CHAPTER 13
Alone on a Wide Sea
After the sailor had turned his back the boys heart wrenching sobs continued sounding if possible, even more distraught. Ralph crying for the happenings of the island. The littluns for something absent and forgotten. Everyone crying for the dead and the murdered. The pulse of the island still clung to them in their misery. All them: savage, murderer, beast! Yet as they cried the calming presence of adults and civilization washed over them. What they once were they could no longer be: boys, human, gentle, loving.
The sailor, John Samuels, whose age was too old for his rank tore his eyes from his beloved ship that was not his and turned to the quieting boys. Boys who where huddled together frightened and silently sniffling back tears in the hope they were not seen. Each face different. Brown, red, some covered in clay others in mud yet despite the differences the boys were oddly at peace with each other. Behind them the burning forest tainted the blazing blue sky black and the once white sand was riddled with the foot prints and debris. The remains of a deadly paradise.
There was a moment of pause filled with too much anticipation and too little excitement. Where everyone was too still, waiting for someone else to speak first. Finally Samuels spoke, 'You-the leader how did you get here?' his voice shook slightly, most…unsure.
Although his question was meant for Ralph it was SamnEric who answer him. 'The plane-' said Sam thoughtfully, 'it was the plane that fell form the sky.' continud Eric in the way that only SamnEric could talk in. Slow, deliberate and intelligent even if it was a little bit spacey. It was as if they where speaking down to the others. Samuels seemed to understand as the tone in which SamnEric talked was a kin to that of the other boys that shared his rank. So in a good natured way he silenced them and chose instead to coral the boys off the burning beach and into the clear blue water of the lagoon. The boys piled into the row boat that had brought Samuels and the other sailors to the island. Ralph sat numb, hearing the slap of the ripples as they lapped against the boat and the singing of the sun blazing. His mind screamed at him. Shouting. Yelling. Hollering. Get away. Run. Anything but this. Though Ralph heard and felt his thoughts they felt alien to him as if he was hearing someone else's thoughts in his head.
He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he did not see them approaching the cruiser. As they closed in on the ship Ralph could dimly hear the other boys as they all scrambled to see the ship up close. Ralph lifted his head to glance around. As he did he saw Jack looking back at him. For some reason Jack's harmless action made him nervous. He chased off the thought of the murder and pulled his head back down. The waves began to shake the boat as the ocean made her powerful hold known to all. His body jolted forward stealing him from thoughts of Jack and his unusual behaviour as the boat bumped against the ships hull. There were shouts from above Ralph's head, sounding like a choir of seagulls scrimmaging for scraps of food and a thunking noise from the deck delivered a ladder for them to climb aboard.
The littluns were sent up first, then the hunters, then SamnEric and finally the sailors. Left behind were Ralph and Jack who sat in silence staring hard into cold eyes. Ralph broke free first and began to hastily climbed up the ladder. He heard Jack scrambling up after him and tried to ignore the sense of being under chase again. Before reaching the last few rungs of the ladder he was hauled onto the ships deck by the waiting sailors.
He knew that Jack was following him, but Ralph did his upmost to ignore him. The sailors who had taken them off the island appeared behind through the throng of men he, himself escaped into just moments ago. As Ralph observed them he saw the littluns next to them, the sailor was scanning the seetut a strained ' What?' his voice climbing an octave. ' He,' Jack repeated, and gestured to the sailor, ' is looking for-you-' he finished.
'Oh-' was all Ralph could manage. Then clearing his throat he said,' Their probable looking for you to.
Jack fixed him with what would have been an intimidating stare except for the fact that his mouth was done up in a smirk, his left eyebrow was raised-if only slightly- over all Ralph thought, his physic told him something along the line of are you really that thick? Jack started to walk towards the sailor, sparing Ralph not a glance. Ralph began to walk to the sailor as well. All the while pondering over Jack's unusual behaviour, when he had first met Jack, he was pompous and arrogant thought a spite more mature then he himself was. What, he wondered, had spurred this? When he arrived at the sailor's side Jack was all read standing there surrounded by his hunters. Who were truly hunters, no longer a choir Ralph thought truthfully if cynical. And Jack stood in their midst regal and deadly a leader in his own right. His hunter primed and ready to kill, kill as they had before. Stealthily like death at odds with their military surroundings. Everything that the island was not.
Ralph's thoughts where interrupted by Samuel, his voice cutting into Ralph's musings. ' All right boys we'er going to see the Captin, when we get there all you kids have to do is tell him what happened on the island and how you got there. You all got that?' when no one gave any protest Samuels carried on, ' Now just follow me and we'll be there in no time.' Then he proceeds to lead them down below the bustling deck. Down below the ship seems calmer in a more frantic way as everyone down hear knows what he has to do.
The boys follow in a line that is very decided, if you happened to see them all going past you may not have seen this until you stilled for a moment and just looked at them you could. The littlest following the sailor, then a group of young boys maybe ten to twelve in the middle was a tall boy with a shock of bright red hair and a black hat on it, he seemed to be covered in a form of war paint as did the others in his group. Finally there where three boys trailing along at the back of the line, twins and an older boys who seemed if a bit raggedy a leader in his own way.
Samuels arrived at the door of the Captin's quarters he turned to the boys and looked them up and down then said, ' You-little ones-don't need to go in I'll just take you to a cabin where you can sleep and wash.' Then he turned to the rest of the group, ' you just go right in he'll be there,' with that Samuels left them alone in the hall. Jack tock command and silently signalled for his men to go in to the Captin's rooms. Then he turned on Ralph and SamnEric.
' You will tell no one of how the other boys died or we'll kill you,' and with those few whispered words he turned and went inside.
Once again Jack had stumped him. His ever changing personal confusing as always. He glanced to SamnEric who where both staring at him quizzically. Ralph sighed and made for the dark wood door. He opened it and stepped inside where the Captin and the hunters where waiting for him and the twins. He cautiously made his way to an empty chair way from the others. The door opened and closed once more as the twins slipped inside. When the Captin was sure that there where no more people he began to talk.
' So Ensign Samuels tells me that you where all alone on that island.' the Captin cast a look around the gathering of children.
' Captain Taylor,' said Jack, ' we where being taken to North America as our parents or gradians had the funds to talk us there. I my self am heir to a small family fortune,' he had taken control of the conversation and was now just playing with the Captin and he had no choice but to go alone with it.
Captain Taylor looked around the boys to see if Jack was lying. Jack gave a pointed glance to Ralph and the twins who had settled into seats next to him. Then the boys began a murmur of approval at Jack's comment.
' So boys how did you exactly get to the island though?' Captain Taylor asked. It was a general question but it was aimed direct ally at Jack.
' Captain we where put on a plane but unfortunately the plane was caught in a fierce storm that knocked us of our course. We did not relies how off course we where until it was to late. The storm had pulled us into her, their was no way for the pilot to get us out.' Jack had begun weaving a story of how they had gotten on to the island how the pilot and navigator had died because their ingreres where too great and bad for any of the boys to help them. How the boys became scared and savage after the food the adults had been able to forge for them was gone how they had kept the fire alive until one day littlun had set the forest on fire and how Ralph had gone and punishes him without the consent of the rest of the boys and then he had run through burning forest so the others had to go and get him. They had almost gotten him on the beach when the sailor-'Ensign Samuels?' 'Yes, Captain'- and how they where trying to hunt for pigs that lived on the island when someone had alerted them that their was an emergency, ' so you see Captain we have to get to North America now but you are going back to England so you see our problem.,' Jack concluded.
' Yes I see how this would be a problem if the war was still going on,' Captain Taylor mused seeing Jack's reason, 'but you see boys the British are winning by the time we are back in England the war will be over and Britten will be victorious.'
' With all due respect Captain Taylor,' Ralph says, this is the first time someone other then Jack or the Captin had spoken, ' when we left England a few months ago the war had no sure winner or end in sight.'
' Well, this is true but the Hitler is dead now his armies have no idea what to do,' Captain Taylor spoke with obvious pride as if he was the one who had killed Hitler, ' those Germans can't get us now, you'll be safe in Britten now.'
With that the Captain ended the conversation and after a moment of thick silence Captain Taylor ask them if they are hungry. Then he envies them to dinner with him in that evening. All the boys agree to come. Then the Captain gives them all sheets of paper with numbers on them and tells them that all they have to do is ask any man onboard to give them directions then they all filed out of his cabin and set out to find there rooms.
The boys are assigned cabins in pairs. The twins, Roger and Robert, Maurice and Henry, the littluns where all sharing three cabins, the rest of the boys had split them selfs up, which just left Jack and Ralph to share a cabin that was just a bit bigger then the other's. Ralph who arrived first and he claimed the bed closest to the door as he knew that it would be the better choice if he had to escape his 'room mate'. Just as he was coming out of the bathroom when the door to the cabin banged against the wall next to his bed. He timidly peered out and gave a squick when he saw Jack looking completely savage. Ralph ducked back into the bathroom and silently closed the door and peered around the small grey room, with its mettle sink and toilet. The room held a faint sent of sickness, which Ralph did not question as many people got sea sick on the oceans. Outside their was a brief series of thumps and a light bit of cursing then Jack left the room. After a few minutes Ralph left the bathroom and pulled on some new clothes but left the shoes and socks on the floor along with the other various pairs.
Jack stormed into his cabin angry with the Captain, Ensign Samuels and or who ever made him room with the stupid, foolish, idiot boy Ralph he sneered in his head, He didn't deserve to be the Chief. He-Jack-did he was everything Chief was suppose to be: strong, intelligent, charismatic, and a hunter-someone who could protect and feed his people not a weak, idiot boy who relight on a fat pig to give him direction. Ralph he mused was really a useless Chief and he had no idea why he wad voted as Chief when they got to the island. He stood in the middle of the room and contemplated brooding for a while longer before pulling off his clothes and struggling to pull on his new, clean, complex clothes and ended up falling over a few times which left him cursing mildly the clothes and their maker before finally managing to righten himself leaving a pile of rags that where once an expensive and well cared for uniform on the floor. He hurried out the room leaving the shoes that would just be twenty more minutes and a late arrival at dinner. If he was playing the rich English boy let him at lest be on time to dinner.
As Jack sauntered down the hall, his hunters began to join him all the boys walking a pace behind him. All together they lost there boyish qualities and became a pack of predators hunting for their prey. The arrived at the dinning room still holding formation but appearing less savage then before. Jack entered Captain Taylor's quarters once again, but this time was lead to a different room. This room was larger then the one they had been in before. Its walls where a dark stained wood, the floors covered in a crimson carpet, there where a few scattered photos and assorted trinkets, and in the middle of the room was the focal point a large round table that seemed to be something out of a fairy tale. Jack tock a seat at what was nothing more then a side of the table but once he was seated it became the head. The hunters sat all around him protective of their leader.
Jack sits weaving the story of how they arrived and left filling in the gaps and planning how to smooth over other things like the murders of Piggy and Simon. He sits the perfect picture of an English gentleman in training. The hunters covering up his silence with there perfectly mindless chatter. As Jack is perfecting his cover story making it just believable enough with too few holes when Captain Taylor strolled into the dinning room and joyously greeted the boys all ready there.
As they sat and made small talk a steady stream of littluns joined them and sat in their places that where unmarked, but this deadly game was the same on as they had played on the island just in a different place. The littluns knew to sit far away from the Captain and from the hunters. They occupied the middle ground, neutral land where no one can strike.
Finally Ralph slipped in after SamnEric and settled in to place on next to the Captain on his left side and his right was occupied by Jack. The Captain started another round of small take in the silence that accompanied Ralph's arrival at to dinner.
' So Jack I never did catch your last name,' Captain Taylor was obviously trying to make appeal to Jack's ego to see if he could get a reward for finding the son of a rich man.
' Oh yes I must have forgotten that,' Jack carried the conversation with a natural easies, ' my full name is Jack Beezlebub Marridew I'm heir to a window glazing company profitable since the beginning of the war you see every time there is a bombing someone needs their windows fixed. Also the company is employed by His Majesty to fix the windows at Buckingham Palace.' the way Jack went on about this you could hear the obvious pride in his voice at having his father's company being employed at the Kings Palace in London.
' Oh Is that so?' questions Captain Taylor though it's not really a query for you could almost hear the cogs in his mind turning. Working out how big his reword will be, ' So how did you boys get to the island?' he asked again, but this time to the others: the hunters, the twins, the littleness, and Ralph.
'Well I-' Robert starts his tale with makes him out to an upper middle class boy who's parents wanted their little boy to be safe. In fact that was the way most of the boys stories played with various twist to the plot but all the same. Finally it was Ralph's turn, all the boys turned to look at him to see if he would tell the Captain the truth-something non of them could do.
' My father is a Captain in the Navy,' he said, true and not a quite lie. Ralph lets his head drop as if remembering something terrible.
Captain Taylor as nice as he is had no idea of Ralph's obvious sorrow, he was a sea man there was no need for him to be able to read faces only the ocean. ' Oh what's his name I might know him,' his tone is jovial and encouraging trying to cokes it out of Ralph.
' His name is Captain Atwater Smith,' Answered Ralph in a meek and quite voice, so different from the one he had once used the one from the island.
The Captain was thinking it over then his face light up with recognition, ' Your Atwater's boy Ralph. Oh yes I remember your father he commands the Amazon doesn't he.'
'Yessir, he does,' answered Ralph.
At this point the food had all arrived and every one dug into it with ferocity. Jack was eating like it was the first thing he had in days. Even the littluns who ate with a disregard for socialism and class did not match the manic way that Jack shoved food into his mouth. The odd thing is, thought Ralph, is that he eats with his knife and fork but in a savage way. Just like he really is, thought Ralph a little smugly.
After dinner was done the boys politely excused them selfs and retunes to his cabin receptively. Jack walked back to his cabin with a confident swagger until he reached his cabin. Once he was with in the confines of the room Jack felt guilt and pain, most of all he felt alone. His knees dropped from below him and he slid down the painfully cold wall. He felt his head slip on to his knees and he did nothing to percent it and just let his body fold up to be even smaller. Jack's mind lay in a shadowy and grim place, the place where the island is and all her sins. This congers up memories of hunting, killing, corrupting, and playing the deadly game of life. These thoughts and memories bring with them emotions and nausea. As Jack lay against the wall his stomach fought against his efforts to keep his dinner down.
Suddenly he lurched up from his place against the wall, and sprinted to the adjoining room. The light from in the cabin and from the portholes that where placed against the walls blurred together in a sickening way. Jack lunged forward to reach the metal bowl in time for the contents of his stomach to make their reappearance. Jack sank down on to his knees, resting his head in the base of the sink his cheeks grew wet with tears that slid diligently down his face and curled around his neck. Shakily Jack stood up and made his way to his bed. He lay down and curled in on him self memories still haunting his mind. As Jack lay sill his breathing shallow and calmer then he felt he was alarmed to find he could not sleep. In away relived as well for he feared that when he slept that there would be nightmares to follow He could not still his buzzing mind so he couldn't escape into a place where he did not have to pretend to be whole when he was a near sliver of the innocent boy the men on the ship thought him to be. Who I fooled them into thinking I was. He was aghast at this for he had never felt shame for his actions before.
Ralph watched as his tormentors, opponents, friends, and enemies leave the dinning room. After they had all departed the Captain included he slumped in his chair. A deep sigh escaping from between his lips as his eyes dropping closed. Thoughts of the island and what happened there returned to him with a passion. Ralph stayed for a moment longer before existing the dinning room then the Captain's cabin all together. Ralph on instinct made his way up the main deck of the ship.
When he reached the top of the stairs Ralph felt a salty gust of air rush at him, blowing his hair and clothes back against him. He glances at the sky and is astonished at how long he has been in the dinning room both for eating and just sitting. The sky had turned to an inky black. Not the grey of smoke but the now warm black of a summer night. The kind of sky that has a million white jewels placed lovingly there by a god or tall being.
Ralph had started to walk forward until his knees touched the cold metal railing that was wrapped around the perimeter if the ships top deck. Not even braking out of his thoughts Ralph lent against the railing. He was so absorbed in his thoughts he didn't even notice the shift changing, the wind picking up, or the sky lightening. As Ralph stood on the deck his eyes began to drop in exhaustion. His thoughts slowed as his body slowly melted into the deck of the ship.
In sleep Ralph was not privileged to any form of nothing. Instead he was shown a blackness and a dark that he had never seen before. The dark was not something that Ralph was not accustomed to. Actually he was very well acquainted with the dark before he had arrived on the island, and now after as well in a different way. Yet this Darkness had a menacing fell to it not like the dark of night of the dark of fear but a new dark altogether.
'Hullo Ralph nice to see you again,' a voice rang out from the darkness.
Surprised Ralph spun in a hurried circle searching for the source of the whispered line that in the defining silence seemed like thunder.
'Where are you?' Ralph called out to the darkness his eyes scouring the black trying to find the bodiless voice.
'I am all around you and yet I'm not here at all,' the voice echoed around Ralph.
'Then who are you?' Ralph cried out into the cavernous dark. The answer was instead of spoken words a loud booming laugh that echoed through the cave that was holding him.
'Ralph 'I am your friend-,' the voice pauses, 'your first dead and first killed.'
The voice seemed smug for being the owner of this gristly title. Ralph's head was whirring: his friend, his dead friend, his first kill. All his thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
'Your Simone?' he doesn't know why he said it like that maybe because he wants closure or because even in a dream this should be impossible.
'Ah yes you finally got it I thought I would have to tell you my self.' Simon is so different in this dream state then from where he on the island. Here he was not quite, nice, friendly, and Ralph suspected he would not be very helpful either.
'But your-Simon's dead?' for some reason it comes out of Ralph's mouth like a question as if he wasn't sure he really did murder his friend on that dreadful night the one he told him self that never happened.
'Ralph it's all real the pain the island and the worst part is you killed me same as Jack, Jack the murder,' Simon's voice echoed through the cave and through Ralph.
Ralph was surrounded by his strange nightmare as they tormented his mind. He drew back into him self the dream and its appertains terrifying him to no end.
'You know Ralph it isn't all that terrible, to be dead to die,' Simon's voice called out to him, closer then before, 'you don't feel it if it's quick at lest that's what Piggy told me-my death was slow unskilled and it hurt.'
Ralph could hear a smirk in Simon's tone that real didn't belong to him. It terrified him to no end it made him shake and quiver with fear. In that moment all Ralph desired was to walk up in his bedroom in England safe and away from the horrors of the world.
'That's right Ralph imagine your safe place where no one can hurt you and we'll be there, waiting for you,' the not Simon was hysterical now shouting and
laughing.
Ralph woke with a jolt. He was disorientated for a few seconds before he released that he was safe away from the dream of dead and lost. The sun was shining with vigour even if it had not yet completely cleared the horizon and the first signs of life in the deck where appearing. As he was assessing his surroundings a shadow was cast over him.
'Did you sleep out here all night?' a young voice spoke to him from the direction of the shadow that loomed over him.
All Ralph could mange was a grunt of confirmation.
'You know,' the voice continued, 'that if was really unsafe to sleep out here. You could have fallen overboard of died or something that would be the end of you Ralph,' the voiced chucked darkly.
In a sleepy haze Ralph began to make the connection to who was talking to him in such a demeaning way.
'Jack?' his voice thick with sleep and disuse, 'what are you talking about?'
The shadow moved away from his face and Ralph flinched away from the blinding light that stared directly at him. As his eyes adjusted to the sun he turned to face Jack who was now sitting down beside him.
'You know,' Ralph started after the heavy silence was too much to bare, 'you killed them you know-and that makes you a murder because you killed them.' Maybe it wasn't the best chose of conversation topics but he was desperate to know why the other boy wasn't grieving or feeling guilty.
'It's simple, all I wanted was for my tribe to eat and to survive. So what if I killed Simon you did to and it's not as I was the one who ordered them to attack him. And Piggy,' Jack pause here and turns his eyes away from the sea to study Ralph's face, 'I didn't kill him all I did was tell my tribe not to let you pass. Really it was Roger who pushed the rock over the edge of the cliff.
After Jack's speech Ralph was left to sit with the knowledge that Jack had given him, with was really things that he already knew and had hid away in fear.
'But but I saw you kill him,' Ralph stutters.
'I saw you kill him to,' came the calm and collected answer. As if Jack really had no conscious at all.
'That was different, I couldn't not do it. You had a chose.' mumbles Ralph.
'Really please enlighten me when was I given this chance to do the "right thing" humm?' Jack's voice was accusing him and showing him the truth.
'I gave you a chance to do the right thing so many times and never did you even try,' Ralph was bristling with anger at Jack's accusations.
'Oh you thought that forcing me to abide your weak imitations of society was my chance to decide wether or not I was good or evil as you implied and based on the fact that I refused your offer means that I am evil?' the hand full of syllables fell from Jacks tung like sweet syrup.
'That's not what I said Jack-' Ralph tried to reason.
'Oh no, but it's what you implied.' came the scathing reply.
Defeated and disgruntled Ralph struggled up to his feet his legs numb from sitting with Jack and his back was stiff from sleeping on the deck all night. He stumbled his way across the shining deck to the stairs that would lead him away from Jack and his nightmares. As he made his slow and clumsy way to the stairs he could feel Jack's accusing eyes fallowing his every move until he was below deck.
Once he was free of Jack's accusing stare Ralph wondered the hall of the ship managing to stay away from the busier corridors finally he arrives in at a silent door that isn't someones cabin. Glancing around to see if anyone is there to see him entire the room. There is no one as the dim secluded hallway. Ralph opens the door and ventures inside.
The interior of the room is blank and as indescript just like the exterior. As Ralph's gazes around the room he sees a glitter of cold steel in the dim light. He walks over to it and gingerly picks the knife up. The blade is thin and sharp, it's a switch blade that had been sharpened too many time. The handle was smooth and a deep brown, the kind of brown that important peoples desk are made out of, thought Ralph as he pocketed the knife.
Then he turned in a circle and scrutinized the small room, it was as he had thought before indescript and plain nothing stood out to him other then the large barrels of something. Something that would remain unknown to Ralph for the rest of his life. During the time that he had been observing the room the voice that had haunted his dreams the other night, the not Simon.
'Ralph I told you that we would find you and here we are,' not Simon calked in a truly deranged way.
Ralph tried to ignore him and continue cataloging the room, but the voice persisted relentlessly.
'You know Ralph,' not Simon mocked him, 'your the only one to blame for Piggy's death. You could have stopped him from coming but you let him go with you. Your just as much at fault as Jack. HE may have corrupted them but you killed Piggy.'
'He's right, Simon, you killed me as much as them savages did. You-my friend-killed me,' a new voice joined in not Simon's teasing.
'Please,' pleaded Ralph, 'stop haunting me, I'm begging you just go away.'
'Humm Piggy what do you think,' not Simon snickered, 'should we tell him how to stop us or should we make him join us?'
Not Simon spoke a statement rather then a question to Piggy, they where working together to chip away at his resolve to forget.
'Do know Simon,' not Piggy replied, 'I think we should tell 'im.'
Not Simon chucks and Ralph can almost see his eyes gleaming with menious, 'Your too soft Piggy even in death, but I suppose telling him will be just as fun.'
As promising as it sounded, his mind being only his, Simons dissision was just a terrifying. From the little he had to go off it seemed that what ever they wanted him to do would be painful
'That's right Ralph. And all you have to do is take the knife and cut your self,' not Simon seemed almost cherry at the thought, 'it will be so easy for you just take out the blade and make a cut.'
The not Simon and Piggy may have continued with the coaching but Ralph was ignoring them. He had pulled out the switch blade and was toying with it. His finger passes over the small button that rest on the handle. Ralph pushes down and the blade springs up smoothly, it is obvious that the former owner took great care in the maintenance of the blade and all its mechanism. He drew the point of the blade over the skin on his arm. It was a quick line near the crock of his elbow.
The blood bloomed immediately welling up and sliding down his arm. In quick succession Ralph slashed half a dozen lines along the length of his arm. Each cut bleed the same rich red blood that dripped on to the floor and stained his shirt as he held the bleeding arm to his chest. His shaking hand reached out to grab the knife from where it had landed on the ground. He held the knife in his left hand and made similar cuts on his right arm to the ones on his left.
The stench of his own blood, rust and salt made his stomach role with the ship. Ralph dropped the knife and kicked it away from him as a particularly violent wave took hold of the felt the ground rush up to meet him, his head hitting the ground first. As Ralph lay on the ground his vision blurred as the safe unconscious blackness over took him