The Plague Dogs: A Novel Read online

  “Terrible Sight”

  Mr. Westcott’s body was found by Dennis Williamson, a sheep farmer of Tongue House, Seathwaite, who was up the fell with his dogs looking for stray sheep. “It must have been about two o’clock in the afternoon and I was on Dow Crag,” Mr. Williamson told Digby Driver, the Orator’s reporter, “when I caught sight of something dark lying at the foot of one of the steep gullies running down from the summit area. The weather was a bit misty, but after I’d moved back and forth for some time to get the best sight of it I could and shouted without getting any reply, I felt sure that it must be someone who was either dead or unconscious. I went round by Goat’s Hause, got down to the bottom and after a bit I found the body. It was a terrible sight—worse than I can tell you. I left everything as it was and went back at once to inform the police. I’m glad it was their job and not mine. I shan’t forget it in a hurry, I can assure you.”

  Revenge

  Superintendent Malcolm, in charge of the case, told our reporter, “The discovery of a damaged Winchester .22 rifle in the gully, together with a severed dog-collar made of green plastic, suggested to us at once that the dead man must have been attempting to shoot one of the so-called Plague Dogs from the top of the gully when he fell to his death and his body became their prey.”

  Inquiries subsequently made of his landlady, Mrs. Rose Green of Windermere, have corroborated that Mr. Westcott had told her that he intended to track down and shoot the dogs in revenge for their attack upon his car two days previously, after he had stopped for a few minutes on a lonely part of the Grasmere-Keswick road. Mr. Westcott was particularly upset that the dogs should have terrified Mrs. Green and torn her week’s shopping of meat and groceries out of the car in order to devour it.

  “Practical—Determined”

  Handsome, middle-aged Mrs. Green, interviewed by the Orator yesterday evening, described Mr. Westcott as a practical and very determined young man, and an experienced and capable hillwalker. “He told me his mind was made up to find and kill those terrible dogs,” she said. “I only wish he had. This terrible tragedy has upset me deeply, especially as I feel that in a way Geoffrey was doing what he did for my sake. He was terribly upset about the dogs taking the groceries and also about the terrible way they had spoilt his car. I shall miss him terribly. We were great friends. He was almost like a son.”

  No Comment

  Senior officers at Animal Research, Coniston, refused to comment last night. Dr. James Boycott, a spokesman, said, “This is a very serious matter and neither we nor anyone else ought to try to anticipate the proper investigational procedures. We are, of course, ready to give evidence to the Coroner if he requires it and we are in close touch with the Secretary of State. I cannot pronounce on whether or not there will be a Government inquiry—that is for Ministers to say. We are as much appalled as other members of the public.” (Leading Article, page 10.)

  “Yes, well,” said Digby Driver, happily pronging another forkful of egg and bacon and lifting the Orator from its place against the coffee-pot in order to turn over the front page, “by all means let’s have a look at page 10. Good grief, black, what on earth?—”

  HOW LONG, OH LORD?

  Yesterday’s shocking tragedy in the Lake District, when the body of a young hillwalker was desecrated and actually devoured by the murderous brutes who have come to be known as the Plague Dogs—from the strong probability that they are carrying the infection of deadly bubonic plague—must surely arouse and unite public opinion to demand that the Government act NOW to put, an end to a menace that has already lasted too shamefully long. Are we living in some remote part of India, where women going to wash clothes in the river run the risk of becoming the prey of a tiger lying in wait? Or in Utah or Colorado, where a rattle-snake may end a straying child’s life? No, we are in England, where savage killer animals are at large and the authorities stand by and do nothing.

  Mr. Geoffrey Westcott, the hillwalker who died, had, apparently, courageously taken it upon himself to try to rid the land of these foul beasts. Why did he feel he had to do it? He acted for the same reasons as William Wilberforce, Lord Shaftesbury, Florence Nightingale and a host of other British patriots of the past: because he knew there was wrong to be righted, and knew, too, that the authorities would do nothing. Does the shade of Sir Winston Churchill, greatest of Englishmen, stretch out his hand from the shadows to this young man, whose life has been so evilly forfeited in taking up the responsibility which others, sitting in the seats of power, will not exercise in the course of their plain duty? That is why today the Orator proudly and mournfully edges its centre page with black—

  “And they damn’ well have, too,” said Driver admiringly. “Wonder whose jolly little idea that was? Very snazzy, very snazzy.”

  —in homage to a PATRIOT. TO those who let him go to his lonely death instead of taking the action it was their solemn, bounden duty to take, it says, in the words of the psalmist of old, “How long, oh Lord? How long?”

  “Excuse me, how long will you be wanting the table, Mr. Driver, sir?” asked the waitress. “Only breakfast goes off at ten o’clock and I’m just clearing up.”

  “Not another minute, Daisy,” answered Driver happily, “not half a mo. Everything in the garden is distinctly tickety-boo. Yeah, thanks, clear away the day bree by all means. I wonder,” said Mr. Driver to himself, strolling out of the breakfast room, “I wonder whether old Simpson Aggo means to be at the debate in the House tonight? Hogpenny’ll have been helping to brief Bugwash, that’s for sure. I’ll put a call through and see whether someone can ring me from Bugwash’s room in the House as soon as the debate’s over. That Boycott bloke’s face! Ha ha ha ha ha HA! A flea!”

  Wednesday the 24th November

  It was noon of the day after the death of the tod. Rain had begun to fall before dawn and continued during most of the morning, so that now the becks were running even more strongly. A dog’s ears could catch plainly the minute, innumerable oozings and bubblings of the peat, gently exuding like a huge sponge, rilling and trickling downward. There was a faint, clean smell from the broken half-circle of yellow foam which had formed at the infall to Goat’s Water. Mist was still lying, but only upon the peaks, where it moved and eddied, disclosing now the summit of the Old Man, now Brim Fell or the conical top of Dow Crag. The wind was freshening and the clouds breaking to disclose blue sky.

  “Rowf, we can’t stay here. Rowf?”

  “Why not? It’s lonely enough, isn’t it? There’s shelter from the rain, too.”

  “They’re bound to come and find the man, Rowf. They’ll see us.”

  “I don’t care. He hurt my neck. It still hurts.”

  Snitter struggled upwards through the baying of the hounds and the terrified, staring eyes of the tod.

  “You don’t—you don’t understand, Rowf! The men will never rest now, never, until they’ve killed us; not after this. They’ll come, any number of them. They’ll have horns and red coats to stop us running fast enough. They’ll pull us down and hurt us dreadfully-like the tod.”

  “Because of the man? We were starving. They can’t—”

  “Yes, they can, Rowf! I know more about men than you do. They will!”

  “I bet they’d do it if they were starving. Probably have.”

  “They won’t see it like that. Rowf, we’re in the worst danger ever—I can hear it barking, coming closer—great, black-and-white lorries with drooping ears and long tails. We must go. If the tod were here, he’d tell you—”

  “You say he’s dead?”

  “I told you, Rowf, I told you how they killed him—only I forgot to tell you what he said about you. He said—he said—oh, I’ll remember it in a moment—”

  Rowf got up stiffly and yawned, pink tongue steaming over black, blood-streaked lips.

  “No one’d speak any good of me—least of all the tod. If men come here trying to hurt me, I’ll tear a few of them up before I’m done. I hate them all! Well, where are we to go
, Snitter?”

  “Up there into the mist, for a start. Listen, Rowf; the poor tod said I was to tell you—only I can’t think—it was all so dreadful—”

  “The mist’s breaking up.”

  “Never mind. As long as we’re not found here.”

  That afternoon, while Digby Driver made his way to Lawson Park and back again, while first the police and then the entire country learned aghast of what had happened under Dow Crag, Snitter and Rowf wandered, with many halts, over the Coniston range. For much of the time Snitter was confused, talking of the tod, of his dead master and of a girl who drove a car full of strange animals. As darkness was falling they descended the southern side of the Grey Friar and found themselves, quite by chance, on the green platform outside the old coppermine shaft. Snitter did not recognize it but Rowf, supposing that he must have led them there on purpose, at once went in; and here, among old, half-vanished smells of sheep’s bones and the tod, they spent that night.

  Thursday the 25th November

  “Ah’ll tell thee, Bob,” said Dennis, “it were worst bluidy thing as Ah’ve ever seen. An’ if woon more newspaper chap cooms to’t door assking questions, Ah’ll belt the bluidy arse off him. Ah will thet.”

  Robert nodded in silence.

  “Happen those could have made good dogs, Dennis, tha knaws,” he remarked after a little. “Good, workin’ dogs. Ay, they could.”

  Grey Friar

  “Waste o’ dogs? Ay—waste o’ chap an’ all. That were bank chap from Windermere, tha knaws.”

  Robert gazed meditatively down the cowshed, where the cows breathed and intermittently blew, tossed their heads and stamped in the warm half-dark. Fly, one of his own dogs, looked up from the floor and, perceiving that its master was still relaxed, returned its head to its front paws.

  “Ah’ll tell thee soomthing, Dennis,” said Robert at length. “Yon newspaper chap, yon Driver. When this dogs’ business started oop, wi’ thy yows goin’ an’ that, Ah told thee as he’d be real ‘andy fella, put paid to trooble an’ all.”

  “Ay, tha did.”

  “Well, Ah were bluidy wrong, an’ that’s all there is to it, owd lad. He’s doon joost nowt, ‘as ‘e? Joost maakin’ newspaper stories an’ keepin’ pot on’t boil, like, to sell paper. He’s made more trouble for us, not less.”

  “Ay, an’ Ah doan’t reckon as he ever meant t’ave dogs caught at all. Longer they went on, better he were pleased, tha knaws.”

  “Anoother bluidy story, ay. An’ old ‘Any Tyson says they’re no more carryin’ plague than he is. Never read sooch a looäd o’ roobbish in all ‘is life, he said. What it cooms to, yon Driver’s oop ’ere maakin’ mooney out of us coontry johnnies, that’s about it, old boöy.”

  “Well, he’ll make no more out of me, Bob, tha knaws, for Ah wayn’t oppen door to him agaain, nor noon o’t’ basstards.”

  “Ay, but Ah were thinkin’, happen theer’s worse to’t than that, Dennis. If he’d doon what he should ‘ave doon, yon Windermere chap wouldn’t have needed to be going out affter dogs at all. That could all ‘ave bin settled an’ doon with.”

  “Happen they could put green collar on him, like, an’ boil his arse for experiment,” said Dennis bitterly. “He’d be soom bluidy use then, any rooäd.”

  He got up off the stone bench. “Well, Ah’m away.”

  “Art tha goin’ into Broughton?”

  “Nay, Ah’m off t’Oolverston, an’ bide theer while newspaper chaps are gone. They can talk to Gwen if they like, an’ she’ll tell them joomp int’ beck, damn’ sight sharper than Ah can an’ all.”

  Five cars went by Hall Dunnerdale, nose to tail. Robert and Dennis watched them pass before crossing the road to the parked van.

  “There’ll be a few more o’ those an’ all, now,” said Robert.

  “Folk starin’ about for they don’t know what. Y’can thank yon Driver for that as weel.”

  HOUSE OF COMMONS

  OFFICIAL REPORT

  PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES

  (Hansard)

  5:20 p.m.

  MR. BERNARD BUGWASH (Lakeland Central): Mr, Speaker, in the course of this debate, hon. Members on this side of the House have already drawn attention very thoroughly, in general terms, to the reckless extravagance which throughout the past three years has characterized the Government in the field of so-called research work and research establishments, right across the board. The plain truth is that public money has been frittered away on all manner of nonsense. I would not be surprised to learn that alchemists had been given some of it to discover the philosopher’s stone. (Laughter.) It is no laughing matter.

  I was originally going to say that it has fallen to me to illustrate this incompetence by telling the House about a particular instance. However, as matters now stand, the House hardly needs further telling. The past two days have raised the matter to a level where no one throughout the country is unaware of it. Therefore I need only remind the House briefly of the tragic facts, to most hon. Members already only too dreadfully familiar.

  It is a sinister reflection that if those hon. Members whom I observe at this moment leaving the Chamber were on their way to homes in my constituency, they would be running the risk of attack by savage animals—yes, Mr. Speaker, savage animals—and, upon arrival at those homes, the further risk of having their property destroyed or damaged during the night. If they were farmers, they might wake to find fowls or sheep removed or killed. This, one might have thought, would be bad enough. But that is not the worst. They would also have to endure the risk of infection by a terrible disease, none other than bubonic plague. And perhaps worst of all, they would be living day in and day out in the knowledge that no less than two local people, strong, healthy men in the prime of their lives, had had those lives brought to tragic ends by what are in effect wild beasts. I do not intend here to sicken the House with the details of the second of those deaths, which we have all seen reported in this morning’s newspapers. I merely say, “Who would have imagined that these things would be allowed to take place in this country today?”

  How did they come about and at whose door should the responsibility be laid? It rests squarely on the shoulders of the Government and, as I intend to show, the fear and tragedy which my constituents are presently undergoing are the logical—not the fortuitous, Mr. Speaker, but the logical—outcome of policies—

  The Parliamentary Secretary of the Department of the Environment (MR.

  BASIL FORBES) rose—

  MR. BUGWASH: I am sorry, but I cannot give way to the hon. Member at this point. The time is coming soon enough when these charges must be answered, but since there can be no satisfactory answer there is no reason why the hon. Member should be in a hurry to admit it. What has happened now is the logical outcome of policies dating back several years, to a piece of the stupidest doctrinaire steam-rollering which has ever been thrust upon this long-suffering nation—and that is saying a lot.

  It is now something like five years since the Government, despite strenuous and well-justified opposition, gave approval to the construction of the buildings known as Animal Research, Scientific and Experimental, at Lawson Park, east of Coniston Water, one of the most beautiful places in England. And how did this piece of nonsense come to be put into effect? I will tell you how. By disregarding the clearly expressed views both of local people and of their elected representatives.

  One morning the unsuspecting inhabitants of this national park area, whose very well-founded misgivings were set aside by the Secretary of State in his so-called wisdom, wake up and find that a pair of savage dogs have been allowed to escape. The dogs begin killing sheep on the fells, taking poultry from farms and doing all manner of damage. The station says nothing and does nothing. I need not give many details, for they are known to hon. Members from the daily press, but I must give some. At length a public-spirited businessman undertakes the organization of a hunt by local farmers. He is found shot dead and it is more than suspected that one of these dog
s played a crucial part in the accident. Whether it did or not, surely the station, if they had had the least sense of responsibility, would have uttered something at this juncture? They did not. They did nothing. They said nothing until several days later, and then all they said was that two dogs had escaped. On the very same day it transpired, and was reported in the press, that those dogs were probably infected with bubonic plague. And both the station and its parent Department still did nothing, nothing at all.

  One might have thought that by now enough had been allowed to go wrong to galvanize anybody into action. But there was worse to come. You will be only too well aware, Mr. Speaker, of the tragedy reported in the press this morning, which has deeply shocked the entire country. That is what this dreadful story of neglect and criminal irresponsibility has brought us to. These are the sort of people who are entrusted with research programmes and with spending money on them. Ostriches—worse. A decent ostrich would have kicked someone by now.

  I am not alone in feeling that there are several questions to which the rt. hon. Gentleman opposite should give us the Government’s answers tonight. Public anxiety is grave, and it is his plain duty to allay it if he can.

  CAPTAIN ALISTAIR MORTON-HARDSHAW (Keswick): Like the hon. and learned Member for Lakeland Central, I am anxious to hear what assurances my rt. hon. Friend has to give us on this matter. I feel strongly that there is one aspect which has received insufficient attention. We have learned that these dogs may have become infected, during their escape, with bubonic plague. I find it disturbing that this kind of work should be carried out at a place where risk to the public is involved. Surely work on something like bubonic plague should be carried out in complete isolation, in an underground bunker or something like that. It is disturbing that the station are apparently unable to deny that there is a possibility, however small, that these dogs are infected. While I do not feel able to associate myself with every one of the sweeping and in certain respects not very penetrating criticisms made by the hon. Member for Lakeland Central–