Stig of the Dump

by Clive King

  They passed into the circle of firelight, and the crowd, who had been talking among themselves quite quietly before, fell silent, and everyone was looking at them. They walked in silence round the edge of the circle. Barney heard a very small whisper from Lou: ‘Remember when we were bridesmaid and page at the wedding?’ He did remember, and the feeling was about the same as when they had walked into the church with the bride. But this time they were the most important people in the procession.

  On the other side of the circle was a group of older men, and in the middle there was a figure sitting on a tree-trunk. As they went nearer they could see that he had white hair, very bright black eyes, and was dressed in some very silky fur, with necklaces and bangles of animals’ teeth. They didn’t need to be told that this was the chief. Barney felt the black eyes boring into him – and then suddenly all the rest of the party fell flat on the ground.

  ‘Lou, what happened?’ he whispered very small. ‘They all fell down!’ Then he saw that Lou was trying to curtsey, which looked a bit silly with bare legs and torn shorts, and he thought it might be good manners to bow. The chief, or king, or whoever he was, seemed satisfied with his touch-the-toes-bend and Lou’s contortions, and a smile appeared on his face. In fact Barney thought he was going to laugh.

  But then the king looked stern again and barked a short question at Stig, who had now stood up again. It obviously meant: ‘What on earth have you got there?’

  And Stig began to speak. Barney was amazed. He thought of all the time he had spent with Stig, when they’d hardly said a word to each other, though they had understood each other well enough – and here he was making a speech like somebody on the wireless. It sounded wonderful, but he didn’t understand a word of it.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ whispered Lou.

  ‘He’s saying how we came here,’ said Barney.

  ‘Well how did we?’ Lou whispered again.

  ‘You know,’ said Barney.

  ‘I jolly well don’t know,’ said Lou, quite crossly. ‘That’s why I want to know what he’s saying.’

  It would be interesting, thought Barney, as the speech went on and on. At one point Stig would wave his spear towards the North Star, at another he would thump himself over the heart and slap Barney on the back.

  ‘He’s saying I’m his friend,’ said Barney.

  ‘A jolly good thing you are,’ muttered Lou. Barney felt proud.

  Stig stopped. There was a silence as the chief seemed to think for a while. Then he rose to his feet. He spoke in a strong, majestic voice, turning his head first to Lou and Barney, then to one side of the assembled tribe and then to the other. He raised his arms to the stars, waved his hand at the moon, placed both hands over his heart and then seemed to be blessing the children and the rest of the tribe.

  ‘I think he’s friendly too,’ whispered Barney.

  The chief had finished and there was silence again. Everyone seemed to be looking at Barney and Lou, and an awful thought came into Barney’s mind.

  ‘Lou,’ he whispered in the silence. ‘I think it’s our turn to make a speech.’

  ‘Well, go on then!’ said Lou.

  ‘I don’t know the language!’

  ‘I thought you didn’t,’ said Lou unkindly. ‘Do it in English then!’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Barney, quite sure that whatever happened, he wasn’t going to make a speech. ‘You do it!’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘You’re always good at talking. Go on!’ said Barney. He could see that Lou wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or not at this remark, but it felt as if the silence had gone on for hours. Lou looked round desperately, took a deep breath, and started:

  ‘Mister Chairman, Headmistress, Governors, Ladies and Gentlemen – golly that’s not right, lucky you can’t understand English! It is with great pleasure that I come here today to present the prizes at your speech day. Remember, girls, that schooldays are the happiest days of your life. We can’t all win prizes but –

  (‘Go on, Lou!’ said Barney. ‘That’s jolly good!’)

  ‘– but, I come to bury Caesar not to praise him, the evil that men do lives after them, it droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven, upon the place beneath. Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more! Beware the jabberwock, my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that scratch, beware the jub-jub bird and shun the vorpal Tumtum tree – how does it go, Barney?’

  (‘You’re doing jolly well, Lou!’ exclaimed Barney. ‘Poetry!’)

  ‘Christmas is coming!’ said Lou, getting the hang of it and spreading out her arms to the audience. ‘The geese are getting fat!’ she declaimed, pointing at the moon. ‘PLEASE!’ she begged, holding out her hand, ‘put a penny’ – she paused – ‘in the old man’s hat,’ she finished with her hand on her heart.

  ‘That was super, Lou,’ said Barney. ‘I wish I’d done it now!’

  ‘Well, you can next time,’ said Lou, wiping her brow. But it seemed to have worked. The chief smiled at them and waved them to sit down near him. Then he looked at Dinah, standing rather unhappily beside Lou on the end of her string. He motioned to Lou to bring this strange tame animal to him, and Lou led the dog up and said: ‘Shake hands with the nice chief, Dinah!’

  Dinah didn’t feel like raising a paw, but the chief gently stroked her back and ears, then ran his hand over the skin he was wearing and said something in his strange language.

  ‘He’s saying what a nice coat Dinah’s got,’ said Lou, pleased because she had brushed it such a lot.

  ‘Probably saying what a nice coat it would make for him,’ said Barney, but Lou just said, ‘Oh, Barney, don’t,’ and pulled Dinah to her side.

  They sat at the side of the royal party and waited, and they had a strange feeling that everyone else was waiting too, waiting for something special. The tribesmen were just sitting around, talking in low voices, and sometimes everyone stopped talking altogether and just listened, and the chief seemed to have his eyes fixed on the mists at the bottom of the valley.

  A man came from the back of the crowd, carrying two bull’s horns, which he offered to Barney and Lou.

  ‘What are we supposed to do with these?’ Barney asked Lou. ‘Blow them?’

  Lou took one. ‘Careful, Barney,’ she said. ‘There’s something in them.’ Barney took his. It was full of some liquid. They looked at the chief and the old men and saw that they were holding horns too. Then the chief lifted his to his mouth, drank what was in it at one swig, and threw the horn over his shoulder.

  ‘It’s to drink,’ said Barney, and they both realized they were thirsty, and both took a deep swallow from the horns, Then they both made the same face. ‘Eugh!’ Lou spluttered. ‘Beer!’

  Barney just threw his full horn over his shoulder. A rather fat sleepy tribesman sitting behind him got most of the beer in his face. He seemed surprised but didn’t mind very much as he licked the drops running down his nose. Lou got rid of hers much more carefully.

  Now the food was coming round. Men were standing near the fires taking the meat off the spits and cutting it up, and others came running with smoking joints which they handed first to the chief and then to the other important men and to the children. The smell had been delicious, but when they looked at the stringy blackened meat on the bones they had been handed, they didn’t feel so hungry.

  ‘D’you think it will be bad manners if we don’t eat it?’ Lou said doubtfully.

  ‘Perhaps they don’t have manners,’ said Barney. ‘It can’t be good manners to throw your cup over your shoulder.’

  ‘The chief did it, so it must be,’ said Lou. ‘You can’t tell with manners.’

  They looked at the chief again. He had gnawed the meat off his bone in no time, and now he flung it backwards to the rear of the crowd, where it was seized by one of the pack of wildish dogs that were waiting around.

  ‘Oh well, that’s easy,’ said Lou. ‘Here you are Dinah. Nice bone! With meat on!’ Barney also hand
ed his piece to the dog, and Dinah gnawed away happily like the rest of the tribe.

  At last the champing jaws on all sides died away, fingers were wiped on the grass or in the hair, and the tribe settled down again with their air of waiting for something.

  Barney, who was lying back on the soft turf, heard it first.

  ‘What’s that?’ he exclaimed, sitting up suddenly.

  ‘What’s what?’ Lou asked.

  ‘Something in the ground,’ said Barney. Now that he was sitting up he couldn’t hear it. He lay down again and put his ear to the ground. The sound came again, a sort of thumping. He made Lou put her head to the ground, and for a time they heard nothing, and then the thump came again.

  By now there was a shushing among the tribe, and some of them seemed to be hearing something too. Everyone became quite silent and after a time the sound could be heard through the air, as well as being a shake in the hillside. There was a long time between thumps – Barney counted up to twenty quite slowly, but they kept coming, and they seemed to be coming closer. It could have been the footsteps of some great giant or monster, plodding unhurriedly towards them out of the marshy valley. Barney looked at Lou, and he could see that she was thinking the same thing.

  ‘What can it be, Lou?’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t know. Could be anything.’

  ‘Could it be one of those brontosauruses?’ But Lou hushed for silence, and then Barney too caught another sound that went with the thumps of the footsteps. Before each thump there was a sort of long-drawn wail, so that it sounded like ‘eeeeyooooooTHUMP… eeeeyooooooTHUMP’… and each time the whole chalky hill shook until they could feel it in their bones, sitting on the springy turf.

  Everyone had heard it now, even the chief and the old men, who Barney supposed might be a little deaf. The circle of tribesmen round the fire was breaking up, and everyone was moving towards the edge of the steep slope that plunged down to the valley.

  ‘Come on!’ said Barney. ‘We’ve got to see what it is!’ They got up and ran with the others.

  At the bottom of the valley the forest stretched away to the distant hills under the moonlight, and blankets of low mist lay with the trees poking their heads through them. They strained their eyes to see through the mist where the sounds seemed to be coming from, then Lou gasped and clutched Barney’s arm, and pointed.

  ‘Look!’ she breathed. ‘There it is!’

  Barney saw it almost at the same moment, though he still didn’t know what it was he saw. Out of the mist at the base of the hill, there heaved itself every now and then a dark shape that stood up for a moment and then each time fell forward in their direction. And every time it appeared there came this wail, followed by the earth-shaking thump. And now there seemed to be an extra sound attached to it, between the wail and the thump, like this: eeeeyooooooughTHUMP… eeeeyooooooughTHUMP… eeeeyooooughTHUMP – and the sound seemed to be not one loud voice, but many voices – and then Barney could see that the dark shape had sort of strings or feelers joined to it. Dinah, standing between them, had seen it now, and the hair was standing up on her neck and back, and Barney felt that his was too.

  Still watching, fascinated, Lou said, ‘Barney, we’re dreaming all this of course. I’m going to pinch myself and then I’ll wake up.’

  ‘Don’t you dare wake up and leave me here!’ said Barney.

  ‘Well, you pinch yourself at the same time,’ said Lou. They pinched themselves. Nothing happened.

  ‘Are you awake?’ Barney asked.

  ‘No,’ replied Lou.

  ‘I know what,’ said Barney. ‘I’ll pinch you.’ He pinched Lou and she squealed.

  ‘You don’t have to do it so hard!’ she said. ‘Perhaps it’s your dream and not mine. My turn to pinch you.’ She pinched him.

  ‘You beast, Lou, that hurt!’ said Barney. ‘Look, we can’t both be dreaming the same dream, so we must be both awake. I wish we weren’t.’ He took his eyes off the Thing and turned to someone standing next to him. It was Stig.

  ‘Stig, thank goodness you’re here!’ gasped Barney. ‘What is it, and what’s going to happen?’

  Stig just looked at him in his usual not-understanding way. But he grinned, and he really seemed quite cheerful and not at all worried!

  ‘Lou, here’s Stig,’ said Barney. ‘He seems to think it’s all right.’

  ‘Does he?’ said Lou, looking round. ‘Well, perhaps it’s a tame Thing. Or a Usual Thing, anyhow.’

  They felt better with Stig standing so cheerfully beside them, but Dinah suddenly decided that it was a Thing she didn’t like at all, turned tail, jerked the string from Lou’s hand, and bolted, with Lou after her shouting: ‘Dinah, Dinah, come back! Nice Thing, Dinah! Dinah-come-here!’ And at the same time Stig made a come-on wave to Barney and some of the other men and started down the steep slope. Barney found himself running with him, panting, ‘I’m coming, Stig, wait for me. Stig, Stig, wait! You haven’t got your spear, Stig!’ – for he only just noticed that neither Stig nor the other men had brought their weapons with them.

  But now that he had started running down the hillside he knew he couldn’t possibly stop, and he would be upon the Thing before he had time to wonder any more what it was.

  This mist was the sort that wasn’t there when you got to it, but spread the moonlight around like daylight, and Barney was still running down the last bit of hill when he could see quite plainly what it all was – the dark shape, the strings, the wail and the grunt and the THUMP!

  On the track leading along the base of the hill was a crowd of tribesmen. They were divided into two groups. Those nearer to him were pulling on ropes, those further away were working long poles, and the thing they were man-handling was a great rough slab of dark rock, at least twice as high as the tallest man.

  And this was the way they were heaving it along: The slab of rock was lying flat on the ground. Twelve men with pointed stakes pushed them under the edge of the rock and levered it about a foot off the ground. A much larger group of men pushed much longer poles under the rock as far as they would go, and lifted it still higher by pushing upwards on the poles. To the top ends of these poles, long ropes of twisted hide had been tied, which passed over the top of the rock to the men in front. When the rock was high enough, the men in front pulled all together on the ropes, the rock rose until it was standing upright, seemed to stop there for a second, and then fell forward with the mighty THUMP that they had heard on the top of the hill. And the voice of the monster was the heave-ho of the men as they heaved together on the levers and ropes, and grunted together at the difficult point when the rock was half way to standing up.

  Barney was almost disappointed at the disappearance of the monster, but there was no time to stand around. The job was now to get the rock up the hill, and all the new helpers from the camp were needed. Without a pause in the slow footsteps of the rock they joined in the work – or rather it was like joining in a game or a dance. Barney grabbed the end of a rope, behind Stig, and watched what he did. They faced the stone, and had to walk towards it while the men the other side lifted the poles back to fit them again under the rock. Then they had to take up the slack, but not pull until the rock was lifted to the halfway mark.

  Then all together, with the men on the other two ropes, they had to take the strain, heave on the rope until the rock was standing upright, and then heave no more, because it was no use pulling the rock over towards them, it could fall by itself.

  Barney soon found it tiring, and wondered how long they could keep going like that. He started to say, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if –?’ but as soon as he started talking Stig trod on his toe and then the rope was jerked through his hand as they lifted the poles back for the next heave. He noticed then that nobody was making suggestions, nobody was arguing, nobody was even giving orders. They just sang their wailing song: ‘Eeeeyoooooough!’ pulled together, walked up a few steps together, rested together while the pole-pushers worked – and Barney began to see that
they could keep this up for hundreds of miles. And they probably had, because he couldn’t think where they could find slabs of rock like this anywhere near.

  Of course they couldn’t go straight up the hill. It was too steep. But there was a grassy track slanting along the hillside, and up it they slowly humped the great rock.

  They were getting near the camp now, and the women and children ran out to meet them and shout encouragement. Barney heard a voice he recognized, and turned his head and saw Lou among them, holding an excited Dinah. ‘What are you going to do with it, Barney?’ she was saying. ‘I can’t help ‘cause I can’t leave Dinah.’ But as soon as he paid attention to what Lou was saying he got trodden on and jerked again, so he gave up trying to hear what she was shouting. He thought he heard her say, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you had wheels…’, but there didn’t seem to be much he could do about it.

  Now, although it was the steepest part of the track, they seemed to be going quicker. Barney had the feeling of being at the end of a race, and making the final sprint. He looked round, and saw the chief standing there alongside the track. Then he thought of Lou’s question, and for the first time wondered what they were going to do with this lump of rock. He supposed it was some kind of present for the king. He hoped he would like it.

  With a last couple of quick heaves, they laid the rock almost at the feet of the king, one man said something short in a loud voice, and all the rope-men and pole-men fell on their faces towards the king. Barney did too, this time. He was too tired to do anything else.

  The king raised his arm. More speeches, Barney thought. But no, it seemed that the job was not finished.

  He sat up and saw that leading away from where the rock lay was a sort of raised mound. This end of it was level with the ground but the far end ran out to the tops of three other huge stones that were standing upright lower down the hillside. Barney thought he could see, now, what they had brought the slab all the way up the hill for. If they humped it along this mound, they could put it so that it rested on top of the three standing stones. And there it would be – a house for the king, or a temple, or whatever it was that people put big stones across the top of others for. It seemed a grand idea to Barney.