He stumbled over a root and the cry that pursued him rose even higher. He saw a shelter burst into flames and the fire flapped at his right shoulder and there was the glitter of water. Then he was down, rolling over and over in the warm sand, crouching with arm up to ward off, trying to cry for mercy.
He staggered to his feet, tensed for more terrors, and looked up at a huge peaked cap. It was a white-topped cap, and above the green shade or the peak was a crown, an anchor, gold foliage. He saw white drill, epaulettes, a revolver, a row of gilt buttons down the front of a uniform.
A naval officer stood on the sand, looking down at Ralph in wary astonishment. On the beach behind him was a cutter, her bows hauled up and held by two ratings. In the stern-sheets another rating held a sub-machine gun.
The ululation faltered and died away.
The officer looked at Ralph doubtfully for a moment, then took his hand away from the butt of the revolver.
“Hullo.”
Squirming a little, conscious of his filthy appearance, Ralph answered shyly.
“Hullo.”
The officer nodded, as if a question had been answered.
“Are there any adults—any grownups with you?”
Dumbly, Ralph shook his head. He turned a half-pace on the sand. A semicircle of little boys, their bodies streaked with colored clay, sharp sticks in their hands, were standing on the beach making no noise at all.
“Fun and games,” said the officer.
The fire reached the coconut palms by the beach and swallowed them noisily. A flame, seemingly detached, swung like an acrobat and licked up the palm heads on the platfonn. The sky was black.
The officer grinned cheerfully at Ralph.
“We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or something?”
Ralph nodded.
The officer inspected the little scarecrow in front of him. The kid needed a bath, a haircut, a nose-wipe and a good deal of ointment.
“Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?”
“Only two. And they’ve gone.”
The officer leaned down and looked closely at Ralph.
“Two? Killed?”
Ralph nodded again. Behind him, the whole island was shuddering with flame. The officer knew, as a rule, when people were telling the truth. He whistled softly.
Other boys were appearing now, tiny tots some of them, brown, with the distended bellies of small savages. One of them came dose to the officer and looked up.
“I’m, I’m—”
But there was no more to come. Percival Wemys Madison sought in his head for an incantation that had faded clean away.
The officer turned back to Ralph.
“We’ll take you off. How many of you are there?”
Ralph shook his head. The officer looked past him to the group of painted boys.
“Who’s boss here?”
“I am,” said Ralph loudly.
A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist, started forward, then changed his mind and stood still.
“We saw your smoke. And you don’t know how many of you there are?”
“No, sir.”
“I should have thought,” said the officer as he visualized the search before him, “I should have thought that a pack of British boys—you’re all British, aren’t you?—would have been able to put up a better show than that—I mean—”
“It was like that at first,” said Ralph, “before things—”
He stopped.
“We were together then—”
The officer nodded helpfully.
“I know. Jolly good show. Like the Coral Island.”
Ralph looked at him dumbly. For a moment he had a fleeting picture of the strange glamour that had once invested the beaches. But the island was scorched up like dead wood—Simon was dead—and Jack had…. The tears began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now for the first time on the island; great, shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.
The officer, surrounded by these noises, was moved and a little embarrassed. He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.