Lord of the Flies (17 page)
Instinctively the boys drew back too; and the forest was very still. They listened, and the loudest noise was the buzzing of flies over the spilled guts.
Jack spoke in a whisper.
"Pick up the pig."
Maurice and Robert skewered the carcass, lifted the dead weight, and stood ready. In the silence, and standing over the dry blood, they looked suddenly furtive.
Jack spoke loudly.
"This head is for the beast. It's a gift."
The silence accepted the gift and awed them. The head remained there, dim-eyed, grinning faintly, blood blackening between the teeth. All at once they were running away, as fast as they could, through the forest toward the open beach.
Simon stayed where he was, a small brown image, concealed by the leaves. Even if he shut his eyes the sow's head still remained like an after-image. The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business.
"I know that."
Simon discovered that he had spoken aloud. He opened his eyes quickly and there was the head grinning amusedly in the strange daylight, ignoring the flies, the spilled guts, even ignoring the indignity of being spiked on a stick.
He looked away, licking his dry lips.
A gift for the beast. Might not the beast come for it? The head, he thought, appeared to agree with him. Run away, said the head silently, go back to the others. It was a joke really--why should you bother? You were just wrong, that's all. A little headache, something you ate, perhaps. Go back, child, said the head silently.
Simon looked up, feeling the weight of his wet hair, and gazed at the sky. Up there, for once, were clouds, great bulging towers that sprouted away over the island, grey and cream and copper-colored. The clouds were sitting on the land; they squeezed, produced moment by moment this close, tormenting heat. Even the butterflies deserted the open space where the obscene thing grinned and dripped. Simon lowered his head, carefully keeping his eyes shut, then sheltered them with his hand. There were no shadows under the trees but everywhere a pearly stillness, so that what was real seemed illusive and without definition. The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played leapfrog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood--and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition. In Simon's right temple, a pulse began to beat on the brain.
Ralph and Piggy lay in the sand, gazing at the fire and idly flicking pebbles into its smokeless heart.
"That branch is gone."
"Where's Samneric?"
"We ought to get some more wood. We're out of green branches."
Ralph sighed and stood up. There were no shadows under the palms on the platform; only this strange light that seemed to come from everywhere at once. High up among the bulging clouds thunder went off like a gun.
"We're going to get buckets of rain."
"What about the fire?"
Ralph trotted into the forest and returned with a wide spray of green which he dumped on the fire. The branch crackled, the leaves curled and the yellow smoke expanded.
Piggy made an aimless little pattern in the sand with his fingers.
"Trouble is, we haven't got enough people for a fire. You got to treat Samnenc as one turn. They do everything together--"
"Of course."
"Well, that isn't fair. Don't you see? They ought to do two turns."
Ralph considered this and understood. He was vexed to find how little he thought like a grownup and sighed again. The island was getting worse and worse.
Piggy looked at the fire.
"You'll want another green branch soon."
Ralph rolled over.
"Piggy. What are we going to do?"
"Just have to get on without 'em."
"But--the fire."
He frowned at the black and white mess in which lay the unburnt ends of branches. He tried to formulate.
"I'm scared."
He saw Piggy look up; and blundered on.
"Not of the beast. I mean I'm scared of that too. But nobody else understands about the fire. If someone threw you a rope when you were drowning. If a doctor said take this because if you don't take it you'll die--you would, wouldn't you? I mean?"
"'Course I would."
"Can't they see? Can't they understand? Without the smoke signal we'll die here? Look at that!"
A wave of heated air trembled above the ashes but without a trace of smoke.
"We can't keep one fire going. And they don't care. And what's more--" He looked intensely into Piggy's streaming face.
"What's more, _I_ don't sometimes. Supposing I got like the others--not caring. What 'ud become of us?"
Piggy took off his glasses, deeply troubled.
"I dunno, Ralph. We just got to go on, that's all. That's what grownups would do."
Ralph, having begun the business of unburdening himself, continued.
"Piggy, what's wrong?"
Piggy looked at him in astonishment.
"Do you mean the--?"
"No, not it . . . I mean . . . what makes things break up like they do?"
Piggy rubbed his glasses slowly and thought. When he understood how far Ralph had gone toward accepting him he flushed pinkly with pride.
"I dunno, Ralph. I expect it's him."
"Jack?"
"Jack." A taboo was evolving round that word too.
Ralph nodded solemnly.
"Yes," he said, "I suppose it must be."
The forest near them burst into uproar. Demoniac figures with faces of white and red and green rushed out howling, so that the littluns fled screaming. Out of the corner of his eye, Ralph saw Piggy running. Two figures rushed at the fire and he prepared to defend himself but they grabbed half-burnt branches and raced away along the beach. The three others stood still, watching Ralph; and he saw that the tallest of them, stark naked save for paint and a belt, was Jack.
Ralph had his breath back and spoke.
"Well?"
Jack ignored him, lifted his spear and began to shout.
"Listen all of you. Me and my hunters, we're living along the beach by a flat rock. We hunt and feast and have fun. If you want to join my tribe come and see us. Perhaps I'll let you join. Perhaps not."
He paused and looked round. He was safe from shame or self-consciousness behind the mask of his paint and could look at each of them in turn. Ralph was kneeling by the remains of the fire like a sprinter at his mark and his face was half-hidden by hair and smut. Samneric peered together round a palm tree at the edge of the forest. A littlun howled, creased and crimson, by the bathing pool and Piggy stood on the platform, the white conch gripped in his hands.
"Tonight we're having a feast. We've killed a pig and we've got meat. You can come and eat with us if you like."
Up in the cloud canyons the thunder boomed again. Jack and the two anonymous savages with him swayed, looking up, and then recovered. The littlun went on howling. Jack was waiting for something. He whispered urgently to the others.
"Go on--now!"
The two savages murmured. Jack spoke sharply.
"Go on!"
The two savages looked at each other, raised their spears together and spoke in time.
"The Chief has spoken."
Then the three of them turned and trotted away. Presently Ralph rose to his feet, looking at the place where the savages had vanished. Samneric came, talking in an awed whisper.
"I thought it was--"
"--and I was--"
"--scared."
Piggy stood above them on the platform, still holding the conch.
"That was Jack and Maurice and Robert," said Ralph. "Aren't they having fun?"
"I thought I was going to have asthma."
"Sucks to your ass-mar."
"When I saw Jack I was sure he'd go for the conch. Can't think why."
The group of boys looked at the white shell with affectionate respect. Piggy placed it in Ralph's hand and the littluns, seeing the familiar symbol, started to come back.
"Not here."
He turned toward the platform, feeling the need for ritual. First went Ralph, the white conch cradled, then Piggy very grave, then the twins, then the littluns and the others.
"Sit down all of you. They raided us for fire. They're having fun. But the--"
Ralph was puzzled by the shutter that flickered in his brain. There was something he wanted to say; then the shutter had come down.
They were regarding him gravely, not yet troubled by any doubts about his sufficiency. Ralph pushed the idiot hair out of his eyes and looked at Piggy.
"But the . . . oh . . . the fire! Of course, the fire!"
He started to laugh, then stopped and became fluent instead.
"The fire's the most important thing. Without the fire we can't be rescued. I'd like to put on war-paint and be a savage. But we must keep the fire burning. The fire's the most important thing on the island, because, because--"
He paused again and the silence became full of doubt and wonder.
Piggy whispered urgently. "Rescue."
"Oh yes. Without the fire we can't be rescued. So we must stay by the fire and make smoke."
When he stopped no one said anything. After the many brilliant speeches that had been made on this very spot Ralph's remarks seemed lame, even to the littluns.
At last Bill held out his hands for the conch.
"Now we can't have the fire up there--because we can't have the fire up there--we need more people to keep it going. Let's go to this feast and tell them the fire's hard on the rest of us. And the hunting and all that, being savages I mean--it must be jolly good fun."
Samneric took the conch.
"That must be fun like Bill says--and as he's invited us--"
"--to a feast--"
"--meat--"
"--crackling--"
"--I could do with some meat--"
Ralph held up his hand.
"Why shouldn't we get our own meat?"
The twins looked at each other. Bill answered.
"We don't want to go in the jungle."
Ralph grimaced.
"He--you know--goes."
"He's a hunter. They're all hunters. That's different."
No one spoke for a moment, then Piggy muttered to the sand.
The littluns sat, solemnly thinking of meat, and dribbling. Overhead the cannon boomed again and the dry palm fronds clattered in a sudden gust of hot wind.
"You are a silly little boy," said the Lord of the Flies, "just an ignorant, silly little boy."
Simon moved his swollen tongue but said nothing.
"Don't you agree?" said the Lord of the Flies. "Aren't you just a silly little boy?"
Simon answered him in the same silent voice.
"Well then," said the Lord of the Flies, "you'd better run off and play with the others. They think you're batty. You don't want Ralph to think you're batty, do you? You like Ralph a lot, don't you? And Piggy, and Jack?"