Lord of the Flies

Chapter Thirteen: Microcosm

The sky was low and darkening; gloomy night was settling upon the cruiser as it silently traversed the warm waters of the South Pacific. The salty air underneath its lopsided crown was in a mood little better, thick and heavy with wetness, anticipating a thunderstorm.

It had already rained the night before. The ship, so majestic at first, had been picked up and tossed about like a plastic toy in a bathtub while nameless officers yelled orders and the boys huddled together in groups for comfort. It was wartime, so a silly sea storm should have been the least of anyone’s worries, but somehow, it awoke everyone’s anxieties, if any had been in hiding, and hung them out for the world to see. Even after the storm was over, emotions ran high, and several littluns woke up in the wee hours of the morning crying of nightmares. Now it seemed that the clouds were game for another dance, voraciously feeding off the building uncertainty below decks.

Inside the warm cabin that he shared with three other boys, Ralph was safe from the atmosphere’s wrath, but there was nowhere to hide from his memory. He lay rigidly in his top bunk, staring at the empty ceiling and thinking, knowing very well that thinking was the absolute worst thing he could have been doing at the moment. To think was to remember, and to remember was to relive the nightmare over and over again.

An ivory spiral in a blue-green bath.

A bespectacled block of fat and sense.

A little figure speaking timidly in his ear.

You’ll get back alright.

Back to where you came from.

I just know…

A small sob escaped him as he thought of Simon’s words. Ralph had called him batty that day, but they had smiled for a moment, even if it had just been courtesy on his part and obstinacy on Simon’s. Well, the prophecy had been correct; the naval officers were taking him back home to England and all was supposedly beer and skittles.

It wasn’t, of course. Simon was dead. Piggy was dead. They were both now half-decayed corpses at the bottom of the azure main. Ralph himself had come that close to being impaled on a stick by the other boys. A human shish kebab, he thought bitterly.

Now, to him, going back to England was nothing short of a somber affair. He remembered vaguely a time when his greatest wish was for Daddy to take him for a ride on his navy ship, but never would he have ever dreamed that this first experience would come as the result of nearly perishing on a tropical island. He also dimly remembered an eleven-year-old boy in a tee shirt and shorts who laughed and stood on his head, but that little boy had, in a span of several weeks, turned into a twelve-year-old man who would never be able to look at another human being the same again. If only the war had never started, or the plane had never crashed, or the signal fire had never gone out. These days, he was being utterly choked by if onlys and what ifs…

“Oomph!”

Suddenly, something crashed into the side of the bunk bed, jarring Ralph out of his reverie.

“Aww, geroff, would ya?”

“Me? Why don’t you, you bugger?”

By the matching voices, Ralph could tell it was the twins. Slowly, he picked himself up and slid off the mattress. The sight that greeted his weary eyes was amusing; Sam and Eric were in a heap on the floor glaring at each other and trying not to laugh at the same time. Ralph allowed his lip to curve slightly, a vestige of a long-forgotten smile.

“Sam and Eric? What are you two bickering about now?”

“He tried to steal my apple pasty!” accused Eric, waving the tempting dessert in his free hand.

“Did not! Anyway, it’s my pasty. I had it first.”

“Liar! Did too!’

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“You’re both batty,” interrupted Ralph dryly, though dangerously close to grinning. He pulled a small pocketknife from a drawer. “Look, I’ve got a knife; I’ll cut it in half for you.”

With this suggestion, the twins stopped yelling, looked at each other for a moment, and then nodded vigorously in unison.

“Right-o, Ralph!”

“Ruddy brilliant, I’d say!”

“Hmm.” Ralph shrugged indifferently. Systematically, he took the troublesome pasty from Eric and began to make an incision at the halfway point. However, upon sensing the coolness of the handle against his bare skin, he felt a shiver travel up his arm. He hesitated and stopped.

Sam stared at him. “Something got you, Ralph?”

Ralph didn’t answer; an image, dark and sly, was appearing in his mind. He remembered clearly the last time he had seen anyone cut something: a gangly savage with a painted face and red hair had been slashing apart fat chunks of meat from a pig. There had been a feverish lust in his eyes for the sow’s carcass, and in the background, always, was that primal chant: “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Kill…! Cut…! Spill…! Kill, kill, kill!”

Ralph shut his own eyes tightly, trying to fight back the haunting memory. When Sam repeated his question, without thinking, he snapped, “I’m fine!”, surprising both the twins and himself with the harsh tone. “I’m fine,” he said again, softer this time. “Sorry, boys.”

“No problem,” replied Eric, though thoroughly mystified.

The fair-haired boy looked pained and set down the knife. He supposed he owed them some sort of explanation. “Okay, I lied. Actually, it’s just… Well, how do you two feel about what we—that is, what we did on the island?” He shifted uncomfortably. “What I mean is…doesn’t it feel strange? Doesn’t it feel terrible? We--we let ourselves fall apart. We let Simon and Piggy die. We let Jack…” He gestured expressively with his hands.

Sam hesitated. “Yes…we did all those things. But now…”

“But now, we’re rescued,” finished his brother cheerfully. “We’re going back to Mum and Dad and we won’t ever have to think about the island again.” Eric looked at Sam for approval, and both nodded forcefully.

“It was just one of those things. It’s over,” was their combined conviction. “Don’t be sad, Ralph. After a coupla days, it’s back to the house and naps and tea time and governesses yelling at you to go to sleep.” They giggled in unison. “Miss Locke!”

“Remember Eric—”

“—the time when we—”

“—put a frog in her Sunday dress—”

“—and she screamed her bloody head off!”

“Aeeeeeeiiiiiiiii!” Sam imitated in delight. The twins both doubled over with laughter, the pasty forgotten.

Ralph, however, was oblivious to their dramatics. He looked on uncertainly. “‘One of those things?’” he repeated. He had a hard time believing it could be so simple.

“Sure,” said a twin.

“Sure,” echoed the other.

He shifted so he sat cross-legged on the floor. “One of those things…”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Ralph sighed. He supposed they were right. Besides, there wasn’t much point in antagonizing the two identical expressions of optimism across from him. He thought of his mom’s cooking and his spirits lifted. “Yes… I guess I am glad to be going home,” he admitted.

Sam slapped him on the back. “That’s the spirit, Ralphie!”

“Good on you!”

“Yeah…” Ralph cheered and took up the knife again. This time there was no hesitation; he made a neat cut in the pasty quickly and easily. Then, with a flourish, he tossed one halve to each twin. Unfortunately, his aim was terrible, and the twins, in trying to catch them, fell over each other again. Somewhere in the scuffle, a leg kicked out and knocked Ralph down too. Once again, the room was filled with indignant cries:

“Oof!”

“My head!”

“Ralph, you butterfingers! Why, I oughta—“

Eric was cut off when a pillow hit him flush in the face. It bounced off like a ball, revealing a toothy smile that was widening in delight.

Ralph grinned guiltily in reply.

Silence.

Then, “PILLOW FIGHT!”

In a matter of three decisive whacks, the discussion was closed and all of them were once again just happy children finally going home.

* * *

            Ten days later, the seas had calmed and the sunshine fell easily. The gleaming white cruiser was moving into Southampton, and the all the boys were on deck restlessly awaiting their release. Everyone looked more or less the way they had when they had left London several months before: the war paint had been rinsed off, the hair had been shampooed, cut, and combed, and the bodies had been scrubbed and stuffed into neat attire. Light helpings of uncertainty and discomfort displayed on a few faces, but it was the general consensus that home and all of its luxury, however vague these things were in their memories, were badly needed.

            Ralph’s thin body was strained against the steel railing of the cruiser as he tried to make out the people milling about the wharf. He knew it was silly to be looking for Mum and Dad at this distance, but his heart was thumping wildly and he needed to channel the energy into some pursuit.

            “Excited, Ralph?”

            He turned around to see the naval officer who was addressing him. It was Lieutenant Commander Jones, the same officer who had found the boys on the beach. He was grinning at the fair-haired boy, the wattage of his smile positively blinding.

            “Uh…yes.” Ralph tried to grin back. “I s’pose I am. It’s been a long time since I saw British soil, you know?”

            Jones nodded with authority. “Yes, I know what you mean. Myself, I still can’t believe all you boys were stuck on that island for so long. You must have missed home dearly.” He patted the rail affectionately. “As it is, I’m in the navy and away from my own home most of the year, but this is what I say—I tell myself that if being away from the land I love is what it takes to keep the Reds from blasting it to pieces, so be it. We’re the good lads and we’ll be fighting till the end!”

            Ralph inclined his head and echoed this sentiment; he wasn’t sure if he really agreed, but it sounded okay. Then he wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?’

            “Hmm?”

            “That smell. It’s like alcohol, cigarette smoke, and gasoline mixed together.”

            The officer sniffed the air experimentally. “Oh, you mean that heavy stuff? That’s nothing… It’s just supplies—munitions, fuel, and hospital medicine. It hangs around all the ports nowadays. You get used to it.”

            “I see.” Truthfully, Ralph was slightly disconcerted by Jones’s light treatment of the topic. Then again, he was no naval officer, so what did he know? Maybe this war business was supposed to be mild. He also wanted to ask another question, but just then the officer straightened and spoke.

            “Oh, look--we’ve anchored.” He beckoned to Ralph. “Come on, laddie, and we’ll get you off this ship.”

            “Yay.” Ralph knew that it sounded juvenile, but the syllable just had to be uttered; there was no better expression for how he felt at that moment. He followed Jones to where the ramp to the dock was being set up and where all of the boys had shoved their way to, all desperate to be the first one off the cruiser. After a few minutes, everything was ready to go and the crowd began moving down.

            When it was Ralph’s turn, he took a deep breath and stepped onto the ramp. As he walked, he once again searched the sea of faces he was approaching for signs of his parents, but like the last time, he was unsuccessful. Reaching the boardwalk, he weaved his way into the current of people, wondering where his parents could be. He could see that some of the other boys had already found their families and were locked in ecstatic reunions; it made him even more anxious to find his own.

            “Mum!” Ralph shouted out. “Dad! It’s Ralph! I’m back!”

            A few passerbies in green army uniforms stared at him strangely.

Ralph grew embarrassed. “Mum and Dad?” he called, a little softer. He spun around and began picking through the people by hair color. He knew his mother had white-blonde tresses as pale as his own and his father had spiky coal-colored hair.

“Brown, red, brown, brown, blonde—no, wrong kind of blonde. Red, black, brown… Ah-ha!” Spying a shock of platinum blonde, he leapt to embrace the body beneath it.

            “So anyways, Marty promised he would write, but I haven’t—oh!” The lady cried out as Ralph wrapped his arms tight around her. “Oh, dear! Why, child, what are you doing?”

            “Huh?” Ralph looked up, expecting to see a mother’s loving smile, but instead he found himself staring into the indignant face of a complete stranger. “Oh…cripes…” he stammered. “I’m terribly sorry, madam. You--you see, I thought you were my Mum.” Quickly, he let go and bolted from the area.

            Ralph ran and ran, all the while feeling the blood rush to his face. He was absolutely mortified. But, he reasoned, silently pleading with himself to believe it, Mum and Dad must be here…somewhere.

            Suddenly, he felt a long arm reach out and grab his shoulder, pulling him out of the crowd and onto a hard wooden bench.

            “Excuse me!” said an important-looking man dressed all in black. “Are you Ralph Grantham?”

            Ralph started. “Uh…yes I am.”

            The man smiled thinly. “Excellent. My name is Commodore Carmichael of the Royal Navy and I have orders for you to come with me. There is much we need to discuss about your appointed guardian and living accommodations for the next six years, so if you will be so kind as to walk with me to the car…”

            Ralph felt a faint drumroll begin in the back of his head. “W-What?” he managed to spit out. “Guardian? Accommodations?” A terrible smile spread across his face. “You don’t understand, sir. My parents are coming to pick me up and I’m going back to my house in London.”

            Commodore Carmichael looked at him strangely. “Ralph, you mean to say no one told you?”

            “Told me what?” Ralph asked nervously, knowing his face was pale.

            The man hesitated. “Ralph, you have no parents and you have no home. Your father—that is, Captain Grantham—was serving under me at the Cherbourg raid two months ago, and regrettably, was killed in action. And your mother… London was bombed not long after Cherbourg, and your house was hit in one of the blasts. They’re both dead, Ralph. I’m terribly sorry.”

            Silence.

            Ralph stared at him.

            Then he opened his mouth and screamed.

The End