The Dog Megapack

by Robert Reginald

  “Moreover, its latest appearance in the University, reported to me quite recently, preceded a serious outbreak of fire.”

  THE DOGS OF HANNOIE, by E. C. Tubb

  Legend said that when disaster threatened the tiny French village all the dogs howled a warning, and history had proved it many times. Now the dogs howled again.…

  An accident brought me to Hannoie. I had been motoring through the Alps, driving without thought as to where I was going, content to follow roads which steadily degenerated from wide, well-paved ones of concrete, to narrower ones of stone; from those of stone to twisting lanes of packed dirt; ending finally by winding a slow way along a tortuous path full of pot holes and slick with many layers of sodden leaves.

  I first saw Hannoie from the brow of a hill. It nestled against the hillside, a collection of small, stone houses dominated by the squat spire of an old church and looking, in the dying light of the setting sun, like one of those medieval villages used to illustrate historical novels. I drove towards it, the car gathering speed as I sent it humming down the incline when an animal, a dog I thought, suddenly darted from the undergrowth and caused me to brake sharply. My instinctive reaction caused the heavy vehicle to skid into a deep hole. It took little time to diagnose a broken axle. It took far longer to arrange repairs.

  The villagers were very kind. They were of unspoiled peasant stock, thick-set, swarthy, phlegmatic in their way but quick to take either offense or liking. I explained my predicament to the patronne of an estaminet, listened to her sympathies, then waited, sipping brandy of a surprising excellence while she sent for the mayor.

  He too was desolate.

  “A tragedy, monsieur. To happen to one who has come from so far. From England? Ah, vive la Angleterre.”

  Smiling, I assured him that it was no tragedy. I bought him brandy and we drank with grave, old-world grace. I spoke of the crops, the hills, the beauty of the sunset. I told him much of myself, more than I would normally tell to a casual acquaintance and, in return, he confided in me. Finally, he mentioned my car.

  “Tonight, monsieur, it is impossible, but the nights are calm and it will come to no harm. Tomorrow, Jacque will take his horses and tow it to the garage. It is a long way, monsieur, twenty kilometers over the hill, and it is but a small garage. Jacque is a poor man with many children. I hesitate to ask, monsieur, but.…”

  “I will pay Jacque,” I interrupted. “You will tell me what you think fitting.”

  He bowed at that, pleased at my relegation of authority, and again the patronne filled our glasses with a distillation not to be found in any bottle. Over the drinks he spoke of my accident.

  “The roads are treacherous, but what would you? We are poor and the taxes are heavy, traffic is light and there is an alternate road.” He shrugged, a gesture purely Gallic and done properly only by those to the manner born. “You are not to be blamed for so unfortunate a happening.”

  “I?” I shook my head. “It was not my fault. There was an animal, a dog I think, which ran straight across the road and.…” I paused. For some reason it had grown very quiet, even the loungers inseparable from any establishment dispensing wine seemed all attention. The mayor slowly picked up his glass.

  “A dog, monsieur?”

  “Yes. A great shaggy beast. Looked more like a wolf than a dog but you wouldn’t have wolves around here, would you?”

  “You…killed it, monsieur?”

  “Of course not. I braked to avoid it and skidded into a hole.” I laughed. “The dog wasn’t hurt, only my car.”

  “Bien!” He smiled and raised his glass and even the loungers seemed to have forgotten me. It was the most peculiar thing and I felt as a man must feel who has been tried and found not guilty. It disturbed me a little and, either because of that or because for the first time in many months I was enjoying myself, I drank a little too much of the excellent brandy. Not that it mattered. The mayor took charge of me and I have dim memories of being supported along a twisting street while all around me rose the sounds of uninhibited merriment A stalwart youth in simple dress helped me up to a great bed piled high with soft eiderdowns and I sank into sleep as a swimmer sinks into the ocean.

  I woke once only during the night and heard the monotonous howling of many dogs.

  I spoke about it at breakfast next morning.

  “It is the dogs, monsieur,” explained the mayor. Aside from being the elected representative of the village he was also the proprietor of the single hotel, the registrar, and the local policeman. He sipped his coffee with a healthy gusto and, to my surprise, I found that I too had an appetite.

  “Yes. The Dogs of Hannoie. It is a legend stemming from the past, a simple thing, but we are a simple people, monsieur, and we like the simple ways.” He spoke with an unaffected dignity and I admired him for his ‘we’.

  “The legend has it that the village was once saved from destruction by the howling of the dogs.” He shrugged. “Be that as it may, yet the fact remains that the dogs always howl when trouble affects us. A death perhaps, an illness, a poor harvest. He shrugged again. “Sometimes it seems as if the dogs are always howling.”

  “I see.” I frowned down at my coffee. “Then that explains it. Yesterday in the café, when I told you of my accident.…”

  “Yes, monsieur. I was glad that you had not harmed the animal. For me, I am an intelligent man and, after all, a dog is a dog. But others would not take it so. The dogs are never molested. They run as they please and none harm them. They are not truly wild but neither are they tame. In bad times they are fed and so it is whispered in very bad times they are even worshipped.” He looked guilty. “I tell you this in confidence, you understand. I would not like the Curé to hear me talk so.”

  I reassured him, trying hard not to laugh, and sat down in the lounge to while away the time. A simple people indeed! A folk tale of howling dogs, a few coincidences, and the result? A form of animal worship. No wonder the Curé did not encourage discussion on the subject and yet, remembering the sudden stillness in the café when I had mentioned almost killing one of the animals, I wondered. The mayor looked in at me, a bundle of papers in his hand.

  “I have ordered wine for you, monsieur. I go now to arrange about your car and in the meantime.…” He gestured with the papers in his hand. “Sometimes we have travelers pass through here, not many but some. Last week we had a visit from a party of Americans, they left many papers and books behind, if you are interested.…” He put them on the table, smiled, bowed, and left. Idly I sorted through the pile.

  The New York Post, a battered copy of the Readers Digest, an assortment of Saturday Evening Posts, Time, Newsweek, a jumble of comic supplements and a few Colliers. I selected a few, asked the trim maid for a bottle of wine, discovered the time of lunch, and walked out into the sunshine to read and drink and sit the day away.

  Or so I thought. Actually what happened was that warmed by the sun and relaxed by the wine I fell into a doze, the papers untouched at my side, and it was only the voice of the mayor calling my name that aroused me to a setting sun and a ravenous appetite.

  * * * *

  After dinner I glanced again at the periodicals. I read them, more to slake the mayor’s obvious curiosity than for my own amusement. The poor man had studied those brightly colored publications for over a week now and had been tantalized by a glimpse of the outside world, a glimpse he could not augment because he could not read a word of English. I gave him a running translation.

  “The Americans say that more of their people than ever are taking holidays on the continent.”

  “So?” He nodded. “That is good, we can do with the money they will bring.” Shyly he touched a four-color print of a semi-nude actress. “And she?”

  “Starring in a new film about the life of the Prophets.” I turned the pages then stopped, looking at the same old symbol. Something about my expression must have revealed the way I felt for the mayor touched the portrayal of the billowing mushroom cloud and s
hook his head.

  “Le bombe atomic, it is not good, no?”

  He was a simple man, the mayor, but he had a basic intelligence equal to any I had previously met. He didn’t argue, he could only have had a smattering of distorted knowledge, and yet he knew with a sure instinct that the atomic bomb was bad. I could have told him a lot more. I could have told him of the decreasing margin of safety caused by the continued release of radioactive particles in the air. I could even have told him of my own illness which had sapped the strength of my mind and body and sent me wandering through the Alps in a vain effort to regain them. Despite myself my eyes fell again to the printed page.

  New tests, of course, and this time with the cobalt bomb. Tiredly I wondered just when the playing with racial death would stop, if it would stop, if anyone could now stop it, and whether it would be best on the long-term view, not to stop it at all.

  Silently the mayor passed me the brandy and, beneath the warm glow of that potent spirit, I shook off a little of my depression.

  “I have news of your car, monsieur. The garage informs me that they will deliver it here for you tomorrow. They are welding the broken part, it is all they can do, and you must have it replaced later.”

  “About Jacque, would…?” He suggested a sum, and looked at me anxiously. He must have misread my expression. “Too much? He has many children, monsieur, but he will take less if you desire it.”

  “It is very reasonable,” I assured and then, because perhaps of a whim, or perhaps of memories of a time when I too had been poor, I made a gesture. “Many children, you say?”

  ”Yes, monsieur, seven.”

  “Then give each of the little ones something for their stocking.” I counted out a thin sheaf of notes. “Here.”

  He took them, his eyes widening. “Monsieur is very kind.”

  I shook my head, dismissing the incident and he, gentleman that he was, made no further mention of it. The twilight had come by then; and, as the mayor went off to attend to my errand, I sat and watched the night slowly thicken over the hills, filling the valley with deep, purple shadows and dimming the outlines of trees and buildings so that they seemed to take on an air of fantastic unreality as though seen through a film of disturbed water.

  * * * *

  The mayor returned and we sat as the maid lit the lamps, drinking and smoking, sitting and thinking and, beneath the timeless spell of the place, I relaxed in a way I had not known for too long. It was still early when yawning, I went up to the big room with the incredibly soft bed. I fell asleep almost at once, a deep, dreamless slumber and woke, sweating, my ears strained to the monotonous howling of dogs.

  I have never heard dogs howl so loud or so long.

  I lay trying to isolate the sounds. A sharp barking came from the north, a form of prelude to a concerted howling from the south and, softened by distance, the frenzied yelping of dogs to the east and west ringed the village with discordant sound. It went on and on, so that, lying in the darkness of the room, I imagined brass-throated animals standing all around me and howling, yelping, barking, yapping, pups and dogs, bitches and litters, all rending the peace of the night with their desperate urgency. Finally, unable to sleep and unable to rest, I rose and, dressing, went downstairs.

  The mayor was already awake. He and the entire household had congregated in the lounge and, through the windows, I could see light streaming from the open doors of the village. I glanced at my wristwatch, it was past midnight, and such activity from people who started their work with the dawn was unusual.

  “Monsieur!” The mayor came towards me his hands fluttering before him. “I had hoped that you would not awake.”

  “I couldn’t help it. The dogs.…”

  “Ah, yes, the dogs.” He shrugged. “Never have I known them howl so. Last night was bad, and the night before was not normal, but tonight!” He paused, listening, and in the silence the howling seemed to lash against the houses and echo from the hills. “No one remembers them howling so. Not even Pierre, and he is so old that he remembers the armies of Napoleon, or so, at least, he claims.” He smiled at his own jest. “Marie will make coffee and there is brandy on the table.” He paused again, listening to the ghastly sounds around us, and he shivered a little. “It is bad,” he said soberly. “Very bad. Me, I am an intelligent man and I do not believe in the legend, but still it is bad.”

  I knew just what he meant. Even I, the product of modern civilization, could sense the atmosphere that had fallen over the village. To these people, immersed in their legend, isolated in their hills, the howling must have brought the fear of the unknown. The dogs warned of impending danger, but which danger? Where from? When? I could guess how they must be feeling.

  “You must pardon me, monsieur.” The mayor had struggled into his policeman’s uniform, the pistol at his belt in striking contrast to the natural benignity of his face. “I am needed outside. Already the church is full of those saying their prayers and there is great restlessness in the streets. I must calm them.” He shook his head. “Simple people, monsieur, at times almost like children, but who can blame them for that? Always before the dogs have howled with reason and now, with such howling, the reason must be grave indeed. Your pardon, monsieur.”

  He bowed with courtly grace and, as he opened the door, the yelping discord from outside sounded with redoubled urgency.

  I sat down and tried to forget the howling. I found one of the American magazines and opened it and, for some reason, it opened at the mushroom cloud symbol which had ruined my life. I was staring at it when Jacque burst into the room.

  I had seen him before, a squat, brown, stocky man. A man who, I thought, would have never known extremes of emotion. Now he was panting, his eyes rolling with fear, his dun-colored smock rising and falling in time with his breath.

  “Monsieur,” he gasped. “You must come with me. I have a horse and my cart. We can reach your car by dawn.”

  “Leave?” I shook my head. “Impossible!”

  “You must, monsieur.” His urgency was contagious. “Listen to the Dogs of Hannoie!” He paused and we could hear them as though a thousand dogs were howling in the street outside. “It is peril, monsieur. I know these things, I know them here.” He struck his breast. “You were kind to me and to my little ones, and, for that, I do this thing. Hurry, monsieur. Hurry!”

  His fear, as I have said, was contagious. Abruptly I ceased trying to be the sophisticate and became almost wholly primitive. I ran upstairs and fetched my bag. I dropped money onto the bed and ran downstairs again to where Jacque was waiting by his nervous horses. I climbed into the cart and we moved off through the village, passing little knots of men and women who stared after us with wide, frightened eyes.

  “Your wife? Your children?”

  “At church, monsieur, the Bon Dieu will protect them.”

  He said no more after that but sat, hunched over the reins, controlling the sweating horses with sure fingers, at times mumbling a prayer and crossing himself whenever the howling grew louder.

  And so I left Hannoie, sitting in a jolting cart driven by a superstitious peasant, listening to the howling of dogs grow slowly fainter in the distance, the nerve-jarring howling which, for more than two hundred years had warned the village of impending peril.

  And it wasn’t until I had waved goodbye to Jacque and had recovered my car and resumed my journey that I realized that I was still in possession of the American magazine. I read it, finally, two days after I had left Hannoie and it took little time to work out the different times and the correct dates.

  The tests had taken place—and the dogs had howled.

  Coincidence?

  Or were they warning, not merely Hannoie, but the world?

  There is only one way to find out.

  WARLOCK, by Gordon Stables [Poem]

  The author once wrote the following lines in answer to a Highland friend, who enquired through the medium of a well-known journal, if he knew the Aberdeen terrier. The verses a
re truly descriptive of this brave breed of dog; whether they possess any other merit or not is very little matter.

  I ken the Terrier o’ the North,

  I ken the towsy tyke;

  Ye’ll search frae Tweed to Sussex shore,

  But never find his like.

  For pluck and pith, and jaws and teeth,

  And hair like heather cowes (stems);

  Wi’ body lang and low, and strang,

  At hame on cairns (heaps of stone and rubbish) and knowes.

  He’ll face a foumart (polecat), draw a brock (badger),

  Kill rats and whitterits (weasels) by the score;

  He’ll bang tod-lowrie (the fox) frae his hole,

  Or fight him at his door.

  He’ll range for days and ne’er be tired,

  O’er mountain, moor, or fell;

  Fair-play, I think, the dear wee chap

  Would fecht the de’il himsel’.

  And yet beneath his rugged coat,

  A heart beats warm and true;

  He’ll help to herd the sheep and kye,

  And mind the lammies (young lambs) too.

  Then see him at the ingle side,

  Wi’ bairnies round him laughin’;

  Was ever dog sae pleased as he,

  Sae fond o’ fun and daffin? (Joking)

  But gie’s your han’, my Hielan man,

  In troth! we manna sever;

  Then here’s to Scotia’s best o’ dogs,

  Our towsy (rough and unkempt in coat) tyke forever.

  SPANIEL AND NEWFOUNDLAND DOGS, by Edward Jesse

  A French writer has boldly affirmed, that with the exception of women there is nothing on earth so agreeable, or so necessary to the comfort of man, as the dog. This assertion may readily be disputed, but still it will be allowed that man, deprived of the companionship and services of the dog, would be a solitary and, in many respects, a helpless being. Let us look at the shepherd, as the evening closes in and his flock is dispersed over the almost inaccessible heights of mountains; they are speedily collected by his indefatigable dog—nor do his services end here: he guards either the flock or his master’s cottage by night, and a slight caress, and the coarsest food, satisfy him for all his trouble. The dog performs the services of a horse in the more northern regions; while in Cuba and some other hot countries, he has been the scourge and terror of the runaway negroes. In the destruction of wild beasts, or the less dangerous stag, or in attacking the bull, the dog has proved himself to possess pre-eminent courage. In many instances he has died in the defense of his master. He has saved him from drowning, warned him of approaching danger, served him faithfully in poverty and distress, and if deprived of sight has gently led him about. When spoken to, he tries to hold conversation with him by the movement of his tail or the expression of his eyes. If his master wants amusement in the field or wood, he is delighted to have an opportunity of procuring it for him; if he finds himself in solitude, his dog will be a cheerful and agreeable companion, and maybe, when death comes, the last to forsake the grave of his beloved master.