Lord of the Flies (9 page)
He turned away, silent for a moment. Then his voice came again on a peak of feeling.
One of the smaller hunters began to wail. The dismal truth was filtering through to everybody. Jack went very red as he hacked and pulled at the pig.
"The job was too much. We needed everyone."
Ralph turned.
"You could have had everyone when the shelters were finished. But you had to hunt--"
"We needed meat."
Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand. The two boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled commonsense. Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair.
Piggy began again.
"You didn't ought to have let that fire out. You said you'd keep the smoke going--"
This from Piggy, and the wails of agreement from some of the hunters, drove Jack to violence. The bolting look came into his blue eyes. He took a step, and able at last to hit someone, stuck his fist into Piggy's stomach. Piggy sat down with a grunt. Jack stood over him. His voice was vicious with humiliation.
"You would, would you? Fatty!"
Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Piggy's head. Piggy's glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror:
"My specs!"
He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Simon, who got there first, found them for him. Passions beat about Simon on the mountain-top with awful wings.
"One side's broken."
Piggy grabbed and put on the glasses. He looked malevolently at Jack.
"I got to have them specs. Now I only got one eye. Jus' you wait--"
Jack made a move toward Piggy who scrambled away till a great rock lay between them. He thrust his head over the top and glared at Jack through his one flashing glass.
"Now I only got one eye. Just you wait--"
Jack mimicked the whine and scramble.
"Jus' you wait--yah!"
Piggy and the parody were so funny that the hunters began to laugh. Jack felt encouraged. He went on scrambling and the laughter rose to a gale of hysteria. Unwillingly Ralph felt his lips twitch; he was angry with himself for giving way.
He muttered.
"That was a dirty trick."
Jack broke out of his gyration and stood facing Ralph. His words came in a shout.
"All right, all right!"
He looked at Piggy, at the hunters, at Ralph.
"I'm sorry. About the fire, I mean. There. I--"
He drew himself up.
"--I apologize."
The buzz from the hunters was one of admiration at this handsome behavior. Clearly they were of the opinion that Jack had done the decent thing, had put himself in the right by his generous apology and Ralph, obscurely, in the wrong. They waited for an appropriately decent answer.
Yet Ralph's throat refused to pass one. He resented, as an addition to Jack's misbehavior, this verbal trick. The fire was dead, the ship was gone. Could they not see? Anger instead of decency passed his throat.
"That was a dirty trick."
They were silent on the mountain-top while the opaque look appeared in Jack's eyes and passed away.
Ralph's final word was an ingracious mutter.
"All right. Light the fire."
With some positive action before them, a little of the tension died. Ralph said no more, did nothing, stood looking down at the ashes round his feet. Jack was loud and active. He gave orders, sang, whistled, threw remarks at the silent Ralph--remarks that did not need an answer, and therefore could not invite a snub; and still Ralph was silent. No one, not even Jack, would ask him to move and in the end they had to build the fire three yards away and in a place not really as convenient.
So Ralph asserted his chieftainship and could not have chosen a better way if he had thought for days. Against this weapon, so indefinable and so effective, Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was built, they were on different sides of a high barrier.
When they had dealt with the fire another crisis arose. Jack had no means of lighting it. Then to his surprise, Ralph went to Piggy and took the glasses from him. Not even Ralph knew how a link between him and Jack had been snapped and fastened elsewhere.
"I'll bring 'em back."
"I'll come too."
Piggy stood behind him, islanded in a sea of meaningless color, while Ralph knelt and focused the glossy spot. Instantly the fire was alight, Piggy held out his hands and grabbed the glasses back.
Before these fantastically attractive flowers of violet and red and yellow, unkindness melted away. They became a circle of boys round a camp fire and even Piggy and Ralph were half-drawn in. Soon some of the boys were rushing down the slope for more wood while Jack hacked the pig. They tried holding the whole carcass on a stake over the fire, but the stake burnt more quickly than the pig roasted. In the end they skewered bits of meat on branches and held them in the flames: and even then almost as much boy was roasted as meat.
Ralph's mouth watered. He meant to refuse meat, but his past diet of fruit and nuts, with an odd crab or fish, gave him too little resistance. He accepted a piece of halfraw meat and gnawed it like a wolf.
Piggy spoke, also dribbling.
"Aren't I having none?"
Jack had meant to leave him in doubt, as an assertion of power; but Piggy by advertising his omission made more cruelty necessary.
"You didn't hunt."
"No more did Ralph," said Piggy wetly, "nor Simon." He amplified. "There isn't more than a ha'porth of meat in a crab."
Ralph stirred uneasily. Simon, sitting between the twins and Piggy, wiped his mouth and shoved his piece of meat over the rocks to Piggy, who grabbed it. The twins giggled and Simon lowered his face in shame.
Then Jack leapt to his feet, slashed off a great hunk of meat, and flung it down at Simon's feet.
"Eat! Damn you!"
He glared at Simon.
"Take it!"
He spun on his heel, center of a bewildered circle of boys.
"I got you meat!"
Numberless and inexpressible frustrations combined to make his rage elemental and awe-inspiring.
"I painted my face--I stole up. Now you eat--all of you--and I--"
Slowly the silence on the mountain-top deepened till the click of the fire and the soft hiss of roasting meat could be heard clearly. Jack looked round for understanding but found only respect. Ralph stood among the ashes of the signal fire, his hands full of meat, saying nothing.
Then at last Maurice broke the silence. He changed the subject to the only one that could bring the majority of them together.
"Where did you find the pig?"
Roger pointed down the unfriendly side. "They were there--by the sea."
Jack, recovering could not bear to have his story told. He broke in quickly.
"We spread round. I crept, on hands and knees. The spears fell out because they hadn't barbs on. The pig ran away and made an awful noise--"
"It turned back and ran into the circle, bleeding--"
All the boys were talking at once, relieved and excited.
The first blow had paralyzed its hind quarters, so then the circle could close in and beat and beat--
The twins, still sharing their identical grin, jumped up and ran round each other. Then the rest joined in, making pig-dying noises and shouting.
"One for his nob!"
"Give him a fourpenny one!"
Then Maurice pretended to be the pig and ran squealing into the center, and the hunters, circling still, pretended to beat him. As they danced, they sang.
"_Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in._"
Ralph watched them, envious and resentful. Not till they flagged and the chant died away, did he speak.
"I'm calling an assembly."
One by one, they halted, and stood watching him.
"With the conch. I'm calling a meeting even if we have to go on into the dark. Down on the platform. When I blow it. Now."
He turned away and walked off, down the mountain.
The tide was coming in and there was only a narrow strip of firm beach between the water and the white, stumbling stuff near the palm terrace. Ralph chose the firm strip as a path because he needed to think, and only here could he allow his feet to move without having to watch them. Suddenly, pacing by the water, he was overcome with astonishment. He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet. He stopped, facing the strip; and remembering that first enthusiastic exploration as though it were part of a brighter childhood, he smiled jeeringly. He turned then and walked back toward the platform with the sun in his face. The time had come for the assembly and as he walked into the concealing splendors of the sunlight he went carefully over the points of his speech. There must be no mistake about this assembly, no chasing imaginary. . . .
He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again.
This meeting must not be fun, but business.
At that he walked faster, aware all at once of urgency and the declining sun and a little wind created by his speed that breathed about his face. This wind pressed his grey shirt against his chest so that he noticed--in this new mood of comprehension--how the folds were stiff like cardboard, and unpleasant; noticed too how the frayed edges of his shorts were making an uncomfortable, pink area on the front of his thighs. With a convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay, understood how much he disliked perpetually flicking the tangled hair out of his eyes, and at last, when the sun was gone, rolling noisily to rest among dry leaves. At that he began to trot.
The beach near the bathing pool was dotted with groups of boys waiting for the assembly. They made way for him silently, conscious of his grim mood and the fault at the fire.
The place of assembly in which he stood was roughly a triangle; but irregular and sketchy, like everything they made. First there was the log on which he himself sat; a dead tree that must have been quite exceptionally big for the platform. Perhaps one of those legendary storms of the Pacific had shifted it here. This palm trunk lay parallel to the beach, so that when Ralph sat he faced the island but to the boys was a darkish figure against the shimmer of the lagoon. The two sides of the triangle of which the log was base were less evenly defined. On the right was a log polished by restless seats along the top, but not so large as the chief's and not so comfortable. On the left were four small logs, one of them--the farthest--lamentably springy. Assembly after assembly had broken up in laughter when someone had leaned too far back and the log had whipped and thrown half a dozen boys backwards into the grass. Yet now, he saw, no one had had the wit--not himself nor Jack, nor Piggy--to bring a stone and wedge the thing. So they would continue enduring the ill-balanced twister, because, because. . . . Again he lost himself in deep waters.
Grass was worn away in front of each trunk but grew tall and untrodden in the center of the triangle. Then, at the apex, the grass was thick again because no one sat there. All round the place of assembly the grey trunks rose, straight or leaning, and supported the low roof of leaves. On two sides was the beach; behind, the lagoon; in front, the darkness of the island.
Ralph turned to the chief's seat. They had never had an assembly as late before. That was why the place looked so different. Normally the underside of the green roof was lit by a tangle of golden reflections, and their faces were lit upside down--like, thought Ralph, when you hold an electric torch in your hands. But now the sun was slanting in at one side, so that the shadows were where they ought to be.
Again he fell into that strange mood of speculation that was so foreign to him. If faces were different when lit from above or below--what was a face? What was anything?
Ralph moved impatiently. The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise. And then the occasion slipped by so that you had to grab at a decision. This made you think; because thought was a valuable thing, that got results. . . .
Only, decided Ralph as he faced the chief's seat, I can't think. Not like Piggy.
Once more that evening Ralph had to adjust his values. Piggy could think. He could go step by step inside that fat head of his, only Piggy was no chief. But Piggy, for all his ludicrous body, had brains. Ralph was a specialist in thought now, and could recognize thought in another.
The sun in his eyes reminded him how time was passing, so he took the conch down from the tree and examined the surface. Exposure to the air had bleached the yellow and pink to near-white, and transparency. Ralph felt a kind of affectionate reverence for the conch, even though he had fished the thing out of the lagoon himself. He faced the place of assembly and put the conch to his lips.
The others were waiting for this and came straight away. Those who were aware that a ship had passed the island while the fire was out were subdued by the thought of Ralph's anger; while those, including the littluns who did not know, were impressed by the general air of solemnity. The place of assembly filled quickly; Jack, Simon, Maurice, most of the hunters, on Ralph's right; the rest on the left, under the sun. Piggy came and stood outside the triangle. This indicated that he wished to listen, but would not speak; and Piggy intended it as a gesture of disapproval.
"The thing is: we need an assembly."
No one said anything but the faces turned to Ralph were intent. He flourished the conch. He had learnt as a practical business that fundamental statements like this had to be said at least twice, before everyone understood them. One had to sit, attracting all eyes to the conch, and drop words like heavy round stones among the little groups that crouched or squatted. He was searching his mind for simple words so that even the littluns would understand what the assembly was about. Later perhaps, practiced debaters--Jack, Maurice, Piggy--would use their whole art to twist the meeting: but now at the beginning the subject of the debate must be laid out clearly.
"We need an assembly. Not for fun. Not for laughing and falling off the log"--the group of littluns on the twister giggled and looked at each other--"not for making jokes, or for"--he lifted the conch in an effort to find the compelling word--"for cleverness. Not for these things. But to put things straight."
He paused for a moment.
"I've been alone. By myself I went, thinking what's what. I know what we need. An assembly to put things straight. And first of all, I'm speaking."
He paused for a moment and automatically pushed back his hair. Piggy tiptoed to the triangle, his ineffectual protest made, and joined the others.
Ralph went on.
"We have lots of assemblies. Everybody enjoys speaking and being together. We decide things. But they don't get done. We were going to have water brought from the stream and left in those coconut shells under fresh leaves. So it was, for a few days. Now there's no water. The shells are dry. People drink from the river."
There was a murmur of assent.
"Not that there's anything wrong with drinking from the river. I mean I'd sooner have water from that place-- you know, the pool where the waterfall is--than out of an old coconut shell. Only we said we'd have the water brought. And now not. There were only two full shells there this afternoon."
He licked his lips.
"Then there's huts. Shelters."
The murmur swelled again and died away.
"You mostly sleep in shelters. Tonight, except for Samneric up by the fire, you'll all sleep there. Who built the shelters?"
Clamor rose at once. Everyone had built the shelters. Ralph had to wave the conch once more.
"Wait a minute! I mean, who built all three? We all built the first one, four of us the second one, and me 'n Simon built the last one over there. That's why it's so tottery. No. Don't laugh. That shelter might fall down if the rain comes back. We'll need those shelters then."
He paused and cleared his throat.
"There's another thing. We chose those rocks right along beyond the bathing pool as a lavatory. That was sensible too. The tide cleans the place up. You littluns know about that."
There were sniggers here and there and swift glances.
"Now people seem to use anywhere. Even near the shelters and the platform. You littluns, when you're getting fruit; if you're taken short--"
The assembly roared.
"I said if you're taken short you keep away from the fruit. That's dirty!"
Laughter rose again.
"I said that's dirty!"
He plucked at his stiff, grey shirt.
"That's really dirty. If you're taken short you go right along the beach to the rocks. See?"
Piggy held out his hands for the conch but Ralph shook his head. His speech was planned, point by point.
"We've all got to use the rocks again. This place is getting dirty." He paused. The assembly, sensing a crisis, was tensely expectant. "And then: about the fire."
Ralph let out his spare breath with a little gasp that was echoed by his audience. Jack started to chip a piece of wood with his knife and whispered something to Robert, who looked away.
"The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don't keep a fire going? Is a fire too much for us to make?"
He flung out an arm.
"Look at us! How many are we? And yet we can't keep a fire going to make smoke. Don't you understand? Can't you see we ought to--ought to die before we let the fire out?"
There was a self-conscious giggling among the hunters. Ralph turned on them passionately.
"You hunters! You can laugh! But I tell you the smoke is more important than the pig, however often you kill one. Do all of you see?" He spread his arms wide and turned to the whole triangle.
"We've got to make smoke up there--or die."
He paused, feeling for his next point.
"And another thing."
Someone called out.
"Too many things."
There came a mutter of agreement. Ralph overrode them.
"And another thing. We nearly set the whole island on fire. And we waste time, rolling rocks, and making little cooking fires. Now I say this and make it a rule, because I'm chief. We won't have a fire anywhere but on the mountain. Ever."
There was a row immediately. Boys stood up and shouted and Ralph shouted back.
"Because if you want a fire to cook fish or crab, you can jolly well go up the mountain. That way we'll be certain."
Hands were reaching for the conch in the light of the setting sun. He held on and leapt on the trunk.
"All this I meant to say. Now I've said it. You voted me for chief. Now you do what I say."
They quieted, slowly, and at last were seated again. Ralph dropped down and spoke in his ordinary voice.
"So remember. The rocks for a lavatory. Keep the fire going and smoke showing as a signal. Don't take fire from the mountain. Take your food up there."
Jack stood up, scowling in the gloom, and held out his hands.
"I haven't finished yet."
"But you've talked and talked!"
"I've got the conch."
Jack sat down, grumbling.
"Then the last thing. This is what people can talk about."
He waited till the platform was very still.
"Things are breaking up. I don't understand why. We began well; we were happy. And then--"
He moved the conch gently, looking beyond them at nothing, remembering the beastie, the snake, the fire, the talk of fear.
"Then people started getting frightened."
A murmur, almost a moan, rose and passed away. Jack had stopped whittling. Ralph went on, abruptly.
"But that's littluns' talk. We'll get that straight. So the last part, the bit we can all talk about, is kind of deciding on the fear."
The hair was creeping into his eyes again.
"We've got to talk about this fear and decide there's nothing in it. I'm frightened myself, sometimes; only that's nonsense! Like bogies. Then, when we've decided, we can start again and be careful about things like the fire." A picture of three boys walking along the bright beach flitted through his mind. "And be happy."