The Plague Dogs

by Richard Adams

"That must have been Drigg we just came through," said Driver, looking at his map. "Yeah, and we've gone under the railway line, you see. I'd better turn round. Oh look, there's a chap just got out of that Volvo up there ahead. Let's go on up and ask him."

  Jolting and swaying, and Mr. Wood clutching his plaster-of-paris leg and just succeeding in keeping quiet, with the sweat running down his white face.

  "I say, excuse me, sir, we're looking for some soldiers--paratroopers--have you seen any? Can you tell us the way to Ravenglass?"

  The burly, pleasant-looking, soldierly man in gum-boots and an anorak came up to the driving window.

  "Looking for soldiers, are you? Well, as far as I can make out you've come to the right place--or rather, the wrong place from my point of view. Just got back here from Gosforth and find 'em prancing all over my nature reserve, restricted areas and all. Never so much as a word of warning, let alone a request for permission to enter. And there's a helicopter up there, terrifying every bird for miles. I've a damn good mind to ring up the War Office and ask them what the hell they think they're doing."

  "I may be able to help," said Driver. "I'm a newspaperman. That's why I'm after the soldiers. And the soldiers are after the so-called Plague Dogs, if you know about them. D'you mind telling us where you fit in?"

  "My name's Rose--Major Rose. I'm the warden of the Drigg nature reserve. That's all this peninsula, as far as it goes down--about two miles of dunes. Well, what the hell do the soldiers think they're doing, can you tell me? Fortunately it's a slack season now, very few migrants about, but dammit all, it's bad enough. My wife's told me she heard a couple of shots fired. I ask you! Shots!"

  Mr. Wood could not suppress a cry of anguish.

  As quickly as possible, Digby Driver explained the position. Major Rose listened with evident sympathy and understanding.

  "Well, we might just be in time to do something yet. For one thing, no one can legally use a firearm in the nature reserve, and I don't care who the hell they are. Come on, let's get down there in the car--or as far as we can. I'm afraid the track doesn't go anything like as far down as Drigg Point, but it'll take us a good bit of the way and after that I expect we'll be able to manage something. Can I hop in beside you, Mr, Driver? Splendid, You all right, Mr. Wood? God, you've got some guts! Walked out of the hospital, did you, just like that? Good for you! Sure to be a blessing on that."

  They had not gone far down the peninsula when they observed two red berets stumbling their way towards them over the undulant dunes. They could be seen pausing, looking out to sea through binoculars and pointing. Major Rose got out and went briskly to meet them, while Digby Driver helped Mr. Wood out of the car and gave him his shoulder to do the best he could to follow. It took them several minutes to reach the soldiers. When they finally did so, Major Rose seemed to have calmed down a little.

  "Mr. Driver," he said, "this is Major Awdry, who tells me he's in charge of this dogs' exercise, and oddly enough we've both been in the same regiment--before he transferred and started jumping out of aeroplanes, that is. He tells me they haven't shot your dog, Mr. Wood, but I'm afraid it's a bad prospect for the poor beasts, all the same."

  "What's happened?" cried Mr. Wood. "Where are they?"

  "They're out there," said John Awdry grimly, pointing and handing over his binoculars. "I'm afraid you can hardly see them now. The tide's taken them out pretty far and there's a north-setting current that's sweeping them up the coast as well."

  "They might come ashore on Barn Scar," said Major Rose. "That's a sandy shoal, you know, that stretches out quite a long way about a mile and a quarter north of here. Tide's on the turn, too. If only they can stay afloat," he added. "Your chaps won't be shooting any more, will they? Where are they, by the way?"

  "I left them down by the point," replied Awdry, "while Mr. Gibbs here and I came up the shore to try and keep the dogs in sight. No one's authorized to fire except officers, and we won't, of course, so don't worry about that."

  Mr. Wood, having been helped to sit down, remained staring out to sea through the binoculars without a word. There was, however, nothing now to be seen between the tossing waves and the grey, November sky.

  "Can't--any more--Rowf."

  "Bite on to me, Snitter. Bite!"

  "Cold."

  "The island, Snitter--the Isle of Dog! We must get there!"

  "Cold. Tired."

  No feeling in the legs. Cold. Cold. Longing to rest, longing to stop, losing two gasps in every three for a lungful of air. The stinging, muzzle-slapping water, rocking up and down. This isn't a dream. It's real, real. We're going to die.

  "I'm sorry--Snitter, about--about the tod. All my fault."

  "That's it! Remember--tod--tell you--reet mazer--"

  "What?"

  "Reet mazer--yows--"

  Cold. Sinking. Bitter, choking dark.

  COLLOQUY

  THE READER: But are the Plague Dogs, then, to drown

  And nevermore come safe to land?

  Without a fight, to be sucked down

  Five fathom deep in tide-washed sand?

  Brave Rowf, but give him where to stand--

  He'd grapple with Leviathan!

  What sort of end is this you've planned

  For lost dogs and their vanished man?

  THE AUTHOR: it's a bad world for--well, you know.

  But after all, another slave

  It's easy come and easy go.

  We've used them now, like Boycott. They've

  Fulfilled their part. The story gave

  Amusement. Now, as best I can,

  I'll round it off, but cannot save

  The lost dogs for the vanished man.

  THE READER: Yet ours is not that monstrous world

  Where Boycott ruled their destinies!

  Let not poor Snitter's bones be hurled

  Beyond the stormy Hebrides!

  Look homeward now! Good author, please

  Dredge those dark waters Stygian

  And then, on some miraculous breeze,

  Bring lost dogs home to vanished man!

  THE AUTHOR: Reader, one spell there is may serve,

  One fantasy I had forgot,

  One saviour that all beasts deserve--

  The wise and generous Peter Scott.

  We'll bring him here--by boat or yacht!

  He only might--he only can

  Convert the Plague Dogs' desperate lot

  And reconcile bird, beast and man.

  SCOTT, Sir Peter, Companion of the British Empire: Distinguished Service Cross.

  Chairman of the World Wildlife Fund. Director of the Wildfowl Trust. Wildlife Painter. Ornithologist, naturalist and international wildlife preservationist.

  Born 1909, son of Captain Robert Falcon Scott [of the Antarctic]. Exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy, London, since 1933. Specialist in painting birds and wildlife. Many lectures and nature programmes on British television since World War 2.

  Winner of the international 14-foot Dinghy Championship, 1937, 1938, 1946. Bronze medal, single-handed sailing, Olympic Games, 1936.

  Royal Navy, Second World War. Awarded M.B.E., D.S.C. and bar. Three times mentioned in despatches while serving in destroyers in the Battle of the Atlantic.

  President of the Society of Wildlife Artists.

  President of the International Yacht-Racing Union, 1955-69.

  President of the Inland Waterways Association.

  President of the Camping Club of Great Britain.

  Chairman of the Survival Service Commission.

  Chairman of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

  Chairman of the Fauna Preservation Society.

  Chairman of the Olympic Games at Melbourne, 1956; at Rome, 1960; and in Japan, 1964.

  Member of the Council of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

  Explored the unmapped Perry River area of the Canadian Arctic, 1949. Leader of expeditions to Australasia, the Galapagos Is
lands, the Seychelles Islands and the Antarctic.

  Gliding: International Gold Badge, 1958. International Diamond Badge, 1963. British Gliding Champion, 1963. Chairman of the British Gliding Association, 1968-70.

  Royal Geographical Society Medal, 1967.

  Albert Medal, Royal Society of Arts, 1970.

  Bernard Tucker Medal, B.O.U. 1970.

  Arthur Allen Medal of Cornell University, 1971.

  Icelandic Order of the Falcon, 1969.

  Publications include: Morning Flight, Wild Chorus, The Battle of the Narrow Seas, Key to the Wildfowl of the World, Wild Geese and Eskimos, A Thousand Geese, Wildfowl of the British Isles, Animals in Africa, The Swans and The Fishwatcher's Guide to West Atlantic Coral Reefs.

  Has illustrated (inter alia): Adventures Among Birds and The Handbook of British Birds.

  ENVOY

  Sir Peter Scott, despite his well-known ability as a sailor, did not very often put to sea in winter. There was always a great deal to do at Slimbridge, to say nothing of his passion for painting and the heavy load of correspondence, all over the world, with wildlife conservation groups and the like. The happy arrival, however, on a visit from New Zealand, of his old friend and fellow-naturalist Ronald Lockley had coincided with two letters asking for ornithological advice--one from Bob Haycock, warden of the Calf of Man nature reserve, and the second from none other than Major Jim Rose of the Drigg reserve at Ravenglass. The weather being mild for winter and his visitor entirely ready to fall in with the idea of a little sea adventure--the more so since, as it happened, he had never visited the Calf of Man--the distinguished pair had set out in the Orielton, a converted lifeboat which Sir Peter found extremely handy for coastal and island voyaging.

  They had enjoyed unusually fine days during three hundred miles of seafaring north to Anglesey, putting in at several islands off the Welsh coast to visit old haunts of Lockley's and in particular staying a night each at the bird observatories on Skokholm and Bardsey, where they were welcomed with delight by the resident wardens. Once Anglesey was left behind they had a splendid following wind across the last sixty miles and finally anchored, one Wednesday evening, in the calm of Port Erin, where Alan Pickard, that best of booksellers, received them hospitably before their visit to the Calf on the following day.

  The visit--though it is always pleasant and heart-warming to see the aerial games of choughs, to help to clear a mist-net, watch a qualified bird-ringer at work and read his records of snow buntings, purple sandpipers and yellow-browed warblers--had in one respect proved disappointing. Lockley, whose knowledge of sea-birds was unsurpassed and whose forte was the study of shearwaters worldwide, still entertained the hope that one day the Manx shearwater--and with any luck the puffin too--might be restored to the Isle of Man; or at any rate to the Calf, where it had first been discovered. There were, however, formidable obstacles, chief of which was the extreme difficulty of exterminating the rats which had made survival virtually impossible for both species by infesting their underground tunnels and devouring their eggs and young. Against such attacks these burrowing birds had no remedy. Bob Haycock had not felt able to be encouraging about the prospects, and Ronald Lockley and Peter Scott, despite their recollections of the success of various sanctuary projects they had founded (such as the Wildlife Trust at Slimbridge and more lately the establishment of New Zealand's first bird observatory on the shores of the Firth of Thames, near Auckland), were a trifle disposed, as the Orielton approached the end of the eighty miles between the Calf and Ravenglass, to give way to melancholy thoughts (or perhaps they were just plain hungry).

  Ronald sat at the helm, cutting beef for sandwiches off the bone and reflecting on the frame of things disjointed.

  "You know, ignorant sentimentality about animals and birds can be as bad as deliberate destruction," he remarked, wiping the spray off his glasses and turning the Orielton's nose a point to starboard. "Well-intentioned amateurs like that chap Richard Adams--fond of the country--reasonably good observer--knows next to nothing about rabbits--hopelessly sentimental--everyone starts thinking rabbits are marvellous when what they really need is keeping down if they're not to become an absolute pest to the farmer--"

  "But you said yourself in your book that humans are so rabbit," interrupted Peter Scott. "If that's not anthropomorphic--"

  "Well, that's different," said Ronald firmly. "Anyway, humans need keeping down, too, come to that. But what is all wrong, for instance, is importing creatures like Greek tortoises, which are totally unsuited to a British climate, for sale as pets. The people who buy them usually know far too little about them; and anyway, for all practical purposes they start dying as soon as they get here. Sale of hens' chicks as pets is illegal now, but owing to some stupid loophole sale of duckling chicks isn't. Anyway they all die, too. I tell you, ignorant, uninstructed enthusiasm for birds and animals is worse than useless. We ought not to stir it up. Most small wild animals die if they become pets, simply through misplaced interference and disturbance."

  "They always did, of course," replied Scott, opening a rip-off beer and taking a pull from the can, "from Lesbia's sparrow onwards."

  "But it's the scale of the thing under modern conditions," pursued Lockley. "The demand for pets is so colossal now that it often comes close to exhausting the available supply and damn nearly brings the species on to the danger list."

  "It can have the opposite effect too, you know," replied the undemonstrative and fair-minded Peter Scott (who had once, when asked by a television interviewer the reason for his defeat in a yacht race, given the refreshing reply, "The other chaps were better than we were"). "Look at budgerigars. Restricted to Australia until the early thirties. Now there are thousands all over the place, purely as a result of the demand for them as cage-birds. And they thrive, by and large."

  "Then there are zoos," went on Lockley, ignoring Sir Peter's rejoinder. "I don't mind a good zoo, but too many will try to acquire rare and delicate animals which they ought to know they can't keep healthy and happy. Same story--in effect they start dying before or on arrival. But with a zoo, it isn't what you see, it's what you don't see. Animal collectors for zoos go into jungles, rain-forests and so on, and offer the natives big money to catch animals alive. So what happens? The natives go off, savagely trapping and injuring, killing nursing females to take the young and all that sort of thing. A few animals survive the journey back; and the collector's as happy as the public who buy his amusing book or go to his zoo and can't read between the lines."

  "All the same," answered Peter Scott, "as far as goodwill and interest on the part of the public goes, zoos have played a fairly significant part. Altogether, in terms of educating people, we've gained a hell of a lot since the turn of the century--look at leopard-skin coats and stuffed humming-birds on ladies' hats--but the trouble is we've lost more, simply on account of the human population explosion. Too many people, animals getting crowded out of their habitats--"

  "And an ignorantly sentimental attitude, as I'm saying," insisted Ronald, leaving the helm for a moment to rummage for a banana in the deck-locker. "People like Adams represent animals acting as if they were humans, when actually it'd be nearer the mark to consider them as automata controlled by the computer they inherit in their genetical make-up. I mean--in goes the stimulus and out comes the reaction. Very often the person who knows more than anyone else about looking after an animal is the man who hunts it--you used to, as a young man, so did I--simply because he's not sentimental. I say, Peter, is that the Ravenglass estuary over there on the starboard bow?"

  "Yes, that's it. You're pretty well on course, Ronald. Just a shade to the south and take her down to the mouth of the estuary, can you? We'll have to hang around a bit for enough water to take us in. Not too long, though--I think we'll be able to get up to the moorings in time for a jar at the Pennington Arms. Wind's a bit fresher now, isn't it? I reckon the tide's only just turned."

  A wave struck the Orielton's bow and burst with a slock and a fou
ntain of spray. Peter Scott turned up the collar of his anorak and reached for his binoculars.

  "I must say though," he said, scanning the sea reflectively, "I think that for ordinary, non-specialist pepple, a certain amount of anthropomorphism's probably useful in helping them to arrive at feeling and sympathy for animals--that's to say, readiness to put the good of a species, or even just the welfare of an individual creature, above their own advantage or profit. We can't all have scientific minds. I imagine your poetess friend Ruth Pitter would agree with that. John Clare, too--excellent amateur naturalist, quite without sentimentality; yet there's a lot of anthropomorphism in his nature poetry. It expresses affection, really. But another thing--I'm sure the old notion of 'God made man in His own image' has a lot to answer for. And it isn't only western civilization, of course, or ignorant urban populations. Look at your New Zealand Maoris, killing the giant moa for a thousand years until there weren't any left. It's time people started thinking of Man as one of a number of species inhabiting the planet; and if he's the cleverest, that merely gives him more responsibility for seeing that the rest can lead proper, natural lives under minimum control."

  "Certainly we're the most destructive species, but are we the cleverest?" replied Lockley. "That's a very debatable point, I should have thought. Consider a migrant bird. It's as real as you or I or the Secretary of State for the Environment, and it breathes air and lives with five senses on this globe. It knows nothing whatever about Monday or Tuesday or clocks or Christmas or the Iron Curtain or all the things which govern human patterns of thinking. It has a consciousness of life on the earth which is completely different from ours--we call it instinct but it's every bit as efficient--more, if anything--utilizing winds, temperatures, barometric pressures, navigation, thermal currents, adjusting its numbers to the food supply, its prey and predators, in a way we ignorant humans still can't compete with."

  "God might just as logically be a dog or an albatross," said Peter Scott, smiling, "or a tiger. Probably is. Setting aside that we find many living creatures beautiful--and heaven knows we can't afford to lose any beauty we've got left--it comes down to a matter of dignity, really, doesn't it--real dignity, I mean--sort of a Platonic idea, don't you think? A tiger presumably ought to have a reasonable chance of being able to approximate to an ideal of tiger and a sparrow to an ideal of sparrow; rats too, no doubt," he added rather bitterly, "on the Isle of Man, you know. Surely our part in that lot is to do what we can to see that animals live in a world where they can fulfil their various functions, insofar as that's consistent with our own reasonable survival and happiness?"