ger ceased to be a pig
and became a hunter, so that the center of the ring yawned emptily. Some of
the littluns started a ring on their own; and the complementary circles went
round and round as though repetition would achieve safety of itself. There
was tie throb and stamp of a single organism.
The dark sky was shattered by a blue-white scar. An instant later the
noise was on them like the blow of a gigantic whip. The chant rose a tone in
agony.
"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!
Now out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind.
"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"
Again the blue-white scar Jagged above them and the sulphurous
explosion beat down. The littluns screamed and blundered about, fleeing from
the edge of the forest, and one of them broke the ring of biguns in his
terror.
"Him! Him!"
The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest.
It came darkly, uncertainly. The shrill screaming that rose before the beast
was like a pain. The beast stumbled into the horseshoe.
"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"
The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was
crying out something about a dead man on a hill.
"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!"
The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed.
The beast was on its knees in the center, it's arms folded over its face. It
was crying out against the abominable noise something about a body on the
hill. The beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep
edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after
it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit,
tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and
claws.
Then the clouds opened and let down the rain like a waterfall. The
water bounded from the mountain-top, tore leaves and branches from the
trees, poured like a cold shower over the straggling heap on the sand.
Presently the heap broke up and figures staggered away. Only the beast lay
still, a few yards from the sea. Even in the rain they could see how small a
beast it was; and already its blood was stain-log the sand.
Now a great wind blew the rain sideways, cascading the water from the
forest trees. On the mountain-top the parachute filled and moved; the figure
slid, rose to its feet, spun, swayed down through a vastness of wet air and
trod with ungainly feet the tops of the high trees; falling, still falling,
it sank toward the beach and the boys rushed screaming into the darkness.
The parachute took the figure forward, furrowing the lagoon, and bumped it
over the reef and out to sea.
Toward midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that
the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the
breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and trickle of water
that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of
the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound
of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the
stains spread, inch by inch.
The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which
advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water
mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of
phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held
them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an
inaudible syllable and moved on.
Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was
full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a
larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls.
The tide swelled in over" the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with
a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from
the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they
gathered at the edge. The water rose farther and dressed Simon's coarse hair
with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder
became sculptured marble. The strange attendant creatures, with their fiery
eyes and trailing vapors, busied themselves round his head. The body lifted
a fraction of an inch from the sand and a bubble of air escaped from the
mouth with a wet plop. Then it turned gently in the water.
Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were
pulling, and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging
slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide
moved farther along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a
fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the
steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out toward the open sea.
CHAPTER TEN
The Shell and the Glasses
Piggy eyed the advancing figure carefully. Nowadays he sometimes found
that he saw more clearly if he removed his glasses and shifted the one lens
to the other eye; but even through the good eye, after what had happened,
Ralph remained unmistakably Ralph. He came now out of the coconut trees,
limping, dirty, with dead leaves hanging from his shock of yellow hair. One
eye was a slit in his puffy cheek and a great scab had formed on his right
knee. He paused for a moment and peered at the figure on the platform.
"Piggy? Are you the only one left?"
"There's some littluns."
"They don't count. No biguns?"
"Oh-Samneric. They're collecting wood."
"Nobody else?"
"Not that I know of."
Ralph climbed on to the platform carefully. The coarse grass was still
worn away where the assembly used to sit; the fragile white conch still
gleamed by the polished seat Ralph sat down in the grass facing the chiefs
seat and the conch. Piggy knelt at his left, and for a long minute there was
silence.
At last Ralph cleared his throat and whispered something.
Piggy whispered back.
"What you say?"
Ralph spoke up.
"Simon."
Piggy said nothing but nodded, solemnly. They continued to sit, gazing
with impaired sight at the chief's seat and the glittering lagoon. The green
light and the glossy patches of sunshine played over their befouled bodies.
At length Ralph got up and went to the conch. He took the shell
caressingly with both hands and knelt, leaning against the trunk.
"Piggy"
"Uh?"
"What we going to do?"
Piggy nodded at the conch.
"You could-"
"Call an assembly?"
Ralph laughed sharply as he said the word and Piggy frowned.
"You're still chief."
Ralph laughed again.
"You are. Over us."
"I got the conch."
"Ralph! Stop laughing like that. Look, there ain't no need, Ralph!
What's the others going to think?"
At last Ralph stopped. He was shivering.
"Piggy-"
"Uh?"
"That was Simon." "You said that before."
"Piggy-"
"Uh?"
"That was murder."
"You stop it!" said Piggy, shrilly. "What good're you doing talking
like that?"
He jumped to his feet and stood over Ralph.
"It was dark. There was that-that bloody dance. There was lightning and
thunder and rain. We was scared!"
"I wasn't scared," said Ralph slowly, "I was-I don't know what I was."
"We was scared!" said Piggy excitedly. "Anything might have happened.
It wasn't-what you said."
He was gesticulating, searching for a formula.
"Oh, Piggy!"
Ralph's voice, low and stricken, stopped Piggy's gestures. He bent down
and waited. Ralph, cradling the conch, rocked himself to and fro.
"Don't you understand, Piggy? The things we did-"
"He may still be-"
"No."
"P'raps he was only pretending-"
Piggy's voice trailed off at the sight of Ralph's face.
"You were outside. Outside the circle. You never really came in. Didn't
you see what we-what they did?"
There was loathing, and at the same time a kind of feverish excitement,
in his voice.
"Didn't you see, Piggy?"
"Not all that well. I only got one eye now. You ought to know that,
Ralph."
Ralph continued to rock to and fro.
"It was an accident," said Piggy suddenly, "that's what it was. An
accident." His voice shrilled again. "Coming in the dark-he hadn't no
business crawling like that out of the dark. He was batty. He asked for it.
He gesticulated widely again. "It was an accident."
"You didn't see what they did-"
"Look, Ralph. We got to forget this. We can't do no good thinking about
it, see?"
"I'm frightened. Of us. I want to go home. Oh God, I want to go home."
"It was an accident," said Piggy stubbornly, "and that's that."
He touched Ralph's bare shoulder and Ralph shuddered at the human
contact.
"And look, Ralph"-Piggy glanced round quickly, then leaned close-"don't
let on we was in that dance. Not to Samneric."
"But we were! All of us!"
Piggy shook his head.
"Not us till last. They never noticed in the dark. Anyway you said I
was only on the outside."
"So was I," muttered Ralph, "I was on the outside too."
Piggy nodded eagerly.
"That's right. We was on the outside. We never done nothing, we never
seen nothing."
Piggy paused, then went on.
"We'll live on our own, the four of us-"
"Four of us. We aren't enough to keep the fire burning."
"We'll try. See? I lit it."
Samneric came dragging a great log out of the forest. They dumped it by
the fire and turned to the pool. Ralph jumped to his feet.
"Hi! You two!"
The twins checked a moment, then walked on.
"They're going to bathe, Ralph."
"Better get it over."
The twins were very surprised to see Ralph. They flushed and looked
past him into the air.
"Hullo. Fancy meeting you, Ralph."
"We just been in the forest--"
"-to get wood for the fire-"
"-we got lost last night."
Ralph examined his toes.
"You got lost after the . . ."
Piggy cleaned his lens.
"After the feast," said Sam in a stifled voice. Eric nodded. "Yes,
after the feast."
"We left early," said Piggy quickly, "because we were tired."
"So did we-"
"-very early-"
"-we were very tired."
Sam touched a scratch on his forehead and then hurriedly took his hand
away. Eric fingered his split lip.
"Yes. We were very tired," repeated Sam, "so we left early. Was it a
good-"
The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge. Sam twisted and the obscene
word shot out of him. "-dance?"
Memory of the dance that none of them had attended shook all tour boys
convulsively.
"We left early."
When Roger came to the neck of land that joined the Castle Rock to the
mainland he was not surprised to be challenged. He had reckoned, during the
terrible night, on finding at least some of the tribe holding out against
the horrors of the island in the safest place.
The voice rang out sharply from on high, where the diminishing crags
were balanced one on another.
"Halt! Who goes there?"
"Roger."
"Advance, friend."
Roger advanced.
"The chief said we got to challenge everyone."
Roger peered up.
"You couldn't stop me coming if I wanted."
"Couldn't I? Climb up and see."
Roger clambered up the ladder-like cliff.
"Look at this."
A log had been jammed under the topmost rock and another lever under
that. Robert leaned lightly on the lever and the rock groaned. A full effort
would send the rock thundering down to the neck of land. Roger admired.
"He's a proper chief, isn't he?"
Robert nodded.
"He's going to take us hunting."
He jerked his head in the direction of the distant shelters where a
thread of white smoke climbed up the sky. Roger, sitting on the very edge of
the cliff, looked somberly back at the island as he worked with his fingers
at a loose tooth. His gaze settled on the top of the distant mountain and
Robert changed the unspoken subject.
"He's going to beat Wilfred."
"What for?"
Robert shook his head doubtfully.
"I don't know. He didn't say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up.
He's been"-he giggled excitedly- "he's been tied for hours, waiting-"
"But didn't the chief say why?'
"I never heard him."
Sitting on the tremendous rocks in the torrid sun, Roger received this
news as an illumination. He ceased to work at his tooth and sat still,
assimilating the possibilities of irresponsible authority. Then, without
another word, he climbed down the back of the rocks toward the cave and the
rest of the tribe.
The chief was sitting there, naked to the waist, his face blocked out
in white and red. The tribe lay in a semicircle before him. The newly beaten
and untied Wilfred was sniffing noisily in the background. Roger squatted
with the rest.
"Tomorrow," went on the chief, "we shall hunt again."
He pointed at this savage and that with his spear.
"Some of you will stay here to improve the cave and defend the gate. I
shall take a few hunters with me and bring back meat. The defenders of the
gate will see that the others don't sneak in."
A savage raised his hand and the chief turned a bleak, painted face
toward him.
"Why should they try to sneak in, Chief?"
The chief was vague but earnest.
"They will. They'll try to spoil things we do. So the watchers at the
gate must be careful. And then-"
The chief paused. They saw a triangle of startling pink dart out, pass
along his lips and vanish again.
"-and then, the beast might try to come in. You remember how he
crawled-"
The semicircle shuddered and muttered in agreement.
"He came-disguised. He may come again even though we gave him the head
of our kill to eat. So watch; and be careful."
Stanley lifted his forearm off the rock and held up an interrogative
finger.
"Well?"
"But didn't we, didn't we-?"
He squirmed and looked down.
"No!"
In the silence that followed, each savage flinched away from his
individual memory.
"No! How could we-kill-it?"
Half-relieved, half-daunted by the implication of further terrors, the
savages murmured again.
"So leave the mountain alone," said the chief, solemnly, "and give it
the head if you go hunting."
Stanley flicked his finger again.
"I expect the beast disguised itself."
"Perhaps," said the chief. A theological speculation presented itself.
"We'd better keep on the right side of him, anyhow. You can't tell what he
might do."
The tribe considered this; and then were shaken, as if by a flaw of
wind. The chief saw the effect of his words and stood abruptly.
"But tomorrow we'll hunt and when we've got meat we'll have a feast-"
Bill put up his hand.
"Yes?"'
"What'll we use for lighting the fire?"
The chiefs blush was hidden by the white and red clay Into his
uncertain silence the tribe spilled their murmur once more. Then the chief
held up his hand.
"We shall take fire from the others. Listen. Tomorrow well hunt and get
meat. Tonight Ill go along with two hunters-who'll come?"
Maurice and Roger put up their hands.
"Maurice-"
"Yes, Chief?"
"Where was their fire?"
"Back at the old place by the fire rock."
The chief nodded.
"The rest of you can go to sleep as soon as the sun sets. But us three,
Maurice, Roger and me, we've got work to do. We'll leave just before
sunset-"
Maurice put up his hand.
"But what happens if we meet-"
The chief waved his objection aside.
"We'll keep along by the sands. Then if he comes well do our, our dance
again."
"Only the three of us?"
Again the murmur swelled and died away.
Piggy handed Ralph his glasses and waited to receive back his sight.
The wood was damp; and this was the third time they had lighted it Ralph
stood back, speaking to himself.
"We don't want another night without fire."
He looked round guiltily at the three boys standing by. This was the
first time he had admitted the double function of the fire. Certainly one
was to send up a beckoning column of smoke; but the other was to be a hearth
now and a comfort until they slept. Eric breathed on the wood till it glowed
and sent out a little flame. A billow of white and yellow smoke reeked up.
Piggy took back his glasses and looked at the smoke with pleasure.
"If only we could make a radio!"
"Or a plane-"
"-or a boat."
Ralph dredged in his fading knowledge of the world.
"We might get taken prisoner by the Reds."
Eric pushed back his hair.
"They'd be better than-"
He would not name people and Sam finished the sentence for him by
nodding along the beach.
Ralph remembered the ungainly figure on a parachute.
"He said something about a dead man." He flushed painfully at this
admission that he had been present at the dance. He made urging motions at
the smoke with his body. "Don't stop-go on up!"
"Smoke's getting thinner."
"We need more wood already, even when it's wet."
"My asthma-"
The response was mechanical.
"Sucks to your ass-mar."
"If I pull logs about, I get my asthma bad. I wish I didn't, Ralph, but
there it is."
The three boys went into the forest and fetched armfuls of rotten wood.
Once more the smoke rose, yellow and thick.
"Let's get something to eat."
Together they went to the fruit trees, carrying their spears, saying
little, cramming in haste. When they came out of the forest again the sun
was setting and only embers glowed in the fire, and there was no smoke.
"I can't carry any more wood," said Eric. "I'm tired."
Ralph cleared his throat.
"We kept the fire going up there."
"Up there it was small. But this has got to be a big one."
Ralph carried a fragment to the fire and watched the smoke that drifted
into the dusk.
''We've got to keep it going."
Eric flung himself down.
"I'm too tired. And what's the good?"
"Eric!" cried Ralph in a shocked voice. "Don't talk like that!"
Sam knelt by Eric.
"Well-what is the good?"
Ralph tried indignantly to remember. There was something good about a
fire. Something overwhelmingly good.
"Ralph's told you often enough," said Piggy moodily. "How else are we
going to be rescued?"
"Of course! If we don't make smoke-"
He squatted before them in the crowding dusk.
"Don't you understand? What's the good of wishing for radios and
boats?"
He held out his hand and twisted the fingers into a fist
"There's only one thing we can do to get out of this mess. Anyone can
play at hunting, anyone can get us meat-"
He looked from face to face. Then, at the moment of greatest passion
and conviction, that curtain flapped in his head and he forgot what he had
been driving at. He knelt there, his fist clenched, gazing solemnly from one
to the other. Then the curtain whisked back.
"Oh, yes. So we've got to make smoke; and more smoke-"
"But we can't keep it going! Look at that!"
The fire was dying on them.
"Two to mind the fire," said Ralph, half to himself, "that's twelve
hours a day."
"We can't get any more wood, Ralph-"
"-not in the dark-"
"-not at night-"
"We can light it every morning," said Piggy. "Nobody ain't going to see
smoke in the dark.'
Sam nodded vigorously.
"It was different when the fire was-"
"-up there."
Ralph stood up, feeling curiously defenseless with the darkness
pressing in.
"Let the fire go then, for tonight."
He led the way to the first shelter, which still stood, though
battered. The bed leaves lay within, dry and noisy to the touch. In the next
shelter a littlun was talking in his sleep. The four biguns crept into the
shelter and burrowed under the leaves. The twins lay together and Ralph and
Piggy at the other end. For a while there was the continual creak and rustle
of leaves as they tried for comfort.
"Piggy."
"Yeah?"
"All right?"
"S'pose so."
At length, save for an occasional rustle, the shelter was silent. An
oblong of blackness relieved with brilliant spangles hung before them and
there was the hollow sound of surf on the reef. Ralph settled himself for
his nightly game of supposing. . . .
Supposing they could be transported home by jet, then before morning
they would land at that big airfield in Wiltshire. They would go by car; no,
for things to be perfect they would go by train; all the way down to Devon
and take that cottage again. Then at the foot of the garden the wild ponies
would come and look over the wall. . . .
Ralph turned restlessly in the leaves. Dartmoor was wild and so were
the ponies. But the attraction of wildness had gone.
His mind skated to a consideration of a tamed town where savagery could
not set foot. What could be safer than the bus center with its lamps and
wheels?
All at once, Ralph was dancing round a lamp standard. There was a bus
crawling out of the bus station, a strange bus. . . .
"Ralph! Ralph!"
"What is it?"
"Don't make a noise like that-"
"Sorry."
From the darkness of the further end of the shelter came a dreadful
moaning and they shattered the leaves in their fear. Sam and Eric, locked in
an embrace, were fighting each other.
"Sam! Sam!"
"Hey-Eric!"
Presently all was quiet again.
Piggy spoke softly to Ralph.
"We got to get out of this."
"What d`you mean?"
"Get rescued."
For the first time that day, and despite the crowding blackness, Ralph
sniggered.
"I mean it,' whispered Piggy. "If we don't get home soon we'll be
barmy."
"Round the bend."
"Bomb happy."
"Crackers."
Ralph pushed the damp tendrils of hair out of his eyes.
"You write a letter to your auntie."
Piggy considered this solemnly.
"I don't know where she is now. And I haven't got an envelope and a
stamp. An' there isn't a mailbox. Or a postman."
The success of his tiny joke overcame Ralph. His sniggers became
uncontrollable, his body jumped and
Piggy rebuked him with dignity.
"I haven't said anything all that funny."
Ralph continued to snigger though his chest hurt. His twitchings
exhausted him till he lay, breathless and woebegone, waiting for the next
spasm. During one of these pauses he was ambushed by sleep.
"Ralph! You been making a noise again. Do be quiet, Ralph-because."
Ralph heaved over among the leaves. He had reason to be thankful that
his dream was broken, for the bus had been nearer and more distinct
"Why-because?"
"Be quiet-and listen."
Ralph lay down carefully, to the accompaniment of a long sigh from the
leaves. Eric moaned something and then lay still. The darkness, save for the
useless oblong of stars, was blanket-thick.
"I can't hear anything,"
"There's something moving outside."
Ralph's head prickled. The sound of his blood drowned all else and then
subsided.
"I still can't hear anything."
"Listen. Listen for a long time."
Quite clearly and emphatically, and only a yard or so away from the
back of the shelter, a stick cracked. The blood roared again in Ralph's
ears, confused images chased each other through his mind. A composite of
these things was prowling round the shelters. He could feel Piggy's head
against his shoulder and the convulsive grip of a hand.
"Ralph! Ralph!"
"Shut up and listen."
Desperately, Ralph prayed that the beast would prefer littluns.
A voice whispered horribly outside.
"Piggy-Piggy-"
"It's come! gasped Piggy. It's real!"
He clung to Ralph and reached to get his breath.
"Piggy, come outside. I want you, Piggy."
Ralph's mouth was against Piggy's ear.
"Don't say anything."
"Piggy-where are you, Piggy?"
Something brushed against the back of the shelter. Piggy kept still for
a moment, then he had his asthma. He arched his back and crashed among the
leaves with his legs. Ralph rolled away from him.
Then there was a vicious snarling in the mouth of the shelter and the
plunge and thump of living things. Someone tripped over Ralph and Piggy's
corner became a complication of snarls and crashes and flying limbs. Ralph
hit out; then he and what seemed like a dozen others were rolling over and
over, hitting, biting, scratching. He was torn and jolted, found fingers in
his mouth ana bit them. A fist withdrew and came back like a piston, so that
the whole shelter exploded into light Ralph twisted sideways on top of a
writhing body and felt hot breath on his cheek He began to pound the mouth
below him, using his clenched fist as a hammer; he hit with more and more
passionate hysteria as the face became slippery. A knee jerked up between
his legs and he fell sideways, busying himself with his pain, and the fight
rolled over him. Then the shelter collapsed with smothering finality; and
the anonymous shapes fought their way out and through. Dark figures drew
themselves out of the wreckage and flitted away, till the screams of the
littluns and Piggy's gasps were once more audible.
Ralph called out in a quavering voice.
"All you littluns, go to sleep. We've bad a fight with the others. Now
go to sleep."
Samneric came close and peered at Ralph.
"Are you two all right?"
"I think so-"
"-I got busted."
"So did I. How's Piggy?"
They hauled Piggy clear of the wreckage and leaned him against a tree.
The night was cool and purged of immediate terror. Piggy's breathing was a
little easier.
"Did you get hurt, Piggy?"
"Not much."
"That was Jack and his hunters," said Ralph bitterly. "Why can't they
leave us alone?"
"We gave them something to think about," said Sam. Honestly compelled
him to go on. "At least you did. I got mixed up with myself in a corner."
"I gave one of 'em what for," said Ralph, 1 smashed him up all right.
He won't want to come and fight us again in a hurry."
"So did I," said Eric. "When I woke up one was kicking me in the
face... I got an awful bloody face, I think, Ralph. But I did him in the
end."
"What did you do?"
"I got my knee up," said Eric with simple pride, "and I hit him with it
in the pills. You should have heard him holler! He won't come back in a
hurry either. So we didn't do too badly."
Ralph moved suddenly in the dark; but then he heard Eric working at his
mouth.
"What's the matter?"
"Jus' a tooth loose."
Piggy drew up his legs.
"You all right, Piggy?"
"I thought they wanted the conch."
Ralph trotted down the pale beach and jumped on to the platform. The
conch still glimmered by the chiefs seat He gazed for a moment or two, then
went back to Piggy.
"They didn't take the conch."
"I know. They didn't come for the conch. They came for something else.
Ralph-what am I going to do?"
Far off along the bowstave of beach, three figures trotted toward the
Castle Rock. They kept away from the forest and down by the water.
Occasionally they sang softly; occasionally they turned cartwheels down by
the moving streak of phosphorescence. The chief led them, trotting steadily,
exulting in his achievement He was a chief now in truth; and he made
stabbing motions with his spear. From his left hand dangled Piggy's broken
glasses.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Castle Rock
In the short chill of dawn the four boys gathered round the black
smudge where the fire had been, while Ralph knelt and blew. Grey, feathery
ashes scurried hither and thither at his breath but no spark shone among
them The twins watched anxiously and Piggy sat expressionless behind the
luminous wall of his myopia. Ralph continued to blow till his ears were
singing with the effort, but then the first breeze of dawn took the job off
his hands and blinded him with ashes. He squatted back, swore, and rubbed
water out of his eyes.
"No use."
Eric looked down at him through a mask of dried blood. Piggy peered in
the general direction of Ralph.
" 'Course it's no use, Ralph. Now we got no fire."
Ralph brought his face within a couple of feet of Piggy`s.
"Can you see me?"
"A bit."
Ralph allowed the swollen flap of his cheek to close his eye again.
"They've got our fire."
Rage shrilled his voice.
"They stole it!"
"That's them," said Piggy. They blinded me. See? That's Jack Merridew.
You call an assembly, Ralph, we got to decide what to do."
"An assembly for only us?"
"It's all we got. Sam-let me hold on to you."
They went toward the platform.
"Blow the conch," said Piggy. "Blow as loud as you can."
The forest re-echoed; and birds lifted, crying out of the treetops, as
on that first morning ages ago. Both ways the beach was deserted. Some
littluns came from the shelters. Ralph sat down on the polished trunk and
the three others stood before him. He nodded, and Samneric sat down on the
right. Ralph pushed the conch into Piggy's hands. He held the shining tiling
carefully and blinked at Ralph.
"Go on, then."
"I just take the conch to say this. I can't see no more and I got to
get my glasses back. Awful things has been done on this island. I voted for
you for chief. He's the only one who ever got anything done. So now you
speak, Ralph, and tell us what. Or else-"
Piggy broke off, sniveling. Ralph took back the conch as he sat down.
"Just an ordinary fire. You'd think we could do that, wouldn't you?
Just a smoke signal so we can be rescued. Are we savages or what? Only now
there's no signal going up. Ships may be passing. Do you remember how he
went hunting and the fire went out and a ship passed by? And they all think
he's best as chief. Then there was, there was . . . that's his fault, too.
If it hadn't been for him it would never have happened. Now Piggy can't see,
and they came, stealing-" Ralph's voice ran up "-at night, in darkness, and
stole our fire. They stole it. We'd have given them fire if they'd asked.
But they stole it and the signal's out and we can't ever be rescued. Don't
you see what I mean? We'd have given them fire for themselves only they
stole it. I-"
He paused lamely as the curtain flickered in his brain. Piggy held out
his hands for the conch.
"What you goin' to do, Ralph? This is jus' talk without deciding. I
want my glasses."
"I'm trying to think Supposing we go, looking like we used to, washed
and hair brushed-after all we aren't savages really and being rescued isn't
a game-"
He opened the flap of his cheek and looked at the twins.
"We could smarten up a bit and then go-"
"We ought to take spears," said Sam. "Even Piggy."
"-because we may need them."
"You haven't got the conch!"
Piggy held up the shell.
"You can take spears if you want but I shan't. What's the good? I'll
have to be led like a dog, anyhow. Yes, laugh. Co on, laugh. There's them on
this island as would laugh at anything. And what happened? What's grown-ups
goin' to think? Young Simon was murdered. And there was that other kid what
had a mark on his face. Who's seen him since we first come here?"
"Piggy! Stop a minute!"
"I got the conch. I'm going to that Jack Merridew an` tell him, I am."
"You'll get hurt."
"What can he do more than he has? I'll tell him what's what. You let me
carry the conch, Ralph. I'll show him the one thing he hasn't got."
Piggy paused for a moment and peered round at the dim figures. The
shape of the old assembly, trodden in the grass, listened to him.
"I'm going to him with this conch in my hands. I'm going to hold it
out. Look, I'm goin' to say, you're stronger than I am and you haven't got
asthma. You can see, I'm goin' to say, and with both eyes. But I don't ask
for my glasses back, not as a favor. I don't ask you to be a sport, I'll
say, not because you're strong, but because what's right's right. Give me my
glasses, I'm going to say-you got to!"
Piggy ended, flushed and trembling. He pushed the conch quickly into
Ralph's hands as though in a hurry to be rid of it and wiped the tears from
his eyes. The green light was gentle about them and the conch lay at Ralph's
feet, fragile and white. A single drop of water that had escaped Piggy's
fingers now flashed on the delicate curve like a star.
At last Ralph sat up straight and drew back his hair.
"All right. I mean-you can try if you like. Well go with you."
"He'll be painted," said Sam, timidly. "You know how he`ll be-"
"-he won't think much of us-"
"-if he gets waxy we've had it-"
Ralph scowled at Sam. Dimly he remembered something that Simon had said
to him once, by the rocks.
"Don't be silly," he said. And then he added quickly, "Let's go."
He held out the conch to Piggy who flushed, this time with pride.
"You must carry it."
"When we're ready I'll carry it-"
Piggy sought in his mind for words to convey his passionate willingness
to carry the conch against all odds.
"I don't mind. I'll be glad, Ralph, only I'll have to be led."
Ralph put the conch back on the shining log. "We better eat and then
get ready." They made their way to the devastated fruit trees. Piggy was
helped to his food and found some by touch. While they ate, Ralph thought of
the afternoon.
"We'll be like we were. We'll wash-"
Sam gulped down a mouthful and protested.
"But we bathe every day!"
Ralph looked at the filthy objects before him and sighed.
"We ought to comb our hair. Only it's too long."
"I've got both socks left in the shelter," said Eric,
"so we could pull them over our heads tike caps, sort of."
"We could find some stuff," said Piggy, "and tie your hair back."
"Like a girl!"
"No. 'Course not."
"Then we must go as we are," said Ralph, "and they won't be any
better."
Eric made a detaining gesture.
"But they'll be painted! You know how it is."
The others nodded. They understood only too well the liberation into
savagery that the concealing paint brought.
"Well, we won't be painted," said Ralph, "because we aren't savages."
Samneric looked at each other.
"All the same-" Ralph shouted.
"No paint!"
He tried to remember.
"Smoke," he said, "we want smoke."
He turned on the twins fiercely.
"I said 'smoke'! We've got to have smoke."
There was silence, except for the multitudinous murmur of the bees. At
last Piggy spoke, kindly.
"Course we have. 'Cos the smoke's a signal and we can't be rescued if
we don't have smoke."
"I knew that!" shouted Ralph. He pulled his arm away from Piggy. "Are
you suggesting-?"
"I'm jus' saying what you always say," said Piggy hastily. "I'd thought
for a moment-"
"I hadn't," said Ralph loudly. "I knew it all the time. I hadn't
forgotten."
Piggy nodded propitiatingly.
"You're chief, Ralph. You remember everything."
"I hadn't forgotten."
"'Course not."
The twins were examining Ralph curiously, as though they were seeing
him for the first time.
They set off along the beach in formation. Ralph went first, limping a
little, his spear carried over one shoulder. He saw things partially,
through the tremble of the heat haze over the flashing sands, and his own
long hair and injuries. Behind him came the twins, worried now for a while
but full of unquenchable vitality. They said little but trailed the butts of
their wooden spears; for Piggy had found that, by looking down and shielding
his tired sight from the sun, he could just see these moving along the sand.
He walked between the trailing butts, therefore, the conch held carefully
between his two hands. The boys made a compact little group that moved over
the beach, four plate-like shadows dancing and mingling beneath them. There
was no sign left of the storm, and the beach was swept clean like a blade
that has been scoured. The sky and the mountain were at an immense distance,
shimmering in the heat; and the reef was lifted by mirage, floating in a
land of silver pool halfway up the sky.
They passed the place where the tribe had danced. The charred sticks
still lay on the rocks where the rain had quenched them but the sand by the
water was smooth again. They passed this in silence. No one doubted that the
tribe would be found at the Castle Rock and when they came in sight of it
they stopped with one accord. The densest tangle on the island, a mass of
twisted stems, black and green and impenetrable, lay on their left and tall
grass swayed before them. Now Ralph went forward.
Here was the crushed grass where they had all lain when he had gone to
prospect. There was the neck of land, the ledge skirting the rock, up there
were the red pinnacles.
Sam touched his arm.
"Smoke."
There was a tiny smudge of smoke wavering into the air on the other
side of the rock.
"Some fire-I don't think."
Ralph turned.
"What are we hiding for?"
He stepped through the screen of grass on to the little open space that
led to the narrow neck.
"You two follow behind. I'll go first, then Piggy a pace behind me.
Keep your spears ready."
Piggy peered anxiously into the luminous veil that hung between him and
the world.
"Is it safe? Ain't there a cliff? I can hear the sea."
"You keep right close to me."
Ralph moved forward on to the neck. He kicked a stone and it bounded
into the water. Then the sea sucked down, revealing a red, weedy square
forty feet beneath Ralph's left arm.
"Am I safe?" quavered Piggy. "I feel awful-"
High above them from the pinnacles came a sudden shout and then an
imitation war-cry that was answered by a dozen voices from behind the rock.
"Give me the conch and stay still."
"Halt! Who goes there?"
Ralph bent back his head and glimpsed Roger's dark face at the top.
"You can see who I am!" he shouted. "Stop being silly!"
He put the conch to his lips and began to blow. Savages appeared,
painted out of recognition, edging round the ledge toward the neck. They
carried spears and disposed themselves to defend the entrance. Ralph went on
blowing and ignored Piggy's terrors.
Roger was shouting.
"You mind out-see?"
At length Ralph took his lips away and paused to get his breath back.
His first words were a gasp, but audible.
"-calling an assembly."
The savages guarding the neck muttered among themselves but made no
motion. Ralph walked forwards a couple of steps. A voice whispered urgently
behind him.
"Don't leave me, Ralph."
"You kneel down," said Ralph sideways, "and wait till I come back."
He stood halfway along the neck and gazed at the savages intently.
Freed by the paint, they had tied their hair back and were more comfortable
than he was. Ralph made a resolution to tie his own back afterwards. Indeed
he felt Eke telling them to wait and doing it there and then; but that was
impossible. The savages sniggered a bit and one gestured at Ralph with his
spear. High above, Roger took his hands off the lever and leaned out to see
what was going on. The boys on the neck stood in a pool of their own shadow,
diminished to shaggy heads. Piggy crouched, his back shapeless as a sack.
"I'm calling an assembly."
Silence.
Roger took up a small stone and flung it between the twins, aiming to
miss. They started and Sam only just kept his footing. Some source of power
began to pulse in Roger's body.
Ralph spoke again, loudly.
"I'm calling an assembly."
He ran his eye over them.
"Where's Jack?"
The group of boys stirred and consulted. A painted face spoke with the
voice of Robert.
"He's hunting. And he said we weren't to let you in."
"I've come to see about the fire," said Ralph, "and about Piggy's
specs."
The group in front of him shifted and laughter shivered outwards from
among them, light, excited laughter that went echoing among the tall rocks.
A voice spoke from behind Ralph.
"What do you want?"
The twins made a bolt past Ralph and got between him and the entry. He
turned quickly. Jack, identifiable by personality and red hair, was
advancing from the forest A hunter crouched on either side. All three were
masked in black and green. Behind them on the grass the headless and
paunched body of a sow lay where they had dropped it.
Piggy wailed.
"Ralph! Don't leave me!"
With ludicrous care he embraced the rock, pressing himself to it above
the sucking sea. The sniggering of the savages became a loud derisive jeer.
Jack shouted above the noise.
"You go away, Ralph. You keep to your end. This is my end and my tribe.
You leave me alone."
The jeering died away.
"You pinched Piggy`s specs," said Ralph, breathlessly. "You've got to
give them back."
"Got to? Who says?"
Ralph's temper blazed out.
"I say! You voted for me for chief. Didn't you hear the conch? You
played a dirty trick-we'd have given you fire if you'd asked for it-"
The blood was flowing in his cheeks and the bunged-up eye throbbed.
"You could have had fire whenever you wanted. But you didn't. You came
sneaking up like a thief and stole Piggy's glasses!"
"Say that again!"
"Thief! Thief!"
Piggy screamed.
"Ralph! Mind me!"
Jack made a rush and stabbed at Ralph's chest with his spear. Ralph
sensed the position of the weapon from the glimpse he caught of Jack's arm
and put the thrust aside with his own butt. Then he brought the end round
and caught Jack a stinger across the ear. They were chest to chest,
breathing fiercely, pushing and glaring.
"Who's a thief?"
"You are!"
Jack wrenched free and swung at Ralph with his spear. By common consent
they were using the spears as sabers now, no longer daring the lethal
points. The blow struck Ralph's spear and slid down, to fall agonizingly on
his fingers. Then they were apart once more, their positions reversed, Jack
toward the Castle Rock and Ralph on the outside toward the island.
Both boys were breathing very heavily.
"Come on then-"
"Come on-"
Truculently they squared up to each other but kept just out of fighting
distance.
"You come on and see what you get!"
"You come on-"
Piggy clutching the ground was trying to attract Ralph's attention.
Ralph moved, bent down, kept a wary eye on Jack.
"Ralph-remember what we came for. The fire. My specs."
Ralph nodded. He relaxed his fighting muscles, stood easily and
grounded the butt of his spear Jack watched him inscrutably through his
paint. Ralph glanced up at the pinnacles, then toward the group of savages
"Listen. We've come to say this. First you've got to give back Piggy's
specs. If he hasn't got them he can't see You aren't playing the game-"
The tribe of painted savages giggled and Ralph's mind faltered. He
pushed his hair up and gazed at the green and black mask before him, trying
to remember what Jack looked like.
Piggy whispered.
"And the fire."
"Oh yes. Then about the fire. I say this again. I've been saying it
ever since we dropped in."
He held out his spear and pointed at the savages.
"Your only hope is keeping a signal fire going as long as there's light
to see. Then maybe a ship`ll notice the smoke and come and rescue us and
take us home. But without that smoke we've got to wait till some ship comes
by accident. We might wait years; till we were old-"
The shivering, silvery, unreal laughter of the savages sprayed out and
echoed away. A gust of rage shook Ralph His voice cracked.
"Don't you understand, you painted fools? Sam, Eric, Piggy and me-we
aren't enough. We tried to keep the fire going, but we couldn't. And then
you, playing at hunting. . . ."
He pointed past them to where the trickle of smoke dispersed in the
pearly air.
"Look at that! Call that a signal fire? That's a cooking fire Now
you'll eat and there'll be no smoke. Don't you understand? There may be a
ship out there-"
He paused, defeated by the silence and the painted anonymity of the
group guarding the entry. Jack opened a pink mouth and addressed Samneric,
who were between him and his tribe.
"You two. Get back."
No one answered him. The twins, puzzled, looked at each Other; while
Piggy, reassured by the cessation of violence, stood up carefully. Jack
glanced back at Ralph and then at the twins.
"Grab them!"
No one moved. Jack shouted angrily.
"I said 'grab them'!"
The painted group moved round Samneric nervously and unhandily. Once
more the silvery laughter scattered.
Samneric protested out of the heart of civilization.
"Oh, I say!"
"-honestly!"
Their spears were taken from them.
"Tie them up!"
Ralph cried out hopelessly against the black and green mask.
"Jack!"
"Go on. Tie them."
Now the painted group felt the otherness of Samneric, felt the power in
their own hands. They felled the twins clumsily and excitedly. Jack was
inspired. He knew that Ralph would attempt a rescue. He struck in a humming
circle behind him and Ralph only just parried the blow. Beyond them the
tribe and the twins were a loud and writhing heap. Piggy crouched again.
Then the twins lay, astonished, and the tribe stood round them. Jack turned
to Ralph and spoke between his teeth.
"See? They do what I want."
There was silence again. The twins lay, inexpertly tied up, and the
tribe watched Ralph to see what he would do. He numbered them through his
fringe, glimpsed the ineffectual smoke.
His temper broke. He screamed at Jack.
"You're a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief!"
He charged.
Jack, knowing this was the crisis, charged too. They met with a jolt
and bounced apart. Jack swung with his fist at Ralph and aught him on the
ear. Ralph hit Jack in the stomach and made him grunt. Then they were facing
each other again, panting and furious, but unnerved by each other's
ferocity. They became aware of the noise that was the background to this
fight, the steady shrill cheering of the tribe behind them.
Piggy's voice penetrated to Ralph.
"Let me speak."
He was standing in the dust of the fight, and as the tribe saw his
intention the shrill cheer changed to a steady booing.
Piggy held up the conch and the booing sagged a little, then came up
again to strength.
"I got the conch!"
He shouted.
"I tell you, I got the conch!"
Surprisingly, there was silence now; the tribe were curious to hear
what amusing thing he might have to say.
Silence and pause; but in the silence a curious air-noise, close by
Ralphs head. He give it half his attention-and there it was again; a faint
"Zup!" Someone was throwing stones: Roger was dropping them, his one hand
still on the lever. Below him, Ralph was a shock of hair and Piggy a bag of
fat.
"I got this to say. You're acting like a crowd of lads."
The booing rose and died again as Piggy lifted the white, magic shell.
"Which is better-to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or to be
sensible like Ralph is?"
A great clamor rose among the savages. Piggy shouted again.
"Which is better-to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?"
Again the clamor and again--"Zup!"
Ralph shouted against the noise.
"Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?"
Now Jack was veiling too and Ralph could no longer make himself heard.
Jack had backed right against the tribe and they were a solid mass of menace
that bristled with spears. The intention of a charge was forming among them;
they were working up to it and the neck would be swept clear. Ralph stood
facing them, a little to one side, his spear ready. By him stood Piggy still
holding out the talisman, the fragile, shining beauty of the shell. The
storm of sound beat at them, an incantation of hatred. High overhead, Roger,
with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever.
Ralph heard the great rock long before he saw it. He was aware of a
jolt in the earth that came to him through the soles of his feet, and the
breaking sound of stones at the top of the cliff. Then the monstrous red
thing, bounded across the neck and he flung himself fiat while the tribe
shrieked.
The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch
exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying
nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways
from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock bounded twice and was lost
in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across that
square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned
red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig's after it has been
killed. Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled
white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body
of Piggy was gone.
This time the silence was complete. Ralph's lips formed a word but no
sound came.
Suddenly Jack bounded out from the tribe and began screaming wildly.
"See? See? That's what you'll get! I meant that! There isn't a tribe
for you any morel The conch is gone-"
He ran forward, stooping.
"I'm chief!"
Viciously, with full intention, he hurled his spear at Ralph. The point
tore the skin and flesh over Ralph's ribs, then sheared off and fell in the
water. Ralph stumbled, feeling not pain but panic, and the tribe, screaming
now like the chief, began to advance. Another spear, a bent one that would
not fly straight, went past his face and one fell from on high where Roger
was. The twins lay hidden behind the tribe and the anonymous devils' faces
swarmed across the neck. Ralph turned and ran. A great noise as of sea gulls
rose behind him. He obeyed an instinct that he did not know he possessed and
swerved over the open space so that the spears went wide. He saw the
headless body of the sow and jumped in time. Then he was crashing through
foliage and small boughs and was hidden by the forest.
The chief stopped by the pig, turned and held up his hands.
"Back! Back to the fort!"
Presently the tribe returned noisily to the neck where Roger joined
them.
The chief spoke to him angrily.
"Why aren't you on watch?"
Roger looked at him gravely.
"I just came down-"
The hangman's horror clung round him. The chief said no more to him but
looked down at Samneric.
"You got to join the tribe."
"You lemme go-"
"-and me."
The chief snatched one of the few spears that were left and poked Sam
in the ribs.
"What d'you mean by it, eh?" said the chief fiercely, "What d'you mean
by coming with spears? What d'you mean by not joining my tribe?"
The prodding became rhythmic. Sam yelled.
"That's not the way."
Roger edged past the chief, only just avoiding pushing him with his
shoulder. The yelling ceased, and Samneric lay looking up in quiet terror.
Roger advanced upon them as one wielding a nameless authority.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cry of the Hunters
Ralph lay in a covert, wondering about his wounds. The bruised flesh
was inches in diameter over his right ribs, with a swollen and bloody scar
where the spear had hit him. His hair was full of dirt and tapped like the
tendrils of a creeper. All over he was scratched and bruised from his flight
through the forest. By the time his breathing was normal again, he had
worked out that bathing these injuries would have to wait. How could you
listen for naked feet if you were splashing in water? How could you be safe
by the little stream or on the open beach?
Ralph listened. He was not really far from the Castle Rock, and during
the first panic he had thought he heard sounds of pursuit But the hunters
had only sneaked into the fringes of the greenery, retrieving spears
perhaps, and then had rushed back to the sunny rock as if terrified of the
darkness under the leaves. He had even glimpsed one of them, striped brown,
black, and red, and had judged that it was Bill. But really, thought Ralph,
this was not Bill. This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that
ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt.
The afternoon died away; the circular spots of sunlight moved steadily
over green fronds and brown fiber but no sound came from behind the rock. At
last Ralph wormed out of the ferns and sneaked forward to the edge of that
impenetrable thicket that fronted the neck of land. He peered with elaborate
caution between branches at the edge and could see Robert sitting on guard
at the top of the cliff. He held a spear in his left hand and was tossing up
a pebble and catching it again with the right. Behind him a column of smoke
rose thickly, so that Ralph's nostrils flared and his mouth dribbled. He
wiped his nose and mouth with the back of his hand and for the first time
since the morning felt hungry. The tribe must be sitting round the gutted
pig, watching the fat ooze and burn among the ashes. They would be intent
Another figure, an unrecognizable one, appeared by Robert and gave him
something, then turned and went back behind the rock. Robert laid his spear
on the rock beside him and began to gnaw between his raised hands. So the
feast was beginning and the watchman had been given his portion.
Ralph saw that for the time being he was safe. He limped away through
the fruit trees, drawn by the thought of the poor food yet bitter when he
remembered the feast. Feast today, and then tomorrow. . . .
He argued unconvincingly that they would let him alone, perhaps even
make an outlaw of him. But then the fatal unreasoning knowledge came to him
again. The breaking of the conch and the deaths of Piggy and Simon lay over
the island like a vapor. These painted savages would go further and further.
Then there was that indefinable connection between himself and Jack; who
therefore would never let him alone; never.
He paused, sun-flecked, holding up a bough, prepared to duck under it A
spasm of terror set him shaking and he cried aloud.
"No. They're not as bad as that. It was an accident."
He ducked under the bough, ran clumsily, then stopped and listened.
He came to the smashed acres of fruit and ate greedily. He saw two
littluns and, not having any idea of his own appearance, wondered why they
screamed and ran.
When he had eaten he went toward the beach. The sunlight was slanting
now into the palms by the wrecked shelter. There was the platform and the
pool. The best thing to do was to ignore this leaden feeling about the heart
and rely on their common sense, their daylight sanity. Now that the tribe
had eaten, the thing to do was to try again. And anyway, he couldn't stay
here all night in an empty shelter by the deserted platform. His flesh crept
and he shivered in the evening sun. No fire; no smoke; no rescue. He turned
and limped away through the forest toward Jack's end of the island.
The slanting sticks of sunlight were lost among the branches. At length
he came to a clearing in the forest where rock prevented vegetation from
growing. Now it was a pool of shadows and Ralph nearly flung himself behind
a tree when he saw something standing in the center; but then he saw that
the white face was bone and that the pig's skull grinned at him from the top
of a stick. He walked slowly into the middle of the clearing and looked
steadily at the skull that gleamed as white as ever the conch had done and
seemed to jeer at him cynically. An inquisitive ant was busy in one of the
eye sockets but otherwise the thing was lifeless.
Or was it?
Little prickles of sensation ran up and down his back. He stood, the
skull about on a level with his face, and held up his hair with two hands.
The teeth grinned, the empty sockets seemed to hold his gaze masterfully and
without effort.
What was it?
The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won't
tell. A sick fear and rage swept him. Fiercely he hit out at the filthy
thing in front of him that bobbed like a toy and came back, still grinning
into his face, so that he lashed and cried out in loathing. Then he was
licking his bruised knuckles and looking at the bare stick, while the skull
lay in two pieces, its grin now six feet across. He wrenched the quivering
stick from the crack and held it as a spear between him and the white
pieces. Then he backed away, keeping his face to the skull that lay grinning
at the sky.
When the green glow had gone from the horizon and night was fully
accomplished, Ralph came again to the thicket in front of the Castle Rock.
Peeping through, he could see that the height was still occupied, and
whoever it was up there had a spear at the ready.
He knelt among the shadows and felt his isolation bitterly. They were
savages it was true; but they were human, and the ambushing fears of the
deep night were coming on.
Ralph moaned faintly. Tired though he was, he could not relax and fall
into a well of sleep for fear of the tribe. Might it not be possible to walk
boldly into the fort, say-"I've got pax," laugh lightly and sleep among the
others? Pretend they were still boys, schoolboys who had said, "Sir, yes,
Sir"-and worn caps? Daylight might have answered yes; but darkness and the
horrors of death said no. Lying there in the darkness, he knew he was an
outcast.
" 'Cos I had some sense."
He rubbed his cheek along his forearm, smelling the acrid scent of salt
and sweat and the staleness of dirt. Over to the left, the waves of ocean
were breathing, sucking down, then boiling back over the rock.
There were sounds coming from behind the Castle Rock Listening
carefully, detaching his mind from the swing of the sea, Ralph could make
out a familiar rhythm.
"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"
The tribe was dancing. Somewhere on the other side of this rocky wall
there would be a dark circle, a glowing fire, and meat. They would be
savoring food and the comfort of safety.
A noise nearer at hand made him quiver. Savages were clambering up the
Castle Rock, right up to the top, and he could hear voices. He sneaked
forward a few yards and saw the shape at the top of the rock change and
enlarge. There were only two boys on the island who moved or talked like
that.
Ralph put his head down on his forearms and accepted this new fact like
a wound. Samneric were part of the tribe now. They were guarding the Castle
Rock against him. There was no chance of rescuing them and building up an
outlaw tribe at the other end of the island. Samneric were savages like the
rest; Piggy was dead, and the conch smashed to powder.
At length the guard climbed down. The two that remained seemed nothing
more than a dark extension of the rock. A star appeared behind them and was
momentarily eclipsed by some movement.
Ralph edged forward, feeling his way over the uneven surface as though
he were bund. There were miles of vague water at his right and the restless
ocean lay under his left hand, as awful as the shaft of a pit. Every minute
the water breathed round the death rock and flowered into a field of
whiteness. Ralph crawled until he found the ledge of the entry in his grasp.
The lookouts were immediately above him and he could see the end of a spear
projecting over the rock.
He called very gently.
"Samneric-"
There was no reply. To carry he must speak louder; and this would rouse
those striped and inimical creatures from their feasting by the fire. He set
his teeth and started to climb, finding the holds by touch. The stick that
had supported a skull hampered him but he would not be parted from his only
weapon. He was nearly level with the twins before he spoke again.
"Samneric-"
He heard a cry and a flurry from the rock. The twins had grabbed each
other and were gibbering.
"It's me. Ralph."
Terrified that they would run and give the alarm, he hauled himself up
until his head and shoulders stuck over the top. Far below his armpit he saw
the luminous flowering round the rock.
"It's only me. Ralph."
At length they bent forward and peered in his face.
"We thought it was-"
"-we didn't know what it was-"
"-we thought-"
Memory of their new and shameful loyalty came to them. Eric was silent
but Sam tried to do his duty.
"You got to go, Ralph. You go away now-"
He wagged his spear and essayed fierceness.
"You shove off. See?"
Eric nodded agreement and jabbed his spear in the air. Ralph leaned on
his arms and did not go.
"I came to see you two."
His voice was thick. His throat was hurting him now though it had
received no wound.
"I came to see you two-"
Words could not express the dull pain of these things. He fell silent,
while the vivid stars were spilt and danced all ways.
Sam shifted uneasily.
"Honest, Ralph, you'd better go."
Ralph looked up again.
"You two aren't painted. How can you-? If it were light-"
If it were light shame would burn them at admitting these things. But
the night was dark. Eric took up; and then the twins started their
antiphonal speech.
"You got to go because it's not safe-"
"-they made us. They hurt us-"
"Who? Jack?"
"Oh no-"
They bent to him and lowered their voices.
"Push off, Ralph-'
"-it's a tribe-"
"-they made us-"
"-we couldn't help it-"
When Ralph spoke again his voice was low, and seemed breathless.
"What have I done? I liked him-and I wanted us to be rescued-"
Again the stars spilled about the sky. Eric shook his head, earnestly.
"Listen, Ralph. Never mind what's sense. That's gone-"
"Never mind about the chief-"
"-you got to go for your own good."
"The chief and Roger-"
"-yes, Roger-"
"They hate you, Ralph. They're going to do you."
"They're going to hunt you tomorrow."
"But why?"
"I dunno. And Ralph, Jack, the chief, says it'll be dangerous-"
"-and we've got to be careful and throw our spears like at a pig."
"We're going to spread out in a line across the island-"
"-we're going forward from this end-"
"-until we find you."
"We've got to give signals like this."
Eric raised his head and achieved a faint ululation by beating on his
open mouth. Then he glanced behind him nervously.
"Like that-"
"-only louder, of course."
"But I've done nothing," whispered Ralph, urgently. I only wanted to
keep up a fire!"
He paused for a moment, thinking miserably of the morrow. A matter of
overwhelming importance occurred to him.
"What are you-?"
He could not bring himself to be specific at first; but then fear and
loneliness goaded him.
"When they find me, what are they going to do?" The twins were silent.
Beneath him, the death rock flowered again.
"What are they-oh God! I'm hungry-"
The towering rock seemed to sway under him.
"Well-what-?"
The twins answered his question indirectly.
"You got to go now, Ralph."
"For your own good."
"Keep away. As far as you can."
"Won't you come with me? Three of us-we'd stand a chance.".
After a moment's silence, Sam spoke in a strangled voice.
"You don't know Roger. He's a terror."
"And the chief-they're both-"
"-terrors-"
"-only Roger-"
Both boys froze. Someone was climbing toward them from the tribe.
"He's coming to see if we're keeping watch. Quick, Ralph!"
As he prepared to let himself down the cliff, Ralph snatched at the
last possible advantage to be wrung out of this meeting.
"I'll lie up close; in that thicket down there," he whispered, "so keep
them away from it. They'll never think to took so close-"
The footsteps were still some distance away.
"Sam-I'm going to be all right, aren't I?"
The twins were silent again.
"Here!" said Sam suddenly. "Take this-"
Ralph felt a chunk of meat pushed against him and grabbed it.
"But what are you going to do when you catch me?"
Silence above. He sounded silly to himself. He lowered himself down the
rock.
"What are you going to do-?"
From the top of the towering rock came the incomprehensible reply.
"Roger sharpened a stick at both ends."
Roger sharpened a stick at both ends. Ralph tried to attach a meaning
to this but could not. He used all the bad words he could think of in a fit
of temper that passed into yawning. How long could you go without sleep? He
yearned for a bed and sheets-but the only whiteness here was the slow spilt
milk, luminous round the rock forty feet below, where Piggy had fallen.
Piggy was everywhere, was on this neck, was become terrible in darkness and
death. If Piggy were to come back now out of the water, with his empty
head-Ralph whimpered and yawned like a littlun. The stick in his hand became
a crutch on which he reeled.
Then he tensed again. There were voices raised on the top of the Castle
Rock. Samneric were arguing with someone. But the ferns and the grass were
near. That was the place to be in, hidden, and next to the thicket that
would serve for tomorrow's hide-out. Here-and his hands touched grass-was a
place to be in for the night, not far from the tribe, so that if the horrors
of the supernatural emerged one could at least mix with humans for the time
being, even if it meant . . .
What did it mean? A stick sharpened at both ends. What was there in
that? They had thrown spears and missed; all but one. Perhaps they would
miss next time, too.
He squatted down in the tall grass, remembered the meat that Sam had
given him, and began to tear at it ravenously. While he was eating, he heard
fresh noises-cries of pain from Samneric, cries of panic, angry voices. What
did it mean? Someone besides himself was in trouble, for at least one of the
twins was catching it. Then the voices passed away down the rock and he
ceased to think of them. He felt with his hands and found cool, delicate
fronds backed against the thicket. Here then was the night's lair. At first
light he would creep into the thicket, squeeze between the twisted stems,
ensconce himself so deep that only a crawler like himself could come
through, and that crawler would be jabbed. There he would sit, and the
search would pass him by, and the cordon waver on, ululating along the
island, and he would be free.
He pulled himself between the ferns, tunneling in. He laid the stick
beside him, and huddled himself down in the blackness. One must remember to
wake at first light, in order to diddle the savages-and he did not know how
quickly sleep came and hurled him down a dark interior slope.
He was awake before his eyes were open, listening to a noise that was
near. He opened an eye, found the mold an inch or so from his face and his
fingers gripped into it, light filtering between the fronds of fern. He had
just time to realize that the age-long nightmares of falling and death were
past and that the morning was come, when he heard the sound again.' It was
an ululation over by the seashore -and now the next savage answered and the
next. The cry swept by him across the narrow end of the island from sea to
lagoon, like the cry of a flying bird. He took no time to consider but
grabbed his sharp stick and wriggled back among the ferns. Within seconds he
was worming his way into the thicket; but not before he had glimpsed the
legs of a savage coming toward him. The ferns were thumped and beaten and he
heard legs moving in the long grass. The savage, whoever he was, ululated
twice; and the cry was repeated in both directions, then died away. Ralph
crouched still, tangled in the ferns, and for a time he heard nothing.
At last he examined the thicket itself. Certainly no one could attack
him here-and moreover he had a stroke of luck. The great rock that had
killed Piggy had bounded into this thicket and bounced there, right in the
center, making a smashed space a few feet in extent each way. When Ralph had
wriggled into this he felt secure, and clever. He sat down carefully among
the smashed stems and waited for the hunt to pass. Looking up between the
leaves he caught a glimpse of something red. That must be the top of the
Castle Rock, distant and unmenacing. He composed himself triumphantly, to
hear the sounds of the hunt dying away.
Yet no one made a sound; and as the minutes passed, in the green shade,
his feeling of triumph faded.
At last he heard a voice-Jack's voice, but hushed.
"Are you certain?"
The savage addressed said nothing. Perhaps he made a gesture.
Roger spoke.
"If you're fooling us-"
Immediately after this, there came a gasp, and a squeal of pain. Ralph
crouched instinctively. One of the twins was there, outside the thicket,
with Jack and Roger.
"You're sure he meant in there?"
The twin moaned faintly and then squealed again.
"He meant he'd hide in there?"
"Yes-yes-oh-!"
Silvery laughter scattered among the trees.
So they knew.
Ralph picked up his stick and prepared for battle. But what could they
do? It would take them a week to break a path through the thicket; and
anyone who wormed his way in would be helpless. He felt the point of his
spear with his thumb and grinned without amusement Whoever tried that would
be stuck, squealing like a pig.
They were going away, back to the tower rock. He could hear feet moving
and then someone sniggered. There came again that high, bird-like cry that
swept along the line, So some were still watching for him; but some-?
There was a long, breathless silence. Ralph found that he had bark in
his mouth from the gnawed spear. He stood and peered upwards to the Castle
Rock.
As he did so, he heard Jack's voice from the top.
"Heave! Heave! Heave!"
The red rock that he could see at the top of the cliff vanished like a
curtain, and he could see figures and blue sky. A moment later the earth
jolted, there was a rushing sound in the air, and the top of the thicket was
cuffed as with a gigantic hand. The rock bounded on, thumping and smashing
toward the beach, while a shower of broken twigs and leaves fell on him.
Beyond the thicket, the tribe was cheering.
Silence again.
Ralph put his fingers in his mouth and bit them. There was only one
other rock up there that they might conceivably move; but that was half as
big as a cottage, big as a car, a tank. He visualized its probable progress
with agonizing clearness-that one would start slowly, drop from ledge to
ledge, trundle across the neck like an outsize steam roller.
"Heave! Heave! Heave!"
Ralph put down his spear, then picked it up again. He pushed his hair
back irritably, took two hasty steps across the little space and then came
back. He stood looking at the broken ends of branches.
Still silence.
He caught sight of the rise and fall of his diaphragm and was surprised
to see how quickly he was breathing. Just left of center his heart-beats
were visible. He put the spear down again.
"Heave! Heave! Heave!"
A shrill, prolonged cheer.
Something boomed up on the red rock, then the earth jumped and began to
shake steadily, while the noise as steadily increased. Ralph was shot into
the air, thrown down, dashed against branches. At his right hand, and only a
few feet away, the whole thicket bent and the roots screamed as they came
out of the earth together. He saw something red that turned over slowly as a
mill wheel. Then the red thing was past and the elephantine progress
diminished toward the sea.
Ralph knelt on the plowed-up soil, and waited for the earth to come
back. Presently the white, broken stumps, the split sticks and the tangle of
the thicket refocused. There was a kind of heavy feeling in his body where
he had watched his own pulse.
Silence again.
Yet not entirely so. They were whispering out there; and suddenly the
branches were shaken furiously at two places on his right. The pointed end
of a stick appeared. In panic, Ralph thrust his own stick through the crack
and struck with all his might.
"Aaa-ah!"
His spear twisted a little in his hands and then he withdrew it again.
"Ooh-ooh-"
Someone was moaning outside and a babble of voices rose. A fierce
argument was going on and the wounded savage kept groaning. Then when there
was silence, a single voice spoke and Ralph decided that it was not Jack's.
"See? I told you-he's dangerous."
The wounded savage moaned again.
What else? What next?
Ralph fastened his hands round the chewed spear and his hair fell.
Someone was muttering, only a few yards away toward the Castle Rock. He
heard a savage say "No!" in a shocked voice; and then there was suppressed
laughter. He squatted back on his heels and showed his teeth at the wall of
branches. He raised his spear, snarled a little, and waited.
Once more the invisible group sniggered. He heard a curious trickling
sound and then a louder crepitation as if someone were unwrapping great
sheets of cellophane. A stick snapped and he stifled a cough. Smoke was
seeping through the branches in white and yellow wisps, the patch of blue
sky overhead turned to the color of a storm cloud, and then the smoke
billowed round him.
Someone laughed excitedly, and a voice shouted.
"Smoke!"
He wormed his way through the thicket toward the forest, keeping as far
as possible beneath the smoke. Presently he saw open space, and the green
leaves of the edge of the thicket. A smallish savage was standing between
him and the rest of the forest, a savage striped red and white, and carrying
a spear. He was coughing and smearing the paint about his eyes with the back
of his hand as he tried to see through the increasing smoke. Ralph launched
himself like a cat; stabbed, snarling, with the spear, and the savage
doubled up. There was a shout from beyond the thicket and then Ralph was
running with the swiftness of fear through the undergrowth. He came to a
pig-run, followed it for perhaps a hundred yards, and then swerved off.
Behind him the ululation swept across the island once more and a single
voice shouted three times. He guessed that was the signal to advance and
sped away again, till his chest was like fire. Then he flung himself down
under a bush and waited for a moment till his breathing steadied. He passed
his tongue tentatively over his teeth and lips and heard far off the
ululation of the pursuers.
There were many things he could do. He could climb a tree; but that was
putting all his eggs in one basket. If he were detected, they had nothing
more difficult to do than wait.
If only one had time to think!
Another double cry at the same distance gave him a clue to their plan.
Any savage balked in the forest would utter the double shout and hold up the
line till he was free again. That way they might hope to keep the cordon
unbroken right across the island. Ralph thought of the boar that had broken
through them with such ease. If necessary, when the chase came too close, he
could charge the cordon while it was still thin, burst through, and run
back. But run back where? The cordon would turn and sweep again. Sooner or
later he would have to sleep or eat-and then he would awaken with hands
clawing at him; and the hunt would become a running down.
What was to be done, then? The tree? Burst the line like a boar? Either
way the choice was terrible.
A single cry quickened his heart-beat and, leaping up, be dashed away
toward the ocean side and the thick jungle till he was hung up among
creepers; he stayed there for a moment with his calves quivering. If only
one could have quiet, a long pause, a time to think!
And there again, shrill and inevitable, was the ululation sweeping
across the island. At that sound he shied like a horse among the creepers
and ran once more till he was panting. He flung himself down by some ferns.
The tree, or the charge? He mastered his breathing for a moment, wiped his
mouth, and told himself to be calm. Samneric were somewhere in that line,
and hating it. Or were they? And supposing, instead of them, he met the
chief, or Roger who carried death in his hands?
Ralph pushed back his tangled hair and wiped the sweat out of his best
eye. He spoke aloud.
"Think."
What was the sensible thing to do?
There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no solemn assembly for
debate nor dignity of the conch.
"Think."
Most, he was beginning to dread the curtain that might waver in his
brain, blacking out the sense of danger, making a simpleton of him.
A third idea would be to hide so well that the advancing line would
pass without discovering him.
He jerked his head off the ground and listened. There was another noise
to attend to now, a deep grumbling noise, as though the forest itself were
angry with him, a somber noise across which the ululations were scribbled
excruciatingly as on slate. He knew he had heard it before somewhere, but
had no time to remember.
Break the line.
A tree.
Hide, and let them pass.
A nearer cry stood him on his feet and immediately he was away again,
running fast among thorns and brambles. Suddenly he blundered into the open,
found himself again in that open space-and there was the fathom-wide grin of
the skull, no longer ridiculing a deep blue patch of sky but jeering up into
a blanket of smoke. Then Ralph was running beneath trees, with the grumble
of the forest explained. They had smoked him out and set the island on fire.
Hide was better than a tree because you had a chance of breaking the
line if you were discovered.
Hide, then.
He wondered it a pig would agree, and grimaced at nothing. Find the
deepest thicket, the darkest hole on the island, and creep in. Now, as he
ran, he peered about him. Bars and splashes of sunlight flitted over him and
sweat made glistening streaks on his dirty body. The cries were far now, and
faint.
At last he found what seemed to him the right place, though the
decision was desperate. Here, bushes and a wild tangle of creeper made a mat
that kept out all the light of the sun. Beneath it was a space, perhaps a
foot high, though it was pierced everywhere by parallel and rising stems. If
you wormed into the middle of that you would be five yards from the edge,
and hidden, unless the savage chose to lie down and look for you; and even
then, you would be in darkness-and if the worst happened and he saw you,
then you had a chance to burst out at him, fling the whole line out of step
and double back.
Cautiously, his stick trailing behind him, Ralph wormed between the
rising stems. When he reached the middle of the mat he lay and listened.
The fire was a big one and the drum-roll that he had thought was left
so far behind was nearer. Couldn't a fire outrun a galloping horse? He could
see the sun-splashed ground over an area of perhaps fifty yards from where
he lay, and as he watched, the sunlight in every patch blinked at him. This
was so like the curtain that flapped in his brain that for a moment he
thought the blinking was inside him. But then the patches blinked more
rapidly, dulled and went out, so that he saw that a great heaviness of smoke
lay between the island and the sun.
If anyone peered under the bushes and chanced to glimpse human flesh it
might be Samneric who would pretend not to see and say nothing. He laid his
cheek against the chocolate-colored earth, licked his dry lips and closed
his eyes. Under the thicket, the earth was vibrating very slightly; or
perhaps there was a sound beneath the obvious thunder of the fire and
scribbled ululations that was too low to hear.
Someone cried out. Ralph jerked his cheek off the earth and looked into
the dulled light. They must be near now, he thought, and his chest began to
thump. Hide, break the line, climb a tree-which was the best after all? The
trouble was you only had one chance.
Now the fire was nearer; those volleying shots were great limbs, trunks
even, bursting. The fools! The fools! The fire must be almost at the fruit
trees-what would they eat tomorrow?
Ralph stirred restlessly in his narrow bed. One chanced nothing! What
could they do? Beat him? So what? Kill him? A stick sharpened at both ends.
The cries, suddenly nearer, jerked him up. He could see a striped
savage moving hastily out of a green tangle, and coming toward the mat where
he hid, a savage who carried a spear. Ralph gripped his fingers into the
earth. Be ready now, in case.
Ralph fumbled to hold his spear so that it was point foremost; and now
he saw that the stick was sharpened at both ends.
The savage stopped fifteen yards away and uttered his cry.
Perhaps he can hear my heart over the noises of the fire. Don't scream.
Get ready.
The savage moved forward so that you could only see him from the waist
down. That was the butt of his spear. Now you could see him from the knee
down. Don't scream. A herd of pigs came squealing out of the greenery behind
the savage and rushed away into the forest. Birds were screaming, mice
shrieking, and a little hopping thing came under the mat and cowered.
Five yards away the savage stopped, standing right by the thicket, and
cried out. Ralph drew his feet up and crouched. The stake was in his hands,
the stake sharpened at both ends, the stake that vibrated so wildly, that
grew long, short, light, heavy, light again.
The ululation spread from shore to shore. The savage knelt down by the
edge of the thicket, and there were lights flickering in the forest behind
him. You could see a knee disturb the mold. Now the other. Two hands. A
spear.
A face.
The savage peered into the obscurity beneath the thicket. You could
tell that he saw light on this side and on that, but not in the
middle-there. In the middle was a blob of dark and the savage wrinkled up
his face, trying to decipher the darkness.
The seconds lengthened Ralph was looking straight into the savage's
eyes.
Don't scream.
You'll get back.
Now he's seen you. He's making sure. A stick sharpened.
Ralph screamed, a scream of fright and anger and desperation. His legs
straightened, the screams became continuous and foaming. He shot forward,
burst the thicket, was in the open, screaming, snarling, bloody. He swung
the stake and the savage tumbled over; but there were others coming toward
him, crying out. He swerved as a spear flew past and then was silent,
running. All at once the lights flickering ahead of him merged together, the
roar of the forest rose to thunder and a tall bush directly in his path
burst into a great fan-shaped flame. He swung to the right, running
desperately fast, with the heat beating on his left side and the fire racing
forward like a tide. The ululation rose behind him and spread along, a
series of short sharp cries, the sighting call. A brown figure showed up at
his right and fell away. They were all running, all crying out madly. He
could hear them crashing in the undergrowth and on the left was the hot,
bright thunder of the fire. He forgot his wounds, his hunger and thirst, and
became fear; hopeless fear on flying feet, rushing through the forest toward
the open beach. Spots jumped before his eyes and turned into red circles
that expanded quickly till they passed out of sight. Below him someone's
legs were getting tired and the desperate ululation advanced like a jagged
fringe of menace and was almost overhead.
He stumbled over a root and the cry that pursued him rose even higher.
He saw a shelter burst into flames and the fire flapped at his right
shoulder and there was the glitter of water. Then he was down, rolling over
and over in the warm sand, crouching with arm up to ward off, trying to cry
for mercy.
He staggered to his feet, tensed for more terrors, and looked up at a
huge peaked cap. It was a white-topped cap, and above the green shade or the
peak was a crown, an anchor, gold foliage. He saw white drill, epaulettes, a
revolver, a row of gilt buttons down the front of a uniform.
A naval officer stood on the sand, looking down at Ralph in wary
astonishment. On the beach behind him was a cutter, her bows hauled up and
held by two ratings. In the stern-sheets another rating held a sub-machine
gun.
The ululation faltered and died away.
The officer looked at Ralph doubtfully for a moment, then took his hand
away from the butt of the revolver.
"Hullo."
Squirming a little, conscious of his filthy appearance, Ralph answered
shyly.
"Hullo."
The officer nodded, as if a question had been answered.
"Are there any adults-any grownups with you?"
Dumbly, Ralph shook his head. He turned a half-pace on the sand. A
semicircle of little boys, their bodies streaked with colored clay, sharp
sticks in their hands, were standing on the beach making no noise at all.
"Fun and games," said the officer.
The fire reached the coconut palms by the beach and swallowed them
noisily. A flame, seemingly detached, swung like an acrobat and licked up
the palm heads on the platfonn. The sky was black.
The officer grinned cheerfully at Ralph.
"We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or
something?"
Ralph nodded.
The officer inspected the little scarecrow in front of him. The kid
needed a bath, a haircut, a nose-wipe and a good deal of ointment.
"Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?"
"Only two. And they've gone."
The officer leaned down and looked closely at Ralph.
"Two? Killed?"
Ralph nodded again. Behind him, the whole island was shuddering with
flame. The officer knew, as a rule, when people were telling the truth. He
whistled softly.
Other boys were appearing now, tiny tots some of them, brown, with the
distended bellies of small savages. One of them came dose to the officer and
looked up.
"I'm, I'm-"
But there was no more to come. Percival Wemys Madison sought in his
head for an incantation that had faded clean away.
The officer turned back to Ralph.
"We'll take you off. How many of you are there?"
Ralph shook his head. The officer looked past him to the group of
painted boys.
"Who's boss here?"
"I am," said Ralph loudly.
A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his
red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist,
started forward, then changed his mind and stood still.
"We saw your smoke. And you don't know how many of you there are?"
"No, sir."
"I should have thought," said the officer as he visualized the search
before him, "I should have thought that a pack of British boys-you're all
British, aren't you?-would have been able to put up a better show than
that-I mean-"
"It was like that at first," said Ralph, "before things-"
He stopped.
"We were together then-"
The officer nodded helpfully.
"I know. Jolly good show. Like the Coral Island."
Ralph looked at him dumbly. For a moment he had a fleeting picture of
the strange glamour that had once invested the beaches. But the island was
scorched up like dead wood-Simon was dead-and Jack had. . . . The tears
began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now for the
first time on the island; great, shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to
wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the
burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other
little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with
filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of
innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the
true, wise friend called Piggy.
The officer, surrounded by these noises, was moved and a little
embarrassed. He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together;
and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.
Interview with William Golding1
JAMES KEATING
Purdue University; May 10, 1962
Question: It has often been said that wars are caused by the
dictatorial few. Do you feel this to be so, or do you think anyone given the
power is capable of such inhuman atrocity?
Answer: Well, I think wars are much more complicated than that. Some of
them have been caused by a few. On the other hand if some of them are surely
the bursting of some vicious growth, almost, in civilization, then who knows
who applies the lancer to it? There's all the difference in the world
between the wars of 1917-the Communist Revolution-on the one hand, and the
wars of Genghis Khan on the other, isn't there?
Q.: Yes. Obviously, in Lord of the Flies society plays little part in
determining the corruption and violence in man. You've said this is true in
society, that it does play a minor role, but do you feel that there are
societies that will enhance the possibility of man becoming good? And are we
working toward this in democracy?
A.: By instinct and training, and by birth and by position on the face
of the globe, I'm pretty well bound to subscribe to a democratic doctrine,
am I not? This is so deeply woven into the way we live, or at least the way
we live at home in England, that I don't suppose one really questions it
much. I think I would say democracy is moving in the right
1.This interview is printed here by permission of William Golding and
James Keating. (c) 1964 by James Keating and William Golding.
direction, or the democratic way is the way in which to move; equally,
it seems to me that a democracy has inherent weaknesses in it-built-in
weaknesses. You can't give people freedom without weakening society as an
implement of war, if you like, and so this is very much like a sheep among
wolves. It's not a question with me as to whether democracy is the right way
so much, as to whether democracy can survive and remain what it is. Every
time democracy pulls itself together and says, "Well, now I'm being
threatened by a totalitarian regime," the first thing it has to do is give
up some of its own principles. In England during the Second World War we had
to give up a tremendous number of principles in order to achieve the one
pointed unity which could possibly withstand Hitler. It's possible to look
at the question in this way and say, "Is the remedy not as bad as the
disease?" I don't know.
Q.: Well, the innocence in man, for example, that you bring out among
the boys in this novel, would you say it was an inherent kind of thing which
materializes, or is it a thing from without which is taken on during a
transitional process from innocence to non-innocence? Are the boys innocent
of themselves or are they innocent of evil from without and evil of others?
A.: They're innocent of their own natures. They don't understand their
own natures and therefore, when they get to this island, they can look
forward to a bright future, because they don't understand the things that
threaten it. This seems to me to be innocence; I suppose you could almost
equate it with ignorance of men's basic attributes, and this is inevitable
with anything which is born and begins to grow up. Obviously, it doesn't
understand its own nature.
Q.: Then it's more a combination of innocence of their own and other's
attributes?
A.: Yes. I think, quite simply, that they don't understand what beasts
there are in the human psyche which have to be curbed. They're too young to
look ahead and really put the curbs on their own nature and implement them,
because giving way to these beasts is always a pleasure, in some ways, and
so their society breaks down. Of course, on the other hand, in an adult
society it is possible society will not break down. It may be that we can
put sufficient curbs on our own natures to prevent it from breaking down. We
may have the very common sense to say that if we have atom bombs and so
on-H-bombs-well, we cannot possibly use these things.
Now that is, in a sense, the lowest possible bit of common
sense-obviously we can't-but you know as well as I do that there is a large
chance that those weapons will be used and we'll be done for. I think that
democratic attitude of voluntary curbs put on one's own nature is the only
possible way for humanity, but I wouldn't like to say that it's going to
work out, or survive.
Q.: You recently stated your belief that humanity would either be
saved, or save itself. Is that correct?
A.: Yes, but here again this is because I'm basically an optimist.
Intellectually I can see man's balance is about fifty-fifty, and his chances
of blowing himself up are about one to one. I can't see this any way but
intellectually. I'm just emotionally unable to believe that he will do this.
This means that I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a
pessimist, I suppose.
Q.: The reason I posed that comment was because in your published notes
in Lord of the Flies . . .
A.: They aren't my notes.
Q.: I'm sorry. I thought Mr. Epstein2 quoted you.
A.: Did he?
Q.: In the summation . . .
A.: Oh, yes.
Q.: In the end the question is, who will rescue the adult and his
cruiser? This seems to me a little fatalistic; it conveys the notion that
there isn't really any hope.
A.: Yes, but there again you can take . . . there are two answers here;
I think they are both valid answers. The first one is the one I made before,
and that is that the quotation there is what I said is intellectual
fatalism. It's making the thing a sort of series of Chinese boxes, one
inside of the Other. The other thing is to say that as the fabulist is
always
2.E. L. Epstein, "Notes on Lord of the Flies" reprinted below, p.
277.-Eds.
a moralist, he is always overstating his case, because he has a point
he wishes to drive home. I would prefer to say if you don't curb yourself,
then this is what will happen to you.
Q.: Again, in Lord of the Flies, I noticed a very definite relationship
between Simon and his brutal death and Christ and his crucifixion. Would you
care to discuss this, or give any omniscient judgment?
A.: Well, I can't give an omniscient judgment. I can only say what I
intended. First you've got to remember I haven t read this book for ten
years, so I may be a bit off. I intended a Christ figure in the novel,
because Christ figures occur in humanity, really, but I couldn't have the
full picture, or as near as full a possible picture of human potentiality,
unless one was potentially a Christ figure. So Simon is the little boy who
goes off into the bushes to pray. He is the only one to take any notice of
the little 'uns-who actually hands them food, gets food from places where
they can't reach it and hands it down to them. He is the one who is tempted
of the devil: he has this interview with the pig's head on the stick, with
Beelzebub, or Satan, the devil, whatever you'd like to call it, and the
devil says, "Clear off, you're not wanted. Just go back to the others. We'll
forget the whole thing."
Well, this is, of course, the perennial temptation to the saint, as I
conceive it, to just go and be like ordinary men and let the whole thing
slide. Instead of that, Simon goes up the hill and takes away from the
island, removes, discovers what this dead hand of history is that's over
them, undoes the threads so that the wind can blow this dead thing away from
the island, and then when he tries to take the good news back to ordinary
human society, he's crucified for it. This is as far as I was able to find a
Christ parallel, you see.3
Q.: You mentioned that you couldn't give any omniscient judgment, and
you've earlier said that an author cannot really say, after he has written a
work, what he has given from himself or created.4 What do you
feel the role of the
4.For a further discussion of the role of Simon, see Donald R.
Spangler, "Simon," p. 211 in this volume.-Eds.
5. Compare Gelding's remarks here with his statements in the interview
with Frank Kermode, p. 199 in this volume.-Eds.
critic is here? Do you feel the critic has the right to bring these
things out?
A.: Well, isn't this really a question without much meaning? Because
whether a critic has rights or not he is going to do these things to a book
which has got out of the author's control, and therefore you might just as
well ask whether a man has a right to five fingers on each hand. This is a
thing that happens. Are you really meaning do I think the critic has, by his
nature or by his training, a better chance of saying what's in this book
than the author has? Is that at all it?
Q.: Yes, that's mainly it. As an artist, do you feel the critics are
justified?
A.: Some of them. As a practical matter some of them say things which I
agree with and some say things which I don t agree with. I don't see there's
much generalization that can be made here. The critic has as much right as
any man to get what he can out of a book, and I would say that I think some
critics that I've read have been extremely perceptive -or else I've been
very lucky-in that they've seemed to put their fingers on certain things
which I had deliberately intended and which I would have thought were rather
subtle, and they have contrived to get hold of these. Equally, I would have
to say that some critics seem to me to be miles off beam.
Q.: Well, perhaps Mr. Gindin5 was a little off beam in his
article which discusses your use of gimmicks. He mentions the saving of the
boys as a gimmick that didn't quite fulfill the manifestations that were
opened in the book ... it didn't resolve diem, I should think, as well as he
would have liked. Do you feel this is justifiable criticism?
A.: I've been haunted by that word, "gimmick," ever since I used it in
an interview explaining that I liked a sharp reversal at the end which would
show the book in an entirely different light so that the reader would
presumably be forced to rethink the book, which seems to me a useful thing
to do. I don't know, in that event, whether the saving
5.James Gindin, " 'Gimmick' and Metaphor in the Novels of William
Golding," Modern Fiction Studies, 6 (Summer, 1960), 145-152.-Eds.
of the boys at the end is a gimmick or not. The reason for that
particular ending was twofold. First I originally conceived the book as the
change from innocence-which is ignorance of self-to a tragic knowledge. If
my boys hadn't been saved, I couldn't-at that time, at any rate-see any way
of getting some one of them to the point where he would have this tragic
knowledge. He would be dead. If I'd gone on to the death of Ralph, Ralph
would never have had time to understand what had happened to him, so I
deliberately saved him so that at this moment he could see -look back over
what's happened-and weep for the end of i