Richard Adams - The Plague Dogs

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Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is

coverless, it may have been repotted to the publisher as "unsold or destroyed"

and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of

Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of

Canada Limited, Toronto

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual

persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

ISBN 0-449-21182-7

This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Alternate Selection of the Literary Guild

Grateful acknowledgment is made to A & C Black Ltd, London, for permission to

reprint a condensed extract from Who's Who.

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Fawcett Crest Edition: March 1979

First Ballantine Books Edition: November 1983

Nineteenth Printing: July 1993

To Elizabeth, with whom I first discovered the Lake District

TJ}«

yap

y 8o£a nai j/s dv or' fXa^urrof aper^s iv -rolt Zpatvt icAe'os $. —

Thucydides, ii. 45, § 2

QUEEN : I will try the forces Of these thy compounds on such creatures as

We count not worth the hanging, but none human ...

CORNELIUS: Your Highness

Shall from this practice but make hard your heart. —Shakespeare, Cymbeline

There is in this passage nothing that much requires a note, yet I cannot

forbear to push it forward into observation. The thought would probably have

been more amplified, had our author lived to be shocked with such experiments

as have been published in later times, by a race of men that have practised

tortures without pity, and related them without shame, and are yet suffered to

erect their heads among human beings.

—Dr. Johnson

Striding Edge, Htlvellyn

Maps in the text

Lawson Park to Levers Hause 65

Levers Hause to Brown Haw 97

Wanderings in Dunnerdale 169

Across Country 268

On the Helvellyn Range 281

Return to Levers Hause 346

Levers Hause to Ulpha 381

Flight to the Sea 475

To My American

In 1715, when the Scotch Jacobites rose against the newly crowned English King

George I, the citizens of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, near the English-Scotch border,

shut the city's gates against the southward-moving rebels, thus contributing

to their defeat. The disgruntled rebels nicknamed them "Geordies" (the North

Country pronunciation of "Georgie") and this became the term for any

inhabitant of Tyneside, or of Northumberland and Durham generally, as well as

for the dialect spoken there.

Of all dialects spoken in the British Isles, Geordie, to a foreign visitor, is

the hardest to understand. Listen to Tyneside workingmen talking among

themselves and in all probability you'll understand hardly a word. This is

largely because, as recently as a thousand years ago, this area of England—the

Scottish border—formed part of the Danish Viking realm. Many Geordie words

(e.g., hyem, meaning home) are Scandinavian, and several are entirely

different from their English counterparts. (E.g., hoy = throw; darts — mud,

dirt; lum — chimney etc.) It is almost another language.

In this book the "tod" (fox), who is a wanderer, speaks Upper Tyneside, a

rural form of Geordie, in contradistinction to the farmers and other

inhabitants of Dunnerdale and Coniston in the Lake District (where the story

takes place), who speak North Lancashire (an easier dialect to understand). In

view of the formidable problems, for Americans, of understanding Geordie, even

on the printed page, the tod's speech has been a good deal simplified in this

American edition. However, to alter it entirely would have been to take much

of the salt out of the tod's talk and character. Several Geordie words have

therefore been retained. The following is a list of those not likely to be

readily comprehensible to American readers.

(ID

Asset!: A common exclamation of emphasis, roughly equivalent to "Oh, boy!" or

"I'm here to tell you!"

By: Another common exclamation of emphasis. E.g., "By, I'll tell thee it were

cold!" This is simply an oath with the oath left out, e.g., "By (God!)," much

as Americans sometimes tone down "goddam" to, e.g., "golddurn."

Canny: A much-used adjective, with many meanings. Clever, courageous (e.g.,

"canny lad"). Useful, welcome, helpful (e.g., "a canny drop of rain"). Careful

(e.g., "Ca' canny"—take care). Numerous (e.g., "a canny few sheep"), etc.

Clogged: Fastened.

Fash: Trouble, upset (verb), e.g., "Dinna fash yersel' " —don't upset

yourself.

Femmer: Faint-hearted, lacking in energy, courage, or drive.

Fyeul: Fool.

Haddaway!: Go away! Get away! Equivalent to "Get the hell out of it!" but also

used figuratively, as equivalent to "What rubbish!" E.g., "Haddaway, ye fond

fyeul!"

Hause: The neck or dip of lower-lying land between two peaks in a range; the

"band" (as they sometimes call it) connecting one hilltop and the next.

Hemmel: Shed.

Hinny (also marrer): Geordie contains several words meaning mate or friend,

and these are used constantly in colloquial speech. In conversation, a Geordie

continually addresses almost anyone (not only personal friends) as "lad,"

"hinny," or "marrer." E.g., "Why ay, hinny" = "Yes, of course, my friend."

"What fettle the day, marrer?" = "How are you today, pal?" Interestingly, one

of these many "pal" terms is "butty," which crossed the Atlantic and has

become the American "buddy."

Woo; How.

Howwayl: A gentler form of Haddaway! Haddaway! is critical, even derisive. It

means "You go away!" (not me). Howway, though it can certainly be used

sharply, means no more than "Let's go!" (i.e., you and I). Also a jovial

greeting. When President Carter landed at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in May 1977, his

first words to the waiting Geordie

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crowd were "Howway, tha lads!" (i.e., "How are you, lads?"). Naturally, they

were delighted.

Hyem: Home.

Lonnin (really fanning, but in Geordie ultimate g's are elided): An unmade

lane leading from a farm to the nearest road. A lonnin may be anything from a

few yards to half a mile long, or more.

Lugs: Ears. (As in "Wind? By, sennuf te blaa yer lugs off!")

Marrer: See Hinny, above.

Mazer; One who amazes; a winner, a smasher. A common term of praise and

commendation. E.g., "Yon Raquel Welch—by, mind, she's weel-stacked, a reet

mazer!"

fleet: Night.

Noo: Now.

Reet: Right.

W9 (sometimes wuh): We.

Weel: Well.

Whin: Gorse. A large, gold-flowering bush, growing wild and often profusely on

waste land. It is covered with very sharp thorns, and a thicket of gorse is

virtually impenetrable to humans and to larger animals. A fugitive fox, dog,

cat, etc., may well leave traces "clagged to the whin."

Won Our.

You?: Ewe, a female sheep.

(13)

'Twos such a shifter, that if truth were known, Death was half glad when he

had got him down).

Preface

The entry to the Seathwaite coppermine shaft was blocked up some years ago,

though the cavern at Brown Haw is still open. Otherwise the topography of the

story is, to the best of my knowledge, correct.

The place-names are those in use by local people, and in the few cases where

these differ from the names printed on maps, I have preferred local use. Thus

the story speaks of "Wreynus," not "Wrynose" Pass, of "Bootterilket" rather

than "Brotherilkeld" and of "Low Door" rather than "Lodore." (The poet Southey

romanticized the spelling of what is, surely, a local name in plain English.)

Similarly, words like lonnin and getherin are spelt phonetically, since no

Lakelander would speak of a "loaning" or of "gathering sheep." The old

genitive // (see, e.g., King Lear, I, iv:216-17) is commonly used throughout

the Lakeland, not having been superseded by the modern its.

In effect, nearly all the pleasant people in the book are real, while all the

unpleasant people are not. For example, Dr. Boycott, Digby Driver, Ann Moss

and the Under Secretary are fictitious and bear no resemblance to anyone known

to me. But Dennis Williamson, Robert Lindsay, Jack and Mary Longmire, Phyllis

and Vera Daw-son and several other inhabitants of Seathwaite and the

surrounding neighbourhood are as real as Scafell Pike, though fortunately

neither Dennis nor Robert has ever had to contend in reality with the

activities of Rowf, nor has Phyllis Dawson ever found him in her yard at dawn.

The story is in one respect idealized. Things change. Jack and Mary Longmire

are no longer to be found at the Newfield. Tough old Bill Routledge of Long

House is dead (a loss to the valley which recalled vividly Milton's lines on

Hobson, the university carrier,

(14)

Gerald Gray has been gone some time now from Brough-ton, though the "Manor" is

still there; and Roy Greenwood has moved on from the parsonage at Ulpha. John

Awdry was, indeed, a brave parachutist, but long ago, in the Second World War.

There never was, in fact, a time when all these people were to be found doing

their thing simultaneously. I have simply included them in the story as they

are best remembered.

There is no such place in the Lake District as Animal Research (Scientific and

Experimental). In reality, no single testing or experimental station would

cover so wide a range of work as Animal Research. However, every "experiment"

described is one which has actually been carried out on animals somewhere. In

this connection I acknowledge in particular my debt to two books: Victims of

Science by Richard Ryder, and Animal Liberation by Peter Singer.

With the tod's Upper Tyneside dialect, I received invaluable help from Mr. and

Mrs. Scott Dobson.

The diagrams were drawn by Mr. A. Wainwright, already well known for his fine

series of pictorial guides to the Lakeland Fells. I seriously doubt whether an

author can ever have received more generous help and co-operation from an

illustrator.

Sir Peter Scott and Ronald Lockley are, of course, very real indeed. I am most

grateful for their good sportsmanship in allowing themselves to appear in the

story. The views attributed to them have their entire approval.

Finally, my thanks are due to Mrs. Margaret Apps and Mrs. Janice Kneale, whose

conscientious and painstaking work in typing the manuscript was of the highest

standard.

(15)

THE PLAGUE DOGS

FIT 1

Friday the 15th October

The water in the metal tank slopped sideways and a treacly ripple ran along

the edge, reached the corner and died away. Under the electric lights the

broken surface was faceted as a cracked mirror, a watery harlequin's coat of

tilting planes and lozenges in movement, one moment dull as stone and the next

glittering like scalpels. Here and there, where during the past two hours the

water had been fouled, gilded streaks of urine and floating, spawn-like

bubbles of saliva rocked more turgidly, in a way suggestive—if anyone present

had been receptive to such suggestion—of an illusion that this was not water,

but perhaps some thicker fluid, such as those concoctions of jam and stale

beer which are hung up in glass jars to drown wasps, or the dark puddles

splashed through by hooves and gum-boots on the concrete floors of Lakeland

cattle sheds.

Mr. Powell, his note-pad ready in hand, leant across the flanged and

overhanging edge of the tank, wiped his glasses on his sleeve and looked down

the two or three feet to the contents below.

"I think it's packing in, chief," he said. "Oh, no, wait a jiffy." He paused,

drew back the cuff of his white coat to avoid another, though weak, splash and

then bent over

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the water once more. "No, I was right first time—it is going. D'you want it

out now?"

"When it definitely sinks and stops moving," answered Dr. Boycott, without

looking up from the papers on the table. Although there was in the room no

draught or air movement whatever, he had placed the two graphs and the log

sheet on top of one another and was using the heavy stop-watch as a

paperweight to ensure that they remained where he intended them to remain. "I

thought I'd made it clear the other day," he added, in a level, polite tone,

"what the precise moment of removal should be."

"But you don't want it to drown, do you?" asked Mr. Powell, a shade of anxiety

creeping into his voice. "If

it—"

"No!" interjected Dr. Boycott quickly, as though to check him before he could

say more. "It's nothing to do with want," he went on after a moment. "It's not

intended to drown—not this time any way; and I think probably not the next

time either—depending on results, of

course."

There were further sounds of splashing from inside the tank, but faint, like

metallic echoes, rather as though a ghost were trying, but failing, to come

down and trouble the waters (and indeed, as far as the occupant was concerned,

any sort of miracle, being unscientific, was entirely out of the question).

Then a choking, bubbling sound was followed by silence, in which the rasping

call of a carrion crow came clearly from the fell outside.

Mr. Powell stood up, walked across the concrete floor and took down a

shepherd's crook which was hanging on a peg. Sitting down once more on the

edge of the tank, he began unthinkingly to tap with the butt of the crook the

rhythm of a current popular song.

"Er—please, Stephen," said Dr. Boycott, with a faint smile.

"Oh, sorry."

The large mongrel dog in the tank was continuing to struggle with its front

paws, but so feebly now that its body, from neck to rump, hung almost

vertically in the water. The spaniel-like ears were outspread, floating on

either side of the head like wings, but the eyes were

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submerged and only the black, delicately lyrated nose broke the surface. As

Mr. Powell watched, this too went under, rose again for an instant and then

sank. The body, foreshortened by refraction as it descended, seemed to move

sideways from its former floating position, finally appearing on the bottom of

the tank as an almost flattened mass and disturbing round its sides, as it

settled, little clouds of dirty silt. Dr. Boycott clicked the stopwatch. Mr.

/Powell, looking quickly back to see whether he had noticed the silt (for his

chief was particular about the cleanliness of equipment), made a mental note

to insist to Tyson, the caretaker and head-keeper, that the tank should be

emptied and cleaned tomorrow. Then, allowing for the refraction with the skill

of a certain amount of practice, he plunged in the crook, engaged the dog's

collar and began to drag it to the surface. After a moment, however, he

faltered, dropped the crook and stood up, wincing, while the body subsided

once more to the floor of the tank.

"Christ, it's heavy," he said. "Oh, no, chief, I don't mean it's any heavier

than usual, of course, only I pulled a muscle in my wrist last night and it's

been giving me a spot of gyppo. Never mind, never say die, here goes."

"I'm sorry," said Dr. Boycott. "Let me help you. I wouldn't want you to suffer

avoidably."

Together they pulled on the crook, raised the heavy, pelt-sodden body head-

first, broke the surface tension with a concerted heave and laid the inert dog

on a foam-rubber mattress beside the tank. Here it resembled an enormous,

drowned fly—very black, with a compressed shape something like that of a

raindrop; and smaller than life, on account of a kind of collapse of the limbs

and other excrescences into the central mass of the trunk. Mr. Powell began

resuscitation; and after a little the dog vomited water and commenced to gasp,

though its eyes remained closed.

"Right, that'll do," said Dr. Boycott briskly. "Now the usual tests, please,

Stephen—pulse, blood sample, body temperature, reflexes—the various things

we've been work-iag on—and then plot the graphs. I'll be back in about

minutes. I'm just going over to the Christiaan

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Barnard block to learn what I can about this afternoon's brain surgery work.

And please don't smoke while I'm gone," he added, mildly but firmly. "You'll

appreciate that that could have an effect on results."

"All right to put its muzzle on, chief?" asked Mr. Powell. "Only this one,

seven-three-two, 's been known to be a right sod at times and it might come

round enough to start in on me—sudden-like, you know."

"Yes, there's no objection to that," replied Dr. Boycott, picking up the stop-

watch.

"And the time, chief?" enquired Mr. Powell in a rather sycophantic tone, as

though the time were likely to be something to Dr. Boycott's personal credit.

"Two hours, twenty minutes, fifty-three and two fifths seconds," answered Dr.

Boycott, "Without looking at the papers, I think that's about six and a half

minutes longer than Wednesday's test and about twelve minutes longer than the

test before that. It's rather remarkable how regular the increase apears to

be. At this rate the graph will work out as a straight incline, although

obviously we must reach a diminution somewhere. There must come a point where

the additional endurance induced by the dog's expectation of removal is

counterbalanced by the limits of

its physical capacity."

He paused for a moment and then said, "Now, there's another thing I'd like you

to see to, please. I forgot to mention it this morning, but Cambridge are

anxious for us to go ahead at once with the social deprivation experiment. We

have a monkey set aside for that, haven't we?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty certain we have," replied Mr. Powell.

"I thought you told me we definitely had?" Dr. Boycott's voice was a shade

sharper.

"Yes, that's right," said Mr. Powell hastily. "We

have."

"Good. Well, it can go into the cylinder this evening.

Now you're sure that that cylinder excludes all light?"

"Yep. No light, restricted movement, adequate ventilation, wire mesh floor,

faeces and urine fall through. It's

all checked."

"Right, well, start it off, keep it under twice daily observation and, of

course, mark the particulars up in a

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log. The total number of days should be kept up to date day by day, on a slate

beside the cylinder. That's a matter of courtesy to the Director. He'll

probably want to see it."

"Where's it to be kept, chief?" asked Mr. Powell.

"It doesn't matter, as long as it's somewhere where you can readily keep an

eye on it," answered Dr. Boycott. "I suggest, near where you normally work, as

long as it's not anywhere near any other animals. There should be silence, as

far as possible, and no organic smells, of course. That's part of the

deprivation, you understand."

"How about the balance-cupboard in Lab. 4, chief?" asked Mr. Powell. "Plenty

of space in there at the moment and quiet as the grave."

"Yes, that'll do," said Dr. Boycott. Don't forget to tell Tyson about feeding,

and keep me informed how it goes on. We'll aim at—well, say—er—forty-five

days."

"Is that the lot, chief?"

"Yes," said Dr. Boycott, with his hand on the door. "But since it seems

necessary to mention it, you'd better see that this tank's cleaned out.

There's silt on the bottom which shouldn't be there."

It was only after a considerable administrative and political battle that the

site for Animal Research, Surgical and Experimental (A.R.S.E.), had been

approved at Lawson Park, a former fell farm on the east side of Coniston

Water. As a Departmental project the scheme had, of course, attracted deemed

planning permission, but following Circular 100 consultation both the County

Council and the Lakeland National Park Planning Board had objected to it so

strongly that the responsible Under Secretary at the Department of the

Environment (having, no doubt, a vivid mental picture of himself in the chair

at any confrontation discussions that might be arranged to try to resolve the

matter in Whitehall) had taken very little time to decide that in all the

circumstances a public local inquiry would be the most appropriate course. The

inquiry had lasted for two weeks and at various times during the y»oceedings

the Inspector (who in his private hours lulged a taste for seventeenth-century

English history)

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%v :>;^^-^fe- -*•»•-.•. -; • • ••-•. ;:-

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r.^^^SV^^V^.V-^^^gj.^- -.'C.,;,;, ;-L,

^^fe^'v-^Sr^-'^^'^'fe^^

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The deputy

county clerk had cross-examined the Ministry experts with brilliant

penetration on the precise extent of the urgency and need to site yet another

Government project in a national park. The Secretary of the Countryside

Commission, subpoenaed by the Planning Board, had been virtually compelled to

give evidence against the Department into which he was hoping to be promoted

to Under Secretary. The Council for the Protection of Rural England had

greatly assisted the case in favour of the project by testifying with

passionate emotion that nobody ought to be allowed to build anything anywhere

any more. A Mr. Finward, a retired merchant naval officer, who occupied a

cottage on the fell not far from the site, had threatened the Inspector with

bodily injury unless he undertook to report against the proposal. And a Mr.

Prance-body, who testified amongst other things that he had discovered the

truth of the British Israelite theory while exploring the Derbyshire caves,

had read in evidence most of a sixty-three-page submission, before the long-

suffering Inspector had ruled it to be irrelevant and inadmissible and Mr.

Prancebody, violently objecting, had been somewhat eponymously removed by the

police. There was,, in fact, scarcely a dull moment throughout the

proceedings. Of particular interest had been the evidence of the R.S.P.C.A.,

who were emphatic that they favoured the scheme, on the grounds that the

experiments and surgery would redound to the benefit of animals in general.

After the inquiry the Inspector, pressed by the Deputy Secretary of the

Department to complete his publish able report as quickly as possible

(regardless of whatever length of time he might need to make a good job of

it), had recommended against planning approval for the site at Lawson Park and

consequently against the compulsory purchase order on the property. The

Secretary of State, the Right Hon. William Harbottle (known to his

Departmental civil servants as "Hot Bottle Bill" on account of Ms chronically

cold feet), had succeeded in getting the matter up to Cabinet Committee,

following which a de-to approve against the Inspector's recommendation been

traded with the Home Secretary and the Min-" of Labour, sub rosa, for

agreement to a new open

prison in Worcestershire, the head of the Chief Alkali Inspector on a charger

and the tail of a young lady named Miss Mandy Pryce-Morgan, who was currently

dispensing her favours to certain of the Front Bench.

Upon the announcement of the Secretary of State's decision, public reaction

had been generally adverse. Under fire, Hot Bottle Bill had stood his ground

like a good 'un, manfully ensuring that the Parliamentary attacks were

invariably answered by one of his junior colleagues, Mr. Basil Forbes

(otherwise known as Errol the Peril, on account of his unpredictable

imprudence). Eventually brought to bay by Mr. Bernard Bugwash, Q.C., the

Member for Lakeland Central, he had, on the night, brilliantly contrived to be

unavoidably absent and Errol the Peril had spoken for six minutes flat. The

next morning a much better stick with which to beat the Government had

appeared in the form of the report of the Sablon Committee, which recommended

that more public money ought to be spent on medical research. Since the

Government, keen to reduce public expenditure, were reluctant to accept this

recommendation, the Opposition had naturally supported it: and since support

for Sablon was virtually incompatible with any further attack on the Lawson

Park decision, it was generally conceded that Hot Bottle Bill had contrived to

survive yet another cliff-hanging instalment of his career. Lawson Park passed

into Government hands; and the celebrated firm of architects, Sir Conham

Goode, Son and Howe, were commissioned to design the buildings.

It was generally agreed that these blended very well into their surroundings—

the open hillside and oak copses, the darker patches of pine and larch, the

dry stone walls, small green fields and knife-bright, cloud-reflecting lake

below. Sir Conham had retained the old farmhouse and outbuildings, converting

them into a luncheon room, common room and offices for the resident staff.

Local stone and slate had been used to face and roof the laboratories, the

Christiaan Barnard surgical wing and the stables, while for the livestock

block Lord Plynlimmon, the well-known photographer and aviary expert, had been

co-opted to design a single, large building, comprising under one roof more

than twenty various sheds and rooms equipped with

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cages. The establishment had been opened on midsummer day, in pouring Lakeland

rain, by Baroness Hilary Blunt, the former all-time high in Permanent

Secretaries, and the flow of letters to The Times had trickled, faltered and

finally ceased.

"And now," said the newly appointed Director to Dr. Boycott, as the first

consignments of dogs, guinea-pigs, rats and rabbits came rolling up the

smooth, steeply gradiented tarmac in the station's three distinctively painted

blue vans, "now let's hope we'll be left in peace to get on with some useful

work. There's been a lot too much emotion spent on this place so far, and not

enough scientific detachment."

The black mongrel, its coat almost dried, the muzzle removed and a flexible

rubber oxygen pipe fixed close to its half-open mouth, was lying on a pile of

straw in one corner of a wire pen at the far end of the canine shed. A label

on the pen door bore the same number—732—as that stamped on the dog's green

plastic collar, while below this was typed: SURVIVAL EXPECTATION CONDITIONING:

(WATER IMMERSION): DR. j. R. BOYCOTT.

The shed comprised, in all, forty pens, arranged in two double rows. Most of

these contained dogs, though one or two were empty. With the majority of the

pens, all four sides consisted of stout wire netting, so that for the

occupants of these there were three party walls and three canine neighbours,

except where an adjacent cage happened to be empty. The pen of seven-three-

two, however, being at the end of Row 4 and also at the end of the block, had

one brick wall, which was, in fact, part of the periphery wall of the building

itself. Since the adjacent pen in Row 4 happened to be empty, seven-three-two

had only one neighbour—the dog in the back-to-back cage in Row 3^ afeo

situated against the brick wall. This dog was not at the moment to be seen,

and was evidently in its kennel (for each pen contained a kennel), though

there were

is of occupation—a well-gnawed rubber ball in one ler, a yellowing blade-bone

with no meat remaining t, several fresh scratches along the brickwork, some

ire, a half-empty water-bowl and, of course, a label

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on the door: 815. BRAIN SURGERY, GROUP D. MR. s. w. c.

FORTESCUE.

Over the whole interior of the shed lay a pervading smell of dog, together

with the sharp smells of clean straw and of concrete brushed down with water

and Jeyes fluid. Through the high-placed, bottom-hung hoppers, however, most

of which were open, other smells came blowing, borne on a fresh wind—bracken

and bog myrtle, sheep shit and cow dung, oak leaves, nettles and the lake at

damp nightfall. The evening was growing dark and the few electric bulbs—one at

each end of each row—seemed, as the twilight deepened, less to take the place

of the declining day than to form isolated patches of yellow light, too hard

to be melted by the gentle dusk, from which the nearest dogs turned their eyes

away. It was surprisingly silent in the block. Here and there a dog scuffled

in its straw. One, a brown retriever with a great scar across its throat,

whined from time to time in sleep, while a mongrel whippet with three legs and

a bandaged stump stumbled clumsily round and against the sides of its pen with

a soft, wiry sound not unlike that produced by a jazz drummer with brushes. No

dog, however, of the thirty-seven in the block, seemed lively enough or

sufficiently disturbed or stimulated to give tongue, so that the quiet noises

of evening flickered plainly in their ears, as sunlight twinkling through

silver-birch leaves flickers back and forth in the eyes of a baby lying in its

cot: the distant call of a shepherd, "Coom bye, coom bye 'ere!'*; a passing

cart down on the Coniston road; the lapping (just perceptible to dogs'

hearing) of the lake water on the stones; the tug of the wind in rough grass

tussocks; and the quick, croaking "Go back, go back, go back" of a grouse

somewhere

in the heather.

After a while, when the October night had almost completely fallen outside,

there came a sharp clawing and scratching of straw from inside the kennel of

eight-one-five. This continued for some time, with a sound rather as though

the occupant, whoever he might be, were trying to burrow through his kennel

floor. Finally, indeed, there were distinct noises of gnawing and splintering,

followed by several minutes* silence. Then a smooth-

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haired, black-and-white head—the head of a fox terrier— emerged from the door

of the kennel. The ears cocked, listening, the sniffing muzzle was raised for

some moments, and finally the entire dog came out, shook itself, lapped a

little water from its tin bowl, raised a leg against the brickwork, and then

made its way across to the party wire separating it from the next pen.

The terrier certainly presented a strange appearance, for at first sight it

seemed to be wearing a kind of black cap, causing it rather to resemble one of

those animals in children's comic papers which, while the draughtsman may have

given it the head of a cat, dog, bear, mouse or what you will, nevertheless

wears clothes and may even go so far as to possess inappropriate anatomical

features (elbow-joints, for instance, or hands). Indeed, to the extent that a

cap is a head-covering, it was wearing a black cap, though this was in actual

function a surgical dressing made of stout oilskin and fastened securely to

the head with cross-bands of sticking-plaster in such a way as to prevent the

dog from scratching and worrying at the antiseptic lint beneath. The whole

appliance, lozenge-shaped, was tilted rakishly over the right eye, so that the

terrier, in order to see straight in front, was obliged to incline its head to

the right—a mannerism which gave it a rather knowing look. Having reached the

wire, it rubbed one ear against it as though to try to loosen the dressing,

but almost at once desisted, wincing, and crouched down close to where the

large, black dog was lying on the other side.

"Rowf?" said the terrier. "Rowf? They've taken away all the rhododendrons and

just left the maggots. O spin like a ball, isn't it dark? There's just this

one star shining down my throat, that's all. You know, my master—"

The black dog sprang to its feet, and as it did so the flow of oxygen from the

pipe cut out automatically. Teeth bared, eyes glaring, ears laid flat, it

backed against its kennel, crouching into the straw and barking as though

beset on every side.

4Rowf! Rowf! Grrrrrr-owf!"

ks it barked, its head turned quickly this way and that,

ting an assailant.

(29)

"Grrrrr-owf! Rowf! Rowf!" All over the block other dogs took up their cues.

"I'd fight you all right, if I could only get at you!" "Why don't you shut

up?"

"D'you think you're the only one who hates this damned place?"

"Why can't we have some peace?"

"Ow! Oow! That's the damned dog that wants to be a

wolf!"

"Rowf!" said the terrier quickly. "Rowf, lie down before the lorry comes—I

mean, before the leaves catch fire! I'm falling as fast as I can. Be quiet and

I'll reach you."

Rowf barked once more, stared frenziedly round, then slowly lowered his head,

came up to the wire and began to sniff at the other's black nose pressed

between the mesh. A few moments more and he lay down, rubbing his big, rough-

coated head backwards and forwards against one of the stanchions. Gradually

the hubbub in the draughty block subsided.

"You smell of the metal water," said the terrier. "You've been in the metal

water again, so I tell, so I smell, well

well."

There was a long pause. At last Rowf said, "The water."

"You smell like the water in my drinking-bowl. Is it like that? The bottom's

dirty, anyway. I can smell that, even if my head is done up in chicken-wire."

"What?"

"My head's done up in chicken-wire, I said. The white-coats fastened it all

round."

"When did they? I can't see it."

"Oh, no," replied the terrier, as though brushing aside some quite

unreasonable objection, "of course you can't see it!"

"The water," said Rowf again.

"How did you get out? Do you drink it or does the sun dry it up or what?"

"I can't remember," answered Rowf. "Get out—" He dropped his head into the

straw and began biting and licking at the pad of one fore-foot. After some

time he said, "Get out—I never remember getting out. They must pull me out, I

suppose. Why can't you let me alone, Snitter?"

(30)

"Perhaps you're not out at all. You're drowned. We're dead. We haven't been

born. There's a mouse—a mouse that sings—I'm bitten to the brains and it never

stops raining—not in this eye anyway."

Rowf snarled at him. "Snitter, you're mad! Of course I'm alive! Leave your

face there if you don't believe me—"

Snitter jerked his head back just in time.

"Yes, I'm mad, sure as a lorry, I'm terribly sorry. The road—where it

happened—the road was black and white —that's me, you know—"

He stopped as Rowf rolled over in the straw and lay once more as though

exhausted.

"The water, not the water again," muttered Rowf. "Not the water, not tomorrow—

" He opened his eyes and leapt up as though stung, yelping, "The whitecoats!

The whitecoats!"

This time there were no barks of protest, the cry being too frequent and

common throughout the shed to attract remark.

Snitter returned to the wire and Rowf sat on his haunches and looked at him.

"When I lie down and shut my eyes the water comes suddenly. Then when I get up

it isn't there."

"Like a rainbow," answered Snitter. "They melt—I watched one once. My master

threw a stick and I ran after it, along the river bank. That was—Oh, dear!"

After a few moments he went on, "Why don't you melt? They'd never be able to

put you in the water then."

Rowf growled.

"You're always talking about your master. I never had a master, but I know

what a dog's business is as well as you do."

"Rowf, listen, we must get across the road. Get across the road before—"

"A dog stands firm," said Rowf sharply. "A dog never refuses whatever a man

requires of him. That's what a dog's for. So if they say the water—if they say

go in the water, I'll—" He broke off, cowering. "I tell you, I can't stand

that water any more—"

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