.
But they left at last.
The way to the top was easy after that As they reached the last stretch
Ralph stopped.
"Golly!"
They were on the lip of a circular hollow In the side or the mountain.
This was filled with a blue flower, a rock plant of some sort, and the
overflow hung down the vent and spilled lavishly among the canopy of the
forest. The air was thick with butterflies, lifting, fluttering, settling.
Beyond the hollow was the square top of the mountain and soon they were
standing on it.
They had guessed before that this was an island: clambering among the
pink rocks, with the sea on either side, and the crystal heights of air,
they had known by some instinct that the sea lay on every side. But there
seemed something more fitting in leaving the last word till they stood on
the top, and could see a circular horizon of water.
Ralph turned to the others.
"This belongs to us."
It was roughly boat-shaped: humped near this end with behind them the
jumbled descent to the shore. On either side rocks, cliffs, treetops and a
steep slope: forward there, the length of the boat, a tamer descent,
tree-clad, with hints of pink: and then the jungly flat of the island, dense
green, but drawn at the end to a pink tail There, where the island petered
out in water, was another island; a rock, almost detached, standing like a
fort, facing them across the green with one bold, pink bastion.
The boys surveyed all this, then looked out to sea. They were high up
and the afternoon had advanced; the view was not robbed of sharpness by
mirage.
"That's a reef. A coral reel. I've seen pictures like that."
The reef enclosed more than one side of the island, tying perhaps a
mile out and parallel to what they now thought of as their beach. The coral
was scribbled in the sea as though a giant had bent down to reproduce the
shape of the island in a flowing chalk line but tired before he had
finished. Inside was peacock water, rocks and weed showing as in an
aquarium; outside was the dark blue of the sea. The tide was running so that
long streaks of foam tailed away from the reef and for a moment they felt
that the boat was moving steadily astern.
Jack pointed down.
"That s where we landed."
Beyond falls and cliffs there was a gash visible in the trees; there
were the splintered trunks and then the drag, leaving only a fringe of palm
between the scar and the sea. There, too, jutting into the lagoon, was the
platform, with insect-like figures moving near it.
Ralph sketched a twining line from the bald spot on which they stood
down a slope, a gully, through flowers, round and down to the rock where the
scar started.
"That's the quickest way back."
Eyes shining, mouths open, triumphant, they savored the right of
domination. They were lifted up: were friends.
"There's no village smoke, and no boats," said Ralph wisely. "We'll
make sure later; but I think it's uninhabited."
"We'll get food," cried Jack. "Hunt. Catch things . . . until they
fetch us."
Simon looked at them both, saying nothing but nodding till his black
hair flopped backwards and forwards: his face was glowing.
Ralph looked down the other way where there was no reef.
"Steeper," said Jack.
Ralph made a cupping gesture.
"That bit of forest down there ... the mountain holds it up."
Every point of the mountain held up trees-flowers and trees. Now the
forest stirred, roared, flailed. The nearer acres of rock flowers fluttered
and for half a minute the breeze blew cool on their faces.
Ralph spread his arms.
"All ours."
They laughed and tumbled and shouted on the mountain.
"I'm hungry."
When Simon mentioned his hunger the others became aware of theirs.
"Come on," said Ralph. "We've found out what we wanted to know."
They scrambled down a rock slope, dropped among flowers and made their
way under the trees. Here they paused and examined the bushes round them
curiously.
Simon spoke first.
"Like candles. Candle bushes. Candle buds."
The bushes were dark evergreen and aromatic and the many buds were
waxen green and folded up against the light. Jack slashed at one with his
knife and the scent spilled over them.
"Candle buds."
"You couldn't light them," said Ralph. "They just look like candles."
"Green candles," said Jack contemptuously. "We can't eat them. Come
on."
They were in the beginnings of the thick forest, plonking with weary
feet on a track, when they heard the noises -squeakings-and the hard strike
of hoofs on a path. As they pushed forward the squeaking increased till it
became a frenzy. They found a piglet caught in a curtain of creepers,
throwing itself at the elastic traces in all the madness of extreme terror.
Its voice was thin, needle-sharp and insistent. The three boys rushed
forward and Jack drew his knife again with a flourish. He raised his arm in
the air. There came a pause, a hiatus, the pig continued to scream and the
creepers to jerk, and the blade continued to flash at the end of a bony arm.
The pause was only long enough for them to understand what an enormity the
downward stroke would be. Then the piglet tore loose from the creepers and
scurried into the undergrowth. They were left looking at each other and the
place of terror. Jack's face was white under the freckles'. He noticed that
he still held the knife aloft and brought his arm down replacing the blade
in the sheath. Then they all three laughed ashamedly and began to climb back
to the track.
"I was choosing a place," said Jack. "I was just waiting for a moment
to decide where to stab him."
"You should stick a pig," said Ralph fiercely. "They always talk about
sticking a pig."
"You cut a pig's throat to let the blood out," said Jack, "otherwise
you can't eat the meat"
"Why didn't you-?"
They knew very well why he hadn't: because of the enormity of the knife
descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood.
"I was going to," said Jack. He was ahead of them and they could not
see his face. "I was choosing a place. Next time-!"
He snatched his knife out of the sheath and slammed it into a tree
trunk. Next time there would be no mercy. He looked round fiercely, daring
them to contradict. Then they broke out into the sunlight and for a while
they were busy finding and devouring rood as they moved down the scar toward
the platform and the meeting.
CHAPTER TWO
Fire on the Mountain
By the time Ralph finished blowing the conch the platform was crowded.
There were differences between this meeting and the one held in the morning.
The afternoon sun slanted in from the other side of the platform and most of
the children, feeling too late the smart of sunburn, had put their clothes
on. The choir, noticeably less of a group, had discarded their cloaks.
Ralph sat on a fallen trunk, his left side to the sun. On his right
were most of the choir; on his left the larger boys who had not known each
other before the evacuation; before him small children squatted in the
grass.
Silence now. Ralph lifted the cream and pink shell to his knees and a
sudden breeze scattered light over the platform. He was uncertain whether to
stand up or remain sitting. He looked sideways to his left, toward the
bathing pool. Piggy was sitting near but giving no help.
Ralph cleared his throat.
"Well then."
All at once he found he could talk fluently and explain what he had to
say. He passed a hand through his fair hair and spoke.
"We're on an island. We've been on the mountain top and seen water all
round. We saw no houses, no smoke, no footprints, no boats, no people. We're
on an uninhabited island with no other people on it."
Jack broke in.
"All the same you need an army-for hunting. Hunting pigs-"
"Yes. There are pigs on the island."
All three of them tried to convey the sense of the pink live thing
struggling in the creepers.
"We saw-"
"Squealing-"
"It broke away-"
"Before I could kill it-but-next time!"
Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked round challengingly.
The meeting settled down again.
"So you see," said Ralph, "we need hunters to get us meat. And another
thing."
He lifted the shell on his knees and looked round the sun-slashed
faces.
"There aren't any grownups. We shall have to look after ourselves."
The meeting hummed and was silent.
"And another thing. We can't have everybody talking at once. Well have
to have 'Hands up' like at school."
He held the conch before his face and glanced round the mouth.
"Then I'll give him the conch."
"Conch?"
"That's what this shell's called. I`11 give the conch to the next
person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking."
"But-"
"Look-"
"And he won't be interrupted. Except by me."
Jack was on his feet.
"We'll have rules!" he cried excitedly. "Lots of rules! Then when
anyone breaks 'em-"
"Whee-oh!"
"Wacco!"
"Bong!"
"Doink!"
Ralph felt the conch lifted from his lap. Then Piggy was standing
cradling the great cream shell and the shouting died down. Jack, left on his
feet, looked uncertainly at Ralph who smiled and patted the log. Jack sat
down. Piggy took off his glasses and blinked at the assembly while he wiped
them on his shirt.
"You're hindering Ralph. You're not letting him get to the most
important thing."
He paused effectively.
"Who knows we're here? Eh?"
"They knew at the airport"
"The man with a trumpet-thing-"
"My dad."
Piggy put on his glasses.
"Nobody knows where we are," said Piggy. He was paler than before and
breathless. "Perhaps they knew where we was going to; and perhaps not. But
they don't know where we are 'cos we never got there." He gaped at them for
a moment, then swayed and sat down. Ralph took the conch from his hands.
"That's what I was going to say," he went on, "when you all, all. . .
." He gazed at their intent faces. "The plane was shot down in flames.
Nobody knows where we are. We may be here a long time."
The silence was so complete that they could hear the unevenness of
Piggy's breathing. The sun slanted in and lay golden over half the platform.
The breezes that on the lagoon had chased their tails like kittens were
finding then-way across the platform and into the forest. Ralph pushed back
the tangle of fair hair that hung on his forehead.
"So we may be here a long time."
Nobody said anything. He grinned suddenly.
"But this is a good island. We-Jack, Simon and me- we climbed the
mountain. It's wizard. There's food and drink, and-"
"Rocks-"
"Blue flowers-"
Piggy, partly recovered, pointed to the conch in Ralph's hands, and
Jack and Simon fell silent. Ralph went on.
"While we're waiting we can have a good time on this island."
He gesticulated widely.
"It's like in a book."
At once there was a clamor.
"Treasure Island-"
"Swallows and Amazons-"
"Coral Island-"
Ralph waved the conch.
"This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to
fetch us we'll have fun."
Jack held out his hand for the conch.
There's pigs," he said. "There's food; and bathing water in that little
stream along there-and everything. Didn't anyone find anything else?"
He handed the conch back to Ralph and sat down. Apparently no one had
found anything.
The older boys first noticed the child when he resisted. There was a
group of little boys urging him forward and he did not want to go. He was a
shrimp of a boy, about six years old, and one side of his face was blotted
out by a mulberry-colored birthmark. He stood now, warped out of the
perpendicular by the fierce light of publicity, and he bored into the coarse
grass with one toe. He was muttering and about to cry.
The other little boys, whispering but serious, pushed him toward Ralph.
"All right," said Ralph, "come on then."
The small boy looked round in panic.
"Speak up!"
The small boy held out his hands for the conch and the assembly shouted
with laughter; at once 'he snatched back his hands and started to cry.
"Let him have the conch!" shouted Piggy. "Let him have it!"
At last Ralph induced him to hold the shell but by then the blow of
laughter had taken away the child's voice. Piggy knelt by him, one hand on
the great shell, listening and interpreting to the assembly.
"He wants to know what you're going to do about the snake-thing."
Ralph laughed, and the other boys laughed with him. The small boy
twisted further into himself.
"Tell us about the snake-thing."
"Now he says it was a beastie."
"Beastie?"
"A snake-thing. Ever so big. He saw it"
"Where?"
"In the woods."
Either the wandering breezes or perhaps the decline of the sun allowed
a little coolness to lie under the trees. The boys felt it and stirred
restlessly.
"You couldn't have a beastie, a snake-thing, on an island this size,"
Ralph explained kindly. "You only get them in big countries, like Africa, or
India."
Murmur; and the grave nodding of heads.
"He says the beastie came in the dark."
"Then he couldn't see it!"
Laughter and cheers.
"Did you hear that? Says he saw the thing in the dark-"
"He still says he saw the beastie. It came and went away again an' came
back and wanted to eat him-"
"He was dreaming."
Laughing, Ralph looked for confirmation round the ring of faces. The
older boys agreed; but here and there among the little ones was the doubt
that required more than rational assurance.
"He must have had a nightmare. Stumbling about among all those
creepers."
More grave nodding; they knew about nightmares.
"He says he saw the beastie, the snake-thing, and will it come back
tonight?"
"But there isn't a beastie!"
"He says in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the
trees and hung in the branches. He says will it come back tonight?"
"But there isn't a beastie!"
There was no laughter at all now and more grave watching. Ralph pushed
both hands through his hair and looked at the little boy in mixed amusement
and exasperation.
Jack seized the conch.
"Ralph's right of course. There isn't a snake-thing. But if there was a
snake we'd hunt it and kill it. We're going to hunt pigs to get meat for
everybody. And we'll look for the snake too-"
"But there isn't a snake!"
"We'll make sure when we go hunting."
Ralph was annoyed and, for the moment, defeated. He felt himself facing
something ungraspable. The eyes that looked so intently at him were without
humor.
"But there isn't a beast!"
Something he had not known was there rose in him and compelled him to
make the point, loudly and again.
"But I tell you there isn't a beast!"
The assembly was silent.
Ralph lifted the conch again and his good humor came back as he thought
of what he had to say next.
"Now we come to the most important thing. I've been thinking. I was
thinking while we were climbing the mountain." He flashed a conspiratorial
grin at the other two. "And on the beach just now. This is what I thought.
We want to have fun. And we want to be rescued."
The passionate noise of agreement from the assembly hit him like a wave
and he lost his thread. He thought again.
"We want to be rescued; and of course we shall be rescued."
Voices babbled. The simple statement, unbacked by any proof but the
weight of Ralph's new authority, brought light and happiness. He had to wave
the conch before he could make them hear him.
"My father's in the Navy. He said there aren't any unknown islands
left. He says the Queen has a big room full of maps and all the islands in
the world are drawn there. So the Queen's got a picture of this island."
Again came the sounds of cheerfulness and better heart.
"And sooner or later a ship will put in here. It might even be Daddy's
ship. So you see, sooner or later, we shall be rescued."
He paused, with the point made. The assembly was lifted toward safety
by his words. They liked and now respected him. Spontaneously they began to
clap and presently the platform was loud with applause. Ralph flushed,
looking sideways at Piggy's open admiration, and then the other way at Jack
who was smirking and showing that he too knew how to clap.
Ralph waved the conch.
"Shut up! Wait! Listen!"
He went on in the silence, borne on his triumph.
"There's another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes
near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the
mountain. We must make a fire."
"A fire! Make a fire!"
At once half the boys were on their feet. Jack clamored among them, the
conch forgotten. "Come on! Follow me!"
The space under the palm trees was full of noise and movement. Ralph
was on his feet too, shouting for quiet, but no one heard him. All at once
the crowd swayed toward the island and was gone-following Jack. Even the
tiny children went and did their best among the leaves and broken branches.
Ralph was left, holding the conch, with no one but Piggy.
Piggy's breathing was quite restored.
"Like kids!" he said scornfully. "Acting like a crowd of lads!"
Ralph looked at him doubtfully and laid the conch on the tree trunk.
"I bet it's gone tea-time," said Piggy. "What do they think they're
going to do on that mountain?"
He caressed the shell respectfully, then stopped and looked up.
"Ralph! Hey! Where you going?"
Ralph was already clambering over the first smashed swathes of the
scar. A long way ahead of him was crashing and laughter.
Piggy watched him in disgust.
"Like a crowd of lads-"
He sighed, bent, and laced up his shoes. The noise of the errant
assembly faded up the mountain. Then, with the martyred expression of a
parent who has to keep up with the senseless ebullience of the children, he
picked up the conch, turned toward the forest, and began to pick his way
over the tumbled scar.
Below the other side of the mountain top was a platform of forest. Once
more Ralph found himself making the cupping gesture.
"Down there we could get as much wood as we want."
Jack nodded and pulled at his underlip. Starting perhaps a hundred feet
below them on the steeper side of the mountain, the patch might have been
designed expressly for fuel. Trees, forced by the damp heat, found too
little soil for full growth, fell early and decayed: creepers cradled them,
and new saplings searched a way up.
Jack turned to die choir, who stood ready. Their black caps of
maintenance were slid over one ear like berets.
"Well build a pile. Come on."
They found the likeliest path down and began tugging at the dead wood.
And the small boys who had reached the top came sliding too till everyone
but Piggy was busy. Most of the wood was so rotten that when they pulled it
broke up into a shower of fragments and woodlice and decay; but some trunks
came out in one piece. The twins, Sam 'n Eric, were the first to get a
likely fog but they could do nothing till Ralph, Jack, Simon, Roger and
Maurice found room for a hand-hold. Then they inched the grotesque dead
thing up the rock and toppled it over on top. Each party of boys added a
quota, less or more, and the pile grew. At the return Ralph found himself
alone on a limb with Jack and they grinned at each other, sharing this
burden. Once more, amid the breeze, the shouting, the slanting sunlight on
the high mountain, was shed that glamour, that strange invisible light of
friendship, adventure, and content.
"Almost too heavy."
Jack grinned back.
"Not for the two of us."
Together, joined in effort by the burden, they staggered up the last
steep of the mountain. Together, they chanted One! Two! Three! and crashed
the log on to the great pile. Then they stepped back, laughing with
triumphant pleasure, so that immediately Ralph had to stand on his head.
Below them, boys were still laboring, though some of the small ones had lost
interest and were searching this new forest for fruit. Now the twins, with
unsuspected intelligence, came up the mountain with armfuls of dried leaves
and dumped them against the pile. One by one, as they sensed that the pile
was complete, the boys stopped going back for more and stood, with the pink,
shattered top of the mountain around them. Breath came evenly by now, and
sweat dried.
Ralph and Jack looked at each other while society paused about them.
The shameful knowledge grew in them and they did not know how to begin
confession.
Ralph spoke first, crimson in the face.
"Will your?"
He cleared his throat and went on.
"Will you light the fire?"
Now the absurd situation was open, Jack blushed too. He began to mutter
vaguely.
"You rub two sticks. You rub-"
He glanced at Ralph, who blurted out the last confession of
incompetence. "Has anyone got any matches?"
"You make a bow and spin the arrow," said Roger. He rubbed his hands in
mime. "Psss. Psss."
A little air was moving over the mountain. Piggy came with it, in
shorts and shirt, laboring cautiously out of the forest with the evening
sunlight gleaming from his glasses. He held the conch under his arm.
Ralph shouted at him.
"Piggy! Have you got any matches?"
The other boys took up the cry till the mountain rang. Piggy shook his
head and came to the pile.
"My! You've made a big heap, haven't you?"
Jack pointed suddenly.
"His specs-use them as burning glasses!"
Piggy was surrounded before he could back away.
"Here-let me go!" His voice rose to a shriek of terror as Jack snatched
toe glasses off his face. "Mind out! Give'em back! I can hardly see! You'll
break the conch!"
Ralph elbowed him to one side and knelt by the pile.
"Stand out of the light."
There was pushing and pulling and officious cries. Ralph moved the
lenses back and forth, this way and that, till a glossy white image of the
declining sun lay on a piece of rotten wood. Almost at once a thin trickle
of smoke rose up and made him cough. Jack knelt too and blew gently, so that
the smoke drifted away, thickening, and a tiny name appeared. The flame,
nearly invisible at first in that bright sunlight, enveloped a small twig,
grew, was enriched with color and reached up to a branch which exploded with
a sharp crack. The flame flapped higher and the boys broke into a cheer.
"My specs!" howled Piggy. "Give me my specs!"
Ralph stood away from the pile and put the glasses into Piggy s groping
hands. His voice subsided to a mutter.
"Jus` blurs, that's all. Hardly see my hand-"
The boys were dancing. The pile was so rotten, and now so tinder-dry,
that whole limbs yielded passionately to the yellow flames that poured
upwards and shook a great beard of flame twenty feet in the air. For yards
round the fire the heat was like a blow, and the breeze was a river of
sparks. Trunks crumbled to white dust.
Ralph shouted.
"More wood! All of you get more wood!"
Life became a race with the fire and the boys scattered through the
upper forest. To keep a clean flag of flame flying on the mountain was the
immediate end and no one looked further. Even the smallest boys, unless
fruit claimed them, brought little pieces of wood and threw them in. The air
moved a little faster and became a light wind, so that leeward and windward
side were clearly differentiated. On one side the air was cool, but on the
other the fire thrust out a savage arm of heat that crinkled hair on the
instant. Boys who felt the evening wind on their damp faces paused to enjoy
the freshness of it and then found they were exhausted. They flung
themselves down in the shadows that lay among die shattered rocks. The beard
of flame diminished quickly; then the pile fell inwards with a soft, cindery
sound, and sent a great tree of sparks upwards that leaned away and drifted
downwind. The boys lay, panting like dogs.
Ralph raised his head off his forearms.
"That was no good."
Roger spat efficiently into the hot dust.
"What d'you mean?"
"There wasn't any smoke. Only flame."
Piggy had settled himself in a space between two rocks, and sat with
the conch on his knees.
"We haven't made a fire," he said, "what's any use. We couldn't keep a
fire like that going, not if we tried.'
"A fat lot you tried," said Jack contemptuously. "You just sat."
"We used his specs," said Simon, smearing a black cheek with his
forearm. He helped that way."
"I got the conch," said Piggy indignantly. "You let me speak!"
"The conch doesn't count on top of the mountain," said Jack, "so you
shut up."
"I got the conch in my hand."
"Put on green branches," said Maurice. "That's the best way to make
smoke."
"I got the conch-"
Jack turned fiercely. "You shut up!"
Piggy wilted. Ralph took the conch from him and looked round the circle
of boys.
"We've got to have special people for looking after the fire. Any day
there may be a ship out there"-he waved his arm at the taut wire of the
horizon-"and if we have a signal going they'll come and take us off. And
another thing. We ought to have more rules. Where the conch is, that's a
meeting. The same up here as down there."
They assented. Piggy opened his mouth to speak, caught Jack's eye and
shut it again. Jack held out his hands for the conch and stood up, holding
the delicate thing carefully in his sooty hands.
"I agree with Ralph. We've got to have rules and obey them. After all,
we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything. So
we've got to do the right things."
He turned to Ralph.
"Ralph, I'll split up the choir-my hunters, that is-into groups, and
we'll be responsible for keeping the fire going-"
This generosity brought a spatter of applause from the boys, so that
Jack grinned at them, then waved the conch for silence.
"We'll let the fire burn out now. Who would see smoke at night-time,
anyway? And we can start the fire again whenever we like. Altos, you can
keep the fire going this week, and trebles the next-"
The assembly assented gravely.
"And we'll be responsible for keeping a lookout too. If we see a ship
out there"-they followed the direction of his bony arm with their
eyes-"we'll put green branches on. Then there'll be more smoke."
They gazed intently at the dense blue of the horizon, as if a little
silhouette might appear there at any moment.
The sun in the west was a drop of burning gold that slid nearer and
nearer the sill of the world. All at once they were aware of the evening as
the end of light and warmth.
Roger took the conch and looked round at them gloomily.
"I've been watching the sea. There hasn't been the trace of a ship.
Perhaps we'll never be rescued."
A murmur rose and swept away. Ralph took back the conch.
"I said before we'll be rescued sometime. We've just got to wait,
that's all."
Daring, indignant, Piggy took the conch.
"That's what I said! I said about our meetings and things and then you
said shut up-"
His voice lifted into the whine of virtuous recrimination. They stirred
and began to shout him down.
"You said you wanted a small fire and you been and built a pile like a
hayrick. If I say anything,' cried Piggy, with bitter realism, "you say shut
up; but if Jack or Maurice or Simon-"
He paused in the tumult, standing, looking beyond them and down the
unfriendly side of the mountain to the great patch where they had found dead
wood. Then he laughed so strangely that they were hushed, looking at the
flash of his spectacles in astonishment. They followed his gaze to find the
sour joke.
"You got your small fire all right."
Smoke was rising here and there among the creepers that festooned the
dead or dying trees. As they watched, a flash of fire appeared at the root
of one wisp, and then the smoke thickened. Small flames stirred at the trunk
of a tree and crawled away through leaves and brushwood, dividing and
increasing. One paten touched a tree trunk and scrambled up like a bright
squirrel. The smoke increased, sifted, rolled outwards. The squirrel leapt
on the wings of the wind and clung to another standing tree, eating
downwards. Beneath the dark canopy of leaves and smoke the fire laid hold on
the forest and began to gnaw. Acres of black and yellow smoke rolled
steadily toward the sea. At the sight of the flames and the irresistible
course of the fire, the boys broke into shrill, excited cheering. The
flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps on
its belly toward a line of birch-like saplings that fledged an outcrop of
the pink rock. They flapped at the first of the trees, and the branches grew
a brief foliage of fire. The heart of flame leapt nimbly across the gap
between the trees and then went swinging and flaring along the whole row of
them. Beneath the capering boys a quarter of a mile square of forest was
savage with smoke and flame. The separate noises of the fire merged into a
drum-roll that seemed to shake the mountain.
"You got your small fire all right"
Startled, Ralph realized that the boys were falling still and silent,
feeling the beginnings of awe at the power set free below them. The
knowledge and the awe made him savage.
"Oh, shut up!"
"I got the conch," said Piggy, in a hurt voice. "I got a right to
speak."
They looked at him with eyes that lacked interest in what they saw, and
cocked ears at the drum-roll of the fire. Piggy glanced nervously into hell
and cradled the conch.
"We got to let that burn out now. And that was our firewood."
He licked his lips.
There ain't nothing we can do. We ought to be more careful. I'm
scared-"
Jack dragged his eyes away from the fire. You're always scared.
Yah-Fatty!"
"I got the conch," said Piggy bleakly. He turned to Ralph. "I got the
conch, ain't I Ralph?"
Unwillingly Ralph turned away from the splendid, awful sight
"What's that?"
"The conch. I got a right to speak."
The twins giggled together.
"We wanted smoke-"
"Now look-!"
A pall stretched for miles away from the island. All the boys except
Piggy started to giggle; presently they were shrieking with laughter.
Piggy lost his temper.
"I got the conch! Just you listen! The first thing we ought to have
made was shelters down there by the beach. It wasn't half cold down there in
the night. But the first time Ralph says 'fire' you goes howling and
screaming up this here mountain. Like a pack of kids!"
By now they were listening to the tirade.
"How can you expect to be rescued if you don't put first things first
and act proper?"
He took off his glasses and made as if to put down the conch; but the
sudden motion toward it of most of the older boys changed his mind. He
tucked the shell under his arm, and crouched back on a rock.
"Then when you get here you build a bonfire that isn't no use. Now you
been and set the whole island on fire. Won't we look funny if the whole
island burns up? Cooked fruit, that's what we'll have to eat, and roast
pork. And that's nothing to laugh at! You said Ralph was chief and you don't
give him time to think. Then when he says something you rush off, like,
like-"
He paused for breath, and the fire growled at them.
"And that's not all. Them kids. The little 'uns. Who took any notice of
'em? Who knows how many we got?"
Ralph took a sudden step forward.
"I told you to. I told you to get a list of names!"
"How could I," cried Piggy indignantly, "all by myself? They waited for
two minutes, then they fell in the sea; they went into the forest; they just
scattered everywhere. How was I to know which was which?"
Ralph licked pale lips.
Then you don't know how many of us there ought to be?"
"How could I with them little 'uns running round like insects? Then
when you three came back, as soon as you said make a fire, they all ran
away, and I never had a chance-"
"That's enough!" said Ralph sharply, and snatched back the conch. "If
you didn't you didn't."
"-then you come up here an' pinch my specs-"
Jack turned on him.
"You shut up!"
"-and them little 'uns was wandering about down there where the fire
is. How d'you know they aren't still there?"
Piggy stood up and pointed to the smoke and flames. A murmur rose among
the boys and died away. Something strange was happening to Piggy, for he was
gasping for breath.
That little 'un-" gasped Piggy-"him with the mark on his face, I don't
see him. Where is he now?"
The crowd was as silent as death.
"Him that talked about the snakes. He was down there-"
A tree exploded in the fire like a bomb. Tall swathes of creepers rose
for a moment into view, agonized, and went down again. The little boys
screamed at them.
"Snakes! Snakes! Look at the snakes!"
In the west, and unheeded, the sun lay only an inch or two above the
sea. Their faces were lit redly from beneath. Piggy fell against a rock and
clutched it with both hands.
"That little 'un that had a mark on his face-where is -he now? I tell
you I don't see him."
The boys looked at each other fearfully, unbelieving.
"-where is he now?"
Ralph muttered the reply as if in shame.
"Perhaps he went back to the, the-"
Beneath them, on the unfriendly side of the mountain, the drum-roll
continued.
CHAPTER THREE
Huts on the Beach
Jack was bent double. He was down like a sprinter, his nose only a few
inches from the humid earth. The tree trunks and the creepers that festooned
them lost themselves in a green dusk thirty feet above him, and all about
was the undergrowth. There was only the faintest indication of a trail here;
a cracked twig and what might be the impression of one side of a hoof. He
lowered his chin and stared at the traces as though he would force them to
speak to him. Then dog-like, uncomfortably on all fours yet unheeding his
discomfort, he stole forward five yards and stopped. Here was loop of
creeper with a tendril pendant from a node. The tendril was polished on the
underside; pigs, passing through the loop, brushed it with their bristly
hide.
Jack crouched with his face a few inches away from this clue, then
stared forward into the semi-darkness of the undergrowth. His sandy hair,
considerably longer than it had been when they dropped in, was lighter now;
and his bare back was a mass of dark freckles and peeling sunburn. A
sharpened stick about five feet long trailed from his right hand, and except
for a pair of tattered shorts held up by his knife-belt he was naked. He
closed his eyes, raised his head and breathed in gently with flared
nostrils, assessing the current of warm air for information. The forest and
he were very still.
At length he let out his breath in a long sigh and opened his eyes.
They were bright blue, eyes that in this frustration seemed bolting and
nearly mad. He passed his tongue across dry lips and scanned the
uncommunicative forest Then again he stole forward and cast this way and
that over the ground.
The silence of the forest was more oppressive than the heat, and at
this hour of the day there was not even the whine of insects. Only when Jack
himself roused a gaudy bird from a primitive nest of sticks was the silence
shattered and echoes set ringing by a harsh cry that seemed to come out of
the abyss of ages. Jack himself shrank at this cry with a hiss of indrawn
breath, and for a minute became less a hunter than a furtive thing, ape-like
among the tangle of trees. Then the trail, the frustration, claimed' him
again and he searched the ground avidly. By the trunk of a vast tree that
grew pale flowers on its grey bark he checked, closed his eyes, and once
more drew in the warm air; and this time his breath came short, there was
even a passing pallor in his face, and then the surge of blood again. He
passed like a shadow under the darkness of the tree and crouched, looking
down at the trodden ground at his feet.
The droppings were warm. They lay piled among turned earth. They were
olive green, smooth, and they steamed a little. Jack lifted his head and
stared at the inscrutable masses of creeper that lay across the trail. Then
he raised his spear and sneaked forward. Beyond the creeper, the trail
joined a pig-run that was wide enough and trodden enough to be a path. The
ground was hardened by an accustomed tread and as Jack rose to his full
height he heard something moving on it. He swung back his right arm and
hurled the spear with all his strength. From the pig-run came the quick,
hard patter of hoofs, a castanet sound, seductive, maddening-the promise of
meat. He rushed out of the undergrowth and snatched up his spear. The
pattering of pig's trotters died away in the distance.
Jack stood there, streaming with sweat, streaked with brown earth,
stained by all the vicissitudes of a day's hunting. Swearing, he turned off
the trail and pushed his way through until the forest opened a little and
instead of bald trunks supporting a dark roof there were light grey trunks
and crowns of feathery palm. Beyond these was the glitter of the sea and he
could hear voices. Ralph was standing by a contraption of palm trunks and
leaves, a rude shelter that faced the lagoon and seemed very near to falling
down. He did not notice when Jack spoke.
"Got any water?"
Ralph looked up, frowning, from the complication of leaves. He did not
notice Jack even when he saw him.
"I said have you got any water? I'm thirsty."
Ralph withdrew his attention from the shelter and realized Jack with a
start.
"Oh, hullo. Water? There by the tree. Ought to be some left."
Jack took up a coconut shell that brimmed with fresh water from among a
group that was arranged in the shade, and drank. The water splashed over his
chin and neck and chest. He breathed noisily when he had finished.
"Needed that."
Simon spoke from inside the shelter.
"Up a bit."
Ralph turned to the shelter and lifted a branch with a whole tiling of
leaves.
The leaves came apart and fluttered down. Simon's contrite face
appeared in the hole.
"Sorry."
Ralph surveyed the wreck with distaste.
"Never get it done."
He flung himself down at Jack's feet Simon remained, looking out of the
hole in the shelter. Once down, Ralph explained.
"Been working for days now. And look!"
Two shelters were in position, but shaky. This one was a ruin.
"And they keep running off. You remember the meeting? How everyone was
going to work hard until the shelters were finished?"
"Except me and my hunters-"
"Except the hunters. Well, the littluns are-"
He gesticulated, sought for a word.
"They're hopeless. The older ones aren't much better. D'you see? All
day I've been working with Simon. No one else. They're off bathing, or
eating, or playing."
Simon poked his head out carefully.
"You're chief. You tell 'em off."
Ralph lay flat and looked up at the palm trees and the sky.
"Meetings. Don't we love meetings? Every day. Twice a day. We talk." He
got on one elbow. "I bet if I blew the conch this minute, they'd come
running. Then we'd be, you know, very solemn, and someone would say we ought
to build a jet, or a submarine, or a TV set. When the meeting was over