at the fire and had come down for a swim. Roger led the way straight through
the castles, kicking them over, burying the flowers, scattering the chosen
stones. Maurice followed, laughing, and added to the destruction. The three
littluns paused in their game and looked up. As it happened, the particular
marks in which they were interested had not been touched, so they made no
protest. Only Percival began to whimper with an eyeful of sand and Maurice
hurried away. In his other life Maurice had received chastisement for
filling a younger eye with sand. Now, though there was no parent to let fall
a heavy hand, Maurice still felt the unease of wrongdoing. At the back of
his mind formed the uncertain outlines of an excuse. He muttered something
about a swim and broke into a trot.
Roger remained, watching the littluns. He was not noticeably darker
than when he had dropped in, but the shock of black hair, down his nape and
low on his forehead, seemed to suit his gloomy face and made what had seemed
at first an unsociable remoteness into something forbidding. Percival
finished his whimper and went on playing, for the tears had washed the sand
away. Johnny watched him with china-blue eyes; then began to fling up sand
in a shower, and presently Percival was crying again.
When Henry tired of his play and wandered off along the beach, Roger
followed him, keeping beneath the palms and drifting casually in the same
direction. Henry walked at a distance from the palms and the shade because
he was too young to keep himself out of the sun. He went down the beach and.
busied himself at the water's edge. The great Pacific tide was coming in and
every few seconds the relatively still water of the lagoon heaved forwards
an inch, There were creatures that lived in this last fling of the sea, tiny
transparencies that came questing in with the water over the hot, dry sand.
With impalpable organs of sense they examined this new field. Perhaps food
had appeared where at the last incursion there had been none; bird
droppings, insects perhaps, any of the strewn detritus of landward life.
Lake a myriad of tiny teeth in a saw, the transparencies came scavenging
over the beach.
This was fascinating to Henry. He poked about with a bit of stick, that
itself was wave-worn and whitened and a vagrant, and tried to control the
motions of the scavengers. He made little runnels that the tide filled and
tried to crowd them with creatures. He became absorbed beyond mere happiness
as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them,
urging them, ordering them. Driven back by the tide, his footprints became
bays in which they were trapped and gave him the illusion of mastery. He
squatted on his hams at the water's edge, bowed, with a shock of hair
falling over his forehead and past his eyes, and the afternoon sun emptied
down invisible arrows.
Roger waited too. At first he had hidden behind a great palm; but
Henry's absorption with the transparencies was so obvious that at last he
stood out in full view. He looked along the beach. Percival had gone off,
crying, and Johnny was left in triumphant possession of the castles. He sat
there, crooning to himself and throwing sand at an imaginary Percival.
Beyond him, Roger could see the platform and the glints of spray where Ralph
and Simon and Piggy and Maurice were diving in the pool. He listened
carefully but could only just hear them.
A sudden breeze shook the fringe of palm trees, so that the fronds
tossed and fluttered. Sixty feet above Roger, several nuts, fibrous lumps as
big as rugby balls, were loosed from their stems. They fell about him with a
series of hard thumps and he was not touched. Roger did not consider his
escape, but looked from the nuts to Henry and back again.
The subsoil beneath the palm trees was a raised beach, and generations
of palms had worked loose in this the stones that had lain on the sands of
another shore. Roger stooped, picked up a stone, aimed, and threw it at
Henry - threw it to miss. The stone, that token of preposterous time,
bounced five yards to Henry's right and fell in the water. Roger gathered a
handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round
Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which, he dare not throw. Here,
invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting
child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law.
Roger's arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and
was in ruins.
Henry was surprised by the plopping sounds in the water. He abandoned
the noiseless transparencies and pointed at the center of the spreading
rings like a setter. This side and that the stones fell, and Henry turned
obediently but always too late to see the stones in the air. At last he saw
one and laughed, looking for the friend who was teasing him. But Roger had
whipped behind the palm again, was leaning against it breathing quickly, his
eyelids fluttering. Then Henry lost interest in stones and wandered off..
"Roger."
Jack was standing under a tree about ten yards away. When Roger opened
his eyes and saw him, a darker shadow crept beneath the swarthiness of his
skin; but Jack noticed nothing. He was eager, impatient, beckoning, so that
Roger went to him.
There was a small pool at the end of the river, dammed back by sand and
full of white water-lilies and needle-like reeds. Here Sam and Eric were
waiting, and Bill Jack, concealed from the sun, knelt by the pool and opened
the two large leaves that he carried. One of them contained white clay, and
the other red. By them lay a stick of charcoal brought down from the fire.
Jack explained to Roger as he worked.
"They don't smell me. They see me, I think. Something pink, under the
trees."
He smeared on the clay.
"If only I'd some green!"
He turned a halt-concealed face up to Roger and answered the
incomprehension of his gaze.
"For hunting. Like in the war. You know-dazzle paint Like things trying
to look like something else-" He twisted in the urgency of telling. "-lake
moths on a tree trunk."
Roger understood and nodded gravely. The twins moved toward Jack and
began to protest timidly about something. Jack waved them away.
"Shut up."
He rubbed the charcoal stick between the patches of red and white on
his face.
"No. You two come with me."
He peered at his reflection and disliked it. He bent down, took up a
double handful of lukewarm water and rubbed the mess from his face. Freckles
and sandy eyebrows appeared.
Roger smiled, unwillingly.
"You don't half look a mess."
Jack planned his new face. He made one cheek and one eye-socket white,
then he rubbed red over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar
of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw. He looked in the pool for his
reflection, but his breathing troubled the mirror.
"Samneric. Get me a coconut. An empty one."
He knelt, holding the shell of water. A rounded patch of sunlight fell
on his face and a brightness appeared in the depths of the water. He looked
in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger. He spilt
the water and leapt to his feet, laughing excitedly. Beside the pool his
sinewy body held up a mask that drew their eyes and appalled them. He began
to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He capered toward
Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated
from shame and self-consciousness. The face of red and white and black swung
through the air and jigged toward Bill. Bill started up laughing; then
suddenly he fell silent and blundered away through the bushes.
Jack rushed toward the twins.
"The rest are making a line. Come on!"
"But-"
"-we-"
"Come on! I'll creep up and stab-"
The mask compelled them.
Ralph climbed out of the bathing pool and trotted up the beach and sat
in the shade beneath the palms. His fair hair was plastered over his
eyebrows and he pushed it back. Simon was floating in the water and kicking
with his feet, and Maurice was practicing diving. Piggy was mooning about,
aimlessly picking up things and discarding them. The rock-pools which so
fascinated him were covered by the tide, so he was without an interest until
the tide went back. Presently, seeing Ralph under the palms, he came and sat
by him.
Piggy wore the remainders of a pair of shorts, his fat body was golden
brown, and the glasses still flashed when he looked at anything. He was the
only boy on the island whose hair never seemed to grow. The rest were
shock-headed, but Piggy's hair still lay in wisps over his head as though
baldness were his natural state and this imperfect covering would soon go,
like the velvet on a young stag's antlers.
"I've been thinking," he said, "about a clock. We could make a sundial
We could put a stick in the sand, and then-"
The effort to express the mathematical processes involved was too
great. He made a few passes instead.
"And an airplane, and a TV set," said Ralph sourly, "and a steam
engine."
Piggy shook his head.
"You have to have a lot of metal things for that," he said, "and we
haven't got no metal. But we got a stick."
Ralph turned and smiled involuntarily. Piggy was a bore; his fat, his
ass-mar and his matter-of-fact ideas were dull, but there was always a
little pleasure to be got out of pulling his leg, even if one did it by
accident.
Piggy saw the smile and misinterpreted it as friendliness. There had
grown up tacitly among the biguns the opinion that Piggy was an outsider,
not only by accent, which did not matter, but by fat, and ass-mar, and
specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor. Now, finding that
something he had said made Ralph smile, he rejoiced and pressed his
advantage.
"We got a lot of sticks. We could have a sundial each. Then we should
know what the time was."
"A fat lot of good that would be."
"You said you wanted things done. So as we could be rescued."
"Oh, shut up."
He leapt to his feet and trotted back to the pool, just as
Maurice did a rather poor dive. Ralph was glad of a chance to change
the subject. He shouted as Maurice came to the surface.
"Belly flop! Belly flop!"
Maurice flashed a smile at Ralph who slid easily into the water. Of all
the boys, he was the most at home there; but today, irked by the mention of
rescue, the useless, footling mention of rescue, even the green depths of
water and the shattered, golden sun held no balm. Instead of remaining and
playing, he swam with steady strokes under Simon and crawled out of the
other side of the pool to lie there, sleek and streaming like a seal. Piggy,
always clumsy, stood up and came to stand by him, so mat Ralph rolled on his
stomach and pretended not to see. The mirages had died away and gloomily he
ran his eye along the taut blue line of the horizon.
The next moment he was on his feet and shouting.
"Smoke! Smoke!"
Simon tried to sit up in the water and got a mouthful. Maurice, who had
been standing ready to dive, swayed back on his heels, made a bolt for the
platform, then swerved back to the grass under the palms. There he started
to pull on his tattered shorts, to be ready for anything.
Ralph stood, one hand holding back his hair, the other clenched. Simon
was climbing out of the water. Piggy was rubbing his glasses on his shorts
and squinting at the sea. Maurice had got both legs through one leg of his
shorts. Of all the boys, only Ralph was still.
1 can't see no smoke," said Piggy incredulously. "I can't see no smoke,
Ralph-where is it?"
Ralph said nothing. Now both his hands were clenched over his forehead
so that the fair hair was kept out of his eyes. He was leaning forward and
already the salt was whitening his body.
"Ralph-where s the ship?"
Simon stood by, looking from Ralph to the horizon. Maurice's trousers
gave way with a sigh and he abandoned them as a wreck, rushed toward the
forest, and then came back again.
The smoke was a tight little knot on the horizon and was uncoiling
slowly. Beneath the smoke was a dot that might be a funnel. Ralph's face was
pale as he spoke to himself.
They'll see our smoke."
Piggy was looking in the right direction now.
"It don't look much."
He turned round and peered up at the mountain. Ralph continued to watch
the ship, ravenously. Color was coming back into his face. Simon stood by
him, silent.
"I know I can't see very much," said Piggy, "but have we got any
smoke?"
Ralph moved impatiently, still watching the ship.
"The smoke on the mountain."
Maurice came running, and stared out to sea. Both Simon and Piggy were
looking up at the mountain. Piggy screwed up his face but Simon cried out as
though he had hurt himself.
"Ralph! Ralph!"
The quality of his speech twisted Ralph on the sand.
"You tell me," said Piggy anxiously. "Is there a signal?"
Ralph looked back at the dispersing smoke on the horizon, then up at
the mountain.
"Ralph-please! Is there a signal?"
Simon put out his hand, timidly, to touch Ralph; but Ralph started to
run, splashing through the shallow end of the bathing pool, across the hot,
white sand and under the palms. A moment later he was battling with the
complex undergrowth that was already engulfing the scar. Simon ran after
him, then Maurice. Piggy shouted.
"Ralph! Please-Ralph!"
Then he too started to run, stumbling over Maurice's discarded shorts
before he was across the terrace. Behind the four boys, the smoke moved
gently along the horizon; and on the beach, Henry and Johnny were throwing
sand at Percival who was crying quietly again; and all three were in
complete ignorance of the excitement.
By the time Ralph had reached the landward end of the scar he was using
precious breath to swear. He did desperate violence to his naked body among
the rasping creepers so that blood was sliding over him. Just where the
steep ascent of the mountain began, he stopped. Maurice was only a few yards
behind him.
"Piggy's specs!" shouted Ralph. "If the fire's all out, well need
them-"
He stopped shouting and swayed on his feet. Piggy was only just
visible, bumbling up from the beach. Ralphlooked at the horizon, then up to
the mountain. Was it better to fetch Piggy's glasses, or would the ship have
gone? Or if they climbed on, supposing the fire was all out, and they had to
watch Piggy crawling nearer and the ship sinking under the horizon? Balanced
on a high peak of need, agonized by indecision, Ralph cried out:
"Oh God, oh God!"
Simon, struggling with bushes, caught his breath. His face was twisted.
Ralph blundered on, savaging himself, as the wisp of smoke moved on.
The fire was dead. They saw that straight away; saw what they had
really known down on the beach when the smoke of home had beckoned. The fire
was out, smokeless and dead; the watchers were gone. A pile of unused fuel
lay ready.
Ralph turned to the sea. The horizon stretched, impersonal once more,
barren of all but the faintest trace of smoke. Ralph ran stumbling along the
rocks, saved himself on the edge of the pink cliff, and screamed at the
ship.
"Come back! Come back!"
He ran backwards and forwards along the cliff, his face always to the
sea, and his voice rose insanely.
"Come back! Come back!"
Simon and Maurice arrived. Ralph looked at them with unwinking eyes.
Simon turned away, smearing the water from his cheeks. Ralph reached inside
himself for the worst word he knew.
"They let the bloody fire go out."
He looked down the unfriendly side of the mountain. Piggy arrived, out
of breath and whimpering like a littlun. Ralph clenched his fist and went
very red. The intent-ness of his gaze, the bitterness of his voice, pointed
for him.
"There they are."
A procession had appeared, far down among the pink stones that lay near
the water's edge. Some of the boys wore black caps but otherwise they were
almost naked. They lifted sticks in the air together whenever they came to
an easy patch. They were chanting, something to do with the bundle that the
errant twins carried so carefully. Ralph picked out Jack easily, even at
that distance, tall, red-haired, and inevitably leading the procession.
Simon looked now, from Ralph to Jack, as he had looked from Ralph to
the horizon, and what he saw seemed to make him afraid. Ralph said nothing
more, but waited while the procession came nearer. The chant was audible but
at that distance still wordless. Behind Jack walked the twins, carrying a
great stake on their shoulders. The gutted carcass of a pig swung from the
stake, swinging heavily as the twins toiled over the uneven ground. The pigs
head hung down with gaping neck and seemed to search for something on the
ground. At last the words of the chant floated up to them, across the bowl
of blackened wood and ashes.
"Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood."
Yet as the words became audible, the procession reached the steepest
part of the mountain, and in a minute or two the chant had died away. Piggy
sniveled and Simon shushed him quickly as though he had spoken too loudly in
church.
Jack, his face smeared with clays, reached the top first and hailed
Ralph excitedly, with lifted spear.
"Look! We've killed a pig-we stole up on them-we got in a circle-"
Voices broke in from the hunters.
"We got in a circle-"
"We crept up-"
The pig squealed-"
The twins stood with the pig swinging between them, dropping black
gouts on the rock. They seemed to share one wide, ecstatic grin. Jack had
too many things to tell Ralph at once. Instead, he danced a step or two,
then remembered his dignity and stood still, grinning. He noticed blood on
his hands and grimaced distastefully, looked for something on which to clean
them, then wiped them on his shorts and laughed.
Ralph spoke.
"You let the fire go out."
Jack checked, vaguely irritated by this irrelevance but too happy to
let it worry him.
"We can light the fire again. You should have been with us, Ralph. We
had a smashing time. The twins got knocked over-"
"We hit the pig-"
"-I fell on top-"
"I cut the pig's throat," said Jack, proudly, and yet twitched as he
said it. "Can I borrow yours, Ralph, to make a nick in the hilt?"
The boys chattered and danced. The twins continued to grin.
There was lashings of blood," said Jack, laughing and shuddering, "you
should have seen it!"
"We'll go hunting every day-"
Ralph spoke again, hoarsely. He had not moved.
"You let the fire go out."
This repetition made Jack uneasy. He looked at the twins and then back
at Ralph.
"We had to have them in the hunt," he said, "or there wouldn't have
been enough for a ring."
He flushed, conscious of a fault.
"The fire's only been out an hour or two. We can light up again-"
He noticed Ralph's scarred nakedness, and the sombre silence of all
four of them. He sought, charitable in his happiness, to include them in the
thing that had happened. His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the
knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig,
knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon
it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.
He spread his arms wide.
"You should have seen the blood!"
The hunters were more silent now, but at this they buzzed again. Ralph
flung back his hair. One arm pointed at the empty horizon. His voice was
loud and savage, and struck them into silence.
"There was a ship."
Jack, faced at once with too many awful implications, ducked away from
them. He laid a hand on the pig and drew his knife. Ralph brought his arm
down, fist clenched, and his voice shook.
"There was a ship. Out there. You said you'd keep the fire going and
you let it out!" He took a step toward Jack, who turned and faced him.
"They might have seen us. We might have gone home-"
This was too bitter for Piggy, who forgot his timidity in the agony of
his loss. He began to cry out, shrilly:
"You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have
gone home-"
Ralph pushed Piggy to one side.
"I was chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you
can't even build huts-then you go off hunting and let out the fire-"
He turned away, silent for a moment. Then his voice came again on a
peak of feeling.
"There was a ship-"
One of the smaller hunters began to wail. The dismal truth was
filtering through to everybody. Jack went very red as he hacked and pulled
at the pig.
"The job was too much. We needed everyone."
Ralph turned.
"You could have had everyone when the shelters were finished. But you
had to hunt-"
"We needed meat."
Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand. The two
boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics,
fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled
common-sense. Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood
over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair.
Piggy began again.
"You didn't ought to have let that fire out. You said you'd keep the
smoke going-"
This from Piggy, and the wails of agreement from some of the hunters,
drove Jack to violence. The bolting look came into his blue eyes. He took a
step, and able at last to hit someone, stuck his fist into Piggy's stomach.
Piggy sat down with a grunt. Jack stood over him. His voice was vicious with
humiliation.
"You would, would you? Fatty!"
Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Piggy's head. Piggy's
glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror:
"My specs!"
He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Simon, who got there
first, found them for him. Passions beat about Simon on the mountain-top
with awful wings.
"One side's broken."
Piggy grabbed and put on the glasses. He looked malevolently at Jack.
"I got to have them specs. Now I only got one eye. Jus` you wait-"
Jack made a move toward Piggy who scrambled away till a great rock lay
between them. He thrust his head over the top and glared at Jack through his
one flashing glass.
"Now I only got one eye. Just you wait-"
Jack mimicked the whine and scramble.
"Jus' you wait-yah!"
Piggy and the parody were so funny that the hunters began to laugh.
Jack felt encouraged. He went on scrambling and the laughter rose to a gale
of hysteria. Unwillingly Ralph felt his lips twitch; he was angry with
himself for giving way.
He muttered.
"That was a dirty trick."
Jack broke out of his gyration and stood facing Ralph. His words came
in a shout.
"All right, all right!"
He looked at Piggy, at the hunters, at Ralph.
"I'm sorry. About the fire, I mean. There. I-"
He drew himself up.
"-I apologize."
The buzz from the hunters was one of admiration at this handsome
behavior. Clearly they were of the opinion that Jack had done the decent
thing, had put himself in the right by his generous apology and Ralph,
obscurely, in the wrong. They waited for an appropriately decent answer.
Yet Ralph's throat refused to pass one. He resented, as an addition to
Jack's misbehavior, this verbal trick. The fire was dead, the ship was gone.
Could they not see? Anger instead of decency passed his throat.
"That was a dirty trick."
They were silent on the mountain-top while the opaque look appeared in
Jack's eyes and passed away.
Ralph's final word was an ungracious mutter.
"All right. Light the fire."
With some positive action before them, a little of die tension died.
Ralph said no more, did nothing, stood looking down at the ashes round his
feet. Jack was loud and active. He gave orders, sang, whistled, threw
remarks at the silent Ralph-remarks that did not need an answer, and
therefore could not invite a snub; and still Ralph was silent. No one, not
even Jack, would ask him to move and in the end they had to build the fire
three yards away and in a place not really as convenient. So Ralph asserted
his chieftainship and could not have chosen a better way if he had thought
for days. Against this weapon, so indefinable and so effective, Jack was
powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was built,
they were on different sides of a high barrier.
When they had dealt with the fire another crisis arose. Jack had no
means of lighting it. Then to his surprise, Ralph went to Piggy and took the
glasses from him. Not even Ralph knew now a link between him and Jack had
been snapped and fastened elsewhere.
'I'll bring 'em back."
"I'll come too."
Piggy stood behind him, islanded in a sea of meaningless color, while
Ralph knelt and focused the glossy spot. Instantly the fire was alight Piggy
held out his hands and grabbed the glasses back.
Before these fantastically attractive flowers of violet and red and
yellow, unkindness melted away. They became a circle of boys round a camp
fire and even Piggy and Ralph were half-drawn in. Soon some of the boys were
rushing down the slope for more wood while Jack hacked the pig. They tried
holding the whole carcass on a stake over the fire, but the stake burnt more
quickly than the pig roasted. In the end they skewered bits of meat on
branches and held them in the flames: and even then almost as much boy was
roasted as meat.
Ralph's mouth watered. He meant to refuse meat but his past diet of
fruit and nuts, with an odd crab or fish, gave him too little resistance. He
accepted a piece of half-raw meat and gnawed it like a wolf.
Piggy spoke, also dribbling.
"Aren't I having none?"
Jack had meant to leave him in doubt, as an assertion of power; but
Piggy by advertising his omission made more cruelty necessary.
"You didn't hunt."
"No more did Ralph," said Piggy wetly, "nor Simon." He amplified.
"There isn't more than a ha'porth of meat in a crab."
Ralph stirred uneasily. Simon, sitting between the twins and Piggy,
wiped his mouth and shoved his piece of meat over the rocks to Piggy, who
grabbed it. The twins giggled and Simon lowered his face in shame.
Then Jack leapt to his feet, slashed off a great hunk of meat, and
flung it down at Simon's feet.
"Eat! Damn you!"
He glared at Simon.
"Take it!"
He spun on his heel, center of a bewildered circle of boys.
"I got you meat!"
Numberless and inexpressible frustrations combined to make his rage
elemental and awe-inspiring.
"I painted my face-I stole up. Now you eat-all of you -and I-"
Slowly the silence on the mountain-top deepened till the click of the
fire and the soft hiss of roasting meat could be heard clearly. Jack looked
round for understanding but found only respect. Ralph stood among the ashes
of the signal fire, his hands full of meat, saying nothing.
Then at last Maurice broke the silence. He changed the subject to the
only one that could bring the majority of them together.
"Where did you find the pig?"
Roger pointed down the unfriendly side. "They were there-by the sea."
Jack, recovering, could not bear to have his story told. He broke in
quickly.
"We spread round. I crept, on hands and knees. The spears fell out
because they hadn't barbs on. The pig ran away and made an awful noise-"
"It turned back and ran into the circle, bleeding-"
All the boys were talking at once, relieved and excited.
"We closed in-"
The first blow had paralyzed its hind quarters, so then the circle
could close in and beat and beat-
"I cut the pig's throat-"
The twins, still sharing their identical grin, jumped up and ran round
each other. Then the rest joined in, making pig-dying noises and shouting.
"One for his nob!"
"Give him a fourpenny one!"
Then Maurice pretended to be the pig and ran squealing into the center,
and the hunters, circling still, pretended to beat him. As they danced, they
sang.
"Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in"
Ralph watched them, envious and resentful. Not till they flagged and
the chant died away, did he speak.
"I'm calling an assembly."
One by one, they halted, and stood watching him.
"With the conch. I'm calling a meeting even if we have to go on into
the dark. Down on the platform. When I blow it. Now."
He turned away and walked off, down the mountain.
CHAPTER FIVE
Beast from Water
The tide was coming in and there was only a narrow strip of firm beach
between the water and the white, stumbling stuff near the palm terrace.
Ralph chose the firm strip as a path because he needed to think, and only
here could he allow his feet to move without having to watch them. Suddenly,
pacing by the water, he was overcome with astonishment. He found himself
understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an
improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent
watching one's feet. He stopped, facing the strip; and remembering that
first enthusiastic exploration as though it were part of a brighter
childhood, he smiled jeeringly. He turned then and walked back toward the
platform with the sun in his face. The time had come for the assembly and as
he walked into the concealing splendors of the sunlight he went carefully
over the points of his speech. There must be no mistake about this assembly,
no chasing imaginary. . . .
He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his
lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again.
This meeting must not be fun, but business.
At that he walked faster, aware all at once of urgency and the
declining sun and a little wind created by his speed that breathed about his
face. This wind pressed his grey shirt against his chest so that he
noticed-in this new mood of comprehension-how the folds were stiff like
cardboard, and unpleasant; noticed too how the frayed edges of his shorts
were making an uncomfortable, pink area on the front of his thighs. With a
convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay, understood how much
he disliked perpetually flicking the tangled hair out of his eyes, and at
last, when the sun was gone, rolling noisily to rest among dry leaves. At
that he began to trot.
The beach near the bathing pool was dotted with groups of boys waiting
for the assembly. They made way for him silently, conscious of his grim mood
and the fault at the fire.
The place of assembly in which he stood was roughly a triangle; but
irregular and sketchy, like everything they made. First there was the log on
which he himself sat; a dead tree that must have been quite exceptionally
big for the platform. Perhaps one of those legendary storms of the Pacific
had shifted it here. This palm trunk lay parallel to the beach, so that when
Ralph sat he faced the island but to the boys was a darkish figure against
the shimmer of the lagoon. The two sides of the triangle of which the log
was base were less evenly defined. On the right was a log polished by
restless seats along the top, but not so large as the chiefs and not so
comfortable. On the left were four small logs, one of them-the
farthest-lamentably springy. Assembly after assembly had broken up in
laughter when someone had leaned too far back and the log had whipped and
thrown half a dozen boys backwards into the grass. Yet now, he saw, no one
had had the wit-not himself nor Jack, nor Piggy-to bring a stone and wedge
the thing. So they would continue enduring the ill-balanced twister,
because, because. . . . Again he lost himself in deep waters.
Crass was worn away in front of each trunk but grew tall and untrodden
in tile center of the triangle. Then, at the apex, the grass was thick again
because no one sat there. All round the place of assembly the grey trunks
rose, straight or leaning, and supported the low roof of leaves. On two
sides was the beach; behind, the lagoon; in front, the darkness of the
island.
Ralph turned to the chief's seat. They had never had an assembly as
late before. That was why the place looked so different. Normally the
underside of the green roof was lit by a tangle of golden reflections, and
their faces were lit upside down-like, thought Ralph, when you hold an
electric torch in your hands. But now the sun was slanting in at one side,
so that the shadows were where they ought to be.
Again he fell into that strange mood of speculation that was so foreign
to him. If faces were different when lit from above or below-what was a
face? What was anything?
Ralph moved impatiently. The trouble was, if you were a chief you had
to think, you had to be wise. And then the occasion slipped by so that you
had to grab at a decision. This made you think; because thought was a
valuable thing, that got results. . . .
Only, decided Ralph as he faced the chiefs seat, I can't think. Not
like Piggy.
Once more that evening Ralph had to adjust his values. Piggy could
think. He could go step by step inside that fat head of his, only Piggy was
no chief. But Piggy, for all his ludicrous body, had brains. Ralph was a
specialist in thought now, and could recognize thought in another.
The sun in his eyes reminded him how time was passing, so he took the
conch down from the tree and examined the surface. Exposure to the air had
bleached the yellow and pink to near-white, and transparency. Ralph felt a
land of affectionate reverence for the conch, even though he had fished the
thing out of the lagoon himself. He faced the place of assembly and put the
conch to his lips.
The others were waiting for this and came straight away. Those who were
aware that a ship had passed the island while the fire was out were subdued
by the thought of Ralph's anger; while those, including the littluns who did
not know, were impressed by the general air of solemnity. The place of
assembly filled quickly; Jack, Simon, Maurice, most of the hunters, on
Ralph's right; the rest on the left, under the sun. Piggy came and stood
outside the triangle. This indicated that he wished to listen, but would not
speak; and Piggy intended it as a gesture of disapproval
"The thing is: we need an assembly."
No one said anything but the faces turned to Ralph were intent. He
flourished the conch. He had learnt as a practical business that fundamental
statements like this had to be said at least twice, before everyone
understood them. One had to sit, attracting all eyes to the conch, and drop
words like heavy round stones among the little groups that crouched or
squatted. He was searching his mind for simple words so that even the
littluns would understand what the assembly was about. Later perhaps,
practiced debaters-Jack, Maurice, Piggy-would use their whole art to twist
the meeting: but now at the beginning the subject of the debate must be laid
out clearly.
"We need an assembly. Not for fun. Not for laughing and falling off the
log"-the group of littluns on the twister giggled and looked at each
other-"not for making jokes, or for"-he lifted the conch in an effort to
find the compelling word-"for cleverness. Not for these things. But to put
things straight.''
He paused for a moment.
"I've been alone. By myself I went, thinking what's what I know what we
need. An assembly to put things straight And first of all, I'm speaking."
He paused for a moment and automatically pushed back his hair. Piggy
tiptoed to the triangle, his ineffectual protest made, and joined the
others.
Ralph went on.
"We have lots of assemblies. Everybody enjoys speaking and being
together. We decide things. But they don't get done. We were going to have
water brought from the stream and left in those coconut shells under fresh
leaves. So it was, for a few days. Now there's no water. The shells are dry.
People drink from the river."
There was a murmur of assent.
"Not that there's anything wrong with drinking from the river. I mean
I'd sooner have water from that place- you know, the pool where the
waterfall is-than out of an old coconut shell. Only we said we'd have the
water brought And now not There were only two full shells there this
afternoon."
He licked his lips.
"Then there's huts. Shelters."
The murmur swelled again and died away.
"You mostly sleep in shelters. Tonight, except for Sam-neric up by the
fire, you'll all sleep there. Who built the shelters?"
Clamor rose at once. Everyone had built the shelters. Ralph had to wave
the conch once more.
"Wait a minute! I mean, who built all three? We all built the first
one, four of us the second one, and me 'n Simon built the last one over
there. That's why it's so tottery. No. Don't laugh. That shelter might fall
down if the rain comes back. We'll need those shelters then."
He paused and cleared his throat.
"There's another thing. We chose those rocks right along beyond the
bathing pool as a lavatory. That was sensible too. The tide cleans the place
up. You littluns know about that."
There were sniggers here and there and swift glances.
"Now people seem to use anywhere. Even near the shelters and the
platform. You littluns, when you're getting fruit; if you're taken short-"
The assembly roared.
"I said if you're taken short you keep away from the fruit. That's
dirty."
Laughter rose again.
"I said that's dirty!"
He plucked at his stiff, grey shirt.
"That's realty dirty. If you're taken short you go right along the
beach to the rocks. See?"
Piggy held out his hands for the conch but Ralph shook his head. This
speech was planned, point by point.
"We've all got to use the rocks again. This place is getting dirty." He
paused. The assembly, sensing a crisis, was tensely expectant. "And then:
about the fire."
Ralph let out his spare breath with a little gasp that was echoed by
his audience. Jack started to chip a piece of wood with his knife and
whispered something to Robert, who looked away.
"The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be
rescued except by luck, if we don't keep a fire going? Is a fire too much
for us to make?"
He flung out an arm.
"Look at us! How many are we? And yet we can't keep a fire going to
make smoke. Don't you understand? Can't you see we ought to-ought to die
before we let the fire out?"
There was a self-conscious giggling among the hunters. Ralph turned on
them passionately.
"You hunters! You can laugh! But I tell you the smoke is more important
than the pig, however often you kill one. Do all of you see?" He spread his
arms wide and turned to the whole triangle.
"We've got to make smoke up there-or die."
He paused, feeling for his next point
"And another thing."
Someone called out.
"Too many things."
There came mutters of agreement. Ralph overrode them.
"And another thing. We nearly set the whole island on fire. And we
waste time, rolling rocks, and making little cooking fires. Now I say this
and make it a rule, because I'm chief. We won't have a fire anywhere but on
the mountain. Ever."
There was a row immediately. Boys stood up and shouted and Ralph
shouted back.
"Because if you want a fire to cook fish or crab, you can jolly well go
up the mountain. That way we'll be certain."
Hands were reaching for the conch in the light of the setting sun. He
held on and leapt on the trunk.
"All this I meant to say. Now I've said it. You voted me for chief. Now
you do what I say."
They quieted, slowly, and at last were seated again. Ralph dropped down
and spoke in his ordinary voice.
"So remember. The rocks for a lavatory. Keep the fire going and smoke
showing as a signal. Don't take fire from the mountain. Take your food up
mere."
Jack stood up, scowling in the gloom, and held out his hands.
"I haven't finished yet"
"But you've talked and talked!"
"I've got the conch."
Jack sat down, grumbling.
"Then the last mine. This is what people can talk about."
He waited till the platform was very still.
"Things are breaking up. I don't understand why. We began well; we were
happy. And then-"
He moved the conch gently, looking beyond them at nothing, remembering
the beastie, the snake, the fire, the talk of fear.
"Then people started getting frightened."
A murmur, almost a moan, rose and passed away. Jack had stopped
whittling. Ralph went on, abruptly.
"But that's littluns' talk. We'll get that straight. So the last part,
the bit we can all talk about, is kind of deciding on the fear."
The hair was creeping into his eyes again.
"We've got to talk about this fear and decide there's nothing in it.
I'm frightened myself, sometimes; only that's nonsense! Like bogies. Then,
when we've decided, we can start again and be careful about things like the
fire." A picture of three boys walking along the bright beach flitted
through his mind. "And be happy."
Ceremonially, Ralph laid the conch on the trunk beside him as a sign
that the speech was over. What sunlight reached them was level.
Jack stood up and took the conch.
"So this is a meeting to find out what's what, I`ll tell you what's
what. You littluns started all this, with the fear talk. Beasts! Where from?
Of course we're frightened sometimes but we put up with being frightened.
Only Ralph says you scream in the night. What does that mean but nightmares?
Anyway, you don't hunt or build or help-you're a lot of cry-babies and
sissies. That's what. And as for the fear- you'll have to put up with that
like the rest of us."
Ralph looked at Jack open-mouthed, but Jack took no notice.
'The thing is-fear can't hurt you any more than a dream. There aren't
any beasts to be afraid of on this island." He looked along the row of
whispering littluns. "Serve you right if something did get you, you useless
lot of cry-babies! But there is no animal-"
Ralph interrupted him testily.
"What is all this? Who said anything about an animal?"
"You did, the other day. You said they dream and cry out Now they
talk-not only the littluns, but my hunters sometimes-talk of a thing, a dark
thing, a beast, some sort of animal I've heard. You thought not, didn't you?
Now listen. You don't get big animals on small islands. Only pigs. You only
get lions and tigers in big countries like Africa and India-"
"And the Zoo-"
"I've got the conch. I'm not talking about the fear. I'm talking about
the beast. Be frightened if you like. But as for the beast-"
Jack paused, cradling the conch, and turned to his hunt" ers with their
dirty black caps.