CHAPTER TWO
Dilemmas
THE NEXT MORNING began as a lucid replay of the previous one. Ralph was on his back with his head tilted towards the glinting entrance, and upon opening his eyes he again saw specks of light broken by black. Now he knew what the darkness had been: the legs of hunters, standing over him with morbid interest. The light was the teasing optimism of the sunbeams behind them. Ralph craned his neck and looked at their faces: to a boy they were caked in dirt and paint. The image was disturbing, so Ralph turned his head the other way and closed his eyes. Then he heard Jack speaking from the entrance.
'Listen! It looks like there'll be another storm tonight, so I say we should hunt again this morning while we still can. Then we'll have plenty of meat to go round for the next day or two. Any objections?'
His query was an insidious invitation. No one was meant to resist and they did not; the cave was passively silent.
'Good,' said Jack. 'We'll need fruit, too. The littluns can get that.'
'Aren't they too small?' put in a hunter, rather rashly.
Jack scowled, then scoffed: 'They can stand on each other's shoulders.' He turned to his second in command. 'Roger, give the others their orders.'
Roger left the cave to administer the Chief's dictates to the smaller children and the displaced hunters. Jack looked past the congregation at the sullen prisoner.
'Ralph, you're coming with us. Bill, Maurice, get him to his feet.'
The two henchmen advanced on Ralph but he scrambled up to avoid coercion. The aches had dulled somewhat but the flesh wound still burned rhythmically. He could just about open his bad eye. With a sharp thrust of his spear Jack signaled the beginning of the hunt; he strode out of the cave and over the sheet, and the tribe followed with a perceptible air of exhilaration. The crowd tumbled over the ledge and climbed down to the neck that led to the mainland, and suddenly the remainder of the older children appeared at the entrance to the forest. Roger took his place behind Jack and the reunited group entered the deep, wild wood together.
Ralph traipsed in the back half with his eyes on the brutal ground, dry leaves and disembodied branches biting at the soles of his feet. Maurice gave him a grim prod in the back with his rudimentary spear and the fair-headed one quickened his pace. After a while Jack stopped and raised the back of his hand, then jabbed it to the left and right to herald the usual routine; on either side the hunters feathered out into a wide line, leaving Ralph, Jack, Maurice and Bill in the centre. After a statuesque pause Jack relaxed and spun round to face his remaining enemy.
'You're going to earn your keep, Ralph,' he stated in a sepulchral tone. 'If you want to eat again you'll have to hunt for all of us.'
Ralph remembered hurling his spear at a hurtling animal, and his premature thrill at getting so close to a kill. That euphoria was long dead, and now, in his weakened and soulless condition, he was being forced to perform the most acutely uncivilised act. He had been so close to death himself… Impatient, Jack gestured with his head to the two guards, and Maurice and Bill pushed Ralph up in front. He stumbled indignantly, then decided to convert his dismay into determination.
Jack spoke preemptively: 'Don't try to escape, Ralph. There are twenty ravenous hunters around you.' He was inspired again, cold and fascistic.
The pig run broadened in front of the prisoner, sweeping out of sight behind thick trees fifty yards away. Pensively Ralph began walking. He lacked the fervent steel of the Chief but would have to compensate; if he failed at this ultimatum, who knew what the hunters would do to him. Ralph shook the thoughts from his head and increased his speed. Ten yards behind him the three hunters followed, and farther away the scattered crew trod softly, obscured by the overhead breeze and the calling ocean.
Ralph opened his bad eye wider and inspected recent droppings – behind him Jack was rapt, judgmental. The prisoner strode on, watching and listening. Nothing moved except his watchers and the distant hunters; a twig snapped underfoot nearby and Jack made a guttural warning noise.
After an age of fruitless wandering Ralph heard a sound: a porcine grunt, then a reply. The foursome was nearing a resting animal. Ralph slowed almost to a stop, and his heart rose to his throat – he was unprepared for this barbarism, having suffered so bitterly himself at the hands of the hunters.
Jack came up to him, staring ahead. 'Well, now's the time, Ralph.'
Here the path forked in two, the main line of the run continuing to the left, in the direction of the beach, and a smaller track swerving hard right towards the rocky spine of the island. The sounds were coming from the smaller path.
Ralph surrendered his conscience to the task at hand as Jack handed him his own spear, then with a blank expression the boy crept forward with a bent gait, fingering the crude weapon in both hands. The smaller path was darker than the main run, with the arms of adjacent trees winding together ten feet above. The growth was dense, chaotic. Somewhere here was the prey.
Suddenly the grunts were loud; Ralph jumped inwardly and tensed up. Five feet ahead the trail ended in a wall of crossed ferns and branches, from the depths of which the noises were emanating. Ralph made no sound as he paused and tried to make out tangible animal shapes. He could just espy a lying beast in the undergrowth, the same colour as the pink mountain. Was there one or more creatures? Vividly he remembered the pouring bite marks on the ankles and wrists of the other hunters after their first success. He gazed down at his own wounds ironically, then, twisting his fingers round the spear, made his move.
Ralph leapt into the undergrowth with a brutal plunge of the spear, and the noises were terrible and tragic. Behind him Jack watched aloofly. Only Maurice and Bill displayed any disquiet.
A WATERY SUN was directly above when the hunters returned. Sam and Eric fulfilled their usual duty by carrying the awful corpse on a spear. The creature had been stabbed repeatedly, and blood dripped onto the sheet of rock as the twins clambered over it towards the higher place of the fire.
Ralph was silent and sick. When the group straddled the summit Roger approached him and sarcastically ruffled his parched yellow hair. Ralph flinched and rearranged it. Recently he had forever been brushing it out of his eyes, but now the oily, earthy mess was plastered behind his ears and hardly moved. He watched Jack and the twins unbind the carcass from its pole, then the Chief hacked at the neck eagerly, still bloodlustful and delighted. Eventually the head was severed.
Jack turned to Maurice. 'For the Beast,' he said simply. Automatically the other boy took the hideous object in both hands and climbed down the rock to the neck. Ralph assumed the head would be impaled on a stick. The Lord had a new successor.
The fire was kindled with the help of Piggy's broken specs. Ralph flinched again and turned away. The inevitable, pathetic chant returned and he tried to obliterate it with the dream, but it was vanishing. Only sleep could conjure it again.
The crew tore into the stringy flesh with abandon while Ralph surveyed his own portion solemnly. The Chief looked up and jeered: 'Enjoy it. You caught it after all. If you don't want it give it to a littlun.'
The smaller children were there too, splayed at the edges of the crowd. All of them were filthy, with glazed faces and chimney sweep hair. Every now and then one would leave the group hurriedly, and Ralph guessed they had diarrhea. He scowled at his feet as he chewed; what a sad, degenerate state they were in. With genuine, paradoxical feeling he suddenly didn't want to be found. Civilised life would be a mockery after this, a charade. He was doomed to extinction on the island, amongst orphans, savages, and the corrupt.
He would have cried but his body was bereft of water; he remembered his thirst and took a coconut shell of clean water from someone a little younger than him. The hunter gave him a sour look but said nothing. The liquid was warm and acrid yet refreshing; Ralph emptied the whole shell then fingered the concave, but the inside was as devoid of nutrition as his shock of blond hair. Glumly he replaced the shell and waited for further developments.
Jack hurled a bone into the staggered fire and stood up, his shorts clinging to his legs in stained ridges. 'Good hunt,' he said approvingly, and the central group nodded and muttered in assent as they licked their fingers. 'We shan't eat the fruit now,' he stated, pointing to a skinful of soggy grey ovals by the fire. 'We'll have them tonight if the storm comes.'
As the hunters got up to stretch themselves, Ralph imagined the stifling atmosphere of being surrounded in the cave again. Validating Jack's forecast, the sun went behind a cloud and the island was suddenly dim; the Chief ordered more leaves and branches for future fires while they were still dry. Sam, Eric and three others left speechlessly while another took the fruit to the cave and most of the others dispersed to find their own preoccupations. Now Ralph would see first-hand what the hunters got up to on their sordid Castle Rock.
Jack swept down the ledge to the cave with Roger, leaving Ralph alone with Maurice, Bill and a figure whom he thought was Henry. A few metres away a cluster of littluns huddled together between two shafts of rock, dejected and seemingly still hungry, but in the other direction, naked to the brittle wind, another group was more animated and seemed to be hatching a plan. Ralph surveyed them idly as Bill and Maurice stared into the orange embers of the fire. Five minutes later two of them trotted past the older boys and descended the mount, then the remaining two followed soon after. Ralph became amused: there was definite intention in their movements. A minute later he himself followed them, gingerly finding footholds with his raw, hard soles. On the flat space outside the cave he saw one of the four peering into the entrance, while two others whispered near the sheet that hid the island from view. Ralph ducked behind one of the barricading rocks. Curiously he watched the play unfold.
The watching littlun dipped behind a rock by the entrance and nodded at the other two, who immediately began bickering loudly, each accusing the other of stealing meat and even hitting them on the arm. Neither of them could be more than eight years old… A moment later Jack appeared at the entrance, pulling up his shorts. He advanced on the fighting duo.
'What's the meaning of this?' he demanded, separately the squealing boys with his strong hands. The fighters continued to make wild accusations as Roger came out of the cave with a puzzled expression.
'Shut up,' the second in command said flatly. 'We'll banish you to the forest if you keep this up.'
'That's enough, Roger,' said Jack.
Suddenly Ralph knew what the plan was, for as soon as Roger had joined Jack, the watching boy on the other side of the crude patio nimbly jumped from behind his rock and tiptoed into into the darkness. Ralph smiled faintly, willing him to succeed, while the fighting boys brought Roger into the fray. Soon the older boys were tussling with them, taken in by the farce, then the third child appeared at the entrance, clutching seven or eight pieces of fruit; after a wide-eyed glance at the grappling four he dashed behind his rock again then quietly made his way down the ledge towards the neck. Seeing their partner achieve his goal, the other two relented grumpily to Jack and Roger, and allowed them to be pushed back to the steep rock that led to the summit.
'Stay there and shut up,' said Jack angrily, and after they had timidly followed his orders, the Chief looked meaningfully at Roger and retreated back into the cave with him.
Behind his rock, Ralph glowed with a kind of fraternal pride. This feeling was vicarious, for beside Sam and Eric he had no friends here to help him acquire his needs. Even the twins were wary of being seen with him. Suddenly peaceful, he climbed back to the summit and warmed his hands by the embers with the silent Henry. Bill and Maurice lay dozy-eyed behind one of the large rocks that dotted the dipped surface, and the other group of littluns slept in a destitute pile.
The day wore on, interminable and plodding. Henry left sullenly, and Bill and Maurice were replaced by more littluns, who bunched around the dead fire with their terrible eyes. Ralph saw that their own flames were weakening.
In the afternoon the island was besieged by wind and inconsistent rain. The boys retired to the cave, keeping a distance from Jack and Roger, who sat nonchalantly by a shoulder of rock by the entrance. Eventually Jack stopped perfecting a spear with his penknife and addressed the group.
'Time to eat. One of you go and get the others.'
Bill sped off obediently while Maurice went to the back of the cave to locate the store of pungent fruit. With an exclamation he turned to Jack.
'Some of it's gone!' he cried.
Instantly Jack was on his feet, gratified to be outraged again. 'I call a meeting!' he shouted, and staunched out to claim the summit.
The hunters groaned and sighed wearily as they followed the Chief. Ralph wondered if he could use this dejection to his advantage as he followed them – only Roger seemed to be truly dedicated to Jack now. Ralph followed the flock slowly, and sat outside the group when they gathered round the lukewarm ashes. Jack was walking up and down, still holding his penknife; Roger leaned on a rock behind him, his face grimly expectant.
When the last children had congealed into place, Jack launched into his diatribe.
'Maurice tells me some of the fruit has gone missing. I expressly told all of you that you weren't to eat it, and someone has disobeyed me!' He glared round at the tired, nervous assembly. 'If anyone knows who did it, now is the time to speak up.'
Predictably the crowd was silent. Ralph looked round surreptitiously and identified the bowed heads of the three offenders. The two fighters were sat a little way off from the watcher.
Jack was growing fiercer. 'I tell you if I don't find out who did it then none of you will eat!'
A murmur of dismay arose from the congregation. Jack seemed to look every one of the hunters in the eye. Again they remained taciturn, but after a petrified silence a shivering hand slowly went up. Ralph's heart leapt as he realised it was the fourth boy, who had neither created the diversion nor stole the fruit. He was looking up, terrified, into Jack's scorching eyes.
'You!' said the Chief, and motioned to Bill and Maurice. Quickly they grabbed the small boy and brought him before the dictator. 'Why did you do it?' he asked meanly.
The boy quivered and writhed in the henchmen's hands, willing himself to take the blame. 'I… I was hungry, Chief,' he stammered, and Ralph clutched at his chest: the injustices of life on the island were breaking his heart. He knew what would follow and craved to prevent it.
Jack summoned the waiting Roger, who took a spear from one of the hunters and maliciously tapped its point with a grubby finger. The Chief nodded at the two henchmen and they roughly pushed the child over a flat rock. He was bent over forcefully – and Ralph leapt to his feet.
'Don't do it, Jack!' he shouted, but the captain was adamant; again he nodded to his henchmen and they lunged at Ralph, holding him by each arm.
'Do it!' screamed Jack, and Ralph shut his eyes tightly. Seconds later cries and whimpers drifted into the darkening air as Roger gleefully administered the punishment. The sound of splintered wood on young flesh was sickening. After twenty or so paddles Jack pushed Roger away, and addressed the crowd as the boy pulled up his shorts.
'That's what happens if you disobey the rules!' he cried, even angrier than before. 'Let that be a lesson to you!' Perhaps for the sake of twisted humour, he concluded this perverse spectacle with, 'Class dismissed.'
The boys shifted back into animation, and gravely left the summit of Castle Rock. As he trudged with them Ralph picked out the brave, guilty trio. All three were shaking with anguished tears.