OK, so I should apologise for the inordinate amount of time it took me to get this chapter up! I can blether about exams (which have finished, and I am NOT thinking about January, when we get the results) as much as I like, the fact remains that this chapter is MAJORLY late. Sorry! :(

[Just a note, this chapter was instrumental in getting me a place in the college of my choice, which also happens to be the best college in Singapore!! You need a portfolio to apply directly, without needing O Level results, and this was one of the samples of writing I included. I am one happy person.]

Chapter 8

Beast from Water

In the end, since Ralph refused to move to make way for the hunters and their fuel, they shifted the location of the fire to a place maybe three feet away and further from the edge of the mountain top. Kitty privately thought that the smoke would be rather harder to see from there but no-one was about to bring it up. The feeling of guilt hung heavy in the air, coupled with Ralph's heavy, accusing silence.

Jack inwardly raged, seeking to combat the wall of accusation but he could not think how. To divert attention from Ralph he talked, laughed and was energetic; helping his hunters to pile branches up on the site of the second fire until they had a sizeable mound. It was not as large as the first fire, but Jack judged that it probably would be enough. He stepped back from the pile.

To go up to Piggy and take the glasses from his face was something that Jack could not do, for no reason that he could understand. In reality, there was nothing he would like better than to snatch Piggy's specs off that fat face. He knew he was capable of it. The atmosphere, however, would not allow it. Standing, indecisive, by the new small fire Jack felt a blush of helplessness cover his freckled cheeks. The other children began to murmur, softly, sounding below the waves that were brushing relentlessly on the beach.

The dilemma was resolved when Ralph, to everyone's amazement, went up to Piggy and, without so much as a by-your-leave, took hold of his glasses. The fat boy cried out in alarm and tried to snatch them back but Ralph would not have it. He brought them to where Jack was standing and, seeming not to notice the choir leader, knelt again to light the fire.

A collective sigh resounded from the masses when they saw smoke rise from a bright pinpoint on the pile. Starved for so long, the new fire gobbled the fuel that had been set out for it. Still soundless, Ralph rose and brought the glasses back to Piggy, who snatched them and held them close before putting them on.

Now that the problem of the fire was solved Jack was comfortable again.

"Bill and Maurice - go and find some more branches. Get the fire hot and then we'll eat."

As they scrambled to it he squatted and finished the job of freeing the pig from its bindings. The others crowded around, eager, chattering. Even Ralph, in spite of himself, hovered on the fringes of the group as it surged around the fire and the pig.

Realising that it was no use trying to get anywhere near, Kitty retreated and flopped down on the rock, next to where Simon was sitting. She was excited, in spite of herself. The painful memory of the plane and the run up the mountain was already fading.

Simon hadn't even tried to join in the festivities. He was sitting hunched up, a worried expression on his face.

"Kitty... What do they think they're doing?"

The girl considered this for a while.

"Having a jolly good time, it looks like." She laughed.

Simon's face became even more troubled.

"No, I mean... That's not a signal fire. There's no green branches or anything on it. There's no smoke. It's a cooking fire. For the pig. And Ralph..."

He tried to convey what he felt about Ralph, now integrated in the group, laughing with the rest.

"He -"

Kitty was only half-listening. She was watching the fire and the hunters with a wistful air. Suddenly she scrambled up and rushed to join them as they tried to figure out how to cook the pig, leaving Simon behind.

The younger boy watched her go. His face was expressionless.

Jack had not the patience or the inclination to skin the pig completely, and they spent a while puzzling out how to cook it. In the end they beat the fire down until it was glowing red embers and rolled the whole carcass into them, turning it with spears periodically. The crowd quietened down as there rapidly became nothing to be involved in; soon hissing noises as skin crisped and the smell of cooking meat pervaded the still air. The hunters sat around, their spears in hand, looking self-important, while the other children whispered among themselves. There was a sense of suppressed excitement. Everyone's eyes kept flicking to the cooking pig.

They judged it to be done when the fire burnt low enough that they could coax the pig out with spears. Jack knelt beside it and brandished his knife, slicing through the crisped skin. Everyone watched breathlessly as the choir leader hacked off a sizable chunk and put it to his lips.

Jack smiled around the gathering.

"It's good!"

This triggered an immediate rush. The crowd surged forward, only barely contained by the globe of heat thrust out by the dying fire. A single plume of smoke wisped off into the sky like a last gasp as the pressing mass of bodies cut off the flames' sustenance.

The pig lay among the twigs and floating rock-dust; although it had been cooked it still maintained some semblance of its shape, a shape that rapidly disintegrated as greedy, clutching hands reached out and tore at it. Under their pulling and prodding skin tore and bones cracked, and were eagerly raised to mouths.

The inner circle that was closest to the fire and the food was composed mostly of hunters, with Jack presiding over it all, knife clutched in one greasy hand, a hunk of meat in the other. Even after the hunters had gotten what they wanted they still stayed around the fire, and those pressing in at the back set up a clamour.

"Oh, come on, give us a bit -"

"Me too, give me a nice piece -"

"Come on -"

Jack, magnanimously, gestured to Bill and Rupert.

"You two..."

They tore at the meat and began hurriedly passing portions over their shoulders until most of the crowd was fed. Only the smallest and lest assertive of the littluns huddled together at the back of the group.

Kitty, mouth watering, had snatched a piece as it was passed along. Not bothering to move out of the crush she ripped off large, greedy mouthfuls. The pig had not spent enough time broiling in the ashes and it was charred on the outside and nearly raw on the inside but it was steaming hot and it was meat and to Kitty it was heaven. Up till now, the children had subsisted on fruit, nuts and whatever crabs and fish they had been able to catch. It was poor fare and at the thought of meat, even half-raw, everyone's inhibitions crumbled. The clamour faded. All the sound left were the noises of people intent on their food, underlaid by the bourdon of the waves on the reef and under that the soft, slow hiss of the glowing embers.

Now that the swell of bodies around the pig had loosened a little Simon insinuated himself into the dispersing crowd. Only after he had distributed food to those littluns who ha been passed over did he retire to his old place and begin to eat.

By some oversight, intentional or otherwise, Piggy had been left out. He had not dared to join the crowd of clutching hands and mooned alone on a rock, one fat hand raised to his face, fingering his broken glasses, No one had passed food back to him, nor did anyone even seem to notice his prescence: for the children, Piggy was even more of a nonentity than the smallest littlun. Now he stirred on his rock and spoke through wet lips.

"Aren't I having none?"

Jack spoke through a mouthful of meat.

"You didn't hunt."

The crowd of children had mostly fallen silent at this exchange. Now some of them jeered, in support of Jack and derision at Piggy.

"No more you did!"

"Yah - Fatty!"

Piggy shrilly gave voice.

"No more did Ralph, no more did Simon!"

Ralph, flushing, buried his scarlet face in his meat. Simon, however, as if acknowledging the sense of Piggy's remarks, leaned across to the fat boy from where he was sitting and passed him what remained of his portion. Piggy snatched it and began to gnaw.

Jack had purposely meant to leave Piggy out; he felt he had lost, in some obscure way, the quarrel over the fire and this was meant as an assertion of authority. His annoyance surfaced and the blank look came into his eyes at Simon's disobedience. Rising abruptly and scattering the boys sitting around him, he threw his own bit of meat savagely down at Simon's feet.

"Eat, damn you!"

He stormed off, long-legged, as Simon hesitantly picked up the meat and began to eat. Jack's bolting blue eyes were completely obscured by the strange madness as he turned this way and that, seeking understanding from the crowd of boys.

"I hunted - I sneaked up - I cut its throat - I got you meat! Now you eat, all of you - and -"

He gesticulated with the hand that still held the bloodstained knife. Words failed him as he turned on the ashes, searching the faces of the others, which were carefully blank, respect etched in their frightened eyes.

"I'm Chief -"

Across from him, Ralph stood slowly. His leg was hurting him again, and he staggered as he flung his half-finished meat down on the ground. The atmosphere on the mountain became suddenly as if a current had passed from Jack to Ralph, and through the pack of seated children. The rocks rang with silence and they all became aware that the sun was nearly gone.

Ralph tottered; saved himself by grasping one of the standing rocks.

"What did you say?"

Across from him Jack leaned forward, his body taut, the hair falling across his face, half-hiding the mad eyes.

"I said: I'm Chief."

Ralph turned these words over in his mind for a while. Experience had taught him to ponder the opposition's remarks before committing himself to a statement. He chose his words carefully, and they dropped into the silent ring like pebbles into a mirror-like pond.

"Not any more."

The children watched, fascinated, at this rub of authority. Jack half-raised his knife, then abruptly brought his hand up, wiping the sweat from his forehead. A patch of blood was left by his stained fingers. When his voice came, it was almost a shout.

"Who says?"

He took a step forward menacingly. Ralph stood his ground.

"I say. The agreement was you were chief for until I got well. I'm not saying I'm happy with that, but the conch said it, I mean - We've got to listen to the conch, haven't we?"

Indecision flitted across Jack's face. Ralph continued, remorselessly.

"So we did. You were chief. And that's all right. The thing is, now I'm better, you know what's what. And what's what is that I'm chief again. And -"

The words came from Jack as if dragged.

"All right, all right!"

He squatted down by the carcass of the pig and began aimlessly hacking at it, head bent to conceal the water forming in his eyes.

"You can have - the conch - and be chief again. See if I care -"

He sawed off a portion; made his way over to the rocks that stood up from the mountaintop like broken teeth. One hump of stone stood out half as high again as the others surrounding it, and Jack vaulted up its side, concealing his anguish in fierce action. The hunters who had been sitting there scattered. The sun was slipping down in the sky such that it would soon be lost behind the mountain; it backlit Jack's sinewy body and transmuted it into shadow. Nothing of his face could be seen.

Ralph, worriedly, sought to make some concession. The sensation of winning an argument was, for him, always tempered with guilt.

"Of course you're still in charge of the hunters, Jack... What I mean is, no one could do that better, see? You were the one who got us meat."

He appealed to the masses that were perched on rocks, silently watching them.

"Right?"

The single word held a plea that was clearly discernable.

The hunters were seated in a single group, caps slid rakishly sideways, lolling on their spears. At Ralph's words, they stirred. Wishing to detract from their leader's embarrassment, they shouted from where they were.

"Yes!"

"It was Jack!"

The hunters edged cautiously to resume their old places on Jack's rock. As their cheers swelled they passed to the circle of sitting boys and soon the mountaintop was ringing. Portions of meat dropped to the ground, forgotten. Greasy hands clapped and the hunters banged their spears on the rocky floor. Gradually, the cacophony melded together until it was a steady rhythm of increasing intensity. The iridescent butterflies, startled by the continuous spear-pounding, took flight, and with them the sun sank a little more. Now only a thread of light separated the sky from the sea, and their faces were lit redly from beneath.

Roger was lolling against the red rock, lazily thumping his spear-butt. Now he started with sudden remembrance, laid his spear aside and reached under his square cap. Sometime during the course of the evening he had stripped the pig of a piece of hide. Rough eyeholes had been cut in the bristly black skin. Roger slipped the mask over his own face, leaping off the rock to land, squatting, holding the mask in place. Because there was so little light left the eyeholes were blank slits, and the pigskin gathered in front to a pointed snout. Roger stirred the dust under his feet as he broke into a shuffling dance. An ululation that pierced through the cheers issued from behind the mask.

Maurice shouted from where he sat.

"Kill the pig!"

Over the persistent tattoo of clapping and banging, the cheers gave the cry of the hunters birth.

"Kill the pig. Slit her throat. Bash her in."

Jack still sat morosely, a mere suggestion of a figure, formless in the growing darkness. He did not join in the chant, but raised his half-eaten meat to his lips and savagely tore off a mouthful.

"Kill the pig. Slit her throat. Bash her in."

Below him, Roger cavorted in the pig-mask, acting out the dying animal in the clear space by the fire.

"Kill the pig. Slit her throat. Bash her in."

Kitty was chanting with the rest, exhilarated. Ralph sat off by himself, silent. The chant gathered intensity.

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

Suddenly, Ralph leapt up, almost colliding with Roger.

"Be quiet! Quiet!"

The chant swooped, faded and died. Ralph was wadding his filthy shirt between his fingers; his fair hair fell over his eyes. One by one, the children around the dead fire turned to face him. Roger stripped off the pig-mask and appeared, sweaty and disheveled. Ralph glared around at the masses.

"Get down on the beach. I'm calling an assembly."

*

Soon Ralph was nothing more than a slight, grey patch in the dim light as he slipped into the dark recesses of the jungle. Jack, eyes bolting, stared after him. He half-opened his mouth as if to say something; to call Ralph back. Then a set look came over his face as he realized how public a display of weakness this would be. Standing slowly, he motioned to his hunters to follow them down.

The mood was no longer festive. The sun had waned and was now a thin pinkish stain floating on the horizon. When one looked around now there was no longer the wash of gold that had painted the other children's faces and bodies moments ago. Shadows now lay in pools; in eye sockets, in the shallow dips of ribcages. One realized that the sun had gone, so slowly as to have been imperceptible, and that everyone now had been painted by night in the space of a few seconds so that the eye was boggled and frightened by this sudden transformation. Several littluns made small noises under cover of the darkness.

Somehow, they tripped, stumbled and pushed their way down the jungly slopes. The leaves, stacked at different heights and held there by the wayward profusion of branches, caught and held what little light was left so that none pierced the canopy and reached the children on the forest floor. They blundered about in the dark, and every so often they caught a glimpse of one another, faceless above white shirts. To their quivering, fearful minds the beast of myth was lurking just out of reach, and the sight of others who they knew was terrible by night and threw them into turmoil.

One by one they came out of the thickest parts of the jungle to look down on the bay. The platform was invisible. Its rock needed the touch of sunlight to reveal its pinkness. The stars were out above the dwindling strip of sunset and they silvered the waters of the lagoon and delineated the crests of the breakers on the reef.

Ralph was waiting on the platform for them, silent on the Chief's log as they appeared, scrambling up the sides of the great rock like spiders. From the starlight and the pinprick of a new moon, they could see he rested the conch on his knees, the shell almost transparent, even in the darkness.

He waited until they got settled; shadows massed on the palm trunks on the platform. The night bristled with spears along the trunk where the choir sat. Piggy, desiring the safety of being near Ralph but at the same time fearing his anger, timidly sat on the sand, not too near the Chief's log, but not too far away.

The waves pounded on the reef. At night they did not possess the reassuring quality of daytime. Under the gauze of mirage, the waves provided a certainty. Their rhythm underlay the treacherous region between them and the sky, where the sun would baffle the eye. At night, everyone present noticed the difference in their sound. The sky was dark; there were no more mirages, yet the waves continued to beat against the reef, sound magnified by the night. Instead of a comfort, the rush and swell now carried a threatening note.

Ralph was silent, an unmoving shadow. The wave-sound pervaded the platform and shook the palms. Their fronds clattered together with a rustle that sounded very loud in the quiet. A few littluns began to whimper. Jack, unable to bear the combined effects of the sea and Ralph's silence, accusing once more, drew his knife and began to tap with it on his spear. He stared straight ahead, down at the sand.

The sound of knife on wood jerked Ralph out of his thoughts. He looked around the circle, his gaze searing everyone in turn. They muttered and turned away from the fair boy under cover of darkness. Whatever their thoughts on the events of the day, Ralph was still Chief, and he had the conch on his lap.

"Listen, everybody."

Ralph's first words shattered the silence. The moonlight silvered things in unexpected ways, and from his vantage point on the Chief's log he could make out some children, but not others. Kitty was sitting on the log to his right; she had flinched when he spoke as if she had been expecting condemnation to pass his lips. Simon, his pale hair glowing like the sand, had leaned forward at Ralph's first words, face intent.

"Things are breaking up. I don't understand why. It all began well."

Jack was still knocking his knife against his spear in that infuriating manner. Ralph felt the sound invading his mind, threatening to wipe away all that he wanted to say, all he had so carefully prepared.

With a supreme effort he forced himself to continue.

"Then people started forgetting what really mattered."

A tremor ran around the circle, less perceptible than the waves on the reef. There was muttering, and whispering. Ralph felt the need to clarify, to try and trace the progress of things since that first day.

"I mean, take the shelters. They started well, just like everything else. Then people started bunking off. Not working. We've only got three shelters at the moment, and one of them's a real wreck. It'll fall down at any moment. And if that does happen, someone could get buried. Hurt."

Now guilt was making its round of the circle. Ralph put one hand down to feel the puckered scar on his leg, and their eyes were drawn there and held.

"The shelter's so bad because only me and Simon worked on it. All you others, you were playing. Hunting, too."

Jack looked up suddenly; Ralph's eyes were not on him and he subsided.

"At the moment, not all of us sleep in shelters. They're just not big enough. We can squeeze most of us in but there're always a few who sleep on the beach. And that's not healthy. I remember, that meeting on the second morning we all agreed to work until the shelters were done. What happened to that?"

Uneasiness rounded the circle with the wind; some children felt the cold breeze on their skin and gathered various rags closer.

"And another thing. Remember after the storm? All the fruit got blown down from the trees. I said that day that we ought to collect it and get it together. Separate the ones that were still good from the rest. Then we'd have had fruit those days before the trees recovered."

He took a breath.

"But it didn't get done. While I was sick, I mean – I expected things to go on as usual, but they didn't. The fruit was left to rot. And now we've got to sift through all that mess to get any food. The ones on the trees aren't ripe properly yet. And yet people still eat them, and you know what that means."

There were a few sniggers at that. Ralph, hands tight around the conch, followed the argumentative thread into a new topic.

"And another thing. You remember we agreed that we'd use those rocks by the sea as our lavatory?"

The sniggers escalated. Ralph could see the hunters nudging each other in the moonlight. He raised his voice slightly to counter the derision. Annoyance threatened to rob him of words. Did they not see that this was not fun, but meant to be serious?

"Well, that was sensible. The tide cleans the place up. But now it's different. People seem to use anywhere. I mean, by the fruit and things – you know it's scattered everywhere. By the stream. So if you're taken short –"

There was a general howl at this; shadows moved and jostled each other off the palm trunks in their mirth. When it looked as though the hilarity might subside, Jack said something to the hunters and their laughter redoubled.

Ralph found that his fingers were clenched painfully around the shell.

"Be quiet, all of you! Be quiet! What I was saying is, if you're taken short you'll jolly well go along to the rocks. Doing it near our fruit – that's dirty. And our water. That's really dirty."

He felt the laughter threatening to swell again.

"I said it's dirty!"

Breathing hard, Ralph hefted the conch. The moonlight caught it and it shone like bleached bone.

"And the last thing. About the fire."

The atmosphere was suddenly electric; all around the platform shadows were still. The littluns stopped playing in the sand to listen.

"When I was Chief, before the storm, I said again and again that the most important thing here is the fire. Can't you see that? If we let the fire out, we might as well die."

He paused to brush the fair hair off his face.

"Jack – you were Chief for a while. And you ought to have seen to the fire. After all –"

Jack half-rose. Ralph regarded him calmly and he sat back down.

"The choir was meant to be looking after the fire. We agreed that right at the start. But you didn't. All you wanted to do was hunt. And now the plane's gone."

A cloud had drifted over the moon; darkness came swiftly and totally. There were stirrings and one or two uneasy cries. The plane was indeed gone.

Ralph waited for the moon to reappear before he continued.

"Well, now I'm Chief again. And we're going to figure out what's what. About the shelters, and the fire, and all that. And about people, too."

Murmurs of incomprehension from the darkness.

"People are getting scared. The littluns… You biguns, maybe not so much, but the fear's still there. Remember on that first day, the snake-thing –"

The snake-thing, and a small boy with a mulberry-coloured birthmark and a toy plane. Kitty hugged her knees. The wind suddenly seemed stronger, knifing through her torn shirt.

"Well, we all know there isn't one. You couldn't get one on an island like this. It's a good island. But you littluns, I hear you at night. You talk in your sleep, you cry. Like you're having a bad dream, and the dreams are about the beast, right?"

Stirrings from the littluns on the sand; there were murmurs and a few whimpers.

"So now we're going to sort out what's what. We're going to decide on the beast once and for all. Anyone who wants to speak can. I'll give them the conch."

The assembly was deadly still. The children, sitting on logs that were gradually becoming colder and colder with the rising wind, shrank back from the conch as Ralph held it out. Somehow, to discuss the beast under darkness would only serve to draw it out. Everyone present was conscious of the jungle behind them, and how much of it was impenetrable to even the hunters. Might not a beast be waiting there?

The triangle of biguns was silent, but the littluns on the ground gave voice to their fear. There was a small scuffle and one of their number was pushed to his feet to take the conch.

With a start, Kitty recognised the stocky little boy from the beach of the first day. Now, he had discarded most of his school uniform, keeping only his shorts, which were still held up, rather incongruously, with elastic suspenders. The sun had coloured his face brown, and as it had bleached his mousy hair as well the effect was comical rather than otherwise. He cradled the shell when Ralph put into his hand, and looked around the assembly with none of the confidence of the first day. His face was twisted and he was about to cry.

He stood there mute until someone shouted from the darkness.

"What's your name?"

The assembly liked that; the chant was taken up by the older children, the hunters banging their spear on the ground and sending up puffs of sand.

"What's your name? What's your name? What's your name?"

This storm of recognition took the littlun's voice away; he muttered and scuffed the sand with small, bare feet. It was only when Ralph rose and shouted for quiet did the chant die down.

He leant close to the littlun.

"Now, then. What's your name?"

"Percival Wemys Madison, the Vicarage, Harcourt St. Anthony, telephone…"

His voice was taut with impending tears.

"Telephone…telephone…"

Dropping the conch, Percival sank to the ground, aimlessly stirring the sand around. There was an interval of uneasy silence, then the choir erupted in motion and Harold was pushed off onto the sand. He landed with a bump, tried to regain his old position and was kept away by a combination of hands and spear-butts. Resigned to this, he leapt across the sand on all fours, surprising Percival as he squatted down in front of him, clumsily clowning. An ululation followed him as the choir joined in the game. The faces Harold was making were so grotesque that the littlun forgot his chagrin and laughed. Before long, the assembly was howling.

Jack suddenly rose from his seat and stalked across the platform. The children quietened as his tall, painted figure passed them. He knelt down and grabbed Percival's shoulder, bending his head so the littlun could speak in his ear.

Ralph sat. By allowing the choir to draw the story out of Percival he felt, in some obscure way, he had lost control of the meeting. As Jack straightened to rejoin the hunters, Ralph called out across the silent children.

"What did he say?"

Jack's answer was short.

"He says there's a beast. Comes out of the sea."

The silence thickened, if that was at all possible. Behind Ralph, Piggy rose to peer out to the ocean.

Kitty felt the crashing of the waves pound into her brain. There was nothing much to see apart from the reflections of the moonlight, but they were enough to make the sheer vastness of the ocean obvious. The water was black. Kitty thought back to a day at a school she could hardly remember now. The world's deepest ocean – the Pacific? She wasn't sure. Her imagination took her below the suck and rush of the surface, down, down and further. A beast might well lurk in those inky depths.

Someone spoke, softly. Nevertheless, it broke the spell. Heads turned towards Maurice. He was staring at nobody but everyone was watching him.

"My daddy says they haven't found all the animals in the sea yet."

A tremor ran around the seated children.

"My daddy says there are those things – what're they called – that make ink, and are hundreds of feet long, and eat whales whole."

"A squid couldn't come up out of the water."

"Yes it could!"

"No it couldn't!"

No one was sure, and not being sure they made up for this with volume. Ralph stared in horror. The assembly looked like breaking up. Only Piggy and Simon sat in their old positions.

"Quiet! All of you!"

By degrees peace was restored. Then a new idea came out of the darkness.

"Maybe he means it's some sort of ghost."

"Maybe that's what the beast is, a ghost."

Staring solemnly at the assembly out of his one glass, Piggy spoke.

"I don't believe in no ghosts. Ever."

From the choir log Jack shouted.

"Who cares what you believe, fatty!"

The assembly erupted in derision.

"Yah, fatty!"

"Piggy!"

Under cover of the noise, Simon had picked up the conch and stood. His soft voice was halting.

"Maybe…there is a beast."

Kitty had joined in the laughter at Piggy. Now she was shocked back into herself by Simon's quiet statement. Simon believed in beasts, and ghosts? Something seemed to crawl in her stomach and under her skin, and anger at Simon, standing there, a white figure in the moonlight, the conch in his hands, surged.

"You're batty."

She knew the weight of disgust that was in her voice; she had tempered it like that on purpose. She saw Simon reel under this verbal onslaught and felt something like triumph. It was a betrayal, this quiet affirmation of a fact they were trying to avoid.

Simon rallied; though his face twisted for one brief moment.

"What I mean is…maybe it's only us."

There was a moment of stunned silence, then hoots of derision followed. Simon's newest idea was so out of place, so wildly fantastic, that mockery was a must. Under the cascade of voices, Simon's mouth opened as if he wanted to say something more. Then he handed the conch back to Ralph and went to sit on the fringes of the crowd.

Ralph clutched the shell close. His mind was reeling and he felt any rationality, any coherence of thought with which he had framed this meeting's outline, depart.

"We should have left all this for daylight. We're tired. We'll get this settled and then go back to the shelters."

Standing, he crossed the triangle and handed the conch to Jack.

"What do you think? About ghosts, I mean?"

Jack ran his fingers absently over the shell. He stood and faced the crowd.

"I think, I've thought from the start, that the beast's an animal. Somewhere on this island. Watching us and never being seen. And if it is, me and my hunters'll find it and kill it! We got you meat, we'll explore the island back to front and of we find the beast we'll kill it!"

Scattered cheers. Ralph snatched at the conch, but Jack held it firmly.

"If it's an animal, that's what we'll do. But if it's a ghost…I don't know. I mean, the plane crashed on this island. The pilot, all the grown-ups, they must have been killed. And their bodies are here somewhere. In the sea. What about their ghosts?"

"That's enough!" Ralph grabbed the conch back from Jack, the latter's fingertips leaving dark smudges of paint on the white shell. "If you don't know you don't, you don't have to scare everybody like that!"

Jack looked murderous, but Ralph was already crossing to Roger. Somehow, obscurely, he felt that before he took a vote the oldest childrens' opinions should be heard.

"What about you?"

The dark boy had painted his face and upper body with black. He merged into the shadows, only visible because of the glimmering conch in his hands. As usual, he wasted few words.

"Jack's right." He handed the conch back to Ralph and sat back down.

Kitty took the shell in her hands when Ralph passed it to her. It felt lighter than it had on that first day, as if it had been hollowed out under the pounding of many voices.

"Before, when we'd just arrived, I didn't believe in the beast. You know, that first meeting we had. I thought a beast wouldn't be able to live on this island. But –"

She had an urge to inject something about the red fruit Simon had shown her, so long ago. Some part of her knew it was significant, knew that it had been meant to help her understand. But whenever she tried to think what the understanding might be it slipped away from her. Simon's attempts to define mankind's essential illness receded far into an abstract plane where she had no power to go. The beast was immediate, the beast was understandable, therefore the beast must be real.

"Now I don't think so. I mean, maybe things are different here. Maybe there are ghosts on this island. Maybe there is a beast in the sea."

Ralph was watching her incredulously.

"At first, I thought not. But I don't know."

She let Ralph take back the conch; the fair boy looked around at all the uneasy faces, searching for one, at least, who was not already more than half-believing in the beast.

He found it in Piggy. The fat boy seemed to be teetering on the edge of silence. His face was scrunched up with the effort of finding words to say and he gesticulated uselessly with chubby hands. However, Piggy's foray into volubility was checked by his asthma; he began to wheeze violently and any forthcoming insight was choked off.

Finding no other older children to whom he accorded the ability to formulate an opinion, Ralph faced the masses and spoke his piece.

"Well. Now I'll say this. I didn't believe in the beast at the start. And I don't now."

He tried to put into words the uncertainty that was creeping up his spine, blanking out all rational thought and preconceived notions, but the words to fit the meaning eluded him. Besides, what the company needed now was reassurance, the firm word of a Chief that their fears were unfounded. For the first time, Ralph found himself wishing that someone else had been chosen. How was he to calm the muttering crowd when he himself almost agreed with them?

"I mean, if you look at it logically, it's impossible. Ghosts don't exist." He was making Piggy's argument for him; at this the fat boy, though in the throes of a coughing fit, nodded vigorously and made a few ineffectual gestures. "We'll take a vote now - on ghosts I mean - and then go to bed.

Who thinks there may be ghosts?"

There was a beat of silence, then the hands went up. Ralph counted.

"I see."

Piggy's breathing had cleared by now; seeing Ralph put the conch down he lurched forward and snatched it. He was trembling and his fingers shook, but he held the conch steady.

"I didn't vote for no ghosts! Remember that, all of you -"

Jack leapt to his feet.

"You shut up, you fat slug!"

He tried to wrestle the conch out of Piggy's hands, but the fat boy held on with a tenacity that surprised everyone. Ralph, knowing that things ha gone far enough, jumped up as well and faced Jack.

"Jack, let him speak, he's got the conch -"

Jack rounded on him.

"And you shut up, who are you anyway, just sitting there telling people what to do? You can't hunt, you can't sing -"

"I'm Chief, I was chosen!"

"Why should choosing make any difference? Just telling people what to do -"

"Piggy's got the conch!"

Jack looked at him scornfully.

"That's right, favour Piggy as you always do."

"Jack!"

The hunter's voice sounded in mockery.

"Jack! Jack!"

Ralph desperately tried to marshal his fading wits. All around him the children were intent on this new conflict.

"The rules, you're breaking the rules!"

"Who cares?"

This cavalier dismissal struck Ralph full force; he tottered, then with a supreme effort faced Jack.

"Because the rules are the only thing we've got!"

Under the paint Jack's face was flushed, and his eyes were bolting and opaque, madness filming over them like a cataract.

"Bollocks to the rules! We're strong - we hunt! If there is a beast, we'll hunt it down and beat and beat -"

With a whoop, he leapt out of the ring and off the platform. The hunters followed their leader and so did most of the other children. For a moment the platform was full of milling shadows and discordant cries, then they were off down the beach in one solid mass, splashing at the tideline and sending silver droplets into the air.

Kitty ran with the rest, feeling the thick exhilaration entering her lungs with every ragged breath. She felt the wet sand pounding under the feet of many, their footfalls merged into a single frenzied rhythm. She felt the seething mass of humanity that hemmed her in from all sides, cutting her off, giving her safety, limiting the fear by compounding it with a score of other similar fears, and sublimating it through their pores, with their flowing sweat. Fear was all about them like an odour, but in its sheer magnitude it became not fear but something else - what? - that none there could identify but grasped at hungrily. Now notes of the hunters' chant were weaving themselves into the wordless ululations, and as tiredness began to overtake them the solid, coordinated mass of children deteriorated into a random scuffle. They slowed down and eventually stopped. Littluns who had unsuccessfully tried to keep up had had sand kicked into their faces by the tail end of the mob, and they came staggering up the beach howling.

The older children looked at each other under cover of the darkness, breathing hard, with something like shame. Then, as if an order had been given, they dispersed quietly and aimlessly, some ending up near the shelters and others nearer the platform. Not one of them dared to break the fringe of palm trees that screened off the jungle.

According to Sam's wishes I am not going to express joy here. Nope. Won't say how pleased I am to have FINALLY finished this chapter. I wanted to get it up before going to Scotland (tonight!) to visit the relatives... I just realised with this chapter I have passed the half-way mark for this fic! :D As the outline stands there are about 14-15 chapters.