The Plague Dogs: A Novel

by Richard Adams

  Through Beckfoot Halt beside the road, labouring a little uphill now and a robin’s sharp twitter here and gone among the trees. Scents of bog myrtle and soaking moss, and a distant shouting—men answering each other, high voice and low voice, whistles blowing down in the fields below Spout House and beyond the Esk.

  “It’s something the whitecoats are doing, isn’t it? D’you remember, they put Zigger on some steps that kept on moving? He said he had to run until he dropped.”

  “Lie down, Rowf. We’re all right here. You can tell—it doesn’t hurt. They’re just breaking up all the rocks and trees and heather they made, that’s all.”

  “All those brown men, look—a whole line of them, red hats, going across the fields down there—”

  “They’re only breaking up the fields. Don’t let them see you.”

  Curving down into the little station at Eskdale Green, watched by three children with their chins propped on the parapet of the bridge. Polished brasswork gleaming in the early morning sunshine and Graham Withers tooting on the whistle and giving them a wave. Slowly through the station, platform almost level with the floors of the carriages and an old paper bag blowing in, patting Rowf a wet sog on the nose, grab it quick splodge munch no good at all. A white gate and an old nanny goat grazing at the end of a long chain.

  “The red hat men have gone now. What’s coming when it’s all gone?”

  “The black milk will boil. Go to sleep, Rowf.”

  “You dragged me into this, Snitter, and now you say go to sleep.”

  Leaves and branches flying by; helicopter in the sky. Airborne soldiers on the lea, Plague Dogs riding to the sea. Redwings, fieldfares, cows and sheep; should we cheer, d’you think or weep? Plague Dogs all the way from A.R.S.E., riding down to Ravenglass. What’s that car so black, sedate? That’s the Secretary of State, him as sealed the Plague Dogs’ fate. Wheel and piston, steam and tank, autumn oak-leaves in the bank, chuff chuff chuff and clank clank clank.

  “You know, I was keen to be a good dog, Snitter. I really wanted to be a good dog. I’d have done anything for them; anything but the metal water.”

  “They weren’t real masters, Rowf. They didn’t particularly want you to be a good dog. They didn’t care what sort of dog you were. I don’t know what they did want. I don’t believe they knew themselves.”

  And here’s Irton Road station, and the little river Mite, all the way down from pretty Miterdale—least known and quietest of Lakeland valleys—formed from the becks of Tongue Moor, Illgill Head and the Wastdale Screes. Hail to thee, blithe Mite, and hurrah for Keyhow and the Bower House, and your wet green fields full of black-headed gulls! Whirling snipe, orange-legged sandpipers, gorse in bloom on a winter’s morning. Meadow pipits flighting up and down, flying ahead of the train, flicker and shut, flicker and shut, tweet tweet.

  “But surely, Snitter, dogs ought to be able to trust men, oughtn’t they?”

  “It doesn’t matter any more, old Rowf.”

  “I know—I’m only saying these things to stop myself jumping up and barking at the things rushing past. I wasn’t a good dog. Wish I had been.”

  “Whatever dogs were meant for, they weren’t meant for the metal water. If you can’t live by rotten rules you have to find some of your own.”

  “What other rules did we find?”

  “The tod’s.”

  “They weren’t right for us. We couldn’t live by them either.”

  “I know. The truth is I lost my home and you never had one. But it doesn’t matter any more.”

  Now there rises on the left the hog’s back of Muncaster Fell, its west face high above the line, throwing the little train into chilly shadow as it runs under the fellside and past Murthwaite, with only three miles to go.

  “I remember a butterfly beating itself to bits against a window-pane. A whitecoat saw it and opened the window and put it out. He’d come to put me in the metal water. How d’you explain that?”

  “The butterfly laid eggs that turned into the caterpillars you ate. Remember?”

  Hooker Crag and Chapel Hill, and here’s the Thornflatt water-mill. A pitch forward-shot wheel, I rather think, splashing and turning among its ferns and lichens and shining, green liverworts. Come on, wheel, sing up! “War es also gemeint, mein rauschender Freund, dein Singen, dein Klingen.” Is that for poor Mr. Ephraim? Can you see our friend Rowf, peering out from under the seat and rattling by in bewilderment? “Ach unten, da unten die kühle Ruh.” Well, you can’t expect him to appreciate that, can you? Be reasonable, wheel.

  On the slope behind, look, there are some rabbits who—yes, have the use of their eyes, really—sit up and watch the train a moment-then bolt for their holes—you can see the rufous patch at the backs of their necks. The rabbits get used to the trains in summer, but probably this lot weren’t born when last summer’s season ended with waving flags and paper bags and sticks of rock all round. A cock chaffinch, slate head and plum breast, flashes white wings and vanishes into the gorse. A magpie flickers in an elder tree and the Plague Dogs, the Plague Dogs are riding to the sea. Here are the pancakes of yellow tide-foam, and the Plague Dogs are riding to their salt sea home. Could you or I have contrived to disappear in Eskdale and turn up in Ravenglass, with two hundred soldiers looking for us under every stone? I trow not. Give them a cheer. There’s nothing like a good loser, after all.

  “Rowf, can you smell the salt?”

  “I can hear gulls calling. How quickly they’ve changed it all, haven’t they?—even the hills.”

  Along the estuary we go, black-and-white oyster-catchers flashing rapid, pointed wings and peeping off their alarm notes as they fly, and an old heron flapping slowly away by himself. Can that be the tod I see, with Kiff, up on a cloud? No, I beg your pardon, must have got some hairspray in my eyes, but let’s raise a cheer all the same. Never again, hide in a drain, ride in a train, died in the rain—it’s not raining yet, anyway.

  “Houses, Snitter! Look! Oh, Snitter, real, natural houses!”

  As the River Irt came steaming into the Ratty terminus and depot, Snitter cocked his ears and looked cautiously out through the door. Seagulls he could certainly hear, and distant, breaking waves. Everything around seemed flat and open, smelt salty, stony. Sand and grass. Houses, smoke and dustbins.

  “They’ve put the houses back, Rowf. I knew they’d have to, sooner or later.”

  “The trees and things have stopped flying past. All blown away, I suppose.”

  “I know. But there’s the wall we jumped over, look—over there. I can recognize that all right. Well, obviously they’d want to keep that.”

  “What shall we do?”

  “Stay here until everything’s quiet. Then we’ll run off among the houses.”

  “D’you think it might be a change for the better at last?”

  “I don’t know. It can hardly be a change for the worse.”

  “I’d like to be sure of that.”

  The letter was written in pencil and a shaky hand, and Digby Driver was obliged to take it over to the window.

  21st November

  Barrow-in-Furness

  Dear Mr. Driver,

  Although I do not know your address in the Lake District, I very much hope that you will receive this letter. I am seeking information on a matter of importance to me—though perhaps to no one else—and do not know from whom to obtain it if not from yourself.

  I am at present in hospital, recovering—rather slowly, I’m afraid—from a traffic accident. My injuries were fairly serious and for the past few weeks, during which I have undergone three operations, I have read very little and have not been in touch with the news at all. Consequently it was only today that I saw, in the “Sunday Orator,” an account by yourself of the dogs who apparently escaped some time ago from the Lawson Park Research Station, near Coniston. With the article were two photographs, taken, as you will know, by a motorist whose car was raided by the dogs somewhere near Dunmail Raise.

  I am wr
iting to say that I believe, on the evidence of the photographs, that one of these animals is, or used to be, my own dog. Indeed the markings, as they appear in one of the photographs, seem unmistakable. I should explain that I am a bachelor and live alone, so you may perhaps understand that I have been much attached to the dog, which I acquired as a puppy some three years ago and trained myself. I was told by my sister, after the accident, that the dog ran away from her house and that all efforts to find it had proved unsuccessful. This, while it greatly grieved me, came as no surprise, since the dog had known only one home and no other master.

  I am hoping that you may be able to give me some help and information on this matter which, as you will now appreciate, is of considerable personal concern to me. If you could possibly spare the time to come and see me, Mr. Driver, however briefly, I would be most grateful. Is it possible that in some way or other the dog might be found and returned to me?

  I’m not back to anything like fit yet and I am afraid that writing this letter has proved tiring. I only hope you can read it.

  Yours sincerely,

  Alan Wood

  “Oh, boy!” cried Digby Driver, aloud. “Now he tells me! But what the hell to do about it?” He took out his car keys and swung them round and round his index finger. After a few moments they flew off and landed on the linoleum on the other side of the hall. Mr. Driver, retrieving them, suddenly addressed his reflection in the still-dark window-pane.

  “The bloody cow!” he said aloud. “Good God! What did she—? Well, Christ, I’ll see her for a start, anyway.”

  He turned up the collar of his duffle-coat, poked two of the toggles through the loops and pulled on his gloves.

  “A line, a line, I gotta think of a line! The good journalist ignores no event that takes place, but turns all to his advantage.’ Yes, but what the hell can I do with this?” He stamped his foot on the floor in frustration, and once again the dog barked in the basement. A female voice called soothingly, “Lie down, Honey. Wassa fuss-fuss, eh? There’s a girl!”

  “Darling doggies!” yelled Digby Driver, in inspiration and triumph. “Stares you in the face, dunnit? And with just a bit of luck it’s got everything, Harbottle and all! O God, give me time, just time, that’s all! What ho for the great British public!”

  He dashed out into the winter dawn. Two minutes later the tyres of the green Toledo were sizzling down the wet road to Dalton-in-Furness.

  Ravenglass, on the coast south-west of Muncaster Fell, has a railway station (other than Ratty), a pub, a post office, two to three hundred inhabitants and a single street two hundred yards long. All round it lie the sands and channels of the estuary of the Irt, Mite and Esk, and it is sheltered from the Irish Sea outside by the low, sandy peninsula of the Drigg nature reserve—two miles of dunes and marram grass—which covers the estuary as its flap a letter-box. As long ago as 1620 the place was noted for gulls’ eggs and for the numbers of waders and sea-birds attracted to the feeding-grounds of these shallow, tidal waters. It is not a spot where strangers can expect to go unremarked for long—not in winter, not in the early morning, not if they happen to be plastered across the newspapers and wanted in three counties.

  Was it Harold Tonge, perhaps, the landlord of the Pennington Arms, who first saw Snitter dancing in. the street at sight of a real lamp-post? Or his trusty henchman Cec., having a look up and down the windy, gull-tumbled street, who recognized the grim shape of Rowf lifting his leg against a white wall below a fuchsia hedge? Or perhaps Mrs. Merlin, the postmistress, emptying a metal wastepaper basket doing-doing against the rim of a dustbin, caught sight of a black-and-white, cloven head looking perplexedly at the stony beach and seaweed-strewn pebbles below the houses? Before the outgoing tide had laid bare the sands of the estuary, conviction and consternation had flooded the village. Incredible as it might be, these were the Plague Dogs, walking the street in bewilderment and broad daylight. Fasten your gates, lock up the stores, bring all the cats and dogs indoors. Get on the qui vive, the telephone and the stick. Grimes is at his exercise. Those who despise us we’ll destroy.

  The instant Annie Mossity opened the dront door, Digby Driver had his foot in it. At the look on his face she started back.

  “Mr. Driver—what—what—you’re very early—I—”

  Digby Driver pushed past her, turned, slammed the door and stood facing her in the hall.

  “Mr. Driver, what’s the meaning of this intrusion? I can’t talk to you now. I’m just going—”

  Without a word, Digby Driver drew out the letter and held it up. For a moment she caught her breath and her eyes opened wide. The next, she had recovered herself. Her hand moved towards the Yale lock.

  “Mr. Driver, will you please leave my house at—” Driver put his two hands on her shoulders and spoke quietly. “You can scream the bloody place down, you cruel, cold-hearted bitch! Now get this—I’m not going to be lied to and messed around any more, see, whatever you do to other people. I haven’t got much time; and you’re not dealing with a gentleman now, either, so just watch it, because I’m angry. If you try fainting or throwing hysterics, all that’ll happen is you’ll wish you hadn’t, got it? Now, listen. Your brother knows that that’s his dog, and he knows that it’s alive. You didn’t tell him you’d sold it, did you? You told him it ran away. Why did you let me think your brother was dead? Why? Come on, Mrs. Bloody Moss, you dirty, lying cow, tell me the truth or I’ll break your neck, so help me Christ I will! I’m angry, see, and I might forget myself!”

  “Mr. Driver, don’t you dare to lay hands on me! You’ll regret it—”

  He stood back.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  She nodded, staring.

  “So you damn’ well ought to be. Well, the remedy’s in your own hands. Tell me the truth and I’ll go. And mind it is the truth this time. Because if it’s not, I’ll make the whole blasted country loathe the name of Mrs. Moss, you see if I don’t!”

  When one rogue has been found out in the deception of another, the scene is seldom an edifying one. Mrs. Moss, sobbing, sank down on a hall chair, while Mr. Driver stood over her like Heathcliff getting to work on Isabella Linton.

  “I—I—always ha-ated the dog! I hoped—hoped my brother would get married—he used to make use of the dog to tease me—I know he did—the house always so untidy and—and mud all over the floor—my brother didn’t care! The dog caused the accident—people saw it—they told me—the dog ran on the crossing and my brother ran out after it. I hated the dog—why should I be expected to keep it–oh!–oh!–”

  “Come on,” said Driver. “What else?”

  “I sold the dog to the research people. They promised me I’d never see it again! They said it would never leave the station alive.”

  “You took it up there yourself? And you took the money and spent it on yourself, didn’t you? Keep talking.”

  “When you came to see me, I knew that if I told you my brother was—was alive you’d go and see him and he’d get to know what had happened. And then I realized you thought he was dead, so I let you go on thinking—why shouldn’t I?—oh, hoo, hoo! I’m frightened, Mr. Driver, I’m frightened of you—”

  “You needn’t be, Mrs. Moss, you rotten, spiteful sow, because I’m leaving your shit-house now. You’ll be delighted to know I’m on my way to see your brother in the hospital. And I can let myself out, thanks.”

  He left her drawing shuddering breaths where she sat on the chair, closed the front door behind him and strode swiftly down the path to the gate. He was surprised to realize that not all his indignation was for himself.

  “It’s not possible,” said Major Awdry. “Ravenglass? There must be some mistake. Two other dogs. Fog of war and all that.”

  “How about asking one of the ‘copters to go down, sir?” suggested the R.S.M. “He can be there in a few minutes and report to us on the R/T. Then if necessary we can call both companies straight in. If it really is our dogs at Ravenglass, they can’t ‘ardly run no
further, and we could be down there by eleven-thirty at latest.”

  “Yes, good idea,” said Awdry, putting down his tea-cup. “How far is it to Ravenglass by road, Mr. Gibbs?”

  “About ten mile I make it, sir,” answered the sergeant-major, consulting his map.

  “Twenty-five minutes, then, once they’re embussed. Sergeant Lockyer, can you call up Lieutenant-Commander Evans, please? I’d like to have a word with him myself.”

  “That was one of the flies out of my head, Rowf.”

  “Scared me stiff. I thought it was going to come down and crush us. The noise alone’s enough to—”

  “There’s nowhere to hide—nowhere to go. What’ll we do?”

  “Snitter, it’s coming back! Run, run!”

  Bushes flattened in a tearing wind, all else blotted out by the smacking blat-blat-blat of the blades. Terrified, aware of nothing but fear, all senses—smell, sight, hearing—overwhelmed with fear like green grass and branches submerged in a flooding beck, Snitter and Rowf ran across the shifting stones and shingle, on to the pools and brown weed of the tideline and down to the bare ebb-tide sands.

  “Over here, Snitter, quick!”

  “No, not that way! This way—this way!”

  “No—that way!” Rowf voiding his bowels with fear. “Away from the people! Look at them up there! They’re watching us! I won’t go back in the tank! I won’t go back in the tank!”

  From the shore of Ravenglass across to the Drigg peninsula is a quarter of a mile of water at high tide, but at low tide the Mite and Irt flow in a narrow channel down the centre of the sands and it is possible to cross almost dry-shod. As the helicopter turned and remained hovering a hundred yards away, Rowf, with Snitter hard on his tail, raced down the sands and plunged into the outfall, found a footing, lost it again, struggled, flung up his head, scrambled, clawed and dragged himself out on the further side.

  Shaking the water out of his shaggy coat, he looked about him. The sodden body of a dead gull, evidently left by the tide, was lying a few yards away. He himself was bleeding from one hind paw. Snitter, carried down with the current, had fetched up against a rock and was clambering out. The helicopter had not moved. Ahead rose the smooth, sandy dunes, one behind another, tufts of marram grass blowing against the sky.