Lord of the Flies - William Golding [27]
Ralph spoke.
"You let the fire go out."
Jack checked, vaguely irritated by this irrelevance but too happy to let it worry him.
"We can light the fire again. You should have been with us, Ralph. We had a smashing time. The twins got knocked over―"
"We hit the pig―"
"―I fell on top―"
"I cut the pig's throat," said Jack, proudly, and yet twitched as he said it. "Can I borrow yours, Ralph, to make a nick in the hilt?"
The boys chattered and danced. The twins continued to grin.
"There was lashings of blood," said Jack, laughing and shuddering, "you should have seen it!"
"We'll go hunting every day―"
Ralph spoke again, hoarsely. He had not moved.
"You let the fire go out."
This repetition made Jack uneasy. He looked at the twins and then back at Ralph.
"We had to have them in the hunt," he said, "or there wouldn't have been enough for a ring."
He flushed, conscious of a fault.
"The fire's only been out an hour or two. We can light up again―"
He noticed Ralph's scarred nakedness, and the sombre silence of all four of them. He sought, charitable in his happiness, to include them in the thing that had happened. His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.
He spread his arms wide.
"You should have seen the blood!"
The hunters were more silent now, but at this they buzzed again. Ralph flung back his hair. One arm pointed at the empty horizon. His voice was loud and savage, and struck them into silence.
"There was aship."
Jack, faced at once with too many awful implications, ducked away from them. He laid a hand on the pig and drew his knife. Ralph brought his arm down, fist clenched, and his voice shook.
"There was a ship. Out there. You said you'd keep the fire going and you let it out!" He took a step toward Jack, who turned and faced him.
"They might have seen us. We might have gone home―"
This was too bitter for Piggy, who forgot his timidity in the agony of his loss. He began to cry out, shrilly:
"You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have gone home―"
Ralph pushed Piggy to one side.
"I was chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you can't even build huts―then you go off hunting and let out the fire―"
He turned away, silent for a moment. Then his voice came again on a peak of feeling.
"There was a ship―"
One of the smaller hunters began to wail. The dismal truth was filtering through to everybody. Jack went very red as he hacked and pulled at the pig.
"The job was too much. We needed everyone."
Ralph turned.
"You could have had everyone when the shelters were finished. But you had to hunt―"
"We needed meat."
Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand. The two boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled commonsense. Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair.
Piggy began again.
"You didn't ought to have let that fire out. You said you'd keep the smoke going―"
This from Piggy, and the wails of agreement from some of the hunters, drove Jack to violence. The bolting look came into his blue eyes. He took a step, and able at last to hit someone, stuck his fist into Piggy's stomach. Piggy sat down with a grunt. Jack stood over him. His voice was vicious with humiliation.
"You would, would you? Fatty!"
Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Piggy's head. Piggy's glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror:
"My specs!"
He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Simon, who got there first, found them for him. Passions beat about Simon on the mountain-top with awful wings.
"One side's broken."
Piggy grabbed