Lord of the Flies (22 page)

           
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 like 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 caught 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 Ralph's head. He gave 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 kids." 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 yelling 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 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 flat 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 the 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 more! 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.