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Chapter Text

The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon. Though he had taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand, his grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his forehead. All-round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat. He was clambering heavily among the creepers and broken trunks when a bird, a vision of red and yellow, flashed upwards with a witch-like cry; and this cry was echoed by another.

"Hi!" it said. "Wait a minute!"

The undergrowth at the side of the scar was shaken and a multitude of raindrops fell pattering.

"Wait a minute," the voice said. "I got caught up."

The voice spoke again.

"I can't hardly move with all these creeper things."

The owner of the voice came backing out of the undergrowth so that twigs scratched on a greasy windbreaker. The naked crooks of his knees were plump, caught, and scratched by thorns. He bent down, removed the thorns carefully, and turned around. He was shorter than the fair boy and very fat. He came forward, searching out safe lodgments for his feet, and then looked up through thick spectacles.

The fat boy was exuberant to find another boy alive, but also confused. Was there no one else around?

"Where's the man with the megaphone?"

The fair boy shook his head and was peering at the reef through screwed-up eyes.

"All them other kids," the fat boy went on. "Some of them must have got out. They must have, mustn't they?"

The fair boy began to pick his way as casually as possible toward the water. He tried to be offhand and not too obviously uninterested, but the fat boy hurried after him, ignorant to his attempt to remain aloof.

"Aren't there any grownups at all?"

"I don't think so."

The fair boy said this solemnly; but then the delight of a realized ambition overcame him. In the middle of the scar, he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy.

"No grownups!"

The fat boy thought for a moment, not understanding the fair boy's excitement, which he decided was because the fair boy was rather strange. But still, despite the fair boy being weird he was still excited to see another person.

The fair boy allowed his feet to come down and sat on the steamy earth.

"That pilot must have flown off after he dropped us. He couldn't land here. Not in a place with wheels."

"We was attacked! When we was coming down I looked through one of them windows. I saw the other part of the plane. Flames were coming out of it."

The fair boy reached out and touched the jagged end of a trunk. For a moment he looked interested. The fat boy hesitated for a moment, then spoke again—trying to seem not as intrigued with the fair boy as he truly was.

"What's your name?"

"Ralph."

The fat boy waited to be asked his name in turn but this proffer of acquaintance was not made; the fair boy called Ralph smiled vaguely with disinterest, stood up, and began to make his way once more toward the lagoon. The fat boy hung steadily at his shoulder; unrelenting in his pursuit of company.

"I expect there's a lot more of us scattered about. You haven't seen any others, have you?"

Ralph shook his head and increased his speed, not wanting to talk with the fat boy anymore. Then he tripped over a branch and came down with a crash.

The fat boy stood by him, breathing hard and struggling to get back on his feet.

"My auntie told me not to run," he explained, "on account of my asthma."

"Ass-mar?"

"That's right. Can't catch my breath. I was the only boy in our school what had asthma," said the fat boy with a touch of pride. "And I've been wearing specs since I was three."

His auntie always said that made him a special boy, and he hoped Ralph would think so too. He seemed nicer than the boys back at home.

He took off his glasses and held them out to Ralph, blinking and smiling, and then started to wipe them against his grubby wind-breaker. An expression of pain and inward concentration altered the pale contours of his face. He smeared the sweat from his cheeks and quickly adjusted the spectacles on his nose.

He put on his glasses, waded away from Ralph, and crouched down among the tangled foliage. He saw hundreds of fruits high up in the trees, and was trying to look for one of the fallen jewels. His stomach grumbled in dismay, and he ignored Ralph to focus on the task at hand.

"I'll be out again in just a minute--"

Ralph disentangled himself cautiously and stole away through the branches. In a few seconds the fat boy's grunts were behind him and he was hurrying toward the screen that still lay between him and the lagoon. He climbed over a broken trunk and was out of the jungle.

He jumped down from the terrace. The sand was thick over his black shoes and the heat hit him. He became conscious of the weight of clothes, kicked his shoes off fiercely and ripped off each stocking with its elastic garter in a single movement. Then he leapt back on the terrace, pulled off his shirt, and stood there among the skull-like coconuts with green shadows from the palms and the forest sliding over his skin. He undid the snake-clasp of his belt, lugged off his shorts and pants, and stood there naked, looking at the dazzling beach and the water.

"Ralph--"

The fat boy lowered himself over the terrace and sat down carefully, using the edge as a seat. He wiped his glasses and adjusted them on his button nose. He looked with interest at Ralph's golden body and considered his own clothes. He laid a hand on the end of a zipper that extended down his chest. Then he opened the zipper with decision and pulled the whole wind-breaker over his head. He hadn’t wanted to take him clothes off at first; Ralph was much thinner and more sure of himself than him.

Ralph looked at him sidelong and said nothing. On his face was disgust that the fat boy was utterly unaware of.

"I expect we'll want to know all their names," said the fat boy, "and make a list. We ought to have a meeting."

Ralph did not take the hint so the fat boy was forced to continue.

"I don't care what they call me," he said confidentially—wanting Ralph to pay attention to him--"so long as they don't call me what they used to call me at school."

"What was that?"

The fat boy glanced over his shoulder, then leaned toward Ralph with full trust. He whispered.

"They used to call me 'Piggy.'"

Ralph shrieked with laughter. He jumped up.

"Piggy! Piggy!"

"Ralph--please!"

Piggy clasped his hands in apprehension, and he was obviously hurt. He thought Ralph had been kinder than the boys at his old school, maybe not.

"I said I didn't want--"

"Piggy! Piggy!"

Ralph danced out into the hot air of the beach and then returned as a fighter-plane, with wings swept back, and machine-gunned Piggy.

"Sche-aa-ow!"

He dived in the sand at Piggy's feet and lay there laughing, uncaring of Piggy’s humiliation.

"Piggy!"

Piggy grinned reluctantly, pleased despite himself at even this much recognition from Ralph.

"So long as you don't tell the others--"

Ralph giggled into the sand. The expression of pain and concentration returned to Piggy's face.

"Half a sec'."

He hastened back into the forest. Ralph stood up and trotted along to the right.

They picked their way to the seaward edge of the platform and stood looking down into the water. Ralph inspected the whole thirty yards of the pool carefully and then plunged in.

Piggy apprehensively sat on the rocky ledge, and watched Ralph's green and white body enviously.

"You can't half swim."

"Piggy."

Piggy took off his shoes and socks, ranged them carefully on the ledge, and tested the water with one toe. Piggy was looking determined and began to take off his shorts. Presently he was palely and fatly naked. He tiptoed down the sandy side of the pool, and sat there up to his neck in water smiling proudly at Ralph.

"Aren't you going to swim?"

Piggy shook his head.

"I can't swim. I wasn't allowed. My asthma--"

"Sucks to your ass-mar!"

Piggy bore this with a sort of humble patience and resignation. "You can't half swim well."

Piggy rose suddenly, dripping from the water and stood naked, cleaning his glasses with a sock. The only sound that reached them now through the heat of the morning was the long, grinding roar of the breakers on the reef.

"How will we get off the island?", Piggy inquired with worry.

"Someone’ll find us."

Piggy shook his head, put on his flashing glasses and looked down at Ralph.

"Who will? Didn't you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They're all dead."

Ralph pulled himself out of the water, stood facing Piggy, and considered this unusual problem.

Piggy persisted with increasingly more worry.

"This an island, isn't it?"

"I climbed a rock," said Ralph slowly, "and I think this is an island."

"They're all dead," said Piggy, "an' this is an island. Nobody don't know we're here, nobody don't know--"

His lips quivered and the spectacles were dimmed with mist.

"We may stay here till we die."

With that word the heat seemed to increase till it became a threatening weight and the lagoon attacked them with a blinding effulgence.

They trotted through the sand, enduring the sun's enmity, crossed the platform and put on their scattered clothes. Ralph climbed the edge of the platform and sat in the green shade on a convenient trunk. Piggy hauled himself up, carrying most of his clothes under his arms. Then he sat carefully on a fallen trunk near the little cliff that fronted the lagoon; and the tangled reflections quivered over him.

Presently he spoke.

"We got to find the others. We got to do something."

Ralph said nothing, ignoring Piggy's ill-omened talk, he dreamed pleasantly.

Piggy insisted.

"How many of us are there?"

"I don't know."

Piggy looked up at Ralph. All the shadows on Ralph's face were reversed; green above, bright below from the lagoon. A blur of sunlight was crawling across his hair. The fair boy was surely more handsome than him, and that fact made jealous and insecure.

"We got to do something."

Ralph looked through him. Here at last was the imagined but never fully realized place leaping into real life. Ralph's lips parted in a delighted smile and Piggy, taking this smile to himself as a mark of recognition, laughed with pleasure. Maybe Ralph wasn’t so bad after all?

"If it really is an island--"

"What's that?"

Ralph had stopped smiling and was pointing into the lagoon. Something creamy lay among the ferny weeds.

"A stone."

"No. A shell."

Suddenly Piggy was a-bubble with decorous excitement.

"S'right. It's a shell! I seen one like that before. On someone's back wall. A conch he called it. He used to blow it and then his mum would come. It's ever so valuable--"

Ralph leaned dangerously towards the water to pick up the conch. Piggy watched on the ledge with concern, for he was beginning to grow fond of Ralph despite his own jealousy. He didn't want Ralph to fall in and hit his head or break the conch.

"Careful! You'll fall it--"

"Shut up."

The shell was interesting and pretty and a worthy plaything. Ralph used one hand as a fulcrum and pressed down with the other till the shell rose, dripping, and Piggy could make a grab.

Ralph snatched the shell from Piggy’s fingertips. In color, the shell was deep cream, touched here and there with fading pink. Between the point, worn away into a little hole, and the pink lips of the mouth, lay eighteen inches of shell with a slight spiral twist and covered with a delicate, embossed pattern. Sand fell out of the deep tube.

Piggy stilled for a moment, then stroked the glistening thing that lay in Ralph's hands in thought.

"Ralph!"

Ralph looked up.

"We can use this to call the others. Have a meeting. They'll come when they hear us--"

He beamed at Ralph.

"That was what you meant, didn't you? That's why you got the conch out of the water?"

"How do you blow the conch?"

"You have to kind of spit," said Piggy. "My auntie wouldn't let me blow on account of my asthma. But you blow from down here." Piggy laid a hand on his jutting abdomen. "You try, Ralph. You'll call the others."

Ralph laid the small end of the shell against his mouth and blew. There came a rushing sound from its mouth but nothing more. He tried again, but the shell remained silent.

Ralph pursed his lips and squirted air into the again shell, which emitted a low, farting noise. This amused both boys so much that Ralph went on squirting for some minutes, between bouts of laughter.

After the fit of giggles, Piggy was determined to have a meeting and find the other boys and clarified his instructions.

"You blow from down here," placing his hand upon Ralph’s sternum.

Ralph grasped the idea and hit the shell with air from his diaphragm. Immediately the thing sounded. A deep, harsh note boomed under the palms.

"Gosh!"

His ordinary voice sounded like a whisper after the harsh note of the conch. He laid the conch against his lips, took a deep breath and blew once more. Piggy was shouting something, his face pleased, his glasses flashing.

The conch was now silent, a gleaming tusk; The air over the island was full of bird-clamor and echoes ringing.

"I bet you can hear that for miles."

Piggy exclaimed: "There's one!"

Piggy leaned down to him.

"What's yer name?"

"Johnny."

Piggy muttered the name to himself and then yelled it to Ralph; The shouting in the forest was nearer.

Signs of life were visible now on the beach. The sand, trembling beneath the heat haze, concealed many figures in its miles of length; boys were making their way toward the platform through the hot, dumb sand. Three small children, no older than Johnny, appeared from startlingly close at hand, where they had been gorging fruit in the forest. They sat down on the fallen palm trunks and waited. Piggy moved among the crowd, asking names and frowning to remember them. Their heads clustered above the trunks in the green shade; heads muttering, whispering, heads full of eyes that watched Ralph—to Piggy’s frustration.

At first Piggy was sure hadn't wanted to blow the conch, but now he found himself wishing he had been the one to blow it, if only to have the same adoration as Ralph received.

The children who came along the beach, singly or in twos, leaped into visibility when they crossed the line from heat haze to nearer sand. Piggy noticed the last pair of bodies that reached the platform above a fluttering patch of black. They were twins, and the eye was shocked and incredulous at such cheery duplication. They breathed together, they grinned together, they were chunky and vital. Piggy bent his flashing glasses to them and asked their names. The boys pointed to themselves and gave him their names. Piggy had to repeat them to avoid getting the names jumbled together.

"Sam, Eric, Sam, Eric."

Then he got them muddled; the twins shook their heads and pointed at each other and the crowd laughed.

Within the diamond haze of the beach something dark was fumbling along. Piggy saw it first and watched till the intentness of his gaze drew all eyes that way. It was a party of boys, marching approximately in step in two parallel lines and dressed in strangely eccentric clothing. The boy who controlled them was dressed in the same way though his cap badge was golden. When his party was about ten yards from the platform he shouted an order and they halted, gasping, sweating, swaying in the fierce light. The boy himself came forward, vaulted on to the platform with his cloak flying, and peered into what to him was almost complete darkness.

"Where's the man with the trumpet?"

Ralph, sensing his sun-blindness, answered him.

"There's no man with a trumpet. Only me."

The boy came close and peered down at Ralph, screwing up his face as he did so. What he saw of the fair-haired boy with the creamy shell on his knees did not seem to satisfy him. He turned quickly, his black cloak circling.

"Isn't there a ship, then?"

Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness. Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger. He intrigued Piggy greatly, even more so than Ralph had.

"Isn't there a man here?"

Ralph spoke to his back.

"No. We're having a meeting. Come and join in."

The group of cloaked boys began to scatter from close line. The tall boy shouted at them.

"Choir! Stand still!"

Wearily obedient, the choir huddled into line and stood there swaying in the sun.

The boys perched like black birds on the criss-cross trunks and examined Ralph with interest. Piggy asked no names. He was intimidated by this uniformed superiority and the offhand authority in Merridew's voice. He shrank to the other side of Ralph and busied himself with his glasses in the attempt to not blatantly stare at the tall boy, Merridew.

Merridew turned to Ralph.

"Aren't there any grownups?"

"No."

Merridew sat down on a trunk and looked round the circle.

"Then we'll have to look after ourselves."

Secure on the other side of Ralph, Piggy finally raised the courage and spoke timidly.

"That's why Ralph made a meeting. We've heard names. That's Johnny. Those two--they're twins, Sam 'n Eric. Which is Eric--? You? No--you're Sam--"

"I'm Sam--"

"'n I'm Eric."

"We'd better all have names," said Ralph, "so I'm Ralph."

"We got most names," said Piggy. "Got 'em just now."

"Kids' names," said Merridew. "Why should I be Jack? I'm Merridew."

Ralph turned to him quickly. This was the voice of one who knew his own mind.

"Then," went on Piggy, "that boy--I forget--"

"You're talking too much," said Jack Merridew. "Shut up, Fatty."

Laughter arose.

"He's not Fatty," cried Ralph, "his real name's Piggy!"

"Piggy!"

"Piggy!"

"Oh, Piggy!"

A storm of laughter arose and even the tiniest child joined in. For the moment the boys were a closed circuit of sympathy with Piggy outside: he went very pink, bowed his head and cleaned his glasses again. Maybe this new boy was just as cruel as the rest.

Jack spoke.

"We've got to decide about being rescued."

Ralph lifted the conch. "Seems to me we ought to have a chief to decide things."

"A chief! A chief!"

"I ought to be chief," said Jack with simple arrogance, "because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp."

Another buzz.

"Well then," said Jack, "I--"

He hesitated. The dark boy, Roger, stirred at last and spoke up.

"Let's have a vote."

"Yes!"

"Vote for chief!"

"Let's vote--"

This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch. Jack started to protest but the clamor changed from the general wish for a chief to an election by acclaim of Ralph himself. None of the boys could have found good reason for this; what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy while the most obvious leader was Jack. But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out, which Piggy noticed from the moment he found him by the scar: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch. The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart.

"Him with the shell."

"Ralph! Ralph!"

"Let him be chief with the trumpet-thing."

Ralph raised a hand for silence.

"All right. Who wants Jack for chief?"

With dreary obedience the choir raised their hands.

"Who wants me?"

Every hand outside the choir except Piggy's was raised immediately. Then Piggy, too, raised his hand slowly into the air. Piggy had wanted Ralph to be chief, although he had continuously teased him, and he made Piggy feel insignificant; However, in his mind, Ralph was leagues better than Jack.

Ralph counted.

"I'm chief then."

The circle of boys broke into applause. Even the choir applauded; and the freckles on Jack's face disappeared under a blush of mortification. He started up, then changed his mind and sat down again while the air rang. Ralph looked at him, eager to offer something.

"Jack's in charge of the choir. They can be--what do you want them to be?"

"Hunters."

Jack and Ralph smiled at each other with liking. The rest began to talk eagerly while Piggy struggled to make his voice heard.

Ralph smiled and held up the conch for silence from the crowd of boys.

"Listen, everybody. I've got to have time to think things out. I can't decide what to do straight off. If this isn't an island we might be rescued straight away. So we've got to decide if this is an island. Three of us--if we take more we'd get all mixed, and lose each other--three of us will go on an expedition and find out. I'll go, and Jack, and, and . . ."

Ralph looked around the circle for another person, while Jack snatched from behind him a sizable sheath-knife and clouted it into a trunk.

Piggy stirred as he saw Ralph’s eye blatantly skipping over him, not wanting to be left out from this adventure.

"I'll come."

Ralph turned to him.

"You're no good on a job like this."

"All the same--"

"We don't want you," said Jack, flatly. "Two's enough anyhow."

Jack and the others paid no attention to Piggy’s clear disappointment. There was a general dispersal. Ralph, Jack and Simon jumped off the platform and walked along the sand past the bathing pool. Piggy hung bumbling behind them an he to the decision to follow behind them quietly. If they never noticed he was there, then they couldn’t tell him off.

The two of them fell into step. This meant that every now and then Piggy had to break into a brisk jog through the creepers to catch up with the others. Presently Ralph stopped and turned back to Piggy, who hadn’t been as quiet as he thought due to his lack of coordination and athleticism, and his large size. The other two boys hadn’t even realized he was trying to sneak, and rather thought he was trying to disobediently follow them in an obvious and intentional way.

"Look."

Jack pretended to notice nothing. They walked on.

"You can't come."

Piggy's glasses were misted again--this time with humiliation and rejection.

"You told 'em. After what I said."

His face flushed, his mouth trembled.

"After I said I didn't want--"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"About being called Piggy. I said I didn't care as long as they didn't call me Piggy; an' I said not to tell and then you went an' said straight out--"

Stillness descended on them. Ralph, looking with more understanding at Piggy, saw that he was hurt and crushed. He hovered between the two courses of apology or further insult.

"Better Piggy than Fatty," he said at last, with the directness of genuine leadership, "and anyway, I'm sorry if you feel like that. Now go back, Piggy, and take names. That's your job. So long."

He turned and raced after the other two. Piggy stood and the rose of indignation faded slowly from his cheeks. He went back to the platform. That direct statement and apology was enough for Piggy to forgive Ralph, despite its off-handed delivery; he had not wanted to remain angry with him despite the cruelty of his words.

Jack and Ralph turned to each other, laughing excitedly, talking, not listening, and ignoring Piggy. The air was bright. When they had done laughing, Ralph stroked Jack's arm shyly; and they had to laugh again.

"Come on," said Jack presently, "we're explorers."

"We'll go to the end of the island," said Ralph, "and look round the corner."

"If it is an island--"

Now, toward the end of the afternoon, the mirages were settling a little. They found the end of the island, quite distinct, and not magicked out of shape or sense. There was a jumble of the usual squareness, with one great block sitting out in the lagoon. Sea birds were nesting there.

"We shan't see round this corner," said Jack, "because there isn't one. Only a slow curve--and you can see, the rocks get worse--"

"We'll try climbing the mountain from here," Ralph said. "I should think this is the easiest way. There's less of that jungly stuff; and more pink rock. Come on."

The three boys began to scramble up. Some unknown force had wrenched and shattered these cubes so that they lay askew, often piled diminishingly on each other. The most usual feature of the rock was a pink cliff surmounted by a skewed block; and that again surmounted, and that again, till the pinkness became a stack of balanced rock projecting through the looped fantasy of the forest creepers. Where the pink cliffs rose out of the ground there were often narrow tracks winding upwards. They could edge along them, deep in the plant world, their faces to the rock.

"What made this track?"

Jack paused, wiping the sweat from his face. Ralph stood by him, breathless.

"Men?"

Jack shook his head.

"Animals."

Ralph peered into the darkness under the trees. The forest minutely vibrated.

"Come on."

At perhaps their most difficult moment, Immured in the tangle of the vines of the trees, Ralph turned with shining eyes to the others.

"Wacco."

"Wizard."

"Smashing."

The cause of their pleasure was not obvious. All three were hot, dirty and exhausted. Piggy was badly scratched from scrambling through the trees. The creepers were as thick as their thighs and left little but tunnels for further penetration. Ralph shouted experimentally and they listened to the muted echoes.

"This is real exploring," said Jack. "I bet nobody's been here before."

"We ought to draw a map," said Ralph, "only we haven't any paper."

"We should make scratches on bark," said Piggy matter-of-factly, "and rub black stuff in."

Again came the solemn communion of shining eyes in the gloom.

"Wacco."

"Wizard."

There was no place for standing on one's head. This time Ralph expressed the intensity of his emotion by pretending to knock Jack down; and soon they were a happy, heaving pile in the under-dusk.

When they had fallen apart Ralph spoke first.

"Got to get on."

The way to the top was easy after that. As they reached the last stretch Ralph stopped.

"Golly!"

They were on the lip of a circular hollow in the side of the mountain.

Beyond the hollow was the square top of the mountain and soon they were standing on it.

They had guessed before that this was an island: clambering among the pink rocks, with the sea on either side, and the crystal heights of air, they had known by some instinct that the sea lay on every side. But there seemed something more fitting in leaving the last word till they stood on the top, and could see a circular horizon of water.

Ralph turned to the others.

"This belongs to us."

There, where the island petered out in water, was another island; a rock, almost detached, standing like a fort, facing them across the green with one bold, pink bastion.

The boys surveyed all this, then looked out to sea. They were high up and the afternoon had advanced; the view was not robbed of sharpness by mirage.

"That's a reef. A coral reef. I've seen pictures like that."

Ralph sketched a twining line from the bald spot on which they stood down a slope, a gully, through flowers, round and down to the rock where the scar started.

"That's the quickest way back."

Eyes shining, mouths open, triumphant, they savored the right of domination.

Piggy looked at them both, saying nothing but nodding till his thin, greasy hair flopped backward and forwards: his face was bright red with exertion and embarrassment. He felt like he was intruding on a friendship between two-longtime friends, even though he had known Ralph longer than Jack had.

Ralph looked down the other way where there was no reef. Every point of the mountain held up trees--flowers and trees. Now the forest stirred, roared, flailed. The nearer acres of rock flowers fluttered and for half a minute the breeze blew cool on their faces.

Ralph spread his arms.

"All ours."

They laughed and tumbled and shouted on the mountain.

"I'm hungry."

When Piggy mentioned his hunger the others became aware of theirs.

"Come on," said Ralph. "We've found out what we wanted to know."

They were in the beginnings of the thick forest, plonking with weary feet on a track, when they heard the noises--squeakings--and the hard strike of hoofs on a path. As they pushed forward the squeaking increased till it became a frenzy. They found a piglet caught in a curtain of creepers, throwing itself at the elastic traces in all the madness of extreme terror. Its voice was thin, needle-sharp and insistent; The three boys rushed forward and Jack drew his knife again with a flourish. He raised his arm in the air. There came a pause, a hiatus, the pig continued to scream and the creepers to jerk, and the blade continued to flash at the end of a bony arm. The pause was only long enough for them to understand what an enormity the downward stroke would be. Then the piglet tore loose from the creepers and scurried into the undergrowth.

They were left looking at each other and the place of terror. Jack's face was white under the freckles. He noticed that he still held the knife aloft and brought his arm down, replacing the sheath's blade. Then they all three laughed ashamedly and began to climb back to the track.

"I was choosing a place," said Jack. "I was just waiting for a moment to decide where to stab him."

"You should stick a pig," said Ralph fiercely. "They always talk about sticking a pig."

"You cut a pig's throat to let the blood out," said Jack, "otherwise you can't eat the meat."

"Why didn't you--?"

They knew very well why he hadn't: because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood.

"I was going to," said Jack. He was ahead of them, and they could not see his face. "I was choosing a place. Next time--!"

He snatched his knife out of the sheath and slammed it into a tree trunk. Next time there would be no mercy. He looked round fiercely, daring them to contradict. Then they broke out into the sunlight and for a while they were busy finding and devouring food as they moved down the scar toward the platform and the meeting.

Chapter Text

By the time Ralph finished blowing the conch the platform was crowded.He sat on a fallen trunk, his left side to the sun. On his right were most of the choir; on his left the larger boys who had not known each other before the evacuation; before him small children squatted in the grass.

Silence now. Ralph lifted the cream and pink shell to his knees and a sudden breeze scattered light over the platform. He was uncertain whether to stand up or remain sitting. He looked sideways to his left, toward the bathing pool. Piggy was sitting near but giving no help. Ralph cleared his throat.

“Well then.”

All at once he found he could talk fluently and explain what he had today. He passed a hand through his fair hair and spoke.

“We’re on an island. We’ve been on the mountain top and seen water all round. We saw no houses, no smoke, no footprints, no boats, no people. We’re on an uninhabited island with no other people on it.”

Jack broke in.

“All the same you need an army–for hunting. Hunting pigs–”

“Yes. There are pigs on the island.”

All three of them tried to convey the sense of the pink live thing struggling in the creepers.

“We saw–”

“Squealing–”

“It broke away–”

“Before I could kill it–but–next time!”

Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked round challengingly. The meeting settled down again.

“And he won’t be interrupted: Except by me.” Jack was on his feet. “We’ll have rules!” he cried excitedly. “Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks ’em–”

“Whee–oh!”

“Wacco!”

“Bong!”

“Doink!”

Ralph felt the conch lifted from his lap. Then Piggy was standing cradling the great cream shell and the shouting died down.

Jack, left on his feet, looked uncertainly at Ralph who smiled and patted the log. Jack sat down. Piggy took off his glasses and blinked at the assembly while he wiped them on his shirt.

“You’re hindering Ralph. You’re not letting him get to the most important thing.” He paused effectively.

“Who knows we’re here? Eh?”

“They knew at the airport.”

“Nobody knows where we are,” said Piggy, putting his glasses back on his round, pink face.

He was paler than before and breathless.

“Perhaps they knew where we was going to; and perhaps not. But they don’t know where we are ’cos we never got there.”

He gaped at them for a moment, then swayed and sat down. Ralph took the conch from his hands.

“That’s what I was going to say,” he went on, “when you all, all. . . .”

He gazed at their intent faces. “The plane was shot down in flames. Nobody knows where we are. We may be here a long time.”

The silence was so complete that they could hear the unevenness of Piggy’s breathing. Ralph pushed back the tangle of fair hair that hung on his forehead. “So we may be here a long time.”

Nobody said anything.

He grinned suddenly. “But this is a good island. We–Jack, Simon and me– we climbed the mountain. It’s wizard. There’s food and drink, and–”

“Rocks–”

“Blue flowers–”

Piggy, partly recovered, pointed to the conch in Ralph’s hands, and Jack and Simon fell silent.

Ralph went on. “While we’re waiting we can have a good time on this island.” He gesticulated widely. “It’s like in a book.”

At once there was a clamor.

“Treasure Island–”

“Swallows and Amazons–”

“Coral Island–”

Ralph waved the conch. “This is our island. It’s a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we’ll have fun.”

Jack held out his hand for the conch.

“There’s pigs,” he said. “There’s food; and bathing water in that little stream along there–and everything. Didn’t anyone find anything else?”

He handed the conch back to Ralph and sat down. Apparently no one had found anything. The older boys first noticed the child when he resisted. There was a group of little boys urging him forward and he did not want to go. He was muttering and about to cry. The other little boys, whispering but serious, pushed him toward Ralph.

“All right,” said Ralph, “come on then.”

The small boy held out his hands for the conch and the assembly shouted with laughter; at once he snatched back his hands and started to cry.

“Let him have the conch!” shouted Piggy. “Let him have it!”

At last Ralph induced him to hold the shell but by then the blow of laughter had taken away the child’s voice.

Piggy knelt by him, one hand on the great shell, listening and interpreting to the assembly. “He wants to know what you’re going to do about the blobby-beast.”

Ralph laughed loudly, and the other boys laughed with him. The small boy twisted further into himself.

“Tell us about the blob-thing.”

“Now he says it was a beastie.”

“Beastie?”

“A globby-thing. Ever so big. He saw it.”

“Where?”

“In the woods.”

Either the wandering breezes or perhaps the decline of the sun allowed a little coolness to lie under the trees. The boys felt it and stirred restlessly.

“You couldn’t have a beastie, a blob-thing, on an island this size,” Ralph explained kindly. “They ain’t real.”

Murmur; and the grave nodding of heads.

“He says the beastie came in the dark.”

“Then he couldn’t see it!” Laughter and jeers. “Did you hear that? Says he saw the thing in the dark–”

“He still says he saw the beastie. It came and went away again an’ came back and wanted to eat him–”

“He was dreaming.”

Laughing, Ralph looked for confirmation round the ring of faces. The older boys agreed; but here and there among the little ones was the doubt that required more than rational assurance.

“He must have had a nightmare. Stumbling about among all those creepers.”

More grave nodding; they knew about nightmares.

“He says he saw the beastie, the glob-thing, and will it come back tonight?”

“But there isn’t a beastie!”

“He says it looked goopy and huge but in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the trees and hung in the branches. He says will it come back tonight?”

“But there isn’t a beastie!”

There was no laughter at all now and more grave watching.

Ralph pushed both hands through his hair and looked at the little boy in mixed amusement and exasperation.

Jack seized the conch. “Ralph’s right of course. There isn’t a blob-thing. But if there was a beast we’d hunt it and kill it. We’re going to hunt pigs to get meat for everybody. And we’ll look for the glob too–”

“But there isn’t a blob-thing!”

“We’ll make sure when we go hunting.”

Ralph was annoyed and, for the moment, defeated. He felt himself facing something ungraspable. The eyes that looked so intently at him were without humor.

“But there isn’t a beast!” Something he had not known was there rose in him and compelled him to make the point, loudly and again.

“But I tell you there isn’t a beast!” The assembly was silent. Ralph lifted the conch again and his good humor came back as he thought of what he had to say next.

“We want to be rescued; and of course we shall be rescued.”

Voices babbled. The simple statement, unbacked by any proof but the weight of Ralph’s new authority, brought light and happiness. He had to wave the conch before he could make them hear him. “So you see, sooner or later, we shall be rescued.” He paused, with the point made.

The assembly was lifted toward safety by his words, they liked and now respected him. Spontaneously they began to clap and presently the platform was loud with applause. Ralph flushed, looking sideways at Piggy’s open admiration in gaze, and then the other way at Jack who was smirking and showing that he too knew how to clap—far more jealously than Piggy however.

Ralph waved the conch. “Shut up! Wait! Listen!” He went on in the silence, borne on his triumph. “There’s another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire.”

“A fire! Make a fire!”

At once half the boys were on their feet.

Jack clamored among them, the conch forgotten. “Come on! Follow me!”

The space under the palm trees was full of noise and movement. Ralph was on his feet too, shouting for quiet, but no one heard him. All at once the crowd swayed toward the island and was gone–following Jack. Ralph was left, holding the conch, with no one but Piggy. Piggy’s breathing was quite restored. Ralph looked at him doubtfully and laid the conch on the tree trunk. He caressed the shell respectfully, then stopped and looked up. “Ralph! Hey! Where you going?” Ralph was already clambering over the first smashed swathes of the scar. A long way ahead of him was crashing and laughter. Piggy watched him in disgust.

They found the likeliest path down and began tugging at the dead wood. And the small boys who had reached the top came sliding too till everyone but Piggy was busy. At the return Ralph found himself alone on a limb with Jack and they grinned at each other, sharing this burden. Once more, amid the breeze, the shouting, the slanting sunlight on the high mountain, was shed that glamour, that strange invisible light of friendship, adventure, and content.

“Almost too heavy.” Jack grinned back.

“Not for the two of us.”

Together, joined in an effort by the burden, they staggered up the last steep of the mountain. Together, they chanted One! Two! Three! and crashed the log on to the great pile. Then they stepped back, laughing with triumphant pleasure, so that immediately Ralph had to stand on his head. Ralph and Jack looked at each other while society paused about them.

Ralph caught himself gazing much too long at Jack, and it was not the first time either. The more time the boys spent together, the more butterflies collected in Ralph’s stomach just at the mere sight of Jack. The shameful knowledge grew in him slowly and he did not know how to begin confession.

They broke eye contact when Piggy came scrambling by, in shorts and shirt, laboring cautiously out of the forest with the evening sunlight gleaming from his glasses. He held the conch under his arm.

Suddenly remembering why they were collecting wood, Ralph shouted at him. “Piggy! Have you got any matches?”

The other boys took up the cry till the mountain rang.

Piggy shook his head and came to the pile. “My! You’ve made a big heap, haven’t you?”

Jack pointed suddenly. “His specs–use them as burning glasses!”

Piggy was surrounded before he could back away.

“Here–let me go!”

His voice rose to a shriek of terror as Jack snatched the glasses off his face.

“Mind out! Give ’em back! I can hardly see! You’ll break the conch!”

Ralph elbowed him to the side and knelt by the pile. “Stand out of the light.”

There was pushing and pulling and officious cries. Ralph moved the lenses back and forth, this way and that, till a glossy white image of the declining sun lay on a piece of rotten wood. The flame, nearly invisible at first in that bright sunlight, enveloped a small twig, grew, was enriched with color and reached up to a branch which exploded with a sharp crack. The flame flapped higher and the boys broke into a cheer.

“My specs!” howled Piggy. “Give me my specs!”

Ralph stood away from the pile and put the glasses into Piggy’s groping hands. His voice subsided to a mutter. “Jus’ blurs, that’s all. Hardly see my hand–”

The boys were dancing and the rotten trunks of the trees crumbled to white dust. Ralph shouted. “More wood! All of you get more wood!”

However, the beard of flame diminished quickly; then the pile fell inwards with a soft, cindery sound, and sent a great tree of sparks upwards that leaned away and drifted downwind. Ralph placed his head onto his forearms. “That was no good.”

“What d’you mean?”

“There wasn’t any smoke. Only flame.”

Piggy had settled himself in a space between two rocks, and sat with the conch on his knees. “We haven’t made a fire,” he said, “what’s any use. We couldn’t keep a fire like that going, not if we tried.”

“A fat lot you tried,” said Jack contemptuously. “You just sat.”

“I got the conch,” said Piggy indignantly. “You let me speak!”

“The conch doesn’t count for anything on top of the mountain,” said Jack, “so you shut up.”

“I got the conch in my hand.”

“Put on green branches,” said a boy. “That’s the best way to make smoke.”

“I got the conch–”

Jack turned fiercely. “You shut up!”

Piggy wilted at the hatred and contempt in Jacks’s features.

Ignoring the dispute between the two boys, Ralph took the conch from Piggy and looked round the circle at the rest boys. “We’ve got to have special people for looking after the fire. Any day there may be a ship out there“--he waved his arm at the taut wire of the horizon--“and if we have a signal going they’ll come and take us off. And another thing. We ought to have more rules. Where the conch is, that’s a meeting. The same up here as down there.”

They assented.

Piggy opened his mouth to speak, caught Jack’s taunting expression and shut it again.

Jack held out his hands, grabbed the conch and stood up, holding the delicate thing carefully in his sooty hands. “I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them.” He turned to Ralph. “Ralph, I’ll split up the choir–my hunters, that is–into groups, and we’ll be responsible for keeping the fire going–”

This generosity brought a spatter of applause from the boys, so that Jack grinned at them and Ralph, then waved the conch for silence. “We’ll let the fire burn out now. Who would see smoke at night-time, anyway? And we can start the fire again whenever we like.”

The assembly assented gravely. “And we’ll be responsible for keeping a lookout too. If we see a ship out there“–they followed the direction of his bony arm with their eyes–“we’ll put green branches on. Then there’ll be more smoke.”

They gazed intently at the dense blue of the horizon, as if a little silhouette might appear there at any moment. The sun in the west was a drop of burning gold that slid nearer and nearer the sill of the world. All at once they were aware of the evening as the end of light and warmth.

Daring, indignant, Piggy took the conch. “That’s what I said! I said about our meetings and things and then you said shut up–”

His voice lifted into the whine of virtuous recrimination. They stirred and began to shout him down. “You said you wanted a small fire and you been and built a pile like a hayrick. If I say anything,” cried Piggy, with bitter realism, “you say shut up; but if Jack or Maurice or Simon–”

He paused suddenly in the tumult, standing, looking beyond them and down the side of the mountain to the great patch that they had found dead wood--and where a spark from the fire quickly began to consume the dried husks. The flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps on its belly toward a line of birch-like saplings that fledged an outcrop of the pink rock.

“You got your small fire all right,” said Piggy, his horror rising in every syllable.

Startled, Ralph realized that the boys were falling still and silent, feeling the beginnings of awe at the power set free below them. The knowledge and the awe made him savage.

“Oh, shut up!”

“I got the conch,” said Piggy, fear forgotten, in a hurt voice. “I got a right to speak.”

They looked at him with eyes that lacked interest in what they saw, and cocked ears at the drum-roll of the fire. Piggy glanced nervously into the hell and cradled the conch.

Jack dragged his eyes away from the fire. “You’re always scared. Yah–Fatty!”

“I got the conch,” said Piggy bleakly. He turned to Ralph. “I got the conch, ain’t I Ralph?”

Unwillingly Ralph turned away from the splendid, awful sight.

“What’s that?”

“The conch. I got a right to speak.”

All the boys except Piggy started to giggle; presently they were shrieking with laughter.

Piggy lost his temper. “I got the conch! Just you listen! The first thing we ought to have made was shelters down there by the beach. It wasn’t half cold down there in the night. But the first time Ralph says ’fire’ you goes howling and screaming up this here mountain. Like a pack of kids!”

By now they were listening to the tirade.

“How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?” He took off his glasses and made as if to put down the conch; but the sudden motion toward it of most of the older boys changed his mind. “And that’s not all. Them kids. The little ’uns. Who took any notice of ’em? Who knows how many we got?”

Ralph took a sudden step forward, not liking the other boys sudden attention on Piggy.

“I told you to. I told you to get a list of names!”

“How could I,” cried Piggy indignantly, “all by myself? They waited for two minutes, then they fell in the sea; they went into the forest; they just scattered everywhere. How was I to know which was which?”

“That’s enough!” said Ralph sharply, he was sick of Piggy’s constant complaining and whining. He snatched back the conch.

“If you didn’t you didn’t.”

“–then you come up here an’ pinch my specs–”

Jack turned on him, wishing Piggy would just get lost, and liking the way he shrank when Jack yelled at him. “You shut up!”

A tree exploded in the fire like a bomb. Tall swathes of vines rose for a moment into view, like the tentacles of a massive, grotesque creature. The little boys screamed in fear and horror. In the west of the island something watched the group, unheeded, with amused eyes.