The Plague Dogs Read online

"Whatever do you mean?"

  But Rowf, sniffing and licking at the great, stitched trench running clear across Snitter's skull, said nothing more. Snitter, too, lay instinctively silent, while Rowf, treating him as though he were a stranger, gradually brought himself to terms with this grim change in his friend's appearance. At last he said, "You say the tobacco man set it on fire?"

  "I don't know--I was asleep when it happened. It often feels like that. And once I fell in, you know. If it wasn't for the chicken-wire--" Snitter got hesitantly to his feet. "It's not all that strange--not really. Holes--after all--I've seen holes in roofs. And cars--they sometimes open them, too. And there are pipes, did you know, running along under the roads? Outside our gate, men came once and dug down--you could see them. Of course, that was before the lorry came."

  "Time w' wuh gettin' doon belaa! Ne doot ye'll be hunger'd like me." The tod ran a few yards, then turned and looked back at the two dogs lying on the stones.

  "Which way?" asked Rowf. "How far down? That yow seemed to be falling for ever. I never even heard it hit. Is it a long way round to the bottom?"

  "Nay, nay. Roond to the side an' doon. A canny bit of a way."

  Yet even after they had gone down to the foot of Dow by way of Goat's Hause, it was nearly an hour before they found the body of the yow, which was lying on a narrow shelf near the foot of Great Gully.

  Saturday the 23rd October

  "Go on, kidda, bash it doon, then!"

  Snitter hurled his compact weight again and again at the wire netting of the chicken run. When at last it gave way the tod was through in a streak and, before Snitter had picked himself up, had crept upwards into the closed henhouse through a crack between two floorboards which Snitter would not have thought wide enough for a rat. At once a squawking racket broke out within and a moment later a dog began barking inside the nearby barn. Lights came on in the farmhouse and an upstairs window was flung open. As Snitter, straining every nerve not to run, tried to cower out of sight behind one of the brick piers supporting the henhouse, the twitching bodies of two hens fell one after the other to the ground beside him. The tod, eel-like, followed instantly and Snitter leapt to his feet.

  "Haddaway hyem?"

  "Why ay! Go on, lad, divven't hang aboot!"

  The bare, yellow legs were so hot that Snitter could hardly hold them in his mouth. From above, the beam of a powerful torch was darting here and there about the yard, and as they crept through the hedge into the lonnin a shot-gun went off behind them. The tod, putting down its hen to take a better grip, sniggered.

  " 'Nother cat gone?"

  Sunday the 24th October to Monday the 25th October

  In the grey twilight before dawn, Rowf sprang out of the moss and confronted the two returning raiders as they rounded the upper end of Seathwaite Tarn. From head to tail he was daubed with fresh blood. His bloody tracks had marked the stones. The body of the Swaledale sheep, ripped from throat to belly, lay beside the beck a little distance off.

  "I knew I could do it," said Rowf, "as soon as I'd had a few days' rest. Nothing to it--I just ran it backwards and forwards over the beck a few times and then pulled it down with less trouble than the other. Well, come on if you want--"

  He broke off short, for the tod, its eyes half-closed against the east wind, was staring at him with a look of mingled incredulity and shocked contempt. At length it began to speak in a kind of wail.

  Swirral and Carrs

  "Ye got ne brains i' yer heed! Ye greet nowt! Ne sooner's me back turned than ye bloody up our ain place as red as a cock's comb wi' yer daft muckin'! Ye greet, fond nanny-hammer! Could ye not go canny till Ah teilt ye? Ye born, noddy-heeded boogger! Ah'm not bidin' wi' ye lot! Me, Ah'm away--"

  "Wait!" cried Snitter. "Wait, tod!" For the tod, as it spoke, had turned and was making off in the direction of the dam. "What's the matter?"

  "First ye kill on th' fell--reet o' th' shepherd's track, muckin' th' place up wi' blood like a knacker's yard. An' noo ye kill ootside our ain place! Yon farmer's nay blind! He'll be on it, sharp as a linnet. Ye're fer th' Dark, ne doot, hinny. Yer arse'll be inside oot b' th' morn."

  "But, tod, where are you going?"

  "Aarrgh! Haddaway doon te knock o' th' farmer's door! Mebbies Ah'll just shove me heed agin' his gun," replied the tod bitterly. "Save aall th' bother, that will."

  Indeed, as the full light of day came into the sky from beyond the heights of Great Carrs and Swirral to the east, the cause of the tod's dismay became only too clear. The body of the dead yow lay on Tarn Head Moss like freedom's banner torn yet flying, a beacon, as it seemed, to every buzzard, crow and bluebottle in the Lakes. As the morning wore on Snitter, from the cave-mouth barely five hundred yards away, lay gloomily watching the pecking, squabbling, ripping and fluttering, which grew no less as rain began to drift up from Dunnerdale, blotting out the curve of the dam and the further end of the reservoir beyond. The tod had only with difficulty been persuaded to remain, and soon after mid-day had gone out to the western shoulder of Blake Rigg, whence it could see the trod leading up to the tarn from Tongue House Farm below.

  By sunset, however, when the smaller becks were already coloured and chattering in spate, the reservoir valley remained unvisited by man or dog and the tod, pelt sodden and brush trailing, returned to the cave, muttering something about "a canny rain for them as desarved warse." There was no hunting expedition that night, enough being left of the sheep to satisfy all three.

  Late the following morning, as Snitter was dozing in his snug, body-shaped concavity in the shale floor, he was roused by the tod who, without a word and with extreme caution, led him to the cave mouth. Down on the moss a man, smoking a cigarette and accompanied by two black-and-white Welsh collies, was prodding with his stick at the stripped backbone and bare rib-cage of the sheep.

  Tuesday the 26th October

  "--soom bluidy beeast or oother livin' oop theer," said Dennis Williamson. "Theer is that." He walked round his van and kicked the off-side rear tyre.

  "Git awaay!" replied Robert Lindsay. "D'ye think so?"

  Dennis leant against the whitewashed wall of the Hall Dunnerdale farmhouse and lit a cigarette.

  "Ah'm bluidy sure of it," he said. "Two sheep inside eight or nine days, and no snaw, tha knaws, Bob, an' the both lyin' in open places, like, nowt to fall off or break legs an' that."

  "Wheer didst tha find them at?" asked Robert. "Wheer were they lyin' and how didst tha coom on them, like?"

  "First woon were oop oonder Levers Hause, almost at top, tha knaws, joost this side, wheer it's real steep. It were lyin' joost this side of bit of a track--"

  "That'd be old yow, then, Dennis. Ay, it would that."

  "Nay, that's joost it, it were not. It were three-year-old, Bob, were that. I saw it bluidy teeth an' all."

  "Oh, 'ell!"

  Robert gnawed the top of his stick without further comment. An extremely shrewd man and older than Dennis, he had been the previous tenant farmer of Tongue House and knew--or had hitherto thought that he knew--everything that could possibly happen to sheep between the Grey Friar and Dow Crag. He never gave an opinion lightly or unless he was prepared to defend it; and if someone asked his advice he was accustomed to shoulder the problem and consider it as though it were his own.

  Dennis was upset. Tenacious and energetic to the point of intensity, he had, a few years before and with virtually nothing behind him, taken the farming tenancy of Tongue House (or Tongue 'Us, as it is locally called), in the determination to live an independent life and make good on his own. It had been a hard grind at the outset--so hard that he might perhaps have given up altogether without the moral support and encouragement of his neighbour Bill Routledge, the ribald, tough old tenant-farmer of Long 'Us, the neighbouring farm across the fields. There had been weeks when the children had had no sweets, Dennis had had no cigarettes and meals had been what could be managed. Now, thanks partly to his own strength of character and partly to that of his courageous, compet
ent wife, Gwen, their heads were well above water. The farm was prosperous, several consumer durables had been bought and installed and the girls were getting on well. If Dennis had an obsession, it was that he was damned if anyone was going to do him down financially or worst him in a bargain. The present nasty situation--which would have worried any hill farmer--reached him where he lived, as the Americans say. It raised the spectre of old, bad times and had about it also an unpleasant suggestion that something--some creature--up beyond the tarn was getting the better of him.

  "Ay, an' t'oother, Bob, tha knaws," he went on, "that were ont' Moss, like, before tha cooms to Rough Grund, an joost a bit oop from top of tarn. They were both on 'em the bluidy saame--pulled to shreds an' pieces spread all o'er. An' I'll tell thee--theer were bones clean gone--bones an' quarters an' all--hafe bluidy sheep torn an' gone, one on 'em."

  "That'll be dog then," said Robert emphatically, looking Dennis squarely in the eye.

  "Ay, that's what Ah were thinkin'. But Bill's had no dogs awaay--had, he'd a' told me--"

  "Dog could coom from anywheers, Dennis--could be out of Coniston or Langd'l. But that's what it is, old booy, an' nowt else. So tha'd best joost get out thee gun an' have a run round int' early mornin'--"

  "Bluidy 'ell!" said Dennis, treading out his cigarette on the road. "As if there wayn't enough to be doin'--"

  "Ay, weel, tha canst joost fill boogger wi' lead first, an' then read it collar affter, if it's got one," said Robert.

  "Has and Ah'll hev th' basstard in court," said Dennis. "Ah tell thee, Bob, Ah will that. There's been ducks an' hens gone too. Smashed henhouse wire reet in--no fox could a' doon it. Ah'll have soom boogger in court."

  "Ay, so yer should," returned Robert, "so yer should." After a suitable pause he said, "Ah yer goin' in t'Oolverston?"

  "Nay, joost as far as Broughton--pickin' oop coople of spare tyres, tha knaws. Is there owt tha wants?"

  "Not joost now, old lad."

  Dennis, still musing on his dead sheep, drove down the valley towards Ulpha.

  "And the monkey's done ten days plus," concluded Mr. Powell. "I think that's the lot."

  "The cylinder's being regularly cleaned out?" asked Dr. Boycott.

  "Yes, it is. Oh, but what about the guinea-pigs, chief?" said Mr. Powell, returning his note-pad to the ready.

  "The ones receiving tobacco tar condensates, you mean?" said Dr. Boycott. "What about them? I thought that was one thing that was proceeding quite straightforwardly?"

  "Well, I mean, how long do we go on using the same guinea-pigs?"

  "Use them up, of course," answered Dr. Boycott rather shortly. "They cost money, you know. Apart from that, it's only humane. The Littlewood Committee report had an entire chapter on wastage. We don't use two animals where one will do."

  "Well, this lot have all had tar doses on both ears now, and the ears removed in just about every case--every case where there's a cancerous growth, that's to say."

  "Well, you can go on and use their limbs for the same thing, you know."

  "Oh, should we, chief? Righty-o. Only I haven't been in on one of these before. Do we ever use anaesthetics?"

  "Good God, no," said Dr. Boycott. "D'you know what they cost?"

  "Oh, I know--only Dr. Walters was saying--"

  "I'm in charge of the tar condensates work, not Walters," said Dr. Boycott. Before Mr. Powell could get in even the most hurried of assents, he went on, "Did you ever hear any more about those two dogs--seven-three-two and eight-one-five?"

  "Not a thing," said Mr. Powell. "I doubt we will now, you know. They've been gone--let's see--eleven days I make it. They could have been shot, or adopted, or just have run from here to Wales. But I shouldn't think we'll ever know."

  "Touch wood," said Dr. Boycott with a faint smile.

  Mr. Powell facetiously tapped his own head. Granted the faintest prescience of what the future held, he might well have broken his nails to claw the varnish off the top of Dr. Boycott's desk--for, unlike his own, it was wood and not plastic.

  FIT 4

  Wednesday the 27th October to Thursday the 28th October

  T

  he tod had said never a word all day, even during the afternoon, when Rowf, surly at the anxiety of the other two and obstinately determined to eat the last of his kill, had gone down to the tarn in broad daylight, gnawed the remains in the open for half an hour and as darkness began to fall brought back the jawbone to chew and worry in the cave. At last it crept silently over the shale and picked up a fragment, remarking only, "Give us a bite noo, kidder. There'll be ne bait for us i' th' Dark, ye knaw."

  "What in thunder d'you mean?" snarled Rowf, the reek of the tod seeming to tingle through his very entrails.

  "Oh, let him have it, Rowf!" said Snitter quickly. "You know, that reminds me, I once saw a cat steal a whole fish and carry it up a tree. Oh, it grinned like a letter-box; it thought it was quite safe up there!"

  "Well, wasn't it?" asked Rowf, curious in spite of himself.

  "Hoo, hoo, hoo!" Snitter danced on the stones at his own recollection. "My master turned the garden hose on it. But even then the fish came down much faster than the cat." He became suddenly grave. "Rowf--the farmers, the whitecoats. Tod's right--we can't afford to be found. If they once discover we're here, they'll come and hose us out with our own blood."

  "Eh, th' Dark'll pull ye doon soon eneuf," cried the tod suddenly, as though Snitter's words had driven it beyond further endurance, "an' weary ye'll be an' aall, but Ah'm not hangin' aboot. Ah'm away. Yon yow ye felled ootside'll be yer last, ne doot aboot yon."

  All in a moment it had crept to the further side of the tunnel and, having thus put the breadth of the place between Rowf and itself, trotted quickly along the wall and out into the darkness.

  Snitter ran after it, yapping, "Tod! Tod! Wait!" but when he reached the mouth of the cave there was nothing to be seen in the twilight. Only the rising wind, gathering itself high up in Calf Cove, moaned down the funnel of the valley and tugged at the bog myrtle and tufts of grass in the dreary, empty moss. There was a singing in his head, rapid and shrill, like a wren in a bush. Looking up at the last light in the pale sky, he perceived that the wind--and this, he now recalled, he had, indeed, always known--was in reality a gaunt giant, thin-faced, thin-lipped and tall, carrying a long knife and wearing a belt from which were dangling the bodies of dying animals--a cat whose protruding entrails dripped blood, a blinded monkey groping in the air with its paws, a guinea-pig lacking ears and limbs, its stumps tar-smeared; two rats grotesquely swollen, their stomachs about to burst. Striding over the moss, the giant returned Snitter's frightened gaze piercingly, without recognition. Snitter knew that he had become an object upon which the giant's thought was playing like the beam of a torch, the subject of the song--if song it were--now rising and falling either through his own split head, or perhaps--might it rather be?--through the solitude of this waste valley between the hills. Silently the giant threw his song like a stick across the bog; and obediently Snitter retrieved and brought it back to him, carried in his own mouth.

  "Across the darkness of the fell

  My head, enclosed with chicken wire.

  Seeks the far place where masters dwell,

  A stolen town removed entire.

  The lorry, churning through the mire,

  Foreknew and watched all ways I ran.

  With cloven headpiece all afire,

  A lost dog seeks a vanished man."

  Snitter whined and pressed himself to the ground at the wind's feet. The wind, taking the song from him, nodded unsmilingly and strode away down the length of the tarn, the jumbled, struggling bodies swinging at its back. Snitter understood that the seizure had passed; until next time he was free--to lie in the darkness and wonder what would become of Rowf and himself without the tod.

  "What are you doing?" asked Rowf, looming blackly out of the scrub. His anger had gone and he lay down beside Snitter uneasy and subdued.

  "Dancing li
ke a piece of ice," said Snitter, "and singing like a bone. The mice do--it makes the sky blue. Where there were three there's only two."

  "You look crazier than ever," said Rowf, "with that great hole in your head. I'm sorry, Snitter. Let's not quarrel--we can't afford to, you and I. Come in and go to sleep."

  Once more Snitter woke to the smell of the tod and the sound of Rowf moving in the dark. Listening, uncertain what might have happened, he realized that it was now Rowf who was making towards the opening of the cave, while the tod was standing in his way. Just as he was about to ask what they were doing, Rowf said, "I can kill you. Get out of the way."

  "Noo, take it easy, lad. Divven't be se huffy," replied the tod.

  "Rowf," said Snitter, "where are you going?"

  "Poor sowl, he's gone loose i' th' heed," answered the tod, in its sharp, fawning voice, "blatherin' like a bubbly-jock. Here's me comin' back te tell ye te lowp off sharp. Th' farmer's oot o' th' rampage--dergs an' gun; an' noo yer pal says he's off to gi' hissel' back to yon whitecoat fellers. Wad ye credit it?"

  "Rowf, what does he mean?"

  "I'm going to find the whitecoats and give myself up. Don't try to stop me, Snitter."

  "It's you that's crazy, Rowf, not me. Whatever for?"

  "Because I've come to see that all I've done is to run away from my duty, that's why. Dogs were meant to serve men--d'you think I don't know? I knew all the time, but I was too much of a coward to admit it. I should never have listened to you, Snitter. If they need me to drown for them--"

  "Of course dogs were meant for men, Rowf, but not for that--not for the tank and the whitecoats."

  "Who are we to judge--how do we know? I'm a good dog. I'm not the brute they all thought I was. The men know best--"

  "Yes, masters, Rowf, but not whitecoats. They don't care what sort of dog you are."

  "Yer nay a derg noo, yer a sheep-killer," whispered the tod. "They'll blow yer arse oot, hinny. Howway let's be off, or ye'll both be deed an' done inside haaf an hoor, ne bother."