The Plague Dogs: A Novel

by Richard Adams

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  There was a pause.

  “I can’t remember,” said Snitter miserably. “Rowf, we’ve got to find some sort of men. It’s our only chance.”

  “You wouldn’t let me when I wanted to, the other night.”

  “Well, you weren’t going about it the right way. That would have finished us all.”

  “You’re a good little chap, Snitter, and you’ve had a bad time. I’m not going to quarrel with you—but no more men for me; that’s flat. I wasn’t myself that night.”

  “There was a good man, once.” Snitter was whining.

  “Haddaway, ye fond fyeul! Giv ower! A gud man? Ay, an’ soft stones an’ dry watter—”

  “I know there was one once, long ago,” said Rowf. “My mother told me that story in the basket—it was about all she had time to tell me, actually. But he went to the bad; and there’ll never be one again—you must know that.”

  “What story, Rowf—what do you mean?”

  “She said all dogs know the story. Do you mean to say I know something you don’t?”

  The shale rattled as Snitter turned over.

  “Do you know it, tod?”

  “Nay—but Ah warr’nd it’ll be a mazer. Let’s hev yer wee tale then, hinny.”

  “She said—” Rowf was pondering. “She used to say—well, there’s a great dog up in the sky—he’s all made of stars. She said you can see him; but I never know where to look, and you certainly can’t smell him; but sometimes you can hear him barking and growling, up in the clouds, so he must be there. Anyway, it seems that it was he, this dog, long ago, who had a great idea of creating all the animals and birds-all the different kinds. He must have had a lot of fun inventing them, I suppose.

  “Well, anyway, when he’d invented them all—so she said—he needed somewhere to put them, so he created the earth—trees for the birds, and pavements and gardens and posts and parks for the dogs, and holes underground for rats and mice, and houses for cats; and he put the fish in the water and insects into the flowers and grass, and all the rest of it. Very neat job—in fact you’d wonder, really, wouldn’t you, how it was all managed? Still, I suppose a star dog—”

  “Listen!” said Snitter, leaping nervously to his feet. “What’s that?”

  “Haald yer gobs an’ bide still!”

  They all three listened. Footsteps and human voices approached the mouth of the shaft across the turf outside. They stopped a moment, their owners evidently looking in, and voices boomed in the mouth of the cavern. Then they passed on, in the direction of Lickledale.

  Snitter lay down again. The tod had not moved a paw. Rowf was evidently warming to his tale and no one had to ask him to go on.

  “Well, the star dog needed someone to look after the place and see that all the animals and birds got their food and so on, so he decided to create a really intelligent creature who could take the job right off his back. And after a bit of reflection he created Man, and told him what he wanted him to do.

  “The man—and he was a splendid specimen: well, perfect, really, because in those days he couldn’t be anything else—he considered it for a bit, and then he said, ‘Well, sir’ (he called the star dog ‘Sir,’ you know), ‘Well, sir, it’s going to be a big job and there’ll be a lot to do—a hard day’s work every day—and the only thing I’m wondering is what I stand to get out of it?’

  “The star dog thought about that and in the end he said, This is how we’ll fix it. You shall have plenty of intelligence—almost as much as I have, and as well as that I’ll give you hands, with fingers and thumbs, and that’s more than I’ve got myself. And of course you shall have a mate, like all the other animals. Now, look, you can make reasonable use of the animals, and part of your job will be to control them as well. I mean, if one kind starts getting to be too many and harming or hindering the others by eating all the food or hunting them down beyond what’s reasonable, you must thin that kind out until there’s the right number again. And you can kill what animals you need—not too many—for food and clothing and so on. But I want you to remember all the time that if I’ve made you the most powerful animal it’s so that you can look after the others—help them to do the best they can for themselves, see they’re not wasted and so on. You’re in charge of the world. You must try to act with dignity, like me. Don’t go doing anything mean or senseless. And for a start,’ he said, ‘you can sit down and give names to the whole lot, so that you and I will know what we’re talking about for the future.’

  “Well, the man did this naming and a nice, long job it proved to be, what with all the cows and rats and cats and blackbirds and spiders and things. Of course, most of them—like tod here—hardly had any idea that they had names—but anyway the man did. And in the end he got it done, and settled down to look after the world, as the star dog had told him to. And after a time the animals had young and the man and his mate had children and the world began to be quite full up, so that the man had to do some of the thinning out that the star dog had said would be all right.

  “Now it seems that about this time the star dog had to go away on a journey—I suppose to see to some other world or something: but apparently it was a great distance and he must have been gone a long time, because while he was away some of the man’s children grew up, and with them that always takes years and years, you know. Anyway, when the star dog got back, he thought he’d go and see how the man and all the animals were getting on. He was looking forward to a visit to the earth, because he’d always felt that that was rather a good job he’d done—better than some others, I dare say.

  “When he got down to the earth, he couldn’t find anyone at all for a long time. He wandered about the streets and parks and places, and at last, in a wood, he caught a glimpse of a young badger, who was hiding under the branches of a fallen tree. After a lot of trouble he persuaded him to come out and asked him what was the matter.

  “ Why,’ said the badger, ‘some men came this morning and dug up our sett and smashed it all to pieces, and they pulled my father and mother out with a long pair of tongs with sharp teeth on the ends. They hurt my father badly and now they’ve put them both in a sack and taken them away—I don’t know where.’

  “ ‘Are there too many badgers round here, then?’ asked the star dog.

  “ ‘No, there are hardly any left,’ said the young badger. There used to be quite a lot, but the men have killed nearly all of us. That’s why I was hiding—I thought you were the men coming back.’

  “The star dog moved the badgers who were left to a safe place and then he went to look for the man. After walking about for quite a long time, he heard a confused noise in the distance—shouting and barking and people running about, so he went in that direction and after a bit he came to a kind of big yard, and he found the man there and some of his grown-up children. They’d made a kind of ring at one end of the yard, out of sheets of corrugated iron, and they’d put the mother and father badger in there and were throwing stones at them to make them more fierce and trying to make some dogs attack them. The dogs weren’t very keen, because, although the male badger had a broken paw and was badly wounded in the face, he was fighting like the devil and his mate was just as brave as he was. But the dogs had been kept very hungry on purpose and anyway they supposed the men must know best, especially as there were about twelve dogs to two badgers.

  “The star dog put a stop to what was going on and sent the two badgers off to be looked after by their family until they were better, and then he told the man that it had come to his nose that things weren’t as they should be and asked him what he thought he was doing.

  “ ‘Oh,’ says the man, ‘you said I was to keep the numbers of the animals down and some of them had to be killed if necessary. You said we could make use of the animals, so we were just having a bit of sport. After all, animals are given us for our amusement, aren’t they?’

  “The star dog felt angry, but he thought that perha
ps he ought to have made clearer to the man in the first place what he’d meant, so he explained again that he regarded him as responsible for seeing that the animals weren’t killed without good reason, and that their lives weren’t wasted or thrown away for nothing. ‘If you’re the cleverest,’ he said, ‘that means, first of all, that you’re supposed to care for the others and consider them as creatures you’ve got to look after. Just think about that, and make sure you get it right.’

  “Well, anyway, after a long time the star dog decided to come back to the earth again and this time he chose the middle of the summer, because he thought it would be nice to roll about on the grass and have a run through the parks, and the gardens of the houses, when all the leaves and flowers were out and smelling so nice. When he arrived it was a hot day and he went down to the nearest river to have a drink. But he found he could smell it from half a mile away and it was awful. When he got up close he found it was full of human shit and crammed with floating, dead fish. There was a wretched water rat making off as fast as he could along the bank and the star dog asked him what had gone wrong, but he only said he didn’t know.

  “After some time the star dog came upon a crowd of men who were all shouting at each other and holding some sort of meeting, so he asked them if they knew what had happened in the river, and how all the fish had come to die in poisoned water.

  “ ‘We’re the sewage workers,’ said one of them, ‘and we’re not going to do any more work until our demands are met. It’s a very serious business, too—do you realise we’re so short of money that we haven’t got any for gambling or smoking or getting drunk?’

  “ ‘My fish are all dead,’ said the star dog.

  “ ‘What the hell’s it matter about a lot of bloody fish?’ said one of the men. ‘We know our rights and we mean to have them.’

  “This time the star dog told all the men he met that if he found them once more wilfully misunderstanding or taking no notice of what he’d said, he wouldn’t warn them again.”

  Rowf paused.

  “Noo what wez at th’ bottom o’ thet, then?” asked the tod.

  “Well, of course, it did go wrong,” said Rowf morosely. “I’m not telling it very well, but he came back again. Kiff knew this story, and he said the star dog found the men sticking iron, pointed things into a wretched bull and making it rip the stomachs out of a lot of poor old broken-down horses, and they were laughing at them and pelting them with orange peel while they went limping about. But I think my mother said he found some birds in cages which the men had blinded to make them sing. They sing to assert themselves, of course, and keep other cock birds away, so as they were blind they kept singing as long as they had any strength, because they couldn’t tell whether there were any rival birds about or not. Anyway, whatever it was, the star dog said to the man, ‘Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed above every beast of the field. They will continue to live their lives as before, without reflection or regret, and I will speak to them in their hearts, in hearing and in scent and instinct and in the bright light of their perception of the moment. But from you I shall turn away for ever, and you will spend the rest of your days wondering what is right and looking for the truth that I shall conceal from you and infuse instead into the lion’s leap and the assurance of the rose. You are no longer fit to look after the animals. Henceforth you shall be subject to injustice, murder and death, like them; and unlike them, you shall be so full of confusion that you shall loathe even your brother’s and sister’s bodily fluids and excretions. Now get out of my sight.’

  “So the man and his mate, with faltering steps and slow, took their solitary way. And ever since that day all the birds and animals have feared man and fled from him; and he exploits them and torments them, and some of them he has actually destroyed for ever from the face of the earth. He bruises us, and those of us who can bruise him. It’s a bad world for animals now. They live out of his way, as best they’re able. I believe, myself, that the star dog’s given it all up as a bad job. He must have, for what good are men to animals?”

  “Yon’s a fine tale noo,” said the tod. “Ay, a reet dazzler, an’ yer a grrand hand at tellin’ it.”

  “Yes,” said Snitter, “you told it well, Rowf. And you’re quite right—I have heard it before. Only you left out one very important bit, which they told me. When the man was disgraced and told to go away, he was allowed to ask all the animals whether any of them would come with him and share his fortunes and his life. There were only two who agreed to come entirely of their own accord, and they were the dog and the cat. And ever since then, those two have been jealous of each other, and each is for ever trying to make man choose which one he likes best. Every man prefers one or the other.”

  “Well,” said Rowf, “if that is the moral- and I don’t believe it is—then I’ve just had my trouble for nothing. I suppose you can twist a story to mean anything you like. But all I can say again is, no more men for me—”

  “If you did find a master, Rowf—I mean, just suppose you did—what would he be like? What would he do?”

  “It’s a stupid idea.”

  “Well, but go on—just for fun—just suppose! I mean, suppose you found yourself sort of forced to be with a man who turned out to be—well, you know, decent and good and honest—what would he be like?”

  “Well, first of all, he’d have to leave me alone until I was ready—and take no notice even if I barked the place down. If he tried to force himself on me or started messing me about, I’d bite his hand off. And I’d judge him on his voice as well as his smell. He’d have to let me take my own time about smelling him—his hands and his shoes and all that. And if he was any good, he’d be able to tell when I’d begun to feel all right about him and then he’d say, ‘Hullo, Rowf, have a bone,’ or something like that; and then he’d give me a good one and let me alone to gnaw it while he went on with whatever he was doing. And then I’d lie down on the floor and—oh, what’s the use? Snitter, you’re just tricking me into making up a lot of rubbish!”

  “I’m not—but it only shows you’ve got some sort of idea at the back of your mind—”

  “Isn’t it time to go out and hunt yet?” interrupted Rowf. “I’m hungry.”

  “Why, let’s away noo. Yer in gud fettle then? Ducks an’ gimmers’ll sharp put ye reet, Ah warr’nd.”

  Monday the 1st November

  “Well, Stephen, you’ll be delighted to know that your ideas were entirely the right ones.” Dr. Boycott seemed positively jovial.

  “Sorry, chief, which ones were those?”

  “About the dogs.”

  “The smoking autopsies? Well, if we—”

  “No, no, no—the dogs that got out. Seven-three-two and that other one of Fortescue’s.”

  “Oh, those, chief. But as far as I remember the only idea I had was that we should say nothing at all about them.”

  “Yes, and you stuck to it very sensibly. And the—”

  “But—excuse me, chief—what do I say to this Mr. Williamson when we ring him back?”

  “I’m coming to that. I was saying, the Director thinks yours is entirely the right line. So all you have to do now is telephone Mr. Williamson and tell him.”

  “What, tell him the dogs are ours and we’re not going to do anything?”

  “Good gracious, no! After all, how do we know that the dogs are ours? You don’t know, and neither do I: it’s only a guess. And from what you tell me, there may not even be any dogs at all. No one seems actually to have seen them. No, you simply tell Williamson that we have nothing to say in reply to his question.”

  “But—but I mean, won’t he think that’s very suspicious?”

  “He may, but he’s just as likely to be wrong as right. The sheep-killings may stop of their own accord. If they are in fact due to a dog or dogs, they may get themselves shot and turn out not to be ours. Even if they are ours, they may not be traceable to us, if Tyson’s got any sense. They may have worried their collars off
by now. The Director thinks it’s unlikely that anything embarrassing could be laid at our door, and more than unlikely that any of these farmers could or would sue us. They’re much more likely to claim their insurance and let it go at that. Whereas if we stand in a white sheet, start admitting liability and try to take some sort of step towards helping in a search, we shall only attract adverse publicity and put Animal Research in the wrong when it may be nothing of the kind. Besides, if we were to incur any expenditure in that way, how would we justify it at audit?”

  “But what about Tyson, chief? He may already have spilled too many beans outside for us to be able to take the line that we haven’t lost any dogs.”

  “We’re not taking that line, Mr. Stephen, my good sir. We’re simply saying we’ve nothing to say. Let them take it from there. I’ve already had a word with Tyson—pointed out to him that the most he can truthfully say if he’s asked is that two pens were found empty. I stressed that it would be quite unjustified on his part to put two and two together and make five, and that the Director would be most upset to think that anything of the kind was being said. Most upset, I said. I think he got that message all right.”

  “Nudge nudge wink wink say no more, eh? But is that quite fair to Williamson?”

  “My dear chap, we’re under no more obligation to stand and answer Williamson’s questions than any private person would be. If he thinks evil, let him prove evil—if he can. I repeat, it’s all very unlikely to come to anything.”

  “I just don’t particularly fancy ringing him back, that’s all.”

  “Well, in this place we all have to do things we don’t like sometimes, don’t we? Even the animals, ha ha. Anyway, cheer up. You’ll be pleased to hear about the dogfish. The colour-plate tests on the eyeless ones show—”