Lord of the Flies (8 page)

           
"I've been thinking," he said, "about a clock. We could make a sundial. We could put a stick in the sand, and then--"

           
The effort to express the mathematical processes involved was too great. He made a few passes instead.

           
"And an airplane, and a TV set," said Ralph sourly, "and a steam engine."

           
Piggy shook his head.

           
"You have to have a lot of metal things for that," he said, "and we haven't got no metal. But we got a stick."

           
Ralph turned and smiled involuntarily. Piggy was a bore; his fat, his ass-mar and his matter-of-fact ideas were dull, but there was always a little pleasure to be got out of pulling his leg, even if one did it by accident.

           
Piggy saw the smile and misinterpreted it as friendliness. There had grown up tacitly among the biguns the opinion that Piggy was an outsider, not only by accent, which did not matter, but by fat, and ass-mar, and specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor. Now, finding that something he had said made Ralph smile, he rejoiced and pressed his advantage.

           
"We got a lot of sticks. We could have a sundial each. Then we should know what the time was."

           
"A fat lot of good that would be."

           
"You said you wanted things done. So as we could be rescued."

           
"Oh, shut up."

           
He leapt to his feet and trotted back to the pool, just as Maurice did a rather poor dive. Ralph was glad of a chance to change the subject. He shouted as Maurice came to the surface.

           
"Belly flop! Belly flop!"

           
Maurice flashed a smile at Ralph who slid easily into the water. Of all the boys, he was the most at home there; but today, irked by the mention of rescue, the useless, footling mention of rescue, even the green depths of water and the shattered, golden sun held no balm. Instead of remaining and playing, he swam with steady strokes under Simon and crawled out of the other side of the pool to lie there, sleek and streaming like a seal. Piggy, always clumsy, stood up and came to stand by him, so that Ralph rolled on his stomach and pretended not to see. The mirages had died away and gloomily he ran his eye along the taut blue line of the horizon.

           
The next moment he was on his feet and shouting.

           
"Smoke! Smoke!"

           
Simon tried to sit up in the water and got a mouthful. Maurice, who had been standing ready to dive, swayed back on his heels, made a bolt for the platform, then swerved back to the grass under the palms. There he started to pull on his tattered shorts, to be ready for anything.

           
Ralph stood, one hand holding back his hair, the other clenched. Simon was climbing out of the water. Piggy was rubbing his glasses on his shorts and squinting at the sea. Maurice had got both legs through one leg of his shorts. Of all the boys, only Ralph was still.

           
"I can't see no smoke," said Piggy incredulously. "I can't see no smoke, Ralph--where is it?"

           
Ralph said nothing. Now both his hands were clenched over his forehead so that the fair hair was kept out of his eyes. He was leaning forward and already the salt was whitening his body.

           
"Ralph--where's the ship?"

           
Simon stood by, looking from Ralph to the horizon. Maurice's trousers gave way with a sigh and he abandoned them as a wreck, rushed toward the forest, and then came back again.

           
The smoke was a tight little knot on the horizon and was uncoiling slowly. Beneath the smoke was a dot that might be a funnel. Ralph's face was pale as he spoke to himself.

           
"They'll see our smoke."

           
Piggy was looking in the right direction now.

           
"It don't look much."

           
He turned round and peered up at the mountain. Ralph continued to watch the ship, ravenously. Color was coming back into his face. Simon stood by him, silent.

           
"I know I can't see very much," said Piggy, "but have we got any smoke?"

           
Ralph moved impatiently, still watching the ship.

           
"The smoke on the mountain."
  

           
Maurice came running, and stared out to sea. Both Simon and Piggy were looking up at the mountain. Piggy screwed up his face but Simon cried out as though he had hurt himself.

           
"Ralph! Ralph!"

           
The quality of his speech twisted Ralph on the sand.

           
"You tell me," said Piggy anxiously. "Is there a signal?"

           
Ralph looked back at the dispersing smoke in the horizon, then up at the mountain.

           
"Ralph--please! Is there a signal?"

           
Simon put out his hand, timidly, to touch Ralph; but Ralph started to run, splashing through the shallow end of the bathing pool, across the hot, white sand and under the palms. A moment later he was battling with the complex undergrowth that was already engulfing the scar. Simon ran after him, then Maurice. Piggy shouted.

           
"Ralph! Please--Ralph!"

           
Then he too started to run, stumbling over Maurice's discarded shorts before he was across the terrace. Behind the four boys, the smoke moved gently along the horizon; and on the beach, Henry and Johnny were throwing sand at Percival who was crying quietly again; and all three were in complete ignorance of the excitement.

           
By the time Ralph had reached the landward end of the scar he was using precious breath to swear. He did desperate violence to his naked body among the rasping creepers so that blood was sliding over him. Just where the steep ascent of the mountain began, he stopped. Maurice was only a few yards behind him.

           
"Piggy's specs!" shouted Ralph. "If the fire's all out, we'll need them--"

           
He stopped shouting and swayed on his feet. Piggy was only just visible, bumbling up from the beach. Ralph looked at the horizon, then up to the mountain. Was it better to fetch Piggy's glasses, or would the ship have gone? Or if they climbed on, supposing the fire was all out, and they had to watch Piggy crawling nearer and the ship sinking under the horizon? Balanced on a high peak of need, agonized by indecision, Ralph cried out:

           
"Oh God, oh God!"

           
Simon, struggling with the bushes, caught his breath. His face was twisted. Ralph blundered on, savaging himself, as the wisp of smoke moved on.

           
The fire was dead. They saw that straight away; saw what they had really known down on the beach when the smoke of home had beckoned. The fire was out, smokeless and dead; the watchers were gone. A pile of unused fuel lay ready.

           
Ralph turned to the sea. The horizon stretched, impersonal once more, barren of all but the faintest trace of smoke. Ralph ran stumbling along the rocks, saved himself on the edge of the pink cliff, and screamed at the ship.

           
"Come back! Come back!"

           
He ran backwards and forwards along the cliff, his face always to the sea, and his voice rose insanely.

           
"Come back! Come back!"

           
Simon and Maurice arrived. Ralph looked at them with unwinking eyes. Simon turned away, smearing the water from his cheeks. Ralph reached inside himself for the worst word he knew.

           
"They let the bloody fire go out."

           
He looked down the unfriendly side of the mountain. Piggy arrived, out of breath and whimpering like a littlun. Ralph clenched his fist and went very red. The intentness of his gaze, the bitterness of his voice, pointed for him.

           
"There they are."

           
A procession had appeared, far down among the pink stones that lay near the water's edge. Some of the boys wore black caps but otherwise they were almost naked. They lifted sticks in the air together whenever they came to an easy patch. They were chanting, something to do with the bundle that the errant twins carried so carefully. Ralph picked out Jack easily, even at that distance, tall, red-haired, and inevitably leading the procession.

           
Simon looked now, from Ralph to Jack, as he had looked from Ralph to the horizon, and what he saw seemed to make him afraid. Ralph said nothing more, but waited while the procession came nearer. The chant was audible but at that distance still wordless. Behind Jack walked the twins, carrying a great stake on their shoulders. The gutted carcass of a pig swung from the stake, swinging heavily as the twins toiled over the uneven ground. The pig's head hung down with gaping neck and seemed to search for something on the ground. At last the words of the chant floated up to them, across the bowl of blackened wood and ashes.

           
"_Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood._"

           
Yet as the words became audible, the procession reached the steepest part of the mountain, and in a minute or two the chant had died away. Piggy sniveled and Simon shushed him quickly as though he had spoken too loudly in church.

           
Jack, his face smeared with clays, reached the top first and hailed Ralph excitedly, with lifted spear.

           
"Look! We've killed a pig--we stole up on them--we got in a circle--"

           
Voices broke in from the hunters.

           
"We got in a circle--"

           
"We crept up--"

           
"The pig squealed--"

           
The twins stood with the pig swinging between them, dropping black gouts on the rock. They seemed to share one wide, ecstatic grin. Jack had too many things to tell Ralph at once. Instead, he danced a step or two, then remembered his dignity and stood still, grinning. He noticed blood on his hands and grimaced distastefully, looked for something on which to clean them, then wiped them on his shorts and laughed.

           
Ralph spoke.

           
"You let the fire go out."

           
Jack checked, vaguely irritated by this irrelevance but too happy to let it worry him.

           
"We can light the fire again. You should have been with us, Ralph. We had a smashing time. The twins got knocked over--"

           
"We hit the pig--"

           
"--I fell on top--"

           
"I cut the pig's throat," said Jack, proudly, and yet twitched as he said it. "Can I borrow yours, Ralph, to make a nick in the hilt?"

           
The boys chattered and danced. The twins continued to grin.

           
"There was lashings of blood," said Jack, laughing and shuddering, "you should have seen it!"

           
"We'll go hunting every day--"

           
Ralph spoke again, hoarsely. He had not moved.

           
"You let the fire go out."

           
This repetition made Jack uneasy. He looked at the twins and then back at Ralph.

           
"We had to have them in the hunt," he said, "or there wouldn't have been enough for a ring."

           
He flushed, conscious of a fault.

           
"The fire's only been out an hour or two. We can light up again--"

           
He noticed Ralph's scarred nakedness, and the sombre silence of all four of them. He sought, charitable in his happiness, to include them in the thing that had happened. His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.

           
He spread his arms wide.

           
"You should have seen the blood!"

           
The hunters were more silent now, but at this they buzzed again. Ralph flung back his hair. One arm pointed at the empty horizon. His voice was loud and savage, and struck them into silence.

           
"There was aship."

           
Jack, faced at once with too many awful implications, ducked away from them. He laid a hand on the pig and drew his knife. Ralph brought his arm down, fist clenched, and his voice shook.

           
"There was a ship. Out there. You said you'd keep the fire going and you let it out!" He took a step toward Jack, who turned and faced him.

           
"They might have seen us. We might have gone home--"

           
This was too bitter for Piggy, who forgot his timidity in the agony of his loss. He began to cry out, shrilly:

           
"You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have gone home--"

           
Ralph pushed Piggy to one side.

           
"I was chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you can't even build huts--then you go off hunting and let out the fire--"