Chapter XIII- The Raid

As the fire blazed on the hilltop that night, the hunters gathered around it and reported to Jack what else they'd gotten done. Plenty of wood had been gathered for the next day, and thanks to the storm more than a few banana-bearing trees had come within their reach. The younger boys had stripped them clean as dusk fell; they'd made their escape with blinding speed, darting back into the jungle along paths Roger had shown them. Jack made a point of rewarding them for their deeds; an extra banana was rationed out to each of them. As Jack watched the younger boys eat to their heart's content on cooked meat from the pig and bananas from the beaches, he knew he was winning their hearts fast. The younger boys hadn't eaten so well since they'd landed, and a fast way to securing anyone's loyalty in times of scarcity was to offer them a steady supply of good food.

Andy shook his head when remarking about the mission to Ralph's camp, though. "We told 'em to give us your survival knife back, Chief. We said you just forgot it when you broke off to form this camp."

Jack stared through the fire like a hawk. "So what'd they say?"

The black boy dropped his eyes a little; he was coming to sense that Jack was a harsh boss. He didn't want to have to admit he'd failed that part of the mission.

Roger wasn't going to let Andy get away with not providing an answer. "Well, out with it, then!" he commanded.

"We didn't get it." Andy said.

All eyes turned to Jack; the younger boys were suddenly eager to see if they would get to watch an older boy get punished. But Jack was looking off into the dark, where through a mile or two of grass and jungle he knew Ralph and his camp were already sleeping. "So you tried asking for my knife, huh?"

Andy nodded. "Yeah."

"And they told you to shove it."

"More or less."

"Well," Jack said as he looked around at the hunters, "We're just gonna have to take it."

Jack personally chose every boy who accompanied him on the mission to raid Ralph's camp; trying to prove his loyalty and make up for his misdeed in not signing on earlier, Tony was among the most eager of the volunteers. Jack approved his coming along; turning Ralph's own against him, just as soon as possible, was definitely the way to go. Roger chose to stay back, holding command over the five remaining on the hill. Jack smirked at the even division he chose to make among his forces; Jack's hunters now numbered twelve to Ralph's nine, and he'd won three new boys only a full day after breaking off from Ralph's camp. Things were going well. And of course he was a better strategist than Ralph, keeping men stationed at home even while an attack was being staged. It wasn't in Jack's playbook to make mistakes like that.

The six hunters made their way onto the beach just after midnight, making absolutely certain that no one was up before they advanced. Tony had to be held back a few times, told to slow his pace or lower his spear. Jack smiled at his eagerness, though; if Tony was trying to prove his loyalty, the effort was hardly failing.

The boys' bare feet padded across the sand, making no sound that any of Ralph's camp could hear. There was not even the slightest rustle of leaves, not one snapped twig, as they climbed up onto the lowest branch of the tree the new leaf-shelter had been built under, preparing to dive down from above. Tony looked at Jack, pleading in the darkness. "Now?" he whispered.

Jack's eyes gleamed in the dark as he scanned the shelter below him; gaps in the leaves allowed him to see where nearly every one of Ralph's loyalists was in the dark. Jack's lip curled when he spotted Piggy; he made a mental note to leave some reminder of what happened to losers who got in his way. Piggy would need to be left a special, visible reminder of his foolishness tonight.

The lead hunter turned to his group, all balanced perfectly on the thick, low-lying branch. Silently mimicking a hound baying as it sighted a kill, Jack readied to leap off the tree. Then he pushed off, the others following instantly. As they leapt off the tree branch, a shrill, throaty cry split the air, awakening every member of Ralph's group. "Ar-rooooo!" the hunters screamed, their cries shattering the night's silence.

Ralph and the others tried to rise, but confused and disoriented, they were shoved aside and pushed down with laughable ease. "Get the knife!" Jack commanded, and Tony darted amongst them, tossing aside the conch and snatching it, then nimbly escaping Ralph's grasping fingers as he fled down the beach. Suddenly, something else gleamed in the moonlight; Jack looked down and saw Piggy struggling to put on his glasses. Laughing, Jack stabbed his spear into the left lens, hard enough to crack them badly, which was just his intention. Then, baying their wild, shrill yells to the moon, Jack and the other hunters turned and sped down the beach, sprinting away and cheering in triumph.

The raid had been a great success, their second victory of the eighth day. And it had only taken some forty-five seconds to stage the attack itself. Ignoring Ralph's outraged yells, Jack urged his hunters onward and upward, back to their camp on top of the hill. Laughing at the ease of their escape, they told Roger and the others of the raid's outcome. Roger grinned like a wolf in the fire's light; he knew he'd made the right choice, from the very start. Given the chance and with a good man behind him, Jack was the kind of person who could take over the world. Next to that, taking over the island and offing a few pitiful boys who stood in the way was nothing.

The following morning, Jack began a new policy- posting armed sentries at the key entry points to the hilltop. "If anybody wants to get to the fire, or our camp at the top of the hill," Jack had told them, "I want to know about it first." Then he'd glared around at everybody, adding in a deadly quiet voice, "And if anybody lets one of Ralph's guys up there… I'll let Roger use his imagination."

Even some of the older boys shivered at that; they had all learned to take Roger quite seriously by now. The older boy was the image of ruthlessness, and he had no sense of fair play. Jack threatening to let somebody like Roger run free with his brilliantly inventive cruelty was a scary thought, indeed.

Simon appeared along the coast late in the morning that day, making his way up to the foot of the cliffs, where three of Jack's sentries now stood. "Hey!" the boy taking point called, gesturing with his spear. "Anybody that wants to come up has to ask!" As Simon drew nearer, he noticed it was Steve, the red-and-black pattern of blood and charcoal newly drawn on his face. It was quite an honour for Steve, as was being in charge of the sentries at the chief entrance to the field of tall grass. Protecting Jack's camp like this said a lot about the kind of trust Jack was willing to place in Steve; the younger boy, for his part, was terrified of screwing up. One mistake could lose you a lot of standing with Jack, very fast.

But Simon made no effort to agitate the sentries, perhaps sensing they would be easy to provoke to violence if alarmed. "Where are the others?" he asked.

"They're hunting!"

Simon looked at Steve curiously; hadn't he been the one to find the cave the other day?

"Where's that cave you found?"

Steve just went a little pale and said nothing. He didn't even like thinking about the cave; it scared him.

"Don't you know where it is?" Simon asked.

"Yeah, but I'm not going back! I already showed Jack and the others!" Whenever he got excited or nervous, Steve tended to talk in exclamations.

"Can't you even show me where it is?" Simon said; prodding anything out of Steve was proving difficult to say the least.

Steve didn't like the idea of anyone else going up to the cave, either; he couldn't picture it ending well. "You shouldn't go there!"

Simon said gently, "I just wanna look; I've got a glowstick."

Finally, Steve raised one arm, pointing off into the woods where he knew the cave lay. "It's over there in the forest." Steve shook his head a little as Simon headed off again; if he wanted to risk his own ass like that, let him. Just like Jack liked to say; I'm nobody's babysitter.

The pig was heavy; it dangled upside down from a small tree's trunk, carried along by Jack and seven of his hunters. It was their third kill, and by Jack's count this was the ninth day they'd spent on the island. Things weren't going half bad.

Finally, they reached the point in the woods Jack had been heading for. It was the base of the hill, twenty feet from the entrance to the cave; that was as close to the monster's lair as any of them dared go. "Set it down here," he said, and the boys were plenty willing to oblige. Hauling that pig through the jungle had been difficult work. Jack swiftly took out a switchblade he'd recovered from his pack; the blade was long enough for it to double as a bayonet. Looking up at Roger, Jack said, "Sharpen a stick at both ends."

While Roger went straight to work sharpening the other end of his spear, Jack stuck his knife in the pig's neck and with remarkable speed began to cut its head off. At the sight of all the blood, the sound of all the muscle, bone and fat being cut and torn, a few of the boys turned a little green; some averted their eyes and desperately hoped they wouldn't be found out for sissies. Some, though, stared down as Jack worked, fascinated. Most people were revolted at such a sight back home; Jack, though, seemed entirely at ease. It was like none of it bothered him at all. He wasn't subtle or tactful, nor did he try to be a gentleman. But Jack knew how to get results.

Roger planted the stick in the ground, and Jack, lifting the pig's head before him, set it firmly down on top of the grounded spear. Looking towards the darkened entrance to the cave, Jack said with reverence, "This is a present for the monster."

The hunters stood there for a few moments, all staring towards the entrance of the cave. If an offering was what the monster wanted, that's what it would get. They just hoped what was given would be enough.

Then, their nerve gave out, and the hunters picked up the tree trunk and swiftly fled, carrying the now-headless body of the pig with them. They were so set on getting away from the monster's resting place that none of them ever noticed Simon, with his sharp blue eyes, sitting in a bush nearby and watching.