The Circle of Fires

I didn’t dwell much on what Duffy had said, no one did but then the next night we heard the howling again. There wasn’t quite an uprising against Lawwell but there were murmurs as some questioned whether or not he had deliberately tried to fool us or if he’d just served up Chic Young by accident. As the howling continued, the murmurs became louder and it took Lawwell appearing from his tent, naked as usual and shaven headed now to calm things. He held the conch and in the flickering light from the circle of fires he asked us if we wanted him to return to the jungle and catch the other beast that had discovered our presence on the island. ‘Other beast?’ asked Mark Daly from the BBC fire.
‘Yes, other fucking beast. Do you want to make something of it Daly?’ growled Lawwell and Daly retreated behind Chris McLaughlin who interestingly had taken to only coming out at night since we fetched up here. Lawwell stood in silence for a moment, glaring at Daly before raising his horse whip and pointing it straight at him, turning to his body guard and saying simply, ‘him’.

Lawwell didn’t go into the jungle that night and the howling continued until the first glimpses of sunlight appeared beyond the hills and then it stopped. The fires in the circle went out one by one except the BBC fire which the Pacific Quay CSC boys kept burning. All except McLaughlin who’d disappeared into the darkness of the jungle edge which was surprisingly bold for him considering the howling that had just stopped. I decided that since it was light and since the BBC had the best fire that it might be wise of me to ingratiate myself with them through McLaughlin so I loafed over to the jungle edge to look for Chris but he was nowhere to be seen. I stayed a little longer, emboldened by the increasing daylight and was kicking ferns when I heard a noise from the bushes. ‘Psssssst.’ I looked round and saw nothing. I stood stock still and heard only the breeze rustling the leaves so put the noise down to my imagination and turned to move on and then I heard it again only more this time.
‘Psssst, Spiers!’ Christ, it was the beast and it knew my name! I peered into the foliage and fingers reached out of the grasses and parted them and two fierce eyes glowered at me. It was the Traynor.
‘Well what were you expecting,’ he asked. ‘Elaine C Smith?’