CHAPTER FOUR
Painted Faces and Long Hair
The first rhythm that they became used to was the slow swing
from dawn to quick dusk. They accepted the pleasures of morning,
the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when
play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and
therefore forgotten. Toward noon, as the floods of light fell more
nearly to the perpendicular, the stark colors of the morning were
smoothed in pearl and opalescence; and the heat—as though
the impending sun's height gave it momentum— became a blow
that they ducked, running to the shade and lying there, perhaps even
sleeping.
Strange things happened at midday. The glittering sea rose up,
moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility; the coral reef and the
few stunted palms that clung to the more elevated parts would float up
into the sky, would quiver, be plucked apart, run like raindrops on a
wire or be repeated as in an odd succession of mirrors. Sometimes
land loomed where there was no land and flicked out like a bubble as
the children watched. Piggy discounted all this learnedly as a
"mirage"; and since no boy could reach even the reef over the stretch
of water where the snapping sharks waited, they grew accustomed
to these mysteries and ignored them, just as they ignored the
miraculous, throbbing stars. At midday the illusions merged into the
sky and there the sun gazed down like an angry eye. Then, at the
end of the afternoon, the mirage subsided and the horizon became
level and blue and clipped as the sun declined. That was another
time of comparative coolness but menaced by the coming of the
dark. When the sun sank, darkness dropped on the island like an
extinguisher and soon the shelters were full of restlessness, under
the remote stars.
Nevertheless, the northern European tradition of work, play, and
food right through the day, made it impossible for them to adjust
themselves wholly to this new rhythm. The littlun Percival had early
crawled into a shelter and stayed there for two days, talking,
singing, and crying, till they thought him batty and were faintly
amused. Ever since then he had been peaked, red-eyed, and
miserable; a littlun who played little and cried often.
The smaller boys were known now by the generic title of "littluns."
The decrease in size, from Ralph down, was gradual; and though
there was a dubious region inhabited by Simon and Robert and
Maurice, nevertheless no one had any difficulty in recognizing
biguns at one end and littluns at the other. The undoubted littluns,
those aged about six, led a quite distinct, and at the same time
intense, life of their own. They ate most of the day, picking fruit
where they could reach it and not particular about ripeness and
quality. They were used now to stomach-aches and a sort of chronic
diarrhoea. They suffered untold terrors in the dark and huddled
together for comfort. Apart from food and sleep, they found time for
play, aimless and trivial, in the white sand by the bright water. They
cried for their mothers much less often than might have been
expected; they were very brown, and filthily dirty. They obeyed the
summons of the conch, partly because Ralph 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.
“I 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.
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