Chapter 7

Sunset

Disclaimer: I own Kitty only... But since Simon is her good friend and Ralph too, I own them by proxy :p ... But not really.

Once Jack had finished blocking out his face in white, he reached for the coco-nut shell of black, taking a great splodge of the stuff onto his fingers. He tried to smear it onto his face over the white, but only succeeded in smudging the still-wet paint and creating a mess of grey over one cheekbone.The results were not what he had desired, and with an impatient noise he rubbed the paint from his face with a bare arm. There was still a white, caked residue on his skin and he looked around, helpless, for something to help him remove it.

On the sand watching the proceedings, Roger stirred and spoke up.

"Maurice - go and get a coco-nut shell full of water."

Maurice went with alacrity. Jack, sitting on the sand, shook the paint from his fingers and waited with barely-concealed restlessness. Looking for something to do he grasped his spear again and drew his knife, viciously hacking off more flakes of wood from the already-perfect point.

The choir shifted and murmured on the sand as Maurice returned at a run, water slopping now and again from the coco-nut shell he held. Jack half-rose from the beach and then, remembering his dignity, signalled to Roger. The dark boy got up himself and received the shell with both hands, placing it in front of Jack. Jack dipped his hand into the shell and came up with a pool of water cupped in the palm, which he splashed on his face. The paint came off in a dripping mess.

Taking more care this time, Jack took some white paint and smeared it onto his face, leaving gaps at random where pink skin showed through in uneven patches. The hunters watched intently as he finished with the white and wiped it off on his filthy shorts, leaving behind a disconcerting half-mask through which two light blue eyes stared.

The red was next to go on; Jack smeared it over some of the bare patches he had left. His approximation of where the patches were was not as desired so some of the red paint smudged into the other colour, creating places with an uncertain pink hue. The chief's movements were becoming faster; more sure, and all close to him could see the strange excitement in his eyes and the heightened speed of his breathing. He discarded the red; throwing the coco-nut shell down so carelessly it thumped onto the sand and the red spilled onto the beach, a splash of bright crimson soaking through the fine grains.

Jack snatched up the coco-nut shell of black and applied it hastily to the random patches he had left; then he set it down and cleaned off his hands on his shorts. Leaping upright, he surveyed his hunters.

They in turn shrank back; Jack had not only covered his face in paint, he, not being satisfied with his mask, had extended the paint down to his chest, which was covered in irregular patches of red and black and white. His face was obscured by the same random application of paint; the colours had melted into each other and formed unreal shades close to many other colours but not exactly any of them. His eyes were startlingly blue from behind the mask.

Jack grabbed his spear and hefted it high, above his head. An ululation that was wild and painful at the same time escaped his lips.

The hunters were following their Chief's example and hastily scooping what was left of the paint out of the coco-nut shells and smearing it over their faces. The Chief waited, impatiently, jabbing the spear-point into the sand.

After a time they were all done. Roger had taken more care with his paint than the Chief, so he had a fairly geometric pattern of black and red obscuring his features. He, too, siezed his spear and stood by the Chief's side, waiting for the others, who stopped fairly quickly once they saw that Roger was done.

Jack cleared his throat. Normally he would have had some self-consciousness in speaking in front of a crowd like this, but the paint had liberated him from even the smallest particle of discomfort. He found the words coming easily and quickly, with none of the embarrassment usually invited when one spoke publicly.

"All right, hunters! Now we're done with this paint we'll go and hunt now. None of the pigs'll see us, I don't know about you lot but I think it was a jolly good idea. The paint, I mean. We'll go that way -" pointing off into the jungle - " And see if they're up on the mountain, hiding out of the sun. All right?"

Nods from the other boys. The Chief, gratified, struck off into the jungle with Roger a pace or two after him, the others following further behind.

Kitty and Simon had been watching over Ralph for the past few days; Kitty bringing water and dressings when it was necessary and Simon doing the nursing that came by instinct for him. Ralph's fever had shot up alarmingly one night so that his face was fiery, all sweat purged from it; and he was tossing and muttering restlessly, calling to the phantoms that he beheld just out of reach in the dark, cramped shelter. The twoother children had kept moving with water and cloths torn from the discarded cloaks of the choir, but nothing seemed to bring the fever down. Ralph had not been eating; he'd felt too bad for it, and to Kitty's anxious eyes he was thin and wasted, with hollows at the cheekbones and protruding ribs. His fair hair, darkened with sweat and the water they had been using to try and cool him down, fell across his face in wet strands. He was lying on the floor of one of the new shelters; though they had tried to make it comfortable with a carpet of palm fronds and a cloak for a blanket Ralph had disarranged the fronds with his tossing and turning, and had flung the cloak away in one of his more lucid fits, declaring that he was far too hot to gain any comfort from it.

The hunters were further along the beach; the distant glow of their fire pervaded the shelter and cast flickering red shadows on the palm-woven walls. Simon was bent over Ralph's prone form, sponging his forehead while Ralph murmured and resisted under his hands. Kitty, finding nothing to do and exhausted of the quiet, grave atmosphere, crossed over to the opening of the shelter and peered out, along the beach to where the hunters were.

Their fire was a large one; that was what made it visible from the shelters near the platform. On the mountain an answering beacon twinkled. Kitty could just spot two dark silhouettes moving around it - Samneric, she was sure. The twins seemed to have been designated official fire keepers.

Down on the beach the hunters sat around their fire, sharing whatever they had managed to find in the ravaged jungle. The pigs were nowhere to be seen; and going days without meat had irritated Jack, so that everyone except Roger gave him a wide berth. The Chief sat on a palm trunk they had dragged from the forest to the beach, face painted in patches of red, black and white. In one hand he held a half-eaten fruit, in the other a coco-nut shell of drink. Beside him, but seated on the beach, Roger ate morosely. The other hunters, tired after the day's exertions, sat or lay, for some boys, food in hands. Their spears lay, discarded by the firelight.

As Kitty watched, drawn in by the sight, Jack tossed his coco-nut shell aside with an air of impatience, wiping a hand over his mouth and standing up with a bound. In the flickering firelight the mask of his paint was highlighted and obscured at the same time, so that he was not Jack but some fantastic creature of the night. The hunters felt it and crowded closer to one another, while Roger sat motionless, a shadow beside his Chief.

Jack seemed to be making a speech; he waved the spear he had picked up in the sir enthusiastically so that the hunters grouped on the beach listened and cheered when he had done. Jack sat, leaning to speak to Roger, who answered close to his ear. The other boys watched for a while more, then went back to their eating.

A wheezing from back inside the hut made Kitty tear her eyes away from the scene on the beach. In one corner Piggy lay asleep, worn out. He had been only a reluctant nurse at best, preferring to go off with the littluns and leave Kitty and Simon to it. He came back to the shelter at nights, just like all the other little boys, who lay together in the only two shelters that they had managed to rebuild.

Piggy gasped again, half-turning. Finally, released by his ass-mar, he quietened down and curled back to his old position with a grunt. Kitty turned her eyes back to the scene on the shore.

"Kitty." The soft voice came from inside, where Ralph was. Kitty jumped, and whirled around as if she had been caught doing something wrong. Then she bent and reentered the shelter, meeting Simon's worried blue gaze.

"What is it?"

"Ralph - I've been trying to get his fever down for ages but it won't come. His leg's scabbing up, I don't know why he won't get better!"

Simon, usually so calm, had a sob in his voice as Kitty squatted down beside him. Ralph, unaware of both of them, kicked and disarranged the palm fronds further, moaning as his wound touched the floor and the uncertain, thin scab broke. A rivulet trickled out onto the sand, looking black in the dim light. The fair boy tried to sit up, and Kitty gently took his shoulders and pushed him back down.

"You see?" Simon scrubbed at his eyes with filthy, scratched fingers. "Nothing's helping. And he has to get better, because he's Chief and -"

Neither of them said what they were both thinking.

Putting an arm around Simon's shoulders and drawing him close for a hug, Kitty realised how thin the small boy was looking, and how his eyelids were drooping until he made himself come awake with a jerk. The older girl's heart went out to him.

"Listen, you get some sleep now. I'll stay up and look after Ralph."

Simon was uncertain. "You sure? Will you be all right?"

Kitty forced a smile. "I'll be fine."

Needing no further coercion, Simon crawled over to the opposite corner of the shelter from Piggy and drew up soem of the palm leaves under him. From the abrupt change in his breathing, Kitty could see that he had fallen immediately asleep.

She did not know how long she sat there; nor did she notice when the choir tired of their feast and crept back to the other shelter, those who were unlucky enough not to get a place in it slinking off to sleep on the beach for the night. Presently the cloth fell from her hand and she lost it in the darkness, but that was all right because she couldn't see where Ralph was either. He was nothing but harsh, extended breathing, a noise in the black of the shelter. Piggy was an occasional wheezy breath from the corner and Simon was soft, slow, steady exhalations. Soon Kitty fell into a sort of half-sleep, still keeping her sitting position, head drooping down to her chest. The noises of the jungle and the crashing of the waves on the reef receded behind the stillness that overwhelmed her.

Ralph suddenly broke the relative peace of the shelter by jerking into frenzied action. His back arched as he struggled furiously against the demons that tormented him; strings of intelligable babbling escaped his dry lips and he knocked over the coco-nut shell, sending water spilling over the sand and over Kitty's skirt.

She slept on.

Kitty was sitting in such a way that the morning sunlight, streaming through the entrance of the shelter and through the spaces between the palm fronds, pierced her eyes and turned the darkness behind them into a pool of red; widening, spreading. It intensified with the progress of the sun, finally shafting through her eyelids when they opened a crack and waking her.

The girl rubbed her eyes and uncurled her cramped legs from under her, wincing as the numb muscles caught and burnt. Brushing tangled dark hair out of her eyes she hunted around on the ground for the misplaced cloth.

Piggy gave a louder-than-usual grunt from his corner which rounded off into a fit of choking. The morning sun glinted off his glasses and into Kitty's eyes. Simon, curled up at the opposite end of the hut, shifted position, disturbed, but then settled back down, face serene in sleep. The noises of their breathing mingled with the gentle rumble of the breakers at low tide. Kitty gazed out of the shelter entrance. The tide had receded, leaving a strip of wet, golden sand stretching down to the tideline. This was dotted with nubs of rock from the reef, forming small rock pools that reflected the sun and shattered it into fragments which danced in the hot, pearly air. Seabirds, taking the chance, hopped from pool to pool, frequently jerking their beaks downwards to snatch a choice morsel, pounding the shells open on the rocks. Kitty felt herself slipping back into a doze, hypnotised with the veils of mirage that split the sea into shimmering strips.

Simon cried out shortly in his sleep, then subsided. Kitty noticed him briefly. Then it hit her.

Ralph wasn't making a sound.

The girl scrambled back on hands and knees, throwing sand everywhere in her haste to reach the unmoving figure on the ground, breath coming short and fast. Flames sprang up in her memory, the hungry billowing of a forest fire and the soft, muted light of pinpoints of flame - birthday candles.

Skidding to a halt beside Ralph, Kitty snatched up the black cloth and wildly hunted for the coco-nut shell of water. Her fingers closed on the empty, dry husk, the water it had contained long since gone into the sand. Sobbing for breath, she flung it away with all her strength and bent over the boy, wringing the cloth between her fingers, feeling the weakened fibres give and part.

Tears filmed over her eyes and made cobwebs of her vision. She dashed them away. The cloth tore under her hands.

Ralph was lying on his back, stirred-up sand speckling his filthy shirt and blue shorts. His face had lost its haunted, unseeing expression and his lips were parted slightly. There seemed to be new colour in his cheeks; they were faintly pink and the unhealthy flush had gone. The gash on his leg had crusted into a scab, dried blood forming faded rivulets on the brown skin.

Kitty discarded the cloth; she bent further forward. Was Ralph's chest moving? A morning breeze wavered into the shelter and the rags of Ralph's shirt fluttered, making it impossible to divine. A wild, sweet hope sprang up in Kitty's chest. She placed two fingers on one of the fair boy's limp wrists.

She could feel nothing.

To come this far - ! Kitty dropped the hand fast. Instead, she lowered her head and pressed her ear to Ralph's chest.

Under the cloth, the steady, firm beats of a heart.

The tears came back; and she did not try to restrain them. In the corner, Simon woke to the morning and the sight of Kitty's black head bending over Ralph's fair one, the girl shaking with happy sobs and Ralph breathing evenly, all traces of fever gone.

They went out onto the beach as soon as Ralph woke up from the healing sleep Nature had placed him in. Simon and Kitty went into the orchard to get fruit while Ralph sat propped up against the platform, the palm breezes playing with his fair hair.

The other two returned, laden down with food. Ralph smiled at them, experimentally testing out his injured leg as they approached. The younger children dumped the fruit on the sand and sat down beside their chief. Ralph picked up a yellow fruit and slid his fingers over the smooth, cool skin.

"I'm hungry!"

Kitty laughed, feeling the cares of the past few days slipping off her shoulders.

"You were out of it for ages."

Ralph grinned at them, digging his fingernails into the flesh of the fruit and tearing the skin off. Kitty and Simon watched as he bit into it hungrily, golden juice spilling down his chin.

They breakfasted leisurely off the fruit, then as the sun inched higher in the sky the heat drove them into the bathing-pool. Ralph sat in the shallows, itching to swim properly but under orders from Simon to rest the leg, which was still giving him pain. Kitty sat with him when she and Simon were not swimming; both of them did not talk but enjoyed the day as the tide foamed up the beach and intruded into the bathing-pool, sending tendrils of coolness into the warm water.

When the sun became too bright for anyone to ignore the hunters reluctantly emerged from the shelters and the scrapes they had dug on the beach and went to the orchard to eat. The Chief, obviously impatient to get on, marshalled the hunters the first chance he got and the whole lot of them departed for the jungle, spears over their shoulders. When Ralph saw this, he half-stood, sending a spray of bright droplets into the air.

"Where's that lot going?"

Kitty would not look at him; it was Simon who answered for her.

"Hunting."

Ralph swore. "Why? They should be working on the shelters!"

Simon continued, a faint flush that was not sunburn standing out on his cheeks.

"Because... When you were sick, we needed another chief. To take over, until you were well. So - we made Jack chief."

At the look on Ralph's face Simon said, hastily, "For a while. Until you got better. Not for good."

Ralph flopped on his back in the water, rubbing fiercely at the salt water that got into his eyes. "Well, as soon as they get back I'm calling an assembly. I was chief, and I'll be chief again. And there'll be no argument about it."

Guilt made Kitty speak out.

"It was me, it was my fault, Ralph. I made Jack Chief. Only I didn't mean to, I was worried about of you and it sort of just happened, I -"

Her voice trailed off. Ralph gave her one brief glance, then looked away.

The day seemed somewhat coloured after this; the three children lounged in the water with the preoccupation of those who have other things on their minds, joined later by Piggy when the rock pools were swallowed by high tide. Ralph was very quiet after their conversation, but brightened up after a while and joined in with a will. Kitty, though, couldn't help noticing a shade of coolness in his manner towards her.

The hunters stayed in the jungle; there was no sighting of them even when hunger drove the littluns playing on the beach to the orchard. The others lolled in the water, half-bored of the inactivity but with nothing to say to each other.

Several littluns had ventured into the shade of the platform, scrambling up its rocky flanks like spiders. There, they tumbled and shouted in the cooler loam, shaking the palm trees over each other and diving to avoid the shower of ripe coco-nuts. Some, once they had tired, ventured to the edge of the rock and lay on their stomachs, inching daringly closer and closer to the precipice while glancing under eyelids at one another to see how far they had gotten.

As quiet settled over the island one of the littluns cried out and pointed, half-falling and catching an edge of pink rock to save himself. The others gathered around and the group on the platform became a huddled, whispering, glaring group. Some of the smaller ones began to sob, and they started and stood en masse, eyes fixed to the thin thread of the horizon.

This behaviour had passed unnoticed by all in the bathing-pool except Piggy. The extended silence had bored the fat boy, and labouring under the supposition that, as usual, the others were leaving him out, he twisted away from them and his eye caught the cluster of littluns on the platform.

Piggy's glasses were splintered into pebble-dashed fragments by the droplets of water that had landed there. He took them off but was greeted with an indeterminate swirl of colour. Shaking the glasses to clear them, the water ran and made things worse rather than better.

By now, Simon had noticed the activity.

"What is it, Piggy?" His eyes were drawn to the platform and the whimpering littluns. Then they slowly, excruciatingly travelled to the vague, distant horizon.

The beach was very silent but for the whisper of the waves. Over the sound the children, sitting in water that was already beginning to cool down with the sun, caught a faint, tinny buzz of noise; very distant but getting closer. With the noise came, starkly backlit against the dipping sun, a swelling shape.

Ralph leaped into feverish action, standing and sending water everywhere.

"Plane! It's a plane!"

The beach was very quiet so that the engine-sound rose and fell and dipped into heavy, expectant silence. The older children, not taking their eyes off the shape, sprang out of the water, and with a sort of mute agitation began pulling on their tattered clothes. Some of the littluns, in scrambling down the sides of the platform, fell the last few feet but did not mind. No words were spoken but the little boys started up a thin, thready, babbling cheer.

Kitty finished pulling on her skirt and ran down the thin spit of sand half-swallowed by the sea, pausing by the water's edge. Everywhere was bathed in orange light from the sinking sun, and the wet hair got into her eyes for the umpteenth time. Savagely, she pushed it out of her face and squinted into the late afternoon sky. The plane was getting nearer so the engine noise rose in a steady throbbing, and instead of continuing in a straight path the plane veered off to the right, making two or three wide sweeps above the ocean before resuming the straight course.

"It's looking for us." Kitty did not know how she knew this, but the words spilled out and were spoken so softly they were only between her and the sea, swallowed up in the increasing roar.

Slightly startled with herself, the girl noticed that Simon had come to stand beside her, thrown into relative shadow by the light. The fair boy spoke softly, as he usually did, but somehow Kitty felt that his words were not meant for outside ears either.

"Our smoke. They'll see our smoke." His whole attitude was one of tension, every muscle clenched as if trying to reassure himself of a particular point.

Simon left Kitty with a terrible uncertainty - one that she must needs put to rest. Slowly, the girl turned back towards the rest of the island, letting her gaze travel up the beach, where the biguns formed a huddled, tight mob and the littluns ran across the sand, some waving at the sky, to the tangled, impenetrable jungle, then to the mountain and the sky above it.

The light was deceptive. It bathed everything in the most surreal shadows so, although the time for mirages was past the island was still saturated with the same unreality. The mountain stood, stark, unexcusing and the sky above it was blue bleeding into orange, unstained; without the slightest trace of smoke.

Kitty turned on the sand as an unusually large wave rolled in and splashed over her bare feet. For a second she seemed to be swaying with the wave; certainly the island was rocking around her and the air was thick with the pervading roar of the plane, fading and starting and fading again as the plane veered off and back.

Her gaze, wide-eyed; deathly, made Ralph turn too; he said nothing and nothing passed between them but started to run across the beach towards the fringes of the jungle, smashing through the knot of littluns and limping a little from his leg.

Piggy had noticed the mountain and took up a shrill diatribe.

"Our fire! There isn't no smoke up there, and the plane! It won't see us!"

The others left him on the sand, complaining resolutely. Kitty, galvanised into action with the other children, sprinted past Piggy and tore the glasses from his face, ignoring his feebly-clutching hands. Ralph had disappeared into the jungle and Kitty outstripped the others to crash into the fringe herself, cradling Piggy's glasses in one wet hand. Branches slashed at her face and she stumbled and fell headlong into the leaf mould as a creeper snaked itself around her ankle. Frantically, she flung the hand with the specs out, keeping it off the ground.

By the time she was upright again Ralph had disappeared into the tangled mass of creepers. Panting, and swearing under her breath she ran headlong at the calm, impenetrable jungle, relying on her momentum to propel her up the slope, batting creepers aside as she went. The hair stuck to her neck as the sun, unperturbed, flung down its rays, and the butterflies amazingly still danced over the flowers. They were too far from the sea to hear it by this time, but the sound of the plane pervaded the hollows of the jungle and they rang with it.

The ground tilted sharply upwards as they neared the peak of the mountain. Kitty, crawling through the maze and finding brief respites when she broke through onto a pig-run, suddenly found herself falling through the most matted part of the jungle and onto rock and scrubby vgetation. The glasses in her hand grated against the stone, but she dared not stop and check them. Ralph had gained the rock earlier than she had, and Kitty could see him by this time, unscreened by the creepers, staggering towards the summit.

The plane, completing a last sweep, passed directly over the island, so close that the sun glanced off its chrome-metal body and into Kitty's eyes. Then the pilot gunned the throttle and it surged off overhead, into the distance.

Ralph ran along the small flat table that was the summit of the mountain, bare feet pounding the rock. Just as he reached the edge and it seemed to Kitty, now climbing the last reach before the top, that he must fall, he stopped. His back was to her and the eerie sunlight silhouetted him sharply, a small figure looking out over an empty world. Face turned towards the sky and the plane that was now only a speck on the horizon, Ralph yelled after it, voice cracking.

"Stop! Come back! Come back! Come back!"

Kitty reached him as his voice trembled and dropped. Both of them had made the climb in bare feet, and Kitty noticed that hers were cut and bruised, mementoes of the hard, fast climb. They had not seemed to hurt before now.

Ralph turned, knocking against her so that she staggered and almost fell. The fair boy, face unreadable, made his way to the pile of blackened sticks that lay uselessly on the ground. Kitty followed, holding out Piggy's glasses as sort of a peace offering.

"Here, take the specs. Light the fire! Maybe the plane isn't so far away; it might see it - "

The look on Ralph's face stopped her short.

"The use that'll be! The plane's gone."

Suddenly he drew back a foot and kicked the dead, charred branches with all his strength. Ash flew everywhere, and Ralph reeled. It was then that Kitty noticed; the scab on his leg had opened again and blood trailed out onto the rock, spotting the grey stone and black cinders with colour. Shading her eyes with a palm she gazed out again at the featureless ocean and the horizon. The roar had diminished; the plane no longer visible. Kitty caught her breath in something almost like a sob.

The others from the beach started to come out of the jungle, the older ones more bewildered than anything while the littluns, with their uncanny intuition of calamity, began to cry as they took in the silent scene.

Piggy was last to come out of the jungle. The fat boy's world had been reduced to a series of featureless swirls, and Simon had his elbow, guiding him the last few steps of the way. Piggy was wheezing heavily, and as the two reached the top he tore his arm from Simon's grasp and sank down on the ground.

No one spoke and the silence stretched, punctuated by the crying of the littluns. Soon they all became aware of another sound, coming from the jungle. It was too far away to make out words but was recognisable as a garble of human voices.

Ralph's whole attitude changed; shifted away from the fire to the jungle below. His fists were clenched by his sides and he was straining to pierce the thick foliage with his eyes to get a glimpse of who was there.

As the chanting mass broke free of the jungle and came onto the rock the children on the mountain could see that the hunters had completely obscured their features under thick layers of paint, so that the eye was confused and struggled to differentiate between faces. The twins, their absence so sharply felt on the mountain, were climbing with the rest of them. A dark bundle swung from poles slung across their shoulders, and as the silent children watched them continue the front twin slipped and almost fell. A figure painted black and red - Robert? - grabbed hold of the pole and helped Samneric regain their pace.

As ever, Jack, red-haired and enthusiastic, headed the procession. Stripped down to the waist and every inch of exposed skin covered with patterns of red, black and white he leapt from rock to rock. In contrast Ralph stood motionless on the pinnacle, waiting for the procession. It was now close enough to hear the words of the chant.

"Kill the pig! Slit her throat! Spill her blood! Bash her in!"

As the hunters reached the summit of the mountain they began to notice the silent, watching figures waiting for them. Some of the smaller hunters looked uneasy but their chant never faltered.

Jack leapt up to the top.

"You should have seen us! We stole up on the pig - got in a circle! Then - "

The other hunters, ranged out on the stone, joined in as they toiled to the summit.

"The pig burst the ring - "

"We ran after!"

"Then we cornered it - "

"To beat and beat and beat!"

"Jack cut the pig's throat!"

At this last Jack proudly displayed bloodstained palms to the others on the mountain. The hunters took up a cheer, the echoes of which died away into the chant again.

"Kill the pig! Slit her throat! Spill her blood!"

By this time they were gathered en masse on the mountaintop. Jack signalled Samneric to drop the pig, which they did with alacrity. The pig landed with a soft thud. Its head had been almost completely severed.

Jack and the hunters now began to notice the sombre expressions of the small group on the mountain, and their unmoving stances, like chessmen on a board. Jack was disconcerted but the immediate glory of the hunt dispelled it.

"Honestly, Ralph, you should have been there! It was wizard, really it was!"

The hunters showed signs of beginning their chant again, but Ralph, stretched already to breaking point, half-turned and yelled at them.

"Shut up! Just shut up!"

They fell silent. Ralph faced Jack down.

"You let the bloody fire out!"

Jack refused to look away from Ralph's face.

"Just for a few hours - until we got a pig - it won't hurt."

He strode away, bent down and began to hack at the strips of cloth binding the pig to the stave. Ralph followed him, standing close to the pig so that he could not be ignored.

"There was a plane!"

The accusatory tone, and the voice that cracked on the last word struck the crowd like a blow. Ralph turned away, back to the lifeless fire.

"They might have seen us. We might have gone home..."

This was too much for Piggy, who began to yell shrilly, at that place he imagined Jack to be.

"Now d'you hear him, Jack Merridew? There was a plane! Didn't you lot hear it in the jungle? While you was hunting? We could have gone home!"

Jack took a step towards the fat boy, but Kitty also intervened.

"You did hear that plane, didn't you? How could you not, it was everywhere in the jungle. And you went on with your stupid hunting. When we could have gone home today!"

Kitty's face was deadly serious. She was holding Piggy's glasses in front of her like a weapon, clutching them so tightly her fingers hurt. Jack, ashamed, angry, trying to remember why he wanted to go home, suddenly lashed out with one arm, hitting her hand squarely. The specs were dashed out of Kitty's grasp and tinkled on the rock.

Piggy saw nothing but heard the sound of his glasses hitting the ground. Frantically, he scrabbled over.

"My specs!"

Jack and the hunters laughed at his efforts. Kitty's mouth twitched and she was immediately angry with herself.

Simon came over and gently picked up Piggy's glasses, handing them to their owner. Piggy felt them with awkward fingers.

"One side's broken."

He jammed them on his nose again, one eye looking out unseeingly through shattered glass. What he saw of the remaining merriment among the hunters enraged him.

"Just you wait!"

Jack laughed again and made another slash at the pig. The blood ran down the blade of his knife and onto his fingers and he held his hand at face level, watching the red trickle. Ralph suddenly stepped forward and smashed the arm down.

"That was a dirty trick."

Jack turned away, leaping down the incline to a lower point on the rock. What passed his lips was almost a shout.

"All right, all right, I'm sorry." He flashed a meaningful look at Piggy. "About the fire, I mean."

He drew himself up. "I apologise."

Ralph, who had been watching him thus far, turned away.

"Light the fire then."

Somehow unsatisfied with the response, but seeing the opportunity to consolidate the confrontation into solid action, Jack motioned to his hunters. They scrambled off the boulders and surged to the fire area, their shadows magnified by the setting sun and painting the rock black. Chattering, released from their silence, they scattered over the lip of the mountain and into the darkening fringe of trees. There was the crack of dry branches as they were pulled down and a sudden flutter of screeching birds from the canopy.

Ralph knelt, and absentmindedly stirred a hand in the soft, claggy ashes. A wind swirled by and grey flakes detached themselves, rising almost imperceptibly, a whisper on the breeze. The children were silent in the waning light. A flake of ash settled on Kitty's cheek and she shuddered automatically, feeling it dead on her skin.

Jack, unable to bear the heavy silence, stood at the edge of the summit and hallooed. The choir flocked back from the forest, filling the mountain with noise. They were carrying bundles of dead branches and there was a jovial, almost festival air around them.

The hunters crowded round with the fuel but Ralph would not get up. He was still stirring a hand in the dead, cold heart of the signal fire.

DONE!! This was finished in the school library :P I want to apologise for the really late update :( But pity me, people! I am embroiled in squash nationals! In fact, I have a match tomorrow :S Wish me luck! XD