Ralph gripped the shell with an excited sense of fear. The patrolling savage had just turned back towards the gate. Now was his chance! He carefully and as silently as he could crept towards the entrance, the savage kept walking, closer, only a few yards left… The savage went into the gate and turned right. The guard was leaving a gap for Ralph. There was something odd about the savage. The image of the figure reminded him of something. Ralph was moving with his head down and as lightly as he could. The entrance to the ‘fort’ had been left unguarded. Ralph was a little concerned. Jack always left someone on watch, had they seen him? Were they coming? He gingerly placed the conch down directly in the middle of the entrance to the fort. The stone arch had been reinforced with sticks by the boys, more for fun than anything as they wouldn’t stop an intruder as anyone could walk straight in. Ralph silently strolled away from the gate with a lot more confidence and when he was out of sight he began to walk faster then jogged and then ran towards the cove he had found earlier.
Sam had finished his turn attempting to lure Ralph. Sam strolled back not wanting to rush as he was tired but didn’t want Jack to be angry. The hunters were waiting in the very hurriedly built shelters, waiting for Sam to cry out. There was no chance of Ralph’s escape any more. They knew they could and that they would capture him. Sam walked towards the chief’s private hut. On the chief’s command Sam entered and Eric caught Jack’s eye and hurriedly got up to start his patrol at the gate. If they missed Ralph they knew they would be the next victims of the tribe. Eric reluctantly grabbed his spear and kicked the piece of wood that had been used for a door out of is way. He retraced Sam’s footsteps to the gate and started his patrol.
The beautiful morning mist that the boys had become so used to was taking over the green island. No-one noticed the rain that had come down during the night. Ralph had slept in a sheltered cove with a roof. Jack and the savages had slept in their huts. Even the pilot was dry from sleeping under a huge heathery bush that kept him warm. As the great clouds disappeared and the beautiful piercing sunlight penetrated through the air the pilot woke from his deep sleep. He looked to his right and noticed glass. He remembered the body and left it. The journey down the daunting mountain began.
Marching into the room, with an armed savage on either side, Jack ordered everyone to get out of their poorly built beds. They had found something by the entrance to the fort. Excited by all of this, every single savage jumped out of their dried grass beds and ran to the door all at once. As could be expected the delicate shelter collapsed. Jack looked on in despair as the savages stuck inside scrambled out of the wooden pile. They were all unharmed by the collapse. “You will build a new one later,” ordered Jack. “Now though, you all need to see something.” The boys walked around the corner and looked down on the huge waves that continually crashed into the great rocks. A sign of nature’s greater than god force. Nature had brought them here. They now realised that they needed to escape from this hell.
They turned the corner and were stunned and dumbfounded by the glistening, dazzling rays of colour being reflected from the conch. One boy, a littl’un, screamed. The others were awed. How did this get to the gate? Eric informed Jack that the conch might have been there when he arrived the previous stormy evening. It was raining and he didn’t know. Jack didn’t understand the symbol. It was a new conch! Jack picked it up and didn’t know what to do with it. He gave it to Samoreric and told them to do something with it. One of the baffled twins placed it outside of their fort – outside of their world – for they didn’t need democracy. They placed it just outside the gate but touching their world. The link would always be there even if they weren’t. The boys were however not aware of this important fact.
Down the steep, sloping, sharp rocks, over a pig run, through a bush and finally down to the pink sandy beach of this beautiful island. The airman thought to himself that this was rather like that book he had read, what was it? ‘Coral Island’ that was it. He wanted to look for signs of life or any sign of previous existences of the island. The man checked his gear, a pistol, some water, a few magazines of ammunition, a radio, map, flares and some emergency rations. He was satisfied with this and crept around the beach looking for the tell tale signs of life. He walked along the beach, keeping towards the land rather than the sea to avoid being spotted. Suddenly he saw a great sparkle of shimmering light between the rocks that lay ahead of him. The menacing forest didn’t look too inviting so he took the opportunity to explore this incredible spectacle. He tip-toed slowly towards it, creeping ever closer he could see the light getting more intense, he couldn’t look – it was too bright.
His hand moved towards his holster unfastening the clip and drawing the gun out. The airman was moving with a sense of peculiar fear about him. He edged towards the rock unaware of anything that could be behind it. He got to the rock. He climbed up it. He checked his pistol. Ready he jumped, leapt right over the rock and landed amongst a dazzling array of colour. Around him were hundreds of rocks, which looked like huge tropical shells. No, wait they were. Hundreds of shells were lying around him. He was really confused now. He turned and walked towards a roofed over cave in the side of the rocky cliff
A boy, maybe twelve at the most jumped out of hiding in the cave with a hushed cry of, “don’t shoot.” The airman looked at the boy, he was dirty, smelly and had hardly any clothes on his thin, lean, malnourished body. The boy signalled the man to be quiet and ushered him over, introducing himself as Ralph. He explained the situation and how they had got to be on the island. They talked for nearly half an hour. By now it was mid morning and the hunters were getting ready for their final assault on Ralph. The airman took out his radio and proceded to assemble the transmission unit up. The process took around five minutes. Ralph waited eagerly at the exit to the small, sheltered cove. The pilot received a signal and spoke to the nearest ship. He was surprised at the apparent ease of this as he was expecting a long wait on this island, not that he would have minded waiting on the island. The island however seemed to be getting darker and darker.
A ship was coming, a navy destroyer. They would send a landing party out across the beautiful sea of death to the island to reach the stranded boys. Ralph had informed the pilot of the tribe and the deaths of the unfortunate children; the pilot had found the body of the boy no-one had seen since the fire. The airman took Ralph out of the cove and they walked up the track with a high degree of confidence towards Castle Rock; it was about a two minute walk. When they were within sight of the gate they crept through the tangled undergrowth and headed around the fort. They stumbled across a weird sight. There was a pig’s head that was sticking out of the ground on a stick. Ralph realised that this was a present for the beast. He punched it with infuriating power and the head shattered into thousands of pieces, much like the conch when Piggy had been killed. They continued and got as close as they could to Castle Rock.
Creeping forward they lay down by the entrance…
The airman took a flare out of his ripped pocket and took a very poor aim for about twenty yards above the collapsed shelter. He released the flare. Within a second the rock above the pile of wood was spitting out purple like dragon. The savages in the fort ran to see what was happening. Ralph and the as yet unnamed airman ran as fast as they could into the fort. With his gun drawn the airman rounded up everyone with only three shots of his pistol. None of them hit anyone but they startled the surprised and scared savages. The airman with his gun out collected every boy who was still alive and took them down to the cove. The boys washed the paint off their faces and sat bewildered amongst the huge pile of conch shells. They picked them up, tossed them about – anything to pass the time.
Two boats appeared on the horizon and within minutes they were loading the boys onto the vessels. The airman called a junior officer over and ordered him and two others to follow him up the mountain. All around the cove the boys were being fed, they ate hungrily the meat and the vegetables they were being given. Swiftly the airman grabbed a blanket and the four men walked up the mountain. Being regular military men they made it up the mountain in less than 20 minutes. The airman removed is hat and lifted the burnt corpse of the child out of the bush. Sadly the men joined in and helped life the body down the mountain and towards the waiting boats. Another boat had come and the men lifted the body onto the third boat and did a roll call. Leaving the beach the three boats departed towards the small shape of a warship lying gently on the deep water of the horizon.
