falling down. He did not notice when Jack spoke.
“Got any water?”
Ralph looked up, frowning, from the complication of leaves. He did not notice Jack even when he saw him.
“I said have you got any water? I’m thirsty.” Ralph withdrew his attention from the shelter and realized Jack with a start.
“Oh, hullo. Water? There by the tree. Ought to be some left.”
Jack took up a coconut shell that brimmed with fresh water from among a group that was arranged in the shade, and drank. The water splashed over his chin and neck and chest.
He breathed noisily when he had finished.
“Needed that.”
Simon spoke from inside the shelter.
“Up a bit.”
Ralph turned to the shelter and lifted a branch with a whole tiling of leaves.
The leaves came apart and fluttered down. Simon’s contrite face appeared in the hole.
“Sorry.”
Ralph surveyed the wreck with distaste.
“Never get it done.”
He flung himself down at Jack’s feet. Simon remained, looking out of the hole in the shelter. Once down, Ralph explained.
“Been working for days now. And look!”
Two shelters were in position, but shaky. This one was a ruin.
“And they keep running off. You remember the meeting? How everyone was going to work hard until the shelters were finished?”
“Except me and my hunters—”
“Except the hunters. Well, the littluns are—”
He gesticulated, sought for a word.
“They’re hopeless. The older ones aren’t much better. D’you see? All day I’ve been working with Simon. No one else. They’re off bathing, or eating, or playing.”
Simon poked his head out carefully.
“You’re chief. You tell ’em off.”
Ralph lay flat and looked up at the palm trees and the sky.
“Meetings. Don’t we love meetings? Every day. Twice a day. We talk.” He got on one elbow. “I bet if I blew the conch this minute, they’d come running. Then we’d be, you know, very solemn, and someone would say we ought to build a jet, or a submarine, or a TV set. When the meeting was over they’d work for five minutes, then wander off or go hunting.”
Jack flushed.
“We want meat.”
“Well, we haven’t got any yet. And we want shelters. Besides, the rest of your hunters came back hours ago. They’ve been swimming.”
“I went on,” said Jack. “I let them go. I had to go on. I—”
He tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up.
“I went on. I thought, by myself—”
The madness came into his eyes again.
“I thought I might—kill.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I thought I might.”
Some hidden passion vibrated in Ralph’s voice.
“But you haven’t yet.”
His invitation might have passed as casual, were it not for the undertone.
“You wouldn’t care to help with the shelters, I suppose?”
“We want meat—”
“And we don’t get it.”
Now the antagonism was audible.
“But I shall! Next time! I’ve got to get a barb on this spear! We wounded a pig and the spear fell out. If we could only make barbs—”
“We need shelters.”
Suddenly Jack shouted in rage.
“Are you accusing—?”
“All I’m saying is we’ve worked dashed hard. That’s all.”
They were both red in the face and found looking at each other difficult. Ralph rolled on his stomach and began to play with the grass.
“If it rains like when we dropped in we’ll need shelters all right. And then another thing. We need shelters because of the—”
He paused for a moment and they both pushed their anger away. Then he went on with the safe, changed subject.
“You’ve noticed, haven’t you?”
Jack put down his spear and squatted.
“Noticed what?”
“Well. They’re frightened.”
He rolled over and peered into Jack’s fierce, dirty face.
“I mean the way things are. They dream. You can hear ’em. Have you been awake at night?”
Jack shook his head.
“They talk and scream. The littluns. Even some of the others. As if—”
“As if it wasn’t a good island.”
Astonished at the interruption, they looked up at Simon’s serious face.
“As if,” said Simon, “the beastie, the beastie or the snake-thing, was real. Remember?”
The two older boys flinched when they heard the shameful syllable. Snakes were not mentioned now, were not mentionable.
“As if this wasn’t a good island,” said Ralph slowly. “Yes, that’s right.”
Jack sat up and stretched out his legs.
“They’re batty.”
“Crackers. Remember when we went exploring?” They grinned at each other, remembering the glamour of the first day. Ralph went on.
“So we need shelters as a sort of—”
“Home.”
“That’s right.”
Jack drew up his legs, clasped his knees, and frowned in an effort to attain clarity.
“All the same—in the forest. I mean when you’re hunting, not when you’re getting fruit, of course, but when you’re on your own—”
He
