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Bookmarks	

Page No 1

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.
A Fawcett Crest Book Published by Ballantine Books Copyright © 1977 by Richard
Adams Introduction Copyright © 1978 by Richard Adams
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
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
I
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

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Page No 2

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
(12)
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!")

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Page No 3

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

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Page No 4

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
(19)
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.

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Page No 5

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
(20)
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
(21)
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

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Page No 6

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
(22)
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)
(23)
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Page No 7

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—

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Page No 8

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
(26)
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
(27)
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

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Page No 9

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-
(28)
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!"

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Page No 10

"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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Page No 11

"Where's the gutter for that water, anyway?" asked Snitter. "That's what I
can't understand. Bunged up with
(3D
fallen leaves, I suppose. And the whippet's leg—they must have eaten that. I
asked him the other day in the yard, but he didn't know. Said he was asleep
when they took it away. Said he dreamt he was tied up to a stone wall and it
fell on him."
"Dogs are meant to do what men want—I can smell that, without a master. The
men must have some reason, mustn't they? It must do some sort of good. They
must know best."
"It's a nuisance, but you can't bury bones here," said Snitter. "I've tried.
The ground's too hard. My head still aches. No wonder—there's a garden in my
ear, you know. I can hear the leaves rustling quite clearly."
"Only I can't bear the water again," said Rowf, "and you can't fight it, not
water." He began pacing up and down the wire. "The smell of the iron pond."
"There's always a chance they might lose it. They lost a sky full of clouds
one day, you know. They were all there in the morning, but they were gone by
the afternoon. x Blown away—blown away like sheep's wings."
"Look, the wire's loose here, along the bottom," said Rowf suddenly. "If you
come and put your nose under it, you can lift it up from your side."
Snitter padded up to him on the other side of the wire. A length about
eighteen inches long had pulled loose from the horizontal iron bar dividing
the floor of the two pens.
"I must have done that," he said, "chasing a cat—no. There used to be a cat
once but they switched it off, I think." He pushed at the wire for a few
seconds, then raised his head with a cunning look. "Rowf, we'll leave it till
after the tobacco man's been round. Otherwise he'll only see me on your side
and put me back, and that'll be the end of that. Let it alone, old Rowf."
"You're sharp. Listen, Snitter, is that the tobacco man outside now?"
"I'm mad as a gutter in a thunderstorm," said Snitter. "I fall and fall—my
head falls and I fall after it. Can you smell the falling leaves? It's going
to rain. Remember rain?"
As the latch clicked on the green-painted door half-
(32)
way down the block, Rowf went back to his kennel and lay still as frost. Most
of the other dogs, however, reacted vigorously and volubly. From all over the
shed sounded scurrying and yelps, quick whines of excitement and resonant,
harp-like rataplans of claws along wire mesh. Snitter leapt three or four
times in the air and ran towards the door of his pen, jaws full of slobbering
tongue and breath steaming in the chilly air.
The green door, which opened inwards, tended to stick against the jamb. A
shoulder-heave from outside, which succeeded only in bending the top of the
door inwards, was followed by the clank of a pail being put down and then by
two heavy, rubbery kicks just above the threshold. The door burst open and
instantly every dog in the shed was aware of the night breeze filtered through
a pungent reek of burning shag. In the doorway stood the tobacco man himself,
pipe in mouth and a pail in each hand, odorous of tobacco as a pine tree of
resin, redolent from cloth cap to gum-boots. The yapping increased, the
movement, noise and tension throughout the block mounting in contrast with the
silent deliberation with which the tobacco man carried in the two pails, set
them down, returned for two more and then for a final two. This done, he went
back to close the door and then, standing in the middle of the six, took out
his matches, struck a light, cupped his hands round his pipe and re-lit it
very thoroughly and carefully, taking no notice whatever of the barking and
jumping around him.
Snitter, muttering "That pipe hasn't got a chance—not a chance," put his front
paws on the wire and cocked his head sharply to the right in order to watch

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Page No 12

the tobacco man as he fetched a five-gallon watering-can from a corner and,
with a slow, unhurried clumping of gum-boots, carried it over to the tap,
placed it underneath, turned the tap on and stood beside it while it filled.
Old Tyson had once been a sailor, then a shepherd, then for several years a
road man employed by the county council; but had taken the option of a job
with Animal Research because, as he said, there were less weather wi't and
aall in't woon plaace like. He was well regarded and indeed valued by the
Director and senior staff, being rea-
(33)
sonably respectful, if somewhat dour, in his behaviour, reliable, generally
conscientious and no more given to sentimentality about animals than any other
Lakelander. Also, being well on in middle age, he was steady and regular and
not prone to ailments or to odd days off on account of family problems—which
in his case had all been solved (or not solved) long ago. He understood dogs
well enough, his attitude towards them being equally valid for the purposes of
A.R.S.E. or for those of a Lakeland hill-farm—namely, that they were pieces of
technological equipment which one needed to know how to maintain and use
properly. Tourists' and holiday-makers' dogs annoyed him, being useless for
any practical purpose, frequently disobedient and a potential danger to sheep.
In spite of what seemed to the dogs his maddening deliberation, Tyson was in
fact anxious to be off as soon as he could this evening, for it was Friday, he
had been paid and was due to keep an appointment in The Crown at Coniston with
a friend from Torver, who had told him--that he could put him in the way of a
second-hand refrigerator in good condition and going cheap. He was, therefore,
in as much of a hurry as was possible for him—the general effect rather
resembling that produced in a tortoise when its lettuce is put down on the
grass. This is not to suggest, however, that there was anything foolish or
absurd in Tyson's demeanour as he went about his task. Tortoises are dignified
and self-sufficient and, though admittedly slow, considerably more reliable
than—well— than—what comes to mind?—than—er—well, than distracted princes, for
example, who give wild assurances about sweeping to revenge on wings as swift
as meditation or the thoughts of love.
Tyson entered each pen in turn, emptied the metal drinking-bowls down the
gullies and re-filled them from his watering-can. Then he poured away what was
left in the can, put it back in its place in the corner and returned to the
pails. Four of these were filled with bloody messes of horse-meat and lights,
appropriate portions of which (big or small according to the size of the dog)
were doled out at Tyson's discretion to all those on "normal diet." As this
part of his task progressed, the noise in the block
(34)
gradually diminished. When it was complete, he set to work to distribute the
contents of the other two pails. These contained a number of separate paper
packages, marked individually with the numbers of those dogs for whom special
rations had been prescribed on account of the experiments in which they were
taking part. Tyson took his spectacle-case out of his pocket, opened it, took
out the spectacles, held them up to the light, breathed on them, cleaned them
on his sleeve, held them up to the light again, put them on, emptied the
packets out on the concrete floor and laid them in two rows. This done, he
picked up the first and held it, above his head, towards the nearest light-
bulb. Once he had read the number he had no need to look about for the
destination, since he knew the dogs and their pens as surely as a huntsman his
hounds.
Who can describe what drugs, what charms, what conjuration and what mighty
magic those packages contained? They were indeed miracles of rare device. Some
included, infused with the liver and offal, stimulants able to banish sleep,
or to cause the consumer to perform, on the morrow, prodigies of endurance—to
fight, to fast, to tear himself, to drink up eisel, eat a crocodile. Others

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Page No 13

contained paralytics which suspended colour perception, hearing, taste, smell;
analgesics destroying the power to feel pain, so that the subject stood
wagging his tail while a hot iron was drawn along his ribs; hallucinogenics
able to fill the eye of the beholder with more devils than vast hell can hold,
to transform the strong to weaklings, the resolute to cowards, to plunge the
intelligent and alert head over ears into idiocy. Some induced disease,
madness, or mortification of specific parts of the body; others cured,
alleviated, or failed either to cure or to alleviate, diseases already
induced. Some destroyed the unborn foetus in the womb, others the power to
ovulate, the power to beget, to conceive, to gestate. One might indeed believe
that graves, at Dr. Boycott's command, would wake their sleepers, ope, and let
'em forth.
Actually that is pitching it a bit high—drawing the long bow, as they say—but
at any rate no one could say of Dr. Boycott that he would not have attempted
resurrection
(3S)
if he had thought there was a sporting chance. He was a qualified expert,
initiative was expected of him, his subjects had no legal rights; and
intellectual curiosity is, after all, a desire like any other. Besides, who in
his senses could reasonably expect Dr. Boycott to ask himself, on behalf of
the human race, not "How much knowledge can I discover?" but "How much
knowledge am I justified in seeking?" Experimental science is the last flower
of asceticism and Dr. Boycott was indeed an ascetic, an observer of events
upon which he passed no value judgements. He represented, in fact, a most
ingenious paradox, noble in reason, express and admirable in action, his
undemonstrative heart committed with the utmost detachment to the benefit of
humanity. Something too much of this.
As he worked, Tyson spoke a few words to each dog— "Well, that's for thee,
then. Get yon down." "Hey oop, old lad. Layin' on straw'll get thee nowheer"—
much unlike the common way of Lakelanders, who seldom or never speak to dogs
except to summon them or to give--them an order or reproof. More extraordinary
still, he more than once patted a dog or actually stooped down for a moment to
scratch its ears. Though he himself could not have said why he acted in this
uncharacteristic way, and if asked would have shrugged his shoulders to
indicate that the question was not worth serious consideration, it is, of
course, beyond argument that he understood very well, on his own level, the
work and general purpose of the research station and the kind of effects upon
animals which that work commonly had. Not even Dr. Freud, however, armed with
the longest and most symbolical shepherd's crook in all Vienna, could have
dragged from the silt to the surface any guilt which Tyson may, as an
individual, unconsciously have felt; for clearly the Director and his
colleagues knew more than he, both about the world's needs and about animals'
capacity for suffering, and his orders, like his wages, came from them. If
each of us insisted on stopping to weigh in every case the relative pros and
cons of distress to others, whether human or animal, brought about by obeying
our instructions, the world could never be run at all. Life is, as they say,
too short.
(36)
This ancient saw was, at any rate, certainly true this evening as far as
number four-two-seven, a mongrel cairn, was concerned, for Tyson found him
dead in his kennel. Four-two-seven had been one of three dogs taking part in
an experiment commissioned by a firm of aerosol manufacturers, who were trying
to develop a spray harmless to dogs but lethal to their fleas and other
parasites. It had been obvious for some days past that the particular
preparation at present being tested, known as Formula KG2, had the undesirable
property of penetrating the skin, with adverse effects on dogs' health, but
the firm's laboratory, though informed of this, had been reluctant to accept

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Page No 14

the finding, particularly since the directors were afraid that certain of
their competitors might be successful in introducing a rival product to the
market ahead of them. Dr. Boycott had decided that the simplest retort to
their time-wasting pertinacity would be to continue the applications to their
foreseeable conclusion, and accordingly four-two-seven had been duly sprayed
again on the previous day. He had certainly settled the hash of Formula KG2
and its obstinate protagonists, and had released not only himself, but also
valuable working time for the station's staff to devote to more profitable
pursuits. Tyson, remarking "Ee, th'art poor lyle boogger," removed four-two-
seven's body to the cold slab cupboard for examination by Mr. Powell in the
morning and returned his food packet to the pail unopened. Before knocking
off, he would be obliged to carry it back to the ration issuer antf get it
struck off his list—a further troublesome delay before he could be done.
He now believed himself to have only three packets left, and was so near the
end of his evening chores that he actually began to whistle "The
Quartermaster's Stores" through his teeth (and without removing his pipe) as
he picked them up. These packets he had deliberately left until last. Each was
wrapped in bright yellow paper marked with a black skull and cross bones, to
indicate that the food within contained a poison, infection or virus capable
of harming human beings. The contents of these he emptied, one by one,
carefully and entirely, into the specially lidded, non-spill feeding-bowls of
the eager re-
(37)
cipients, took the wrappers outside to the incinerator and made sure they
burned, washed his hands under the tap with carbolic soap; and then and only
then noticed a fourth, not-yellow packet lying in shadow on the floor. This,
held up to the light, proved to be marked 732. He had overlooked it.
Tyson felt irritated. The oversight was of no importance, but he was as close
to being in a hurry as was possible for one of his temperament and besides, he
did not like seven-three-two, which had more than once tried to attack him. He
had in fact suggested that it ought to be chained to its kennel, but the
matter had been forgotten by the staff member he had spoken to (who did not,
of course, have to enter the dogs' pens and in any case had no direct concern
with seven-three-two) and no chain had as yet been supplied. "Ah'm noan
gettin' chain mesen, tha knaws," Tyson had said on the second occasion when he
mentioned it; "any rooad, sooner they drown you bluidy thing t' better." And
thereafter he had simply carried a stout stick whenever he had to enter seven-
three-two's pen. Now, however, he could not be bothered to go and fetch the
stick from over by the tap. Picking up the packet, he placed it flat on his
hand, unwrapped it, strode down the cage-line to the far end, opened the pen
door, and had just tossed the whole thing inside when a voice from outside
called, " 'Arry?"
Tyson raised his head. "Ay?"
"Didst tha say tha wanted lift inf Coniston? Ah'm joost off."
"Ay, aw reet." He stepped back from the pen, turned and came to the side door
of the block, wiping his hands on his trousers. "Packet 'ere t'and back in—dog
were dead. Else for that Ah'm doon."
"Coom on then, owd lad. I'll roon thee round by issuer's place, and then we're
off."
The voices receded, and then the sound of the car engine. The returning
silence gleamed gently with noises, as a night sky with stars. A drop of water
fell from the tap. An owl hooted once—twice, in the oak copse five hundred
yards away. The clanging thud of a body against the side of a pen was followed
by diminishing vibrations
(38)
of the not-quite-taut wire. Straw rustled. A mouse scuttered along the
concrete, in and out of the drainage gully, pausing and listening. The wind

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Page No 15

had veered into the west and there was a distant rustle of fine rain blowing
in from the Irish Sea. The sick retriever, his food untouched, muttered and
stirred in his sleep.
Snitter, alert and continually moving his head under its canvas cap, could
discern other, still slighter sounds— the trickling of the beck, a larch cone
falling branch by branch to the ground, movements in the fern and roosting
birds stirring on their boughs. After some time the rising moon began to shine
through the glass of the eastern hoppers, its beams slanting first upwards to
the exposed kingpost roof trusses and then, as they moved transversely
downwards and across, falling at length upon the nearer pens. An Alsatian
began to bay the moon. Perhaps it felt it had rather be a Roman and
contaminate its paws with base bribes, than such a dog. Snitter, becoming more
restless, began padding up and down his pen, agile and watchful as a trout in
a pool. Intuitively, he had become aware of something out of the ordinary,
something commonplace but full of import, some small alteration to the
familiar as slight but disturbing as the discovery of a stranger's urine
against one's own garden fence. But what exactly could it be?
As the first beams of moonlight touched his pen he stood on his hind legs,
resting his paws on the wire separating him from Rowf. Suddenly he tensed,
staring and sniffing, and so remained for perhaps thirty or forty heartbeats;
but nostrils, ears and eyes all continued to affirm nothing but what they had
originally conveyed. First, he had perceived that the source of the tobacco
smell left by Tyson's fingers—that is to say, the door of Rowf s pen— was in
slight but unmistakable movement—stealing and giving odour, as it were. Next,
his ears had caught the well-nigh inaudible, higher-than-bat's-pitch squeaking
of the concentric hinges as they pivoted a quarter of an inch back and forth
in the draught. Lastly, he had made out the moonlight moving on the wire as it
might on a spider's web—a kind of irregular, minute sliding back and forth
(39)
limited by the frail force of the draught that was causing the door itself to
oscillate.
Snifter dropped on all fours and, after a pause to smell and listen
specifically for any signs of human proximity outside the block, began
scrabbling at the length of loose wire between the two pens. Soon he had
pushed it high enough to get his head underneath. Points protruding from the
border of the mesh pricked his shoulders and then his back, piercing here and
there; but he ignored them, continuing to whine and go round and round with
his head in the hole like a gimlet. Finally he succeeded in forcing his way
through into Rowf s pen with nothing worse to show than a thin but fairly deep
scratch across his rump. Once inside, he pattered quickly across to the
kennel.
"Rowf! Rowf, come back! The tobacco man's left my head open! Let me explain—"
The next moment he was knocked flying as Rowf bounded out of the kennel and
leapt towards the pen door. His jaws snapped at the wire, biting and worrying,
and the catch which Tyson, when interrupted by his friend, had omitted to
fasten properly, clicked open off the jamb. After a few moments Rowf fell
back, blinking and staring like a dog awakened from a bad dream.
"What?" said Rowf. "The tobacco man? Not the white-coats—it can't be the
whitecoats—it's still dark, isn't it? It's not time for the tank yet! I'll
fight—I'll tear them—" He stopped and looked at Snitter in surprise. "What are
you doing here, Snitter?"
"Heave-ho, the loose wire. You know, there was an old lady two gardens away
who had a trap-hole made for her cats at night. In and out they went, in and
out; but if ever they came into my garden, what-ho!"
"You're bleeding!"
"Rowf, the moonlight, the door, I've come to tell you, it's come loose on my
head. The tobacco man forgot that it's not. How can I explain? The door's not

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Page No 16

a wall any morel Oh, my head aches!" Snitter sat on his haunches and began
scratching and grabbing with one paw at the canvas cap, which remained, as it
was intended to, re-
(40)
sistant to his claws. In the moonlight Rowf looked at him grimly, but said
nothing.
"My head!" muttered Snitter. "The tobacco man lit it with his matches. Can you
smell it burning?"
"When did he?"
"I was asleep. The whitecoats put me on a glass table and I went to sleep. How
the flies go round today! It's so hot, even in the garden. I think I'll go to
sleep. If the lorry comes, Rowf—" He yawned and lay down on the floor.
Rowf got up and began to sniff at Snitter and lick his face. The effect was
apparently something like that of smelling salts, the odour of his friend
recalling Snitter to reality.
"The wire swing!" said Snitter, sitting up suddenly. "The door, Rowf! That's
why I came! The door of your pen's unfastened!"
The Alsatian had stopped howling and for some moments the only sound in the
block was a sudden dripping from the tap, plangent on the convex edge of the
overturned bucket beneath it.
"We can go through it, Rowf!"
"What for?"
"Rowf, we might be able to get out of here!"
"They'd only bring us back. Dogs are supposed to do what men want—I've never
had a master, but I know that."
"The suffering, Rowf, the misery you've endured—"
"As dogs we're born to suffering. It's a bad world for animals—"
"Rowf, you owe them nothing—nothing—they're not masters—"
"Canine nature—the whole duty of Dog—"
"Oh shit in the sky, give me patience!" cried Snitter in agony. "There's a dog
with a red-hot nose sniffing me over! The lorry's coming, the lorry's coming!"
He staggered, and fell on the straw, but picked himself up at once. "Rowf,
we're going to escape! Both of us—through that door—"
"There might be something worse through the door," said Rowf, peering into the
dismal confines of the concrete huts clos surrounding them.
(41)
Snitter's jaws worked convulsively as with an effort he converted and brought
his mutilated mind in frame.
"Rowf, the water—the metal water! What could be worse than the metal water?
Hours and hours of struggling in the metal water, Rowf, and in the end they'll
drown you! Think of the whitecoats, Rowf—what you told me— peering down into
the tank and watching you. They aren't masters, believe me; I've had a master—
I know. If we could only get out of here we might find a master—who can tell?—
a proper pack leader. Isn't it worth a try?"
Rowf stood tense and hesitant in the straw. Suddenly, from somewhere up the
fell outside, there came the faintest sound of rocky splashing as a yow, or
Lakeland sheep, scrambled its way across a beck. Rowf gave a short, snapping
bark and pushed his way through the door. Snitter followed and together, in
silence save for their clicking claws, they trotted quickly down the line of
pens to the, swing doors separating the canine shed from the next.
It took Snitter some time to get the hang of the doors. They were light;
indeed, they were portable, constructed of thick asbestos sheets on white-
painted wooden frames, for Lord Plynlimmon had thought fit, when designing the
block, to provide for flexibility in the subdivisioning by enabling the
various sheds to be made larger or smaller at need; and accordingly not only
the doors but also the preconstructed modules of the party walls were capable
(with a little trouble) of being removed and re-fixed further up or down the

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Page No 17

building, to increase or diminish the various floor areas. The doors, however,
were fitted with fairly strong return springs, of the kind that cause such
doors to jump back and hit smartly on the knee or in the face a man following
another who is not particularly heedful or considerate.
Rowf hurled himself at the right-hand door, which swung open about six inches,
and then, the spring coming into its own, threw him back across the concrete
floor. Growling, he went for it again, harder this time and higher up. Once
more it gave and, as he dropped to the ground with his head through the narrow
opening, closed upon his neck like a trap, pinning him between the two forward
(42)
edges. He struggled back in silence and was about to try to seize the frame in
his teeth when Snitter stopped him.
"It's not alive, Rowf! It's—it's—you scratch it to be let in; but there isn't
a man on the other side, you see—"
"There's some creature on the other side pushing it back! We'll have to kill
it—or chase it away, somehow— but I can't get at it."
"Wait, wait. Let's have a smell round."
Snitter pressed his wet nose to the narrow, vertical chink between the two
doors. The draught coming through bore smells, certainly, but nothing more
alarming than birds' droppings, feathers, grain and bran—all strong and at
close quarters. He could hear, too, no more than a few yards away, the
rustling and soft movements of roosting birds.
"Unless it's a creature that has no smell, Rowf, there's nothing but birds in
there."
A sudden, high-pitched yapping sounded from behind them. Snitter turned to see
the occupant of the nearest pen, a cross-bred Pekinese, standing wide awake in
a patch of moonlight and looking at them with obvious surprise. He went
quickly across to the wire.
"Don't make a row, Flatface," he said. "You might bring the tobacco man back
here."
"What are you doing?" asked the Pekinese, nose pressed against the wire. "Why
are you loose? What's that on your head? It smells of that stuff the
whitecoats put over everything."
"It's to keep the frost out," answered Snitter. "My head's a bird-table, you
know. The whitecoats cover it with bread every morning and then watch while
the birds come and eat it."
"Oh, I see." The Pekinese looked sagacious. "But how do they keep you still?"
"With chicken-wire," said Snitter. "I dote on it, actually. My friend here
dotes on it, too. He takes over when I need a rest. We're both bird-tables
through and through. Do the whitecoats go through and through? Those doors
there, I mean? How do they do it?"
The Pekinese was clearly puzzled. "They made me
(43)
better," he said. "First they made me ill and then they made me better. I've
been ill, you know."
"I can smell that," said Snitter. "You smell like a dog-blanket left out in
the rain. Flatface, listen—does the tobacco man ever go through that door?"
"Yes, to feed the birds. It's al! birds in there. You can smell them. Besides,
I've seen through when he opens it." "Through and through," said Snitter. "How
does he do it?"
"He's usually carrying things, and he pushes it with his shoulder or his foot
and then edges through sideways. Let me tell you what happened when I was ill.
First of all the whitecoats—"
Snitter went back to the doors and pressed the wedge of his muzzle gently into
the central crack. The right-hand door, which had the weaker spring, gave
slightly, and he slowly pushed through first his jaw and then his whole head,
accustoming himself to the sensation of the counter-pressure. As soon as his

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Page No 18

head was through he turned his body sideways and began to press with the
weight of his flank against the flat of the door.
"Follow me right up close, old Rowf. There's a board loose in the fence, do
you see? Don't jump at it, just push. Why, what a cloud of flies—no, it's
birds—birds!"
He eased his entire body through the door. Rowf followed him, nose to tail,
and the swing doors closed behind them, cutting off the familiar smells of
dog, straw and meat and exposing them, with all the suddenness of an airliner
from the north discharging passengers in the tropics, to the immediate impact
of strange light, strange air and strange surroundings.
The place was full of birds. They could smell, all about them, the light,
sharp odour of their droppings and hear, too, the sounds, so much quicker and
softer than those made by dogs, of their stirrings in the dark. A pigeon
nearby preened a wing, uttered a single, sleepy "Roo-too-roo; took!" and was
silent. There must be many, many birds. Pausing and listening, both dogs had
the impression of a forest in which the leaves were pigeons, spray upon spray,
rustling leaves receding into an airy gloom. Here and there a wiry branch
creaked; here and there a frag-
(U)
ment from a seed-trough pattered, like a fir-cone or a beech-nut, to the
floor.
They had entered the pigeon aviary, reservoir of one of the more eagerly
watched, important and ambitious projects in which Animal Research was
engaged. The object was nothing less than to discover how and by what means
pigeons exercise their homing instinct—a Promethean undertaking indeed, since
the birds themselves have always been content with ignorance in the matter.
The thoroughness of the experiments, devised and conducted by Mr. Lubbock, a
colleague and friend of Dr. Boycott, was impressive. Here, systematically
divided into groups and caged in different compartments, lived hundreds of
birds, each a grain of coral in that great reef of conscious knowledge to be
built by Mr. Lubbock for the good, or the advancement, or the edification—or
something or other, anyway—of the human race. Of those birds which had already
been released to flight at greater or lesser distances from the station, some
had had one eye or both eyes occluded by special appliances; some had been
fitted with minute contact lenses, to distort their vision; others had had the
sensitivity of feathers, feet, nostrils, beaks, mouths or lungs impaired or
destroyed before setting out; others again had undergone carefully planned
conditioning designed to confuse them when exposed to normal weather
conditions. In Cage 19 it rained a continuous light drizzle twenty-four hours
a day. In Cage 3, which was blacked out from the rest of the aviary, there was
perpetual sunshine; in Cage 11, perpetual darkness. In Cage 8 the source of
light (a simulated sun) moved anti-clockwise. Cage 21 was unusually hot, Cage
16A (so termed to differentiate it, for the avoidance of possible confusion,
from Cage 16, in which all the inmates had died of cold one night,
necessitating total replacement) unusually cold. In Cage 32 a light wind blew
from one direction night and day. Birds born in these cages had never known
any other weather conditions until their time came to be released to a homing
flight. Cage 9 contained a special ceiling which reproduced the night sky, but
with the various constellations disordered. At the far end of the aviary was a
row of individual cages, containing birds into whose heads
(45)
had been grafted magnetic particles, some attractive, others repellent.
Finally, there were those pigeons who had been deafened, but left with other
faculties intact.
The results of all the experiments so far had been most informative, yielding
the basic information that while some of the birds succeeded in returning
home, others did not. Many, in fact, in obedience to their defective stimuli,

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Page No 19

had flown straight out to sea until they perished; which was most interesting.
One could draw the firm and valuable conclusions: first, that birds whose
faculties had been impaired were less swift and competent in getting home than
birds whose faculties had not; and secondly, that in any given group, some
succeeded in returning while others, who did not, presumably died. Six months
ago Mr. Lub-bock had taken part in a television programme on the project, when
he had explained the pattern of the experiments and the system by which
various possibilities were being eliminated. Since then, important evidence
had been obtained in support of the theory that the birds possessed an
instinct not really explicable in scientific terms. This was humorously known
at Lawson Park as the "R.N.K." theory, from a remark once made by Tyson to Mr.
Lub-bock—"Reckon nobody knaws."
Snitter and Rowf made their way cautiously forward between the cages, half-
expect ing to meet some kind of enemy in this strange place. Or perhaps one of
the white-coats, with brisk walk and purposeful tapping of heels, might
suddenly open a door and, pausing just inside in the way they did, raise his
soap-smelling hand to the wall in the gesture that created light. All remained
quiet, however, and they pattered on, side by side, to the further end of the
aviary. Here they were once more met by double doors leading into the next
block. Snitter eased his way through and Rowf followed as before.
At once, though in a place similar in form to the last and constructed of the
same materials, they encountered another change, arresting as that, to humans,
of red limelight to green. All was the same, all was utterly different. An
intense, slavering excitement shot through them. They stiffened, sniffed the
air, whined, scratched and trembled.
(46)
Rowf leapt forward with two quick barks. The place was crowded with rats, rats
scuttling and crouching in innumerable cages. There were dead rats, too—that
was plain to be smelt; and some strange kind of rat, the smell of which seemed
to come from one quarter in particular— a gritty, black fine]]. Filtering
through all, posseting and curding the thin and wholesome odour of rats, was a
vile and loathsome redolence, as of pestilence or death, so that Rowf, even as
he barked about, was struck by an instant tetter of horror, and slunk back
silently to where Snitter, with head uplifted and ears cocked, was standing on
the shadowy floor beneath a steel table.
They were in the cancer research block, where rats, after being infected with
cancer, were treated with various palliative drugs and preparations, being
dissected after death so that the results of treatment could be observed and
noted. There were in actual fact sixty-two separate cages, not counting the
single large cage containing the control pool or reserve, from which healthy
rats were taken as required for one experiment or another. Here were cancers
of the ear, nose, throat, belly and bowels; malignant and less malignant
cancers, sarcomata of many kinds, all living and growing, like submarine
anemones, in pharyn-geal, uterine or abdominal worlds of silence needing
neither sun nor rain. Secret was the garden, set in the pathless awe now
confronting the two bewildered dogs. The rats ran in, the rats ran out and
never a rat to be seen, save for those stiff bodies lying on the glass table,
the crop of Ac previous day's work, neatly split across from end to end to
disclose, like walnuts, the white, ridged and crinkled, kernel-like growths
within.
In one corner of the block, like a private ward in a hospital, stood a
separate compartment with a locked door bearing the notice, DR. w. GOODNER.
KEEP OUT. AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY. This, too, rontained rats—black rats of
Norway—despite the fact that they were not personnel, this term being
generally understood at Lawson Park (and indeed elsewhere) to connote only men
and women (as in the Rights of Personnel, or the Prayer for All Sorts and
Conditions of Personnel, or even

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Page No 20

(47)
All Personnel
That on earth do dwell
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice).
The exact nature of the project being pursued in this locked compartment was
secret. Dr. Goodner never discussed it with anyone but the Director; others at
the station, however (including Mr. Powell), had hazarded the surmise that it
had probably, like most such work, been commissioned by the Ministry of
Defence.
Rowf paused at the locked door, sniffing at the crack beneath and listening.
"What's the matter with this place? What is that smell?"
"The leaves are rotten," whispered Snitter. For some reason the smell made him
afraid. "They fall in autumn, you know—fill the gutters. Maggots and flies,
maggots and flies. Are you hungry?"
"Not yet."
"Then come on. We're trying to get out, Rowf. Even if we were to get in there
and eat that smell, we'd be all whistle-belly-vengeance by sunrise, and the
tobacco man would find us lying here sick, or worse. There's some terrible
sort of disease in there—that's what that smell's about. Come on, quick,
before there's time to change your nose."
With this Snitter turned, led the way down to the further end of the block and
once more pushed through the doors.
Later, the wanderings of that night merged, for both of them, into a half-
remembered confusion of formaldehyde and surgical spirit, fur, feather and
hair; of paint, glass and disinfectant, hay, straw and cotton-wool; of all
manner of excreta and glandular secretions; carbolic and rust, dried blood and
wet mucus, dust, drains and sweat; quick, low alarm calls of beasts unknown
and windy sus-piration of forced breath in darkness. They came to the next
block, the sparrow and finch aviary, where diseases of cage-birds were
investigated, together with the effect of various preparations used for
dressing seed-corn before sowing. These particular sparrows had cost rather
more
(4S)
than two farthings for five, certainly in overheads if not in purchasing
price. There was a special providence in their fall; but whether they fell to
the ground with or without your heavenly Father, or mine, or Dr. Boycott's
(for he had, albeit unacknowledged, the same One as you and I), there is no
telling.
They ran swiftly through the small coati and mongoose block, with its rank,
tropical smell of procyonidae and viverridae (Mr. Powell had been set to
investigate the relatively mild effect upon these creatures of snake venom,
and several were injected daily with doses of varying quantity and
concentration), and so came to the pregnancy testing unit, where the urine of
young women was injected into mice, so that they (the young women, not the
mice) might learn (by the reactions of the mice), a little earlier than they
would otherwise have learned, whether they had been impregnated as well as
imprudent, and incautious as well as incontinent. The operation of a normal
pregnancy-testing centre was not, of course, within the true ambit of Lawson
Park, but the Director, who was a doctor of medicine and retained a certain
interest in gynaecology, had recently accepted a remit for the examination of
new and swifter methods of pregnancy-testing without animals—for which purpose
a control group of animals was, of course, necessary, in order that the
efficiency of new methods might be checked against that of the old. Here Rowf,
clumsy with uneasiness and impatience, knocked over a small table and with it
a box of mice, each confined in a separate, glass-fronted compartment. The
glass shattered and those of the mice who were not already dead or close to
death escaped, several finding their way out of the building by way of the

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Page No 21

drains. Rowf was still sniffing about the glassy floor when Snitter once more
interrupted him.
"Leave it spilt, old Rowf! Let it trickle away! It's made the floor sharp and
the blood will run out of your nose. Come and push at the next door. It's too
much for me."
They thrust their way hesitantly into the air-freight testing centre, where
various methods were being examined of packing and transporting live animals
by air. This work had been commissioned jointly by several airline
(49)
companies, largely in order that they could reply that they had done so when
faced with criticism of the deaths of various animals (such as small monkeys,
lorises and aye-ayes, captured and bound not for the Carolina plantations but
for zoos) which, having begun by being created, had ended by being crated, and
succumbing to over-crowding, fear, thirst, neglect or to all four of these
together. It was not, of.course, difficult to design humane and efficient
travelling crates for animals provided that cost was no object and that one
could count upon a reasonable measure of responsible human care during the
journey. To do the thing cheaply, however, and counting upon the prev-alance
of ignorance, indifference and neglect, called not only for ingenuity but also
for expert knowledge of what various animals could be relied upon to endure. A
principal factor was the fear and strain brought about by engine noise, sudden
dropping or striking of crates, proximity of humans and alarming smells such
as combustion engine exhaust, tobacco smoke and human sweat; and to these,
accordingly, the control groups of animals were regularly exposed for longer
or shorter periods, the results being carefully noted by Dr. Boycott, who had,
in as short a time as three months, made the remarkable discovery that over-
crowding, rough handling and prolonged thirst were beyond doubt the major
contributors to higher-than-average death rates occurring among small mammals
transported by air.
They wandered up and down the lines of hutches in the rabbitry, where
experiments were being conducted to try to develop a food, similar to rat
poison, which rabbits immune to myxomatosis would be eager to eat, with fatal
results. Again, cost had proved a difficulty. A palatable and caustic poison,
which burned through the intestines in twenty-four hours, had been tested
successfully, but unfortunately its mass-production was not practicable at
anything like an economic figure. A second poison, harmless to humans and
cheap enough to produce, had been demonstrated by Dr. Boycott on television.
On that occasion he had injected first a colleague and then a rabbit, the
latter successfully dying in convulsions in less than two minutes under the
cameras and the interested eyes of
(SO)
thousands of viewers. This poison, however, Dr. Boycott had so far not
succeeded in making reasonably palatable, so that to date, injection remained
the only means of administration. Of the possibilities of a certain sterility
drug, however, he was more hopeful, and this was now being administered, in
various forms and strengths, to both bucks and does. Rowf, having made several
attempts to break into one of the hutches by leaping at the wire, and been
requested by the rabbit inside to be so good as to let him die in peace,
rejoined Snitter in his search for some way out other than the swing doors.
They found none, and down to the next circle they went.
They searched the cat block, where cats were kept permanently in hoods
covering their eyes and ears (in order to discover the effect upon cats of
being kept permanently in hoods covering their eyes and ears). Here there was
little noise or movement. Rowf, however, became fascinated by a single voice
which kept repeating, "Oh dear, oh dear oh dear," in a tone expressive rather
of worry than of actual suffering, and spent some time trying to track it to
its source before Snitter, who had again failed to find any way out of the

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Page No 22

block, could persuade him onward.
They made their way through the aquarium block, where octopi, with or without
the benefit of brain surgery, received electric shocks when they approached
offered food (the purpose being to examine their capacity for remembering
previous shocks and therefore not responding to stimuli or inducements that
would result in their receiving another). The electric plates were switched
off, the tanks dark and their occupants somnolent or at least torpid; but
nevertheless the low, watery sounds, the lappings and gurglings filling the
room, drove Rowf almost hysterical, so that it was he who pushed on to the
next pair of doors while Snitter was still searching in vain for a negotiable
open window.
They came to a halt at last in the guinea-pig house, where all manner of
guinea-pigs—ginger, black, white, black-and-white, ginger-and-black, long-
haired, short-haired, tragical-pastoral, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral—
were kept in reserve for the needs of the station.
(51)
A number had had one or more of their legs amputated— the interesting thing
being that they possessed no power of adaptation, but continued to attempt to
behave as though they had four legs. Here Snitter, having searched the entire
room, at last stopped in the furthest corner, his nostrils pressed to the
crack under the door. This was no swing door, but a heavier affair altogether,
a door of the normal kind, painted green and shut as fast as the Arabian
trees.
"Wet mud and rain," said Snitter. "Gutters and leaves!
Smell."
Rowf put down his nose. Both could smell a steady rain falling in the darkness
outside. Rowf pushed at the unyielding door.
"No good," said Snitter. "Postman's door—paper boy's door. Oh, never mind," he
added, as Rowf remained silent and uncomprehending. "We've eaten down to the
plate, that's all."
"No getting out? Can't we fight the postman?"
"Cats up a tree. Climb until the top branches bend. Then what? Hang yourself
up on a cloud while you're thinking. Hang me up on another." As though to
reassure himself, Snitter lifted his leg against the door, peed a moment and
then sat back on his haunches, shivering in the damp draught and wisps of
cloud-wrack blown in across the sill. "It's cold. My feet are cold."
"Burn," said Rowf suddenly.
"What?"
"Burn, over there. Smell of ashes. It'll be warmer.
Come on."
There was indeed a perceptible source of heat—not much, but some—coming from
the opposite side of the block, beyond the central mass of guinea-pig hutches
piled in tiers. Turning his head in the direction towards which Rowf was
looking, Snitter could not only smell the ashes but see, in the dim light,
minute particles, dust and motes, swirling upwards in an air current that must
be warmer than the rest of the room. Following Rowf round the hutches, he
found him already sniffing at a square door of iron set in a frame of
brickwork and projecting from the wall a little above the level of his
(52)
head. It was ajar. Peering upwards, he could glimpse, within, the roof or
upper side of a kind of metal cavern, which must be deep, for not only was a
warm draught coming up it and a light drift of powdery ash, but also minute
sounds, tinklings and crepitations, magnified as they echoed against the iron
sides of the shaft.
"What is it?" asked Rowf, bristling as though for a fight.
"No animal; so put your teeth down. Swing thing— door of some kind. Get it a
bit wider open."

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Page No 23

Rowf made as if to push at it and Snitter quickly stopped him.
"No, no, you'll shut it that way. You have to nose them open, or else use your
paws. Let me show you."
He stood up and rested his front paws on the projecting brickwork, thrust his
muzzle into the crack of the opening and jerked his head sideways, levering
the square of iron wide on its hinges. At once he backed nervously away,
bristling as Rowf had done. The two dogs crouched together under the lowest
tier of hutches facing the iron door.
"What is it?" repeated Rowf. "Something's been burning, some sort of death—
bones—hair—"
"These creatures in here—whatever they are—the whitecoats must burn them. It's
the same smell, you see, only burnt. Yes, of course," said Snitter. "Of course
that's it. They burnt my head, you know, and the tobacco man keeps burning
that thing he puts in his mouth. Obviously they burn these creatures in
there."
"Why?"
"Don't be silly." Snitter went slowly back to the open door. "It's still warm
in there. Dead things—but not cold. Hot bones, hot bones. I'll throw my head
in." He put his paws up once more, peering into the mouth of the square, metal
cavern. Suddenly he gave a whine of excitement.
"Fresh air," cried Snitter. "Sheep, rain! Smell underneath the ashes! I tell
you—"
The brick-encased, iron chute, sloping downwards through the wall of the
building, led directly into a small furnace, not unlike that of a greenhouse,
sited just out-
(53)
side. This was used for burning not only rubbish, such as old surgical
dressings, fouled straw and bedding from the hutches, but also the dead bodies
of guinea-pigs and any other creatures small enough to be conveniently
disposed of in this way. There had been a brisk fire that afternoon, which had
included the truncated remains of some twenty guinea-pigs unable to be of
further help to the station, as well as a couple of kittens and a mongoose.
Tom, the lad who helped Tyson about the place, had been told to go and draw
the furnace at about five o'clock but, knowing that Tyson was in a hurry to
get away and was unlikely to come and see what sort 01 a job he had made of
it, had merely raked quickly through the ashes and fragmentary remains of
straw, bones and hair, and decided to leave the job of clearing out until
Monday morning. Tyson had not specially told him to conclude by closing the
doors both of the furnace and of the chute in Block 12, and he was certainly
not the sort of lad to allow such a refinement to occur to his mind
spontaneously—there being, as a matter of fact, little room to spare there,
what with the heavy demands made upon it by the fortunes of Manchester United,
the products of Messrs. Yamaha and the charms of Miss Nana Mouskouri. After he
had gone, the fire had revived for a time in the strong through-draught,
filling the guinea-pig block with a light smoke and the smell of burnt guinea-
pig coming up the chute; but had then died out, the furnace gradually cooling
as darkness fell and the wind sifted its way through the tinkling, clicking
ashes.
"Fresh air," said Snitter again. "Yellow smell—prickles —bees—only faint—and
somewhere there's wet rhododendrons, too. Rhododendrons, Rowf!"
"What?"
"Gorse, the yellow. We could fall there! We could! We could fall there!"
Snitter gaped, showing teeth brown about the gums, the teeth of a dog
recovered from distemper. He began trying to pull himself up and into the
square opening of the chute, thrusting in his head and front paws and hanging
a moment on the Up before falling back to the concrete floor. Rowf watched
him.

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Page No 24

(54)
"Is it hot?"
"No hotter than your dam's belly in the basket. Remember? But I can't get at
the teat."
"Get in there?"
"The rhododendrons, don't you see? Outside. Smell comes in, so dog can go
out."
Rowf considered. "Smells come through cracks. So do mice. Dogs don't. Suppose
there's nothing but a crack? You'll stick in there and die. Never get back."
"You damned flea-bitten street-corner bitch-jumper, why do you think I'm going
on like this? Once you get your head in there, you can feel the wind, wide as
your arse, and smell the rain." Snitter jumped up and again fell back, his wet
muzzle grey with powdered ash. "Burn, little bones, burn! Like my head." He
wiped at his nose with a forepaw.
Rowf, the bigger dog, stood on his hind legs, rested his front paws on the lip
of the chute and looked in. For some little while he remained thus, peering
and listening. Then, without a word, he hoisted his body up and into the
opening. His hind paws left the floor and for some moments kicked and
scrabbled in the air, trying in vain to get a purchase on the iron lip. As he
jerked himself forward, inch by inch, pulling and scraping as best he could
with front paws pressed against the smooth iron floor of the chute, his penis
caught on the sill of the door and was forced painfully downwards. He rolled
on one side and as he did so succeeded in getting the claws of one hind paw as
far as the projecting hinges. Using this purchase, he thrust himself forward
and slowly disappeared from Snitter's view, his hind legs, with tail between,
stretching out backwards and dragging behind him in the tunnel.
Snitter, full of frustration, remained running backwards and forwards in front
of the open door. Several times more he jumped up at the opening and fell
back, until at length, giving up, he lay down, panting, on the floor.
"Rowf?"
There was no answer from the tunnel,
Snitter got up and backed slowly away from the door, as though trying to get a
better view inside.
fSS)
"Rowf?"
There was still no answer, and beyond the lip he could
see nothing.
"Hoop-la sugar lump!" barked Snitter suddenly. Running forward, he took a
flying leap at the opening, like a circus dog jumping through a hoop. He felt
his hind legs strike hard against the metal lip and gave a single, quick yap
of pain; then, realizing that his body was more than half into the hole, he
rolled on his side as Rowf had done and, being smaller, drew his rump and hind
paws in without difficulty. For a few moments he lay gasping as the pain in
his legs subsided, then collected himself and smelt ahead.
Rowf's body was blocking the square tunnel in front of him. No draught was
coming up it and no smell except the metal water dog-smell of Rowf. Snitter
began to feel afraid. In this tunnel he could not turn round, evidently Rowf
could not hear him and worst of all, Rowf s body seemed not to be moving.
He crept forward until his head was lying upon Rowf s trailing hind legs. Only
now did he perceive that Rowf was in fact moving, but agonizingly slowly—more
slowly, thought Snitter, than a slug on a wet gravel path. He could smell Rowf
s urine smeared along the metal floor. It was full of fear. Snitter began to
tremble and whimper where he lay in the close, ash-powdery, cast-iron passage.
Cramped in that funnelled hole, he found himself, as he tried to stand, forced
into a curious posture, half-crouching, his rump pressed tightly against the
roof 'of the chute. He could not maintain so unnatural a stance and after a
few moments fell forward, so that his head butted sharply against Rowf s rump.

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Page No 25

At the impact he felt the body give and move the least fraction—no more,
perhaps, than the length of a tooth or claw. In frenzy, he pushed again and
again with his head at the black, shaggy rump, which at each impact slid
almost imperceptibly forward.
He did not know whether it was possible for Rowf to force his way out of the
far end of the chute. All he knew was that Rowf was still alive, for at each
push he could feel his pulse and the spasmodic working of his muscles.
(56)
For how long he continued in his desperate pushing and thrusting he had no
idea. The air in the tunnel grew foetid and his own breath lay condensed and
humid on the iron walls. He wondered whether daylight might already have come.
Slowly the length of tunnel behind him grew longer, but still there was no
sign that Rowf was likely to get clear of it. At last, just as Snitter felt
himself exhausted and unable to do more, Rowf s rump slid suddenly forward as
smoothly as a turd from a healthy anus, and dropped out of sight. Snitter,
drawing in a wonderful breath of cool air, found himself looking at a square
of fragrant darkness speckled with rain—an opening in some sort of wall beyond
the chute and framed in its mouth. A moment later he himself, dropping over
the edge, fell two feet into a drift of powdery ash sprinkled with tiny, sharp
bones on an iron grid. They had reached the furnace chamber.
Snitter scrambled up and began smelling about him. The place was scarcely
bigger than a dog-kennel, so that he and Rowf, lying side by side, covered the
entire area of the floor. Yet, despite the dust and powdery ash thrown up by
their fall, the air seemed fresher than any he had breathed for days past.
Cool currents, carrying more scents than he could recognise, were swirling all
about them, not only from below but also from each side. From somewhere
beneath him he could feel a draught, delightfully refreshing, flowing up and
along his stomach. The sensation, after the cramped agony and fear of the
chute, was so reassuring that Snitter, with closed eyes and lolling tongue,
rolled over on his side, basking in the cool air stream.
The furnace box was, in fact, open on four sides. From below the griddled
floor, air was flowing in through a vent which could be opened or closed from
outside by means of a sliding iron cover; its function being, of course, to
control the fire and make it draw more or less strongly. This vent Tom had
left half-open, so that a steady stream of rainy night air was being drawn up
through the grid and out through the flue above the dogs' heads. At the same
time—since Tom had also left open the larger, stokehole door above—another air
current was passing directly across the furnace chamber and out through the
door of
(57)
the chute into the guinea-pig block. Since the walls of the furnace had now
cooled to approximately blood-heat it was, for the two dogs, as pleasant and
restful a place as could well be imagined.
Snitter, raising his head, nudged Rowf's broad, un-moving back.
"Are you hurt, old Rowf?"
"I was afraid—never get out—until I fell down. AH right now. Tired. Sleep."
Snitter could smell a long, bleeding scratch along Rowf's flank. He licked at
it, tasting the iron and burnt-guinea-pig-flavoured soot of the hopper walls.
Gradually Rowf's breathing became slower and easier. Snitter felt the muscles
of the haunch relaxing under his tongue. Soon he himself, full of warmth and
relief, grew as drowsy as Rowf. He ceased licking, dropped his head and
stretched out his paws to touch the warm side of the furnace. In a few moments
he too was asleep.
For more than three hours the two dogs lay sleeping in the fire-box, exhausted
by the strain of their escape and the terror of their passage through the
chute. Outside, the rain became heavier, falling steadily from a drift of
clouds so low that the higher fells were blotted out beneath it. The moon was

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Page No 26

obscured and almost total darkness covered the miles of rock and bracken,
heather, moss and bilberry bushes, rowan and peat bog—a fastness little
changed since the days of the moss-raiders and the invading Scots —those
armies which had marched to defeat and death at Flodden, at Solway Moss, at
Preston, Worcester and Derby. A wild land, familiar with the passage of
fugitives and the forlorn, the lost and desperate, the shelterless and
outnumbered contending against hopeless odds. Yet tonight there was none to
bide the pelting of the pitiless storm. From Blawith to Esthwaite Water, from
Satter-thwaite and Grizedale across to Coniston, not a soul was abroad, the
dismal wastes were lonely as an ocean and not Thomas Rymer of Erceldoune
himself, returning to earth from fair Elfland after not seven, but seven
hundred years, could have discerned, from the aspect of that dark and lonely
place, what century had arrived in his absence.
At length the furnace, the bricks round the outside of
(58)
which had streamed with rain half the night, cooled to the temperature of the
surrounding darkness and soon afterwards the wind, veering round into the
south-west and Wowing up fresh rain from the Duddon estuary, began to drive
keener gusts in at the stoke-hole and the control vent below. Snitter stirred
in his sleep, feeling in his offside haunch the pricking of a guinea-pig's
splintered rib-cage. A sharp point pierced his skin and he woke with a start.
"Rowf! Come back!"
There was no reply and Snitter nuzzled him urgently.
"Come out of the leaves, Rowf, come out of the water! We've got to get on!"
Rowf raised his head drowsily.
"Don't want to go. Stay here."
"No! No! The wide place, the rain, outside!"
"Stay here—warm and dry."
"No, Rowf, no! The whitecoats, the metal water, the tobacco man! The lorry!
We've got to get out!"
Rowf stood up and stretched as best he could in the confined space. "There
isn't any out."
"Yes, there is. You can smell it." Snitter was quivering with urgency.
Rowf stood still, as though considering. At last he said, "There isn't any
out—isn't any free. There's nothing, anywhere, except—well, it's a bad world
for animals. I know that."
"Rowf, don't start smelling like that. I won't sniff it— vinegar, paraffin—
worse. I've lived outside this place, I've had a master, I know you're wrong!"
"Makes no difference."
"Yes, it does. Out of that hole. You first."
Rowf, pushing the stoke-hole door wider, looked out into the rainy darkness.
"You'd better go alone. The opening's too small for me."
"Go on, Rowf, get on! I'll come behind you."
Rowf, black as the darkness, drew back his head from the stoke-hole, crouched
on the floor and then, springing up, thrust head and front paws together
through the open-
(59)
ing, blocking it entirely. His claws scraped and scrabbled on the metal
outside.
"Rowf, get on!"
Rowf s reply came back to Snitter grotesquely, through the control-vent, up
from the grid beneath his paws.
"Too small!"
"Fight it, bite it!"
Rowf struggled helplessly, breaking wind as his belly squeezed against the
iron. One hind leg, thrashing wildly, caught Snitter across the face.
"Get on, Rowf, damn you!"

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Page No 27

Rowf began to pant and gasp. Snitter realized with horror that his struggles
were becoming weaker. His body was no longer moving at all. The truth—which
Snitter could not have grasped—was that, whereas at first Rowf s front paws
had been able to push strongly against the vertical side of the furnace
immediately below him, the further he forced his body through the door the
less effectively he was able to thrust against the brickwork. Now, two thirds
of the way through, he was helplessly and agonizingly stuck, without a
purchase to drag or push himself forward. In the fire-box behind him Snitter,
as his desperation mounted, felt a stabbing pain in his skull and a wolflike
ferocity that seemed to consume him, throbbing in the surrounding iron, the
ashes and bones.
"Damn the whitecoats!" cried Snitter, frothing at the mouth. "Damn Annie, damn
the policeman and the white bell-car! Damn you all, damn you! You've killed my
master!"
His teeth closed on Rowf's haunch. With a howl Rowf —by what means none can
ever know—convulsed his body, the iron square of the opening compressing and
excoriating his loins as he did so, and fell forward into the puddled mud
below the stoke-hole. Almost before he had had time to draw one gasping breath
and feel the pain in his ribs, Snitter was beside him, licking his face and
panting while the rain ran in streams off his back.
"Are you all right?"
"You bit me, you damned cur."
Snitter's astonishment was plainly unfeigned. "7 bit you? Of course not!"
(60)
With some difficulty Rowf stood up and sniffed at him.
"No, I can smell, it wasn't you. But something bit me." He paused, then lay
down in the mud. "I'm hurt."
"Get up and come with me," replied the voice of Snitter, an invisible dog-
smell ahead of him in the hissing darkness.
Rowf limped forward on three legs, feeling under his pads unfamiliar textures
of gravel, sticks and mud. These by their very nature were reassuring,
assuaging his pain with kindlier sensations of reality. He tried to limp
faster and broke into a clumsy run, overtaking Snitter at the corner of the
building.
"Which way?"
"Any," answered Snitter, "as long as we're well away from here by daylight."
A quick run past the rabbits' execution shed, a turn round the kittens'
quicklime pit, a moment's hesitation beyond the monkeys' gas-chamber—and they
are gone: ay, not so long ago these canines fled away into the storm. It would
be pleasant to report that that night Dr. Boycott dreamt of many a woe, and
all his whitecoat-men with shade and form of witch and demon and large coffin-
worm were long be-nightmared. One might even have "hoped to add that Tyson the
old died palsy-twitched, with meagre face deform. But in fact—as will be seen—
none of these things happened. Slowly the rain ceased, the grey rack blowing
away and over Windermere as first light came creeping into the sky and the
remaining inmates of Lawson Park awoke to another day in the care and service
of humanity.
(61)
FIT 2
Saturday the 16th October
Freedom—that consuming goal above doubt or criticism, desired as moths desire
the candle or emigrants the distant continent waiting to parch them in its
deserts or drive them to madness in its bitter winters! Freedom, that land
where rogues, at every corner, cozen with lies and promises the plucky sheep
who judged it time to sack the shepherd! Unfurl your banner, Freedom, and call
upon me with cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer and all kinds of
music to fall down and worship you, and I will do so upon the instant, for who

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Page No 28

would wish to be cast into the fiery furnace of his neighbours' contempt? I
will come to you as the male spider to the female, as the explorer to the
upper reaches of the great river upon which he knows he will die before ever
he wins through to the estuary. How should I dare refuse your beckoning, queen
whose discarded lovers vanish by night, princess whose unsuccessful suitors
die at sunset? Would to God we had never encountered you, goddess of
thrombosis, insomnia, asthma, duodenal and migraine! For we are free—free to
suffer every anguish of deliberation, of decisions which must be made upon
suspect information and half-knowledge, every anguish of hindsight and regret,
of failure, shame and responsibility for all that we have brought upon
ourselves and others: free to struggle, to starve, to demand
(62)
from all one last, supreme effort to reach where we long to be and, once
there, to conclude that it is not, after all, the right place. For a great
price obtained I this freedom, to wish to God I had died by the hand of the
Lord in the land of Egypt, when I sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the
full. The tyrant wasn't such a bad old bugger, and even in his arbitrary rages
never killed as many as died in yesterday's glorious battle for liberty. Will
you return to him, then? Ah no, sweet Freedom, I will slave for you until I
have forgotten the love that once consumed my being, until I am grown old and
bitter and can no longer see the wood for the starved, dirty trees. Then I
will curse you and die; and will you then concede that I may be accounted your
loyal follower and a true creature of this Earth? And, Freedom, was I free?
Far away, east beyond Esthwaite Water, Sawrey and Windermere, the sun, from
between low streaks of cloud, shone its first, pale rays across the woodland
and bleak moor of Grizedale Forest. Already the buzzards were aloft, watching
for prey, ready to tempest and tear any creature too slow or weak to escape or
defend itself. Before their eyes opened, under the sunrise, the immense
western prospect; the hyaline expanse of Coniston Water, five miles from
School Beck to High Nibthwaite, lined along its western shore with caravans—
orange, white and blue; and beyond, the little town of Coniston itself, grey
against surrounding fields and autumn-leaved woods. Behind stretched the
Coniston fells, over which, as the sun rose higher, the cloud shadows would
flow with a pace smooth and unaltering, like that of ships upon a deep sea.
More than four miles away, closing the horizon, rose the Coniston range—Caw,
Torver High Common, Walna Scar, Dow Crag, Old Man, Brim Fell and Swirral;
highest of all, the Old Man appeared from the east as a sharp peak tilted to
the right, its eastern face streaked with the broken, white thread of a
falling beck.
Half a mile north of Lawson Park, Monk Coniston Moor rises, hil locked and
undulant, above the oak woods below. An old, dry-stone hoggus (or hog-house—a
"hog" being, in the Lakeland, the ovine equivalent of a bullock) stands, half-
ruined, beside a stream, and a rowan lays its
(63)
pliant branches and thirteen-leafleted sprays across the roof-slates. To one
walking over the Forest from Hawks-head to Nibthwaite, or from Satterthwaite
to How Head, one lonely knoll surmounted discloses another, all the way up to
the watershed, and little moves but the falling becks, and grey sheep that
start in alarm out of the fern and go bucketing away from intruders, whether
human or animal: the proper landscape to lie drenched beneath a silver dawn,
low clouds and an east wind in October.
Here, among the dripping grasses and spongy, sodden mounds of moss, Rowf and
Snitter lay gazing in astonishment and dismay as first light made plain the
emptiness about them.
"It can't be the whitecoats," said Snitter desperately. "Not a house, not a
lamp-post, not a fence—it's not natural! Not even the whitecoats could—" He
broke off and once more raised his head to the wind. "Tar—there was—yes—for a

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Page No 29

moment—but faint. And the dustbins gone—every single one—it's not possible!"
A cock chaffinch, slate-blue-capped and rosy-breasted, fluttered across a wall
with a flash of. white wing feathers. Snitter turned his head for a moment,
then let it fall once more upon his outstretched front paws. "And no men
anywhere—so why make it?—and all that sky, how can it ever stop raining? Rowf?
Rowf, come back!"
Rowf opened his eyes, his upper lip curling as though in anger. "What?"
"What's to be done?"
"How the death should I know?"
"They've taken everything away, Rowf—the houses, the roads, cars, pavements,
dustbins, gutters—the lot. How on earth can they have done it? I tell you it's
not possible! And where have they all gone? Why make all this—make it and then
go away—why?"
"I told you," said Rowf.
"What did you tell me?"
"The world, I said. I told you it would be the same outside the pens. There
isn't any outside. You say it's been altered, so the whitecoats—or some men,
anyway— must have altered it so that they could do something or other to some
animals. That's what animals are for, to
(64)
Friday a/\c/
CONtSTOH OLD A\AN
LAVVSON   PARK
TO
LEVERS
Of Ur tht.tr escape from
Park,
is
by a dotttd
/int.: ":   ...
looking «Or(K
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have things done to them by men. It's what men are for, too, come to that—to
do the things, I mean."
"But Rowf, my master—my master never used to do anything to animals. When I
was at home with my master—"
"He must have, else he couldn't have been a man." "But how could they have
taken away the streets and houses and made all this?"
"They can do anything. Look at the sun up there. Obviously some man must once
have put up his hand to light it, same as the tobacco man does in the dog-
shed. But you wouldn't believe it unless you'd actually seen the tobacco man
do it, would you?"
Snitter was silent, shivering in the wind. The whole expanse of the fell was
now light, heather and grass flashing with raindrops in the fitful sunlight
breaking here and there through the clouds. The long call, like human
laughter, of a green woodpecker sounded from the woodland below them.
"We've got to find some men," resumed Snitter at length. "Why?"
"Dogs have to have men. We need masters. Food, shelter. Come on! We can't stay
here. The whitecoats'll be looking for us."
He got up and began to pad away through the bracken, downhill towards the
north-west. For some little time it seemed as though Rowf, still lying in the
wet heather, would let him go alone, but at length, when Snitter had passed
out of sight over the curve of the slope and reached the edge of the woodland
two hundred yards away, he suddenly jumped up and ran after him at full speed,
overtaking him under the trees.
"Do you think they've really gone, then?" asked Rowf. "I mean, suppose there

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Page No 30

aren't any men left, anywhere— if there was none at all—"
"There will be. Look—there are boot marks in the ground, and not more than a
day old, either. No, there are men. What I can't understand is why they've
changed everything. It's confused me—it's not what I was expecting. I was
expecting streets and houses, naturally."
(66)
They had already pushed their way between the bars of the gate into the wood
and were now following the path leading down to the road beside the lake. The
air was full of the scents of autumn—acorns, wet fern and newly sprouted
fungi. The rowan trees were glowing with brilliant orange berries, among
which, here and there, robins perched to defy one another, twittering,
listening and answering across their narrow territories. Despite the strange,
lonely surroundings Snitter began to take heart—from the long-forgotten
sensation of damp earth between his pads, from the twinkling light, moving
branches and leaves, the coloured fragments all about him in the grass—
harebell and lousewort, scabious and tor-mentil—and the smells and rustling
sounds of other, unseen creatures. A rabbit crossed the track and he dashed
after it, lost it, hunted back and forth and then forgot it as he stopped to
sniff at a dor-beetle under a blue-and-green-banded fungus growing between two
stones. At length he ran back to Rowf, who lay gnawing on a stick.
"There are cats here, anyway. Sort of cats. Long ears, but you can chase
them."
The stick snapped and Rowf let the broken end fall from his mouth. "Nothing to
eat."
"There will be. How the wind sends the leaves running across the trees! Then
where do they go? Never mind, there are always more." Snitter raced away
again. Rowf, hearing him crackling through the undergrowth on the other side
of the brown, turbid beck, followed more slowly.
A mile below, they came out on the road skirting the east side of Coniston
Water. The wind had died completely and all was lonely and deserted, with
never a car on the road so early. The lake itself, where they glimpsed it
between the trees, lay so clear and smooth that the stones, sunken leaves and
brown weed within its shallow, inshore depths appeared like objects in a
deserted room seen through the windows from outside. Yet at their next glimpse
these had disappeared, their place being taken, under a burst of pale
sunlight, by the reflections of moving clouds and autumn-coloured branches
along the shore.
"Look, Rowf, look!" cried Snitter, running down towards the water. "Everything
keeps still in there! I
(67)
wouldn't be mad if I was in there—things would keep still —covered over—my
head would be cool—"
Rowf hung back, growling. "Don't go down there, Snit-ter! Keep away if you've
got any sense. You can't imagine what it's like. You couldn't get out."
Snitter, about to plunge, ran back up the bank but, still fascinated, went
sniffing up and down along the edge, covering three times the distance of
Rowf. Once the canvas dressing on his head caught in a long bramble and he
wrenched himself free with a red blackberry leaf hooked into the black
sticking-plaster. He ran along the shore with a shifting and rattling of loose
pebbles, lapped thirstily, splashed in and out of a shallow place, shook
himself and scampered back to the road, scrambling clumsily up and over the
dry stone wall and dropping down into the wet grass along the verge.
"All the same, old Rowf, it's better out here than in the pens. I'm going to
make the most of it. Only the flies in my head—they keep buzzing. And I feel
like smoke. My feet are cold as a gate-latch."
Still surrounded on all sides by the early morning solitude, they came to the
northern end of the lake, ran past the turning that leads to Hawkshead,

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Page No 31

crossed School Beck bridge and so on towards Coniston. Soon they found
themselves approaching a little group of three houses, two on one side of the
road and one on the other. The sun had risen clear of the clouds in the east
and in the gardens, as they came to them, they could hear bees droning among
the phlox and late-blooming antirrhinums. Rowf, coming upon an open gate,
lifted a leg against the post, then made his way purposefully along the garden
path and disappeared round the corner of the house.
The clang of the falling dustbin-lid and the overturning of the bin were
followed by the sound of a first-floor window being flung open, then by
threatening cries, the thudding of feet running downstairs and the sharp clack
—one, two—of drawn bolts. Rowf s big shape reappeared, black and bristling,
backing away from a man in a brown dressing-gown and felt slippers, his face
bearded white with shaving-soap. As Rowf stood his ground the man stooped,
picked up a stone from the flowerbed and flung
(68)
it. Rowf ran back through the gate and rejoined Snitter in the road.
"I'd have fought him—I'd have bitten his ankle—"
"Oh, go and bite a policeman!" said Snitter. "Bite a postman, go on! You would
spoil it, wouldn't you? It's not the right way, Rowf!"
"That bin—there was food wrapped up in paper packets, like the tobacco man's—"
"You should have put yourself in and shut the lid down. Why ever did I go to
the trouble of getting you out? You've got treat men properly, Rowf, if you
want— Did he hit you with that stone?"
"No, or I'd have gone for him. I tell you—"
"Oh my dam, this chicken-wire round my head!" cried Snitter suddenly. "I'm
blind! I'm blind!" He flung himself down on the road, clawing and grabbing at
his head, which jerked back and forth horribly, like that of a clockwork toy.
"The flies—the flies are going to eat me! The road's black and white—the
lorry's coming, the lorry's coming, Rowf!"
Rowf, pressed against the garden wall, watched helplessly as Snitter got up,
staggered slowly to the other side of the road and once more fell down. He was
about to follow him over when he heard the sound of an approaching car. As it
came closer he slunk back into the gateway.
The car slowed down and stopped. The driver remained at the wheel while his
passenger, a young man in fell boots, a blue rollnecked jersey, anorak and
yellow woollen cap, got out and stood beside the car, looking down at Snitter
in the road.
"Reckon it's took badly, Jack. Bin roon over, d'ye think?"
"Nay, not roon over, it's bin to't vet, look, has that. Yon dressing on it
head. Oughter be kept close soom-wheers, bi rights, ought that. Moosta got
out."
The young man went up to Snitter who, with closed eyes, was lying limply on
his side. Murmuring gently and reassuringly, he extended a closed fist towards
his nose. Snitter half opened his eyes, sniffed at his knuckles and wagged his
tail feebly.
"It's got this green collar, Jack, but nowt on it—
(69)
nobbut a noomber. It cann't have coom far, it's that bad. Let's joost put it
int' back of car, like, to get it off rooad, and then I'll assk at woon of
t'ouses. Happen soomun'll know whose 'tis."
He bent down and lifted Snitter in his arms. In the same moment Rowf hurled
himself across the road and leapt for his throat. The driver gave a cry of
warning and the young man, dropping Snitter just in time, flung up his left
arm, which Rowfs teeth seized below the elbow of the anorak. As the young man
staggered back, the driver leapt out of the car and began beating at Rowfs
head with a pair of heavy driving-gloves. Snitter, yelping from his fall, was
already twenty yards up the road when Rowf released his grip and dashed after

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him, leaving the driver rolling up his friend's sleeve and searching his
pockets for an iodine pencil.
"I told you, Snitter, I told you! You think you know everything about men. I
told you—"
"They were all right—they were masters. It was my head—all on fire—I couldn't
see—"
"They were whitecoats—surely you know that? They were going to take you away,
take you back—Snitter, are you all right?"
"I think—yes—I think so." Snitter sat down and looked doubtfully about him. "I
wish the mouse would come back. I never know what to do without him."
"There are more houses further along this road—see them?" said Rowf. "That's
one lot the men haven't taken away, anyhow—or not yet. Let's go down there—
you'll feel better once we get among some houses."
"That cairn—dusker—he was dead, you know," said Snitter. "I saw the tobacco
man take his body out of the pen last night. He lay down, same as me—"
"When did he die?"
"You weren't there. I think it must have been yesterday afternoon, while you
were in the metal water."
"What was wrong with what I did just now?"
"You mustn't rootle about in dustbins, however nice they smell. Not if masters
are anywhere near. It makes them angry, for some reason. The proper thing, if
you want to get food out of a man, is to go and make friends
(70)
with him first, and then with any luck he gives you something. Mind you, I
never had to do that with my master. I was always fed regularly. I knew where
I was—in those days—oh, what's the use? But that's how you do it. You do the
man before the food—not after, I'll show you, when we get to these houses."
At this moment, as they were entering Coniston, they both heard the sound of
another car behind them, but still some way off. At once Rowf turned and slunk
away down a nearby side-lane (or "lonnin," as the Lakelanders call them),
between grey, lichened walls. After a moment Snitter followed him, in and out
of the docks and goose-grass beside the track, disturbing clouds of blue-
bottles and two or three tortoiseshell butterflies fluttering torpid in the
autumn air. Around them grew, little by little, the smells and quiet sounds of
a country town beginning the day—the soft, intermittent whirr of an electric
milk-float, clinking bottles, a slammed door, a called greeting answered,
smells of wood-smoke, of frying, of chickens released from the henhouse.
Snitter, overtaking his friend, led the way by back gardens, yards and patches
of waste land, always looking about him for some likely-looking man whom they
could approach.
After some time spent in wandering, lurking, jumping garden walls unseen and
dashing across open roads when there seemed no help for it, they found
themselves near the left bank of Church Beck, not far from where it runs under
the bridge in the centre of the town. The beck was loud, running strongly
after the night's rain, carrying down its rocky bed a brown spate from the
crags of Wether-lam, from Low Water, Levers Water and the eastern heights of
Old Man. Rowf, giving it one look, slunk back towards the garden wall they had
just scrambled over.
"Rowf, wait!"
"I'll be damned if I wait! That water—"
"Never mind the water. There's a shop full of food not far off. Can't you
smell it?"
"What's a shop?"
"Oh, you know—a shop—a shop's a house, Rowf, where there's meat and biscuits
and things and men who want them go and get them. Actually it's usually women,
(71)
for some reason, but—oh, never mind. This one can't be far off. You're right,

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these houses are doing me a world of good. We'll find a master before long,
you see."
Snitter, following his nose, led the way along the street and soon tracked
down the shop which had wafted to him its tidings of cold meat, sausages,
cheese and biscuits. It was an up-to-date grocer's, new and smart, its
separate delicatessen and cheese counters conveniently arranged across the
floor from the shelves of jam, shortbread, biscuits, potted meat, tins of
soup, anchovies and teas in pretty packets and tins. It was not yet open, but
the doors were standing ajar and a youth in a sacking apron was cleaning the
tiled floor with a mop and pushing the water out on the pavement, while a
young woman in a white overall was looking over the shelves and checking and
rearranging some of the stock.
Snitter came to a stop on the opposite side of the road.
"Now watch me, Rowf, and remember—men first."
"Don't like men."
"Don't be silly. Of course we've got to find a man to look after us. A dog has
to have a master if he's going to live properly. Poor old Rowf, you've just
been badly treated by the wrong sort of men."
"It's a bad world—"
"Oh, try the other lamp-post for a change. Come on! This is going to teach you
a thing or two. You'll like it."
Snitter ran across the road and put his head between the open doors. The young
man in the sacking apron, looking up, saw his black cap, backed by the shaggy
bulk of Rowf behind him. He stood staring a moment, then laid his mop aside
and called over his shoulder into the recesses of the shop.
"Eh, Mr. T.P
"What's oop?" replied a voice.
" 'Ave y'ever seen dog owt like this? It's got cap on! Theer's two on 'em
tryin' to coom in, like. Seem to know wheer theer at an' all. Are they owt to
do wi' thee?"
At talk of dogs on his premises the proprietor, a conscientious and fastidious
man, who was washing his hands with disinfectant soap as part of his normal
routine before opening shop, dried them and came hurrying for-
(72)
ward between the shelves, buttoning his clean, white, knee-length shop coat as
he went. Seeing, in passing, the ham knife lying where it should not have been
on the cheese counter, he picked it up and took it with him, tapping the flat
of the blade against his left hand in nervous haste.
"Where, Fred, where?" he said. "Where? Oh, I see. Good gracious, no, I've
never seen them in me life. Have you, Mary? Mary? Are they anything to do with
you?"
The young woman, carrying the stock sheets clipped to her fibreboard, also
approached the door.
"Whatever's that on it head?" asked the proprietor, staring.
As he came into full view from behind the shelves and, hands on knees, bent
down to look at Snitter, both dogs turned and pelted down the street like the
hounds of spring on winter's traces. Round the nearest corner they went, past
the Black Bull and up the lane beyond. After two hundred yards Snitter stopped
and pressed himself against the wall, panting.
"Did you see, Rowf? Did you?"
"He was a whitecoat!"
"He had a knife!"
"He smelt of that stuff!"
"Scissors sticking out of his front pocket!"
"There was a woman whitecoat too, carrying paper, one of those flat board
things they have when they come to take you away!"
' "Oh Rowf, how dreadful! That must be another white-coats' place! Perhaps

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the town's all whitecoats, do you think? There seemed to be hardly anyone else
about. A whole town of whitecoats!"
At the thought they began to run again.
"I'm not going back there! I bet they do throw dogs into that running water,
whatever you say."
"That man must cut them up on those glass tables in there. It isn't a shop at
all!"
"Let's get away! Come on, we'll go up here. It smells lonely."
"Yes, all right. Why, these are rhododendrons, Rowf! Rhododendrons!"
(73)
"Never mind."
"No, I mean it's all right. I tell you, we're bound to find some proper men
some time today, before we're
done."
"You'll kill us, Snitter—or worse. I'd rather keep away. I never got any good
from a man yet."
They were making their way up a walled lane—almost a road—skirting the
hillside above Coniston. Below them, at the foot of a steep slope covered with
trees and undergrowth, they could hear the big beck shouting like a mountain
torrent and from time to time caught sight of its white water foaming between
the rocks of the ravine. So loud, indeed, was the noise that when a lorry came
jolting towards them round a bend in the lonnin they were startled, having
heard nothing.
Snitter, whining with terror, crept into the bracken and hid himself. Rowf,
however, dashed at the wheels, and ran snapping for some distance behind the
lorry before coming back to the place where they had first seen it. The back
was open, with chains on its metal sides which clanked and slapped as it
swayed along; and evidently loaded with wet gravel or stone spoil, for Rowf s
black muzzle was daubed with a yellowish, ochreous sludge which had run out of
the back. He sat on his haunches, wiping at his face with one front paw.
Snitter emerged from his hiding-place and came back to him.
"What's the matter? I thought you said men—"
"A lorry, Rowf!—"
"/ chased it away all right! Damned thing, it shat all over my nose—it must
have been terrified, grrrrrr-owf!"
"Lorries—the—the blood!—they shut me up—don't do it any more, Rowf! You
won't?"
"What a strange beast you are, Snitter! One moment
you're—"
"I know what I'm talking about. Yes, I'm mad all right, but it's only the
wind. It blows through my head, you know, where the brains used to be. Once
the flies get
in—"
"They won't. Let's get on. Wherever that lorry came from there might be some
more men—better ones, you
(74)
say. I doubt it myself, but if that's what you want to find so much—"
Soon they came to the heavy waterfall below Miners Bridge and now it was Rowf
who sheered away at sight of the falling water.
"It's all right, Rowf. There aren't any whitecoats here—"
"How do you know?"
"Smell."
"I don't care—I'm not going down there."
From some distance beyond the fall they could now hear the grinding of a lorry
in low gear and the intermittent rattling, sliding and hissing of stones being
loaded. They went cautiously on. Stronger than the smells of diesel and of
men, the very ground ahead of them seemed to be exuding a strange, disturbing

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scent; earthy, a smell of rain-washed stones bare of grass—a trampled, empty
smell. Snitter seemed half-attracted and half a prey to misgiving. They came
to a smaller beck running beside the track and he lapped doubtfully at it,
licking his chops in distaste.
"I don't know—I can't make it out. Have they taken all the grass away?
Something's tainted the water—can you taste it?"
"It's metal. I should know. You stay here, Snitter. I'll go and have a look
round. If I come back running, don't hesitate—just follow me as fast as you
can."
Rowf scrabbled up a nearby pile of stones and disappeared. A few moments later
Snitter, hearing him bark, followed. Together they looked in astonishment
across the wide hollow among the hills to which they had climbed.
The entire area ahead was void of vegetation, rocked and cratered as the moon.
Across it stretched a track, where rainwater glistened in deep ruts, and
beside this a cloudy stream ran in a kind of trough. Brown mud lay everywhere,
and in the distance a pile of shale rose like a giant's unlighted bonfire. Far
off, across the waste, a dirty lorry crept, rocking and splashing. As the two
dogs watched, it backed slowly towards the pile, in obedience
(75)
to a man in a yellow helmet who shouted, gesturing first with one hand and
then the other. Somewhere out of sight the engine of a pump was put-putting
steadily and they could see, dark against the tawny ground, the line of a
thick, black hose, its spout discharging into the stream,
This was Coppermines Valley, once a mining site but now, its lodes long worked
out, frequented only for small-scale winning of gravel and spoil by anyone who
cared to bring a lorry; hence the activity on a Saturday morning. It was a
scene of squalid desolation, of ragged spoil heaps and other debris of
abandoned industry. In all directions across the disfigured landscape,
channels, raw and man-made, ran like millraces, streaming down steep slopes or
cutting unnaturally over patches of encroaching fell. A long way beyond, the
hillsides resumed their crags and bracken, from which the breeze carried
faint, mossy odours, partly occluded by the nearer smells of the workings.
The two dogs gazed for some time in silence.
"That explains it, of course," said Snitter at length.
Rowf scratched the back of one ear with a hind paw and scrabbled uneasily at
the ground.
"That explains it, Rowf, don't you see? This is the part they're making now.
They've just finished taking away all the streets and things and they're
starting to put in the big stones and grass. When they've finished here I
suppose they'll go lower down, to those houses we've come from; take them away
and make that place into rocks too. But why? Especially if the houses belong
to white-coats? I can't make it out at all. There's no sense in it, and you
can't even get out of the wind." Snitter shivered and lay down.
"Out of the wind? It's the world we can't get out of."
"These may be the wrong sort of men too. They don't look much like masters to
me, but all the same I'm going to try. What else can we do?"
Leaving Rowf sniffing the pungent, bitter scent of brown ants scurrying over
their mound, Snitter ran quickly across the waste, splashed his way through
half a dozen great puddles between the piles of shale and, wagging his tail,
approached the driver of the lorry, who was kicking mood-
(76)
ily at one of his front tyres. As the driver caught sight of him he stopped
uncertainly, half-afraid and turning as though to make off. The driver,
straightening his back, shouted over the bonnet to the man in the yellow
helmet.
"Eh, Jack, 'ast seen yon afore? Whose is it, d'y know?"
"Nay. No dog 'ere. Nowt to do wi' place, like. What's yon on it head?"

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"Dunno. Git away-aym! Goo on, get off, y' boogger!" shouted the driver,
picking up a stone. Snitter turned and ran as he threw, missed and returned to
his kicking of the tyre.
Rowf looked up from the anthill.
"What?"
"He was kicking the lorry—he was angry before I came; I could smell that."
"I suppose they must make the lorries run about in that place—tie wires on
them, push glass things into them—all that. D'you remember Kiff told us they
used to tie wires on him to make him jump?"
"They wound a cloth round his leg, he said, and pumped it tight with a rubber
ball-thing. These are the wrong sort of men—"
"All men—"
"AH right," said Snitter sulkily. "I admit I was wrong, but I haven't given up
yet. We must go and look for some other men, that's all."
"Where?"
"I don't know. Let's go up that hill over there. It's in Kthe opposite
direction from the whitecoats' town, anyway."
They loped across the bare ground, past the old youth hostel hut and the
millrace beyond, splashed through Levers Water beck and began to climb, on the
line of Low Water beck, into the high wilderness on the eastern slopes of the
Coniston range. The wind freshened, its sound in the heather rising at times
to a shrill whistling, and carried the clouds continually across and away from
the sun moving on towards noon, while their shadows, with never a sound,
flowed down the slopes faster than swallows or drifting rain. Among the stones
nothing moved. Further and higher into this solitude, with many
(77)
halts and pauses, the dogs hesitantly ascended as the morning wore on. More
than once, topping a slope or rounding a boulder, they came unexpectedly upon
a grazing yow, and as she made off chased her, barking and snapping at her
heels for forty or fifty yards until they lost interest or some other scent
distracted them from pursuit. Once, not far away, a circling buzzard closed
its wings and dropped into the grass. Some small creature squealed, but before
they reached the place the buzzard rose again with no prey to be seen in beak
or talons. Rowf watched it turn into the wind and slide away.
"Better not fall asleep here."
"Not in the open, no. Snippety-snap—don't bother to open your eyes—you haven't
got any." Snitter's short legs were tiring. He lay panting on a patch of
smooth turf littered with sheep's droppings while Rowf, in curiosity, cast
unsuccessfully about for traces of the buzzard's victim.
Still climbing, they crossed a green path and above it the stream became yet
more narrow, with many shallow falls into brown pools overhung by glistening
patches of liverwort and tussocks of grass fine as horsehair. The ascent grew
steeper until, reaching at last the lip of yet another hanging valley, they
came all unawares upon Low Water, that still and secret tarn that lies
enclosed under the precipices of Old Man and Brim Fell.
Rowf, leading the way past strange, pillar-like rocks canted upright as though
set by human hands long ago, shrank back from the outfall, cowering at sight
of the placid pool. In this seldom-visited place, windless and silent, the
tarn and its surroundings lay as they must have lain for millennia past,
unchanged by any accident or act of man. Through the limpid, grey-green water,
perhaps a hundred and fifty yards across and nowhere more than a few feet in
depth, could be seen clearly the stones of the bed, streaked here and there
with a peaty silt. On the further side, the screes of Old Man fell sheer into
the rippleless shadows, the mountain, rising nine hundred feet to its summit,
shutting off half the sky above. In the unexpectedness of the tarn's
disclosure, and the stillness of its stones and water, there seemed a kind of
malignant

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(78)
vigilance—the cold assurance of one who, in silence, watches a fugitive or
culprit unawares, waiting without haste for the moment when he will turn and
look up, to learn from that impassive face that flight or concealment is
useless and that all that he supposed secret has been observed and known from
the first.
With a howl of dismay, Rowf fled up the slope towards Raven Tor. Snitter
overtook him in a stony gully and he turned on him, panting and snarling.
"I told you, Snitter—I told you, didn't I? It doesn't matter where we go. The
whitecoats—"
"Rowf, there's no one there—nothing—"
"You never saw the tank—it's just like that—in fact that is a tank, only a
bigger one—the water doesn't move —you can see right down into it—then they
pick you up-"
As some honest soldier might find his straightforward, workaday warmth and
staunchness no match for the onset of shell-shock in a comrade, so Snitter,
his desire to reassure overwhelmed by Rowfs vehemence, lay down without
further talk, feeling against his own body his friend's tension and fear.
After some time Rowf said, "I suppose they must be waiting somewhere—the
whitecoats. Where do you think they're hiding?"
"It's not for us—not that water—it's too big—they must have made it for some
bigger animal—" Snitter, unable to explain away the sudden and unforeseeable
appearance of the tarn and almost convinced by Rowfs terrified certainty, was
nevertheless still searching for some kind of reassurance.
"What animal, then? They obviously made it, didn't they—those men down there
with the lorries—"
"For the sheep, of course," said Snitter, hoping desperately that it might be
true. "Yes, that must be it. I tell you, we've escaped. They do it to other
animals here— not to us. Look at the clouds—look at the beck—they only go one
way—they never go backwards, do they? We shan't go back either."
"We can't stay here, though." With a down-pattering of stones, Rowf got up and
padded over the shoulder of the tor.
(79)
The sight of Levers Water, a much larger tarn, with men's work clear to be
seen in the concrete embankment and dam at the outfall, provoked in him,
surprisingly, no further fear. As a stag or fox, having started up at the
first scent of hounds or sound of the horn, will then collect its wits and
begin in earnest to call upon its powers of cunning and endurance, so Rowf,
having once come upon and accepted the evidence of what he had all along more
than suspected—the ubiquity of the whitecoats— seemed now to have braced
himself to contend with it as best he could. Within seconds of their first
glimpse of the lake four or five hundred yards away at the foot of the slope,
he had drawn back and crouched down behind a boulder. As soon as Snitter was
in concealment beside him he wormed his way forward to a place from where,
between two stones, he could look out over the water without exposing himself
to view.
For nearly an hour the two dogs lay watching for any sign of human presence or
approach. Once, almost a mile away, a man appeared over the shoulder of High
Fell on the further side of the lake. For a few moments he remained within
their view, waving one arm and shouting loudly to someone or something out of
sight. His high-pitched, stylized cries carried clearly across the valley.
Then he strode on and was lost to sight.
"He wasn't—well, he didn't look like a whitecoat," said Rowf uncertainly.
"No. But he looked like the tobacco man, and he sounded rather like him, too."
Snitter had become devil's advocate. "All the same, that other water back
there, where we've come from—it wasn't like anything you've ever told me about
the tank—"

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"It was—I tell you—just because it didn't smell of
metal—"
"Smell's always the thing to go by, but I admit that doesn't necessarily mean
it's all right. Lorries don't smell of anger, for the matter of that—no blood,
no mouth-smell, nothing—but they come and kill—"
He broke off. Rowf made no reply and after a little Snitter went on, "But
what's going to become of us? What
(80)
are we going to do? They've taken away the whole natural world. There's
nothing to eat. We'll have to go back."
For a long time Rowf made no reply. At last he said, "There's something—a
smell in my mind—pitter-patter— very small—whiskers—"
A gust of wind came pushing round the shoulder, raced away down the fell and
wrinkled, tugging, across the broken cloud reflections on the surface of the
tarn. They could see the ripple pull up sharp and turn towards the outfall as
it met and mingled with some other air current in the basin.
"A mouse—there was a mouse came into my pen— we talked—"
"They're bits of biscuit that get left over, you know. Make yourself a few
teeth from bone splinters, pick up a tail and off you go. Well, it's a living.
Sometimes they're fleas trying to better themselves. My dam told me. That must
be why there's one in my head, I suppose. They get everywhere."
"This mouse said men never did anything to him— not like us—"
"Then they couldn't have given him food either."
"No, he had to find it. That was why he was there. We had food, you see. But
he didn't have anything to do with men, this mouse. He just took what food he
could get and lived that way."
"Well, but the whitecoats would kill him if they could, wouldn't they? I
remember the tobacco man once running about, trying to stamp on one he saw."
"Ah, that's just it. What did the mouse do?"
"Got away down one of the gully-holes in the floor."
"Yes." Rowf looked up as a buzzard sailed into view, hovered a few moments,
evidently decided to leave them alone and disappeared.
"The whitecoats would kill him if they could catch him," said Rowf. "But he
took care they didn't, this mouse. That was how he lived, he told me. He only
came out at night, slept down a hole—"
"Danced on his tail to save wearing out his paws. Wore a very small paper bag
to keep off the rain—"
(81)
Rowf turned to snap, and Snitter jumped up and ran away a few yards among the
loose stones. Rowf, about to follow, saw him check and remain staring. "What?"
Snitter did not answer and Rowf joined him. Far off, over the further brim of
the valley, the man had returned. As the sound of his cries once more reached
them, they saw the grey, pendent-coated, shapes of two sheep appear, running
hard over the brow higher up. Behind them, a black-and-white dog came racing
out from among the crags, dodging in and out of the heather-clumps as it went.
They watched it run in a wide half-circle before turning to descend towards
the sheep, which thereupon changed direction and began to run downhill.
Meanwhile the man, striding swiftly, had almost reached the edge of the tarn.
At his further cry the dog stopped dead and lay down, while a moment later
another dog came into view, chasing before it a third yow who ran to join the
other two.
With a whine of delight, Snitter sprang to his feet. "Rowf! Look! Take a good
look! That, Rowf, is a master—a real master of dogs! We're home and dry, Rowf,
and I was right and you were wrong! Oh, Snit's a good dog! Pass me a piece of
that blue sky and I'll chew it up! Toss me a lamp-post and I'll carry it home!
Come on, quick!"
"Where? What for? Snitter, wait—"

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"We go and do what they're doing, don't you see, and then the man'll take us
home with him! What luck! Come on!"
Snitter was off as fast as his short legs would carry him, scraping the pads
of his paws on the rough stones, tumbling in and out of peaty rifts, thrusting
breast-high through sheaves of wet heather. Rowf at first remained where he
was, but when Snitter was well down the slope and showing no sign of
hesitation or second thoughts, he too came out from their hiding-place and
followed. He overtook him splashing through Cove Beck, above the steep crags
north-west of the tarn.
"Snitter, wait, I tell you! I don't understand!" "Neither do I, altogether. My
master used to throw
(82)
sticks, but it's all the same. When you go out of doors with a master, he
always likes you to run about and do things. This man must have sheep instead
of sticks, that's all."
At this moment a yow which they had not seen got up a little distance ahead of
them and began to trot quickly away. Instantly Snitter set off in pursuit,
barking loudly, and after a few moments Rowf copied him. The yow broke into a
sheep-gallop, covering the uneven ground with leaps and quick turns and
leaving hanks of its undipped fleece trailing as it pushed through the patches
of furze. Snitter, catching the coarse, warm smells of wool and sheep-dip,
became even more excited, snapping and barking in the heat of pursuit. He put
up another yow and as he overtook it found Rowf at his shoulder, charging into
action like a hound in full cry. His voice rang over the fell.
"Rowf! Grrrrr-owf, rowf! We'll show 'em! We'll show 'em! Rowf, rowf!"
Both yows turned suddenly and ran back by the way they had come, blundering
past the dogs with a quick clitter-clatter of narrow,  agile hooves.  Snitter
was off again, this time biting at their very heels. Away below, on the nearer
shore of the tarn now, but separated from them by the sheer crags, he caught a
glimpse of the man, his cloth cap pushed back on his fell of hair, waving a
long thumb-stick and apparently yelling encouragement. His teeth nipped the
hindmost yow just above the hock and for a moment he tasted blood before she
kicked backwards and her hoof took him in the muzzle. Dazed, he sat back on
his haunches, panting.
"Hey! What th' 'ell doost think th'art playin' at? Art stark bluidy mad or
what?"
Snitter looked up. Just above him, on a peat-bank, one of the black-and-white
sheep-dogs was standing, glaring down with an expression of mingled
bewilderment and blazing fury. It smelt as angry as any dog Snitter had ever
encountered in his life. Frightened and confused, he said, "It's all right—we—
er—we don't mean you any harm—you see, we need a master—we're straying—we were
just joining in—"
(83)
Rowf was beside him now, silent and waiting. "Art out of thy minds, chasing
yows oop an' down fell, snappin' an' bitin'? Wheer's thy farm at? Wheer's thy
masster? Tha's nipped yon yow, too, tha basstard— it's bleeding, is yon—"
The sheep-dog became inarticulate with rage and incomprehension. So
overwhelming was his indignation that, like thunder or the smell of a bitch,
it swept everything else from Snitter's mind. The excitement of the chase, his
confidence in the friendliness of the man down by the tarn, his hopes of
adoption—these vanished as he found himself confronting—as unexpectedly as
Rowf had been confronted by Low Water—the outraged, incredulous anger of the
sheep-dog. There could be no question of talk or argument. It was like a bad
dream. Whatever innocent fault they had committed, it must be something worse
than vomiting on a carpet or biting a child; and evidently the sheep-dog was
merely the sharp end of a whole world's wedge of anger.
Snitter lay still as a stone while the dog came down and sniffed him over.

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"I—I'm sorry—sir—you see—we—we didn't know—" "Lay off!" cried Rowf angrily to
the sheep-dog. "You let him alone! You don't own this place—"
"Doan't oan it? Then I'd like to know who bluidy dooz. Hey, Wag," cried the
dog to his colleague, who now came running towards them, "it says we doan't
oan
this fell 'ere!"
"Bluidy cheek!" The second dog bristled. He looked, thought Snitter, a most
ugly customer, smelling strongly of a more-or-less permanent disposition to
attack. "What they reckon theer oop to, then?"
"Cheek yourself!" Rowf, the biggest dog of the four, was on his feet, hackles
up and teeth bared. "What are you doing here, if it comes to that?"
"Getherin, ye dafft sod! Seekin' woolled sheep, a' course. An' then tha cooms
down from top—like bluidy bulls on the loose—an' spoils hafe an hour's good
work—"
"Ay—they'll be tourists' tykes, tha knaws," said the first dog. "Thee, with
yon patch on thy head, wheer's thy
(84)
masster at?" he demanded for the second time. "Is he oop fell? Hast roon away,
tha feckless gowks?"
"No, we haven't a master. We want to meet yours— we didn't mean any harm—"
"He'll fill thee wi' lead, joost," said the second dog, snapping quickly at a
moth that came fluttering out of the underbrush. "Ay, he will that."
"He hasn't got a gun," said Snitter.
"Happen he has," returned the dog. "Thee bide around theer and thee'll soon
find out. Hey, Wag, remember yon dog he shot last soommer, when it were
chasin' doocks, tha knaws—"
"Ay. He were—" The first dog seemed about to enlarge on this pleasant
recollection when a perfect fusillade of cries rose from somewhere out of
sight beneath the sheer face below them.
"Don, lay down! Don, lay down! Wag, coom bye 'ere! Wag, coom bye 'ere! Yer
Wag! Yer Wag!"
"Get off fell, tha booggers, that's all," said the second dog. "Goo on awaay!"
It raced off, responding, as it came into his view, to further instructions
from the shepherd below. The first dog, Don, remained crouching tensely on the
grass, tongue lolling and front paws outstretched, paying Snitter and Rowf no
further attention whatever until, at a sudden cry of "Don, gow way! Don, gow
way!" it leapt up, gave a single bark and tore uphill, climbing to get above
and so turn two yows which were running before Wag.
Snitter and Rowf looked at each other.
"Thee'd best watch thesen," said Rowf bitterly. "Happen—"
"Oh, it isn't funny." Snitter was distraught. "I don't understand. We were
only doing the same as them—"
"They didn't want us to join their man. Jealous."
"Perhaps. I remember a cat that hid behind the door spit spit cuff scratch—
just the same. No, but they were— oh, clouds in the sky, leaves on a tree,
bark when you hear the key in the door—they belonged where they were, didn't
they; they were at home? You could smell it. No whitecoat does anything to
them. But what are we going to do, Rowf?"
(85)
"We've got to get out of here," said Rowf, "before they come back. Teeth rip
it, yes and quick! My dam, the man's coming, look!"
Sure enough, the man with the thumb-stick had appeared round one end of the
line of crags and was hurrying towards them in silence. They could see the
teeth m his face and smell his meaty sweat and manure-mucky boots Yet even as
they made off up the fell, he too turned aside and disappeared, evidently
satisfied to have seen the back of them and not wishing to leave his gethered
sheep any longer in the sole care of his dogs.

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Higher and higher. The wind had died altogether now and the heights ahead had
become invisible under a sudden mist. It seemed the very manifestation of
their hopelessness and bewilderment. There was no longer any trace of
destination or purpose in their wandering Upward they went in silence—for they
did not know where else to go or what to do—close together, tails drooping,
un-responding even when some creature—a rat or rabbit, half-concealed in the
mirk—startled and ran across their front. The grass grew sparser and then was
no more, iney were in a barren land, a blotted-out place of loose stones and
bare rocks, steep and high up. The mist swirled about them, thickening the
higher they went and smelling ot dampness, of wet lichen on the rocks, of a
dead sheep somewhere and faintly, beneath all else, of the salt sea. They were
climbing the 2,300-foot pitch of Levers Hause, the near-precipitous band
between Brim Fell and Swirrai; as wild, grim and lonely a place as any in the
Lakeland. Night was falling and in all the waste about them they knew of no
food, no shelter, no friend.
"I'm like an apple tree in autumn," said Snitter suddenly. "Tumbling down,
full of wasps and maggots And after that, you know, the leaves come down as
well—the sooner you leave me the better for you."
"I won't leave you." . "Everything I've tried today has gone wrong. This
isn t the world I left when I was sold to the whitecoats. It s all changed.
Perhaps I've changed it. Perhaps I'm mad even at the times when I don't feel
it. But surely all this smoke can't be coming out of my head?"
(86)
Brim Fell and Levers Haute
"It isn't smoke. There's no burning. You can smell. The whitecoats are mad
themselves. That's why they cut you—to make you mad too."
The mist was close about them now and the slope very (87)
steep. In the cold, the pockets and shallow pools of water among the rocks
were already crizzling. Snitter could feel minute shards of ice splintering
and vanishing under his pads. Presently he said, "Are you hungry?"
"I could eat my own paws. We'd have been fed by now, wouldn't we?"
"Yes, if you'd survived the metal water today. You always said you were sure
they meant to kill you in the
end."
The ground became level and now they could once more feel a light wind—or
rather, a kind of draught—in their faces, causing the mist to stream past
them, so that to themselves they seemed to be moving even when they stood
still. Wet through and very cold, they lay down, both completely at a loss.
"We couldn't even find our way back to the whitecoats now," said Rowf at
length. "I mean, supposing we wanted
to."
"Why would we want to?"
"The tobacco man's got our food—the men we've seen today probably give food
only to the lorries or to some other dogs—whatever animals it is that they
have to hurt. Animals like us—if we're not the particular ones they hurt we
don't get any food."
"Do you want to go back?"
"I don't know. We can't starve. Why did we come up here? I shouldn't think
anyone has been up here since the men made it, whenever that was."
"The men with the lorries made it. No one dares to come up or down it now for
fear of starving. Not even their tobacco man's used it. When he wants to come
down he jumps off the top and lands in the water to keep his boots clean. He's
really the wind, you know. He keeps his animals hung on his belt. He's dressed
all in red leaves, and he gives them packets of maggots to eat. He lights his
pipe with lightning and wears a cap made of cats'
fur—"
"If he comes here I'll fight him—I'll tear him—"

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"He won't come. He got lost in the garden and kicked
my brains to bits trying to find the way out."
(88)
It was shut of eve now, dark and very silent. A sound of mallard's wings went
whauping overhead, diminished and died, and in the cold a torpid beetle fell
from a stone and lay on its back, apparently unable either to right itself or
to crawl away. There was no sign of any other living creature.
After a long time Rowf rose slowly to his feet and stood with outthrust
muzzle, staring ahead of him so fixedly that Snitter turned his head and
followed his gaze, trying to perceive what new enemy might be approaching: but
there was nothing to be seen. Just as he was about to speak to him Rowf,
without looking round and as though to someone else, barked into the darkness,
"I know I'm a coward and a runaway—a dog who can't do what men want, but I'm
not going to die up here without making a fight for it. Help us! Help!"
Quickly, he turned and pressed his muzzle to Snitter's loins. "We've tried
your way, Snitter. Now we'll try mine. That mouse isn't the only one who can
do without men. We can change if we want to. Do you know that? Change—into
wild animals!"
He flung up his head and howled to the blotted-out, invisible sky, "Damn men!
Damn all men! Change! Change!"
Nothing moved in the silence, yet Snitter, nose lifted in fear and
uncertainty, could now perceive, growing about them, a rank, feral scent. An
old, wild scent it seemed, drawn up, one might imagine, from the depths <rf
the ancient ground beneath their paws; an ugly scent, a snarling, bloody
scent, far away, slavering, full of brutal appetite and savagery, of brief
life and briefer death, of the weakest down and the desperate slayer torn to
pieces at last, either by his enemies or his own pitiless kin. As it entered
and overcame him, his head swam and in terror he sprang up, giddy as he was,
and fled he knew not where across the cold stones. Rowf, stock-still and
waiting, made no movement and seemed unaware of his flight; and after a little
he returned, timidly wagging his tail and smelling at the black, shaggy body
as though at a stranger's.
(89)
"Rowf?"
"Owl and rat, shrew and crow," muttered Rowf thickly. "Fiercer—older—fiercer—"
"Are you an owl, Rowf; a rat? I can't fall so far—" Rowf lowered his muzzle to
the ground. "Long ago. Fierce sire; fierce dam. Fiercer than men. Kill or be
killed—" "Rowf—"
"Wolf and crow; penned in byre sheep and lamb. Smash the pen, belly filled.
Jaws grip and teeth rip—"
He snarled, tearing at the ground with his claws. "Owls, yes but fiercer.
Rats, but more cunning."
From the grinning jaws which he turned upon Snitter foam was dripping in
viscous,  sharp-smelling runnels. Snitter, belly pressed to the ground in
subjection, felt rising from his own being the response of a tameless force,
old, long-lost but now restored, innocent of mercy to any other creature,
cunning and ruthless, living only to hunger, to smell out and pursue, to kill
and devour. As he plunged to meet it, slobbering and urinating in the
eagerness of surrender, it flowed over and engulfed him and he too tore and
bit at the ground. The mist was changed to an intoxicant fume that was indeed
pouring out of his own maimed head. Yet now he knew himself also the creature
of the mist, that mist created by an all-wise providence expressly to conceal
the hunter from the quarry; the hill-mist below which, in lonely valleys, men—
not so long ago—had hidden, in their huts and caves, from the teeth of the
prowling, four-footed enemy whom they could not even see before he fell upon
their homes and cattle in the black night. "Food, Rowf! Food, Rowf! Kill it!
Kill it! Kill!" "We're going to kill it now," answered the great, black hound,

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Page No 43

through bared teeth. "Men? Men?" "Men or their beasts."
"Which way? Which way, Rowf, which way?" "The way I smell."
Running beside him, Snitter could wind at first only the emptiness of the high
fell, the grass evenly wet as though a net of fine waterdrops had been cast
over the whole mountain. Eyes and ears alike could tell him noth-
(90)
ing more and his nose conveyed no sense of direction. Every smell—leaves,
salt, rain, bracken, heather and rock —came from all directions and from none;
was, in fact, the smell of the enveloping mist itself. If there was a beck
trickling below, its sound did not penetrate the mist. If there were stars
overhead, their light had no business here. This obscurity was more than
darkness. It was void. Rowf, he understood dimly, had invoked to their aid a
power which, although their own by ancient right, was also one of overwhelming
ferocity, dreaded by men and animals from the beginning of time; cruel,
furtive and slouching; a power whose servants were bound, in return for a thin
measure of hazardous survival, to inflict the only law in the world, the law
of Kill or Be Killed. Suddenly he understood why it was that, though he and
Rowf were moving silently on, the stones, the wet grass and crags remained
unchanged; why he could not tell up-wind from downwind, mist from rain,
starlight from darkness. For it was time through which they were moving; to a
place where dogs knew of men only that they were enemies, to beware, to
outwit, to rob and kill. Sharp flashes of pain came and went in his head. The
watery air seemed to be choking him and now, as he peered about him, he
perceived with fear that they were no longer two but many. Round them in the
mist other animals were padding—shadowy animals with prick ears, lolling
tongues and bushy tails—all silent, all voracious and intent, each knowing
that his share would be nothing but what he could seize, tear, defend and
devour for himself.
"Rowf," he whispered, "who are they? Where are we?" Without answering Rowf
bounded suddenly forward, leaping between two boulders and down into the
rocky, sheltered space below. Snitter heard his high-pitched growling and the
plunging and kicking of a heavy body. As he himself jumped through the cleft
Rowf was thrown backwards on top of him. There followed a clicking of hooves
and rattling of stones as the yow vanished into the darkness. Rowf, bleeding,
picked himself up and spat out a mouthful of oily wool.
"It was too quick for me. I couldn't get it by the throat." "To kill it? Is
this—is this—where they kill?"
(91 )
"And eat," said Rowf, "or starve. Come on." Again he scented, tracked and
found. Again the quarry eluded him as he sprang at it, and he pursued it down
the almost sheer face of the fell, so that Snitter lost him and wandered,
limping and yapping until, by chance rather than by scent or hearing, he came
upon Rowf lying in a stony rift, panting as he licked at one bleeding forepaw.
"Don't leave me, Rowf! This place frightens me. I daren't be lost here—alone—"
"They're too quick," said Rowf again, "and very strong. They know their way
about here, too."
"Those—those dogs this afternoon," said Snitter timidly. "Damn them!"
"Yes, but—wait—I'm trying to dig it up. If one dog goes alone after a sheep,
the sheep runs away—more or less wherever it wants. Those two dogs went to
different places—I was watching—so that they could drive the sheep down to the
man. He kept calling out to them and they did what he said."
He could not tell whether Rowf had understood him or not. He waited in the
empty darkness, rubbing his muzzle against Rowf s sodden, shaggy side. At
length Rowf answered, "Well?"
"Two different places—dogs in two places—one runs while the other waits—There
was a cat once," said Snitter, "in the street. I was chasing it and it ran
round the corner straight into another dog."

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Page No 44

"Well?" Rowf, a grim stranger, scratched impatiently at the stones. Snitter
became confused.
"The cat floated down the gutter and I blew away with the leaves. The other
dog was carrying his master's leg— that was before the lorry came—oh, my
head!"
When he came to himself he was still in the remote, savage place, and Rowf was
licking his face.
"Don't bite me, Rowf! Don't! I saw a sheep—a sheep like a cat. It turned the
corner and you were there, waiting
for it."
"I understand. Come on then.1'
They set off once more, at first climbing steeply and then, coming upon fresh
sheep-dung on a narrow trod, creeping stealthily along it, one behind the
other.
(92)
"There's two of them ahead of us," said Rowf suddenly. "Not too far, either."
He sniffed the air again, then moved silently off the trod to one side. "I
shall be waiting behind this rock."
There was no need for further talk. Snitter knew now what they would do and
knew that Rowf knew also. Rowf had seen the cat turn the corner because they
were no longer separate creatures. It was their nature, he now understood, to
fuse as clouds fuse, to draw apart as the wind might impel them, to mingle
again as waters mingle, obedient to the pull of the earth: to feel a single
impulse, as a hundred pigeons turn together on the wing; to attack together,
as common in purpose as bees driven to fury by a scent on the air; to retain
nothing individual. He and Rowf were an animal—an animal that must eat, and
had accordingly been given faculties to fulfil that need, including that of
being in two places at once. It was this animal that he had left crouching
behind the rock, this animal which was now slinking silently over the grass,
climbing to get round the sheep on the trod below, creeping down beyond them,
yes here was the line of the trod, turn back now in the direction from which
he had come, sweet, rank smell of sheep's wet breath, bulky shapes in the
mist—
Snitter, breaking into a fierce yapping, dashed forward. The yows fled from
him immediately, one bleating and plunging away down the fell. The other ran
back along the trod and even as he followed it a quick warning flashed into
his nose, his feet and ears, uttered by the shadowy comrades hunting round
him: "The first sheep went down the fell because you dashed in too fast and
panicked it. Hold back and let this one keep on along the trod."
He stopped, uttering growls that ended in snapping barks. He heard hooves
trotting, a shallow puddle stamped in, stones rattling and then, like an
impact upon his own body, Rowf hurtling forward to bury his teeth in the
sheep's throat. Dragging, battering, beating against the Crags: kicking and
plunging; and he was running after the sound in the dark. There was blood,
steaming blood, sniff lick drooling on the ground, growling breath and a heavy
body struggling, staggering forward, a clot of bloody wool, a choking,
rattling noise somewhere ahead. Where? This
(93)
was it, this was it, Rowf underneath, blood and shit and the smell of a sheep
in agony and terror. He snapped and bit at the head, at the convulsed jaws and
staring eyes, then found the edge of an open wound in the throat and ripped
and tore. Suddenly, as he tugged, a great spurt of hot blood poured over his
face. The wool and flesh gave way in his teeth and he fell backwards,
recovered himself and leapt in again, this time to feel first an inert
throbbing and then stillness. Rowf, a black, hairy bulk soaked in blood, was
dragging himself out from under. Snitter, beginning to lick, could taste dog's
blood mingled with sheep's. There was a jagged scratch along Rowf's left side

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Page No 45

and one of his fore-paws was oozing blood.
Rowf's weight thrust him aside, gasping with excitement.
"Tear it, tear it!"
When the stomach was ripped open they dragged the steaming entrails among the
rocks, gnawed at the rib cage, fought over the liver, chewed the wet heart in
pieces. Rowf tore at a haunch until he had it severed, sinew, ball-joint and
skin, and lay crunching the red bone in his teeth. Warmth flowed through them,
and confidence—in the dark night where others were afraid, and the cold
retarding the alertness of their prey. Snitter pissed over one rock after
another—"That'll show them who owns the place!" Rowf, curled upon the bloody
stones as though in a basket, opened one eye. "Show whom?"
"If those sheep-dogs came back here now, Rowf, we'd tear them, wouldn't we?
Tear them—they'd break up like biscuit! 'What's this, what's this? Dear me, a
piece of a dog, who can have been so careless?' I'm careless, Rowf, not a
care, very fair, very far, ha ha!"
I nc rim in at ion and heady elation, cutting capers in the misty vapours,
havoc and ravage hurrah for the savage life precarious, life so various, Itfe
nefarious and temerarious, pulling faces, fierce grimaces, leaving traces in
rocky places, pieces and faeces all over the fleece is that a yow's shoulder
they've left there to moulder stuck up on a boulder? Much to learn, Rowf, in
the fern, of great concern, for this is the point of no return. Those who kill
sheep should mind where they sleep, when there's nothing
(94)
to hear the shot-gun is near, the curse of the farmer is likely to harm yer, a
scent in the morning is sent for a warning, at a cloud on the sun a wise dog
will run, it's the sharp and alert who avoid being hurt and a dog that's gone
feral is living in peril. Those with blood on their paws and wool in their
jaws should heed these old saws.
Rowf, as yet far from adept but uneasily aware that a great change had indeed
come upon them, got up and began padding up and down, nosing about, listening
and throwing up his head to smell the air.
Mist in the Lakeland can fall as swiftly as rooks fill the sky on a fine
evening, almost faster than the fell-walker's hastily unlocked compass-needle
can swing north to give a bearing: may swirl around the lost in icy folds
until the very cairns themselves seem loosed and moving, weaving, deceiving,
drifting landmarks in a muffled no-place where mountain gullies lead down into
pits of air. And again, once fallen, the mist may break up as suddenly,
opening as fast as a hastily ripped envelope full of bad news.
First Snitter saw the stars—bright Deneb in the zenith, Arcturus twinkling
grim and very far. Through the fog they came and then, all on the instant as
it seemed, the opaque, sound-muffling blanket vanished before a wind smelling
of sea-weed and salt-drenched sand. Startled by the swiftness of the change,
Rowf instinctively crept under a crag, as though knowing himself dangerously
revealed beside their kill in the sudden clarity of moonlight.
It was a little below the high ridge of Levers Hause
; that they found themselves exposed—a watershed steep
on both sides, so high and steep that yows seldom cross
from one valley to the other—those that do being a mere
handful, a half-dozen or so to be recognized at getherin
by their marks and exchanged at shepherds' meet on
T. Walna Scar. They had crossed the ridge to the Dunnerdale
" side. To the south hung the grim, eastern face of Dow
Crag, that gully-riven precipice that has killed too many
climbers, including a veteran of Kashmir. North-westward
. rose the flat top of Grey Friar and directly below lay the
-7 hanging valley known to Seathwaite shepherds as Rough
Grand—the land  above  and  draining into  Seathwaite

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Page No 46

Tarn. A light wind was ruffling the surface of the tarn with
(9$)
a broken, maculate gleam, from the shallow, marshy infall down to the deep
water round the convex curve of the dam. Thus seen from a mile away, the place
looked, at this moment, peaceful even to Rowf—Charybdis asleep, as it were, or
the clashing rocks of legend stilled in their noonday trance. In all the mile-
wide valley they could see no movement save that of the becks and yet,
watching from this high, bare shelf among the strewn remains of their kill,
both dogs, hearkening unknowingly to the whispered warnings of that cunning,
bloody power whose service they had entered, felt exposed, strayed beyond
safety, out of shelter, dangerously in the open.
Snitter's high spirits flickered and died like a spent match. He sat clawing
at his plastered head and looking down at the marshy floor below.
"We're birds on a lawn, Rowf, flies on a pane. The moon will come and run us
over.1'
Rowf considered. "A man may come—we don't know. Those other sheep this
afternoon belonged to a man; so this one must have too. He might have a gun,
as those dogs said."
"The same man?"
"Or a different man. It doesn't matter. We must get away."
"But where?"
"I don't know. They've put tanks everywhere, you see—there's another one down
there."
"But, Rowf, you know the whitecoats never come at night. We've got time to
find somewhere to hide, somewhere to run before the sun, before the gun."
Rowf blew out warm, steaming breath. "Hide? They might be watching us now."
"How could they be?"
"Well, they might have something that makes things look close when they're far
off. They might be watching from right away over there."
"Oh, that's silly, Rowf. I know they can disappear and breathe fire and create
light and all sorts of things, but they couldn't possibly do that. You're
letting your imagination run away with you."
Rowf yawned wide and licked his chops. Snitter could
(96)
Saturday,  f6tAOc£o&«.r
TO BROWN   HAVV
see fragments of sheep's flesh and sinew hanging between his teeth. "Anyway,
we may as well go down into that valley as anywhere. If I can." "If you can?"
"I'm bruised to pieces. I had to hang on by my teeth while that brute battered
me against everything it could find. You can try it next time. I'll have to go
slowly."
They set off down the hillside, Rowf scrambling and limping in and out of the
rocks on three legs. Snitter, who could have gone twice as fast, kept running
nervously from side to side, pushing his nose under stones and again turning
to look out across the empty valley. The noise of the far becks came up with a
wavering sound, receding and returning, and the outline of the distant, long
shoulder of the Friar, too, seemed oscillating minutely to and fro, as though,
poised yet not absolutely stable, it was sharing the movement of the air—or
perhaps, thought Snitter, as though he himself had become a little giddy with
gazing across the moonlit distance. As they came down on the wet moss the
illusion left him. His paws were sinking in soft ground, boggy, full of watery
rifts, and he was coaxing Rowf forward to no destination that he knew of. They
could no longer see as far as the tarn and the outlines of the surrounding
heights were altered, humped shapes against the night sky. Rowf stopped to
drink, lapping noisily, and then lay down in a patch of rushes.
"You'd better go on, Snitter—wherever you're going. I've had enough—until
tomorrow anyway."

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"But if you sleep there, Rowf, in the open—"
"Might as well lie here as anywhere. Where were we going, anyway? I've got to
rest, Snitter. My leg hurts."
"Caught stealing up on the table—"
"Snitter, let me alone!"
He bared his teeth. Snitter, catching the smell of his pain and exhaustion,
went pattering quickly away, in and out of the bents and rushes. Suddenly it
seemed, at this moment, a small matter to leave Rowf. He could not help him.
Not his energy, but his resources were at an end. His ignorance lay all about
him like a marsh, his madness within him like stagnant water. In this
artificial, man-
(98)
made wilderness he had no idea what might disclose itself, what might be lying
just out of sight in any direction; nor, if granted the power to see, would he
have been any wiser about what he ought to do. Once, there had been a master
and a home: then, after the lorry—afterwards— the canine block, the tobacco
man and the knives of the whitecoats. The escape from the whitecoats—all the
cunning, courage and endurance—had proved useless because there was nowhere he
and Rowf could go, no life which they could live. He remembered what Rowf had
said in the pen—"There might be something worse through the door." True, there
was no enemy present now, but since their escape they had not met with a
single friend, animal or human, and though nothing had happened when they
killed the sheep, he knew intuitively that they had committed a crime which
was bound to come to light, a crime the perpetrators of which would not be
forgiven. "He'll fill thee wi' lead, joost." Might it not be better to put an
end now to the anxiety and fear, to accept that they had no alternative but to
suffer as the whitecoats required of them? Rowf had said so from the outset;
had joined him, against his own conviction that they had no chance, only
because he could not face the metal tank again. Where could they go, what
could they do, what plan could they make in such a place as this? They would
simply wander about until a farmer shot them or took them back to the
whitecoats.
Put an end, then. But how? Which way back to Animal Research? Please, sir,
could you direct me to the nearest whitecoat? Do you happen to have seen a
street lying about anywhere—a shop, a house, a dustbin? You see, I'm lost. My
head was cut open and I fell in when I wasn't looking and now I seem to have
kicked my brains to pieces trying to get out. There are leaves floating in
black milk— I'm just looking for the way—no, not the way home, thought
Snitter. I won't call it that.
The stream in the middle of the Moss was wide—a good five feet at the place
where he came to it, and deep on the nearer side. As he stopped, peering down
from the bank into the dark water, he suddenly saw, reflected over
(99)
his shoulder, the figure of a man—grey-haired, dressed in an old brown
overcoat and yellow scarf, carrying a walking stick, his lips pursed to
whistle. As the man nodded and bent to pat him, Snitter leapt round and jumped
up at his knees, barking for joy. There was no one there, and he fell forward
on the squelching peat.
I wish it would stop. I thought it had. It always takes me unawares. I never
remember. I always say next time I'll take no notice, but I never do. I
mustn't sit here thinking about it; I must do something else at once.
He plunged into the beck, pulled himself out on the further side, scuttered up
the bank and shook the water off. The wet ground was no different, but about
two hundred yards away, at the foot of the hillside where it rose above the
bog, he could now see a kind of platform of smooth grass, a square, flat-
topped, steep-sided mound jutting out from the foot of the hill. It was so
plainly artificial that at first he took it for another hallucination, and sat

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watching it to see whether the figure in the brown tweed coat would reappear.
But all remained empty and quiet, and at length, half-hoping to find a
whitecoat to whom he could give himself up, he ran across the intervening
distance and up the steep bank.
On top was a levelled space of turf and small stones, perhaps half the size of
a lawn tennis court. It was completely empty, but on the further side, where
the foot of Great Blake Rigg, the south face of the Grey Friar, rose like a
wall, was a symmetrical, dark opening lined and arched with stones—a doorway
without a door—as wide as a man is tall and almost twice as high, apparently
leading underground into the heart of the mountain.
Snitter sat staring in astonishment. There were no signs of human use or
occupation, no sounds from inside the cavern, no man-smells that he could
perceive. He went cautiously closer. He could hear currents of air whispering
and echoing within. "There's a garden in its ear," thought Snitter, "but
there's no one there, unless they're hiding or asleep. There's more in this
than meets the nose, if I'm any judge." The only smells were those of clean
(100)
stones and subterranean moisture. Keeping close to one wall and ready to run
on the instant, he crept inside.
He found himself in an empty, spacious tunnel, more or less the size of the
opening itself, its high, barrel vault smoothly and regularly arched with flat
stones set close together, edge outwards, its floor a clean, dry shale of
similar, loose stones. Some of these rocked slightly under his paws, but
otherwise the ground was even and without faults. The tunnel ran back into the
heart of the mountain and from the movement of air, as well as the tiny echoes
he could hear, he realized that it must be very deep.
He moved forward, looking about him. As he went on, the dim light from the
cave mouth receded, but otherwise there was no change. The tunnel remained
level, arched above and shaled below. He came to the mouth of a drift running
in from one side, and stopped to smell and listen. It was dry, chill but not
cold, and apparently not very deep. As he turned to go back to the main shaft,
he saw the opening to the fell as a distant semi-circle of dark blue, with one
star twinkling in the middle.
Half an hour later, Snitter found Rowf where he had left him, asleep under a
patch of bog myrtle. There was a light drizzle of rain, though the moon,
setting in the west, was clear of cloud.
"Rowf, come back! Listen! Listen to me!"
"Why didn't you go? I thought you'd gone, I told you to go."
"I have gone. The mouse-hole, Rowf, the gully in the floor—it's real—we're
mice—"
"Oh, let me alone, you brain-sick puppy!"
"The whitecoats can't catch the mice, Rowf! It's safe in the rhododendrons—I
mean the hole in the floor—"
"It's a pity they didn't cut your head off while they were about it. You
couldn't talk nonsense then. My leg feels like a door in the wind—"
Snitter made a great effort. "There's a place, Rowf, a place—secret, dry, out
of the rain. I believe we couldn't be found there."
"Couldn't be jound there?"
"By men—whitecoats or farmers—anyone." (101)
"Why not? They must have made it."
"Yes, and come to that they made the gullies in the floor, where the mouse
lived. Rowf, you're wet through—"
"It's clean water—"
"You'll get fever." Snitter nipped his fore-leg and dodged away as Rowf
snarled and clambered shakily to his feet. "I'm sure I've found something
good."
"How can there be anything good in a place like this?"

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"Come and see."
When at last he had persuaded Rowf across the beck and up the steep bank to
the grassy platform, the moon had set and they could barely make out the mouth
of the cavern. Snitter led the way in, hearing behind him the clattering of
the shale as Rowf limped on his painful leg. In the blackness of the first
drift he lay down and waited for Rowf to join him.
For a long time they lay silently together on the dry stones. At last Snitter
said, "Wouldn't there be a chance, do you think; if only we could go on
killing food? It's deep—right down inside your head—and warm—out of the wind—
and we could go a long way in if we had to— no one could find us—"
Rowf, lying stretched out on his side, raised his head sleepily. "Come over
here; we might as well keep each other warm. Unless it's some sort of trap—you
know, suppose a whitecoat suddenly comes in and makes light—"
"There's no smell of men at all."
"I know. They made it, but they've gone. Or else it's like the drains—"
"No, it isn't like the drains," answered Snitter. "We must always remember
that, too. The whitecoats couldn't get down the drains; not even the tobacco
man could. But they could come down here all'right if they wanted to; perhaps
while we were asleep. So they mustn't find out we're here at all."
"Unless they know now. Unless they can see us now."
"Yes—but somehow I feel they can't. How does it smell to you?"
Rowf made no answer for a long time. At last he said,
(102)
"I believe—I'm almost afraid to believe, but yes, I do believe you're right,
Snitter. And if you are—"
"Yes?"
"It'll prove that we were right to escape after all; and we'll have a chance
to prove—to ourselves anyway—that dogs can live without men. We'll be wild
animals; and we'll be free."
(103)
FIT 3
Sunday the 17th October
It was not until some twelve hours later, on Sunday morning, that Tyson, his
cap not actually removed (an action as unthinkable as for Santa Claus to shave
his whiskers) but thrust vertically to the back of his head as a kind of
cryptic token of a kind of cryptic respect, stood facing Mr. Powell outside
the staff common room at Lawson Park.
"Ay, theer's the two on them gone," he said for the second time. "Ah thowt
Ah'd better let thee knaw, like, first thing off. Theer noan anywheers int'
block, but happen theer noan that far awaay."
"Are you sure they're not still in the block?" asked Mr. Powell. "I mean to
say, there doesn't seem any way they could have got out, really. Are you sure
they've not crept in behind something?"
"Theer noan int' block," repeated Tyson, "and Ah reckon theer nowheers about
t' plaace at all. But happen they'll noan have gone far."
"It'd be much the best thing if we could find them today," said Mr. Powell.
"You and me, I mean. Then there'd be no reason for either Dr. Boycott or Mr.
For-tescue to know anything about it at all. They're both away till tomorrow
morning, so that gives us twenty-four hours."
(104)
"Soombody moosta seen 'em, like," said Tyson. "Lasst time they were fed were
Friday neet, so they'll 'ave had a go to get some groob out of soomwheers." He
paused. "Happen they might a bin chasin' sheep ont' fell an' all. That'd be a
reel do, that would. That's offence against law, tha knaws, bein' in
possession of dog as woorries sheep."
"Oh, my God!" said Mr. Powell, appalled by the sudden thought that he might be
held personally responsible. "Tell me again how you found they were gone."

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"Well, like Ah toald thee, it were Sat'day evening when Ah coom in at usual
time, to feed animals an1 that," said Tyson. "An' Ah seen reel awaay that yon
black dog, seven-three-two, were gone out of it caage. Door were oppen, see,
an' spring o' catch were broaken. It moosta snapped some time affter Friday
neet, for it were awreet then."
Tyson had, in fact, taken a screwdriver to the catch mechanism of the pen
door. It was not that he was afraid of dismissal, or even that he cared
particularly about reproof from the Director or from Dr. Boycott. It was,
rather, that in some curious, scarcely conscious manner, he felt that by
breaking the spring of the catch he was actually altering what had happened.
After all, if the spring had snapped of its own accord, on account of metal
fatigue or some fault in the steel, then that would have explained the dogs'
escape. Now the spring had snapped, and therefore it did account for the
escape—to himself as well as to others—and saved a lot of pointless
speculation and inquiry. In Tyson's world, things that had happened had
happened, and inquiry was a waste of time. If, for example, matters had so
fallen out that it had been Tom who had reported the dogs' escape to himself,
he would simply have cuffed his head and sworn at him, whether Tom were to
blame or not (much as the Aztecs used to execute messengers who brought bad
news) and then begun to try to put things right. The spring was now deemed to
have snapped; a state of affairs not vastly different, come to that, from the
building of t Animal Research itself having attracted deemed planning 
permission from the Secretary of State.
(105 )
"But the other dog," said Mr. Powell, "eight-one-five? What happened there?"
"It had pooshed oop wire along bottom with it noase," said Tyson. "Coople o'
staples had pulled out, and it moosta scrambled oonder an' joined t' oother
dog."
"That's not going to be so easy to explain," mused Mr. Powell. "That was an
important dog, too, that eight-one-five. Adult domesticated dog—they're never
easy to get hold of for this sort of work. It had had a tricky brain operation
and was waiting for tests. There'll be hell to pay."
"Ay, well, Ah thowt thee'd want to knaw as soon as possible," said Tyson
virtuously. "Theer were nobody here yesterday neet"—and here he contrived to
suggest (not unsuccessfully, since Mr. Powell was almost young enough to be
his grandson and unable—why did he try, one wonders?—to conceal the signs of
his origin among people very much like Tyson) that he himself had been the
only dutiful and conscientious employee of Lawson Park at his post on a
Saturday evening—"but Ah coom oop first thing this morning to see if Dr.
Boycott were here. Ah'll joost have to be shiftin' along now." For if a search
there were going to be, Tyson had no intention of spending his Sunday in
participation.
"You say they must have run right through the block?" asked Mr. Powell.
"Well, theer were box of mice knocked ont' floor like, in pregnancy unit. Dogs
moosta doon it, noothin' else could *uv."
"Oh, blast and damn!" cried Mr. Powell, visualizing the complaints from and
correspondence with the general medical practitioners and other appointed
representatives of the putatively pregnant young women. A sudden thought
struck him. "Then they must have gone through the cancer unit, Tyson—the rat
block?"
"Ay, they would that."
"I say, they didn't get into Dr. Goodner's place, did they?" asked Mr. Powell
quickly.
"Nay, it were locked reet as ever. There's noon goes in theer but hisself."
(106)
"But you're absolutely certain—er, Mr. Tyson—that they didn't get in there?"
"Oh ay. He'll tell thee hisself."

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"Well, thank the holies for that, anyway. That would have been the end, that
would. Well, I suppose I'd better have a look round the place myself and then
if they don't turn up I'll go out and see if I can find anyone who's seen
them. I shan't tell the police—that'll be for the Director to decide. Dammit,"
said Mr. Powell, "someone must have seen 'em—they've got those green collars
on, plain as day. Very likely someone'!! ring up later. Well, thanks, Mr.
Tyson. And if you hear anything yourself, ring up and leave a message for me,
won't you?"
Some say that deep sleep is dreamless and that we dream only in the moments
before awakening, experiencing during seconds the imagined occurrences of
minutes or hours. Others have surmised that dreaming is continuous as long as
we are asleep, just as sensation and experience must needs continue as long as
we are awake; but that we recall—when we recall at all—only those margins and
fragments which concluded the whole range of our imagining during sleep; as
though one who at night was able to walk alive through the depths of the sea,
upon his return could remember only those light-filtering, green-lit slopes up
which he had clambered back at last to the sands of morning. Others again
believe that in deep sleep, when the gaoler nods unawares and the doors fall
open upon those age-old, mysterious caverns of the mind where none ever did
anything so new-fangled as read a book or say a prayer, the obscure forces,
sore labour's bath, that flow forth to cleanse and renew, are of their nature
inexpressible—and invisible, therefore, to dreaming eyes—in any terms or
symbols comprehensible to the mind of one Wive, though we may know more when
we are dead. Some 6f these, however (so runs the theory), floating upwards
from psychic depths far below those of the individual mind, attract to
themselves concordant splinters and sympathetic remnants from the individual
dreamer's mem-much as, they say, the fairies, poor wisps of nothing, to glean
and deck themselves with such scraps and
(107)
snippets of finery as humans might have discarded for their finding. Dreams,
then, are bubbles, insubstantial globes of waking matter, by their nature
rising buoyant through the enveloping element of sleep; and for all we know,
too numerous to be marked and remembered by the sleeper, who upon his
awakening catches only one here or there, as a child in autumn may catch a
falling leaf out of ail the myriads twirling past him.
Be this as it may, how terrible, to some, can be the return from those dark
sea-caves! Ah, God! we stagger up through the surf and collapse upon the sand,
behind us the memory of our visions and before us the prospect of a desert
shore or a land peopled by savages. Or again, we are dragged by the waves over
coral, our landfall a torment from which, if only it would harbour us, we
would fly back into the ocean. For indeed, when asleep we are like amphibious
creatures, breathing another element, which reciprocates our own final act of
waking by itself casting us out and closing the door upon all hope of
immediate return. The caddis larva crawls upon the bottom of the pond, secure
within its house of fragments, until in due time there comes upon it, whether
it will or no, that strange and fatal hour when it must leave its frail safety
and begin to crawl, helpless and exposed, towards the surface. What dangers
gather about it then, in this last hour of its water-life—rending, devouring,
swallowing into the belly of the great fish! And this hazard it can by no
means evade, but only trust to survive. What follows? Emergence into the no-
less-terrible world of air, with the prospect of the mayfly's short life,
defenceless among the rising trout and pouncing sparrows. We crawl upwards
towards Monday morning; to the cheque book and the boss; to the dismal
recollection of guilt, of advancing illness, of imminent death in battle or
the onset of disgrace or ruin. "I must be up betimes," said King Charles,
awakening for the last time upon that bitter dawn in January long ago, "for I
have a great work to do today." A noble gentleman, he shed no tears for

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himself. Yet who would not weep for him, emerging courageous, obstinate and
alone upon that desolate shore whither sleep had cast him up to confront his
unjust death?
(108)
When Snitter woke in the near-darkness of the shaft, it was to the accustomed
sense of loss and madness, to the dull ache in his head, the clammy sensation
of the torn and sodden dressing above his eye and the recollection that he and
Rowf were masterless fugitives, free to keep themselves alive for as long as
they could in an unnatural, unfamiliar place, of the nature of which they knew
practically nothing. He did not even know the way back to Animal Research or
whether, if they did return, they would be taken in. Perhaps the whitecoats or
the tobacco man had already decreed that they were to be killed. He had
several times seen the latter remove sick dogs from their pens, but had never
seen him bring one back. He remembered Brot, a dog who, like himself, had been
put to sleep by the whitecoats, but had woken to find that he was blind. Brot
had blundered about his pen for several hours before the tobacco man, coming
in at his usual time in the evening, had taken him away. Snitter could recall
clearly the desperate and hopeless tone of his yelping. He himself had no fear
of going blind; but what if his fits and visions were to increase, perhaps to
possess him altogether, so that— He started up from where he was lying on the
dry shale.
"Rowf! Rowf, listen, you will kill me, won't you? You coud do it quite
quickly. It wouldn't be difficult. Rowf?"
Rowf had woken in the instant that Snitter's body ceased to touch his own.
"What are you talking about, you crazy little duffer? What did you say?"
"Nothing," answered Snitter. "I meant if I ever change into wasps, you know—
maggots—I mean, if I fall into the gutter—oh, never mind. Rowf, are you still
broken?"
Rowf got up, put his injured front paw gingerly to the ground, winced and lay
down again.
"I can't run on it. Anyway, I'm bruised and stiff all over. I shall go on
lying here until I feel better."
"Just imagine, Rowf, if all these stones suddenly turned into meat—"
"If what?"
"Biscuits dropping out of the roof—"
"Lie down!"
(109)
"And an animal came in, without teeth or claws, all made of horse liver—"
"What do you mean? How could that happen?"
"Oh, I saw it rain from the ground to the clouds— black milk, you know—"
"You've made me feel hungry, damn you!"
"Are we going out, like—you know, like last night?"
"I can't do it now, Snitter. Not until I feel better. Another battering like
that—we'll just have to wait a bit. Tomorrow—"
"Let's go back to where it's lying," said Snitter. "There'll be a good deal
left."
He pattered quickly over the shale towards the vaulted opening, Rowf limping
behind him. It was afternoon and the red October sun, already sinking, was
shining straight up the length of Dunnerdale beneath. Far below the tawny,
glowing bracken and the glittering stealth of the tarn, Snitter could see cows
in green fields, grey stone walls, red-leaved trees and whitewashed houses,
all clear and still as though enclosed in golden glass. Yet the sun itself,
which imparted this stillness, did not share it, seeming rather to swim in the
blue liquidity of the sky, wavering before the eyes, a molten mass floating,
rocking, drifting westward in a fluid that slowly cooled but could not quench
its heat. Snitter stood blinking on the warm turf near the entrance, scenting
the dry bracken and bog myrtle in the autumn air. The dressing fell across his

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eye and he tossed up his head.
"Was there ever a dog that could fly?"
"Yes," replied Rowf promptly, "but the whitecoats cut off its wings to see
what would happen."
"What did happen?"
"It couldn't fly."
"Then it's no worse off than we are. I'll go as slowly as you like."
Rowf stumbled stiffly forward and the pair set off towards the stream. In the
windless warmth of the St. Martin's summer afternoon, Snitter's spirits began
to rise and he pattered about the moss, splashing in and out of shallow pools
and jumping in pursuit like a puppy whenever he put up a wheatear or whinchat
in the bog.
(110)
They had no need to search for the carcase they had left. Even before they
winded it they could hear the raucous squabbling of two buzzards, and a few
moments later saw them hopping and fluttering about their rip-work. As the
dogs approached, the big birds turned and stared at them angrily, but thought
better of it and flapped slowly away, sailing down on brown wings towards the
tarn.
"It's little enough they've left," said Rowf, thrusting his muzzle into the
fly-buzzing, blood-glazed remains. Snitter hung back, looking about him.
"It's not only them. There's been some other creature—"
Rowf looked up sharply. "You're right. I can smell it. But what? The smell—
makes me angry, somehow—"
He ran about the rocks. "I'll catch it. The smell—like a horse-mouse. What
d'you make of it?" He was slavering as he spoke.
"Never mind," answered Snitter, pressing down with one paw upon the haunch he
was tearing. "It's not here now."
"Yes, it is. Watching, I think. Lurking. Not far off."
"Let's not leave anything here if we can help it," said Snitter. "Eat all you
can and we'll carry the rest back to the rhododendrons—a good chunk each,
anyway."
They returned to the cave in'the late afternoon, Snitter with a fore-leg, Rowf
half-dragging the rank-smelling remains of the haunch. For some time they lay
in the sun ,on the flat turf outside, retreating to the shaft only when the
light was half-gone and a chilly breeze came rippling up the tarn from the
west. Snitter scrabbled out a shallow recess in the shale to fit his body, lay
down in it with a comfortable feeling of hunger satisfied and fell quickly
asleep.
He woke suddenly, in pitch darkness, to realize that Rowf was creeping warily
across the tunnel a few yards away. He was about to ask him what he was doing
when , something in Rowf's movement and breathing made him hold himself
motionless, tensed and waiting. A moment later he became aware of the same
strange reek that they had scented near the sheep's carcase. He lay still as a
fill)
spider, letting the smell flow through him, seeking from it all that it could
tell. It was not an angry smell, nor a dangerous smell: but none the less
wild, yes and exciting, a sharp, killing smell, a furtive smell, trotting,
preying, slinking through the darkness. And it was a quick-moving smell.
Whatever the animal might be, it was on the move, it was alive here, now, in
the cave with them. This, of course, was the reason for Rowf s caution and
crafty alertness, which Snitter had already sensed in the moment of his own
waking.
Why had the animal come? To kill them for food? No, this, he knew
instinctively, it had not. Whatever it might be up to, it was trying to avoid
them, although it smelt like an animal which could fight if it were forced to.
Because this was its home? But its smell was very strong and distinctive, and

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there had been no trace of it here yesterday. Then it could have come only in
order to try to steal their meat.
At this moment there was a sudden, momentary clattering of loose stones in the
dark and immediately Rowf said, "Stay where you are. If you try to get past me
I'll kill you."
There was no reply. Snitter, feeling himself trembling, got up and took a
position a few feet away from Rowf, so that between them the way out was
effectively blocked.
"/'// kill you, too," he said, "and that'd be twice, so it wouldn't be worth
it."
The next instant he jumped back with a sharp yap of astonishment, for the
voice answering him was speaking, unmistakably, a sort—a very odd sort—of dog
language. Barely understandable and like nothing he had ever heard, the voice,
nevertheless, was undoubtedly that of an animal in some way akin to
themselves.
"It'll de ye smaall gud killin' me, ninny. Ye'll not see three morns yerseF."
There was a kind of wheedling defiance in the voice, as though the owner had
not yet decided whether to fight, to run or to cajole, but was trying the
latter and putting an edge to it for good value.
"Who are you?" said Rowf. Snitter could sense his
(112)
uncertainty, and wondered whether the animal could also do so. "Are you a
dog?"
"Why ay, Ah'm a derg. Watch ahint ye!" cried the voice in a sudden tone of
urgent warning. Snitter leapt round. In the moment that he realized he had
been tricked, Rowf blundered against him, dashing across the breadth of the
tunnel to prevent the intruder's escape. Both were biting now and snapping,
but as Snitter, picking himself up, jumped to Rowf s help, the scuffle broke
off, the shale clicking once more as the animal ran back into the tunnel.
"Stay where you are!" said Rowf again. "If you run any further I'll follow you
and break your back!"
"Howway noo, kidda," replied the animal, in the same strange dog-jargon. "Ne
need fer ye an' me te start battlin'. Laa-laa-let, ma bonny pet."
Listening, Snitter felt his blood tingle, not with fear but with a kind of
thrilled repulsion and attraction. The voice of the smell was obsequious,
cunning, that of a thief, a liar, masterless, callous and untrustworthy. It
was also full of sardonic humour, of courage and resource, and pitiless, most
of all for itself. Its lilting rogue's jargon spoke to his own madness.
Fascinated, he waited to hear it speak again.
"By three morns, the pair on yez'll bowth be deed. Forst ye bleed an' then yer
deed," said the voice, in a kind of crooning spell. "Lie an' bleed, ye'll
bowth be deed, crows hes been an" picked yer een."
Snitter found himself answering spontaneously, without thought.
"The sky opened, you know," said Snitter. "There was a thunderstorm and this
lightning shot down into my head. Before that, it was black and white; I mean,
the road was black and white; and then the lorry came and the tobacco man set
my head on fire. I can bark and I can jump and I can catch a sugar lump." He
threw back his head and barked.
"Shut up," said Rowf.
"De ye say so?" said the voice to Snitter. "Whey, mebbies. Howway wi' me, lad,
tappy-lappy, aall tegither,
(113)
an* Ah'll put yez on the reet road. Mind, thoo beats them, aall fer a bonny
mate, Ah warr'nd."
"Yes," said Snitter, "you understand a lot, don't you? I'll go along with you;
you show me where." He began moving forward in the dark, towards the voice.
"By, mind, ye've been fair bashed, hinny," whispered the voice, close to him

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now. "Who gi' ye that slit o' th' heed? Who dun yon? Yer sore hunt!"
"It was the whitecoats," answered Snitter.
The reek was all round him now, the pain in his head was gone and he and the
voice were floating elegantly, effortlessly, towards the dark-blue, star-
twinkling oval of the cave-mouth.
He did not realize that Row! had knocked him down until he heard the strange
animal once more run back down the tunnel. Then he smelt that Rowf was so
angry that if he did not take care he was likely to be badly bitten. Lying
quite still, he said, "Rowf, there's no point in killing him, whatever sort of
animal he is. He'd fight and it'd be too much trouble."
"You didn't wake up soon enough," answered Rowf. "If I hadn't stopped him he'd
have been off with that leg-bone you brought back,"
"He says he's a dog. If your shadow could sing—"
"I don't care what he says he is, he's a thief. I'll make
him sorry."
"Noo give ower," said the creature in the dark. "Go canny. Let's aall be pals,
ne need fer brawlin'. Stick wi' me and well aall be champion. Else ye'll be
deed soon, like Ah towld yez."
"Dead?" said Snitter.
"Ay, deed, an' ne argument aboot it, ne bother."
"Why should we be?"
"Whey, hinny, ne chance at aall, gannin' aboot th' fell killin' yows an'
hollerin' yer heeds off," said the creature. "Ye gan on that style and ye'll
have me kilt forbye. Ye should be neether seen nor hord, else yer deed dergs,
Ah'm tellin' ye."
"What are you telling us, then?" asked Snitter, his fascination growing as he
realized that, unlike Rowf, he could partly understand the creature's talk.
(114)
"Ye'll hunt an' ye'll kill weel, wi' me. Ye'll gan oot an' come back fed, wi'
me. Ye'll run through th' neet an' foller me feet an' Ah'll keep ye reet.
Ah'll keep ye reet, ye'll get yer meat." The voice had taken on a rhythmic
hypnotic cadence, wheedling and sly, that made Snitter prick his ears and
dilate his nostrils to the smell in the dark.
"Listen, Rowf, listen!"
"Whatever he is, he's not to be trusted," answered Rowf. "Anyway, I can't
understand a word he says."
"I can," said Snitter. "I'll smell and I'll tell. I've listened to birds in
the chimney and beetles under the door. My head feels better. It's open like a
flower." He cut a caper on the shale.
Rowf growled and Snitter collected himself.
"He says we're strangers here and we're in danger because we don't know the
place or how to look after ourselves, and for some reason that puts him in
danger too. He's suggesting that we let him share what we kill and in return
he'll give us advice and tell us what to do."
Rowf considered. "He'll only cheat us, and run away when it suits him. I tell
you, he's not to be trusted."
"We've nothing to lose. He's a sharp one, Rowf— bright as the leaves on the
trees." Snitter now felt that he would give anything to see the owner of the
voice, or merely to keep him with them a little longer. The dreary cavern
seemed crackling with his shifty vitality.
"Grab hold of your meat and lie on it," said Rowf. "I'm going to do the same.
If you're still here when it's light," he said into the darkness, "we'll see
what you are and whether you're worth feeding. What do you call yourself?"
The answer, taunting, mordant and inscrutable, came in a whisper from some
further recess of the tunnel.
"Dry an' warrm's nivver harrm. Keep tight hold o' y«r meat an' gud luck gan
wi' ye. Noo yer taalkin' sense. Who am Ah? Ah'm tod, whey Ah'm tod, ye knaw.

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Canniest riever on moss and moor!"
(115)
Monday the 18th October
"—so after we'd got out," said Rowf, "we didn't know where to go. We came to
some houses, but I bit a man who was going to put Snitter in a car—he saw him
lying by the road and picked him up—so we ran away. Then, later, a man with a
lorry threw a stone at Snitter—"
"There was another man who was hunting sheep with his dogs," put in Snitter.
"We went to help them, but the dogs drove us away."
The tod, lying on the shale at several yards' safe distance, head on sandy
paws, listened intently as it continued gnawing on the remains of the fore-
leg. Outside, the cloudy, grey light of morning showed a drizzling rain
drifting across the mouth of the cavern.
"Snitter thought we ought to go on trying to find some man or other who'd take
us to his house and look after us," said Rowf, "but I couldn't see the sense
of that. To begin with, the men have taken away all the houses and streets and
things—Snitter admits it himself—but apart from that, it's a silly thing to
expect. Men are there to hurt animals, not to look after them."
"Noo yer reel, hinny. Guns an' dergs, an' trraps an' aall. Ye'd be a fond
fyeul an' loose 1' th' heed te seek oot th' likes o' them." The tod cracked a
small bone and spat it out. "Crrunshin' bait's th' bonniest."
"I know where I ought to be," said Rowf. "Back with the whitecoats, like the
other dogs. All right, I'm a deserter. I'd like to be a good dog, but I can't—
I can't go near another tank."
"The whole place seems to be covered with these great
tanks," said Snitter. "How often do the men put animals
into them, and what sort of animals? They must be huge!"
The tod glanced shrewdly from one to the other, but
answered nothing.
(116)
"You're a wild animal, aren't you?" said Rowf. "You never have anything to do
with men?"
"Ay, noo an' agyen." The tod showed its teeth. "Ducks an' new lambs." It
rolled on one side, licking briefly at a long, white scar on its belly. "An'
kittens i' th' barn, wad ye think it, noo?"
"Kittens?" asked Snitter, astonished.
"Th' aald cat come, so Ah teuk off wi' th' one."
"Teuk off with the one?" Snitter was at a loss.
"Ay, just th' one."
"7 mean to live here as a wild animal, that's the long and short of it," said
Rowf. "Snitter can go and look for men if he wants to. I'm a mouse and this is
my drain."
"Wivoot me, bonny lad, Ah'll gi' ye ne mair than three morns."
"Go on," said Snitter, "why not?"
"Ah've seen nowt dafter, th' pair on yez, lyin' fiat oot o' th' fell like wee
piggies full o' grub, like there wez neether dergs nor shepherd aboot. Ye
fells th' yow, bolts it doon ye, kips ye doon a spell an' comes back like a
pair o' squallin' cubs. Ye took ne heed at aall o' shepherd's gun or dergs.
Ah'd think shame o' ye, ye pair o' daft nowts."
Rowf's hackles rose at the sardonic mockery in the sharp, thin voice, and at
once its tone changed to one of open, honest admiration.
"By, mind—ye pulled yon yow doon clever, though. By, hinny, yer a hard 'un.
There's none like ye. Hard as th' hobs ye are—a fair mazer!"
"It knocked me about," said Rowf. "I'm bruised all over."
"Hinny, there's ways. Wi' me ye'll sharp knaw hoo te duck an' dodge. There's
ways o' gettin' stuck in hard, an' ways o' duckin' oot. Wi' me aside ye, a
greet, hard boogger like yell hev ne bother. Ye'll sharp larn th' ways, an' a

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sharp tod like me's th' one te larn ye hoo."
"Do you kill sheep, then?" asked Snitter in surprise, thinking that the tod
was, if anything, smaller than himself.
"Whey, mebbies a bit young lamb i' th' spring if th' chances come. But yon
derg's a mazer for th' yows,"
(117)
replied the tod, keeping its eyes on Row! with a look of great respect. "Come
te that, ye cud bowth be dab hands."
"Do you want to stay here with us—is that what you're saying?" asked Snitter,
once more feeling, as he had felt in the night, a mysterious and exciting
affinity with this devious, insinuating creature, whose every word and
movement seemed part of the spinning of some invisible net of stratagem.
"Ah, whey, ye'll hev ne bother wi' me. Ah do nowt but pick at me meat," said
the tod. It got up, slunk quickly to the cavern's opening, peered round one
corner into the falling rain and returned. "Us tods, we nivver stop runnin',
nivver till th' Dark cums doon. An' yon's a bonny way off yit—th' Dark—for Ah
warr'nd they'll hev te move sharp te catch me."
"And that's what you're offering—you share what we kill and in return you'll
teach us how to survive here and help us not to be seen or caught by men?"
"Ay. Noo yer taalkin'. Otherwise th' Dark'11 be doon on ye, ne time at aall.
Yon farmer'll hev yer hides full o' lead an' it'll be off an' away into th*
Dark wi' yez."
The tod rolled on its back, tossed the knuckle-bone into the air, caught it
and threw it towards Snitter, whose clumsy, late-starting grab missed it by
inches. Annoyed, Snitter jumped across to where the bone had fallen, picked it
up and looked around for the tod.
"Ahint ye!" It had passed him like a shadow and was hovering light-footed on
the shale at his back. "Hill bide ye, an' fern hide ye, an' stream drown yer
scent aside ye!"
"What's your name?" asked Snitter, having, as he spoke, a curious illusion
that the tod was hanging poised on the stones as the buzzards on the wind-
currents above
the fell.
For the first time the tod seemed at a loss.
"Your name?" repeated Snitter.  "What do we call
you?"
"Why, ye knaw, ye knaw," answered the tod, with the hesitant lack of
conviction of one unwilling to admit that he does not understand a question.
"Mind, yer aye a canny 'un. Reel pair o' dazzlers."
There was a pause.
(118)
"He hasn't got a name," said Rowf suddenly. "Neither had the mouse."
"But how can he—"
"Dangerous thing, a name. Someone might catch hold of you by it, mightn't
they? He can't afford a name— that's my guess. He hasn't got one. He's a wild
animal."
Suddenly a great flame of abandonment crackled up in the thorny tangle of
Snitter's mind. He could be done with care. He too could become burdened with
no name, no past, no future; with no regret, no memory, no loss; no fear but
caution, no longing but appetite, no misery but bodily pain. No part of his
self need be exposed except his awareness of the present and that gone in an
instant, like a fly snapped at and missed on a summer afternoon. He saw
himself, bold and wary, floating on life, needing nothing, obedient only to
cunning and instinct, creeping through the bracken upon the quarry, vanishing
from pursuers like a shadow, sleeping secure in hiding, gambling again and
again until at last he lost; and then departing, with a shrug and a grin, to
make way for some other trickster nameless as himself.

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"Stay!" he cried, jumping on Rowf like a puppy. "Let him stay! Wild animals!
Wild animals!"
Frolicking, he rolled over, scratching his back on the shale, and began
clawing and worrying in earnest at the tattered dressing on his head.
"It seems most unfortunate," said Dr. Boycott, looking up at Mr. Powell over
his spectacles. "And I'm afraid I still can't make out, from what you've told
me, how it came to occur."
Mr. Powell shifted his feet uneasily. "Well, I certainly don't want to put the
blame on Tyson," he answered. "He's a good bloke as a rule. But as far as I
can make out, he didn't notice on Friday evening that there was a length of
wire netting loose along the bottom of eight-one-five's pen, and some time
that night eight-one-five must have worried its way through to seven-three-
two's side." He stopped, as though to suggest that there was no more to be
said. Dr. Boycott continued to look at him as though there were, and after a
pause Mr. Powell continued.
(119)
"Well, then the spring of the catch of seven-three-two's
door happened to break and that's how they both got out."
"But if the door had been shut properly, it would stay
shut, wouldn't it, even if the spring of the catch did break?
It wouldn't move of its own accord."
Mr. Powell was undergoing the embarrassment and confusion not infrequently
suffered by young officers who, having failed, through nervousness,
inexperience and a certain misplaced respect, to press older (and gruffer)
subordinates with awkward questions, later find themselves confronted with the
same questions from their own seniors.
"Well, that occurred to me, too,  actually; but the spring's broken all right—
he showed it to me." "You're sure he didn't break it himself?" "I don't see
why he'd do that, chief.'* "Well, because he realized on Saturday that he
hadn't shut the door properly on Friday, of course," said Dr. Boycott,
allowing Mr. Powell to perceive his impatience at his subordinate's having
failed to think of this for himself.
"We can't be sure of that, no," replied Mr. Powell. "But if he did, he'd never
admit it, would he?" This answer, he felt, must surely end that particular
line of inquiry.
"But did you ask him?" persisted Dr. Boycott, neatly reappearing, as it were
out of the bracken, at a fresh point along the line.
"Well, no—not exactly." "Well, either you did or you didn't." Dr. Boycott
stared over his glasses and under his raised eyebrows. The thought crossed Mr.
Powell's mind that it was a pity that one could not, as in chess, resign, and
thereupon at once resume a life in which the blunders leading to the
resignation, however foolish, became mere fragments of a concluded
parenthesis.
"Well, anyway," resumed Dr. Boycott at length, with the air of one obliged to
struggle patiently on in a situation rendered virtually impossible by
another's incompetence, "the two dogs got out of seven-three-two's pen. What
happened then?"
"Well, then they must have run right through the block,
(120)
'cause they'd knocked over a box of mice in the pregnancy unit—"
"And you've told Walters about that, have you?" asked Dr. Boycott, with a sigh
suggestive of a state of mind to which no further revelations of folly could
come as any surprise.
"Oh, yes, first thing," answered Mr. Powell, catching at this straw for an
opportunity to speak in a matter-of-course tone, as though it had never
occurred to him that his efficiency or reliability could come under criticism.
"I'm glad to hear that, anyway," countered Dr. Boycott, suggesting, like an

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Impressionist painter, with one stroke, a host of things, unnecessary to
define, which he had not been glad to hear. "How did they get out of the block
and where?"
"Nobody knows," said Mr. Powell expansively, as though, having referred the
matter in vain to New Scotland Yard, the Colditz Society and the staff of Old
Moore's Almanack, he had been reluctantly compelled to abandon an enigma more
baffling than that of the Mary Celeste.
Dr. Boycott clicked his tongue once, loudly, with the air of a super-camel
which, while daily enduring the unendurable, can surely be excused if some
momentary plaint involuntarily escapes its lips as the last straw is piled on.
"You mean you and Tyson don't know?"
"Well, yes," replied the toad beneath the harrow.
"You're sure they didn't get into Goodner's place?" flsked Dr. Boycott,
suddenly and sharply. F  "Certain," replied Mr. Powell with equal promptitude.
" "You're absolutely sure?"
"Yes, and so is he. I've already spoken to him. He says the cultures—"
<  HAH right," said Dr. Boycott, raising one hand to stem Ijte tedious flood
of unnecessary and time-consuming de-fill, the purpose of which—his tone
conveyed—he per-otived to be nothing but a feeble attempt at ingratiation.
"He's content, then. Thank goodness for that." He got up, pot bis hands in his
pockets, walked across to the window sat on the radiator. The actions
suggested that Mr. l, while by no means off the carpet, was no longer,
(121)
as it were, so completely on it—his superior now having need (faute de mieux,
of course) of his advice.
"You've made quite certain, have you, that they're not hiding in the block or
anywhere about the place?"
"As certain as we can be. Tyson and I have both been all over, independently.
Of course, they might show up. I mean, they might come back—"
"Yes, they might," said Dr. Boycott reflectively, "and they might be brought
back. It's a pity their collars don't carry the address of the station.
Perhaps that ought to be changed. Still, it's too late in this case." He
paused, and then, in a sharp tone, as though Mr. Powell had failed to reply to
a question and already kept him waiting more than long enough, asked, "Well"
(Mr. Powell started), "what do you think we ought to do?"
Mr. Powell had, as a matter of fact, got this bit fairly well stitched up.
After all, he was required only to have thought of all the possibilities and
to proceed to say what they were. He would also need to express some sort of
preference, but once he had done this the decision (and the responsibility)
would be someone else's.
"We could do nothing at all, or we could go out and search for the dogs
ourselves, or we could give a description to all occupants of neighbouring
dwellings and farms and ask them to keep a look-out, catch the dogs if they
see them and then ring us up; or we could report the thing to the police. We
could do all of the last three things," added Mr. Powell sagaciously. "They're
not mutually exclusive, of course."
"And what would you do?" persisted Dr. Boycott. "Well, quite honestly, chief,
I think I'd be inclined to do nothing, for the time being. It's ten to one
they'll either come back or else turn up somewhere where we can go and collect
them; and if they don't, well, then we just have to write them off. The
alternative's raising a hue-and-cry all round the neighbourhood, and then
we've given ourselves a bad name, possibly all for nothing—I mean, they've
been gone more than sixty hours, they may be miles away by now—halfway to
Kendal—"
"Suppose they start worrying sheep?" asked Dr. Boycott. "Then either some
farmer shoots them and saves us (122)
further trouble, or else he catches them, realizes where they're from and

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rings us up; in which case we only have to pacify one bloke instead of
spilling the beans to the whole district," answered Mr. Powell.
"Well, perhaps that might be best," said Dr. Boycott reflectively. "I don't
really want to bother the Director with a thing like this just now. I think
it's more than likely either that they'll turn up of their own accord or that
someone will bring them in. What did Fortescue say when you told him about
eight-one-five?"
"Well, he said it was a nuisance and a lot of time and work down the drain."
"So it is. If they don't show up today," said Dr. Boycott, apparently
unconscious that his decision not to sully the fair name of the station by
publicizing the escape appeared, on the face of it, to be inconsistent with
the high value he was ascribing to the missing subjects of experiment, "the
work already done on them will probably be at least partly invalidated. It
certainly will in the case of seven-three-two, since that's a conditioning
experiment and the immersions were programmed for regular intervals. I don't
know about eight-one-five, but I suppose Fortescue wanted to start it on tests
today." A sudden thought struck him. "You don't think it's possible that Tyson
might have stolen the dogs himself?"
"Well, it did cross my mind, actually, chief, but if he was going in for that
sort of thing I don't think he'd start by picking on those two. I mean, he's
no fool, and one's had brain surgery and the other's notoriously savage and
bad-tempered."
"H'mmm. Well," said Dr. Boycott briskly, going back to his desk and picking up
some papers, to mark his dismissal of the matter for the time being, "we'd
better get on
Itfth something else. Is there anything besides that that iou want to talk
about?"
-; "Well, yes, two other things I think I ought to mention," raid Mr. Powell,
with some slight relaxation of manner.
*HThe first one's that humane trap for grey squirrels that Ag. and Fish, sent
us for trial." > "What about it?"
# "Well, it's not turning out all that humane, really," said
(123)
Mr. Powell, with a giggle of embarrassment. "I mean, it's supposed to kill
them outright, isn't it? Well, about four times out of ten, it's just sort of
slicing—look, I'll try and draw it for you—" „
"I'm not really interested in that, to be perfectly honest," replied Dr.
Boycott. "It's not work involving any kind of scientific advance or fresh
knowledge. Anyway, it'll be several weeks before Ag. and Fish, start asking us
for anything. The squirrels won't be pressing them, you know," he added with a
slight lightening of tone which drew a relieved smile from Mr. Powell. "You'd
better try to work out some kind of modification yourself, to make it reliably
lethal, but remember it's got to go on the market at an economic price.
Anything else?"
"One other thing, yes, and this will be of interest to you," said Mr. Powell,
with an air of "You want the best seats, we have them." "Those dogfish—the
ones you wanted for experiments on how they're able to change their coloration
to match their backgrounds, remember? Mitchell rang up about half an hour ago
to say he's got them and should he deliver them today? I said I'd ask you and
let him know later this morning."
"Can Fortescue spare someone this week to carry out the destruction of the
selected areas of their brains and the removal of their eyes?" asked Dr.
Boycott.
"Yes, he told me Prescott would be available to do it Wednesday."
"Fine. Well, get them sent along right away and see that the necessary tank-
space is ready. Oh, and draw up a test programme."
"Right. Er—and about the other thing, chief," said Mr. Powell, hopeful of

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retrieving some part of his name at least by showing willing despite his
lapse.
"Yes?" asked Dr. Boycott, without raising his eyes from
his papers.
"Would you like me to let you have a written report? Only I do realize that
there certainly are one or two questions outstanding—"
"Don't bother," said Dr. Boycott, maintaining his air of detachment. "I'll
have a word with Tyson. What about that monkey, by the way?" he added,
changing the subject
(124)
rapidly enough to suggest that even he felt this last remark to have been a
little too insulting and painful to one who could not answer back.
"Well, it went into the cylinder Friday evening, like you said: so it's done
two and a half days."
"How's it reacting?"
"It's been thrashing around a bit," replied Mr. Powell, "and—and sort of
crying from time to time. Well, making noises, anyhow."
"Is it eating?"
"Tyson hasn't told me otherwise."
"I see," said Dr. Boycott, and returned to his papers.
Tuesday the 19th October
"How far away from them are we now?" whispered Snitter.
"Aye creep an' peep, hinny, creep an' peep." The tod, it seemed, had not
spoken at all, but conveyed its reply into Snitter's mind in a telepathic
silence. They crawled three feet closer to the edge of the chattering
Tarnbeck. "Are we to go upstream towards the farm now?" "Na!" The tod, pressed
to the ground under a rock, appeared actually to have extended itself flat
like a leech and changed its colour to grey. "Heed doon!" "What?"
"Bide there noo!"
Snitter understood that they were to remain completely
still and vigilant in cover. Upstream, in the Tarnbeck, he
;$ould hear the Tongue House Farm ducks quacking and
: flittering somewhere below the wooden footbridge leading
'across to the meadow below Thrang. He felt acutely con-
Wious of his black-and-white colouring, as conspicuous
as a pillar-box at the end of a street. There was a patch
;Of bracken to one side of him and he crawled silently be-
|Heath the brown, over-arching fronds.
-*   After a few moments he turned his head towards the
? (125)
crag where the tod had been lying. It was no longer there. Looking cautiously
around, he caught sight of it ahead of him, inching forward, chin and belly
pressed into the bad of the runlet that trickled down the meadow to drain into
the Tarnbeck. Suddenly it stopped, and for a long time lay motionless in the
cold water oozing round and under its body. The quacking sounded closer and a
moment later Snitter's ears caught the paddling and splashing of the ducks as
they drifted and steered in the swiftly flowing beck, thirty yards away at the
bottom of the field. He realized that he was trembling. The tod was now closer
to the beck by about three lengths of its own body, yet Snitter had not seen
it move. He returned his gaze once more towards the tumbling patch of water
visible between the alder bushes, where the runlet entered the beck.
Suddenly, floating down from upstream, a duck came into view, turned, steadied
itself against the current and dived, the white wedge of its tail wagging from
side to side as it searched below the surface. Snitter looked quickly at the
place where the tod had been. It was gone. What ought he himself to be doing?
He left the cover of the fronds and began to crawl forward as another duck
appeared, followed by a brown drake, blue-wing-feathered like a mallard.

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The drake and the duck began quarrelling over some fragment which the duck had
found and, as they grabbed and quacked, floated three yards further downstream
into shallow water. It was here that the tod came down upon them, silent as
smoke. It did not seem to be moving particularly fast, but rather like some
natural force borne upon the wind or the stream. Snitter dashed forward, but
before—long before, it seemed to him—he could reach the beck, the tod had
glided into the shallows, grabbed the drake by the neck and dragged it,
struggling and clatter-winged, up the bank into the field. Behind rose a
crescendo of splashing and the panic-stricken cries of the flock as they fled
upstream.
Snitter, two yards up the bank, came face to face with the tod, its mask
grotesquely obscured by the thrashing wings and feet of the drake clutched
between its teeth.
(126)
Without relaxing its grip it coughed a shower of small, downy feathers into
Snitter's face.
"What—what shall I do? D'you want me to—" Snitter, absurdly, was holding
himself poised to rush into the now empty water. The tod lifted the corner of
a lip and spoke indistinctly out of one side of its mouth.
"Haddaway hyem noo!"
Without waiting to see whether Snitter had understood, it trotted briskly—but
still, as it seemed, without undue haste—downstream, quickly reaching the
cover of a bank topped with ash and alder, along the further side of which
they began to slink towards the open fell beyond. Once only it stopped, laid
down for a moment the now-still quarry, and grinned at Snitter.
"Ye'll soon be waalkin' light as a linnet, lad. Th' next torn'll be yours.
Mebbe ye'll get yersel' dosed wi' lead an1 aall."
Snitter grinned back.
"Ye divven't say?"
The tod looked down at the carcase. "Can ye pull the feathers off a duck?
There's a gey lot o' them. Ah'll hev t' larn ye."
Thursday the 21st October
Rowf lay crouched out of the wind, under a rock two hundred yards from the
summit of Dow Crag. The moon was clouded and there was little light—barely
enough by which to discern the mouth of the precipitous gully leading up from
below. Snitter fidgeted impatiently. The tod was  stretched at length, head
on front paws.
"You say there's no need to come to grips?" asked Rowf.
"Ne need, hinny. Th' sharper it's runnin', th' sharper it'll go ower. Mind,
ye'll be close behind, so ye'll hev te watch it. Tek care o' yersel' ye
divven't go doon wi'd."
^ (127)
The tod paused and glanced at Snitter. "If th' wee fella there's sharp off his
mark, there'll be ne bother."
Rowf looked down once more into the pitch-black depths below, then turned to
Snitter.
"Now, look, it'll be coming up the fell as fast as the tod and I can drive it.
It's got to be headed and forced down into the gully. It mustn't get past you,
or turn back down the fell, d'you understand?"
"It won't," replied Snitter tensely.
"Assa, ye'll manage canny," said the tod, and there* upon set off with Rowf
down the hillside.
Snitter took the place under the rock still warm from Rowf's body, and waited.
The wind moaned in the funnel of the sheer gully below and blew a scatter of
cold rain across his face, smelling of salt and sodden leaves. He stood up,
listening intently, and began padding up and down across the gully's head.
There were still no sounds of hunting to be heard from the western slope on

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his other side. He might have been the only living creatuYe between Dow Crag
and Seathwaite Tarn.
After a while he became agitated. Peering into the darkness and from time to
time uttering low whines, he ran a little way towards the summit. Out beyond
the foot of the precipice, far below, he could just glimpse the dull
glimmering of Goat's Water—one more of the many tanks with which men had
dotted this evil, unnatural country. Sniffing along the path, he came across a
cigarette end and jumped back with a start as the image of the tobacco man
leapt before his mind's nose. Confused, he lay down where he was and for the
thousandth time raised one paw to scrabble at the canvas and plaster fixed to
his head. His claws found a hold—some wrinkle that had not been there before—
and as he tugged there came a sudden sliding movement, a giving way, followed
at once by a sensation of cold and exposure across the top of his skull.
Drawing back his paw, he found the entire plaster, sodden, black and torn,
stuck across the pads. After a few moments he realized what it was and,
capering with delight, gripped it in his teeth, chewed it, threw it into the
air and caught it, threw it up again and was about to chase after
(128)
it when suddenly a furious barking broke out on the fell below.
Snitter, jumping round at the noise, realized that he was uncertain of his way
back to the mouth of the gully. As he hesitated in the dark, he heard the
approaching sound of small hooves clattering over stones, and dashed along the
ridge in the direction from which it came. Scarcely had he reached the rock
where the tod had left him than the yow came racing uphill, with Rowf snapping
at its hindquarters. Simultaneously, without a sounj, the tod appeared from
nowhere and lay with bared teeth, watching the yow as it turned towards
Snitter, hesitated and stopped. Snitter leapt at it and all in a moment the
yow plunged headlong into the blackness of the gully. Rowf, hard on its heels,
disappeared also. There followed a rattling and falling of stones and gravel
and then a single, terrified bleat which, even as it diminished, was cut
suddenly short. Rowf, the whites of his eyes showing in the faint light,
reappeared and flung himself down, panting, not a yard from the edge.
"I saw it fall. Liver and lights, I couldn't stop! I nearly went over myself.
Well done, Snitter!  You stopped it turning. Why—" He raised his head, staring
at Snitter incredulously. "What on earth's happened to you?" "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."
(129)
"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,

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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 Octobei
"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
(130)
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.
"Ye got ne brains i' yer heed! Ye greet nowt! Ne soon-er'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 tellt 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—reel 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."
(131)
Swirral and Carrs
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
ram 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

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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.
"But, tod, where are you going?"
"Aarrgh! Haddaway doon te knock o' th' farmer's door! Mebbies Ah'Il 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
(132)
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
(133)
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, competent wife, Gwen, their heads were well above water. The farm
was prosperous, several consumer durables had been bought and installed and

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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
(134)
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, and 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 bob'y, 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 reel
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'Oolver-ston?"
"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.
(135)
"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,

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"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.
(136)
FIT 4
Wednesday the 27th October to Thursday the 28th October
The 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
(137)
they once discover we're here, they'll come and hose us out with our own
blood."
"Eh, th' Dark'11 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

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hills. Silently the giant threw his song 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, (138)
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 n vanished num."
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 like 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?" (139)
"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."
"What end can there be to this?" said Rowf to Snitter. "To run about loose
until they find us—how long?"
"You said we'd become wild animals. That's what they do—live till they die."
"Why ay. Run on till th' Dark comes doon. Are we goin' noo or div Ah go
mesel'? Ah warr'nd ye'd best be sharp."
Suddenly Rowf, with a heavy, plunging rush, blundered past the tod and out

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through the cave-mouth. They could hear him howling as he leapt over the
further edge of the grassy platform outside and down to the marsh. Snitter
turned quickly to the tod.
"I'm going after him. Are you coming?" In the faint glimmer of light down the
shaft he caught the tod's eye, wary and inscrutable, but it made no move.
Snitter ran out alone.
Tarn Head beck is wide in places and Rowf, in his unthinking flight, had
reached the nearer bank by the edge of a pool in which the dark water,
reflecting the moonlight, gave no sign of its depth. He checked and turned
down-
(140)
stream. Snitter caught up with him in the act of springing down to a bed of
stones on the further side. "Rowf—"
Rowf jumped across and at once struck out southwards. Snitter, following, set
off once more in pursuit, from time to time drawing breath to yelp. Rowf took
no notice but held on his way, up and across the western slope of Dow Crag
fell. Snitter saw him halt and pause, looking about him as though intending to
go down to the reservoir road, which showed clear and white in the moonlight
nine hundred feet below. Making a great effort, he ran on as fast as he could
and once more came up with Rowf before he realized that he was there. "Rowf,
listen—"
Rowf turned sharply away without answering. At that moment the fern parted and
the tod put out its head and shoulders, breath steaming in the cold air,
tongue thrusting between small, sharp teeth. Rowf started and pulled up.
"How<lid you get here?" "Roondaboot." "I said I could kill you."
"Killin'? Ye daft boogger, it's ye that varnigh got killed. There's none
luckier than ye. Ye saved yersel' an1 me an' yon bit fella an' aall."
"What do you mean?" asked Snitter quickly. "Lukka doon there by yon gate,"
said the tod, itself neither moving nor turning its head.
Snitter looked down towards the high gate in the dry stone wall through which
the reservoir road passed in descending to the lower fields and Long House
Farm. "Noo lukka bit back there."
"What d'you mean? I don't—" All of a sudden Snitter caught his breath and
jumped quickly into the bracken. About a quarter of a mile above the gate,
where the trod leading up from Tongue 'Us joins the reservoir road, a man,
carrying a gun, was making towards the tarn. At his heels followed two black-
and-white dogs.
"Yen's yer farmer, hinny," whispered the tod to Rowf. "What ye bidin' for,
then? He'll shoot ye sharp eneuf if ye fancy it."
(141)
Rowf, motionless and in full view on the open hillside, stood watching as the
man and his dogs, half a mile away, tramped steadily up the road towards the
dam.
"There aren't any men you can go back to, Rowf," said Snitter at length. "The
tod's right—they'd only kill us now. We're wild animals."
"By, mind, lucky ye moved se sharp. Ye just got oot in time."
"Do you think the man knows we were living in the cave?" asked Snitter.
"Mebbies. Ne tellin' what th' booggers knaws—but Ah'm keepin1 aheed o' them.
Ah saw him lowpin' up from doon belaa, so Ah comes back to tell ye. Yon fyeul"
(it looked quickly at Rowf) "wez yammerin' on a gey lot t>' daft taalk afore
ye come oot o' yer bit sleep. Mebbies noo he'll do it ne mair." It turned to
Rowf. "Ye best stick te killin' yows wi' me, hinny. Thoo's a grand chep for
yon, an' Ah'll bide wi' ye an' aall. But howway wivvus noo, an' us hangin'
aboot here, plain as yon moon i' th' sky!"
Rowf followed the tod in a mazed silence, like a creature barely recovered
from a trance. Snitter, for his part, was plunged in that strange state of
mind which from time to time visits all creatures (but perhaps more frequently

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in childhood or puppyhood) when our immediate surroundings take on the aspect
of a distant fantasy, we wonder who we are, the very sounds about us seem
unreal and for a time, until the fit passes, it appears strange and arbitrary
to find ourselves in this physical body, in this particular place, under this
singular sky. The black peat, the heather, the crags, the glittering droplets,
each a minute moon, bending the grasses through which Rowf was shouldering his
way—these seemed, as he followed the tod, to be unfamiliar things he had never
hitherto smelt— things which might even, perhaps, dissolve and vanish in an
instant. Mournful they seemed, scentless; and the white moonlight, draining
from them the colours of the day, made of them a residue, an empty world,
where nothing could be certain and upon whose smells and other properties no
more reliance could be placed than upon the figments of his own castaway,
wounded brain.
It was during this night that Snitter came to be possessed (U2)
Dow Crag
even more deeply by the delusion that the world where they now wandered—or at
least the light in which it appeared to him—was both a product and the
equivalent of his own mutilated mind. *
He was recalled to some sort of reality by stumbling over a piece of sharp-
edged slate. Piles of dark slate were lying all about them and beneath his
pads he could feel the tilting, sliding and pricking of the flat splinters.
"Where are we?"
"Walna Scar," replied the tod briefly.
"Is this the Scar?" asked Snitter, thinking how odd it would be to find
himself walking across his own head.
"Why nair—th' Scar's up ahight, on th' top there. These ower here's slate
quarries—but they've been idle mony a year noo. Ne men come nigh, 'cept only
th' time o' th'
shepherds' meet."
"Where are we going?" asked Rowf, looking up, as they left the slate quarries
and came out once more upon the open hillside, at the steep bluff of Torver
High Common
above them.
The tod dropped its head quickly, snapped up a great stag-beetle under a clump
of heather, and padded on, spitting out the fragments of the carapace.
"There's mair than one place, ye knaw."
"Well?"
"Nearby an' a canny bit scramble."
"Oh, he knows where he's going all right," said Snitter, anxious as always for
the precarious relationship between Rowf and the tod. "He won't tell you
where—he's too sharp for that—but if you go on asking he'll only think you
don't trust him."
"I trust him just as long as he goes on feeling I can fill his belly," said
Rowf. "But if I broke my leg in a chicken-run—"
"We're wild animals," answered Snitter. "What could he do for you then—die
with you? You tell him what sense there'd be in that."
For some time they had been trotting up a long, gradual slope, crossing one
narrow rill after another and here and there startling a sheep under a crag.
Suddenly, without another word, the tod lay down on a patch of smooth grass
(144)
so unobtrusively that the two dogs had already gone a dozen yards before
becoming aware that it was no longer with them. When they turned back it was
watching Rowf expressionlessly, head on front paws and eyes unblinking.
"Yer doin' canny, hinny." There was a hint of derision, barely masked. "Ah
warr'nd ye'll be hunger'd b' now?"
Snitter realized that the tod was covertly manipulating Rowf. If Rowf admitted
that he was hungry, as he must be, the tod would then be able to seem to

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accede to a wish expressed by Rowf that they should stop, hunt and kill. Rowf
would apparently have initiated the idea, and if anything went wrong with it
the blame would lie with him and not with the tod. He forestalled Rowf s
reply.
"We're not particularly hungry," he answered. "If you are, why don't you say
so?"
"Mind, yon's bonny yows. D'ye see th' mark o' them?"
You can't win, thought Snitter wearily. Anyway, why bother? Let's get on with
it.
"What mark?"
"Sheep mark—shepherd's mark, hinny. Yon's hoo they tell th' yin from t'other.
Did ye not knaw? Yon mark's nowt like t'other shepherd's yonder doon be Blake
Rigg. D'ye twig on?"
"He means we can kill more safely here because we haven't killed here before,"
said Snitter. "I don't know why he can't say so and be done with it."
"By, yer a grrand bit feller," said the tod. "So Ah'll tell ye what Ah'll do.
Ah'll just go halfers wi' ye ower th' fellin' of yonder yow."
The kill took them over half an hour, the chosen Herd-wick proving strong,
cunning and finally courageous. When they had run it to a standstill it turned
at bay under a crag, and the end proved a bitter business of flying hooves and
snapping teeth. Snitter, first kicked in the shoulder and then painfully
crushed when the sheep rolled on him, was glad enough to lie panting in the
shallow bed of a nearby beck, lapping copiously and ripping at the woolly
haunch which Rowf severed and brought to him. It was excellent meat, the best
they had yet killed, tender, bloody and well flavoured. It restored his
spirits and confidence. Later he slept; and woke to see a red,
(145)
windy dawn in the sky, the tod beside him and Rowf drinking downstream.
"Where are we?" he asked, shivering and looking up at the black top outlined
against the flying, eastern clouds.
"Under Caw. Yer not feelin' femmer? Think nowt on't. There's not se far to go
noo,"
"I'm not femmer," answered Snitter, "unless it means mad."
In the next mile they climbed and crossed a broad ridge, but had hardly begun
to descend the other side when the tod stopped, casting one way and another
over the short turf. Finally it turned to Snitter.
"This is Broon Haw. Yon's Lickledale, doon yonder. There's th' shaft straight
afore ye. Mind, it's gey deep. We can bide safe there, se lang as th' big
feller doesn't gi' us away wi' mair o' his fond tricks."
Snitter, more than ever puzzled at the vast extent of the land which the men,
for some inscrutable reason, had desolated artti refashioned with rocks, ling
and thorn, felt no surprise to find himself once more at the mouth of a deep
cavern. It was similar to that which they had left, but less imposing and
lofty. Tired now, despite his chilly sleep on the fell, he followed his
companions into the dry, windless depths, found a comfortable spot and soon
slept again.
Friday the 29th October
"Th' very saame," said Robert Lindsay. "Th' very saame way as thine, Dennis,
and joost way you told it me an' all. Joost."
"It moost be dog," said Dennis. "Cann't be nowt else." "Oh, ay. Bound to be.
Bound to be, Dennis. Noo doubt about it whatever. An' Ah'll tell thee, Ah'm
not so sure as there weren't two o' th' booggers. That were yoong sheep, real
strong— a good 'un, ay—an' it had put oop real bluidy fight, like—theer were
blood all ower, an'
(146)
boanes dragged down int' beck, strewed all about, joost like yours. Ah doan't
believe woon dog could a' doon it." "Basstard things," said Dennis. "Ah were

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oop Tarn neet before lasst, int' moonlight, tha knaws, Bob, took dogs an' gun
an' hoonted all about t' plaace, like, an' on to Blaake Rigg, but Ah nivver
saw noothing—not a bluidy thing." He trod out his cigarette and lit another.
"Ay, weel, they'll have shifted, joost, Dennis. That'll be it. They've coom
down valley. They have that."
"But wheer d' y' reckon they started out from?" persisted Dennis. "Pratt,
Routledge, Boow—an' Birkett over to Torver, Ah roong him oop—no woon's lost
dog."
"Ay, weel, Ah joost had ideea, Dennis. An' it is only ideea, but Ah were
thinkin'. Doost tha mind old 'Any Tyson—him as used to do rooads for Council a
year or two back?"
"He's over't Coniston, isn't he? With Research Station at Lawson Park?"
"Ay, that's right, he is. Well, he were down int' bar at Manor Hotel i'
Broughton a few days back, and seems he were sayin' as they'd lost two dogs
out of Research Station. Cut an' run, ay. Gerald Gray—him as keeps Manor, tha
knaws—told chap int' bank, an' this chap were sayin' soomthing about it this
morning when Ah were in theer." "Did ye' assk him about it?"
"Noo, Ah nivver did, Dennis. Ah were in reel hoorry, that's why, an' Ah nivver
thowt about it at all until Ah were outside. But then it joost stroock me—"
"It's not like finding th' boogger, though, an' killing it, is it?" said
Dennis. "Ah mean, even if we assked Research Station an' they said they'd lost
dog, likely they'd not do owt to get bluidy thing off fell. They'd say it
couldn't be saame dog—all that caper—"
"Well, happen they'd have to take notice, tha knaws," returned Robert, his
blue eyes regarding Dennis intently over the knob of his stick. "Ay, they
might that. That's Goov'ment Department-controlled, old boo"y, oop at Law-son
Park, an' if they had t' admit they'd let dogs goo, like, an' couldn't tell
wheer they're at, we could put Member o' Parliament on to them—"
"An1 have doozen an' hafe more bluidy sheep go while (147)
they're arguing!" Dennis detested Government Departments in general and the
Ministry of Agriculture in particular, and the very thought of them provided a
vicarious object for his anger over the slaughtered sheep.
"It's serious matter, though, to be in possession of dog that kills sheep,
Dennis. Legal offence. And if that were Goov'ment Department as doon it,
that'd be real embarrassing. They'd not like it at all. Even the possibility—"
Robert, who read the papers attentively and had both an extremely wide outlook
and also a natural gift for seeing things as they were likely to appear to
other people, was already letting his mind run on the potential for
embarrassment that the sheep-killings represented—always provided that what he
had overheard in the bank proved to be true. The more he thought about it, the
more it seemed to him that they might very well have in their hands a really
stout stick for beating people who, collectively, usually did the beating
themselves as far as hill-farmers were concerned—that was to say, Government
chaps and officialdom in general. Harry Tyson, whom he had known off and on
for years, was neither unreliable nor foolish. It would certainly be worth
finding out from him what, if anything, had really happened at the Research
Station. Robert was of a circumspect and deliberate nature, and not given to
seeking straight rows unless heavily provoked. It had not occurred to him that
he might actually telephone the Research Station and ask them point-blank
about the dogs.
Dennis, on the other hand, was a great man for direct rows, especially where
his own financial interests were concerned. He was, in fact, fearless, with a
long string of victories to his credit. The idea of telephoning the Research
Station had already occurred to him.
Mr. Powell, having seen to the monkey isolated in the cylinder and, as
instructed, chalked up on the slate its current score—thirteen days plus—was
looking over the interim reports on the smoking beagles and considering the

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terms of a draft letter to I.C.I. The search for a safe cigarette, an
enterprise of great scientific interest and potential benefit to the human
race, was, he felt, entirely
(148)
worthy of British scientific endeavour, and possibly also of the glory that
was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome. (For example, the Emperor Nero had,
for his own purposes, after compelling slaves to eat large quantities of food
and then to act in various ways, e.g., lie down, walk gently about, run fast
and so on, cut them open to examine the effects on their digestive organs; but
the results, unfortunately, had not survived in any detail.) Of course, it was
open to people to give up smoking, but this would plainly be an intolerable
demand to make, as long as experiments on living and sentient animals held out
a chance of something better. The experiments had, in fact, been described by
I.C.I, themselves as "the ultimate safeguard" for humans—which proved that
they were a much better safeguard than not smoking.
The dogs, trussed and masked, were ingeniously compelled to inhale the smoke
from up to thirty cigarettes a day. (Mr. Powell had once shown his wit at a
conference by remarking, "They're lucky—more than I can afford.") The plan was
that after about three years they were to be killed for dissection and
examination. At the moment, fortunately, I.C.I, were holding a firm line
against the sentimental nonsense put about by Miss Brigid Brophy and the Anti-
Vivisection Society. Only the other day I.C.I. had been reported as saying,
"Smoking is a fact of life in present-day society. It is also acknowledged by
the Government to be damaging to health. In recognition of this fact research
is endeavouring to produce smoking ma-terials that will demonstrably reduce
the risk to health. The use of animals for experiments is always going to be a
moral problem, but within the realms of our present knowledge it is impossible
to ensure that chemicals and drugs are safe unless they are tested on
animals." This was so well expressed that it had escaped Mr. Powell (until the
maddening Miss Brophy had fastened on it) that tobacco smoke could scarcely be
held to lie within the definition of "chemicals and drugs." Every care was
taken, went on I.C.I., to ensure that the animals did not suffer unnecessarily
and lower species, such as rats, were used whenever possible.
"That's clever," murmured Mr. Powell to himself as he (149)
glanced through the papers on the file. " 'Course, rats are actually very
intelligent and sensitive, only nobody likes rats. Pity we can't import some
smoking jackals or hyenas or something; we'd be all right then—no one'd
mind."
The trouble was, everything you said in this field was explosive. You could
never feel sure that a letter might not, somehow or other, leak into quarters
where parts of it were likely to be twisted against you. On full
consideration, it might be more prudent to suggest to Dr. Boycott that they
should arrange a meeting with I.C.I, to talk over results—especially as the
last batch of dogs dissected
had—
At this moment the telephone rang. Mr. Powell had never been able to overcome
his dislike of the telephone. If there was one thing, as he put it, that
really bugged him about the job at Animal Research, it was being on the end of
somebody else's line and liable to be summoned to go and see one or another of
his superiors at a moment's notice. The present probability was that Dr.
Boycott wanted to talk to him about the smoking beagles before he himself was
ready to do so. Trying to console himself, as was his wont, with the thought
that after a lot more experiments he would be a Boycott himself, he picked up
the receiver.
"Powell here."
"Mr. Powell?" said the voice of the switchboard girl.
"Yes, Dolly. Is it an incoming call?"

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"Yes, it is, Mr. Powell. I have th' gentleman on the line." (This was, as Mr.
Powell at once understood, a covert warning to watch what he said. Everyone at
Animal Research watched what he said, and never more closely than on outside
lines.) "He's assking for the Information Officer, but I have no one listed
under such an appointment." (Too right you haven't, thought Mr. Powell.) "I
didn't know whether you'd wish to take th' call. Th' gentleman says he wants
to talk to someone about dogs."
"Well, what about dogs? Who is the gentleman and where's the call from?"
"I think he's a local enquirer, Mr. Powell. A private
person. Will you speak?"
(ISO)
Whoever he is, she's evidently very anxious to pass him on, thought Mr.
Powell. He pondered quickly. Better the devil you know than the devil you
don't know. If he did not take the call, it would look evasive and the caller
would be referred to someone else. Also, if he did not take it and it turned
out to be a matter within his responsibility, it would only come back to him
in the end; whereas if it were not within his responsibility, he would have
found out someone else's business without being any the worse off himself.
"AH right, Dolly. I'll be glad to help the gentleman if I can. Please put him
through."
"Thank you, Mr. Powell!" (Quite a ruddy lilt in the voice! thought Mr.
Powell.) Click. "Putting you through to Mr. Powell, sir." Click. "You're
through!" (Wish we were!)
"Good morning, sir. My name's Powell. Can I help you?"
"Have ye lost any dogs?"
"Er—who is that speaking, please?"
"My name's Williamson. Ah'm sheep-farmer at Seath't, Doonnerd'l. Ah'm assking
have ye lost any dogs?"
"Er—could you tell me a little more about your problem, Mr. Williamson? I
mean, how you come to be asking us and so on?"
"Ay, Ah will that. Theer's sheep been killed in Doonnerd'l, three or four o'
'em, an' Ah'm not th' only farmer as reckons it's stray dogs. Ah'm joost
assking for a straight annser to a straight question—have ye lost any dogs?"
"I'm sorry I can't tell you the straight answer just off the cuff, Mr.
Williamson, but I—"
"Well, can Ah speak to th' chap who can? Soomone moost know how many dogs
ye've got and whether owt's missing."
"Yes, that's quite right, but he's not here just at the moment. Mr.
Williamson, may I ring you back quite soon? I assure you I will, so don't
worry."
"Well, Ah hope it is soon. Theer's chaps here as has to work for their living,
and sheep's money, tha knaws—"
Mr. Powell, despite his bleak misgivings, decided to try a counterattack.
(151)
"Mr. Williamson, have you or anyone actually seen these dogs?"
"If Ah had they'd not be alive now, Ah'll tell thee. Do your dogs wear
collars?"
"Yes, they do—green plastic ones with numbers on."
"Ay, well, then you'H joost know if there's any missing, wayn't ye?"
Dennis gave his own number, reiterated his hope for an early reply and rang
off. Mr. Powell, with a sinking heart, went to seek audience of Dr. Boycott.
"—Assa, what a sad carry-on an' aall, mind," said the tod. "Rakin' aboot aal
ower th' place, bidin' oot o' neets from here to yon. But mark ma words, ye
must kill away from hyem, aye kill away from hyem, else it's th' Dark for ye,
ne doot at aall. Nivver muck up yer aan byre, like ye did back yonder." It
became expansive. "Lukka me now. There's none se sharp. Ah wez littered a lang
step from here, far ahint th' Cross Fell. Ah've waalked aall ower, an' Ah'm as

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canny off as th1 next, fer aall th' chasin'."
"Ay, yer canny, ne doot," said Snitter, rolling comfortably on the shale to
scratch his back. "I'd never say you're—er—wrang."
"Nivver kill twice ower i' th' same place, and niwer kill inside o' two mile
o' yer aan byre. An' niwer bring nowt back wi' ye. There's mony a tod has gone
to th' Dark wi' chuckin' guts an' feathers aboot ootside its aan byre."
"Hitty-missy faffin'," murmured Snitter lazily. "I say, tod, I'm getting
rather good, don't you think?"
"Mebbies we'll kill ower b' Ash Gill beck or some sich place th' neet," went
on the tod, ignoring Snitter's sally. "But farmers is sharp te find bodies an'
it's us that's got ter be sharpest. So eftor that it'll be Langdale—or Esk-
dale—ten mile's not ower far. Aye roam te th' kill, an' ye'll see hyem still,"
"I'm game," said Rowf. "I'll go as far as you like, as long as we do kill."
"If ony boogger says Ah's not clivver, whey Ah's still here an' that's eneuf
to prove it."
"You can join the club," said Snitter. "The Old Sur-
(152)
vivors—very exclusive—only three members, counting you. And one of them's
mad."
"That was Riff's joke—he knew what it meant—I never did," said Rowf. "What is
a club?"
"It's when dogs get together—run through the streets and piss on the walls;
chase the bitches, scuffle about and pretend to fight each other—you know."
"No," said Rowf sorrowfully. "I've never done that— it sounds good."
"D'you remember when they took Kiff away, and we all barked the place down
singing his song?"
"Yes, I do. Taboo, tabye—that one?"
"That's it—d'you remember it? Come on, then!"
There and then, in the darkness of the shaft, the two dogs lifted up their
muzzles in Kiffs song, which that gay and ribald tyke, before his death by
cumulative electrocution, had left behind him in the pens of Animal Research
as his gesture of defiance, none the less valid for remaining uncomprehended
by Dr. Boycott, by old Tyson, or even, come to that, by I.C.I. After a little,
the tod's sharp, reedy voice could be heard in the burden.
"There happened a dog come into our shed.
(Taboo, taboo) He hadn't a name and he's sure to be dead.
(Taboo, taboo, taboo) He wagged his tail and nothing he knew Of the wonderful
things that the whitecoats do.
(Taboo, tabye, ta~bo!locky-ay, we're all for up the chimney.)
"1 heard the head of the whitecoats say,
(Taboo, taboo) 'We're getting another one in today.'
(Taboo, taboo, taboo) 'The tobacco man needn't waste his grub, We'!] sling him
into the pickling tub.'
(Taboo, tabye, ta-bollocky-ay, we're all for up the chimney.)
"So they laid him out on a nice glass bench. (Taboo, taboo)
(153)
His entrails made a horrible stench.
(Taboo, taboo, taboo) And this next bit will make you roar— His shit feU out
all over the floor.
(Taboo, tabye, ta-bollocky-ay, we're all for up the chimney.)
"O who's going to stick him together again?
(Taboo, taboo) His ear's in a bottle, his eye's in the drain,
(Taboo, taboo, taboo) His cock's gone down to the lecture hall, And I rather
think he's missing a ball,
(Taboo, tabye, ta-bollocky~ay, we're all lor up the chimney.)
"When I've gone up in smoke don't grieve for me,
(Taboo, taboo) For a little pink cloud I'm going to be.

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(Taboo, taboo, taboo) I'll lift my leg as I'm drifting by And pee right into a
whitecoat's eye.
(Taboo, tabye, ta-bollocky-ay, we're all for up the chimney.)
"If you want to know who made up this song—
(Taboo, taboo) 'Twos a rollicking dog who didn't live long.
(Taboo, taboo, taboo)
His name was Kiff, he was black and white, He was burned to cinders—serve him
right.
(Taboo, tabye, ta-bollocky-ay, we're all for up the chimney.)"
"Good old Kiff—he was a hard case. If he were here
now—"
"Wish he was," growled Rowf.
"If he were here now, I know what he'd say. He'd ask what we meant to do in
the long run."
"Long run?" asked Rowf, "Hasn't it been long enough
for you?"
"How long do you suppose we can keep it up—running
(154)
about in this empty, man-made place, killing fowls and animals and dodging
guns? I mean, where's it going to end—where's it going to get us?"
"Where it gets the tod—"
"Why ay, hinny—let's be happy through th' neet—"
"But they're bound to get us in the end, Rowf. We ought to be planning some
way out. And you know very well there's only one way—we've got to find some
men and—and—what was I saying?" Snitter scratched at his split head. "Milkman,
rhododendrons, newspapers—linoleum smells nice too—and sort of tinkling, windy
noises came out of a box—used to make me howl, then rush out of the garden
door—cats cats quick quick wurT wuff!"
"What on earth are you talking about?"
There was a pause.
"I can't remember,1' said Snitter miserably. "Rowf, we've got to find some
sort of men. It's our only chance."
"You wouldn't let me when I wanted to, the other night."
"Well, you weren't going about it the right way. That would have finished us
all."
"You're a good little chap, Snitter, and you've had a bad time. I'm not going
to quarrel with you—but no more men for me; that's flat. I wasn't myself that
night."
"There was a good man, once." Snitter was whining.
"Haddaway, ye fond fyeul! Giv ower! A gud man? Ay, an' soft stones an' dry
waiter—"
"I know there was one once, long ago," said Rowf. "My mother told me that
story in the basket—it was about all she had time to tell me, actually. But he
went to the bad; and there'll never be one again—you must know that."
"What story, Rowf—what do you mean?"
"She said all dogs know the story. Do you mean to say I know something you
don't?"
The shale rattled as Snitter turned over.
"Do you know it, tod?"
"Nay—but Ah warr'nd it'll be a mazer. Let's hev yer wee tale then, hinny."
"She said—" Rowf was pondering. "She used to say— well, there's a great dog up
in the sky—he's all made of stars. She said you can see him; but I never know
where
to look, and you certainly can't smell him; but sometimes you can hear him
barking and growling, up in the clouds, so he must be there. Anyway, it seems
that it was he, this dog, long ago, who had a great idea of creating all the
animals and birds—all the different kinds. He must have had a lot of fun

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inventing them, I suppose.
"Well, anyway, when he'd invented them all—so she said—he needed somewhere to
put them, so he created the earth—trees for the birds, and pavements and
gardens and posts and parks for the dogs, and holes underground for rats and
mice, and houses for cats; and he put the fish in the water and insects into
the flowers and grass, and all the rest of it. Very neat job—in fact you'd
wonder, really, wouldn't you, how it was all managed? Still, I suppose a star
dog—"
"Listen!" said Snitter, leaping nervously to his feet. "What's that?"
"Haald yer gobs an' bide still!"
They all three listened. Footsteps and human voices approached the mouth of
the shaft across the turf outside. They stopped a moment, their owners
evidently looking in, and voices boomed in the mouth of the cavern. Then they
passed on, in the direction of Lickledale.
Snitter lay down again. The tod had not moved a paw. Rowf was evidently
warming to his tale and no one had to ask him to go on.
"Well, the star dog needed someone to look after the place and see that all
the animals and birds got their food and so on, so he decided to create a
really intelligent creature who could take the job right off his back. And
after a bit of reflection he created Man, and told him what he wanted him to
do.
"The man—and he was a splendid specimen: well, perfect, really, because in
those days he couldn't be anything else—he considered it for a bit, and then
he said, 'Well, sir' (he called the star dog 'Sir,' you know), 'Well, sir,
it's going to be a big job and there'll be a lot to do—a hard day's work every
day—and the only thing I'm wondering is what I stand to get out of it?'
"The star dog thought about that and in the end he said, 'This is how we'll
fix it. You shall have plenty of
(156)
intelligence—almost as much as I have, and as well as that I'll give you
hands, with fingers and thumbs, and that's more than I've got myself. And of
course you shall have a mate, like all the other animals. Now, look, you can
make reasonable use of the animals, and part of your job will be to control
them as well. I mean, if one kind starts getting to be too many and harming or
hindering the others by eating all the food or hunting them down beyond what's
reasonable, you must thin that kind out until there's the right number again.
And you can kill what animals you need—not too many—for food and clothing and
so on. But I want you to remember all the time that if I've made you the most
powerful animal it's so that you can look after the others—help them to do the
best they can for themselves, see they're not wasted and so on. You're in
charge of the world. You must try to act with dignity, like me. Don't go doing
anything mean or senseless. And for a start,' he said, 'you can sit down and
give names to the whole lot, so that you and I will know what we're talking
about for the future.'
"Well, the man did this naming and a nice, long job it proved to be, what with
all the cows and rats and cats and blackbirds and spiders and things. Of
course, most of them—like tod here—hardly had any idea that they had names—but
anyway the man did. And in the end he got it done, and settled down to look
after the world, as the star dog had told him to. And after a time the animals
had young and the man and his mate had children and the world began to be
quite full up, so that the man had to do some of the thinning out that the
star dog had said would be all right.
"Now it seems that about this time the star dog had to go away on a journey—I
suppose to see to some other world or something: but apparently it was a great
distance and he must have been gone a long time, because while he was away
some of the man's children grew up, and with them that always takes years and
years, you know. Anyway, when the star dog got back, he thought he'd go and

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see how the man and all the animals were getting on. He was looking forward to
a visit to the earth, because he'd
(157)
always felt that that was rather a good job he'd done— better than some
others, I dare say.
"When he got down to the earth, he couldn't find anyone at all for a long
time. He wandered about the streets and parks and places, and at last, in a
wood, he caught a glimpse of a young badger, who was hiding under the branches
of a fallen tree. After a lot of trouble he persuaded him to come out and
asked him what was the matter.
" 'Why,' said the badger, 'some men came this morning and dug up our sett and
smashed it all to pieces, and they pulled my father and mother out with a long
pair of tongs with sharp teeth on the ends. They hurt my father badly and now
they've put them both in a sack and taken them away—I don't know where.'
" 'Are there too many badgers round here, then?' asked the star dog.
" 'No, there are hardly any left,' said the young badger. 'There used to be
quite a lot, but the men have killed nearly all of us. That's why I was
hiding—I thought you were the men coming back.'
"The star dog moved the badgers who were left to a safe place and then he went
to look for the man. After walking about for quite a long time, he heard a
confused noise in the distance—shouting and barking and people running about,
so he went in that direction and after a bit he came to a kind of big yard,
and he found the man there and some of his grown-up children. They'd made a
kind of ring at one end of the yard, out of sheets of corrugated iron, and
they'd put the mother and father badger in there and were throwing stones at
them to make them more fierce and trying to make some dogs attack them. The
dogs weren't very keen, because, although the male badger had a broken paw and
was badly wounded in the face, he was fighting like the devil and his mate was
just as brave as he was. But the dogs had been kept very hungry on purpose and
anyway they supposed the men must know best, especially as there were about
twelve dogs to two badgers.
"The star dog put a stop to what was going on and sent the two badgers off to
be looked after by their family
(158)
until they were better, and then he told the man that it had come to his nose
that things weren't as they should be and asked him what he thought he was
doing.
" 'Oh,' says the man, 'you said I was to keep the numbers of the animals down
and some of them had to be killed if necessary. You said we could make use of
the animals, so we were just having a bit of sport. After all, animals are
given us for our amusement, aren't they?'
"The star dog felt angry, but he thought that perhaps he ought to have made
clearer to the man in the first place what he'd meant, so he explained again
that he regarded him as responsible for seeing that the animals weren't killed
without good reason, and that their lives weren't wasted or thrown away for
nothing. 'If you're the cleverest,' he said, 'that means, first of all, that
you're supposed to care for the others and consider them as creatures you've
got to look after. Just think about that, and make sure you get it right.'
"Well, anyway, after a long time the star dog decided to come back to the
earth again and this time he chose the middle of the summer, because he
thought it would be nice to roll about on the grass and have a run through the
parks, and the gardens of the houses, when all the leaves and flowers were out
and smelling so nice. When he arrived it was a hot day and he went down to the
nearest river to have a drink. But he found he could smell it from half a mile
away and it was awful. When he got up close he found it was full of human shit
and crammed with floating, dead fish. There was a wretched water rat making
off as fast as he could along the bank and the star dog asked him what had

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gone wrong, but he only said he didn't know.
"After some time the star dog came upon a crowd of men who were all shouting
at each other and holding some sort of meeting, so he asked them if they knew
what had happened in the river, and how all the fish had come to die in
poisoned water.
" 'We're the sewage workers,' said one of them, 'and we're not going to do any
more work until our demands are met. It's a very serious business, too—do you
realise
(159)
we're so short of money that we haven't got any for gambling or smoking or
getting drunk?'
" 'My fish are all dead,' said the star dog.
" 'What the hell's it matter about a lot of bloody fish?' said one of the men.
'We know our rights and we mean to have them.'
"This time the star dog told all the men he met that if he found them once
more wilfully misunderstanding of taking no notice of what he'd said, he
wouldn't warn them again."
Rowf paused.
"Noo what wez at th' bottom o' thet, then?" asked the tod.
"Well, of course, it did go wrong," said Rowf morosely. "I'm not telling it
very well, but he came back again. Kiff knew this story, and he said the star
dog found the men sticking iron, pointed things into a wretched bull and
making it rip the stomachs out of a lot of poor old broken-down horses, and
they were laughing at them and pelting them with orange peel while they went
limping about. But I think my mother said he found some birds in cages which
the men had blinded to make them sing. They sing to assert themselves, of
course, and keep other cock birds away, so as they were blind they kept
singing as long as they had any strength, because they couldn't tell whether
there were any rival birds about or not. Anyway, whatever it was, the star dog
said to the man, 'Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed above
every beast of the field. They will continue to live their lives as before,
without reflection or regret, and I will speak to them in their hearts, in
hearing and in scent and instinct and in the bright light of their perception
of the moment. But from you I shall turn away for ever, and you will spend the
rest of your days wondering what is right and looking for the truth that I
shall conceal from you and infuse instead into the lion's leap and the
assurance of the rose. You are no longer fit to look after the animals.
Henceforth you shall be subject to injustice, murder and death, like them; and
unlike them, you shall be so full of confusion that you shall loathe even your
brother's
(160)
and sister's bodily fluids and excretions. Now get out of my sight.'
"So the man and his mate, with faltering steps and slow, took their solitary
way. And ever since that day all the birds and animals have feared man and
fled from him; and he exploits them and torments them, and some of them he has
actually destroyed for ever from the face of the earth. He bruises us, and
those of us who can bruise him. It's a bad world for animals now. They live
out of his way, as best they're able. I believe, myself, that the star dog's
given it all up as a bad job. He must have, for what good are men to animals?"
"Yon's a fine tale noo," said the tod. "Ay, a reet daz-zler, an' yer a grrand
hand at tellin' it."
"Yes," said Snitter, "you told it well, Rowf. And you're quite right—I have
heard it before. Only you left out one very important bit, which they told me.
When the man was disgraced and told to go away, he was allowed to ask all the
animals whether any of them would come with him and share his fortunes and his
life. There were only two who agreed to come entirely of their own accord, and
they were the dog and the cat. And ever since then, those two have been

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jealous of each other, and each is for ever trying to make man choose which
one he likes best. Every man prefers one or the other."
"Well," said Rowf, "if that is the moral—and I don't believe it is—then I've
just had my trouble for nothing. I suppose you can twist a story to mean
anything you like. But all I can say again is, no more men for me—"
"If you did find a master, Rowf—I mean, just suppose you did—what would he be
like? What would he do?"
"It's a stupid idea."
"Well, but go on—just for fun—just suppose! I mean, suppose you found yourself
sort of forced to be with a man who turned out to be—well, you know, decent
and good and honest—what would he be like?"
"Well, first of all, he'd have to leave me alone until I was ready—and take no
notice even if I barked the place down. If he tried to force himself on me or
started messing me about, I'd bite his hand off. And I'd judge him on his
voice as well as his smell. He'd have to let me take
(161)
my own time about smelling him—his hands and his shoes and all that. And if he
was any good, he'd be able to tell when I'd begun to feel all right about him
and then he'd say, 'Hullo, Rowf, have a bone,' or something like that; and
then he'd give me a good one and let me alone to gnaw it while he went on with
whatever he was doing. And then I'd lie down on the floor and—oh, what's the
use? Snitter, you're just tricking me into making up a lot of rubbish!"
"I'm not—but it only shows you've got some sort of idea at the back of your
mind—"
"Isn't it time to go out and hunt yet?" interrupted Rowf. "I'm hungry."
"Why, let's away noo. Yer in gud fettle then? Ducks an' gimmers'll sharp put
ye reet, Ah warr'nd."
Monday the 1st November
"Well, Stephen, you'll be delighted to know that your ideas were entirely the
right ones." Dr. Boycott seemed positively jovial.
"Sorry, chief, which ones were those?"
"About the dogs."
"The smoking autopsies? Well, if we—"
"No, no, no—the dogs that got out. Seven-three-two and that other one of
Fortescue's."
"Oh, those, chief. But as far as I remember the only idea I had was that we
should say nothing at all about them."
"Yes, and you stuck to it very sensibly. And the—"
"But—excuse me, chief—what do I say to this Mr. Williamson when we ring him
back?"
"I'm coming to that. I was saying, the Director thinks yours is entirely the
right line. So all you have to do now is telephone Mr. Williamson and tell
him."
"What, tell him the dogs are ours and we're not going to do anything?"
(162)
"Good gracious, no! After all, how do we know that the dogs are ours? You
don't know, and neither do I; it's only a guess. And from what you tell me,
there may not even be any dogs at all. No one seems actually to have seen
them. No, you simply tell WilHamson that we have nothing to say in reply to
his question."
"But—but I mean, won't he think that's very suspicious?"
"He may, but he's just as likely to be wrong as right. The sheep-killings may
stop of their own accord. If they are in fact due to a dog or dogs, they may
get themselves shot and turn out not to be ours. Even if they are ours, they
may not be traceable to us, if Tyson's got any sense. They may have worried
their collars off by now. The Director thinks it's unlikely that anything
embarrassing could be laid at our door, and more than unlikely that any of

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these farmers could or would sue us. They're much more likely to claim their
insurance and let it go at that. Whereas if we stand in a white sheet, start
admitting liability and try to take some sort of step towards helping in a
search, we shall only attract adverse publicity and put Animal Research in the
wrong when it may be nothing of the kind. Besides, if we were to incur any
expenditure in that way, how would we justify it at audit?"
"But what about Tyson, chief? He may already have spilled too many beans
outside for us to be able to take the line that we haven't lost any dogs."
"We're not taking that line, Mr. Stephen, my good sir. We're simply saying
we've nothing to say. Let them take it from there. I've already had a word
with Tyson—pointed out to him that the most he can truthfully say if he's
asked is that two pens were found empty. I stressed that it would be quite
unjustified on his part to put two and two together and make five, and that
the Director would be most upset to think that anything of the kind was being
said. Most upset, I said. I think he got that message all right."
"Nudge nudge wink wink say no more, eh? But is that quite fair to Williamson?"
"My dear chap, we're under no more obligation to stand and answer Williamson's
questions than any private
(163)
person would be. If he thinks evil, let him prove evil—if he can. I repeat,
it's all very unlikely to come to anything."
"I just don't particularly fancy ringing him back, that's all."
"Well, in this place we all have to do things we don't like sometimes, don't
we? Even the animals, ha ha. Anyway, cheer up. You'll be pleased to hear about
the dogfish. The colour-plate tests on the eyeless ones show—"
"Williamson sounded hellish angry," said Mr. Furse, the assistant editor of
the Lakeland News, downing the last of his second pint. "In fact, I couldn't
really get an awful lot of sense out of him, for that reason."
"Well, wouldn't you be?" replied Mr. Weldyke, the editor. "What's his damage—
three sheep, did you tell me, and a chicken pen smashed in or something? Oh,
nice of you to come over, Jane. Two pints as before, please."
"Ay, but I mean he doosn't have to take it out on me, now, dooz he?"
"V shouldn't be standing in the road, should you?" said the editor. "Anyway,
what's your notion—are you going to do a piece on it?"
"Short piece, ay, might as well. 'Mysterious sheep losses in DunnerdT—you know
the sort of thing. Thanks, Jane. Cheers, Mike! But it'll all blow over. Happen
fella whose dog it is knows very well already; and he's keeping his mouth
shut. If it goes on, he'll maybe go out himself one night by moonlight, find
it and get rid of it—shoot it himself, as like as not, and no one the wiser."
"But you said Williamson was accusing the Animal Research place at Coniston.
Did you ask them about it?"
"Oh, ay—rang 'em up. They'd nothing to say at all. 'No comment.' Just what I'd
say in their position. I can't see much point in pushing any harder where
they're concerned, can you? I mean, God knows what they have to do to all
those poor brutes up there. I know it's in a good cause; you've got to have
science and progress; but I mean they very probably don't know from day to day
what's dead and what's dying and just how many they have got. You can bet your
boots the N.F.U. wouldn't want them pushed around—they must be far too useful
to farmers
(164)
in general. So it follows that we don't, doesn't it? Ours is a farming area
and our readers are farmers."
"Ee—yes, I can see that," replied the editor reflectively, looking out at the
men striding like scissors down Market Street to get out of the rain. "So we
cover it without mentioning the research station, right? N.F.U. or no N.F.U.,
farmers are entitled to expect this sort of thing to be covered in their local
paper. If there ij a dog gone feral, playing merry hell in Dunnerd'l or

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Lickledale or somewhere, we ought to find out as much as we can and print it,
if only so that local chaps can get together and organize a hunt with guns if
they think it's worth while."
"Good afternoon, gentlemen. Nice to see you. How are you?"
Mr. Weldyke and Mr. Furse looked up to encounter the smile of a dark, very
much dressed man of about forty-five, who affably waved a hand beringed with
two large stones set in gold. (His other was holding a double whisky.)
"I couldn't help hearing what you were saying," said this gentleman
ingratiatingly. "We haven't actually met, but you'll remember my name,
business-wise—it's Ephraim, manager of the Kendal branch of Suitable Suits.
You've kindly printed a lot of our advertising, of course, as you'll recall."
"Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Ephraim," said Mr. Weldyke, his gaze, as it returned
for a few moments to his pint, encountering en passant a dove-grey waistcoat
adorned with mother-of-pearl buttons and a thin, long-and-short-linked gold
watch-chain. "Nice to meet you. Are you going to join us?"
He drew back a chair and as he did so his eye caught Mr. Purse's for the
briefest of moments. That eye said, "I don't have to tell you that local
newspapers never disoblige their regular advertisers."
"Well, thanks, if I may. Only for a moment."
"We've just slipped out for a jar and a snack. It's my round—that's whisky
you're drinking, isn't it? Good. And can I get you a pork—" (Mr. Furse kicked
him under the table.) "I mean, they have some good chicken sand-
(165)
wiches, or there's hot Scotch eggs in that glass thing there, if you prefer."
"No, no, thanks, I've had lunch. I'll only stay for a quick one with you." As
Mr. Furse departed from the bay-window table to attract Jane's attention once
more, Mr. Ephraim went on, "It was just an idea that occurred to me, Mr.
Weldyke, for a little stroke of business— business with benefit to the
community, one hopes, and perhaps a bit of sport as well. As I said, I
couldn't help hearing what you were saying about the wild dog down Dunnerdale
way and how the farmers might be wanting" to organize a hunt. Now my idea is
this. By the way, is it quite convenient to put this before you now? Have you
time?"
"Oh, yes, certainly, Mr. Ephraim. We should be most interested to hear your
idea."
"Ah, you're back quickly, Mr. Furse. Easy to see you're a favoured customer,
eh?"
"Oh, me and Mike here practically support th' place. Cheers!"
"Good health! Success to journalism! Well, now, we're anxious to expand
business a bit in that western area— you know, get some fresh custom, let the
locals know who we are and all that. Of course, I know hill-farmers aren't
millionaires, but even they're spending a good deal more on clothes than they
used to and we feel there's a potential. Affluent society, you know, and all
that. What I feel we've got to do is meet the country farmer half-way— show
him we're offering value for money and nothing up our sleeves—let him see
we're human, you know. So—tell you what I'll do! Suppose we were to organize
this dog hunt—with your help on the publicity side, of course. Just thinking
aloud, we'd provide six—well, say five cartridges for every man taking part,
and offer each gun, up to twenty, his choice of either two hard-wearing shirts
or a pair of good, serviceable trousers. And then for the one who actually
kills the dog—have to think how we're going to be sure he's killed the right
one, of course—a ready-made two-piece suit, with a free fitting thrown in. You
do the photographs—the lucky fanner shaking hands
(166)
with me over the body and all that, eh? What you're thinking, eh?"
"Well, I should think it's worth it from your point of view, Mr. Ephraim. From
ours, it's a whale of an idea. There's one or two details we'd have to work

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out, of course—"
"Of course, of course. But we're wanting to move fast, eh? The dog might stop
raiding or maybe someone else shoots it before we do—you know?" (Mr. Ephraim
waved his hands expressively.) "You get something in the paper Wednesday, our
Mr. Emmer goes round the farms Thursday, gets it all set up for Saturday—I'll
be out there myself, of course—"
"Fine, Mr. Ephraim, fine. Now look, can you just come back for a minute to the
office? Then we can get the thing roughed out, and young Bob Castlerigg can
get to work on a piece—you'll see it before publication, of course—"
Friday the 5th November
"Where did you say we were going, tod?" Snitter shivered in the chilly evening
rain and sniffed at the sheep-rank turf, where even now a few late tormentils
and louseworts were in bloom. They were crossing Dunnerdale.
"Ower to Eshd'l. Bootterilket groond—ay. Noo whisht a bit! Haald on!" The tod
looked one way and the other, north to the Leeds mountain hut at Dale Head and
south to Hinnin House and the dark, coniferous plantation rising up the fell
behind it. Other than cows, no living creature was in sight. The tod slipped
across the road in front of the gate and cattle-grid and Rowf and Snitter
followed him along the line of a dry stone wall which led them across the
pasture and down to Duddon tumbling noisily over its stones among the ash
trees. On the bank, Rowf checked.
"Water? Look, I told you—"
(167)
"Haddaway! There's mair stones than watter. In w' goin' fer a duck!"
The tod slid almost daintily into the edge of the mam channel, swam the few
yards across and ran over white stones to the peaty bank on the farther side.
"Oh, look!" said Snitter suddenly, "a fish—a big^one!
"Ay, sea troot. It's upstream they go about noo."
Snitter, fascinated, watched the iridescent trout as it almost broke surface
in a shallow place before vanishing into deeper water.
"D'you ever eat fish, tod?"
"Ay, Ah've had a few deed 'uns as th' folks has thrown
oot."
"Dead? Where d'you find them?"
"Middens—dustbins. Are ye comin'?"
Rowf set his teeth, hit the water with a splash and was out on the further
bank. Snitter followed.
"My head's an umbrella, you know," said Smtter. It opens and shuts all right—
it's open now, actually—-er— forbye there's a rib broken. The water runs from
front to back and trickles down inside the crack."
"Mind yer a fond boogger, ye, an' not ower strang neether, but yer ne fyeul."
.
"Thanks, tod," said Snitter. "I really appreciate that.
They skirted the edge of the plantation along the foot of Castle How and
turned westward again, leaving Black Hall to the north.
"I'm sorry," said Snitter three quarters of a mile later, as they reached the
crest of the steep slope. "I'm not built for this, you know. The dilapidation—
no, the degradation—I mean the destination—oh, dear." He sat down and looked
about him in the failing light. "Wherever have
we got to?"
"Hard Knott. Bootterilket's doon bye. Yon's Eshd'I, ye
knaw."
"What happens now?" asked Rowf.
"Hang on a bit till neet-time, then we can run doon th fell an' take th' forst
yow ye fancies. By, yer a grrand provider." The tod looked at Rowf admiringly.
"Ah've getten a full belly runnin' wi' thoo."
"Going to make us wait, are you?" said Snitter, sitting (168)

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Friday,
WANDERJNC5 IN
DUNNF&DALE:
^^^U^jW'^t^   >    ' ?3lfSB&'rtf^'$$^'"t°d£i
-
back on his haunches in a wet brush of ling. "You'd better sing us a song,
tod, to pass the time. Do tods have songs?"
"Ay, we do, noo an' agen. Ay, Ah mind our aald wife made up a bonny 'un, lang
time back."
"Your dam? Did she? What's it called?"
The tod made no reply. Snitter recalled its confusion when he had asked its
name and hastily went on, "A bonny 'un?"
"Ay, it wez a canny bit song. She wad sing it on shiny neets."
"Well, never mind shiny neet," said Snitter. "Can ye not remember noo? Come
on. Rowf, you ask him."
"Oh, may as well," said Rowf. "Can you smell that yow down there? I'll tear
it, you see if I don't."
"Ay, it'll be varry soon felled an' fettled when us gets at it. Just tappy
lappy doon th' bankside an' grab it b' th' slack o' th' neck."
"Well, sing up, then, tod," said Rowf. "If it's going to be that easy, you've
got something to sing about."
The tod paused a while, rolling on its back and scratching on a patch of
stones. Snitter waited patiently, the rain running down his nose from the
trenched gash in his head. He could be no wetter. A car churned slowly up the
pass and as its sidelights topped Fat Betty Stone and it started to creep away
downhill in low gear, the tod began.
"A hill tod it wor layin'
Atop a roondy crag.
An' niff o' powltry doon belaa
Fair made its whiskers wag.
Th' farmer's canny lad, ye ken;
Geese fast i' th' hemmel, ducks i' th' pen.
Then fyeul shuts henhoose less one hen!
Begox, yon tod wez jumpin'!"
"Terrific!" said Rowf. "Go on!" The tod obliged.
"Next neet th' farmer's woman, By, ye shud hear hor bubble! 'A h'll skite th'
lugs off yonder tod
(170)
Thai's puttin' us te trouble!' She's roond th' stackyard i' th' rain, She
looks i' th' barn an' looks again. She nivver stopped th' back-end drain! Hey-
up, yon tod wez jumpin'!"
Snitter yapped happily and after a few moments the tod launched into the final
spasm.
"Th' light's gan oot i' th' farmhoose.
It's gey an' quiet it seems.
The aald chep's ftat-oot snotterin'
An' dreamin' bonny dreams.
An' when yon sun comes up agin,
There's hank o' feathers clogged to th' whin,
But nowt to show where tod got in!
By, mind, th' gaffer's jumpin'.'
"There's mist o' th' tops te hide ye. There's bracken thick o' th' fell.
Streams where th' hoonds won't track ye. Ye've lugs, me tod, an' smell.
There's shiny neets ye'll lowp and lark And randy run te th' vixen's bark. Ca'
canny, else yer fer th' Dark— Yon fettles aall yer jumpin'!"
"What became of your mother, tod?" asked Snitter.
"Hoonds," replied the tod indifferently, and began licking one paw.

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As night shut down the rain slackened, though the salty wind persisted,
carrying their scent away eastward. From far out at sea, beyond Eskdale, the
west yet glimmered with some streaks of day. Nothing could now be seen in the
deep cleft below, but from the sharp-eared and keen-- scented three the
blackness concealed no movement of the Bootterilket Herdwicks among the
rustling bracken below. Two yows together were moving slowly down into the
bottom, while a third lagged further and further behind. At a final glance
from the tod the hunting pack spread out and, with practised smoothness, began
their encircling descent.
(ill)
"—playin' bluidy 'ell," said Robert Lindsay firmly, while carefully keeping
his voice below the level of the conver-sation in the bar. "They are that—and
theer's not a doubt they're dogs, 'Arry—cann't be nowt else. Livin*
systematically off o' sheep."
"Oh, ay?" Old Tyson drew on his pipe and looked down, swilling the remaining
third of his pint round and round the pot.
In response to all hints and leads he had so far remained uncommunicative.
Robert, with reluctance, decided that, much as he disliked asking direct
questions, there was evidently going to be no alternative to taking the bull
by the horns.
"Weel, 'Arry, it were joost as bank chap i' Broughton were sayin' as tha'd
told Gerald Gray at Manor soomthing about dogs gettin' out o' research place,
like."
"Oh, ay?"
"Well, it's serious matter, 'Arry, tha knaws, is sheep-killing, an' a bluidy
lot o' woorry for thim as has sheep ont' fell. It is that. Happen Gerald were
wrong—"
Tyson re-lit his pipe, took a pull at his pint and again gazed reflectively
into the almost empty pot. Robert, whose sympathetic imagination knew
intuitively just how far to push his man, waited in silence, eyes fixed on the
tiled floor. Among his many gifts was that of sitting still and saying nothing
without seeming in the least put out or causing any embarrassment.
"Theer's plenty Ah could saay gin Ah were stoock int' box," said Tyson at
last. "Ah'm noan dodgin' owt, Bob, tha knaws. But Director oop at Lawson says
to saay nowt, an' Ah divven't want to lose job, tha knaws. It's reet enoof
job, is that, an' suits me joost now."
"Ay, it's reet good job, 'Arry; it is that. Ye'd not be wanting any trooble."
There was another pause.
"Theer's organized hunt tomorrow, tha knaws," said Robert. "Got oop by tailor
chap in Kendal, for advertisement like. Ah'll be gooin' along, joost for a bit
o' sport."
"Oh, ay?" said Tyson.
Silence returned. Robert finished his light ale. (172)
"Well, this wayn't do, bidin' sooppin1 ale, Ah'll joost have to be gettin'
along now," he said, rising briskly to his feet with a clatter of nailed boots
on the tiles. "Ah've still a bit to do milkin' cows, owd lad. 'Appen if tha
had lost dog out o' yon plaace, tha'd knaw it'd not be woon to be chasin'
sheep; so no bother, like."
He nodded and made to move towards the door, from beyond which sounded an
intermittent popping and banging as the young of Coniston celebrated the
debacle of Guy Fawkes. At the last moment Tyson touched his sleeve.
"Woon on 'em were fair devil of a beea'st," he murmured into his beer, and
immediately, without putting on his glasses, began studying the evening paper
upside down.
Saturday the 6th November
"It's too much for me," said Snitter. "Haddaway hyem, tod. And you, Rowf. I'll
have to follow you back later."

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It was perhaps an hour before first light. The night's hunt along the steep,
western slopes of Hard Knott had proved the longest and most exhausting they
had yet undertaken. Without the tod's uncanny ability to tell which way the
quarry was likely to have fled, they would certainly have lost it in the dark
and been obliged to begin the whole hard task once more. Rowf, kicked and
battered yet again before the death, had broken up the kill ferociously, his
own blood mingling with the sheep's as he gnawed hoof, gristle, bone and sinew
in his ravenous hunger. The splinters of broken bone, pricking Snitter's belly
as he lay down to sleep, recalled to him the guinea-pigs' tiny remains in the
ashes of the furnace-chamber.
Waking in the night with a vague sense of menace and danger, he had found
himself so chilled, stiff and lame that he began to doubt whether he would be
able to manage the return to Brown Haw with the others. He felt strange.
(173)
His head was full of a far-off ringing sound that seemed to come between his
hearing and the wind and he had, looking about him, a renewed sense of
detachment and unreality—symptoms which he had come to know all too well. For
a time he limped up and down while the others slept on, then lay down again
and dreamed of an enormous, explosive crash, of disintegration and terror and
of falling endlessly between the sheer walls of a putrescent cleft smelling of
disinfectant and tobacco. Starting up, he felt his ear nipped between pointed
teeth and found the tod beside him,
"Yer weel woke up oot of that, kidder."
"Oh—a dream! You didn't hear—no, of course not." Snitter struggled up. "Was I
making a noise?"
"Ne kiddin'. Ye wor rollin' about an' shootin' yer heed off. Fit te be heard a
mile, hinny."
"I'm sorry. I'll have to get some feathers for my head, won't I? It's ringing
like a white bell-car; no wonder it feels noisy." Confused, he hopped a few
yards on three legs, peed against a stunted rowan and came back. The tod lay
watching him with an air of detached appraisal.
"Hoo ye goin' on? Ye heven't tuk bad?" Before Snitter could reply it added,
"Ah'll caall up th' big feller noo. We'll hev te be goin'."
"Already?"
"Ay, time w' wor away hyem."
"Which way?"
"Up ower th' top of th' clough there."
"I hope I can do it."
"Ye'll hev te tek it canny, lad. Yer far ower tired fer runnin' aboot, so th'
sharper we're off, th' forther we can get afore th' leet comes."
The rain had ceased. Rowf, still half-asleep, dragged the sheep's fore-leg out
of the sticky welter and carried it as they set off, climbing steeply up the
bed of the gill and so out on to Harter Fell's north shoulder. It was here
that Snitter began to fall behind and finally lay down. The others came back
to him.
"It's too much for me," gasped Snitter. "I'll have to follow you home later. I
feel so strange, Rowf. My feet are cold."
(174)
Rowf put down the fore-leg and sniffed him over. "You're all right—it's only
in your head, you know."
"I know that—it's looking out of it that's so difficult. I'm not at all sure
it's me inside, either." Snitter kicked gingerly, testing one back leg. "Is
it—is it—glass or what?" He stood up and immediately fell down again. "My
leg's over on the other side of—of the—"
Rowf sniffed again. "Your leg's all right—"
"I know it is, but it's over there."
"That's the sheep's leg, you fool."

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"That's not what I mean," said Snitter miserably. "I can't—what is it? Talk—to
my leg."
"Let's away, an' give ower yammerin'! If wor still on th' fell when th' sun's
up, wor knacked. Them farmers-— if they clap their eyes on us—"
"Oh, do leave me and get on!" cried Snitter desperately. "Let me alone! I'll
be back before mid-day. No one's going to see me—"
"See ye a naff-mile off in a mist, hinny—ye an' yer magpie's jacket—"
Enveloped in the mist pouring from his own head, clung to by impalpable flies,
enclosed within a jolting, invisible helmet of chickenwire, Snitter floated
away, watching the tod's mask recede and fade upstream through brown peat-
water flowing insensibly, yet plain to be seen, across his flank.
When he awoke, the sun, from a clear sky, was shining warm into his head. A
ladybird was clambering laboriously among the bents close against his muzzle,
and he watched it without moving. Suddenly, beyond and between the grass
stalks, a buzzard sailed into sight, low against the blue, and hung, wings
fluttering. Snitter leapt up and the buzzard slid away.
He looked about him. The slope was empty. The others had gone. At least— He
ran a few yards uphill, until he could look round the base of a nearby crag
and, in the same moment that he knew himself to be alone, realised also that
his faculties had returned and that he could both see clearly and use his
legs. His head was still ringing, but at least he could now lift and carry it.
He must be off. The voice of the Bootterilket sheep's (175)
Harter Fell
blood was crying from the ground not half a mile off. He thought of the long
run back to Brown Haw and of the farms to be avoided on the way. It would be
tricky going in the broad, morning daylight. Should he perhaps wait until
nightfall? But then, where could he lie up? Not here. He remembered the tod's
warning. This was too close to
(176)
the scene of the kill. Elsewhere, then; and if he had to look for a refuge, he
might as well seek it along the way home as anywhere else.
Which way might the tod have guided Rowf? Not the way they had come, that was
as good as certain. Snitter, muttering "Roondaboot, roondaboot," cast back to
where he had been lying and without difficulty picked up the tod's scent in
the heather. To his surprise it led down the fell well to the north of their
last night's route across the Duddon. Scattering innumerable spiders and a
drowsy bumblebee or two, he shushed his way downward through the wet bracken
and all in a moment found himself out upon the Hard Knott pass road where it
wound back and forth in steep hairpin bends up the hillside. He nosed quickly
across the narrow, grey roughness of tar and petrol exhaust and picked up the
tod's line again on the opposite side. Down once more and so, at length, round
towards Duddon and the Cockley Beck farmhouse standing among its trees on the
further side of the bridge.
As he splashed his way across the river some little distance above the bridge
and climbed back up the bank to the road, he was suddenly aware of a car
standing on the verge near the signpost, about fifty yards away. Against it a
man was leaning—a man with very clean boots, new, heather-coloured knee-
breeches, a green twill coat and round, brimmed hat to match. Even at this
distance the swell of his clean clothes was plain. His face was turned towards
Snitter, but his eyes were obscured by some object which he was holding in
front of them—something resembling two small bottles—two dark, glassy circles,
fastened together. Beside him, propped against the wing of the car, stood a
double-barrelled shot-gun.
The dog hunt, just as Mr. Ephraim had envisaged, had begun in good time and
fine weather on Saturday morning, the various farmers assembling at the
Traveller's Rest at Ulpha and being fortified with coffee and sandwiches by
the landlord, Mr. Jenner, before proceeding up the valley to make a start on

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Caw and the rest of the Hall Dunner-dale land. Dennis, who had been infuriated
by the frustration of his telephone conversation with Mr. Powell and
(177)
more than ever convinced that Animal Research were at the back of all the
trouble, had told everyone to look out for a dog wearing a green plastic
collar.
Mr. Ephraim himself, resplendent in new boots, sporting jacket (to use his own
term) and pork-pie hat, and carrying for the occasion a borrowed twelve-bore
of which his pride considerably exceeded his experience, was eloquent on the
sartorial rewards to be distributed to the participants, but distinctly less
knowledgeable about the way in which the hunt might best be organized.
However, being a good-natured gentleman and anxious above all to stand well
with customers and potential customers, he was perfectly agreeable to this
part of the business being arranged by others, and watched appreciatively
through his binoculars as the guns, spaced about sixty yards apart, combed the
breadth of the hillside southward from Caw, reassembled, swung round westward
to Brock Barrow and finally regained the valley road by Low Hall. Dennis had
bagged a grouse and old Routledge, a noted wag, had first missed a snipe and
then accounted for a slow-flying magpie as it cocked its tail on a. branch.
Otherwise they had seen nothing but sheep, meadow pipits, crows and buzzards.
Mr. Ephraim and Mr. Furse (the latter taking copious notes and accompanied by
a lady photographer) received them on the road with encouragement and nips of
whisky, and they were further stimulated by a fine turn-out on the part of the
various ladies of the valley—Gwen Williamson and her girls, Mary Longmire from
the Newfield Hotel, Sarah Lindsay, Dorothea Craven ("Oh, what /u/t/"), Joan
Hoggarth, Phyllis and Vera Dawson who kept the shop by the bridge, and several
more. There was some disappointment that no one should as yet have seen the
least sign of the dog marauder, but Mr. Ephraim, undeterred, made light of it.
"Well, it's early yet, ain't it? Anyway, at least we've found out where the
dog's not, and no more dead sheep on your land either, Mr. Lindsay, eh? What
you think we'd better do now, Mr. Longmire? Go up the valley and work over Mr.
Williamson's land?"
(178)
. "Ay, that'll do," answered Jack; then, turning to Harry Braithwaite, he
added, "D'ye think so, 'Arry?"
Since Mr. Ephraim found Mr. Braithwaite (whose Lancashire was extremely broad)
altogether incomprehensible without interpretation, he contented himself with
beaming on everyone, shepherding them into the hired minibus and leading the
way up the valley in his car, leaving the ladtes to go home to late
breakfasts.
The first leg of the hunt had also been observed with close interest by the
tod and Rowf, from the concealment of a pile of tumbled boulders near the
summit of Caw itself. It was only with difficulty that Rowf had been persuaded
to leave Snitter asleep on Hard Knott, and he had at last agreed only when the
tod had threatened to leave them both altogether.
"Who's te knaw what's gone wrang wiv him? We canna bide wiv'm till he wakes.
If we divven't shift oursels, we'll aall be finished—him an' aall. He can
folly us back when he's pulled hissel' tegither. Yon's ne fyeul, on th' fell
or off't. Poor sowl, it's yon dent in his head."
They had already waited so long on Hard Knott, however—indeed, until the first
streaks of dawn began to show behind the distant Wreynus Pass to the east—that
the tod insisted that they must now make their way back by the highest and
loneliest ground. They crossed the Duddon well above Cockley Beck, ran up Dry
Gill in the first light and so on to Fairfield and the back of the Grey Friar.
From here they made a straight five miles southward, passing over Goat's
Hause, down the east side of Goat's Water and so, at length, along the eastern
flank of Caw. The sun was gaining authority every minute and now, with less

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than a mile to go to their shaft, they lay down to rest in a patch of shade
under a thorn-bush. As they did so the light wind veered round into the west
and immediately the tod tensed and crouched flat.
"What's the matter?" asked Rowf, copying him quickly.
"Haald yer gob! Them lot o' th' fell, kidder! If ye got ne nose, ye got lugs,
ha' ye not?"
It slunk quickly uphill for two hundred yards, Rowf following, and then inched
its way forward between the rocks. They could now see plainly the line of
farmers,
(179)
backs toward them as they combed the fell below. There was the sound of a shot
and Rowf ducked lower still.
"D'you think they're looking for us?"
"Who else? Ne doot at aall. Sneaky sods, craalin' aboot roond our place. They
should think shame! By, what wid Ah do if Ah'd th1 power meseV? Ah'd skite
thim!"
"They're moving off out of it now, though. Shall we
go back?"
"Go back? Nay, not for two morns. Mebbies more.
Are ye daft?" "Where then?" "A quiet spot,  and a lang way backa beyont, Ah
warr'nd."
"Not without Snitter," said Rowf emphatically. He waited for the tod to reply.
After some moments it turned its head and stared at him without a word. Rowf,
disturbed and excited as always by the rank, vulpine smell, stared back,
watching the sun and moving shadows reveal and again cloud the irises of its
eyes, flecked and peat-brown as the floors of shallow pools in the moss. At
last he got
to his feet.
"If as many men as that are hunting the valley for us, then Snitter's in great
danger. I'm going back for him."
"Ye goin' on yer aan, hinny."
Harry Braithwaite, Jack Longmire and the rest had finally decided that
probably the best course would be to tackle next the mile-long northwest slope
of the Grey Friar, from Fairfield and Hell Gill Pike down towards Cockley Beck
and Wreynus Bottom. This stretch—by the time they had got up there and down
again—would occupy the rest of the morning until lunch time. (Lunch, with
beer, was, of course, being provided by Suitable Suits and they were looking
forward to it.) Then in the afternoon ("If we've noan shot th' sod bi then,"
as Dennis remarked) they could conclude by getting up on Levers Hause and
combing out the Tongue 'Us land on either side of Seathwaite Tarn. Mr. Furse,
still indefatigably taking notes, boarded the minibus and set off with the
rest for the top of Wreynus and the ascent of Wetside Edge, while Mr. Ephraim—
(180)
who had no taste for climbing—disposing his binoculars and gun at the ready,
remained alone at Cockley Beck.
"If you drive it down towards me, gentlemen, I shall know what to do, shan't
I? You might find it hung up to dry, eh, by the time you get down for lunch?"
^'Wi'owt he's ett it Msself," remarked old Routledge, to a general laugh as
the minibus moved off again.
"Mr. Ephraim sat on the parapet of the bridge in the cool November sunshine.
Below him the brown Duddon chattered between its rocks. A late grey wagtail,
dark-backed and clear yellow beneath, bobbed and flirted its way upstream from
stone to stone and a robin twitted autum-nally in a half-bare mountain ash.
With a thrusting heave of its buttocks, a black-faced Herdwick scrambled up
from a peat-rift and trotted away through the ling, while far beyond, the
cloud shadows followed one another in ripples across the great slope of
Stonesty Pike. On the Cockley Beck clothes-line, two or three brightly

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coloured dishcloths were cracking like whips in the wind.
Mr. Ephraim noticed little and felt less of the lonely scene around him. As
much as he could, he avoided being alone, for all too often the memories
induced by solitude would speak with the voices of hell. He thought of his
father and mother, gone without strength before the pursuer; then of his Aunt
Leah, vanished more than thirty years ago into the night and fog of desolate
Europe, slain by God alone knew what sword in the wilderness. His elder
brother Mordecai, weeping with shame, had given evidence, for the sake of
truth and justice, in the libel action brought in London during the sixties by
the infamous Dr. Dering, the self-styled experimental research expert of
Auschwitz. Yes, it was indeed more than thirty years, thought Mr. Ephraim,
since the whirlwind had passed and violence had covered the mouth of the
wicked; yet still the pestilence walked in the dark places of recollection;
and no doubt for him it would always do so. He forced his thoughts towards
better memories; of the Danube, rolling broad and smooth through Austria; of
its cities and vineyards. When the evil began he had been only a little child.
His mind, like a frightened dog, crept miserably back to the place whence he
had tried to expel it.
(181)
He recalled, one after another, the years during which he had grown up and had
journeyed at last to this cold, northern land of idle, half-hostile gentiles
who concealed their hearts and never spoke their thoughts—or not, at all
events, to strangers. And here he was, breaking the sabbath among peasants in
a cold wind, for the sake of recovering, insofar as anyone could, some part of
that substance and standing which his family had once known, before their
dispossession and—and murder.
"It's a bad world for the helpless," said Mr. Ephraim aloud.
He stood up, stamped his feet on the hollow bridge and strode back to the car.
This wouldn't do. He must, as so often before, snap out of it. There was as
yet no sign of the farmers descending the fell. However, there was no harm in
being prepared for the chance of action. Some of the men had thought it more
than likely that the dog, if it were on the fell at all, would take alarm
quickly, slink away well ahead of the gun line and come down into the bottom.
Mr. Ephraim took his own gun out of the car, loaded and cocked it, put on the
safety catch and propped it against the wing. Then he fell to scanning the
hillside through his binoculars, first the Grey Friar, then the Crinkle Crags
and finally Hard Knott to the west.
Suddenly he tensed, swung the glasses a second time towards the foot of Hard
Knott Pass, adjusted them to give a clearer foreground focus and then remained
gazing intently. A smooth-haired, black-and-white dog, not particularly large,
was approaching the Duddon along the line of the tributary beck from the
north-west. Through the glasses he could distinctly see round its neck a
green, plastic collar.
Mr. Ephraim, trembling with involuntary excitement, bent down and slipped the
safety catch of his gun. Then he returned to studying the approaching dog. Its
belly was mud-stained and he could just perceive, along its muzzle, what
looked like specks of dried blood. But more remarkable and arresting than all
else—and at this Mr. Ephraim stared, at first incredulously and then with
growing horror and pity—was a deep, hairless cleft, barely healed, pink as the
inside of a rabbit's ear and showing the white
(182)
marks of stitches running clear across the skull from nape to forehead—a
terrible gash, giving the dog an unreal appearance, like some macabre creature
from a Kafka fantasy or a painting by Hieronymus Bosch.
Mr. Ephraim shuddered. Then, to his own surprise, he found the lenses of his
binoculars blurred by tears. He brushed them away with the back of his hand
and as the dog came nearer, bent down and began gently slapping his knee.

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"Komm, Knabel Komm, Knabe!" called Mr. Ephraim. "Armer Teufel, sie haben dich
auch erwischt?"
The dog stopped on the road, looking up at him timidly. Then, as he continued
to call it and to talk in a low, reassuring voice, it came slowly forward,
tail down, eyes wary and body tensed to run at the least sharp noise or
movement.
As soon as he saw the man, Snitter stopped uncertainly, both fascinated and
repelled, tike an underwater swimmer who perceives some large, strange
creature, eel or ray, among the coral. He paused, on the one hand overcome by
fear and the sense of danger, on the other powerfully drawn by the hope of
hearing a kind voice, by the desire to be patted, to stand on his hind legs,
put his front paws against human knees and feel his ears scratched. The man
removed from in front of his eyes the two dark, glassy circles, bent forward
encouragingly and began to call to him in a low, gentle voice.
The ringing sound which, ever since he had woken on Hard Knott, had been
creeping by Snitter upon the heather, intensified. It flowed, he now knew, not
from his own head but from the strange man's; or rather, it was flowing back
and forth between the strange man and himself. The ringing was a vortex, a
circling funnel of sound, broad and slow at the top, but descending rapidly
inwards to a dizzy, spinning hole which was at once both the pierced centre of
his own brain and the barrel of a gun pointed at his muzzle. Whirling circles
of time past—his own time and another's—were contracting upon that present
where the strange man stood patting his knee and calling to him.
(183)
Snitter went hesitatingly closer. And now, he perceived clearly, there was,
pouring both towards and from the strange man, irresistible as a swift
current, a flux— shaggy, with bloody hide—composed of terror and inflicted
pain, of ruin, grief and loss. Frightened, he shrank trembling against the
stone wall as the road before him filled with a river of inaudible sound—
noiseless indeed, yet clear as those unreal threads of light which in summer
drought appear like trickling water across short grass on the hills.
Children's voices he could hear, weeping and calling for help as they were
swept away; women's, clutching after them and crying in agony; men's, trying
to utter prayers and fragments of liturgies cut short as the flood engulfed
them. Mockery, too, there was, and echoes of mean, cruel violence.
Clearly through all, as of a tree visible behind drifting mist, he continued
to be aware of the actual voice of the man, calling him authoritatively yet
kindly to approach. This voice, he now realized, was that of Death; but Death
who must himself die—had himself died—and would therefore not be hard on a
mere dog. In this place there was, in any case, no distinction between him who
brought life to an end and him whose life must be ended. He himself, he now
knew, was carrying death as a gift, both to bestow and to receive. He padded
forward again, deliberately entering the spiral of cries and voices, and in so
doing heard more loudly the ringing in his own head, now become a part of
their lament. As he went slowly on in the bidden direction, the whirling
spiral stretched and elongated, tapering to a point that pierced him, a sharp
arrow of song: and this arrow he retrieved, carrying it obediently, as he had
carried the wind's song on the fell.
"From Warsaw and from Babylon The ghosts will not release the lives. A weary
burden falls upon The groping remnant that survives. So this distracted beast
contrives His hopeless search as best he can. (184)
Beyond the notebooks and the knives A lost dog seeks a vanished man."
Snitter came to the car. As he had hoped, the man stooped and patted him;
then, with a hand under his jaw, gently lifted his head, scratched his ears
and examined his collar, speaking to him soothingly and reassuringly as he did
so*. Bemused, he found that he was wagging his tai! and licking the lavender-
soap-scented fingers. Then the man opened the rear door of the car, leaned in

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and patted the seat, his black glass tubes dangling forward on their strap. He
made no attempt to drag or lift Snitter inside, only continuing to talk to him
in a quiet voice of sympathy.
Snitter clambered awkwardly into the back of the car and sat down on the seat,
his nostrils beginning to run as he drew in the forgotten smells of oil and
petrol fumes, together with those of artificial leather and cleaned glass.
Still enclosed in that strange trance which he had entered of his own accord
upon the road, he now had no awareness of the wind and sunlight outside, of
the white wing-flash of a chaffinch in the sycamore or the sound of the
pouring Duddon. He might have been sitting in a roped pail, listening to
echoes rising from the well-shaft below him.
Mr. Ephraim lifted his gun by the barrel, rested the butt on the ground beside
the open rear door and stooped to put on the safety catch. As he did so
Snitter, turning his head, caught sight in the driving mirror of the figure of
a Wan striding down the hillside—a grey-haired man, carry-ipg a walking-stick
and wearing an old tweed overcoat aitd a yellow scarf. Barking loudly, he
leapt for the door. Startled, Mr. Ephraim involuntarily pulled the barrel of
fee gun towards him. Snitter, trying to push past him, Smuggled wildly. One
front paw clawed at his sleeve while 1$je other became caught in the trigger
guard. There was ^deafening explosion and the gun fell to the ground, dragging
Snitter with it. A moment later Mr. Ephraim, his filce pouring blood, silently
toppled and fell with his body half hi and half out of the car.
JfWhen the farmer's wife, the soap-suds still dripping her bared forearms,
came running out of the gate,
(185)
Snitter, howling in terror, was already across the bridge and two hundred
yards up the windy hillside of the Hard Knott, tail between his legs and jaws
frothing as though he had been loosed out of hell.
It was after this that the bad things began.
FIT 5
(186)
&t least one went more easily alone, thought Rowf, plod-diag up Dunnerdale for
the second .time in twenty hours; not so much of this damned creep and peep
stuff. Wherever Snitter's got to I'll find him; and bring him back too —unless
he's dead. And I'll go the quickest way, exposed ^r not—he may be in some sort
of trouble, or wandering about in one of his mad fits. And if anyone, human or
animal, tries to stop me, they'd better watch out, that's all.
.;--Yet all the time his thoughts, like a dog keeping just out of range of a
man with arm raised to throw a stone, re avoiding the question, "What's going
to become of two of us without the tod?" They had parted with no icr words,
the tod, chin on paws among the ling, merely staring sardonically after him as
Rowf, lacking only n to turn back and bite, set off over the north-saddle of
Caw. Straight over the top he went, through disused slate quarries below Walna
and down to the igue 'Us meadows. Here he rested for a short time, less
whether anyone might see him or not. Then he Thrang and crossed the marshy
Tongue itself, ring down to the road below Birks Bridge. There much coming and
going, or so it seemed, of cars on road—surely a great many for so lonely a
place?— (187)
but evidently those in them, whatever their business, were too much
preoccupied with it to pay attention to a solitary, furtive dog making his way
up the valley along the grass verge.
Rowf had intended to retrace their previous night's route, but as he neared
the spot where they had crossed the road his spirit baulked at the thought of
the plunge— alone this time—into the tumbling Duddon, and the unpleasant
moments of the struggle across. Though tired, he decided to continue up to the
bridge and the shallow water above, where he and the tod had crossed that
morning.

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He was less than two hundred yards below Cockley Beck when he became aware of
the cars and the throng of people. He stopped, sniffing and staring. Little as
he knew from experience of the ways of humans outside the Research Station, he
could perceive something strange about the behaviour of these men—something
which gave him pause. Their purpose was obscure: they appeared to be doing
nothing, to have no intention, to be going nowhere. Uneasily, he sensed that
they were in some way at check and under strain. Something unusual had thrown
them off balance. He went cautiously nearer, pressing himself against the dry
stone wall on his off side. His collar caught on a projecting snag and he
freed it with a quick tug.
He gazed ahead of him. Some men in dark-blue clothes were gathered round a
large, conspicuous white car, talking in low voices and from time to time
turning to look at something lying on the ground under a blanket. A little
distance away was a group of rougher-looking men, all with guns; farmers, by
their smell and—yes! he could tell, now, from their clothes—the very men that
he and the tod had watched below Caw that morning. In the moment that he
recognized them Rowf started and shied away from the wall. As he did so one of
the men flung out an arm, pointing towards him and shouting, and the next
moment a shower of pellets rattled among the stones beside his head. The quick
whizz of a ricochet mingled in his ears with the sound of the shot. Rowf leapt
the opposite wall, ran down the meadow, plunged headlong
(188)
into the Duddon, dragged himself out on the further side and disappeared
beyond the alders.
Monday the 8th November
The noise of the traffic, rising from the treeless, grassless street below,
caused the none-too-clean windows to be kept almost permanently shut, thus
removing competition from the clacking of typewriters and the ringing of
telephones. Also permanent was the low, whirring sound of the air
conditioning, which extracted some of the cigarette smoke while mingling the
remainder with the intake of motor-exhaust-filled air from outside. The
daylight, though entering along two sides of the enormous room, was
insufficient to illuminate the labours of those whose desks stood (or "were
positioned," as they themselves would have said) near the centre, so that
throughout working hours patches of electric light burned with a steady glare.
As in a cage of budgerigars, the place was filled with an incessant, light
movement and arhythmic, low chatter— an irritant and disturbance never quite
strong enough to become unbearable by the various individuals who contributed
to it. Each of these, with his or her name displayed on the desk, occupied an
appointed place and used appointed possessions—telephone, blotter and diary;
electric lamp, soap, towel, teacup, saucer and lockable drawer; with here and
there a photograph and here and there a dusty, spindly Rhoitissus rhomboidea
or Hedera helix, part-worn but surviving every bit as doggedly as its owner.
As a matter of fact—you may be surprised to learn— Dr. Boycott had had no hand
in this place. No, indeed; it was not one of his experiments to discover who
could .endure what for how long and ascertain in what manner :it might affect
them. This was, in fact, a part of England where the folk were all as mad as
he: it was that admired exemplar of modern working conditions, the open-plan
main office of the London Orator, lynch-pin of the Ivor-
(1B9)
stone Press, a great daily newspaper syndicated, indicated and vindicated all
over the world, watchdog of liberty, cat's cradle of white-collar banality,
ram's horn of soft pornography, crocodile's tear of current morals, gulf and
maw of the ravined salt-sea shark and personal monkey-wrench of Sir Ivor Stone
himself. Below, over the main door, the porter of which was R.S.M. O'Rorke,
Irish Guards (retired), doyen of the Corps of Commissionaires and arguably the
only honest man in the place, were blazoned Sir Ivor's arms, above his rebus

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motto, Primus lapidem iaciam. Immediately above projected the elegant bow
window of the small conference room, where (refreshed by drinks kept in a
cocktail cabinet made to resemble two rows of leather-bound books on shelves)
important visitors (for example, those who spent a great deal on advertising
in the Orator) were received and the editors and sub-editors met to discuss
policy among themselves.
And this, in fact, is what they are doing now, on this fine November morning.
Far beyond London, red and yellow beech leaves are pattering into the lake at
Blenheim, at Potter Heigham great pike are on the feed and the west wind is
blowing sweetly across Lancashire from the Isle of Man, but he wbo is tired of
London is tired of life (though Dr. Johnson might have had second thoughts
after a few days with the Orator). Gaze, reader, through the window—at the
mock oak-panelled walls, at the portrait, by Annigoni, of Sir Ivor, over the
Chair, at the grate-full of cosy living fire of solid smokeless fuel (supplied
by Sir Derek Ezra and his merry men), the reference books on the side-table—
Who's Who, Burke, Crockford, Wisden, Vacher's and the Local Government
Directory—the writing desk with headed stationery ready to hand beside the
signed photograph of Miss "Comfy" Effingbee, that popular screen actress (who
some little time ago opened the building as effortlessly as her legs, while
recuperating in England from her third and anticipating her fourth
"marriage"), the bell that really works and will summon a real manservant, the
wainscot, the pargeted ceiling, the expensive and ugly carpet, the—but
(190)
hush! There are three men present and one of them is speaking.
"The thing is," said Mr. Desmond Simpson (sometimes referred to by his
subordinates as "Simpson Agon-istes," on account of his habit of talking round
every potential decision until his colleagues were ready to scream), "the
thing is, if we put an energetic reporter on to- this and make a big thing of
it—you know, daily sitreps, 'Exclusive from the Orator's man in Cumberland,'
'Latest developments,' 'Orator invites readers' views' and all that; and then
the whole thing folds in the middle— you know, fizzles out in some sort of
anticlimax and back to square one—then perhaps we lose circulation—"
"I've thought about all that," replied Mr. Anthony Hogpenny, M.A. Oxon,,
eighteen stone in a white jacket with carnation buttonhole, who was smoking a
large cigar with that air of detached and confident superiority that large
cigars can so effectively complement, "and I'm convinced the idea's perfectly
viable. We've got to send someone with the ingenuity not to let it fold,
whichever way it may happen to break."
"But suppose a farmer shoots the dog next week, for example?" pursued Mr.
Simpson. "Surely that's bound to {be the end of it, and perhaps just when
we've gone to a . -lot of trouble and expense building up—"
"No, no, dear boy," put in Mr. Quiiliam Skillicorn, pink-gin-flushed,
epicene  and  somewhat  elderly,   once styled by himself "the meteoric
Manxman," but more re-Jjcently referred to, by the sub-editor of a rival
daily, as j*?"*the rose-red cissie, half as old as time." "I mean, just think
of the lovely build-up that's there already. First of all you've got the
recommendation of the Sablon Committee that more public money ought to be
spent on medical research. So after any amount of prodding— ?far too much of
it from their own back-benchers—the ;|Government finally accept the report and
give this silly i*rse place more money. No one has the teeniest idea what 7&e
scientists are doing with it up there, and half the amenity organizations in
the country hate their guts for starters, simply because they're in a national
park. Then fere's local talk of sheep-killing and apparently the sta-
&. (191)
tion won't say a word in reply to questions from farmers and the local press.
So after a bit this splendid Ephraim man tries to help, purely out of the
kindness of his tiny heart—all events, that's our line, and anyway what's

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wrong with the public image of a good man of business?— and gets himself shot
dead, apparently by the horrid dog that escaped—what a story, too!—"
"Ah, but was it?" interposed Mr. Simpson, his voice squeaky with the pangs of
doubt. "Was there a dog involved in the shooting at all?"
"There were muddy paw-marks and dog's hairs on the back seat of the car, and
Ephraim himself didn't own a bow-wow. The farmer's wife says that after the
gun went off she heard a dog howling—"
"But did the dog necessarily do it? I can't remember any similar case. On the
evidence—"
"Oh, Simpy, and you're a newspaperman? Can't you see it doesn't matter a damn
what the dog did? We say it's evident that there was a dog and by the very act
of so saying we put the research fellows on the spot to deny it. They're
sitting on something they don't want to be forced to say—one can smell that
from here, if I'm any judge. Little Eva—the boss—he wants us to discredit
Government, right? So that's what we're out for. Our line is first, that
Government had to be virtually forced to give the station more money, and
secondly, that they stood back and let the station waste it; and then the
station imperil the local agricultural economy by letting a dangerous dog
escape. Now a life's been lost—well, what, oh, what more could any
newspaperman want?"
"And on top of that," added Mr. Hogpenny fatly, "there's all the schmalz we
can do about poor little doggies and hoggies and darling catties and rallies—"
"Bul that's inconsistent, Anthony," squeaked Mr. Simp-son, "if we're taking
the line that the Research Station ought lo be doing iheir work more
efficiently—"
"Pooh," answered Mr. Hogpenny, puffing a cloud, "who ever cared a damn about
consistency on a national daily? Don't you remember 'Miners Deprive Nation of
Coal' and 'Keep Hungarians out of British Coal Pits' on two pages of the same
issue? It's emotions that sell popu-
(192)
lar newspapers, old boy, not logical arguments, as you very well know."
"This particular little game's not really dissimilar from chess, is it?" put
in Mr. Skillicorn. "What it comes to is that we feel pretty average sure that
if we hopefully position a knight on queen's bishop's fifth, we'll
subsequently get some play out of it, even though we can't see exactly what as
of now." (This was how Mr. Skillicorn often talked—and very much how he wrote
too.)
"But which knight, I wonder?" asked Mr. Hogpenny, after waiting a few moments
to see whether Mr. Simpson to peace and contemplation was dismissed, and quiet
of mind, all passion spent. "We need a good chap—someone who knows how to
seize whatever opportunities may offer themselves."
"I'd say Gumm," suggested Mr. Skillicorn.
"You mean Digby Driver?" said Mr. Simpson.
"Well, Driver, Gumm, whatever you like to call him."
"Why him?"
"Well, he's shown that he's got a flair for making the public dislike anything
or anyone he wants them to. That Coulsen business—there wasn't really an awful
lot in it, you know—especially the minor offenders—but by the time Gumm had
finished with them everyone was absolutely howling for their blood and
circulation was up quite a bit. Cheap at the price of two suicides, wasn't
it?"
"Can we spare him?"
"I think so," said Mr. Skillicorn, reflecting. "Yes, I don't see why not. He's
been on 'English Friends of Amin' for the past week, but he could perfectly
well hand that over to someone else and get up to Cumberland right away. The
looter the sweeter. This afternoon, in fact."
"How should I brief him, then, Tony, d'you think?" pursued Mr. Simpson.

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"To stimulate public speculation and interest over the dog and over Ephraim:
you know, 'What is the Sinister Mystery of the Fells?' 'Will Killer Dog Strike
Again?' and all that; and to watch for any opportunity that may arise to
discredit Animal Research. And any other little larks you can think of,
Desmond. But look, J really must be getting on now. I'm supposed to be
lunching at the Ivy
f 193 )
Leaf with some clean-air civil servant from DoE. I'm thinking of pushing them
around a bit over lead in the atmosphere—there's a fellow at Durham University
who's prepared to say virtually anything we want him to. There's embarrassment
potential there all right."
He gulped the last of his whisky and was gone, leaving Mr. Simpson to send for
Digby Driver.
Tuesday the 9th November
It was full moon, cloudless, and brighter for being a cold night—the coldest
of the autumn so far. From the summit of Harter Fell the peaks of the Scafell
range, more than four miles sway across the upper Esk, rose clearly in the
silver light—Great End the killer, 111 Crag and Broad Crag, the Pike itself
and the long, southern shoulder of the Slight Side. Peaceful they looked in
the moonlight, old stumps of great mountains long ago, worn down by ages of
storm, wind and ice. Yet for Rowf, wandering back and forth in the dense,
coniferous forest of Harter between Hard Knott and Birker Moor, there was no
peace and only such little light as fell between the trees and along the open
rides between. The movements of roosting birds, the pattering of water, the
cracking of sticks and stirring of branches—all imparted to him, in the near-
darkness, those feelings of tension and uncertainty which sentient creatures,
from men downwards, have always known on strange ground among thick trees. To
these, in his case, were added hunger and fatigue.
For the past two days he had been searching for Snitter, by daylight reckless
of farmers or shepherds and by night of stumbling and injury in the darkness.
After his flight from the men at Cockley Beck, he had picked up Snitter's
scent near the top of Hard Knott Pass and followed it upward to the steep
rocks on Harter's north face. There he had lost it, wandered till nightfall
and then, as mist and rain set in, taken shelter under an overhanging crag
(194)
The head of Etkdale, from Harter Fell
and slept for a few hours. But he had woken with a start, trailing in his nose
the wisp of a dream and believing Snitter to be nearby. Bounding down into the
heather, he had found only a yow that ran bleating away in the moonlight.
Between that night and the middle of the following day he had, nose to ground,
encircled the whole of Harter, from the dreary upland of Birker Moor (that
wilderness where, in December 1825, poor young Jenkinson, as his tombstone
opposite Ulpha church door tells, died in the pelting of the pitiless storm)
to the steep banks of Duddon gorge; and so north and round once more by the
west. Once he had snapped up a rat and once had routed out and nosed through
an ill-buried package of hikers' rubbish —hard bread, fragments of meat and a
mouthful or two of soggy potato crisps. Nowhere had he come upon any fresh
scent of Snitter. At last, feeling that he had made as sure as he could that
Snitter must still be somewhere within the circuit he had made of the
mountain, he had started out to hunt him down but then, exhausted, had lain
down and fallen asleep once more. When he woke it was early next morning and
he set out again, running, as long as the chilly, lustreless daylight lasted,
backwards and forwards across the open slopes and searching under the crags.
As twilight closed in—the already-risen moon brightening in the southern sky
as daylight waned—he entered the all-but-bare larch woods and began sniffing
his way up and down. From time to time he stopped, threw up his head and
barked loudly; but the only response was the clattering of disturbed pigeons

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and the echoes, "Rowf! Rowf!," thrown back from the distant steep of Buck
Crag.
There stands a house on the southern edge of this forest—Grassguards, they
call it—a dead place now, solitary, untenanted these many years, a shelter for
the wandering sheep of Birker Moor, a roosting-place for owls and the
pitiless, lamb-blinding crows that frequent the fells. Sometimes, in summer,
visitors on holiday look after themselves for a week or two in the roughly
furnished dwelling-house, which is reached by no road or lonnin. But the dank
barns stand empty, no rooster crows or dog
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barks and all winter and spring the loudest sounds are the rain, the moorland
wind and the wide beck—Grassguards Gill—pouring between and often over the
stepping stones a few yards from the door. Hither, in the speckled moonlight,
from Harter plantations to tfie northern bank of the beck, came Rowf; lame of
a paw, muddy of coat, froth of a jaw, hoarse of a throat, taken apart, down of
a heart. And here, as he lapped at the water and lay down exhausted on the
crisp, thinly frosted grass, he caught suddenly the faint but unmistakable
smell of a scalp wound and of medical disinfectant; and then, fresh and close
by, the odour of a smooth-haired dog. At once he leapt up, barking once more,
"Rowf-rowf! Rowf-rowf!"
He was answered by a feeble yelp from the further side of the water. Setting
his teeth, he crossed, jumping awkwardly from stone to wet stone. The barn had
a half-door, the upper part of which was ajar. Rowf threw himself at it,
scrabbled a moment, climbing, then dropped down on the earth and round cobbles
of the floor within.
Picking himself up, he made his way across to where Snitter was lying on a
patch of straw beside an old heap of slack coal. He pushed at him with his
head, but before he could speak Snitter said, "Oh, are you here too, after
all? I'm sorry—I'd hoped somehow you'd be left out of it—"
"Of course I'm here, you fool; and a nice jolly outing I've had finding you.
I'm tired out and half-starved as well. What happened to you?"
Snitter got up shiveringly, his muzzle brushing against Rowfs shaggy flank.
After a few moments he said, "It's strange. You'd have thought we wouldn't be
hungry or thirsty any more, wouldn't you? But I'm both."
"Well, so I should blasted well think, if you've been lying here all this
time. How did you get here?"
"Well, I fell, Rowf, of course. And I suppose you fell too, didn't you?"
"Fell? Don't be stupid. I've run miles. This pad's bleeding—smell it."
"Rowf, you don't understand what's happened, do you? You don't know where we
are?"
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"Well, suppose you tell me. Only buck up—we both need something to eat."
"What happened to you when I—you know—when I —when the air all blew to pieces?
Oh, Rowf, I'm so very sorry! I know it's all my fault, but I couldn't help it—
not either time. The first time was the worst, of course—my master, I mean—but
this time, too—I don't know who the poor man with the car was, but he was a
sort of master—a very sad man."
"What master? What blew to pieces? What are you talking about?"
"Rowf, you still don't understand, do you? We're dead, you and I. I killed us
both. We're here because I've destroyed everything—the world, for all I know.
But the explosion, Rowf; you must have felt that, wherever you were. Can't you
remember?"
"You'd better tell me what you remember."
"I was coming back, following you, and all the grass and stones in my head
were very loud—sort of humming, like a strong wind. And then this dark man
called me, and I was on a road, like—like the other time. I went to the man
and got into his car, and then—then everything smashed to pieces. / smashed

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it. I did it; like the other time. So then I ran away before the white bell-
car could come."
"That must have been the white bell-car that I saw, I suppose. I was looking
for you."
"It all comes from me, Rowf. It comes out of my head. / killed the man. I
believe I've blown the world to bits—"
"Well, that's wrong for a start. You haven't. How d'you think you got here?"
"I told you—I fell, like you. Falling into my head. I've been falling for two
days."
"Well, if you'll come outside with me, Snitter, you'll find you're wrong."
"No, I'm not going out there. It's all stones and flying glass, like that
other time. You couldn't know, of course, but it's all happened before."
"Snitter, can't we get out of here and go and find something to eat? I'm
famished."
"I'll tell you. I'll tell you all about it, Rowf. Listen. A
(198)
long time ago, when there were towns—when there was a real world—I used to
live with my master in his house. He bought me when I was only a puppy, you
know, and he looked after me so well that I can't remember missing my mother
at all. And I never really thought of my master as a man and myself as a dog—
not in those days. There were just the two of us. Well, of course I knew
really, but it was easy to forget, because I always used to sleep on his bed
at night; and then in the morning a boy used to come and stuff a lot of folded
paper through a hole in the middle of the street-door downstairs. When I heard
that, I used to go down and pick the paper up in my mouth and carry it
upstairs and wake my master. He used to take biscuits out of a box and give me
one, and make himself a hot drink; and then we always played a kind of game
with this wodge of paper. He used to open it up very wide—it was all black and
white and it had a kind of sharp, rather wet smell—and spread it out in front
of him while he sat up in bed, and I used to creep up the bed and poke my nose
underneath. Then he used to pretend to be cross and pat it and I used to take
it away and wait a bit and then poke it under somewhere else. I know it sounds
silly, but I always thought how nice it was of him to get that boy to bring a
fresh lot of paper every day, just so that we could play this game. But he was
always so kind.
"Then after a bit he used to go to a room where there was water and cover his
face with sort of sweet-smelling, white stuff and then take it all off again.
There was no sense in it, but I used to come too and sit on the floor, and he
used to talk to me all the time. I thought I ought to keep an eye on him. One
of the best things about having a master is that half the time you've no idea
what he's doing or why, but you know he's very kind and wise and you're part
of it and he values you, and that makes you feel important and happy. Well,
anyway, he used to go downstairs and have something to eat and then he used to
put on his old brown overcoat and his yellow scarf and put me in the car and
we used to go to another house a long way off. There were houses in those
days. It was before everything was spoilt. Anyway, my master used to
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stay there all day and there was a bell that used to ring on his table, and
people used to come and talk to him and there was an awful lot of paper, but
for some reason I wasn't allowed to play with that paper. There was a fire in
winter and I used to lie on the carpet. It was really very comfortable, only I
didn't like that bell on his table: I was jealous of it. I used to bark at it.
I don't know, but I think it must have been some kind of animal, because when
it rang he used to talk to it instead of to me. He couldn't have been talking
to anybody else, because usually there was nobody else there at all.
"My master hadn't got a mate. I don't think he wanted one, but there was a
woman with grey hair and a red-striped apron who used to come into our house

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from another house across the street and clean all round. She used to get out
a sort of humming, whirring thing on little wheels and push it about. It had a
sort of long, black rope coming out of the back that used to go all across the
floor, and one day when it was moving I grabbed it and began to gnaw it, just
for fun, and she made an awful fuss. She was kind as a rule, and as far as I
remember that was the only time she ever got cross with me. She bustled me out
of the room and after that she never used to allow me into any room where she
was pushing this humming thing. I think actually that was a sort of animal
too, because it used to eat up scraps of paper and any other little, tiny
things there were on the carpets. I wouldn't have liked to eat them, but then
just look what birds eat, come to that. Or hedgehogs. It didn't really smell
much like an animal, though.
"Often in the middle of the day, and always in the evenings, when my master
had finished at this other house, we used to go for a walk. Sometimes it was
just across the park, but other times we'd go into the woods or along the
river, a long walk, chasing about after water-rats or grey squirrels, and my
master used to throw sticks for me to fetch. Some days, every so often, he
didn't go to the paper house at all, and unless he wanted to dig in the garden
we'd go out walking for hours. And then sometimes at night, when we were in by
the fire—he had a sort of flickering box he used to look at—that was another
thing I never
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really understood, but it must have been all right if he liked it—we used to
hear the cats yowling, out in the garden, and I'd cock my ears and sit up, and
he used to laugh and click his tongue; and then he'd get up and open the back
door and out I'd go like a bang-whappy-teasel, wuff! wuff! and over the wall
they'd go flying! O Snit's a good dog! Ho ho!
"We were always jolly and I don't know whatever my master would have done
without me to carry up that paper in the mornings and fetch the sticks he
threw and bark when people came to the door and chase the cats away. And I
tell you, I wasn't like that miserable tyke next door, who used to scratch up
the garden and overeat himself and refuse to come when he was called or do
anything he was told. I've never been snobbish, but I wouldn't smell him down
a ten-foot rat-hole. We managed things properly in our house. I used to be fed
every evening when we got home for the night, and that was that, except for
the morning biscuit and perhaps just a sort of favour-mouthful before we went
anywhere in the car. I used to get brushed regularly and sometimes I had stuff
put in my ears; and twice my master took me to be looked at by a whitecoat— a
proper, decent whitecoat. In those days I never knew there was any other sort.
I was never allowed to sit on chairs—only the bed, and that had a nice, rough,
brown blanket across the bottom—my blanket, no one else's. I had my own chair.
It was an old one, you know, but I made it a whole lot older. I fairly tore
the seat out of it! I loved it. It smelt of me! I always used to come when I
was called and do what I was told. That was because my master knew what he was
doing—he sort of made you want to do what he wanted, somehow. You were glad
to—you trusted him. If he thought a thing was all right, then it was. I
remember once I hurt my paw—I couldn't put it to the ground, it was so
painful, and all swollen up, too—and he put me up on the table and kept
talking to me all the time—just quietly and kindly, you know—and he took hold
of it and I was growling and curling my lip and he just kept on talking gently
and then suddenly I—I—nipped him—I couldn't help it. But he took absolutely no
notice at all—just kept on talking away, the same as before, and
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looking at my paw. I felt so ashamed of myself—fancy biting him!—and then he
pulled a huge great thorn out of my pad and put some stuff on it—that was the
first time I ever smelt that smell. I wasn't afraid of it in those days.
"I'm not sure, but I think some of the other men, and the women too—you know,

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the ones my master used to talk to; his friends, and the people who used to
come to the paper house—I think they used to tease him a bit, sometimes, about
not having a mate and about living by himself with just me and the grey-haired
woman to look after him. Of course you can never really understand what they
say to each other, but I've seen them pointing at me and laughing, and it was
just an idea I got. My master didn't seem to mind. He used to scratch my ears
and pat me and say I was a good dog and so on. When he picked up his stick and
the lead I always knew we were going for a walk and I used to dance and jump
all round the street-door and fairly bark the place down.
"There was only one person I didn't like and that was my master's sister. I
knew she must be his sister, because she looked so much like him and she sort
of smelt a bit like him too. Sometimes she used to come and stay at our house
and when she did, oh liver and lights, didn't we catch it! You could tell from
a sort of gritty softness in her voice—like—like charcoal biscuits strained
through a doormat—that she thought everything was all wrong. And I could never
find my things—my ball or my bone or my old woolly rug under the stairs—
because she used to tidy them all away. Once she pushed me hard—banged me,
really—with a broom, when I was asleep on the floor, and my master jumped up
out of his chair and told her not to do that. But mostly he seemed almost
afraid to say a word. I'm only guessing, again, but I believe she was cross
with him for not having a mate and he sort of felt perhaps he ought to, but he
didn't want to. If that's right, of course it would explain why she didn't
like me. She hated me, Rowf. She used to try to pretend she didn't, but I
could smell it all right and I used to act up and cower away from her so that
other people must have thought she ill-treated me. Well, she did, really: and
in the end—in the end—
"Do you know, it's a funny thing; I knew my own name,
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of course, but I never knew my master's name. Perhaps he hadn't got one, any
more than the tod; but I knew her name all right, because my master always
used it so much. I'd smell her coming through the gate and then my master
would look out of the window and he always used to laugh and say the same
thing—'Heercums Annie Mossity.' Sometimes I used to growl, but he didn't like
that. He wouldn't let me treat her disrespectfully, even when she wasn't
there. You had to behave properly to humans—all humans—in our house. But I
always used to think that that name was too long and grand altogether for the
likes of her, and to myself I always left out the 'Heercums' and thought of
her as 'Annie Mossity'—or just plain 'Mossity.' My master spoke sharply to me
once for dancing about and wagging my tail when she was leaving and he was
carrying her bag down to the door. I couldn't help it—I knew she was going and
it couldn't be too soon for me. And when she'd gone there always used to be
something extra nice that she wouldn't have allowed—the leavings of a cream
trifle, or something like that.
"Now one day—one day—" Snitter paused, whining, and rubbed his maimed head
against the straw. A gust of wind stirred an old sack hanging from a nail
above their heads, so that it flapped slowly, like the wings of some great
bird of prey. "One evening—it was very late last summer, almost autumn—we'd
got back from the paper house. My master had taken his eye off me and I'd
slipped out into the garden and gone to sleep in the sun, all among the
rhododendron bushes by the gate. In summer they have great, pink flowers, you
know, Rowf, half as big as your head, and the bees go buzzing in and out of
them. This was a special place I had of my own—a sort of secret lair. I always
felt very safe and happy there. It was sunset, I'd woken up and I was thinking
about supper and feeling rather alert and active—the way you do when you're
hungry, you know. And then, between the leaves, coming down the path, I heard
footsteps and caught a glimpse of my master's yellow scarf. Sure enough, there
he was going towards the gate, with a bit of paper in his hand. I knew what he

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was up to—the big red bin game. I've told you how men are always playing about
with bits of paper. You
(203)
said they even used to do it while they were watching you in that tank. It's
the same for them as sniffing things is for us. And the arrangements in the
street are the same for them as they are for us—lamp-posts for dogs and
bigger, round, red bins for the humans' paper. I've never been able to
understand why some masters—not mine, thank goodness—didn't seem to like their
dogs having a pee and a sniff round the dog-posts, when they do just the same
themselves with the red bins. We're all creatures, after all, and they're only
laying claim to territory and asserting themselves, same as we do. When a man
goes out for a bit of a walk—in the evening, usually—he often takes a bit of
paper with him—it's got his smell on it, you see—and pushes it into one of the
big, red bins; and if he meets another man or woman doing the same, he
generally talks to them for a bit and sort of sniffs about, just the same as
we do.
"Anyway, I've told you how good my master was, and he had just as healthy an
enjoyment of paper as ever a dog had for a sniff round a post. And sometimes
when he got home from the paper house in the evening, he used to sit down and
scratch about with even more paper, and then he'd go out and push it into the
red bin up the road.
"Well, it was plain enough that that was what he was doing this evening. He
nearly always used to call me to go with him, but I suppose he hadn't been
able to find me anywhere about the place and thought it didn't matter as we'd
be going for a longer walk later. Anyway, out through the gate he went. So
after a minute or two I thought, why not slip out after him and catch him up,
just for fun-— you know, give him a bit of a surprise? So I waited till he'd
turned the corner at the end of the street and then I came out of the
rhododendrons and jumped right over the gate. I was pretty good at jumping. It
was a trick my master had taught me. He used to call out, 'Hoop-la, sugar
lump,1 and I'd jump clean over the table and get a lump of sugar for it. Well,
anyhow, I jumped the gate and then I ran up the road and round the corner
after him.
"The big red bin was on the other side of the road and you had to be rather
careful crossing this particular road because of all the cars and lorries and
things. Whenever
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my master took me with him he used to put me on a lead and he always used to
cross the road at the same place, where it was painted black and white. I must
have crossed there any number of times—we never crossed anywhere else. I saw
him, in front of me, just coming up to it, swinging his stick, with the bit of
paper in his hand, so I said to myself, 'Now to surprise him,' and I ran past
him and out on to the black and white bit of road."
For a while Snitter said nothing, lying, with closed eyes, on the damp straw.
Rowf waited silently, almost hoping that he would tell no more and thus, by
desisting, perhaps avert or change what he knew must be some dreadful outcome.
Who has not, as a sad story approaches its climax, found himself thinking in
this way? The archons of Athens punished for lying the barber who first put
about the news of the Syracusan disaster; for if he were treated as a liar,
would it not follow that he must have been lying indeed, and therefore that it
had never taken place?
After a time the moon, moving westward, shone directly upon the spot where the
dogs lay. As though the light had broken in upon and put an end to Snitter's
attempt to hide from the close of his story, he opened his eyes and went on.
"I was about half-way over when I heard my master, behind me, shout, 'Snitter!
Stop!' I always obeyed him, as I told you, and I stopped absolutely dead. And
then— then there came a dreadful, squealing noise on the road, and in the same

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moment my master ran out and grabbed me and threw me bodily right across into
the opposite gutter; and as I fell I heard the lorry hit him—oh, what a
terrible noise it made! I heard his head hit the road—if only I could ever
forget it! His head on the road!
"There was glass all over the place. A piece cut my paw. A man got out of the
lorry and people came running up—first one or two and then more and more. They
picked my master up—his face was all covered with blood —no one took any
notice of me. And then there was a bell ringing and a big white car came and
men in blue clothes got out of it. I told you how my master used to talk to
that bell in his room and I suppose they'd brought this other bell—it was a
very loud one—to try to get him to talk:
(205)
but he never did. He just lay still as death in the road. His eyes were shut
and there was blood all over his clothes. They all knew—you could see they all
knew. The lorry driver kept on shouting and crying—he was hardly more than a
boy—and then a blue man saw me wandering about and grabbed me by the collar.
The grey-haired woman with the apron had come—everyone from our street seemed
to be there—and she put me on a lead and took me back to her house. She wasn't
kind any more—she acted as though she hated me—they all did, they all did! She
shut me up in the coal cellar, but I howled so much that in the end she let me
out and left me in the kitchen.
"I can't remember it all, but I never saw my master again. I suppose they put
him in the ground. They do, you know. That's what they do. The next day Annie
Mossity came. She stood in the kitchen doorway and just looked at me. I'll
never forget it. You'd have thought anyone would have had a word for a dog as
lost and miserable as I was. She said something to the grey-haired woman and
then they shut the door and went away. And the next day she came back with a
basket and put me in it and drove me off in her car—it wasn't our car, anyway;
it smelt of her— and she took me a long way and then she gave me to the
whitecoats. And I believe she took the trouble to do all that because she
wanted something horrible to happen to me."
After a long time, Rowf asked, "Is that why you've so often told me you're
falling?" Snitter made no reply and he went on, "It's a bad world for animals.
You might just as well have fallen—out of the sky, I mean. There's no going
back there, where you've come from, is there? Never. But at least it's over,
Snitter. It can't happen again."
"It can—it does," whispered Snitter. "That's the dreadful thing. Men can do
worse things than hurt you or starve you—they can change the world: we've seen
that they can, you and I. But what I understand now is that they've done it
through me. Annie Mossity—what she wanted to happen has happened. I don't know
what she told the whitecoats to do, but I know now that everything bad comes
out of my head, and that it happens again and again. That's where the bad
things start and then they come out into the
(206)
world, like maggots coming out of meat and changing into flies. When you and I
got away from the whitecoats' place, we thought the men had taken all the
houses and gardens away. But it was really I who destroyed them. The lorry
driver that morning who threw stones at me—he knew who I was; and that man
with the sheep-dogs—so did he. What happened to my master has happened again;
the white bell-car—you said you actually saw it there, by the bridge. The man
with the kind voice—the dark-faced man beside the car at the bridge—/ killed
him. I tell you, there isn't a world at all now except this wound in my head,
and you're in there too, Rowf. I'm not going outside again— not any more. If I
can die and stop it all, then I'll stay here and do that. But perhaps I've
died already. Perhaps dying—perhaps even dying doesn't stop it."
"The tod's left us," said Rowf. "He wouldn't come with me to look for you."
"Do you blame him?"

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"It's his nature, I suppose. We'll just have to do the best we can without
him. Some of what you've said may be true, for all I know. I can't understand
it, really. There's no way out for us, I'm sure of that, but at least I mean
to stay alive as long as I can, like the tod. And as for dying, I'll fight
before I'm killed."
"They'll shoot you, Rowf. When the gun—the dark man—"
"They tried—a man standing near the white bell-car— he tried."
-       "The noise breaks the world to bits, like a stone dropping into the
top of the water. But then it all comes together again and goes on, like the
water. And that can happen again and again."
"Stop chewing that!" said Rowf fiercely. "No one'll , steal it—it'll still be
there when you get back. Come with f; me, come on! Once we've found some food
you'll know you're not dead." "Hunt sheep?"
"No chance of that—-I'm exhausted. I couldn't make the kill. It'll have to be
dustbins, and somewhere where
V there are no dogs to give the alarm. After that, we must I decide what
we're going to do."
t" ' (207)
A second time he jumped the half-door and Snitter, feeling now that sense of
relief and acquiescence which often follows the telling of a grief, followed
him. Slowly, with no clear sense of purpose or direction, they plodded away
southward, towards the bleak summit of High Wal-lowbarrow outlined against the
moonlit sky.
FIT 6
(208)
What place in all the Lakes can surpass, in grandeur and beauty, the summit of
Wreynus Pass and the high solitude of the Three Shire Stone? Where, if not
here, is to be found the heart of the Lakeland—here, where the northern
shoulder of the Coniston range meets the southern tip of the great Scafell
horseshoe, and Langdale reaches up its arms to Dunnerdale across this desolate
band of rock, turf and ling? Stand, reader, here—by the long stone itself, if
you will, or at the summit of the pass—at dawn on a June morning, or at dusk
of a rainy November nightfall. What, in the emptiness, do you hear, listening
with closed eyes and lingers resting upon the squared edge of the stone?
Nothing that you would not have heard a thousand years ago. Down the long,
bare ridges on either side sounds the wind, tugging in uneven gusts over the
slopes, breaking, as strongly as round a cathedral, about the corners of -..;
the greater crags that oppose their masses to its force. Up jtrom below—from
before and behind you—wavers the | distant sighing of the becks, the sound
coming and going on that same wind; and the occasional cry of hawk, ; buzzard
or crow sailing on the currents in obedience to Hiehavioural instincts evolved
tens of thousands of years jgone by. A curlew cries, "Whaup, whaup," and
something Wetside Edge—a grazing yow or wandering fox—has
(209)
put up a blackcock which rockets away, rattling in its throat with a noise
like Mr. Punch about his gleeful mischief. A sheep bleats close by and little,
cloven hooves— ah, here is a new sound—rattle across the metalled road. Open
your eyes—unless a car comes there will be nothing else to hear except,
perhaps, the thin note, now and again, of twite, pipit or shrike.
What do you see—for the wind, though sharp and bleak, is nevertheless friendly
in blowing away the mist that might have enclosed you, muffling all sound,
confusing north with south and compelling you to stumble your way from cairn
to cairn along the tops, or to follow the course of a beck until it led you
down below the mist-ceiling— what do you see? To the south, the mile-long
shoulder of Wetside Edge comes curving down from Great Carrs, falling away
into the dip below Rough Crags, where the river Brathay, itself no more than a
beck, tumbles, cold and lonely, towards the meadows of Fell Foot and Little

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Langdale Tarn. To the north, the summit of Pike O'Blisco rises beyond its
south face that they call the Black Crag. Behind you stands Cold Pike and
between the two, on the other side of the saddle, so that you cannot see it
from here, lies the little Red Tarn—barely two hundred yards long but big
enough, no doubt, to cast a chill into the heart of our friend Rowf, should he
ever happen upon it in his wanderings. The high, uneven ridge of the Crinkle
Crags you cannot see—not today, for over it the vapour is still lying, a grey
cloud extending from Gladstone Knott right across to Adam-a-Cove and back
along Shelter Crags to Three Tarns. But walk over a little way to the west,
back over the crest of the pass, across this high watershed. There, below you,
patters the narrow, stony stream of the infant Duddon itself, gaining from
tributary beck to beck as it runs down, alongside the road but well below it,
all of two miles to that bridge, that very gate where Snitter faced Mr.
Ephraim on the road. Beside its course stand great tussocks of grass over
which you can trip and measure your length in the soaking peat, tracts of
bilberry, bog myrtle, wet moss and boulder-broken turf strewn with lichened
stones; and on either side, stretching up the fell and all along the banks,
the dry stone walls built of those
(210)
same rocks and boulders, gathered and piled by men— whence came their
patience?—dead these two hundred years and more.
Despite their seeming emptiness, many men have in fact marked these hills—
marked at least their surface, though they have not changed it, as the great
fens of East Anglia have been changed or the once-forested Weald of Sussex.
Beyond your view from Wreynus, away over the crest of Hard Knott, on its
western slope and not far above Bootterilket, lies the Roman camp they call
the Castle. Mediobogdum the Romans called it, and here, where the rock-face
falls to the grassy platform of their parade ground, the legionaries must have
stood cursing as they looked out over the wet, windy heather, with lice in the
tunic and a cold in the nose, all the way down the valley of the Esk to its
sandy estuary at Ravenglass. The Duddon valley was held by a Norman and its
tenure is recorded in Domesday Book. Here, where you stand, a beacon burned to
pass on news of the Spanish Armada. Wordsworth tramped over the Wreynus—
indeed, he knew the Duddon valley from Wreynus to the sea, and late in life
wrote a not-terribly-arresting sonnet sequence about it. And Arnold of Rugby
and Ruskin and G. M. Trevelyan and Beatrix Potter and all the Everest climbers
from Mallory to Hillary and for the matter of that, Mr. Switchburg B. Tasker
of Nebraska, for on his vacation last summer he drove over here in a hired
Renault and I observe that he— or somebody—has scratched his name on the face
of a nearby rock. Never mind, Switchburg, old boy, the rain will rain and the
lichen—Hypogymnia physodes, perhaps; or Parmelia conspersa, or perhaps the
pretty, rust-coloured Lecidea dicksonii—will grow over the blurred place, and
later on you'll be able to join the Roman and his trouble, just like A. E.
Housman. There's glory for you: well, all that you or I—or Rowf and Snitter,
for that matter—are going to get, anyway.
Who is there who does not sometimes need to be alone,
and who is not the poorer deprived of that strength and
Solace, even though he may not himself be conscious of
. his loss? This hundred years and more great Pan has been
'>: disdained and robbed and his boundaries diminished—
(211)
Honf Knott
the boundaries of a kingdom which many fear and shun, having had, no doubt,
too much of it in the past against their will: the kingdom of solitude and of
darkness. White stands for good and black stands for bad, we learned as
children (though half the human race is black). If the light that is in thee
be darkness, how great is that darkness! said the good Lord, and so we

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misapply the metaphor and pray, O God, give me more light, until I come to
walk in the courts—heaven help us!—of everlasting day. And what will then
become of your dreams, and of the phantasms that your own heart has summoned
out of
(212)
firelight and the dark; those fancies that do run in the triple Hecate's team
from the passage of the sun? I would not trade them for all the golden crowns
to be cast down around the crystal sea. There shall be no night there? So much
the worse, for light and darkness, sons of Man, for us are complementary.
Think otherwise to your harm. Great Pan has retreated, if not fled; before the
borough surveyor, that excellent and necessary man, with his street-lighting,
his slide rule, duffle coat and gum-boots in the rain. And a good job, too,
did I hear you say? Yes, indeed, for a hundred years ago it was a dark and
lonely life for all too many, and now they are neither ignorant nor afraid,
and at all events believe themselves less superstitious. And my goodness, how
mobile they are! On a fine Saturday in summer the summit of Scafell Pike may
well be thick with those who have climbed it, having first journeyed towards
it by train, car, motorbike and even aeroplane. No one need be alone any more,
in that solitude where Socrates stood wrapped in his old cloak in the night,
Jesus told Satan to get behind him and Beethoven, in his scarecrow coat,
walked through the fields with the voice of God sounding like a sea in the
shell-like spirals of his ruined ears. Strange paradox! In solitude great Pan
confers a dignity which vanishes among crowds and many voices. Great Pan is
half animal and incapable of pity as the tod, sending fear, strange fancies,
even madness to trouble the lonely and ignorant. But shun him altogether, tip
the balance the other way entirely and another—a vulgar, meaner—madness will
come upon you—even, perhaps, without your awareness. Do you think great Pan is
going to stand idly by while Dr. Boycott stabs and maims and drowns his
creatures in the name of science, progress and civilization?
}i But wait—come back here a minute! Were you gazing v up Wetside Edge into
the mist on Great Carrs, or watching |'-, the buzzard sliding sideways down
the north wind from {^ Pike O'Blisco? Look eastward into Westmorland, down
|:;-past Wreynus Bridge and Great Horse Crag to Little I.; Langdale and the
road that comes snaking up out of the ^valley, nearly eight hundred feet to
where we stand on this clear November morning. A car is coming up, twisting
(213)
from side to side with the road; a green car—a Triumph Toledo, I rather think—
anyway, the kind of car that not infrequently goes with a job. And who, pray,
is the driver? Take your binoculars to him. Yes, I thought as much. How
beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Sir Ivor Stone's emissary! We are
to be routed out in our solitude. It is indeed he! Ladies and gentlemen—Digby
Driver, the urban spaceman! Let us—er—get a load of him, shall we? Digby
Driver had not always been known by that name, for the very good reason that
it was not his original one. He had been born about thirty years before—in
some year soon after the Second World War, in fact—in a midland county
borough; and at that time his name was Kevin Gumm. True, he had not been
christened Kevin, for he had never been christened (which was not his fault),
but he had nevertheless grown up with that name, which had been given to him
by either his mother or his grandmother. We shall never know which, for not
long after his birth his mother had left him in the care of his grandmother
before vanishing permanently out of his life. This was partly due to the
arrival of Kevin himself, for his paternity, like Ophelia's death, was
doubtful and his mother's husband had laid it, most resentfully, at the door
of the American G.Ls who at that time were thick on the ground in England. He
certainly had some evidence tending toward this conclusion; and although his
mother had denied the accusation, poor Kevin became first a casus belli
between them and before long the final disrupter of a marriage-tie which had

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never been anything but tenuous. Mrs. Gumm began to look elsewhere and before
long struck oil in the person of a sergeant from Texas, with whom she "took
up," as the saying goes. Kevin would certainly have met with no more favour
from the sergeant than he had from Mr. Gumm, and Mrs. Gumm (whose name, by the
way, was Mavis), divining this intuitively (no very hard matter), took care to
give the sergeant no opportunity to form a view. By the time Kevin was old
enough to talk, Mavis Gumm had not been among those present for nearly two
years, and since her own mother had not the least idea on which side of the
Atlantic to begin to look for her, she found herself reluctantly stuck with
Kevin.
(214)
William Blake remarked that the unloved cannot love, but he said nothing about
the development of their intelligence.  Kevin was  above  average.  He grew up
sharp enough, and very much a product of his time. Thanks to his circumstances
and to various ideas current among well-meaning people in the fields of child
psychology, social welfare and state education, he also grew up without
respect or fear for parents (since he knew none), for God (of Whom, or of
Whose Son, for that matter, he knew even less) or for the school authorities
(who were prevented by law from subjecting him to any effective restraint or
discipline). Consequently, he developed plenty of initiative and self-
confidence. In fact, it never really occurred to him that any opinion or
purpose which he had formed could be wrong, either morally or rationally. The
possibility was never a consideration with Kevin, the concept not really being
one which held any meaning for him. For him, the prime consideration was
always practicability—whether, if he took this or that course, anyone was
likely to try to frustrate him, and if so, the extent to which such opposition
could be ignored, deceived, brow-beaten, terrified or, if all else failed,
cajoled or bribed into submission. For his elders he grew up having about as
much respect as has a baboon—that is, he respected them to the extent that
they were able to harm or to exercise power , over him. One brush with the
juvenile court at the age of , ten (something to do with breaking and entering
a shop . kept by a seventy-two-year-old widow and threatening her With
violence) taught him that on balance it was better to avoid attracting the
attention of the police, less on account :"«^f the possibility of punishment
than because it indicated ^competence and involved loss of personal dignity.
The following year he obtained his entry, in the eleven-plus, I |D the
grammar-school stream of the colossal local comprehensive school. As has been
said, Kevin was no fool .|*nd, since he had the intellectual ability, once he
got a ||tete of secondary education he soon began to realize the * Vantages to
be expected from raising himself beyond origins and out of his background. The
only factor in make-up likely to interfere with such progress was his lour
propre and the tremendous respect which he felt (215)
for the personality of Kevin Gumm, No adult was going to tell him what to do
or stop him doing anything he wanted. His grandmother had long ago given up
trying. His headmaster did not come into the picture—the school was far too
big and he no more knew Kevin by sight or character than he was able to know
sixty per cent of his pupils. As for the form-masters, they tended to reach a
modus vivendi with young Gumm, partly because he was no slacker—indeed,
capable of excellent work at times— but principally because nearly all of them
were afraid to take him on—not altogether physically afraid (though to some
extent that came into it), but certainly afraid of friction and
unpleasantness, and of getting no support, if it came to the crunch, from
higher authority. The easier course was to stick to the letter of the law by
helping him to develop his intellect on his own terms and leaving his
character out of account. It was some time during the middle years of the
sixties that Kevin obtained a state-grant-aided place to read sociology at one
of the provincial universities.

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Now he really began to spread his wings. As a rebel student, he was a match
for all challengers, not excluding even the great "Megaphone" Mark Slackmeyer
immortalised by Carry Trudeau. He made himself the bane and dread of the
university authorities; and might very well have proceeded on this triumphant
course right up to graduation, had the direction of his career not been
suddenly altered by two discoveries: the first, that one of his several
girlfriends was pregnant, and the second, that she possessed two large and
aggressive brothers who intended to spare no pains to make Mr. Gumm regard the
matter more seriously than he had hitherto thought he would. Thus stimulated,
Kevin departed precipitately from the university and plunged into the great
anonymity of London. Not long afterwards (since he had to make a living
somehow) he accepted the advice and good offices of a friend who had offered
to use his influence to get him a small job in journalism.
To be perfectly honest, reader, I cannot be bothered to set out the details of
the various steps by which Kevin turned himself from a student of sociology
into a success-
(216)
ful popular journalist on the London Orator. They took him about five and a
half years and at times made up a hard road, but he eventually achieved his
aim. The alteration of his image, coupled with the retention of his zeal and
ability, amounted to a brilliant personal manoeuvre which I must leave to be
recounted by his biographer. A new image was essential, a change of name, the
cutting of his hair, a radical modification to his beard. He even increased
the frequency with which he washed.
He began by turning his energies to free-lance journalism and discovered, as
others had discovered before him, that as long as he stuck to the kind of
views which had distinguished him at the university there was too much
competition and too little chance of escaping by patronage from a jungle where
this sort of jeu was decidedly vieux. Oddly enough, it was the abandonment of
a political slant which really set his feet on the right road, for he first
distinguished himself as the librettist of a successful rock musical, based on
Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and entitled Out for the Count. And it was while
being questioned by various journalists and television interviewers in
connection with this opus that he began to reflect that there was no reason
why he should not study and adapt their techniques to his own purposes. After
a lapse of time and several trials and errors, he managed to gain entry to the
"stories of human interest" field of popular journalism. Here all his past
life, from the earliest years, paid off, and all his talents were fully
employed. In short, he had '-' found his metier. Kevin's ear was well to the
ground and {. he soon built up a web of reliable contacts and sources of
;/;Information. Did some wretched, distracted girl gas herself t «nd her
children one dark night in Canonbury? Kevin was j on the doorstep by seven the
next morning and by one | means or another could always contrive to extract
some ^Interesting remark from the husband, the neighbours or |lhe doctor. Was
a child abducted and murdered by a fchopath in Kilburn? The mother had no hope
of evad-ig Kevin—he knew her better than she knew herself. fWas there a fatal
traffic accident on the North Circular, [a near-miss by an intending suicide
at Putney, a case of TO typists caught in possession of drugs at Heathrow, a
(217)
schoolmaster accused of interfering with a boy at Tottenham, a Pakistani
arrested and bailed on a charge of living on the immoral earnings of
schoolgirls at Tooting, a knifing, a shooting, a case of corruption; rape,
ruin, bereavement, heartbreak, the riving open of some long-concealed private
grief? Kevin was the lad to make sure the public did not miss it; and
infallibly hit upon the original line (not necessarily salacious, but
invariably personal and destructive of human dignity) calculated to make of
his subject a target for ill-informed indignation or raw material for a few

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moments of vicarious and mawkish horror. Privacy, reticence and human worth
melted before him like ghosts at cockcrow.
It was while in Copenhagen, getting material for a special feature on
pornography and sexual night clubs, that he first adopted the nom de plume of
Digby Driver, by which he was later to be known to millions of London Orator
readers and eventually even to himself. He had decided that he needed a better
image or persona for the job—something a shade jokey, suggestive of youth,
energy and good humour, but having—as it were, at a deeper level of loose and
irresponsible association—an undertone of delving, subterranean perseverance
in the pursuit of news ("Digby") coupled with that relentless, forceful energy
("Driver") which ought to characterize an Orator man. The idea worked
excellently. Kevin Gumm had gone into Copenhagen. Digby Driver came out.
And what the devil (I hear you asking) has all this got to do with Snitter and
Rowf, with Animal Research and Dr. Boycott? Nothing, you have concluded? Your
Highness shall from this practice but make hard your heart. In fact, since we
are standing about in this wild and empty place—for many miles about there's
scarce a bush—for the Triumph Toledo to complete its ascent from Langdale, we
might perhaps ask ourselves, "Is there any cause in nature that makes these
hard hearts?" It is a difficult task to exclude all pity from the mind when
confronting a weeping girl whose child has been strangled by a maniac—to get
in at her window when her husband has put you out of the door. In fact, it is
probably harder than the examination of a mongrel dog which has just
(218)
.withstood a shock of three hundred volts and is about to receive one of four
hundred—but we really must get on. Here he comes now, right up to the Three
Shire Stone. The moguls of the London Orator, arrested—as indeed the entire
public has been, to some extent, arrested—by the strange and macabre death of
Mr. Ephraim, have sent none other than Digby Driver to investigate and report
. upon the matter. And believe me, if he doesn't find a story, then Dr.
Boycott's a Copenhagen swinger and Snitter's as sane as Lear and the Fool put
together.
Once again, Snitter hastened forward to catch up with
, Rowf. The mist, pouring from his head like the flow of
; some forgotten tap left running by the tobacco man,
swirled between them, through and among the bents and
sedges, in and out of the grey, sharp-edged stones piled
in long walls across the moor. Everywhere lay the smells
of damp heather, of lichen on stones, water, sheep, fresh
rain and acorns.
"Where are we, Rowf?"
"Going to look for food, remember?" Rowf paused and sniffed the air. "There!
That was a rubbish-bin—no mis-'i taking it—but a long way off, over there—did
you get it?" j:     The bitter sense of all that he had lost came pouring over
Snitter, tightening in a sharp-edged spiral, diminish-, ing him, paring away
his vitality and memories, his very ^'thoughts and all those inward recesses
in which he had jj. thought to hide. He stood still on the wet heather,
feeling ^himself reduced to a tiny, hard point which must at all J^jsosts be
kept safe, which must not be destroyed, or he fjfould be gone; the last drop
would fall from the tap and Ipisappear into the ground. He waited, panting.
Then, "   iddenly, unaccountably, the spiral reversed, his head was inched
about and from it came pouring, like a fungus, ;, white stalks of loathsome
growth, blighting, killing id destroying, laying waste the spaces of the fell
into "lich they writhed their way.
"It's not real!" gasped Snitter, staggering in horror of le slimy, phantom
antlers. "Not real!" He shook his sad and the chicken-wire, a clumsy helmet,
tumbled
(219)

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one way and the other, falling across from ear to ear. "Jimjam, I couldn't
help it! I couldn't_"
"Jimjam? What about him?" Rowf was there, a hirsute, dog-smelling shape in the
dark, friendly but impatient.
"D'you remember him?"
"Of course I remember Jimjam. The whitecoats killed him."
"/ killed him."
"Snitter, get up and come on! I remember Jimjam perfectly well. He told us the
whitecoats put a tube down his throat and forced bitter stuff into his
stomach. Then he went blind and peed pus and blood all over the floor. You
never got anywhere near Jimjam. Of course you didn't kill him."
"The blood and pus came out of my head."
"There'll be a lot more blood coming out of your head soon if you don't come
on. No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I know you're not yourself; but I'm
hungry—famished. Can't you smell the rubbish-bins?"
"I'm sorry, too," said Snitter meekly. "If there's any rubbish about you can
always trust me to find it, Rowf. I remember now—we're going to look for
rubbish, that's
right."
They ran together across the back of High Wallow-barrow and then began to
descend steeply, scrabbling over the loose gravel and stones of the Rake. On
their right, in the dark, a rill went chattering down. Snitter ran across and
drank, smelling as he did so the acrid fume, beneath his paws, of a disturbed
anthill. At the first sharp little bite he lurched away, overtaking Rowf at
the foot of the slope. They smelt fowls and cows, and stood watching light
spread gradually across the cold sky.
"There's a farm over there, Rowf, across the field."
"Yes, but it's no good to us. Can't you hear the dog?"
"Oh—I thought it was me."
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Well, there are bits of me all over the place, Rowf, you know. I'm not really
sure where I am."
"Neither am 1. I know where the dustbins are, though. Come on!"
(220)
They skirted the farm by way of the fields and scrambled over a stone wall
into the lonnin. The barking of the dog died away behind them. A few hundred
yards further on they came to the Duddon, swift and wide, seven miles below
its source, surging noisily down beneath bare, black-budding ash-boughs in the
bleak dawn.'
The lonnin became a narrow road. They found themselves approaching sheds and a
house with a trim garden alongside. Beyond, a bridge carried a larger road
over the river. There was neither smell nor sound of a dog. After the briefest
of pauses Rowf led the way round to the back, nosed along the side of a shed
and the base of a low wall and then, with all the determination and force of
his hunger behind him, jumped at the piled stonework and clawed his way up and
over into the yard.
As Snitter fell back from the wall for the third time, he heard from the other
side the clang and thud as Rowf knocked over a dustbin, releasing a surge of
smells—tea leaves, bacon rinds, fish, cheese and cabbage leaves. He gave a
quick whine.
"I—I—Rowf, can you help? I can't manage—I mean— why, what a fool I am!" said
Snitter. "Of course it isn't a real wall. It's only in my head. I can make a
gap in it if I want to."
He limped his way along the line of an open, concrete-lined gully running from
a square hole at the base of the wall to its further corner. Round the corner,
as he had known—since he had himself just caused it to appear— there stood in
the wall a green-painted gate of divided palings. Between these, Rowf could be

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Page No 110

seen nosing about. He had pushed aside the lid of the rubbish-bin and was
pulling the contents across the yard. Snitter, belly pressed to the ground,
wriggled and squeezed his way under the gate.
"Mind, Rowf, careful. That's a tin edge—it's sharp!"
Rowf looked up, bleeding from a cut along his upper
lip. "Not half as sharp as I am! Cheer up, Snitter; don't
give way yet—we're still alive! Here's an old ham bone
and you can have it all!"
'"   At the first lick Snitter realized that he was very hungry.
(121)
Lying down out of the wind, in the lee of the shed, he began to gnaw.
Phyllis Dawson woke with a start, looked at her watch and then at the window-
panes. It was a little after seven and just light—a grey, cloudy, windy, leaf-
blown morning, with rattlings of rain here and gone across the glass.
Something had woken her—a noise—something unusual. But what? It wouldn't be
anyone trying to break into the shop—not at seven o'clock in the morning. But
it might well be someone trying to help himself out of the locked petrol-
pumps—that had been known before now.
Phyllis slipped out of bed, put on her dressing-gown and slippers and looked
out of the window. There was no one outside the front of the house. The road
was empty. On the coping of the wall, the rain had washed clean the petroglyph
outline of the great salmon caught by her father in the Duddon many years
before. Beyond and below the wall, the river itself was running high, noisy
and turbid, tugging at ivy-strands, pulling here and there at a trailing ash-
bough, rocking its way down and under the bridge in tilted, glistening waves.
At that moment Phyllis heard, coming from the back of the house, sounds of
commotion—irregular noises of dragging, bumping and knocking. She called to
her sister.
"Vera! Are you awake?"
"Yes, I am," answered Vera. "Can you hear the noise? D'you think it's a sheep
got in at the back, or what?"
"I can't tell—wait a minute." Phyllis made her way to a rear window
overlooking the yard. "Oh, my goodness! It's two dogs down there! One's a big
one! They've pulled the rubbish all over the place! I'd better get down to
them at once. Oh, what a nuisance!"
"But whose dogs are they?" asked Vera, joining Phyllis at the window. "I've
not seen them before."
"They're certainly not any of Robert Lindsay's dogs," said Phyllis, "and I
don't think they're Tommy Boow's, either. They don't look like sheep-dogs at
all, to me."
"Oh, look!" said Vera, catching her sister's arm. "Look—the collars! Green
plastic collars! D'you remember Dennis said—"
(222)
Seathwaitt
At this moment the smaller of the two dogs below moved, raising its head, and
Vera drew in her breath sharply. The winter morning suddenly seemed still more
Weak and grim. It was the kind of sight at which an Irish peasant crosses
himself. Both the Dawson girls started back with a spasm of horror.
"Lord save us! Whatever's happened to it? Its head,
(223)
look—it's almost cut in two! Did you ever see anything like it?"
"The other one—the big one—its mouth's all bloody!"
"That must be the dog—the dog that killed the poor Jewish gentleman at Cockley
Beck! Don't go down, Phyllis—you mustn't—no, come back—"
"I am going down," said Phyllis firmly, from the stairhead. "I'm not hiding
indoors while a couple of stray dogs pull our rubbish up and down the yard."
She reached the foot of the stairs, picked up a stout broom and the coke

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shovel, and began to draw the back-door bolts.
"But suppose they attack you?"
"I'm not standing for it! Whatever next?"
"We ought to telephone the police first—or d'you think the research place at
Coniston—"
"Afterwards," said Phyllis firmly, flung open the door and stepped into the
yard.
The bigger dog—an ugly-looking beast—had evidently been alarmed by hearing the
bolts drawn. It stood glaring, the head of a chicken hanging from its bloody
jaws; a sight to daunt a good many folk.
"Go on, be off with you!" cried Phyllis. She threw the shovel at the dog and
followed it up with a blacking-brush—the first missile that came to hand. The
brush hit the dog, which ran a little way and stopped. One paw had become
entangled in a clutter of old sellotape and wrapping-paper, and this trailed
behind it along the stones. The squalid mess all over the yard roused Phyllis—
who was tidy, neat and deft as a swallow in all she did—to a total disregard
of possible danger.
"Will you get out of here?" she cried, rushing upon the dog with broom
extended and flailing from side to side. "Go on—out!" She caught up with the
fleeing dog, pushed it hard with the broom and then chopped downwards. The
head of the broom struck the stones and came off the handle. In the same
instant the dog, with potato peelings flying from under its hind feet, got
clear of the sellotape, leapt the gate and disappeared.
Phyllis, victorious, turned back, a little breathless, and stood for a moment
leaning on the broom-handle. As she did so her eye fell upon the second dog,
which in the
(224)
heat of action she had forgotten. It was indeed a terrible sight—the wreck of
what had once been a pedigree, black-and-white, smooth-haired fox terrier. One
paw was held awkwardly off the ground and the left flank was plastered with a
mixture of dried mud and blood—whether its own or the other dog's was
uncertain, for it had no discernible wound. The stitched gash in its skull was
more than Phyllis could regard steadily. After one glance she turned away,
went across the yard and opened the door of the shed.
"I don't think this one's likely to give any trouble, Vera," she called. "Poor
little thing! I think it's been taken badly—and no wonder, either, with that
head."
The dog remained where it was, looking from Phyllis to Vera and back again in
a frightened, furtive manner. After a few moments it got up, its tail between
its legs, and, shaking from head to rump, began to slink across the yard.
"I think it's hungry and frightened to death as well," said Vera, bending down
to the dog. "What's your name, then?"
"It might be best not to touch it," said Phyllis. "I feel very sorry for it,
but it may have something catching, especially if it's come from that research
place. We'll shut it in the shed and telephone the police at Broughton.
They'll know what to do."
Vera went back into the house and returned wearing the heavy leather gloves
which she used for dispensing petrol and oil to customers. The dog struggled
feebly as she put two fingers under the green collar—there was plenty of room—
and led it into the shed. As an afterthought, she threw in the ham bone it had
been gnawing and some old slices of cold meat, shaken out of their wrapping of
greaseproof paper (which Rowf had overlooked). She was a kind-hearted girl.
When she came in and began washing her hands, Phyllis was already on the
telephone.
Rowf, shivering partly from shock and partly from the bitter morning air,
raced up the western slope of Caw. He ran with no attempt at concealment and
from time to time gave tongue, scattering the Hall Dunnerdale yows

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(225)
from beneath crags and out of the shelter of heathery clefts. Sheep-dip he
could smell, and withered bilberries. He paused an instant over faint traces
of gunpowder in an old, sodden cartridge—it was, in fact, the very one with
which old Routledge had shot the magpie. Then, hunting on, he lit upon some
carrion under a rock, a live hedgehog, a sodden cigarette-butt, the place
where a blackcock had roosted for the night, the track of a hare leading
northward—everything but what he was seeking. Tired out after the long night,
he limped across Brock Barrow, bloody nostrils to the ground, and forced
himself to run once more as he came up on the long shoulder of Brown Haw. He
stopped to drink and then, as he raised his muzzle once again to the cloudy,
grey sky, suddenly caught, strong and clear, the reek he had been looking for.
In the same moment a soft, mocking voice spoke from the bracken.
"What fettle th' day, kidder? The way ye wor runnin1 Ah thowt yer arse wez
afire."
Rowf spun round, but could see nothing. He waited, fuming with impatience, and
after some little time caught a glimpse of the tod's mask peering from a
tangle of grass
ten feet away.
"Lost yer bit marrer? Noo there's a bonny goin' on." "Tod, come with me
quickly, now, or I'll bite y&ur
head off. Snitter's in bad trouble. If you can't get him
out, no one can."
There was silence inside the cylinder as Mr. Powell chalked up the monkey's
score—24 plus. He paused a moment and then tapped the metal with his pen, but
there was no response from the occupant. He turned to other
matters.
Mr, Powell had come in early to examine and record the hairspray rabbits; a
routine job which he should really have completed on the previous evening. The
rabbits were assisting in the tests statutorily required before Messrs.
Glubstall and Brinkley could market their newly developed "Rinky Dinky"
hairspray. The matter had become urgent, since the first tests had yielded
somewhat ambiguous results. Messrs. Glubstall and Brinkley were im-
(226)
patiently awaiting clearance, both to manufacture in bulk and also to launch
the initial advertising campaign. ("He'll look at you with new eyes when
you're using—Rinky Dinky!")
During instillation the rabbits had been restrained in canvas sleeves, in
which they had remained for about fifteen minutes before being transferred to
individual steel lockers with adjustable apertures in the doors. Each rabbit
sat in a separate locker, with its ears and head protruding through the hole
in the door, the edges of which were then closed round its neck so that it
could neither withdraw its head nor touch its eyes with its paws. Mr. Powell's
task was to assess damage to the eyes of each rabbit by measuring corneal
thickness.
Having put on his white coat and washed his hands with disinfectant soap, Mr.
Powell, thoughtfully tapping his front teeth with his pencil as he read,
consulted the log which Miss Avril Watson, his colleague who had carried out
instillation, had considerately left open on the laboratory desk.
"'Instillation carried out between 12:00 and 12:33 hours,' yesterday—h'm, h'm—
so that makes—er—a little over twenty hours now—-that's O.K. 'No unusual
features'—good—'All rabbits struggled violently upon instillation'—well,
woudn't you, Avril, dear, eh? Three screamed'—now that's really useless
information; what more does that tell us? 'Swelling occurred rapidly.
Individual checks at 1800 hours showed tissue in a swollen state in each case.
Average corneal swelling of 164.14 per cent of normal size'—there's one good
hard fact, anyway—'lachrymation'—well, obviously—'fairly severe erythema and

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oedema formation'—yes, well, let's cut the cackle and have a shufti for
ourselves."
The disembodied heads of the rabbits, fixed side by side in a long row, gazed
from their lockers at the green-painted, opposite wall. So unnatural, against
the dully gleaming background of the metal doors, appeared this straight line
of uniform heads without bodies, that the still-sleepy Mr. Powell, yawning and
absently exercising the privilege of rubbing his eyes, entertained for a
moment the illusion that they were not in fact the heads
(227)
of living creatures but rather a frieze from some elaborate decoration—as it
were, the heads of angels or of the resurrected elect, ranged behind Father,
Son and Virgin in some carved tympanum of a west front or reredos of a high
altar. (For Mr. Powell, who had grown up in merry Lincoln, had been in his
time a choirboy and was by no means unfamiliar with such sights.) However, the
elect are not usually depicted with mucous eyes (indeed, we have it on good
authority that God will wipe away all tears from their eyes) or with twitching
noses, so that after some moments the illusion vanished as Mr. Powell
approached Rabbit No. 10,452 (Animal Research used, on average, about 120
rabbits a month).
"Oh bun, oh bun," murmured Mr. Powell under his breath, as he took hold of the
ears with one hand and opened the locker with the other, "thy task is done,
thou soon wilt be—"
There was a tap on the laboratory door.
"Come in," called Mr. Powell without turning round. "Thou soon wilt be a—a
skelly-tun. A skellytun in the cupboard, bun. Well, that'll be your next job,
I dare say. Some secondary modern bio. class. Mustn't waste you. Corneal
swelling 170.2 per cent of normal. Let's ^et that written down."
"Excuse me, sir."
Mr. Powell had supposed that the person outside must be Tyson's boy, Tom. He
now looked up and saw, with something of a shock, a policeman standing at his
elbow. He released the rabbit's ears and instinctively rose to his feet.
"Sorry if Ah startled you, sir."
"Oh, that's all right, officer. I wasn't expecting to see you, that's all.
Anything wrong? By the way, d'you mind my asking how you got in? Only I
thought the place was still locked up. I'm early, you see."
"Oapened a window-catch, Ah'm afraid, sir. Ah rang bell at door, but there was
no reply, like. We soomtimes have to gain entry to premises at our discretion,
y' know, if it seems joostified int' circumstances—say we think there's
soornthing in jee-oppardy. Only anything's in jee-
(228)
oppardy, y'see, it becooms necessary to take oonwoanted steps—"
"Yes, of course. Well, what's up exactly?"
At this moment the rabbit blundered into a wooden rack of test tubes. Mr.
Powell lifted it back into its locker and adjusted the steel aperture round
its neck. The policeman waited patiently until he had finished.
"Well, Ah've joost coom oop from Coniston, sir, y'see. It seems there's a lady
in Doonnerd'l, a Miss Dawson at Seathwaite, who says she's got one of your
dogs shut oop in her shed."
"One of our dogs, officer?"
"That's what it leuks like, sir. It seems Miss Dawson woke oop this morning
and found this 'ere dog havin' a go at the roobbish-bin, so she roons down,
grabs it, like, and pushes it int1 shed."
"Did she now?"
"Ay, she did that. Seems she saw it had green collar, like, and a big coot
across it heed. So Miss Dawson, she reckoned it moosta coom from here, and she
rings us oop. Well, sergeant rings here hafe an hour ago, but couldn't get any
reply—"

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"Well, he wouldn't, of course, not so early—"
"Ay, that's it, sir. So he says to me to coom oop here and try to find soomone
to talk to about it."
"Well, I suppose I'm someone. I'll tell the Director as soon as he comes in."
(And won't he be delighted? thought Mr. Powell. This is really going to take
some getting out of.)
"Ay, well, it's like this, y'see sir. Ah'm to assk whether soomone will kindly
accoompany me to Doonnerd'l and see the lady—well, see the dog too, y'know—
identify it an'that."
"What, now this minute?"
"As seun as possible, sir, if you please. Y'see, if it is in fact saame dog
that's been killing sheep and's been soom-how mixed oop with yon nassty fatal
accident at Cockley Beck, it ought to be identified as seun as possible and
removed from the lady's premises. Naturally, she feels soom anxiety, y'see—"
In jee-oppardy, thought Mr. Powell. Oh hell, I don't
(229)
see how I can refuse. My eye, why's it always have to be
me?
"All right, officer, I'll come along at once, if you don't mind just hanging
on while I scribble a note to let my boss know what's happened, when he comes
in."
"Ah'm greatly obliged, sir."
A few minutes later Mr. Powell and the policeman were speeding on their way to
Dunnerdale, while in the clock-ticking solitude of the laboratory the rabbits
continued their vigil.
Snitter lay motionless on the floor of the shed, belly to the ground and eyes
half-closed. His muzzle, laid upon his paws, had remained still for so long
that his condensing breath had formed a tiny pool of moisture, which glistened
in the half-light. His entire being was filled with a sense of quiescence and
contentment; and of a riddle answered so unexpectedly and in so astonishing a
manner that there could be nothing to do but meditate upon it with a wonder
transcending all such petty ideas as hunger, the future or
his own safety.
When the lady with the thick leather gloves had first made towards him, he had
cowered away in fear. Yet this fear had been not altogether for himself, but
because he had felt it likely that if she touched him she woulcl fall dead;
and the thought of this—a repetition of the terrifying explosion as the air
about them shattered, driving its sharp fragments into her face; the blood,
and her shuddering, silent fall, like that of a dog which he remembered
dropping dead from poison in the pen next to his own; the soft, scuffling thud
as the body met the ground—the prospect of inflicting such another death was
unbearable. When her fingers gripped his collar he had struggled for a few
moments but then, true to his nature, had acquiesced at the sound of a kind
voice and made no resistance as she opened the shed door and led him into a
twilight smelling of apples, dust and wood splinters. He had wondered what she
was going to do; but having patted him, spoken a few words and considerately
returned his ham bone, she had left him alone.
After the first shock of surprise it was plain enough to (230)
Snitter where he was, for after all he had known the place all his life, every
feature of it. Once it had been brighter, tidier, cleaner, brisker-smelling.
All the same he was, in fact, nowhere but where he had always been; only now
he was actually seeing it for the first time. He was inside his own head.
There were his eyes, straight above and in front of him, two square,
transparent apertures, side by side, through which the morning light showed
fairly clearly. True, they were somewhat grimy—even cobwebbed in places—but
that was only to be expected, all unfortunate things considered. He would
clean them up later. But he must be situated rather low down in his head, for

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all he could make out through his eyes was the sky. Directly between them,
lower down and straight in front of him, was his muzzle—mouth, nose; both?
That was puzzling— a fairly large aperture at ground-level, through which he
could perceive smells of rain, mud, oak leaves, a tom-cat somewhere in the
offing and still-more-distant sheep. Inside, the place appeared, alas, only
what one might expect after all this time—distinctly a mess, untidy and
neglected; and about the shelves a beggarly account of empty boxes were thinly
scattered to make up a show. But what put the whole thing beyond doubt was the
concave cleft running down the middle of the floor, from the place where he
himself was lying to his own muzzle in the centre of the further wall. He had
always supposed that the cleft must be narrower and deeper in appearance—it
certainly felt deeper—but nevertheless he had been right all along about one
thing. Pushed into the opening and covering the outlet was a rough ball of
chicken-wire, in which were bedded a few old leaves, some chips of wood and
scraps sodden paper. It was clear enough, too, how the cleft id affected him
and why he so often felt odd and con-sed, for on one side of it lay a stack of
small logs, with cleaver and block, while on the other were two rows of Scan,
resin-smelling splinters tied in bundles—obviously part which had been split
when the cleft was made. So it was the splinters" said Snitter, getting to his
feet d sniffing them over. "Of course, it must have been ime of those
splinters that made the dark man's face jlleed. But then what made the awful
bang? Oh, well, if
(231)
the lady lets me stay here long enough I suppose I shall come to understand
that and a good deal more. My goodness, though, what a mess the place is in! I
wish those flies hadn't got in. Maggots and flies—who wants a lot of flies
buzzing round inside his head? Well, now I'm here I'd better make a start on
my eyes. How funny it'll be to clean them from inside! I hope it doesn't
hurt."
He jumped up on a shelf running along the further wall, just below the level
of his two cobwebbed eyes. There followed a twinge of pain in his head as some
light, unseen object fell from beneath his paws and shattered on the ground
below. He wondered what part of him it might have been. Still, he could feel
nothing immediately wrong. He waited a few moments to recover himself, then
put his fore-paws on the narrow, dirty sill and looked out through his right
eye.
It was just as he had expected. He was looking at the expanse of grass and
heather outside the wall down which he and Rowf had sniffed their way before
he had jumped over the gate. He could see Rowf s paw marks in a patch of mud
immediately below. He raised one of his own paws and, a little surprised to
find the inner surface of his eye so insensitive, pulled down a clot of
sticky, dusty cobweb. The dust made him sneeze and he scuffled on the shelf,
trying to get the mess off his paw and snapping at a fly that flew against the
pane, recovered itself and buzzed away.
"The trouble is, I don't think I can reach as far as the top part of this
eye," said Snitter. "I wonder why not? I suppose the whitecoats must have
taken some of the inside of my head out—it really does seem awfully empty—and
that's why I can't climb all the way to the top. Of course when my master—when
my master was al—"
He broke off sharply, stared out and then edged along the shelf to get a
clearer view. He had caught sight—he was almost sure he had caught sight—of
Rowf and the tod creeping through the long grass a little way to his left.
Yes, there they were, beyond all doubt, Rowf conspicuous enough, the tod all
but invisible except in the moments when he inched forward.
(232)
But why can't I hear them? thought Snitter. Goodness knows where my ears are—
somewhere out to the sides, I suppose. What do they look like, anyway? Oh,

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well, never mind; I suppose I can smell the tod. You generally can.
He jumped down and made his way across to his wiry, cold nose. Yes, sure
enough, it was clear that not only Rowf but the unmistakable tod were close
outside. A moment later Rowf s muzzle appeared, half-blocking the light.
"Snitter! Are you sure you can't get out? Have you really tried?"
The question caught Snitter unawares. Was he shut in? No—obviously you
couldn't be shut into your own head against your will. But if he wasn't, why
was it apparently impossible to use his eyes and muzzle at the same time?
"Well, no—you see, Rowf—"
"Come on, then! Quick, too—before the whitecoats come!"
"No, I can't come out, Rowf. I mean, if I do I shall be mad again. I'll
explain. You see—"
"Snitter, listen, for goodness' sake! This is no time for one of your turns.
I've brought the tod here to tell you how to get out. Whatever he tells you to
do, do it. If he can't get you out, nobody can. But you've got to be quick."
't Rowf s muzzle disappeared and a moment later Snitter not only smelt but saw
the tod, peering in at him through the chicken-wire.
Cum oot, ye greet fond article! Sharp wi' ye noo—
wor aall knacked!"
"Listen, I want to explain," said Snitter. "I can't possiy come out. You see—"
"Reel afore ye there—yon back-end drain, straight re ye! Yon's aye the way oot
of a shed. Slip yersel' oot that sharp, ye greet nanny-hammer!"
Snitter was considering how best to explain the lordinary situation in which
he found himself, the gripped the wire ball in its teeth and tugged it out
High the opening in the base of the wall. Snitter, with a of pain and shock,
thrust his head and shoulders into widened opening and tried to snatch it
back. As he (233)
did so, he became suddenly aware that an enormous door had opened in the back
of his head, letting in a blaze of light and a rush of cold air. With these
came a scraping of men's boots, the sound of human voices and a moment later,
faint but dreadfully, unmistakably clear, the smell of the whitecoats—the
smell of their hands and their horrible, clean clothes.
Terrified, Snitter crushed and forced his body through the aperture. Behind
him he heard a quick plunge of heavy feet and felt a human hand grabbing at
his hind-quarters. He scrabbled in the hole, feeling pain along his left side
as some pointed excrescence scratched him. Then he was out in the wet grass,
bleeding down his flank, with Rowf dragging him forward, teeth in the scruff
of his neck. He scrambled to his feet.
"Now run, Snitter, run like a hare, or I'll bite your arse
off!"
Together they tore down the valley towards Ulpha. Half a mile away, as they
lay panting in the shelter of a leafless hazel copse, the tod joined them
without a word and at once made its way to a high, bracken-covered bank on the
outskirts, whence it could look down on the road outside and the fields
sloping to the Duddon beyond.
As he drove down into Dunnerdale, it occurred to Digby Driver that he could do
not only with some petrol but also with something to eat. He had arrived in
Ambleside late the previous night and set out again—after a snatched breakfast
which he was already beginning to forget—at half past seven that morning. His
general plan was to run down the valley, stopping for a look at the scene of
the fatal accident at Cockley Beck, and then, having got some idea of the kind
of terrain in which the mysterious dog was operating (for he had never before
been in the Lake District), to move across to Coniston in the early afternoon
and see what chance there might be of talking to one or more people from
Animal Research. A certain kind of reporter might have telephoned the Director
and tried to make an appointment for an interview with a representative of the
station, but Digby Driver was not that kind of reporter. The last thing he

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wanted to send back to the
(234)
Orator was a piece based upon any kind of official release and the last thing
he wanted to learn was whatever the Director of Animal Research might decide
he wanted to tell him. He was after a sensational story and this, of course,
could not be constructed out of mere truth; not out of officially released
truth, anyway. It was essential that the news-reading public should feel,
first, that the community was in danger and secondly that people— well-off
people, "official" people—who ought to have known better, were to blame for
it. As he got back into his car and drove down through the green fields south
of Cockley Beck, Digby Driver reflected with satisfaction on some of his past
triumphs. The to-do over clean air a few years ago—now that had been something
like! The facts, as released by the Department of the Environment, had shown
that by the early seventies the air over the country as a whole was cleaner
than at any time during the previous hundred and twenty years at least; but by
the time Digby Driver had finished with the matter, the advances in domestic
smoke control appeared nugatory, while the Alkali Inspectorate had become
irresponsible, incompetent sinecure-holders, fit only to be swept away as an
obsolete liability. Of course, nothing in the way of statutory reform had
followed from Digby Driver's articles. This was not surprising, since the
British Clean Air Acts were already
   the most sensible and effective of their kind in the world and were not
capable of being improved. But this was not
    the point. The point was that thousands of people had been scared, had
bought the Orator like billy-o and been prevented from grasping that, in an
adverse and difficult v} world, one blessing which they could count was the
great :| improvement in clean air effected by local and central .',£'
bureaucracy during the previous fifteen years. |;;:      Then there had been
the lead-poisoning scare—ah! happy days for environmental correspondents! "And
it'll go bloody hard," said Digby Driver to himself, "if there sisn't some
angle to be found on a research station where p as much goes on as it does at
this A.R.S.E. place. But |! which would go best, I wonder—darling doggies, or
gross irresponsibility? Gross irry for choice. Who gives a damn about darling
doggies these days, anyway? And where the
(235)
hell am I going to find a petrol station in this blasted outback?"
In this last matter, however, Digby Driver was more fortunate than he had
expected. A mile down from the Newfield (where he had narrowly missed not only
a ginger cat but also one of Harry Braithwaite's dogs), he came once more upon
Duddon, pouring southward in gleaming planes of noisy, wall-slapping, pewter-
coloured spate. Just the other side of the bridge and a few yards up the side-
road stood not only some plain and palpable petrol-pumps but also, if he were
not mistaken, a village shop, doubtless full of biscuits, chocolate and
cigarettes. Digby Driver drew in to the pumps, got out of the car, strolled
back and forth a few times beside the wall above the river, glanced at the
petroglyph of the salmon on the coping, and then pooped his horn.
Vera Dawson appeared with haste, smiles and apologies.
"I'm so sorry to keep you waiting! I didn't see there was anyone here or I'd
have been out directly."
"That's all right," replied Digby Driver, pitching his cigarette over the wall
into the Duddon. "Who'd want to be in a hurry in a lovely spot like this? Real
old-world charm and peace, eh?"
"Well, there's plenty see it that way," replied Vera pleasantly, as she
screwed the cap off the petrol tank, "but as a matter of fact we've had a bit
of a rumpus this morning—quite a to-do while it lasted."
"Really—what sort of a to-do?" enquired Mr. Driver, his professional acumen
instinctively aroused. "Fill her right up, please."

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"Well, early this morning some stray dogs broke in and upset our dustbins,"
said Vera, "and we felt fairly sure one of them must be the dog that's been
causing all the trouble round here—"
"Really? What made you think that?"
"Well, both the dogs had green collars, and they say that shows they come from
the Coniston research place. We had one of them shut up in the shed and
there's a young gentleman come over from Coniston with a policeman. They're
still out at the back now, but unfortunately the dog got away before they
could get hold of it."
(236)
Thank goodness for that, thought Digby Driver, and what a turn-up for the book
to walk right into the middle of something like this!
"Oh, that was bad luck," he replied. "So the research chap had his trip from
Coniston for nothing? No, 1 think she's O.K. for oil, thanks. Five forty-
eight? There we are— five fifty; and a whole tuppence, all for me. Thanks."
At this point Mr. Powell and the policeman appeared, in conversation with
Phyllis, who was politely seeing them to their car.
"—and if either of them should turn oop agaain, like," the policeman was
saying. "If y' see them round plaace at all, doan't hesitate about telephoning
us. It's better to telephone than not to, like. And if y' can keep them in
sight—y' know, if it's practicable—that'd be best."
"Yes, of course," replied Phyllis. "I must say I hope they don't come back,
though."
Digby Driver stepped forward, smiling politely.
"I've just been hearing something about this bit of trouble of yours over the
stray dogs," he said. "I hope they didn't do any damage?"
"No, luckily not," answered Phyllis. "Of course, they've pulled the rubbish
all over the yard and made a terrible mess, but nothing worse than that. And
these two gentlemen have been very helpful in tidying it up for us."
"I suppose you're anxious to get hold of the dogs, aren't you?" pursued
Driver, turning to the policeman.
"Ay, well, stray dogs killin' sheep's a serious matter oop *ere, y' knaw,"
replied the policeman. "And then it's been aggravated, like, by this 'ere
tragic death, y'see—very naasty, that was."
"Yes, indeed, I read about it in the paper," said Driver, offering his
cigarettes round the company. Phyllis, Vera and the policeman declined, but
Mr. Powell was more forthcoming.
"And if I'm not mistaken, you must be the poor bloke from the research
laboratory," went on Driver, flicking his cigarette lighter between Mr.
Powell's cupped hands. "You carry the can, do you?"
"Well, I don't know yet whether we do or not," answered Mr. Powell, recalling
as he spoke the Director's
(237)
policy of silence, as expounded by Dr. Boycott. "I still need to get a sight
of the dogs, you see. They might be ours and then again they might not."
"Did you not see that one as it was pushing itself through the drain-hole?"
asked Vera. "Kind of a black-and-white terrier it was, and the most terrible
gash—"
"Yes, but of course it was just its head that I couldn't get to see," replied
Mr. PoweU. "It was outside already, you know, by the time we opened the door."
"They both had green collars," said Phyllis, "and I don't know where a dog
could come by such a cut across the head as that, except by—well, by
vivisection, if that's the right word. It was a terrible sight—enough to make
anyone feel really bad—"
"Oh, I don't doubt for a moment that they had green collars," answered Mr.
Powell rather hurriedly. "What we don't know, though, is whether these
particular dogs are the ones that have been killing the sheep or whether

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either of them had anything to do with the fatal accident. Probably those are
things we never shall know."
There was a rather awkward pause. Everyone seemed to be expecting him to say
something more. "We need to get hold of the dogs first, that's what I mean,"
he added. "Then we may learn whose they are, mayn't we, and where they come
from?"
"Oh—I thought perhaps the research station would know whether they had any
dogs missing," said Vera, putting the obvious question in the politest
possible way, "and what they looked like. The other dog now—the one you didn't
see—that was altogether different to look at. It was a big, kind of a rough—"
To the sharp eye and experienced journalistic sense of Digby Driver, it was
plain that Mr. Powell, young, honest, ingenuous and a trifle callow, was about
to find himself in deep water—if indeed he were not already there. Obviously,
the thing to do was to come to his aid: there would be nothing like so much to
be gained by pressing awkward questions on him or adding to his confusion.
"Oh, that reminds me," he said, smiling at Vera. "Sorry—not changing the
subject or anything, but it was what you were saying about the one we didn't
see. There's
(238)
been a most peculiar noise coming from the engine of my car, but I can't
actually see anything at all. I'm usually rather good at seeing noises, too,
and hearing smells and all that. I wonder—" he turned to Mr. Powell. "Would
you be good enough, seeing you're here, to put an ear under the bonnet and
tell me what you think? I'm sure you know a lot more about these things than I
do."
As he had expected, Mr. Powell was not backward in seizing the floating spar.
"Yeah—well, sure, if I can," he said. "I can't claim to be an internal
combustion expert, but—"
"I bet you're more of an expert than I am," replied Mr. Driver cordially, as
he led the way across to the Triumph Toledo standing by the pumps.
He propped open the bonnet and started the engine. "Damn nuisance for you, all
these people asking questions," he went on, revving the engine with one hand
to make the interior a still more fine and private place. They both leaned
inward, heads close together. "I suppose you want to say as little as you can,
don't you; and hope the bloody dogs'll go up in smoke one dark night? That's
what I'd want, I know that."
"Well, you've about said it," answered Mr. Powell, his spirits already rising
in response to the stranger's quick understanding and ready sympathy. "I mean,
you know, if one's got to spend half a day going out in a police car about
three times a week, every time someone gets a sight of a stray dog anywhere in
the Lake District—"
"These provincial police are so damned unimaginative,"
said Digby Driver. "Anyway, why should you have to
Stand in a white sheet even before anybody's proved that
.this dog—or these dogs, if there are two of the buggers—
i didn't know there were—come from your place? I mean,
h|t's like asking a bloke whether or not he's screwed Mary
irown because she's looking for someone to pin an affilia-
ion order on to—why the hell should anyone expect him
answer up and put himself in the dock?"
Mr. Powell laughed; and gave every evidence of appreciating this witty, young-
man-of-the-world approach.
'Well, whatever it may have been, the bloody thing sems to have stopped doing
it now," said Mr. Driver, (239)
jerking his thumb at the engine. "It would, of course, when the expert comes
along. Look, I say, are you going back to Coniston now? Only I'm going that
way, and unless you particularly want to go back with your policeman chum,

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you'd be doing me a good turn if you'd let me give you a lift. Then you could
hear the noise if it develops again."
"But are you sure I'd not be taking you out of your way?" asked Mr. Powell.
Ten minutes later, munching Phyffis's Kendal Mint Cake (as eaten by Biliary
and Tensing on the summit of Everest), Mr. Driver and his passenger passed
within a few yards of the vigilant tod crouched among the hazels and continued
on their way towards Ulpha and Broughton.
"I don't know why the hell they can't say straight out whether they've lost
any dogs or not," said Gerald Gray, landlord of the Manor at Broughton-in-
Furness, as he drew a pint for Mr. Hutchinson the butcher (known locally as
Mistroochinson) and a half for himself. "What getg me down is all this damned
ca' canny stuff. Everyone knows there's a dog up at Seathwaite killing sheep
and everyone's virtually certain it's escaped from Lawson Park; but the
station themselves won't even say yea or nay. Well, why the hell won't they?"
"Ay, well, ye've about said it theer, Gerry," replied Mistroochinson.
At this relatively early hour there was no one else in that finest of all
pubs, the Manor Hotel at Broughton. The banded slate floor lay cool, dark and
smooth as a woodland pool in autumn. The newly lit fire was burning up in the
beautiful, eighteenth-century fireplace and Strafford, Gerald's black tom-cat,
sat purring on the rag rug, as well he might.
"They're bein' what ye might call circumspect," added Mistroochinson
sagaciously. "Not sayin' nowt until they've got to, like."
"Well, they'll damned well have to soon, I should think," answered Gerald.
"Another sheep or two and the local peasantry'll be storming the gates of the
station with
(240)
fefire and sword. Heads will roll and bells will toll. Balls
fall," he added, after a moment. "Ay, well, but everyone's worried about joost
his oan sheep, Gerry, tha knaws, and noan s' mooch about any-woon else's,"
said Mistroochinson. "They say—"
"Well, talk of the devil," interrupted Gerald, looking out
of the window into the pretty, quiet little square that forms
I the centre of Broughton. "Here's one of those very re-
f search buggers coming in now, unless I'm much mistaken.
That's young Stephen Powell, who works up at Lawson.
Wonder what he's doing here so early in the morning?"
It had not been particularly hard for Digby Driver to
,-. persuade Mr. Powell to stop off for a quick one in Brough-
gton before returning to duty. A moment later he entered
\-_ the bar with his companion, wished Gerald good morning
and ordered two pints of bitter.
"Pints at this time of day?" demurred Mr. Powell, albeit a trifle half-
heartedly.
\     "Oh, sorry," replied Mr. Driver civilly. "Never mind, they're here now
and they won't do us any harm, I'm sure." "O.K., but then I really must hurry
back to those blinking rabbits," said Mr. Powell. "Well, here's mud in your
.eye!"
I    "Cheers!" responded Mr. Driver. I    "Morning, Gerald," said Mr. Powell,
perhaps a shade .more tardily than courtesy to a landlord requires, as he
'.paused for breath between his first and second pull. /"TOow's the world
treating you?"
f   "Oh, mustn't grumble," answered Gerald. "And yourself?"
"Fine, thanks."
.:   "And how's Stephanie?" asked Gerald, this time with toore than a touch of
genuine solicitude in his voice. "She's—well, she's about the same, you know,"
replied Powell. His noticeable, if controlled, clouding of ler did not escape
Digby Driver. A sick child? he Midered. An invalid sister-in-law? An expert in

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observ-; and exploiting personal grief and suffering, he stored little
incident away for future use. *You were just telling me that the dogs went
from
(241)
room to room through the animal block, but nobody knows how they finally
succeeded in escaping?" he asked.
"Well, I'm blest if / know how they did," answered Mr. Powell, "unless they
dissolved themselves in smoke and blew away up the chimney. But to tell you
the truth, I don't really want to spend any more of this pleasant morning
talking about the sods. They've made enough trouble for me already."
"What a damn shame!" said Digby Driver. "Why the hell should you be blamed?
It's like the old lady a»d the parrot in the public lavatory—d'you know that
one?"
Nobody knew it, and Mr. Driver obligingly related it to an appreciative
audience. It reminded Gerald of one about two miners and a cow, which assisted
Mr. Powell to the conclusion that, since nobody at Lawson Park could possibly
tell how long he might need to investigate the Dun-nerdale dogs and return, it
would be a pity to hurry away. He set up three more pints, including one for
Mistroochin-son; and then insisted on buying a fourth, for Gerald. Nobody ever
wants to leave the bar of the Manor.
The sense of loss and desolation lay over Snitter's awareness like hill-mist.
Rising, here and there, out of this separating mirk, he could discern three or
four peaks of certain knowledge, as that his master was dead, that he himself
was mad, that men had destroyed the natural world and substituted a wilderness
and that although he had now lost again the head which he had briefly found,
he still carried in himself the involuntary power to deal death. But from what
viewpoint he was regarding these; what the mist-covered land connecting them
looked like; their relationship to each other beneath the miasma of confusion
and ignorance from which they protruded—in short, where he was—these things
remained dark to him. He lay still among the bare hazel branches and leafless
elder, but from time to time raised his head to the sky with a howl, cut short
as often as Rowf turned upon him, cursing.
"You can't expect any sense," said Snitter petulantly, "from a dog that's just
been dragged outside his own head. If only you'd left me where I was!"
"Ye'd nivver be here noo, ye'd be in th' Dark, hinny,
(242)
ne bother. Them cheps wudda gi'n ye ne chance at aall. Noo bide easy, an' sort
yerseF oot." The tod turned to Rowf. "We got te get th' wee fella back hyem
afore neet. He's bad i' th' heed aall reet, ne doot."
"But we'll be seen for sure at this time of day. Isn't that what you've been
teaching me all this time? We'll have to wait till dark."
\      "An' hoo ye gan te keep his gob shut, marrer?" enquired the tod
sardonically. "He'll be yammerin' his heed off, an' fetchin' aall th' farmers
fer five miles roond. It's howway wi' us te Broon Haw, an' sharp as w' can
shift an' aall."
"In broad daylight?" asked Rowf again. :      "Ah shud say so—unless yer gan
te leave him here. We got to get him undergroond an' well in-bye an' aall,
where nebody'll hear him. Howway noo! He'll manage sure eneuf."
"But the river?"
"Nowt else for't but swimmin'. There's ne bridge atween Ulpha an' yon noose we
wor at."
They swam the Duddon under High Kiln Bank, Rowf setting his teeth to the
horrible business and sweeping down twenty yards with the swift, bitter
current before I his paws gripped stones and pulled him out on the further r
side. They thought themselves unseen, but they were mis-, taken. Bob Taylor,
the most skilful fisherman in the valley, working his way with a wet fly up
the reach between Ulpha l;_ Church and Hall Dunnerdale Bridge after the

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running sea 1 trout, caught sight, a hundred and fifty yards upstream, 5 of
Snitter's black-and-white back as he plunged across behind the tod. A minute
afterwards, Bob hooked a three-quarter pounder and thought no more about what
he had seen; but it was to recur to him later.
*But, Stephen, old boy, surely the dogs weren't in any "* "sical condition to
kill sheep and give rise to all this ler?" asked Digby Driver, gripping the
handrail and >king back at Mr. Powell over his shoulder as they ssyfooted
their way down the breakneck flight of steps at leads into the yard behind the
Manor, on their way the netry, Gents or loo.
(243)
Utpha Church
"Well, I don't know so much about that," replied Mr. Powell. "One of them was
an absolute bastard of a dog— mind you, it'd had enough to make it, poor sod—
but there was nobody cared to touch it, not even old Tyson—"
"Tyson? He's the man about the place?"
"Yeah—feeds them, cleans them out an' all that. I always say he knows more
about the work at Lawson Park than anyone else. He deals with all the animals,
you see, and it's his business to know what each one's being used for and by
whom. The rest of us, except for the Director, only knows about the projects
we're doing ourselves. No, but that seven-three-two, it really was a dangerous
animal
(244)
—it was always muzzled before it was brought out for tests—"
"What were the tests?" asked Driver. "Well, they were something like the tests
carried out by Curt Richter at the Johns Hopkins medical school in America—
what's his thing called?—The Phenomenon of Sudden Death in Animals and Man.'
D'you know that?" Like a good many young people immersed in specialized work,
Mr. Powell tended to forget that others were likely to be unfamiliar with his
background material. " Traid I don't—not up my street really." They came back
into the yard and Mr. Powell, hands in pockets, stopped and leaned against the
netty wall. |     "Well, Richter put wild rats and domesticated rats into
tanks of water to swim until they drowned; and he found that some of them died
very rapidly for no apparent reason. A bloke called Cannon had already
suggested that it might be psychogenic—you know, fear, with consequent * over-
stimulation of the sympathicoadrenal system; accelerated heartbeat,
contraction in systole—all that jazz. What Richter established was that it
wasn't fear but hopelessness—overstimulation of the parasympathetic system,
jiot the sympathicoadrenal. This seven-three-two dog of lours at Lawson Park
had been given all sorts of drugs— fyou know, atropine and the colingerics,
and adrenalec-tomy and thyroidectomy—you name it. But the real thing was that
it had been continually immersed, drowned and Revived, so that it had built up
a terrific resistance, based fbn the conditioned expectation that it was going
to be removed again. It didn't succumb to the usual psychogenic factors; on
the contrary, it was doing fantastic endurance times, very very interesting.
They're funny things, you know, hope and confidence," said Mr. Powell rather
sen-Jtcntiously. "For instance, they're present a good deal less "gly in dogs
that haven't been domesticated. Wild lals, and therefore by inference
primitive men—crea-BS living in precarious situations—are more susceptible
fear and strain than domesticated animals. Strange, tt't it?" "What about the
other dog that escaped?" asked Digby
(245)
"Well, that wasn't mine—not involved in any of my programmes: I don't touch
surgery—probably shan't until I'm established—but if we hadn't had evidence to
the contrary this morning I'd have thought that that dog was unlikely to be
alive, let alone to be killing sheep. -It had what you might call a pretty
drastic brain operation, to say the least."
"What was the object all sublime?" asked Driver, as they made their way

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through the Manor into the square and got back into his car. 
"Well, that was a sort of psychological thing, too, as I understand it,"
replied Mr. Powell. "That was why they needed an adult, thoroughly
domesticated dog—they paid quite a bit for it, I believe, to some woman in
Dalton."
"Why did she part with it, d'you know?"
"Well, it wasn't originally hers. Apparently it had belonged to her brother in
Barrow, but it had somehow or other brought about his—I'm not sure, but his
death, I believe I heard—in an accident with a lorry, so naturally she wasn't
keen on keeping it. That's an exceptional situation, of course. In the normal
way domesticated animals—people's pets—aren't easy to come by for this work,
as you can well believe. The operation was something quite new—a bit like a
leucotomy, but that's misleading, really. To be perfectly frank, there were
innovatory complications that put it a long way beyond me. But the general
purpose—and no one'll be able to say, now, how far it was successful; not in
this particular case, anyway— was to bring about a confusion of the subjective
and objective in the animal's mind."
"How would that work in practice, then?" asked Digby Driver, accelerating out
of the square and up the hill towards the Coniston road.
"Well, as I understand it—whoops!" Mr. Powell belched beerily, leaned forward
and frowned, seeking an illustrative example. "Er—well, did you ever read a
book called Pincher Martin, by a man named Golding? You know, the Lord of the
Flies bloke?"
"I've read Lord of the Flies, but I don't think I know this other book."
"Well, the chap in it's supposed to be dead—drowned (246)
at sea; and in the next world, which is a sort of hellish limbo, one of the
things he does is to confuse subjective and objective. He thinks he's still
alive and that he's been washed up on a rock in the Atlantic, but actually
it's an illusion and the rock is only a mental projection— it's the shape of a
back tooth in his own head. The dog that had this operation might have
illusions something like that. Suppose it had come to associate—well, let's
say cats with eau de cologne, for instance—then it might be observed to treat
some inanimate object—a cardboard box, say—as a cat when it was subjected to
the smell of eau de cologne: or conversely, it might see something objective
and act as though it was nothing but the equivalent of some thought in its
mind—I can't think what, but you get the general idea."
"It must be a fascinating job, yours," said Driver. "Straight on, do we go
here? All the way?"
"All the way to Coniston. It's really very good of you."
"No, not at all—I've got to go there myself, as I said. No, I mean, a
fascinating job you have with all these experimental discoveries."
"A lot of it's routine, actually—you know, Fifty L.D. and all that."
"Fifty L.D.?"
"Fifty lethal dose. Say you—or anyone—wants to market a new lipstick or a food
additive or something, then we have to forcibly feed quantities of it to a
group of animals until we've ascertained at what dosage level half of them die
within fourteen days."
"Whatever for? I mean, suppose the stuff's not toxic anyway?"
"Doesn't matter. You still have to continue forcible feeding until you've
ascertained Fifty L.D. They may die of internal rupture—osmotic or pH effects—
anything. It's a bore, actually, but that's partly what we're there for. All
in a good cause, you know. Cosmetics have to be safe, or no one'd buy 'em."
"I suppose there are compensations—not for them but for you, I mean—defence
projects and secret stuff—breaking new ground. No, O.K," added Digby Driver,
smiling broadly. "Don't answer that, as the judges say. I don't
(247)
want you to give me anything to pass on to two square-jawed blokes in

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raincoats on Hampstead Heath."
"Oh, Goodner's the chap for that. I wouldn't be in the least surprised to
learn that he'd been one of those very blokes in his time. He's German by
birth. He was working in Germany at the end of the war—for the Germans, I
mean. He's on secret work of some kind right now, that I do know. Something to
do with lethal disease, for the Ministry of Defence. They practically lock him
up at night—they lock up all his stuff, anyway. And there's no talking shop to
him. I bet he gets paid three times what I do," added Mr. Powell, hi a candid
non sequitur.
"And what sort of leave do they give you?" enquired Digby Driver, who knew
exactly how far to go and when to stop. "Where's this? Oh, Torver, is it? Does
it get a bit lonelier before Coniston? Good—I could do with another piss,
couldn't you?"
" 'Accidental death,'" said Robert Lindsay. "Ay, well, that's all he could
have found—couldn't have found owt else, Dennis, could he?"
"Could have found suicide if he'd had a mind," said Dennis.
"Never on the evidence. There were nothing to suggest it. If yon Ephraim
chap's alone and he dies wi' shot-gun when he's standing beside his car, he's
entitled to benefit of all the doubt there may be; and there were no evidence
at all that he were of suicidal disposition. Nay, Coroner were reel enoof—on
available evidence that were accident, Dennis, plain as day."
"He never said nowt about dog, though, did he?" said Dennis. "But it were yon
bluidy dog browt it about, for all that. It were dog as shot him, tha knaws."
"Y* reckon dog set off gun an* killed him?"
"Ay, I do that. It were seen booggerin' off oop fell like th' clappers, tha
knaws, Bob."
"Coroner couldn't bring that in on evidence either. An' if he had, it would
still be accidental death, wouldn't it? Dog's an accident as mooch as light
trigger or owt else."
"Ay, happen it would, Bob, but if he'd pinned blame fair an' square on dog,
like, then happen police or soom-
(248)
one'd be instroocted to find it at once and shoot it. Way it's been left now,
you an' me's no better off than we were at start. You could lose a coople more
sheep tonight an' Ah could lose three next week, and no boogger but us give a
damn. Research Station weren't at inquest—no bluidy fear. Nowt to do wi' them—
and they'll do nowt, an' all, without they're made to, Bob, tha knaws."
There was a pause while Robert sucked the top of his stick and considered his
next words. Dennis lit a cigarette and pitched the spent match over his dog's
head into the long grass below the wall.
"Theer's joost woon lot o' chaps as could make them stand an' annser, Dennis,"
said Robert at length. "Compel them to answer, like."
"Member of Parliament?" asked Dennis. "He'll do nowt—"
"Nay, not him. Woon lot o' chaps; an' that's press chaps. Did y'see Loondon
Orator yesterday?"
"Nay, Ah niver did. Ah were back late from Preston—" "Well, they're sending
reporter chap oop from Loondon —special reporter, they said, to coover t'
whole story, like, an' get to t'bottom of it. It were Ephraim's death started
them off. Chap called Driver—ay. Real smart chap, be all accounts—real 'andy
fella."
"Ay, but wheer's he at? No good to us without he's here, is he?"
"Coniston police were over to Dawson girls this morning, tha knaws," said
Robert. "Git awaay?"
"Ay, they were that—an' fella from Research Station were wi' them. Two dogs
with green collars were into Dawson girls' doostbins int' early morning.
Phyllis got one on 'em shut int' shed an' she phoned police, but dog were
awaay owt of back-eend draain before this yoong research fella could grab it.

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Ay, weel, if police are that mooch interested, Dennis, tha knaws, and tha
tells 'em tha's got soomthing tha wants t' say to yon Driver chap, they'll tdl
thee wheer he's at,"
"Ah've got a whole bluidy lot Ah'm gann't to say to him," said Dennis.
(24,9)
The morning turned still and fine, with high-sailing, diaphanous clouds barely
masking the sun's warmth in their swift passage across its face. The heather
was snug as a dog-blanket. Rowf lay basking on the summit of Caw, warming his
shaggy coat until the last moisture of Duddon had dried out of it. A few yards
below, among a tumble of rocks, Snitter and the tod were playing and tussling
like puppies over a bone long picked clean, the tod pausing every now and then
to scent the wind and look eqst and west down the empty slopes below.
"What's up wi' ye noo, marrer?" it remarked, as Snitter suddenly dropped the
bone and remained gazing westward with cocked ears and head lifted to the
wind. "Ye're not hevvin' one o' yer bad torns agen? Aall that aboot 'inside
yer head*—where else wad ye be, ye fond wee fyeul?"
"No, I'm all right, tod. Rowf! I say, Rowf!"
"Aargh! He'll take ne notice, he's still dryin' hissel' oot. What's gan on,
then? Can you see owt doon belaa?"
"Far off, tod. Look—the dark blue. It's not the sky. It's like a great gash
between the sky and the land. They've cut the top of the hills open, I
suppose, but why does the blood spill out blue?"
"Mebbies yer still a bit aglee wi' yon shed carry-on. Which way ye lukkin'?"
"Out there, between the hills."
Ten miles away, through the clear, sunny air, between and beyond the distant
tops of Hesk Fell and Whitfell to the west, a still, indigo line lay all along
the horizon.
"Yon? Yon's th* sea. Did ye not knaa?" As Snitter stared, the tod added,
"Well, it's ne pig's arse, fer a start."
"No, I suppose not. What is the sea? Is it a place? Is that what we can smell
licking the wind like a wet tongue?"
"Ay—th' salt an' th' weeds. It's aall waiter there— waiter, an' forbye a sea-
mist noo an' agen."
"Then we couldn't live there? It looks—it looks—I don'l know—peaceful. Could
we go and live Ihere?"
"Wad ye seek feathers on a goat?" replied the tod shortly, and forthwilh crept
up through the rocks to where Rowf had woken and begun snapping at flies in
the
sun.
Snitter remained staring at the patch of far-off blue.
(250)
Water—could it really be water, that tranquil stain along the foot of the sky?
Firm it seemed, smooth and unmov-ing between the crests of the hills on either
side; but further off than they, deeper, deep within the cleft, a long way
beyond and within.
It could be put back, I suppose, thought Snitter, musingly. It shouldn't have
been cut open like that, but it's all still there—funny, I thought it wasn't.
It could be closed up again and then I'd be all right, I suppose. Only it's
such an awfully long way off. If only I could have stayed inside my head this
morning, I might have been able to decide how to get there—how to reach it.
But whoever would have thought it was all still there?
He closed his eyes and the salty wind, fitful and mischievous, tugged at the
grass and whispered in a half-heard song, while faint scents, breaking like
waves, came - and went between his nostrils and ears.
"We are the brains the whitecoats stole,
And you the victim of the theft.
Yet here the wound might be made whole,

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The sense restored and healed the cleft.
And since, of sanity bereft,
You can devise no better plan,
To us, the only place that's left.
Come, lost dog; seek your vanished man."
"If I could just get all these thoughts up together," murmured Snitter. "But
I'm sleepy now. It's been a long day—long night—something or other, anyway.
How smoothly that grass moves against the sky—like mouse-tails."
Soothed and finally oblivious, Snitter fell asleep in the November sunshine.
Lakeland shopkeeper Phyllis Dawson got a shock yesterday, tapped Digby Driver
on his typewriter. (Except when signing his name, Digby Driver had seldom had
a pen in his hand for several years past.) The reason? She found her dustbins
the target of a new-style commando raid by the two mysterious dogs which have
recently been playing
(251)
a game of hide-and-seek for real with farmers up and down the traditional old-
world valley of Dunnerdale, Lancashire, in the heart of poet Wordsworth's
Lakeland. The mystery death of tailoring manager David Ephraim, found shot
beside his car at lonely Cockley Beck, near the head of the valley, took place
while farmers were combing the fells nearby for the four-footed smash-and-grab
intruders, and is believed to form another link in the chain lying behind
efforts to pinpoint the cause of the enigma. Where have the unknown dogs come
from and where are they hiding? Shopkeeper Phyllis's contribution was doomed
to disappointment yesterday when scientist Stephen Pow-ell, hastening eighteen
miles to the scene of the crime from Lawson Park Animal Research Station,
arrived too late to forestall the dogs' escape from the shed where they had
been immured pending identification and removal. Are these canine Robin Hoods
indeed a public danger, as local farmers hotly maintain, or are they wrongly
accused of undeserved guilt? They may have an alibi, but if so the term is
more than usually apt, for where indeed are they? This is the question
Lakeland is asking itself as I pursue enquiries in the little gray town of
Coniston, one-time home of famous Victorian John Ruskin.
Well, thought Digby Driver, that'll do for the guts of the first article. If
they want it longer they can pep it up on the editorial desk. Better to keep
the actual connection of the dogs with Lawson Park to blow tomorrow. Yeah,
great—that can burst upon an astonished world as an accusation. "Why have the
public not been told?" and all that. The thing is, what come-back have the
station got? We know two dogs escaped from Lawson Park; and thanks to dear old
Master Stephen, bless him, we know what they were being used for and what they
looked like. And we can be certain—or as good as—that they were the same dogs
as those that were raiding Miss Dawson's dustbins. But that's no good to the
news-reading public. The thing is, have they been killing sheep and, above
all, did they cause the death of Ephraim? What we want is evidence of gross
negligence by public servants. "Gross negligence, gross negligence, let
nothing you dismay," sang Mr. Driver happily. "Remember good Sir Ivor Stone's
(252)
the bloke who doth you pay, To make the public, buy the rag and read it every
day, O-oh tidings of co-omfort and joy-He broke off, glancing at his watch.
"Ten minutes to opening time. Well, mustn't grumble. I confess I never
expected to fall on my feet right from the start like this. Drive down
Dunnerdale and walk straight into the dogs and then into Master Powell looking
for them. All the same, it still doesn't grab the reader by the throat and
rivet the front page—and that's what it's got to do, boy, somehow or other.
Tyson—and Goodner—ho, hum! Wonder who that there Goodner used to be—might ask
Simp-son to look into that."
He strolled down the road in the direction of The Crown. The mild winter dusk
had fallen with a very light rain and smell of autumn woods drifting from the

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hills above. The far-off lake, visible at street-corners and between the
houses as a faintly shining, grey expanse, lay smooth yet lithe as eel-skin,
and somehow suggestive of multiplicity, as though composed of the innumerable,
uneventful lives spent near its shores—long-ago lives now fallen, like autumn
berries and leaves, into the peaceful oblivion of time past, there to exert
their fecund, silent influence upon the heedless living. There were bronze
chrysanthemums in gardens, lights behind red-curtained windows and drifts of
wood-smoke blowing from cowled chimneys. A van passed, changing gear on the
slope, and as its engine receded the unceasing, gentle sound of babbling water
resumed its place in the silence, uprising like heather when horse-hooves have
gone by. A clock struck six, a dog barked, the breeze tussled a paper bag
along the gravel and a blackbird, tuck-tucking away to roost, flew ten yards
from one stone wall to another.
This is a right dump, thought Digby Driver as he crossed the bridge over
Church Beck. I wonder how many Orator readers there are here? Well, there'll
be some more soon, if I've got anything to do with it.
He entered the saloon bar of The Crown, ordered a pint and fell into
conversation with the barman.
"I suppose you're not sorry to have a bit less to do (253)
during winter months?" he asked. "There must be a lot of work at a place like
this during the holiday season?" "Oh, ay," returned the barman. "It's
downright murder at times. July and August we get fair rooshed off our feet.
Still, it's good business as long as y* can stand oop to it." "I suppose in
winter it becomes mainly a matter of looking after the regulars?" pursued
Driver. "D'you de-escalate your involvement with catering for visitors at this
time of year?"
"Well, there's always a few cooms by," replied th» barman. "We keep on a bit
of hot food at mid-day, but not sooch a wide raange, like. There's no
Americans in winter, for woon thing, y' see."
"No, that's true," said Driver. "How about the people up at Lawson Park? They
bring you a bit of trade, I suppose?"
"Not really so as ye'd noatice," replied the barman. "Theer's soom o' them
looks in for a drink now and then, but they're not what ye'd call a source o'
regular coostom, aren't those scientific gentlemen. Ah reckon theer's a few o'
them thinks alcohol's what's used for preserving specimens," he added
humorously.
"Ha ha, that's a good one—I dare say they do," said Digby Driver. "1 suppose
they get up to all sorts of new research projects up there. D'you think
there's much in the way of secret weapons they go in for—germ warfare and all
that sort of thing? Makes you feel nervous, doesn't it? You know, if anything
were to get out and come down here—hell's bells, eh?"
"Ay, well, that were woon thing as coom oop at pooblic inquiry before they
built t'plaace," answered the barman. "Them as objected said there'd be
element o' daanger from infection an' sooch like. Not that anything in that
way's ever happened so far. But Ah've heerd as theer's parts of t'plaace kept
secret, like, an' no one to go in but those that have to do wi' it."
"That reminds me," said Driver, "d'you know a chap called Tyson?"
" 'Bout forty," answered the barman with a chuckle. "Two thirds of t'folk int'
Laakes is called Tyson, an' hafe the rest's called Birkett."
(254)
"Well, I meant a particular chap who works up at Law-son Park."
"Oh, old 'Arry? Ay, Ah knows him reel enoof. He cleans out animals oop there—
feeds 'em an' that. He'll likely be in a bit later—cooms in for 'is pint most
evenings. Did you want to speak to him?"
"Well, I'm a newspaper man, you see, and I'm doing an article on English
research stations from the point of view of ordinary people like you and me.
So a real, live chap like Tyson'd be more use than those scientists— they'd be

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too technical for the newspaper-reading public anyway."
"Oh, ay," said the barman, unconsciously flattered as Driver had intended.
"Well, if ye'ere going to be here for a while I'll tell you if he cooms in,
like. He'll be through int' pooblic yonder, but I'll let y' know."
"Thanks," said Driver. "He certainly won't be a loser by it."
"Mr. Tyson, I'm a man of business like yourself. I believe in being perfectly
straight and plain. I want information for my paper about this business of the
dogs escaping and I'm ready to pay for it. It's not a question of bargaining—
there's the money. Count it. I shan't say you told me anything—I shan't even
mention your name. Tell me everything you know about the dogs and that money
goes into your pocket and I've forgotten I ever had it."
The two had left The Crown for Tyson's cottage, where they were sitting before
the fire in the living room. Mrs. Tyson was busy in the kitchen and the door
between was shut.
Digby Driver listened closely to Tyson's account of the escape of seven-three-
two and eight-one-five, which corroborated and in certain particulars added to
what he had already heard from Mr. Powell that morning.
"You're sure they went right through the entire animal block from end to end?"
he asked.
"Good as sure," answered Tyson.
"How?"
"Weel, they'd knocked ower caage o' mice int' pregnancy unit and one moosta
cut it paw on't glass. Theer
(255)
were spots o' blood reet through to t'guinea-pig plaace at t'oother end. Ah
cleaned 'em oop."
"But you still don't know how they got out of the block?"
"Nay."
Digby Driver chewed his pencil. This was maddening. The vital piece of
information, if it existed and whatever it might be, was still eluding him.
"How much d'you know about the work of Dr. Good-ner?" he asked suddenly.
*
"Nowt," replied Tyson promptly. "Theer's noon knaws owt about it but 'isself,
without it's Director. He works in special plaace, like, an' it's kept locked,
is yon. Ah doan't have nowt to do wi't."
"Why d'you suppose that is?"
Tyson said nothing for some time. He lit his pipe, raked through the fire with
the poker and put on some more coal. Digby Driver remained silent, gazing at
the floor. Tyson got up, picked up his cap from the table and hung it on a peg
behind the door. Digby Driver did not even follow him with his eyes.
"It's Ministry o' Defence, is that," said Tyson at last.
"How do you know?"
"Yon Goodner were talking to me one day about disposal o' beeasts' bodies, an'
Ah seen letter in's 'and. It were Ministry-headed paaper, like, marked
'Secret' in red."
"Is that all you saw of it?"
"Ay."
There was another pause, while the hounds of Digby Driver's questing mind cast
back and forth on the scent.
"Where is Dr. Goodner's special laboratory?" he asked.
"Inf cancer research block," answered Tyson. "Separate part, like, with it oan
door."
"Could the dogs have gone through it?"
"Nay, th' couldn't—not in theer; but they went through cancer block reet
enoof."
"Why's Goodner's place there, d'you suppose? Any special reason?"
"Ah cann't saay, unless happen it's rats. Aall't rats are kept int' one place

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while they're to be used. Joost black
(256)
separate from brown, ootherwise all int' one plaace, tha knaws."
Digby Driver started. Then, instantly recovering himself, he bent down to
scratch his ankle; straightened up, looked at his watch, lit a cigarette and
returned the pack to his pocket. Negligently, he picked up the ashtray and
pretended to study its design.
"Does Goodner use many black rats?" he asked carelessly.
"Black and brown. Black moastly."
"No other animals?"
"Soometimes moonkeys. And a reet nuisance it is, is that."
"Oh—why?"
"Every time he wants moonkey it has t'ave full disinfectant treatment—theer's
noan to be owt on it, he says. Doosn't matter how clean it is already, if he
wants it, it has t'oondergo total disinfestation process and remain : in
sterile condition while he taakes it over."
"But that doesn't apply to the rats?"
"Nay."
"I see," said Digby Driver. "Well, thank you, Mr.
-,,. Tyson. I shan't mention this talk of ours to anyone, and § you needn't
either. But it's been most helpful.  Good
* night."
(257)
FIT 7
Wednesday the 10th November
Need information urgently rat and flea-borne diseases also background one
Goodner ex-German wartime scientist employed A.R.S.E. prospects story
excellent Driver.
"Oh, hooray!" said Mr. Skillicorn, rubbing his hands. "Izzy wizzy, let's get
busy. Desmond, dear boy, with any luck this is going to break big."
"There's a lot could go wrong with it," replied Mr. Simpson, shaking his head.
"A lot!"
"Like what?"
"Oh, I don't know. I hope I'll be proved wrong, Quil-liam. It's just that I've
got such an incurably suspicious mind, you know."
Thursday the llth November
"—And then there's this," said the Under Secretary, picking up a press
cutting, "which you may already have seen. It may prove entirely negligible,
but I don't much like the look of it. A little cloud out of the sea, like a
man's hand."
(258)
"I'll advise the Parliamentary Secretary to prepare his chariot."
The Assistant Secretary sighed inwardly and tried to assume an eager and co-
operative air. The two of them had already spent an hour in discussing three
matters on which the necessary action could have been decided in as many
minutes. If ever there was a case of Parkinson's Law, thought the Assistant
Secretary morosely—only there ought to be a corollary in this case. "Work
expands in direct proportion to the loquacity of the senior officer
responsible for it."
Outside, in Whitehall, evening was falling and over Horse Guards Parade the
sunlit air was flecked and alive with starlings' wings. By the thousand they
flew in, whistling, strutting, chuckling to one another on the jutty friezes
of the Government offices, their pendent beds and pro-creant cradles. The
light reflected, from their glossy plumage, swift, glancing greens, blues and
mauves. O happy living things! No tongue their beauty might declare. "I wish
my kind saint would take pity on me," thought the Assistant Secretary, taking
the press cutting which the Under Secretary was holding out to him. Whatever

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it might be, he ought already to have seen it himself, of course—it was he who
ought to have drawn it to the Under Secretary's attention, not the other way
around. The Under Secretary was making this point by the act of refraining
from making it.
Mystery Dog Raiders at Large in Lakeland, he read. A report from the Orator's
Man-on-the-Spot—Digby Driver. He skimmed quickly down the item. With any luck,
and if he could absorb the gist of it quickly enough, he could say that he had
already seen it, but hadn't thought it worth mentioning to his busy Under
Secretary.
"Yes, I did see this, Maurice, actually, but it didn't seem to amount to a
great deal. I mean, even if Animal Research were to admit that they'd let a
dog or dogs escape, and even if one of those dogs had caused the death of this
poor chap Ephraim, it's still purely local in effect and wouldn't be damaging
to the Secretary of State, I would suppose."
"That depends," replied the Under Secretary, looking (259)
down and making a minute and entirely unnecessary adjustment of the
Remembrance Day poppy in his buttonhole. "You see, the Secretary of State's
rather sensitive at the moment, on account of attacks in the House about
finance."
"But how could this tie up with that?"
"I'm not saying it does, but it might." The Under Secretary suavely showed his
teeth like an elderly sheep. "You'll recall that a few years back we—or our
predecessors—advised the Secretary of State to accept the principal
recommendations of the Sablon Committee and that that meant, inter alia,
approval of the Lawson Park project; and a good deal of money for it in the
annual estimates ever since. Lawson Park's always had its enemies, as you
know, and someone may well try to argue that these wasters of public money
have been negligent in letting the dogs escape. That could be embarrassing.
It's bad enough the station having been sited in a national park in the first
place—"
"Can't see that. It doesn't cause pollution or increase the flow of traffic—"
"I know, I know, Michael," said the Under Secretary in a characteristically
testy tone, "but it's a nonconforming user in a national park and as Crown
development it attracted a deemed planning permission. That's quite enough for
the Opposition if the place gets itself into hot water. But look, I fear we
shall have to call a halt now to these most interesting deliberations. I have
things to attend to and so, I'm sure, have you." (Good Lord! thought the
Assistant Secretary, I can't believe it!) "I'm seeing the Parly. Sec. tomorrow
evening about one or two other things and while I'm about it I'd like to set
his mind at rest on this, if we can. Have you got a reliable contact up
there?"
"Yes, more or less. Chap called Boycott I generally talk to."
"Well, could you please find out what their thinking is on this, and in
particular whether they've had a dog escape and if so what they've done about
it? We want to be able to say, publicly if necessary, that this Hound of the
Bask-ervilles, if it exists, didn't emerge from Lawson Park."
(260)
"Right, Maurice, I'll see to that." (Bloody old woman! What other Under
Secretary would make a meal of a thing like this?)
"You understand, I hope I'm going to be proved to be fussing unnecessarily,
Michael. It's just that I've got such an incurably suspicious mind, you know."
In the corridor, the Assistant Secretary paused to look out over St. James's
Park in the failing light. From high up in a great, bark-peeling plane tree a
thrush was singing, and in the distance he could discern the pelicans on the
lake, swimming one behind the other and all thrusting their heads below water
at the same, identical instant. As often in moments of difficulty or
depression, he began to repeat "Lycidas" silently to himself.

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"Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never
sere . . ."
The mist was like an elastic, damp cloth over the muzzle, yet worse, being
insubstantial and impossible to claw aside. For the twentieth time Rowf rubbed
a paw across his face to wipe away a clot of the wet gossamer filling the
grass for mile after mile. The muffled pouring of the becks sounded from both
before and behind. There were no stars. There was no breeze and no movement of
smells. There were only those scents that hung stilly in the mist itself and
formed part of it—sheep and sheep's droppings, heather and the lichen and
fungus covering the stone walls. There was not a sound to be heard of any
living creature, man, bird or beast. He and the tod were moving beneath a
ceiling of mist, along passages walled with mist, shouldering their way
through thickets of mist. Yet the mist, unlike honest trees, bushes and walls,
placed no bounds upon uncertainty and error. Along a walled path you can go
only one way or the other—right or wrong. But it is a strange path where even
with a thought the rack dislimns and the walls are at once on all sides and
nowhere at all, cut away before and closing from behind, apparently extending
in one direction but in fact open in all.
Rowf, with the tod at his side, plodded on through the (261)
wide vacuity. He was tired out, but less with exertion than with the strain of
ignorance, doubt and uncertainty. Some three hours earlier, as soon as
darkness had fallen, he and the tod had descended into Lickledale, leaving
Snitter, who was once more rambling and evidently confused as to where he was,
alone in the shelter of the shaft. Rowf, still weary after his long search on
Harter Fell and the rescue from the shed, had felt unequal to hunting sheep
with no more help than the tod could give him, and they had decided to go for
poultry at best, with dustbins as a last resort. Upon the outskirts of
Broughton Mills and the threshold of what seemed likely to prove a hopeless
business among too many houses, cars, men and dogs, the wet fog had crept down
from the tops like an accomplice and they had smashed (or rather, Rowf had
smashed) a length of slack wire netting, snatched two hens and disappeared
into the grey density amid a clamour of guinea-fowl and the shouted curses of
an invisible man not twenty yards away, whose torch showed him nothing but a
motionless, all-enveloping curtain of fog.
The tod put down its hen and sat breathing smokily into the surrounding cold.
"Ye canna beat a bit mist, if yer liftin' hens or ducks. We'd have been oot
half th' neet forbye, an' mebbies got wot hint-ends full o' lead atop o' met."
The wire had re-opened Rowfs wounded nose and it was beginning to sting
abominably.
"Whit are ye rakin' aboot efter noo?" asked the tod irritably.
"A puddle," answered Rowf, vanishing into the fog. "A good, cold one, too."
There was a muffled sound of lapping and he reappeared. "That's better."
"By, ye're reet mucky."
"Tod, how do you find the way? I've no idea where we are."
"Groond," answered the tod. "It gans up an' gans doon. Ye divven't need mair.
We're goin' up noo."
"Are we near home? Oh, damn these cobwebs!"
"Fluff *em off, ninny. Ay, we're nigh noo. Ye can tell fro' the groond. Up
anight th'earth's lighter. Mind, yon snout o' yours luks weel brayed aboot.
Ye've torn it bad."
(262)
"It'll be all right. Tod, what about Snitter? How does he seem to you?"
"He's weel away wi'd, yon. He wez on agen this mornin' aboot not bein' left
inside his aan heed. Daft as a brush."
"Yes, he's bad right enough—worse than I've ever seen him. These turns of his
pass off, though—or they always have. It's a nuisance, but he'll have to stay
where he is for the time being. We'll have to hunt without him."

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"He canna bide there, hinny. None of us can. If yon mist howlds doon, we'll
hev to be off b' th' morn."
"Again, tod? He'll never do it. D'you want to go far?"
"This tale o' his aboot kiUin' yon chep wiv a gun— d'ye think thet's reet, or
is it just his daft crack?"
"It's true. As far as I can make out the man had caught him on his way back
alone from that last sheep we killed on Hard Knott, and either Snitter
startled him, so that he let the gun off himself, or else Snitter got his paw
caught in it. Either way the man's dead."
"An* foond?"
"He's found all right." Rowf told the tod of the shot that had missed him at
Cockley Beck. The tod listened silently, and before replying set off once more
up the hillside.
"By, he's th' dabbest hand ye iver saw, yon wee fella. Shoot a man? Whey, ye
wadden't credit it. Mind, it's bad, yon, bad. The'll be huntin' noo till they
find th' pair o' yez, ne doot aboot that. If Ah had th' sense Ah wes born wi',
Ah'd be off an away mesel' an' leave ye t'id."
"That'd be the end of us, tod. Without you we'd have been finished a long
while back."
"Ay, ne doot aboot thet neether. Whey . . ." (the tod paused), "Whey, Ah'll
not be tekkin mesei' off yit. But mind—Ah'm tellin' ye—gan where Ah tell ye
te, an' ne muckin' aboot, or Ah'm away like a shot an' ye can fend fer
yersels."
"How far, tod?"
"A lang way—it'll be two neets gettin', Ah warr'nd. We'll lie up o' Bull Crag
till th' morrer morn, if th' wee fella can get that far. Then through b' Wyth
Born an' Dunmail Raise. Best te cross th' Raise be neet—ay, an'
(263)
duck across sharp when there's ne bit cars or lights shinin' o' th' road."
"But where are we going? Have you ever been there before?"
"Helvellyn range. Nowt but th' once. Mind, it's high groond—wild and blowed
lonely forbye. 'Sennuf to blaw yer lugs off there, noo an' agen. But there's
ne other chance for ye, with aall them booggers oot huntin'."
"If you think we're .as badly off as that, why are you staying on with us?"
"Mebbies Ah'm sorry for thon wee fella." The tod paused. "Mebbies."
"I don't believe that, you smelly—" Rowf broke off, choking and coughing, and
again clawed at his muzzle. Up here, on the higher ground, the mist was so
thick that they could scarcely see one another.
"Ah warr'nd ye divven't, ne kiddin'."
"Why don't you talk straight for once?" Rowf, infuriated by his enforced
dependence on the tod to guide him through the mist, growled dangerously, and
at once the tod became obsequious.
"Give ower, hinny. Diwen't gan on se. Taalk strite? Aall reel, thin, Ye'\\
niwer leave yer marrer, noo will ye? An' ye're th' one that fells th' yows,
reel? Noo, there's wor place yonder, an' th' wee fella's got th' wind o' ye—
d'ye not hear him yappin' inbye? Howway doon an' give 'm thon chicken."
" 'Pasteurella pestis,'" said Digby Driver happily. "Ah ha-ha-ha-ha HA! A
flea! Ha, ha, ha HAH! A flea! Well, well! Who'd a thought it? Now read on!
'This disease is primarily one of rats and other rodents, but wherever rats
live in close proximity to man there is the chance of an outbreak through
rodent fleas which transfer their attention to man.' Splendid! And so? Don't
miss next week's smashing instalment! 'Transmission may be mechanical,
involving simply the contamination of the mouth-parts of the insects, or it
may involve regurgitation of infected blood into the puncture. Most infected
fleas develop blockages in their digestive tracts as a result of the
multiplication of bacteria, so that, when they try to feed, the blood
(264)

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simply flows back into the host, taking with it some of the germs from the
gut. Because no food can get past their blockage, the fleas become "hungry"
and try to feed more frequently than they otherwise would. The result is that
the disease spreads more rapidly.' Excellent! Then there's —er—let's see—
murine typhus, 'a less severe form of ordinary typhus fever, carried by rodent
fleas—' well, never mind that, we can do better. Find out where the worthy
doctor resides, and off we go. A wolf am I, a wolf on mischief bent."
Friday the 12th November
The Under Secretary stared owlishly across his desk, con-triving to suggest
that not the least unfortunate aspect of : the matter was that he himself had
had to initiate inquiries which otherwise would not have been pursued at all.
"And what did your Master Boycott say?" he asked. "Well," replied the
Assistant Secretary, "not more than he could help. I began by asking him
whether they'd lost any dogs and he said why did we want to know." .     " 'I
will also ask you one thing, and answer me.* Well?" <      "Well, I could have
had a shot at the baptism of John,"
tsaid the Assistant Secretary, who liked to show that he could at least nail
the Under Secretary's quotations, "but .,,.I hesitated a moment on that. I saw
no reason specifically to drag the Parly. Sec. into it, so I simply said that
we'd vSeen this press item and what could they tell us about the dogs. Then
Boycott said that it hadn't been proved that the dogs were theirs—"
The Under Secretary clicked his tongue and frowned peevishly.
!    "—so I said, well, at that rate why had Powell gone ebasing over to
Dunnerdale with the police; and Boycott ?$aid that Powell had taken it
entirely on himself to do ;that—no one else had been in the place when the
police  Called. And then he said—off his own bat, this was—that
(265)
in any case there was nothing to prove that the dogs seen at the Dunnerdale
shop premises were the ones who'd been killing sheep. He got rather
aggressive, as a matter of fact."
The Under Secretary, now that he had learned that the conversation had taken
this unproductive turn, allowed his manner to suggest contempt, dislike and
patience sorely tried.
"But did he say, Michael" (with the air of bringing an undisciplined mind back
to the only question that mattered), "did he say whether or not they'd lost
any dogs?"
"He didn't, and I couldn't get him to."
(A frown, implying, "You must have mishandled him —upset him.") "You didn't
mention the Parliamentary Secretary's probable interest?"
"No." (My line didn't work, so it ipso facto becomes wrong.) "Maurice, why
should one fortify a request for information by mentioning any particular
member of the Department, Minister or officer? If the Department want to know,
then the Secretary of State wants to know, or so I was always taught."
"Well, it doesn't seem to have worked very well on this occasion, does it?"
At this moment the telephone rang and the Under Secretary picked it up.
"Yes, Jean, put him through. Good morning, Edward. No, not yet. Have you? Did
Lock say that? Did he? All right, I'll come over and join the party. A
bientot" He put the telephone down.
"Well, Michael, more heavy affairs supervene. But we shall have, I think, to
press this matter a little further." (That means / must. How?) "Someone up
there must be found who will say a resounding Yea or Nay about these predatory
hounds. Can you please try again, and let me have half a sheet of paper to put
to the Parliamentary Secretary this evening?"
He left the room without waiting for an answer.
"Begin then, sisters of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring . . ."
(266)

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Page No 134

"Oh Rowf—Rowf, wait a minute—I know where we are
—we've been here before. That first night—the very first night after we
escaped. It was misty, like this, only it was almost dark—after we'd left
those sheep-dogs who got so angry with us, d'you remember?—and then we changed
—changed into wild animals. It was here."
"D'you think we're wild animals, tod?" Rowf sat on the lonely waste of Levers
Hause and listened to the invisible streams below. A crow rarked somewhere in
the mirk above. It was cold and raw, with cat-ice on the puddles among the
rocks. Both dogs' coats were sodden and the tod's brush dragged dark and
heavy.
"Wild animals? Whey, mair like two aald cluckers runnin' loose i' th' paddock!
Cum away noo sharp! We've a lang lowp yet te Bull Crag." The tod looked
impatiently at Rowf, its breath steaming round its head in the still air.
"Plenty of time, surely?" said Rowf. "Let him rest a bit."
"Nar, nar. Yon mist'll be lifted afore mid-day an' some clever boogger on th'
fell'll spot us. Th' whole idea o' goin' t'Helvellyn is that nebody sees us
goin* an' nefrody knaws we've come."
Rowf stood bristling over the tod, which cowered down but made no move to run.
"You're so damned clever, aren't you, you little sneaker? As long as I do all
the hard work and get hurt killing your meals—"
"Howway, steady, noo, steady, bonny lad! Ne need te gan on so. Give ower!
Listen, d'ye knaw why, though there's nowt but th' three of us, w' still
alive, wi' hundreds—mebbies thoosands—o' men that'd be glad te kill us?"
"/ know." Snitter lifted his leg against a rock and sat down again with the
flap of one ear falling rakishly into the cleft in his head. "I've just
realized why. They wouldn't dare. I've only to go and drown, or jump under a
lorry, and the sky will fall down and all the men will die. Have you ever
thought of that, Rowf? That puts us one ahead of them all right."
Rowf made no answer.
"The mouse went down a gully in the floor," went on
^267;
frid&y and Saturday
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AortK
Snitter. "That's why fte's alive. D'you know where that gully is? / do.
Sometimes, if I shut my eyes quickly, I can actually catch a sight of his
tail. He's made of newspaper, you know—a boy puts him through the hole in the
door —I mean the floor—every morning. The whitecoats made the hole—a long,
narrow one—with their knives. Right? Well, now then—"
"Aa'll tell th' pair on yez why." The tod's harsh whisper silenced Snitter.
"Them menfolk—the' aall mistrust an* cheat each other—aye shovin' an'

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Page No 135

fightin'. Us tods knaw that. Diwen't ye turn th'et way, an' mebbies we'll
fettle th' booggers yet. Yor ne wild animals—if ye wor, ye'd knaw th' same as
Aa knaw, wivoot th' need te be telt. Ah'm not lettin* ye bide here fer a
start—yon mist's ganna lift, an* b' then we've te be up on th' Crinkles, up
ahight there, where none'll spy ye oot—neether ye nor him, wiv 'is bonny
magpie jacket. Noo, ne messin', let's away!"
They set off once more along the Hause. Snitter brought up the rear, singing
to himself in a quiet whine.
"The whitecoats dyed a mouse bright blue
And stuffed his ears with sneezing glue.
They shone a biscuit in his eye
To see what lay beyond the sky.
The mouse, he knew not what he did,
He blew them up with a saucepan lid.
So   they   were  drowned  in   blackest  milk—"
"Will you shut up about drowning?" said Rowf. "Singing nonsense—"
"It passes the time." Snitter was apologetic. "There are other ways to pass
the time." "And to pass these rocks too. But not before I've passed this
turd."
Snitter crouched trembling in the cold, and then hurried ;-.:«fter the two
trotting shapes already disappearing into the ;;mist over Great How Crags.
,"But how on earth could they have found that out so quickly?" asked Mr.
Powell, handing back the press cut-
(269)
ting from the Orator which Dr. Boycott had laid on his desk without a word.
"There's very little there, actually, when you come to boil it down," answered
Dr. Boycott. "Nothing they couldn't have got from the police at Coniston. In
fact, that's almost certainly where they did get it from."
"But I never even told the policeman my name—"
"He may know it anyway—it's a very small point, however they got it. The real
awkwardness is that you ever went over to Seathwaite at all." »
"How could I avoid it? The policeman said he'd come on purpose—"
"And you instantly dropped what you were doing and went off with him almost as
though we'd been expecting him to come. It's a great pity you were in the
place so early."
"But damn it, what else could I do? The policeman said the dog had a green
collar—"
"You should have said that the station saw no reason to send someone rushing
off to Dunnerdale and that you'd report the matter to the Director as soon as
he came in."
"I did say that—the last bit, anyway—and the policeman wouldn't have it."
"He couldn't have compelled you to go with him, Stephen. Now it looks as
though we acknowledged our connection with the matter instantly—which is
exactly what you did do, in effect."
"Surely it'd have looked a lot worse, chief, if the police had gone there
alone and then brought the dog back here themselves?"
"Not at all. Indeed, one might well say, 'If only they had!' In that case, we
could simply have said thank you very much, taken the dog in, destroyed it and
burnt the body. It's not an offence to possess a dog that raids a dustbin, and
in the absence of any proof that it had been killing sheep, that would have
been the end of the whole business and we'd have been home and dry, without
even a body that anyone could identify."
"Well, I'm sure I meant to act in the best interests of the station—"
"No doubt. Well, it can't be helped now, Stephen. What
(270)
I wanted to say was this. In the light of these recent developments—the
Ministry were on the telephone yesterday evening, you know—"

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Page No 136

"Oh, were they?"
"They were indeed. I fended them off fairly briskly as far as yesterday goes—
but I'll come back to that in a minute. What I want to say is that the
Director has now decided that in all the circumstances our best course will be
to take the bull by the horns and make a short announcement, simply to the
effect that two dogs escaped, and the date when they did so. We can't go on
saying we won't say a word—not if Whitehall are determined to poke their noses
in and make a fuss. For the life of me I can't see why they should be, though.
We're situated in the locality—obviously we didn't want locals knowing dogs
escaped if we could help it. But a few sheep—and even that poor fellow's
death, though they never succeeded in pinning it on the dogs—why ever should
Whitehall bother? Those things are surely very local, even if they are
unfortunate."
"P'raps some old worry-guts up there's afraid of a local M.P. digging up the
Sablon Committee's recommenda-tions and the planning permission and all that."
. "What rubbish! Well, now, come and help me with the press statement—I want
to make sure I get the details right—and then we really must get on with those
monkeys. , ^What's the present position on them?"
"Well, the entire group's been paralysed by lumbar in-jections of pure OX-
Dapro, as you instructed." ;   "Excellent. Any results yet?"
"Well, the four with flaccid areflexic paraplegia show
jpo response at all, either to stamping on their tails or to ; pins applied
to the lower limbs."
     "All right, but be careful how you intensify tests like
that. They mustn't die. Monkeys are getting increasingly
{lord to obtain, you know—apparently there's a world
Ifttortage. I wonder why? Anyway, we shall be needing to
%tte these again for something else. What's the score now
;pn the monkey in the cylinder, by the way?"
"Twenty-seven days plus," answered Mr. Powell. "It
* f 271 )
seems almost comatose. To tell you the truth, I shan't be sorry when it's time
to take it out."
Digby Driver trod out his cigarette on the step, pressed the bell firmly and
turned his back on the door while he waited. Certainly the door was mean
enough to make the distant, moonlit view of Coniston Water appear a great deal
more attractive, even to him. Just as he was about to ring again, the hall
beyond the undulant glass panels became lit, the door was partially opened and
he found himself looking into the shadow-obscured face of an elderly, grey-
haired man standing defensively behind it.
"Dr. Goodner?"
"I am, yes." Both the voice and the look were hesitant, nervous. Digby Driver
put one foot on the door-sill and noticed the other noticing him do so.
"I'm a pressman. May I talk to you for a minute, please?"
"We don't— we don't talk vith the press unless it is happening vith an
official appointment at the station."
"Dr. Goodner, believe me, I've only got your best interests at heart, and I
won't take up ten minutes of your time—not five. You'd do much better to see
me now, privately and entirely off the record. You would, I assure you. Want
me to tell you why?"
Dr. Goodner hesitated a moment longer, looking down at the door-mat. Then he
shrugged his shoulders, let go of the door, turned his back, led the way into
a small, unheated drawing-room, which was obviously not the room he had been
sitting in, closed its door behind Digby Driver as he entered, and stood
looking at him without a word.
Driver, standing by the sofa, opened the folder he was carrying, took out a
typed sheet of paper and began looking at it intently.

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Page No 137

"What is it you want?"
Driver looked up. "I want the answer to just one question, Dr. Goodner, and I
give you my word that I shan't say where that answer came from. What is the
special work you are doing in your locked laboratory at Lawson Park?"
(272)
Dr. Goodner deliberately opened the drawing-room door and was half-way across
the narrow hall before Driver could speak again, this time in sharper tones,
which the authorities of his former university would have recognized at once.
"You'd better look at this sheet of paper, Dr. Goodner—Dr.  Geutner,  I should
say, Flat 4, Tillierstrasse |- 9043. Come on, you have a good look at it
before you go I rushing off to call the bouncer."
Dr. Goodner returned and took in one hand the paper
which Driver handed to him. As Driver let go of it, the
upper end began to tremble. Dr. Goodner put on his
; spectacles and held it horizontally beneath the ill-shaded
t* central bulb. "What is this that you show me?"
f Driver paused a moment. Then he said quietly, "You ,' can see what it is.
It's a biographical sketch—or the notes .; for one. My newspaper's planning a
series, to be published |; Shortly, on naturalized ex-enemy scientists and
doctors J working in this country. An article based on those particular notes
is due to appear in two weeks' time."
Dr. Goodner shrugged.
V "These things that have happened are all finished very I long time ago. I am
not a war criminal." C "You won't be far short of one in the public mind, Dr.
jlGeutner of Munchen, when this gets published. We're gin touch with a man who
remembers your visit to Buchen-Itwald early in 1945—"
p.    "I haff done nothing there. I go in, I go avay again—" f;    "Very
likely, but you went. And the work for the SJRtehrmacht on disease warfare
potential? Oh, and Trudi H-—I forgot her. Come on, Dr. Geutner. Have a good
think iabout it."
Dr. Goodner clenched one hand by his side, but said ^nothing.
'Now listen, that article won't be published, now or at iy future time, I
promise you—certainly not by my ;r, and not by any other British paper that I
know of '-provided you simply answer yes or no truthfully to one :^ question
and then forget that you ever did. After that, I'm for good and I've never
been here. Easy, isn't it?
(273)
Now, here's the question. From last month up to the present, has the work
you've been doing in your locked laboratory been research into bubonic
plague?"
After a short pause, Dr. Goodner shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Yes."
"Thank you. I know I said one question, but there's just one more related one,
I'm afraid, and then' I'm gone, Were there, last month, infected fleas in that
laboratory capable of transmitting plague?"
This time there was a longer pause, Dr. Goober was looking down at the empty
fireplace with one open hand laid flat on top of the glazed, putty-coloured
bricks of the cheap mantelpiece. When at length he looked up, his spectacles
flashed in the cold light. But Digby Driver was before him.
"Don't bother to speak. If the answer's yes just nod." By this time he had
reached the door and turned, Dr. Goodner was once more looking at the
fireplace. He nodded almost imperceptibly and Digby Driver let himself out
into the peaceful night.
Saturday the 13th November
"It's a bad world for animals," said Rowf grimly.
"Does that include the caterpillars you ate?"
"It includes you."
"I'm the brainy zany with the drainy crany. It smells like that, anyway."

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"Let me lick the mud out. Keep still."
"Ow—look out! I say, what would you call this— brain-washing?"
"All right, I've finished. It's clean enough now."
"Fine—I feel much cleverer, too. You could say you've cleared my mind. I'll
walk on my hind legs if you like. It used to make Annie Mossity as cross as
two sticks, only she never dared to say so. One day I pretended to slip and
clawed at her stockings. Ho ho!"
(274}
"Didn't do you any good, did it? Anyway, why are you so cheerful? You've got
no reason that I can see."
"It's the mouse, actually. When the moon shines like this, he sings songs
inside my head; like Kiff, you know. Kiff's all right. He's up on that cloud
of his."
"Maybe; but I can't hear your mouse."
"That's only because you're hungry. Didn't you know hunger mays yeff?"
"What?"
Snitter made no reply.
"What did you say?"
Snitter jumped up and barked in his ear. "I said, didn't you know hunger makes
you DEAF?"
Rowf snapped at him and he ran, yelping.
"Haald yer whisht!" The tod, padding ahead up the steeply falling beck, looked
round angrily.
The truth was that Rowf, like everyone with an accomplishment admired or
relied upon by those about him, was wondering how long he would be able to
keep it up and afraid that he might already be finished. For the past thirty
hours they had had a hard time. On the previous day, urged on relentlessly by
the tod, who seemed tireless compared even with the hulking Rowf, they had
travelled the length of the Crinkle Crags along their eastern side, skirted
Bow Fell, sneaking through the top of Rossett Gill in thinner but still
persistent mist (within earshot of a burly young man whose girl was begging
him to turn back), passed below Angle Tarn, trotted down the upper part of
Langstrath Beck and by evening had reached the tod's promised refuge among the
rocks of Bull Crag. Though not a true earth, it was spacious enough and, with
no more than a light east wind blowing, reasonably warm with three bodies
crowded into it. But this, as it turned out, was cold comfort. Rowf, already ,
tired, and still plagued by the pad which he had cut on lHarter Fell, failed
again and again to pull down the |inarked-out sheep until at last, flinging
himself exhausted liand cursing on the ground in the moonlit solitude, he
|«llowed Snitter to persuade him to give up for the night.
is temper was nothing improved by the marked manner in which the tod refrained
from comment and began
(275)
hunting among the heather for beetles and anything else that might be edible.
Both dogs, swallowing their pride, copied him and Rowf, when he nosed out two
hairy, chestnut-striped, three-inch caterpillars of the fox moth, snapped them
up without hesitation.
Next morning Snitter woke to find Rowf already vanished into the wet, still
mist. As he and the tod Were about to set out on the scent—plain enough on the
damp ground —they met him returning, bloody-mouthed, swollen with his kill but
lamer than ever. Nearly an hour before, in the dark before dawn, he had pulled
down his quarry alone, lying in ambush under a crag and leaping straight at a
yow's throat as she wandered too close. The battering he had suffered from
her, fresh and unfatigued by the usual pursuit, had winded and hurt him until
only his rage at the previous night's failure had given him the determination
to hold on. After the kill he had ripped off and gorged the flesh of an entire
flank, lain for a time belching and licking his paws; and so come back to his

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friends. The mercurial Snitter danced and gambolled about him as they all
three returned to the body. The tod, however, said nothing beyond a surly,
"Yer not se femmer t'day, then?"
"Tod," said Snitter sharply, "that remark's in very poor smell. You mean he
was no good yesterday, and you've no business to say it. I'll set the flies on
you, I will— huge ones—men riding on them—oh, whatever am I talking about?—"
"Nivver said nowt aboot yisterday. Said he were none se femmer t'day."
Nevertheless, the tod returned to gnawing its bloody share without further
speech. A rebuke from Snitter was so unusual that perhaps even its ladrone,
hit-and-run mind felt something akin to abashment.
Later in the day Snitter, unaided, succeeded in catching a lean, wandering rat
and ate it alone, without telling. The feat raised his spirits as June the
mayfly and when they came to set out in the dusk he was in tearing form.
Throughout the four miles over Greenup and down to Dunmail Raise he was
irrepressible, coming and going
(276)
like a scent on the breeze and glittering like shards of broken looking-glass.
The sound of car engines and the sight of headlights moving on the broad road
south of Thirlmere excited him with memories.
"I remember those lights at night, Rowf! And the cars growl, you can hoar
them—that's why young dogs often rush out and try to chase them. Waste of
time; they never take any notice. The lights are pieces of old moons, you
know."
"What d'you mean?" asked Rowf, interested in spite of himself to watch the
long beams approaching, dazzling into the eyes for a second and humming away
again into the moonlit dimness.
"Well, once the moon gets to be full somebody—some man or other—goes up every
day and slices bits off one side—you've noticed?—until there isn't any more,
and then after a bit a new one grows. Men do that with all sorts of things,
actually—rose-bushes, for instance; my master used to cut them almost down to
the ground in winter, and then they grew again. Come to that, I dare say it
was something of the kind the whitecoats were up to with me. Perhaps I'll grow
a new Snitter one day, you never know. Anyway, by the time it gets to be full
the moon's all pitted and rifted with cracks and holes—to make it easier to
break bits off, obviously. Well, my dam told me that moons are actually huge—
enormous—only they don't look it because they're so high in the sky. The man
who slices the bits off brings them down here, and 'then they're used for
making those lights on the cars. Clever, isn't it?"
"Do they last long—when they're lights, I mean?"
"Not very long—only about a night, I should think,
because you hardly ever see them shining by day. They
must keep changing them. You can tell they're quite
.Different from the still sort of lights men make indoors by
; lifting up their hands. Sn'ff! Sn'ff! How that car smell
:ijtakes me back, too! It's a cheerful, natural sort of smell,
; isn't it?—not like these foul rocks. Let's stay here and
jrest a bit, tod."
(277)
"Nay, git ower, ye gowk. Bide aboot o' th' road an' ye'll be gud an' deed."
Snitter scuttled across in an interval of darkness, joined the tod in the bed
of Birkside Gill and looked up at the long Helvellyn ridge fading into
distance and moonlight above them.
"O for the wings of a sheep!" sighed Snitter, as they began once more to
follow the inexorable tod up the gill's pools and cascades towards Willie Wife
Moor.
"Wings of a sheep, Snitter?"
"Yes—they had them once, you know. What rfappened was that one flew up into

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the sky, so naturally they all followed. Then they took off their wings and
began feeding and as the sun moved on across the sky they went with it, to
keep warm. Well, towards evening a wind got up and blew all their wings away
from the place where they'd left them. They never got them back—you can see
them all up there, blowing along in the blue to this day."
"But how did the sheep get back to the ground?"
"Why, a long way off the sky curves down and touches the land—you can see it
does. They had to walk round the long way—took them ages."
"Well, I never knew that. You are a clever little chap, Snitter. He's clever,
isn't he, tod?"
41 Ay, clever as th' north end of a sooth-boond jackass." The tod lay down.
"Ye kin bide a while noo, lad. It's a canny bit run yit an' Aa haven't the
list t' do it."
When at length they had passed Nethermost Pike, reached the western end of
Striding Edge and were looking down the almost sheer six hundred feet to Red
Tarn' shining smooth in the moonlight, Rowf curled his lip and swore.
"My teeth in your neck, tod, you never told me we'd be living on the edge of
one of these blasted drowning-tanks! And no men, you said—why, the whole place
smelts of men like a rubbish-tip—tobacco, old bread— what are those other
smells, Snitter—"
"Oo—potato crisps, women, chocolate, ice-cream squishy squish. That was
another of Kiff's songs. O mutton-bones, chicken and cheese, they're things
that are
(278)
Greenup and Eagle Crag
certain to please, but what / like the most is a jolly lamp-post—'"
"Shut up! Tod, scores of men must come here—" "Why ay, but not in winter an'
not where yor gannin'." "I'm not going down to that tank," said Rowf. "Nay,
divven't fash yersel', ninny." The tod seemed almost conciliatory.
Snitter, sitting back on the stones, raised his muzzle to the cloudy, sailing
moon. With as little reason and almost as much delight as the migrant blackcap
in May, which sings on the outskirts of an English copse, heedless that in six
months' time some hirsute swine in Italy or Cyprus, with call-pipe and
quicklime, will murder it for some other swine in Paris to eat in aspic,
Snitter gave tongue in the moonlight.
"O friendly moon,
As bright as bone, Up in the sky
You rot alone. The cracks and marks
That I can see Are no great mys—
Tery to me. It's plain to my
Observant snout, Maggots go in
And flies come out!
"Now if a fly,
On pleasure bent, Sat down on my
Warm excrement, I wouldn't mind
One little bit. I'm really kind—"
"Oh, come on, Snitter!" said Rowf. "What's the use of sitting there, singing
rubbish?"
"A lot," answered Snitter. "When I sing, people in the sky throw bits down to
me. Or Kiff does, or someone. You don't believe me, do you? Look!"
(280)
Saturday,
to 20'*
ON   THE
HELVELLYN
RANGE
Scatters fouie. . ....   i...

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Page No 141

looking AortK
He pattered away a few yards among the rocks and a moment later they could
hear and smell him routing out and munching the damp remains of an abandoned
packet of crisps. He ran back to them with the plastic bag stuck over his
muzzle.
"Woff fioffle floof." He snudged it off with ,one front paw. "Would you like
it, tod? I'm afraid it's not really what it was just now."
Without a word the tod set off northward along the summit, towards Low Man.
*
Half an hour later they had descended a thousand feet and come to the ruined
flue below the eastern slopes of Raise—an ugly, enseared landscape, riven with
the scars of old industry—and here, in a kind of little cave formed by part of
the ruin, they went to ground and dozed restlessly for two or three hungry
hours. At moonset the tod roused them and led them a mile down the beck to the
hamlet of Glenridding where, under its shrewd guidance, they foraged among the
dustbins for what little they could get.
"Dustbins is as dangerous as owt else—thet's why ye were nigh booggered i*
Doonerdl: ye took ne heed. Ye've to push th' lid off, grab whit ye can an'
away while they're still thinkin' what wez yon. Nivver hang aboot."
They returned to their lair in the darkness before dawn, half-filled and half-
poisoned, Rowf stopping repeatedly to excrete a foul fluid over the stones
along the beck. Snit-ter's high spirits had evaporated and he felt tired out.
Once in the chilly hole, he curled up beside the tod and fell asleep at once.
Digby Driver, having made a telephone call to Mr. Simp-son in London and
dictated his second article to the Orator, returned into Dunnerdale. He
certainly did not intend to be in or near Coniston when the article appeared.
Having reconnoitred from the bar of the Traveller's Rest to the bar of the
Newfield, he proceeded to follow the kindly advice of Jack Longmire (landlord
of the latter) to the effect that Mr. Bob Taylor knew a great deal about the
whole valley, being up and down Duddon
(282)
£t nearly all times of year, fishing. He was lucky enough jo find Bob in,
tying trout flies at a table by the fire. "Ye-es, I'm fairly sure now that I
must have seen one
-Of those dogs crossing the Duddon on the very morning iit escaped from Miss
Dawson's," said Bob, pouring sherry jfor Digby Driver and himself. "At least,
if it wasn't, I'm iore I don't know what a strange fox terrier was doing
;iwimming the Duddon on its own in quite a lonely spot, i Wasn't it a black-
and-white fox terrier that Miss Dawson caught in her yard?"
"So I believe," said Driver. "So if you're right, that's the dog that's been
killing sheep in the hills east of the Duddon, and it returned there as soon
as it escaped. But why hasn't anyone seen it up there? Where's it hiding,
d'you think?"
"Hard to say, really," replied Bob reflectively. "Are there any lonely barns
or sheds up that way?" ;     "None at all," said Bob, deftly concluding the
manu-r facture of a black gnat with two fragments of a starling's feather.
"All the same, it would be very unlikely to be .-.living in the open, I'd
think, for two reasons. One's simply ,;ihe time of year and the weather; and
the other is that if lit were, someone—Dennis Williamson or somebody— J: would
have seen it up there by now." f-    "So?"
      "So it must have found some sort of underground jrefuge." |    "Like?"
I' "We-ell, let's think; perhaps an old shaft or slate work-ling of some kind;
or the old coppermines—somewhere Vtike that."
|fe "What are the actual likeliest places, d'you know?" i%   "I think it's
hardly possible to be comprehensive about ~1i?ibat," replied Bob, who in his
time had been first a Schoolmaster and then a town planner in Whitehall, and
accustomed to answer questions with precision. "But it were anything to do

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with me, which thank goodness isn't, I'd be inclined to have a look at the old
Sea-aite coppermine shaft, up beyond Seathwaite Tarn, and perhaps, over the
top, at the area of the quarries (283)
south of"the summit of Coniston Old Man; yes, and the Paddy End mining area
too."
"Where are they, exactly?"
Digby Driver spread out his map and Bob showed him. Not long afterwards,
Driver refused Mrs. Taylor's hospitable offer of luncheon and took his leave.
He returned up the Duddon valley, left his car in the line near Long House,
took a torch with him and set out for Seathwaite Tarn. Having rounded the tarn
along the north shore, he reached and entered the coppernfine shaft; and here
he smoked a cigarette, throwing down the empty packet as deftly as any
Islington yob at the Angel. Like Dennis before him, he drew blank, but did not
fail, nevertheless, to observe the gnawed bones, excreta and other evidence of
relatively recent canine occupation. He was too ignorant to be able to tell
whether the occupants had left some time ago or whether they had merely gone
out and might be returning.
"H'm," mused Digby Driver thoughtfully, "What's to be done now, I wonder? This
mustn't leak out. No, no. It would never do, would it, if that dog—if those
dogs— were to be caught too soon? Never, never. They're lucky to have me, they
are indeed."
Monday the 15th November
"Good God!" said Dr. Boycott, aghast.
He sat staring at the front page of the Orator with a kind of stupefaction.
Mr. Powell, behind his shoulder, also stared, lips compressed and eyes moving
from side to side as he read.
ARE RUNAWAY DOGS
CARRYING BUBONIC PLAGUE?
(From Digby Driver, the Orator's Man-on-the-Spot)
The tranquil inhabitants of Lakeland, England's celebrated rural
area of natural beauty, got a shock yesterday. The reason? It has
(284)
at last been revealed mat, contrary to the bureaucratic silence hitherto
preserved by Whitehall's Animal Research Station at Law-fM Park, near
Coniston, me mystery dogs who for some days past have been playing cops-and-
robbers among the sheep and hens of farmers, are in fact escapees from the
Station's experimental An official statement, issued two days ago by Animal
Re-, typically concealing as much as it Informs the public, now that on a date
last month two dogs escaped. That tells tittle . But would they have told the
public that much without Orator? There are, therefore, THREE dogs Involved,
the third es, you've guessed It! The public's watchdog, the London Oratory
Britain's highest-selling dally paper.
Cagey
What the statement did NOT say was that the dogs are identical
with mose who have been killing sheep in the Lake District and
"were discovered by Dunnerdale shopkeeper Phyllis Dawson red-
~ tended in a daring raid on her premises, as reported in these
pages. Yet mis is virtually certain. What kind of time is this to be
cagey, when public safety is at stake? Yet this Is what the scien-4 tilts of
Lawson Park, who are paid with the taxpayer's money, Itre doing. To (hem the
Orator says, "Wake up, gentlemen, among Ijuwr teacups and clanking inventions.
1C not, we shall have to l^wake you up, in the public interest"
k Sinister et a more sinister reason, as it seems, looms in the background
,,._' the story. The Orator is now able to purvey to its readers the
^exclusive information that at the time of the dogs' escape, when, b now
known, they were alone and at large in the Station's itories for long hours on
the "night of the crime," investiga-were taking place in those very

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laboratories into bubonic ^PLAGUE. This terrible killer-disease, which once
decimated the fLondon of merry monarch Charles II three hundred years ago,
&fpB now been unknown in this country for many years past, being )«ftnied by
flea-parasites of the common rat. Did They?
-Could the escapee dogs, before their getaway, have met up with deadly
infected fleas? We know that dogs like rats, and fleas dogs. But does the
British public like secrets, deception and e? That is why the Orator says
today, to the men of Lawson "Open your doors, gentlemen, open your minds and
learn to
tUST THE  PEOPLE."
(285)
"Cooler!" said Mr. Powell. "And what exactly does A do now, I wonder?"
"I don't know what the Director will do," replied Dr. Boycott, "but I know
what I'd do in his place. I'd get Whitehall to issue a categorical statement
immediately that the dogs couldn't possibly have had any contact."
"And what about the dogs? Do we have to go out and try to catch them now?"
"If it was me, I'd take instructions from Whitehall on that. This is one
situation where Whitehall migttt be some help to us. The dogs'll have to be
shot now, obviously— not just caught, but shot dead, and the quicker the
better. What I want to know is, how did the Orator man get hold of all this?"
"Goodner, d'you suppose?" asked Mr. Powell.
"Goodner's always been as canny as they come. A man of his age and experience—
if he was prone to indiscretion he'd have fallen down a long time before now.
I dare say discretion was one of the assets he'd already shown he possessed
before he got the job. Not just anybody gets put on germ warfare, you know.
There's too much at stake."
Mr. Powell picked up the Orator and re-read it with a demure travel of regard,
frowning the while. He was at a cold scent, but it was certainly rank; and
sure enough, after another half-minute, Dr. Boycott cried upon it.
"Have you said anything to anyone?" asked Dr. Boycott suddenly and sharply.
Mr. Powell started. "Me? No, not a thing, chief, straight up."
"You're absolutely certain? Not to anyone? How about that fellow you said gave
you a lift back from Dunner-dale?"
"I can't remember what we talked about. Nothing that's security, that's for
sure."
"But he couldn't help knowing you were from here and that you'd gone over to
Dunnerdale after the dogs. Did he ask you any questions?"
"I said something about the dogs, I believe—nothing much—but certainly nothing
about Goodner's work or bubonic plague. Well, I couldn't, could I? I don't
know
(286)
^nything. I didn't even know he was doing plague, come to that."
"Well, all right. It's a matter for the Director now. Save it for the judge,
as the Americans say. It's possible .that nothing more will come of it. Dogs
can't contract bubonic plague, you know. If they could, and those dogs had had
any contact, they'd be dead by now. Presumably we've only got to say so and
the whole thing'll die down. But all the same, the quicker they're shot the
better."
"You know, chief," said Mr. Powell, "something tells me that that press
release of ours may not have been terribly fortunately timed."
Tuesday the 16th November
"A major disaster," said the Under Secretary, "I would imagine, though it's
early to tell as yet. It could hardly
 have come at a worse time, with criticism running so high , over public
expenditure to implement the Sablon Commit-1 tee recommendations." f     The
Assistant Secretary stood gazing out of the window.
i It was T. S. Eliot's violet hour, when the eyes turn up-Jward from the desk,

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and the street below was full of ,f .clerks, typists and executive officers
hurrying to St. James's f Park underground and the buses of Victoria Street.
The fj starlings had already come in and, after their usual § cackling and
squabbling, more or less settled down along
*; the cornices. There had been a kestrel over the park that j|afternoon. Did
the kestrels ever take starlings, he won-||&ered. Hardly; but they probably
took sparrows. It was to pjbe hoped so, for there was something disappointing
and Jpiandignified about the idea of their coming into London %jnerely to pick
up rubbish. Sate itself in a celestial bed )|J5ind prey on garbage. Come to
think of it, Shakespeare
&must have seen them taking garbage. Then that line might |be a kind of
unconscious extension of the iterative image hawking in Hamlet. "When the wind
is southerly—"
(287)
"If you've had time to reflect, could I have the benefit of your views,
Michael?"
(Could you?)
"Well, I think it might be extremely awkward all round, Maurice, if the papers
are intent on making a meal of this plague business."
"Let us see whether our respective minds are in accord. Why do you?"
"Well, we can't deny that the dogs escaped #nd that initially the station kept
quiet about them. We can't deny that the station have got a bloke on germ
warfare and that inter alia he's working on bubonic plague. And apparently we
can't deny that the dogs, while escaping, may have gone somewhere near where
that work's being done."
"I agree. But now, tell me two things. Could the dogs in fact have had any
contact?"
"Well, almost certainly not. Boycott says it's out of the question."
"And is it?"
"I honestly can't tell, Maurice, unless I were to go up there myself and have
a look round. But apparently the plague lab's kept locked and it can be proved
that it was locked that night."
"But fleas—cracks—doors—"
"Precisely. Of course the fleas weren't loose, but how can anyone swear for
certain—how can the Secretary of State stand up in the House and say that one
might not have been?"
"And secondly, can dogs in fact carry bubonic plague?"
"Well, I'm advised not. But it's like all this advice you get from technical
officers, you know. When you get right down to it and lean on them, they begin
qualifying. 'Well, they conceivably could, but it's very unlikely.' 'We can't
positively say it could never happen in any circumtstances,' and so on."
"So for all practical purposes there's nothing to worry about, but
nevertheless it's gone sour on us to the extent of providing nuisance value to
a hostile and malicious press?"
"That's the way I see it."
(288)
"Oh, dear." The Under Secretary drew meditatively on his blotting-pad. "Gone
to the demnition bow-wows."
"I don't think even Mr. Mantolini could give us much help in this case."
"Well, you may perhaps have to go up there, depending on how things develop."
(At twelve hours' notice, I bet, in the event.)
"I'll be seeing the Parliamentary Secretary about it, though I'm not sure
when—probably Friday. Perhaps you'd better come along too, Michael. I'm afraid
it may be going to be difficult to convince him that all this couldn't have
been avoided. How close is our liaison with Lawson Park? Shouldn't we have
been told at once about these dogs having escaped?"
"Hardly. They have a great many projects and experiments up there and the dogs

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weren't particularly important until this press attack started."
"Yes, I know, I know, Michael" (O God, here we go again!), "but you must try
to see things from a Minister's point of view. I can't help feeling that very
often you seem unable to appreciate—oh well, never mind." (I do mind, damn
you, and why don't you either say something I can answer or else keep quiet?)
"You see, what's really so very unfortunate is this press release that the
station appears to have put out unilaterally, without reference to us. They
issue a statement admitting that two dogs escaped, as though there were now
nothing more to be said, and in the . event this virtually coincides with a
piece in the Orator accusing them of trying to keep quiet about the plague
work. It looks bad."
"I know. It's a pity they did that."
"But should they have, Michael? Shouldn't there have been an agreed drill
under which they referred their proposed statement to you before releasing
it?"
"I've repeatedly tried to arrange one, but as you know, these chaps always put
up a great deal of resistance to anything that suggests to them that they're
being controlled and restricted by Whitehall."
"H'm. No doubt they do." (And you're thinking that I ought to have been able
to push them off it if I had
L*. (209)
arty ability.) "Well, let us trust that the hope is not drunk wherein we dress
ourselves—"
"Well, I dare do all that may become a man." The Assistant Secretary's goat
was not altogether ungot.
"I'm sure you do, Michael. And now, good night. Perhaps you wouldn't mind
asking James to look in for a moment, would you?"
(What's your P.A. for, you sod?)

"Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eye-lids of the
morn, We drove afield . . ."
Wednesday the 17th November
Rowf, raising his muzzle cautiously above the bracken, had time to glimpse
nothing more than the distant bar of moonlight twinkling and gleaming across
Ullswater before ducking quickly down again at the sound of men's voices a
good deal closer than he cared for. He glanced at the tod, crouched small,
tense and watchful among the fronds, and at Snitter gnawing on a stick to
contain his hunger and wagging his head like some crazy, ill-made scarecrow in
a high wind.
It was now the fourth night since they had come to the Helvellyn range. They
had killed two sheep, out with greater difficulty than before, and tonight
Rowf had refused to attempt another, insisting instead on a farmyard raid. The
tod had demurred, pointing out that the weather was too fine, still and clear
for hunting round human dwellings, but in the face of Rowf's angry impatience
had finally given in. To Snitter it was plain that the tod was unable to make
head or tail of Rowfs total lack of its own natural bent for coldly weighing
one consideration against another and then acting to the best advantage. At
the time when it had first joined them, it had never known a creature like
Rowf and accordingly had not reckoned
(290)
with his ways, but now it had come to distrust and fear his impulsive nature
and above all his impetuous anger, which it could not understand. Snitter
hoped that it was not beginning to regret the bargain it had struck with them.
He would have liked to ask it, and to try to smooth things over, but
discussion was not the tod's strong point.
The wind was carrying plainly the smell of poultry from the henhouse in the
farmyard. Rowf lifted his off-side front paw and tried his weight on it. It

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was as tender as ever and, cursing, he lay down again. His hunger moved
sluggishly in his belly, dulling his spirit as drifting clouds obscure the
sun.
His companions in desperation, he thought the one, whose very talk he could
barely understand, more crafty and self-interested than any cat, whom he now
knew he hated for its sly, calculating cunning; who would desert them both
without the least compunction whenever it might decide that it would suit it
to do so; the other his friend, the only creature in the world who cared a fly
for him, but who seemed to grow more addle-pated and more of a liability with
every precarious day they survived. It was for these that he had to go on,
night after night, mustering his diminishing strength for yet another
plunging, battering encounter, using up what little was left of his courage
and endurance, until the time when there would be none left—whereupon the tod
would depart and Snitter and himself would either starve or be cornered and
killed. No, he thought, the tod had been right enough; he was no wild animal,
nor, after all, had it proved possible for him to become one. Though he might
never have had a master, yet by his nature he needed the friendship of other
creatures as the tod did not.
The reek of the tod excited him, in his hunger, to a slavering rage. Why
couldn't I have died in the tank? thought Rowf. That was what my pack leaders
wanted: at least, I suppose they did; and I let them down. Now I'm neither a
decent dog nor a thorough-going thief like the tod. Oh, blast this leg! If it
goes on hurting like this I shan't even be up to breaking into a hen-roost.
The two of us could try to eat this damned tod, I suppose, come to that. Then
there's cats. Cats run loose in farmyards.
(291)
You could eat a cat at a pinch. I wonder whether I could kill one and get it
out before the place came round our
ears?
He turned again to Snitter. "Are you ready, Snitter?" "Oh, yes," answered
Snitter, with a grisly pretence of jaunty carelessness, "but why not wait a
bit? There's a flood of sleep coming to cover the houses, you know. Blue and
deep—a deep sleep. I'm calling it, actually. You see—" He stopped.
"What do you mean? You mean you can—" "Call it? Yes, I call it the sea. The
tod told me. A deep-blue sleep."
Rowf, a trifle light-headed in his emptiness, remembered the man whom Snitter
had killed and the strange power which, according to his account, had seemed
to come pouring from his head. "I say, Snitter?" "Yes?"
"Can you really make things happen—you said you could—you know, alter things
and turn them all upside-down? You can't really, can you? That man just died,
didn't he? It was only one of your queer turns that made you think you killed
him?"
"I don't know, Rowf. Sometimes I feel sure that that's really what I did
without meaning to, and then the feeling disappears, so that I—well, I can't
even remember what it felt like to feel like that. It's muddling."
The wretched dog seemed upset. Rowf gave him a playful nip.
"Come on now, Snitter, I didn't mean it seriously—it was only a joke. But if
you really can do these things, why don't you—well, why don't you make all the
men afraid of us, for instance? Ho, yes, that's the idea!" Rowf paused to
relish it, then began to elaborate. "Make them all run away—make them call
their dogs off, open their gates and —and send us home carrying a nice, warm
chicken? Now that really would be something! Couldn't you do that for us,
Snitter, hey?"
Snitter raised his split head and licked his friend's nose. "I'll try, Rowf;
but I don't really know whether I could manage all that."
(292)
"Neither do I, old chap. I only wish you could."

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"You mustn't think I—oh, Rowf, you were only making fun of me!"
"No, no, of course I wasn't! I know you could do all that quite easily if you
wanted to—it's just that tonight's not convenient—that's it, isn't it?"
"Bidin' there yammerin' aboot nowt—"
"Oh, shut up, tod! Let us alone!"
"Ay, Ah will thet. Ah's off t'see if w' can bash our way into th' henhoose.
Nay, marrer, let me do't mesel'. Ye'll ownly clitter an* clatter till th'
farmer comes, an1 that'll mean another neet wi' ne meat, an' mebbies worse."
Before Rowf could reply the tod had melted away with its usual silence. A few
moments later they caught sight for an instant of its slim, dark shape
slinking across a patch of moonlight where the lonnin led into the farmyard.
"Hush, Snitter," said Rowf quickly, "lie down again!" For behind the thin
shelter of the bracken patch Snitter had stood up and was capering slowly from
paw to paw, giving low whines and wagging his stumpy tail.
"Well, Rowf, I was only doing my best to—you know,
(you said to make the men give us—this is what they call a tincantation—but I
don't really know quite how to go about it—"
"It was a joke, Snitter, for goodness' sake! Now pull yourself together—we're
going to risk our lives in a min-ttte, and that's real—it's not a game. Even
you can tell the difference if you try. You're hungry—that's real. And jn
there are hens, and they're real, and a man, possibly with a gun, and he's
real. Got it?"
-:   "Yes, Rowf." ""   "Well, don't forget it."
:     There was a rustle in the fern and the tod reappeared.
Its jaws were faintly glistening, yellow and viscous, and
cohere was a smooth smell, at once creamy and lightly
jfavoury, that made both ravenous dogs slobber. Rowf licked at its mask.
"What's that you smell of?"
"Chucky-eggs, hinny. Th' wez a layaway nest F th'
rttles roond th' back. Th' aald clucker wez away an' aall. (293)
Aa's taken th' lot an' nipped ootbye sharp as a flash. Ye canna gan in there
t'neet—it'd be nowt but th' Dark fer th' bowth o' yuz. There's two chaps
bletherin' away i' th' hemmel an' a woman forbye. If th' hens or th' dergs wez
te kick up a row they'd be strite doon on ye, and if ye wor in th' henhoose
they'd hev ye afore ye could torn roond. Mebbies they'd have a gun an' that'd
be yer lot. Howway on oot of it noo! We'll try elsewhere."
The tod's air of artful self-possession, its srrfell, the smell of the eggs,
his own fume of hunger—Rowf felt his teeth on edge to burst his dripping
mouth.
"You crawling, sneaking little rat! You go in there and eat your head off and
then you come back and tell us we're not to! You stinking, underground—"
He leapt for the sharp-nosed, grinning mask, but in the instant that his
weight fell on the patch of long grass from which it had been protruding, it
was no longer there. Heedless now of how much noise he made, he thrust here
and there through the undergrowth, drew blank and came pushing his way back to
Snitter, who had not moved.
"Goes in there, stuffs itself full of eggs and then, oh yes! it's ready to go
home, the dirty little—"
"He didn't say that, Rowf. You're even more lightheaded than I am. All he
said—"
"I tell you, I'm finished with it—and for good this time. It's just a filthy
scrounger. We don't need it to help us to stay alive—we never did. It just
hangs about and eats what we kill—"
"That's not true, Rowf. He's done as much for himself as us all along—both
with sheep and hen-roosts. He can't help what he is. It's not his fault that
only one of the three of us has the weight to pull down a yow. I admire him— I
like him—"

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"And I don't! The mere smell of it drives me as mad as you! If ever it shows
up again I'll chew it to bits—"
"It's only your hunger—"
"Yes, and now I'm going to do something about that, too. Come on!"
"But Rowf, the tod warned us—"
(294)
"I don't care what the damned tod said. We're going to eat."
Rowf led the way down the bank into the lonnin and squeezed under the farmyard
gate. Snitter followed. The cowshed, at right angles to the farmhouse, flanked
one side of the yard, and through its open door came electric light and the
sounds of human voices, clinking cans and the soft thudding and stamping of
cattle in their stalls. Evidently milking was getting finished late. "They're
terribly near, Rowf—" "They're busy—they won't hear us—" "There's sure to be a
dog—" "And Pm a dog, too—"
From the further end of the farmyard they could hear '   a faint pecking and
rustling, followed by the quiet, slow clucking ("rer-er'ck, t'ck t'ck") of a
drowsy hen awake among her roosting sisters. The sound drew Rowf entranced.
With claws clicking on the tarred surface, he t-   trotted briskly through the
cowpats, down the length of t   the yard and so up to the hens' wire
enclosure. Here he stopped, sniffing the dark air and listening to the noises
from inside the henhouse, which rode, laden, above his j| rapacity like Noah's
ark above the gulping flood. 1     Snitter ran up behind him, whispering
urgently. f      "We can't do it, Rowf! You can't smash your way into |: that!
The tod might  have crept in through  a crack, £ thrown a couple of hens down
and we could have grabbed f them and run; but that's all finished now. This
farmyard's §;a fearful dead-end, too; an absolute trap. For goodness'
sake let's get out quick and try somewhere elsel" &.>   "No fear! There's a
started board there—see it? I'll ^^thove it inwards and you can squeeze
through and do f'tbe job better than ever that damned tod could. Only |J>e
quick! Ready? Right!"
tRowf plunged up the wooden steps and hurled his weight against the sprung
board beside the trap-door. It |vlevered stiffly inwards and at once Snitter,
as he had If^een told, pushed his way inside.  Instantly a fearful :ket broke
out around him—clucking, squawking, clat-|tering, flapping here and there and
the resonant clanging " wiry perches in close, odorous darkness. He plunged
(295)
forward at-random, came upon a hen and bit it through the neck, pushed it out
of the gap and heard it thump, jerking and twitching, on the ground.
"I can't—can't hold the board open any longer," gasped Rowf in the dark. "Come
on out quick or you'll be stuck inside."
Snitter pushed his head and shoulders under the splintered end of the board.
It dug into his backs knifing downwards painfully. He pushed harder. The board
gave and he stumbled forward between Rowfs front paws, knocked him off balance
and fell with him to the ground beside the hot, pulsating body of the hen.
Picking himself up, he grabbed the body by the neck as the tod had taught him
and began to run with it. At that moment the farmyard was suddenly flooded
with light. He dropped the hen and pulled up, terrified and confused.
He looked about him. Along the side of the farmyard opposite to the cowshed, a
high stone wall extended down to the gate, without even a tree-trunk to break
its line and never so much as a rubbish-bin or old crate left against it. The
farmhouse windows were shut; so was the door. They were in an enclosed, walled
space, lit by electric bulbs, from which the only ways out were through the
farmhouse, the cowshed and the gate leading into the lonnin. As he realized
this, two men, followed by a dog, came striding into the light from the shadow
outside the cowshed door. One was carrying a heavy stick and the other a shot-
gun.
A cat went racing across the yard and was gone like a flash under the gate

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into the dark. Then Rowf was beside him, gripping a bone in his teeth—
presumably one left lying about by the very dog which was now glaring at them
between the men's legs.
At least it may not hurt, thought Snitter. With any luck it may be over in a
moment.
"I'm sorry, Snitter," mumbled Rowf through the bone. "It was all my fault."
"It's all right, old Rowf," answered Snitter. "The hen didn't complain, after
all." His confusion was gone. He was astonished to find himself so calm.
Suddenly a woman, screaming at the top of her voice,
(296)
ran forward from the cowshed door, seized the already-levelled barrel of the
gun and pushed it upward. As the man shouted and turned upon her angrily, she
flung out a pointing arm towards the dogs, babbling a torrent of words which
guttered down into whimpering and frightened tears. The second man uttered a
low, corroborative word and at once all three began to back away, staring at
Snitter and Rowf in wide-eyed horror. The dog, who had been moving towards
them, bristling, was checked by a quick, " 'Ere Jed, 'ere led," and, sensing
his master's fear, turned and slunk back across the yard.
Dazed, Rowf looked about him. For a moment he wondered whether perhaps Snitter
and he might already be dead. Perhaps this was what happened—some kind of
trance? He took a few hesitant steps forward and at once the three humans,
with quick, jerky scratchings of boots on the stones, sidled still further
away. Then one of the men, at a run, stumbled across the yard, tugged open the
gate, propped it wide and hurried back to his companions. At the same moment
the woman, who had edged along the wall to the farmhouse door, fumbled an
instant with the latch and disappeared inside.
Snitter and Rowf, as stupefied as though they had been struck suddenly deaf or
found all odour destroyed throughout the world, made their way across the yard
and out through the open gate. They had gone no more than a few yards down the
lonnin when there sounded behind them a thudding of boots. Rowf, looking
quickly round, saw one of the men carrying the hen's body on a garden fork. He
tossed it, and it fell with a thump between the two of them, smelling of
succulent flesh and warm blood. II Hardly knowing what he did, Snitter
snatched it up in his mouth and ran into the darkness with Rowf at his side.
Looking back from among the bracken, they could see the farmyard lights still
burning, the two men standing , together, apparently deep in talk, and the dog
sitting beside them with an air of amazement as deep as their own.
"Snitter! What—what on earth did you—how—how d you do it? I don't understand—"
"I don't know, Rowf! I'm as bewildered as you are! I
(297)
must have done it, I suppose—at least—but I've no idea how."
"It's—it's terrifying! You might have killed them—set the farm on fire—you're
not safe! I never supposed you could really—"
"The hen, Rowf; your bone! We've got food! Let's forget the rest—it's too—too
frightening! I'll never know what I did! Can you find the way back without the
tod?"
"Yes—yes, I think so. If the place is still there. H we're still here. I—I
don't know what to—I can't make head or tail of it. Snitter, you must be—"
"Let it alone, Rowf! Drop it! Come on back!"
They ate their kill at the top of the wood, strewing guts and feathers all
abroad without a thought and then, their hunger satisfied, made their way back
to Stang End without another word between them.
Thursday the 18th November
"I see," said Digby Driver, "and the Research Station wouldn't tell you
anything?"
"Nay, not a thing," replied Dennis Williamson, " 'Noothing to say.' I assked
the boogger why he'd roong, like, if he'd noothing to say."

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Page No 150

"What did he reply to that?"
"Said he were returning my call as matter of courtesy. Ah said Ah'd return him
dog through his bluidy window-pane if Ah got channce."
"Well, let's hope we do get just that, Mr. Williamson. If I'm not mistaken,
you've been all over your land pretty thoroughly, haven't you, to try and find
these dogs?"
"Ay, Ah have thet."
"And you had a look into the old coppermine shaft above the tarn?"
"Ay, well, there'd been soomthing in theer, but it were hard to tell whether
it were dog or fox or owt. There were boanes an' that layin' around and there
were smell of fox
(298)
reel enoof. But fox could have browt boanes in on it oan, like. It could have
been nowt but fox, or it could have been dog. But if it were dog, it's not
been back theer, that's for sure."
"Well, if they're still up there I mean to find them. You know the land. D'you
think we could—"
Gwen Williamson came out of the door of Tongue 'Us into the yard.
"Mr. Driver? It's telephone—for you."
"For me?"
"Ay—Mary Longmire from t'Newfield. I think she's got a message. Happen
soombody wants you."
DJgby Driver went indoors, -picked up the receiver and spoke.
"Mr. Driver?" said Mary Longmire's voice. "I thought you might be up with
Dennis, so I just gave him a ring. Sorry to bother you. There's been someone
on the telephone enquiring for you. He wouldn't leave his name, but he was
speaking from Glenridding, over by UHswater. Apparently your dogs were seen
there lasst night."
"My dogs? Are you—was he—sure?"
"No doubt about it, he said. They had green collars, and one had a terrible
split all along it head. He wanted to know what he ought to do. Said he'd
informed Medical Officer of Health, but his wife was still terrified on
account of the plague."
"Did he leave a number? Any address?"
"Nay, he did not."
"All right, Mrs. Longmire, many thanks. I'll get over there right away."
Digby Driver put down the receiver and smote his forehead with his open palm.
"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Digby Driver quite often said things like this. He could not have identified
the context and would not have been particularly bothered if anyone had told
him what it was.
(299)
FIT 8
Now leave we to speak of Digby Driver and turn we unto Snitter and Rowf, that
all this while had been awaiting darkness in their refuge upon Stang End. The
rain, drifting across the bare, waste solitude, made, even to a dog's ear,
only the slightest sound in trickling between the stones. Snitter, watching
his breath condense on the wall of the ruined flue, wondered whether Rowf were
really as hungry as he smelt or whether the smell got its intensity from his
own starved belly. He raised his paw from the chicken bone which it had been
holding down and as he did so Rowf rolled over and gripped the bone between
his teeth.
"Oh—you're going to gnaw that, Rowf, are you?"
"Yes, I am."
"Did I enjoy it?"
"What?"
"It's the one you pushed across to me just now."

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"Oh. Sorry, There's been nothing left on any of them for hours, anyway."
"I know."
"I hate this place."
"We've got so many friends to help us choose a better one, too. The
whitecoats, the farmers—"
"I wish we'd never come here. That damned tod!"
(300)
"I'm sure he was only doing what he'd have done by himself and for himself. I
wish you hadn't driven him away, Rowf. You terrified him — he won't come back
now."
"Good. Just the smell of him — " "But Rowf, we can't kill sheep without him —
not safely ,  — or go on taking ducks and hens. I'm afraid we may | not even
be able to keep hidden. He knew such a lot that we didn't."
"We killed sheep before we met him." "One sheep. Without him we'd never have
lasted this .   long. We'd have been caught long ago." I      "I killed one
above Bull Crag that morning." f      "Rowf, it's twice as hard without the
tod, you know 'r it is. We shan't manage a kill tonight. We shall make a mess
of it and have to give up again, that's the plain truth." .      "My paw's
painful. I can't run on it properly. But even
-? apart from that, it seems to get harder and harder. Like —
like—" ;      "Like what, Rowf?" Snitter changed his cramped posi-
I tion on the stones.
&     "I was going to say, like the whitecoats' tank. I feel
* just as though I were sinking, sometimes. And there's no | avoiding it,
either. We've got to eat. But I'm afraid the f time's coming when I'm not
going to be able to kill." H     Snitter made no reply and they lay unspeaking
for some
II time, while the rain billowed on across the fell.
J|   ' "Last night,   Rowf — I  still  don't  understand.  What
:'| happened? Those men were frightened — badly frightened.
<fePid you smell them?"
!-;   "Yes, I did. But Snitter, I've been thinking — if you can
$ do all that to humans and other dogs, why do we need
$<to hunt sheep at all? Why don't we just go down there — "
U    "I tell you, I don't know how I did it. But there was
^Something wrong, Rowf, wasn't there — something fright-
,||erning about it? I don't know what I did, but I know one
— they hated us. They wanted to kill us, only they «ere afraid; and that's
what I can't understand. I wouldn't
go back. They might not be afraid next time. Besides )h, Rowf, you can't
imagine what it's like to see a man
(301 )
Idare
fall dead and know that it's you who killed him." Snitter paused a moment. "If
I hadn't killed my master, we'd both be sitting at home now, by the fire;
instead of—oh dear, oh dear! Sometimes I wish I could do it to myself. It's
that Annie Mossity. I'm sure she put it on me, somehow or other. She always
hated me."
"As far as I can see," said Rowf, "it's better never to have had a master. I
wish that Annie was here—I'd chew her up for you. I hate all humans: I hate
them!" *
"Perhaps they don't really know any more than we do. Perhaps humans have their
troubles."
"Don't be so damn silly."
"I am silly. But they never look happy, do they—not like—well, not like a
chaffinch or a puppy. Perhaps they don't know what they're doing any more than
we do. Perhaps they do bad things to each other, not just to us—"

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"What I'm saying is that they run the world for themselves. They don't care
what they do to us; they just make use of us for their own convenience. It's a
bad—"
"I wish you'd stop saying that. Anyone'd think you'd got another one
somewhere."
"The men could alter this one if they wanted to. Anyway, our chances are thin
enough, yours and mine. What's the use of talking? Let's go out again and try
our luck. We've got to find something we can eat—"
"Firelight—newspapers crackling—my master used to put slices of bread on a
sort of stick and brown them in front of the fire—it smelt nice—sometimes he
.used to give me a bit—oh look, look, there are the rhododendrons, Rowf! Look,
just outside! Come on!" Snitter ran out into the rainy darkness and lay down.
"Now and then that mouse has good ideas, you know. He's very small, but of
course he's been ill—"
He !aid his muzzle on his paws and closed his eyes contentedly, while the rain
ran in streams over his back.
"Oh, the bees, Rowf—the sun's so warm—"
"Snitter, come back inside, come on! You'd better stay in here tonight. You're
not fit to go out hunting. Go to sleep; and don't go lying out in that rain,
d'you see? I'll go down and find—well, I'll have a go at the dustbins. I'll
bring you something back. If I don't come back by
(302)
tomorrow you'd better—you'd better—well, anyway, don't get wandering off,
d'you understand?"
There was no reply. After pausing a few moments in the damp, chilly den, Rowf
pushed his nose against his friend's belly. Snitter was fast asleep.
Inhabitants of the tiny, quaint lakeside village of Glen-ridding, Westmorland,
on the shores of majestic Vllswater, tapped Digby Driver on his typewriter. He
paused, seeking a striking and really original turn of phrase: —here in the
heart of poet Wordsworth's watery homeland—; still it euded him: —here in the
heart of novelist Hugh Walpole's picturesque country—; ah, here it came: got a
shock yesterday. The reason? They found themselves next in line for a visit
from the dreaded Plague Dogs, who are spreading a reign of terror across this
quiet rural area, where hitherto the most dreaded creature for centuries has
been the wolf, the last one of which was killed in 1534, the same year in
which Anne Boleyn lost her head on Tower Hill while husband Henry was hunting
in Richmond Park. (If that's wrong who the hell cares?) While a few are still
disposed to make light of this threatening menace, many more already know with
creeping dread that it is a matter not to be regarded with such detachment.
Those who think of plague in the same breath as bosomy orange-girl Nell Gwynne
and bewigged diarist Samuel Pepys may soon find themselves mistaken, as the
Orator'.? quest conclusively shows. Many readers will ask, when was the last
outbreak of plague in England? The answer? 1910 to 1918 in Suffolk. Yes, it's
true! Between these dates there were no less than 23 identified cases in that
old-world county, 18 of whom died. (Clever of old Simpson to dig that one up.)
COULD IT HAPPEN AGAIN?
Already, those on the spot are anxiously asking their local government
officers (at least, they bloody soon will be when I've finished with them)
whether any undisputed cases have yet been confirmed and what safety
precautions should be taken. Can the unthinkable repeat itself? (Wonder what
they'll do when this really takes hold? Fill the
(303)
rag up with good stuff like this—push 'em in and let 'em swim—interesting
experiment in sociological group reaction, really.) Might the mysterious dogs
be about to turn our secret weapons against ourselves? Does a canine Nemesis
hang over Lakeland? Farmers at Glenridding have told me personally that they
were so terrified by the mere sight of the maddened, snarling brutes who

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invaded their hen-roosts last night that they actually threw them fowls and
flung open their gates to speed their departure, not daring to shoot jor fear
the infected bodies might spread the ghastly pestilence in the vicinity of
their own homes.
SILENCE
Meanwhile, Animal Research at Lawson Park preserves its bureaucratic silence.
Yes, they deign to tell us, the dogs escaped. No, replies the Orator, the
people of Britain are not satisfied. Today, in YOVR interest, the Orator asks
these questions. WHO let the dogs escape? HOW close did they come to the fleas
of Death? WHY were those fleas allowed to roam at large and uncontrolled? WHEN
will the public be told the TRUTH? Let us see whether the Men of Science, who
are continually telling us they know all the answers, can tell us these. If
they cannot, and that right soon, then the Orator says, "Write to your M.P.f"
(For an artist's impression of the Plague Dogs, turn to page . . .)
"Yeah, well, Bob Grisly'H do that in half an hour if old Simpson fancies the
idea. Pity we haven't got a photograph. We need a visual image, if we're going
to get not just the adults but the kids steamed up about this. Kid-
involvement—that's what's needed to get it really on the move. Now," said
Digby Driver, looking out of the window at the soft rain drifting across
Ullswater in the last light, "the immediate requirements are a telephone and
two or three dry Martinis. A large steak'd come in handy, too—or some eggs and
bacon, anyway. What I need in this hole just now is some joy dee veever."
Snitter woke hungry. The rain had cleared and beyond
(304)
Ullswater the moon had risen. The waters on this starry night were as
beautiful and fair as poet Wordsworth (or even novelist Hugh Walpole, come to
that) could have wished. Yet it was not these which caused Snitter to feel a
vague, alert uneasiness. He got up, put his head out of the shelter and
listened. Something had awakened him— something which was not the ail-too
familiar return of the humming in his head. He listened, but could hear
nothing except the coming and going of the light wind as it patted gently
against the stones of the ruined flue. Cautiously he went outside and stood
looking about the empty, moonlit waste. There was still nothing to be heard
but the wind and the distant stream. More than a mile to the southwest rose
the enormous, symmetrical pyramid of Catstycam, its slopes falling away on all
sides from the pointed summit. Remote and calm it looked, soaring, in the
moonlight, far above the solitude of masterless, starving dogs.
I wonder what it's like up there? thought Snitter. Perhaps it was from there
that those sheep flew up into the sky. Kiff might be up there. He always used
to say he'd be on a cloud—
Suddenly he tensed, listening more intently. This time there could be no
mistaking it. Far off it was, and faint, coming and going on the wind like the
noise of the beck; a barking sound, a cry as of a dog or fox.
"It's the tod!" cried Snitter. "The tod! He's looking for us!" He leapt up and
began running across the long, downward slope toward Glenridding Beck,
yapping, "Tod! Tod!"
There was no reply, but still he ran on. After about a quarter of a mile he
stopped and, since the wind was from the north and of no use to him, searched
with his eyes among the scattered rocks. He was near the beck now ; and could
see below him, plainly enough, a stone sheep-fold in the angle where a second
beck came in from the opposite side. And now, at this close range, he suddenly
perceived a stirring in a brake of fern. He barked again and in the same
moment saw, quite clearly, a terrier bitch glancing through the covert—a bitch
whose appearance recalled others from the days of his old life with his
(305)
Catrtycam
master. Certainly she did not look like a sheep-dog—at all events, not like

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the unfriendly dogs which he and Rowf had met above Levers Water during the
first afternoon of their escape.
"Who are you?" barked Snitter.
The bitch made no reply, but ran a little way towards
(306)
him. There was something wild and shy in her motion which was puzzling.
What's the matter with her? wondered Snitter. He barked again, "You needn't be
afraid of me! I'm alone!" Then he thought, But is she? and looked round at the
hollows and heights about them. There was no human in sight. What could she be
doing here? Surely there can't be a shepherd with her at this time of night?
As he waited for her to come nearer he listened uneasily, but heard neither
shout nor whistle.
Whatever is she up to, all by herself? I can't seem to see her properly,
either. How strange—but then I never can see anything straight when these
humming fits come on, I wish I didn't feel so giddy and queer.
Suddenly the thought came to him: She's no sheep-'dog—that's plain. I wonder,
can she possibly be like us— another escaper? We'd have a pack again—how
splendid! What a lark for Rowf when he gets back! "Hullo, Snitter, are you all
right?" "Oh, yes, only there's two of me now! I split my head in two and made
another dog! Here she is! Wuff wuff! Ho ho!" Snitter rolled on the stones and
waved his legs in the air.
At this moment the other stopped in the act of climbing the nearer slope from
the beck, stood gazing at him for a few moments and then began to go back by
the way she had come.
"Oh, rip it and tear it!" said Snitter. "Now I've put the wind up her by
acting so crazily. Wait!" he barked. "Stop! Stop! I won't do you any harm!"
The bitch—plainly a town-dweller, both from her motion and her general air of
being in a strange place—turned and once more stared at him, but then ran on,
re-crossed the beck and went a short distance up the course of the tributary.
Well, she M nervous—she's worse than I am, thought Snitter. Unless I can get
her to stop I suppose I'll just have to try to overtake her. I believe she has
escaped from the whitecoats and they've frightened her half silly. I hope she
doesn't turn out to be useless—just another mouth to feed. Still, at least I
don't have to be afraid of her. It's lucky Rowf isn't here—he'd scare her all
to bits.
(307)
He splashed over Glenridding Beck and pushed on up Red Tarn Beck behind his
elusive quarry. From time to time he caught glimpses of her dodging in and out
of the bracken, yet whenever he laid his nose to the rain-soaked ground he
could not pick up the least scent.
"Funny!" said Snitter. "That's not natural. She's no distance ahead—not as far
as my master used to throw my ball. Sn'ff, sn'ff! How odd!"
At this moment he came round a boulder and at once saw the bitch not twenty
lengths ahead of him. She was, if anything, rather bigger than himself, with a
rough, brown coat that brushed the wet fern as she ran clumsily on.
"This is very strange!" said Snitter. "She's not trying to get away from me,
that's plain. She's going quite slowly; but I can't seem to catch her. And her
smell, wherever is it? Oh my dam, I believe I know—how shameful! The
whitecoats must have done something to her, as they did to me, and it's
destroyed her smell! Poor creature—whatever will she do! Can't tell anyone
where she's been, can't excite a dog, can't leave traces—or if she can it's no
good to her, if she doesn't smell. They are cruel swine—the very worst! Jimjam
was right. Whatever happens to me, I'm glad I got out of there. I only wish I
could see straight —it's that mouse again. Get your tail out of my eye! Oh,
there she goes now!"
He crossed the line of the disused water-cut and held on up the beck. From
time to time he barked, but still there was no reply.

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I hope Rowf s not back yet, thought Snitter. If he is, he'll be worried to
find me gone. Still, he'll be able to follow my scent, that's something. It
must be as plain as the paraffin man's used to be at home. Oh, I know where
she's going now. We're quite near the big tank that Rowf didn't like—the one
we could see down below when I was singing to the moon that night and found
the potato crisp bag. My goodness, it's a long way up here! And that's snow,
that white patch in the gully over there. Oh, fanackers, this is too much of a
good thing altogether! She's off her head for sure, to lead me all this way
and never answer a word.
(306)
As he came out on the dreary marsh below the outfall of the Red Tarn, he
looked about him at the enormous, cliff-surrounded hollow. He was in a cove, a
huge recess, marked here and there by old, snowy streaks among the almost-
sheer gullies. In front was the lofty precipice of Helvellyn's eastern face,
running round by the south to the gnarled line of Striding Edge black against
the moon. At its foot lay the silent tarn, still and grey as a tombstone in a
churchyard. When a fish splashed, a hundred yards out, Snitter jumped, nervous
as a cat; and not altogether from surprise that a fish should leap at night,
though he tried to tell himself that that was the reason.
Not free from boding thoughts, he remained for a while on the shore of the
tarn, wondering whether he would do
-better, after all, to go back. He was uneasy in this high, desolate place and
was becoming less and less keen on the stranger. If she were an honest dog,
why did she not behave like one? Also, he himself was beginning to feel as
glass-legged as he had on Hard Knott. And if I'm to be taken badly like that
again, he thought, I'll try to make sure Rowf s there this time. No more dark
strangers with guns for me. Poor man! I didn't want to kill him! No, and I
don't want to bring any misfortune on her, either. I'm going back now.
He barked, "You're only making a fool of me!" and set off down the beck by the
way he had ascended. Yet still he could not help feeling a certain curiosity
about his mysterious fern-skulker. He stopped under a low, lichen-covered
crag, lapped a long drink and then barked once more, "I'm going back! Can you
hear me?"
"I can hear you." The answer, instant as an echo, came from immediately behind
him.
:'-.  Snitter leapt in the air and faced about. The stranger
/was standing under the crag not three lengths away. Raising a hind leg, she
scratched herself a moment and then, being the bigger dog, came forward and
sniffed Snitter
: over, Snitter standing stil! while she did so. Her nose felt icy cold and
oddly dry.
I was right, thought Snitter. They have taken away her smell. What a shame!
There's nothing they won't do, those whitecoats.
' ( 309 )
As the bitch sat back from him he asked, "What are you doing here?"
"Watching."
What? thought Snitter. The answer had reached him as a kind of audible mist
drifting into his head. I must pull myself together: she'll think I'm even
crazier than I am.
"What?" he asked. "What did you say?"      '4
"Watching."
"Watching what?"
The other said no more.
"I'm sorry," said Snitter. "Don't mind me. I believe we're both in the same
sort of fix. I got out of that white-coat place too, but they cut my head
open, as you'll have noticed, and I can't always hear properly—or see straight
either, come to that. I'm very sorry they've taken your—" He stopped, for it

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suddenly occurred to him that most likely his fellow-victim would not want to
be reminded that she had been deprived of the power to communicate fear,
aggression, heat and, indeed, almost everything worthwhile.
It's like blinding her, thought Snitter angrily. The dirty brutes! He went on
quickly, "It's just that I've never met a bitch quite like you before. Let me
have a sn— I mean, let me have a look. Why, my goodness, they've starved you
as well, haven't they? Or is it with living out here? Haven't you been able to
find any food?"
Still the bitch made no reply. She was, indeed, dreadfully thin. Each staring
rib showed along her sides, and her eyes were sunk so deep in her head that
they seemed almost to be looking out of a skull.
"Come on, my dear," said Snitter, "what's up? I dare say you're thinking I
can't help you or be any good to you, but it's no use just saying nothing, now
you've led me all the way up here. What's the trouble—apart from everything, I
mean?" Suddenly faint, he lurched where he stood, and lay down on the moss.
When the humming in his head had cleared he heard the other saying, "—my
master, so I stayed."
"Oh, you had a master?" answered Snitter. "So did I,
(310)
once, but Rowf—that's my friend—he never had one, you know. I'm not sure he's
not better off in the long run."
Stiffly, as though with difficulty, the bitch began to walk away. "So will you
come? Perhaps—"
Quite apart from her fearful thinness, there was something so eerie about her
whole manner and appearance that Snitter was once more seized with misgiving.
"Come—where?"
"My master, I said—my master! Weren't you listening?"
"Your master? Why, where is he? Not here, surely?"
"I told you!" The stranger sounded less angry than desperate.
"I'm very sorry," answered Snitter humbly. "I'm not altogether right in the
head, you know, and I've got one of my dizzy spells coming on. They maimed me
almost as badly as you, I'm afraid. Tell me again and I'll get hold of it this
time."
"My master's hurt."
"And he's out here?"
"Over on the other side of the water. We were walking along the top when he
slipped and fell. I went down after him, but he was hurt. He can't move."
"Oh, my life," said Snitter, "that's bad! But couldn't he shout or wave or
something? Men quite often walk along the top—-the tod said so. Besides, I've
been up there myself and it's littered with bags and packets. There must be
people who'd come down and help—"
Without answering the bitch jumped awkwardly across the beck in the yellowing
moonlight.
She's not very polite, thought Snitter.  Still, I can't
honestly say that this is much of a place for manners, or
that I'm a very deserving case either, come to that. She
told me about her master and evidently I didn't hear most
of it. If only my head weren't as full of holes as a tomtit's
nutbag! How on earth can / help her? Then the idea oc-
'Curred to him: I could take a message. I suppose she's
"'too stupid to do that herself. At least, she may not be
stupid but she seems very much confused arid—well, sort
of dazed. But if / go, the men down in the valley will—
(311)
HelveByn and Red Tarn
oh dear, oh dear! Well, I'd better go and see this master of hers first,
anyway.

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He overtook the bitch and they ran on together, across the bog and round the
lower, eastern end of the tarn. Once round, she left the shore and, going
faster now, covered the short distance to the boulders and stones about the
foot of Striding Edge. Here they came into deep shadow—almost darkness—and
Snitter stopped to accustom his eyes.
He peered up at the abrupt and perilous rocks above.
(312)
My dam! he said to himself. Did her master fall from there? He must be badly
hurt! And this poor fool's been hanging round when he must have wanted her to
do anything but that. But why couldn't he shout? I suppose it only happened
this afternoon, and there's been no one along the top. He must be starved with
the cold. Oh—I never thought! If I can help him, perhaps he might take me—me
and Rowf—take us back to his home when he's better!
"I say! D'you think your master—"
He stopped. In the near-darkness, the bitch was gazing at him with so sombre,
so wan and foreboding a look that instinctively he shrank away from her. There
was not a sound all around them. At last he said timidly, "I'm sorry. I only
meant—I—where is your poor master?"
She led the way round a crag standing a few yards out from the foot of a
great, over-hanging face. Snitter followed her, his pads rattling lightly over
the loose stones, and at once saw the dark shape of a man lying face down
beside a patch of bog myrtle. He went up to it and pressed his muzzle against
the shoulder.
The clothes were sodden, cold as the stones, rotten through and through. But
more dreadful still, they were void, without firm content and yielding as an
old, empty sack. Despite the horror that gripped him, Snitter pushed harder,
desperate to give the lie to his fear, to prove himself wrong by encountering
the resistance of the flesh-and-blood shoulder beneath the coat. The cloth,
breaking open in a long rent, revealed the sharp, grey edge of a protruding
bone. At the same moment the hat, jammed awry along the side of the head, fell
off to disclose the dome of a skull, streaked with wisps of hair still
adhering to the yellow skin of the scalp. One black eye socket stared up at
Snitter and clenched teeth grinned in a stilled grimace. There was not the
least smell of carrion. He saw, at a little distance, the scattered bones of
one hand lying separately—no doubt where they had been dragged and dropped by
the ripping, tussling buzzards.
Shaking, salivating, urinating with shock and fear, Snitter ran out from among
the rocks.
"She's more mad than I am—she doesn't know! She's
(313)
gone crazy and she doesn't know! Oh, how dreadful—I shall have to tell her!
What will she do! How can she not know? That man must have been dead three
months."
He limped tremblingly back to the terrier, who had not moved and did not look
up from the body as he approached.
"Your master—your master's dead! He's dead!"
The brown terrier, where it sat on the stones, raised its head. And now, as
Snitter realized with a terrible certainty, there was no question either of
his own madness or of his own eyesight. He was seeing what was there to be
seen. The bitch, open-jawed, emaciated, glimmered faintly in the dark, turning
upon him blank eyes that contained no speculation, that neither blinked nor
followed his movement as he cowered away from her. The tongue was black and
dried, the teeth decayed almost to the gums. It answered not a word. It could
not, since, as now he perceived, it possessed no life, no substance but that
which might be attributed to it by some unsuspecting creature who had not yet
seen it for what it was; a phantom, a nothing, a dried, empty husk of old
grief suffered long ago.

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Page No 158

Snitter turned to fly; and in so doing saw, plain in the moonlight beyond the
shadow of the precipice, the figure of a man, hunched in an old overcoat and
carrying a stick, striding away towards the tarn. He raced after it but then,
terrified that the horror behind might be following; looked back. Both dog and
body had disappeared. So, when he turned again towards the tarn, had the
figure in the moonlight. He was alone.
Ten minutes later Rowf, who had made his way by scent up the beck, carrying an
entire leg of lamb with a fair amount of lean and gristle left on it, found
Snitter wandering on the shore, crying like a dog at the mercy of devils.
Twice during their return he seemed to lose his wits altogether, plunging in
frenzy into the stream, first in terror of a blundering sheep and then of the
glitter of a streak of limestone quartz in the moon. But when at last, back in
the shelter of the ruined flue, he had pushed, like a puppy, deep under Rowf s
side, he returned almost at
(314)
once into a sleep even deeper than that in which his friend had left him upon
setting out at nightfall.
Friday the 19th November
Mr. Basil Forbes, M.P., the Parliamentary Secretary, was a pleasant enough
young man and, even if regarded with a degree of amusement by the higher civil
servants on account of being something of an intellectual lightweight, was, on
the whole, reasonably well liked in the Department. He had the advantage of a
prepossessing appearance and, despite the reputation for imprudence which had
earned him his nickname of Errol the Peril, was nevertheless free from the
higher lunacies (such as a conviction that he was a godsent political genius,
or a tendency to resent the activities of other Departments and instruct his
civil servants to have rows with them) and above all, was well-mannered and
open to persuasion. In a word, there were plenty of worse people that a civil
servant might have to civilly serve.
On a chilly morning of London sootshine and grime-gleam, sunsift, cloudstrain
and lightrack, he greeted affably the Under Secretary and the Assistant
Secretary as they were shown in by his personal assistant. He switched on the
lights in the tropical fishtank, ordered lukewarm coffee all round and
graciously treated them to fully five minutes' small talk. At length the Under
Secretary, glancing surreptitiously at his watch, contrived to mention the
Lake District.
"Ah, yes," said Mr. Forbes, as though tearing himself with reluctance from the
pleasures of civilized conversation, "the Lake District; and these frightful-
frightful dogs. What d'you think we're going to have to do about these dogs,
Maurice?"
"Well, Parliamentary Secretary, I think by all sensible standards it's really
a non-problem—"
"But none the less a shade awkward, eh?" (315)
"None the less awkward indeed—politically speaking. Still, at least there's no
actual health risk to the public—"
"That's certain, is it?"
"Absolutely, Parliamentary Secretary," said the Assistant Secretary, opening
fire from the left flank. "The dogs were never in contact with the bubonic
plagye laboratory at all."
"Then why can't we say so?"
"We think you can and should," said the Under Secretary, "but we'd like to
confirm that a little later, when Michael here's been and had a look at the
place. The newspapers can get it all wrong, of course. No one's going to mind
that in the least; but we mustn't get anything wrong—even if no one notices."
"AH right," said Mr. Forbes. "So there's no public health risk and we can say
so and the papers'll have to go away and invent something else. But now, what
about the by-products—secondary nuisance value and all that? You know next

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Page No 159

Thursday's a Supply Day and the Opposition have chosen to debate expenditure
on Research Establishments. "
"Yes, we shall be briefing you, Parliamentary Secretary. Bugwash will probably
start by resurrecting the matter of the planning permission for Lawson Park,
then allege extravagance in the Government's implementation of the
recommendations of the Sablon Committee, and proceed thence to allegations of
mismanagement on the grounds that the dogs were allowed to escape, and that
once they had escaped nothing was done."
"That'll be about the size of it, I expect, and normally it wouldn't be hard
to answer. But I must confess, Maurice, that there's one aspect of it I don't
terribly like, and I hope you're going to be able to tell me the answer. At
the moment it can be made to look as though we thought we had something to
hide—in fact, as though we'd been trying to hide everything we could, and very
unsuccessfully at that."
"I know," replied the Under Secretary, nodding sagely to indicate that he, no
less than the Parliamentary Secretary, had realized, as soon as the case got
up to his level,
(316)
the deplorable lack of perspicacity shown by their under-
jKngs.
;     "I mean," went on Mr. Forbes, smiling matily up from the papers on the
table, "first these dogs get out, you know. All right, so that could happen to
anyone. But then,
; when they find the dogs are gone, the boffins decide to
& say nothing to anyone; and they go on saying nothing to
I anyone even when they know the dogs are killing sheep
£ and prowling about in a national park like a couple of jackals. Surely that
was damn silly, Michael, wasn't it?"
"It certainly looks that way now, Parliamentary Secretary, but it's only fair
to these chaps to point out that at
I the time there was a certain amount to be said in favour of silence. It was
a hundred to one chance against all this trouble brewing up. It was much more
likely that the dogs would get themselves shot or that the whole thing would
. evaporate in some way or other."
"Well, maybe," said the Parliamentary Secretary, glanc-
5 ing momentarily across at the tropical fish. "But what about the next piece
of misjudgement? The station finally put out a statement to the effect that
two dogs escaped;
 and this coincides spot-on with the Orator's published
» allegation that those dogs had been in contact with bubonic plague.
Thereupon the station go silent again and i don't deny it, so that it looks as
though they deliberately .omitted it from their original statement. What's the
an-
"That the allegation's too ludicrous to merit either fj mention or denial."
I) "H'm. All gone off at half-cock, rather, hasn't it?" Amused the
Parliamentary Secretary. "What's worrying me .||s why we ourselves — the
Department — didn't weigh in sl|earlier. Why didn't the station tell us at
once what had Jhappened? Why did they go and put out a statement of JPtheir
own before giving us any chance to see it? And Ipwhy didn't we stamp on this
plague nonsense earlier, and $talk to Min. of Ag. about placating the local
farmers? ^Those are the sort of things the Secretary of State's going want to
know."
Looking up, the Assistant Secretary again met the in-snt gaze of the Under
Secretary. He waited for him to
(317)
speak—it being now, of course, the moment for the captain of the team to weigh
in on behalf of his subordinate. The Under Secretary, with an air of joining

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Page No 160

Mr. Forbes in waiting for a reply, continued to gaze and say nothing. A
silence fell. Stupefied, incredulous, the Assistant Secretary groped for
words. Floundering as though in deep water, he felt fixed upon him the eyes of
one wHo might, if he chose, pull him out. Mr. Forbes waited courteously. The
Assistant Secretary saw the Under Secretary look down at the table, draw lines
and squares on a pad of paper and then once more raise his eyes attentively.
"Is there an agreed liaison drill?" asked Mr. Forbes, by way of kindly
stimulus.
"We're—er—in the process of setting one up, sir."
"Well—well—it all seems just a little bit unfortunate, Michael," said Mr.
Forbes pleasantly. "P'raps you could let me see the agreed drill as soon as
possible, could you, even if it is rather shutting the door after the horse
has bolted?"
"Michael's going up there this afternoon, Parliamentary Secretary," said the
Under Secretary, at last breaking his silence. ("First I knew of it. It was
going to be Monday.") "No doubt that'll be one of the things you'll sort out
as a matter of urgency, Michael, won't it?"
"Splendid!" said the Parliamentary Secretary in a tone of warm congratulation,
as though all were now merry as lambkins on the lea. "Well, perhaps we've just
got time to glance at this very convincing draft answer you've given me for
the P.O. that Bugwash has put down—'To ask the Secretary of State, etc., in
what circumstances two infected dogs were permitted to escape from the Animal
Research Station at Lawson Park, and if he will make a statement.' Now, I
expect I'm being very silly, but it did seem to me that this third draft
supplementary—"
Ten minutes later, in the corridor, the Under Secretary said, "Well, Michael,
you'll want to be catching a train as soon as possible. You won't forget, will
you, that there are two things—first to see whether we can safely advise
Ministers that the dogs couldn't have been in contact with any plague-infected
material; and then the—er—somewhat belated matter of an agreed consultation
drill."
(318)
1^   At the lift-doors  the  Assistant Secretary  found  his ;%ngue.
f . "I've got to go and see one of the lawyers, Maurice, itow, about an appeal
case, so I'll leave you here, and look ift for a final word before I set out."
Once in the lavatory on the next floor, he was over-/, come by a blinding rage
so violent that for a few moments t his sight actually clouded over.
?'     "He sat there and said nothing to the Parliamentary Secretary—not a
bloody word! He sat there and let the Parliamentary Secretary take it out on
me for something he knew damned well was no more my fault than a cold
* in the head! Eton and Balliol, and he let Forbes, a basi-! cally reasonable
bloke, whom we all like, think that I'm to blame. The bastard, the dirty,
rotten bastard!"
He beat the flat of one hand against the tiled wall.
"Excuse me, are ye feelin'.all roight, sorr?"
The Assistant Secretary, looking round vaguely, recog-\ nized a messenger
named O'Connell, a decent Irishman "= who had once served him during bygone
days as a Principal.
"Oh, hullo, O'Connell. Nice to see you again. Yes, I'm 4 all right, thanks.
Just letting off a bit of steam, you know."
*     "I thought perhaps ye might have come over queer, v sorr—been taken
baad, ye know."
"It's good of you to bother. Still, old soldiers don't get ;: taken bad, do
they?"
!;/   This was a joke. Both the Assistant Secretary and
S'O'Connell had at different times been in the army and
t had once or twice exchanged military reminiscences.

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Page No 161

;;     "Well, they can do, sorr. I didn't like to see ye put
v&under the weather, ye know."
;;     "Thanks. You know, O'Connell, it's extremely annoy-
ging to suffer injustice and be unable to do anything about
:F-it " 9ii
¥'   "Man, baste and bird, 'tis the fate of every wan in the
; world, sorr, all but a varry few. There was some fella— :; Oi read ut in
the paper—that said, "The dispensin' of in-H justice is always in the roight
hands.' Oi'd say that was livery thrue indade, wouldn't you?"
f (319)
Digby Driver had succeeded in tracking down Annie Mossity.
It had not really been very difficult. He had simply followed up what Mr.
Powell had told him during the run back to Coniston from Broughton, by
enquiring of the Barrow-in-Furness ambulance service and police about any road
accident known to them during recent weeks involving a man and a lorry and
brought about by a dog. Within a few hours this had resulted in his being put
in touch with a lady in Dalton named Mrs. Ann Moss, the sister and next-of-kin
of the dog's master, a local solicitor named Mr. Alan Wood.
Mr. Driver was now sitting in a small, chilly drawing-room, in front of an
inadequate electric fire masked by a facade of plastic coal and below a
singularly nasty coloured print of two little Italian-looking children with
fixed and implausible tears on their cheeks, balancing on his knee, in its
saucer, a full tea-cup coloured pale buff and having the form of a truncated
and inverted cone. Annie Mossity, a hefty, plain, untidy woman with large
limbs and a general air of thinly veiled aggression, was sitting opposite.
Digby Driver, who could seldom be accused of dragging his feet in getting
around to the personal circumstances of anyone whom he interviewed—
particularly any that might pertain to anxiety, fear, misfortune, sexual
irregularity or conjugal disharmony—had already gathered, first, that she had
no children and secondly that Mr. Moss, though presumed to be alive, was no
longer in the field. He was not unduly surprised. The goldfish, he thought,
looked frustrated and the budgerigar distinctly put upon. Neither, however,
was in the fortunate position of being able to follow Mr. Moss over the hill.
"Was it a shock," asked Digby Driver (who had prudently left his notebook, as
possibly having a somewhat inhibiting effect, in his overcoat pocket), "when
you realized that this dog which had broken out of the Law-son Park Research
Station was the very one that you'd sold them?"
"Well," replied Mrs. Moss, with an apparent spontaneity that somehow contrived
despite itself to seem
(320)
; disingenuous and cunning, "we can't be sure of that, actually, can we? I
don't believe it is the same dog, and to be perfectly frank, Mr. Driver, I
think you're wasting your time here. If my brother were to get any idea—"
"There's virtually no doubt about it, Mrs. Moss, be-Keve me. You see—"
"Why don't you ask the Research Station?" interjected Mrs. Moss somewhat
sharply. "They'd be able to tell you for certain, surely? I don't want to be
drawn in—*'
"I have," replied Digby Driver untruthfully. "But you'll know—that is, you'll
know if you read the Orator—that the station aren't saying any more than they
can possibly help. They're not acting in the public interest by persist-ing in
this uncooperative silence, but nevertheless that seems to be—"
"I don't wish to discuss it either," rejoined Annie rMossity. "I hope you'll
soon come to feel sure, as I do, .that it's nothing to do with me and that
it's not my ; brother's dog."
"Well," said Digby Driver, smiling pleasantly, "well, all right, Mrs. Moss,
let's not trouble our minds about that aspect of the matter at alb I'm not
asking you to say yea or nay to that. Let's agree that we don't know for

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Page No 162

certain whether or not the dog you sold to Lawson Park has become one of the
Plague Dogs—"
-'   "However many are there, for heaven's sake?" asked
tfae lady. ,     "Only two, but that's definitely two too many, you
know. But as I say, let's leave all that on one side. We'll
j agree that it's not your job or mine to know that, al-
;though you can be sure that it'll be established one way
f.W the other quite soon. Can you help me by telling me
f something about your poor brother and his dog? His
death must have been a terrible shock and grief to you,
wasn't it?"
As he uttered these last words there passed across
'Annie Mossity's face a sudden, swiftly suppressed look of
incredulity, followed immediately by one of relief. She
hesitated before replying and appeared to be pondering.
Then, with an air of decision, she said, "It was a dreadful
- (321)
blow; and a dreadful loss. Oh, Mr. Driver, if you don't mind, I can't bear to
speak of it—"
"No, no, of course not. Forgive me," said Driver hastily. In the normal way he
rather welcomed the tears of the bereaved, since they usually led to freer and
more indiscreet speech, and often reduced the interviewee to a defenceless and
malleable state. However, this was not what he was after just now. What he
wanted was specific information.
"Just tell me a little more about the dog," he said. "Have you a photograph of
it, by any chance?"
"No, I certainly haven't," replied Mrs. Moss. "To be perfectly honest, I was
only too glad to get rid of it."
"Ah, that's interesting," said Driver. "Why was that? Was it simply because it
had been the cause of the fatal accident to your brother, or was there
something else?"
"Well—er—"
Annie Mossity cannot be said to have been unconscious, in the psychological
sense—though they were certainly not present to her mind at this moment—of the
fur-lined boots and gloves which she had bought with the money that Animal
Research had paid her for Snitter. Thanks, however, to inveterate vanity and
to a long-established capacity for self-deception, she was almost completely
unconscious of her own jealousy of her brother's affection for the dog, and
totally unconscious of her resentment of all that it represented—her brother's
happy, untidy bachelor life and domestic contentment, his not always very
well-concealed contempt for her empty-minded, genteel ways and lack of any
real desire or need either for her interference in his home or for her nagging
insistence that he ought to get married. Snitter, like Alan himself, had
tolerated her, teased her and conceivably even committed, insofar as a dog
can, the unforgivable sin of pitying her. But since neither dog nor master
were present, all this could be unthinkingly transmuted in her mind.
"Well—er—you see, the dog—it was, well, it was—"
"What was its name?" interrupted Digby Driver.
"My brother used to call it 'Snitter.' As I was saying, it was undisciplined
and aggressive. It was its undis-
(322)
ciplined ways that brought about the accident to my poor brother, you know—"
"It was habitually aggressive, was it? Were you afraid of it? Did it ever
attack you?"
"Wel—er—no, not to say attack, really, no. But it had a very nasty nature,
really, Mr. Driver, if you know what I mean. It was—well, untidy, really, and
destructive in its ways. After the accident there was no one to take it. I

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Page No 163

couldn't take it, not here; and you see, with my poor brother gone—"
"Did it ever attack other animals?"
"Oh, yes, with cats it was very bad. Very bad indeed. It used to bark at them
and chase them."
"So when it made its recent day boo as a sheep-killer, it didn't come as a
surprise to you?"
"Well, I suppose it didn't, really, no, not really, when you come to think
about it, no." She considered for a moment and then said, "Not really."
"So you think that perhaps after all it may be one of the sheep-killing dogs?"
"Well—er—" Annie Mossity perceived that Mr. Driver had led her where she had
not intended to go. "Well, I'm only saying it might be."
"Quite so. But it wasn't a particularly large dog, was it? Do you think it
would really be able to kill a sheep?"
"Well, I mean, it was a fox terrier, it could kill a fox, couldn't it, and
sheep, I mean, they're timid creatures, aren't they, really, and if it was
that hungry—oh, it didn't care what it did, Mr. Driver! I saw it one day in
the rhododendrons round at my brother's, and it had got hold of some horrible—
well, I wouldn't like to say, but full of—full of, ugh, you know—"
(As long as she hated the dog and isn't going to deny anything we want to say
about its evil and aggressive nature, thought Driver, that's all I need.
There's one thing, though, that might be raised by some third party if they
were so minded. I'd better make sure that that's out of the way and then I can
get the hell out of here and send some local chap round to get a picture this
eve-. ning.)
"—and dragging that nasty, smelly blanket out of its
(323)
basket, Mr. Driver, all round the floor—well, realty—I was glad to see it
thrown away—"
"Mrs. Moss, I'm just wondering—I'm sure you can tell me—what gave you the idea
of selling the dog to the Research Station? After your poor brother's death,
you had a great deal to do, I'm sure. Why go to that extra trouble? I mean,
why not just have the dog put down?"
"Mr. Driver," said Annie Mossity, with the swift flux of defensive aggression
that had caused her employer to learn better than to try to criticize her,
however gently, for anything at all—it was easier to bear her incompetence in
silence—"I hope you're not implying that I would want to cause the dog to
suffer in any way. If so, I'm bound to tell you—"
"Certainly not," replied Digby Driver smoothly, "far from it. On the contrary,
Mrs. Moss, I was wondering where you got hold of such a sensible, useful
idea."
"Why, it was my brother-in-law—my sister's husband," replied Annie Mossity,
warming under the facile flattery. "He's a vet up Newcastle way, you know. I'd
mentioned to him that I couldn't do with the dog at all and meant to have it
put down, and a day or two later he told me that the gentlemen at Lawson Park
had circulated a request to several vets in his neighborhood that they wanted
to obtain a full-grown, domesticated dog for a particular experiment. It had
to be an adult, domesticated dog, he said. He assured me that it wouldn't
suffer and explained how important it was in the public interest that these
scientific needs should be met—"
(So you sold your dead brother's dog to the experimenters, did you, you mean,
avaricious cow, for what you could get? I wonder if you stopped to think
whether that was likely to be in accordance with his wishes?)
"So it was a case of yielding to pressure, really, wasn't it, Mrs. Moss? In
effect, they asked you on bended knee and you obliged them?" (And I'll bet you
beat 'em up to more than they were offering in the first place.) "We all have
to consider the public interest, and it was really kinder than having the dog
put down, wasn't it? I mean, you saved its life, really." (If she'll swallow

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Page No 164

that she'll swallow anything.)
(324)
"Oh, yes, I suppose I did, really, because you see, well, ; I mean, I couldn't
really do with a dog with that aggres-;. sive nature, you see, but it was
kinder really than having
it put down, I mean—"
; "Yes, of course. Precisely. Well, now, I'd like to do ; an article on you
and the dog, if you don't mind" (or if . you do mind, you blue-haired faggot)
"and perhaps if I :j could send a colleague round for a picture this evening—
" 'you know, you in your charming home—"
: It was deady cold out of doors and the light fading. Mr.
Powell, who had a sore throat and also, he suspected, a
.   temperature, stood shivering in the draught and won-
fc dered yet again why Dr. Boycott did not shut the window.
* In point of fact Dr. Boycott—who, whenever he had to take one of his
subordinates to task, always felt a little more tense and averse than he would
have cared for them to know—was not conscious either of the draught or of I
Mr. Powell's discomfort. He had already decided that in ' the light of what he
had to say it would not be appropriate to ask Mr. Powell to sit down; but on
the other hand he did not feel up to remaining seated himself while re-i
quiring Mr. Powell to stand. In view of their normal work-1 ing relationship,
that would be overdoing things and what '";_ he had to say would only misfire,
leaving upon Mr. ,; Powell the dominant impression that his boss had tried |
to come it too heavy: and on that account Mr. Powell .flTTOuld not feel small.
Detachment would be a more effec-I tive ploy.
*' Accordingly, having sent for Mr. Powell, he had al-£.: lowed him, upon
entering, to find his superior standing
: beside the wallboard opposite his desk and apparently i examining the
progress graphs and other information vvpinned thereon. He continued in this
occupation while C talking to Mr. Powell, who stood uneasily nearby, un-; sure
(as intended) whether he was expected to show an ./interest in the graphs,
from which Dr. Boycott did not,
: to begin with, deflect his eyes. In the pauses of their con-
*:versation, the east wind could be heard moaning round |;the corners of the
buildings, and outside, something
;F- (325)
tapped and tapped constantly against a drainpipe, with a flat resonance like
that of a cracked bell. 4
"The Director's seen Goodner," said Dr. Boycott absently, running his finger
down some figures relating to Ministry of Defence research establishments'
experiments on living animals. "I wasn't there myself, of course."
"Doe, of course dot," replied Mr. Powell, snuffling and blowing his nose into
his last dry handkerchief.
"131,994 experiments last year," muttered Dr. Boycott parenthetically. "Call
it 132,000. But Goodner was positive that he'd said nothing to anyone."
"Oh."
"That represents—er—let's see—thirteen per cent of the total number of
experiments performed by or on behalf of Government departments and related
bodies," went on Dr. Boycott, in a fast, preoccupied mutter. Then, raising the
volume a shade, "I had a word with Tyson myself and he was equally positive."
(Tyson had, in fact, been provoked by Dr. Boycott's questions into broadest
Lancashire, accounting for himself with a flow of vowels and consonants as
obscure in vocabulary but plain in meaning as the barking of a dog.)
"Well, doe wud's had eddythig out of be, chief, I assure you," said Mr.
Powell, clutching his sopping handkerchief and weighing the respective merits
of sniffling without it or attempting another blow.
"The Illinois experiments—I know I had the file somewhere, only yesterday,"

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Page No 165

said Dr. Boycott. "Never mind— d'you recall the figures off-hand—just roughly,
of course?"
"I doe the reference," said Mr. Powell. "Radiation Research, 1968. Sixty-wud
beagles were radiated with Cobalt 60 gamma and half of them died within three
weeks. Dasty symptoms they had. Their stomachs—"
"Oh, well, Susan'11 dig it out for me. Except for that chap who gave you a
lift back from Ulpha that morning?"
"Yes, I told you about that, you'll recall."
"Would you know him if you saw him again?" asked Dr. Boycott.
"Yeah, I reckon I would. Why?"
"Is that him?" Dr. Boycott jerked his head towards a small newspaper
photograph, shorn of explanatory print,
(326)
J which was lying exposed on his desk. Mr. Powell went
 across and looked at it.
"Why, yes, that is the chap," he answered immediately.
"Where did that come from, thed?" ,      "It came from yesterday's London
Orator," said Dr. /Boycott expressionlessly. "That's their reporter Driver,
who's covering this business of the dogs. He wrote the
 bubonic plague article, you know." L    Mr. Powell ran this through his
aching head while the mucus finally blocked both nostrils entirely.
"If there's eddy suggestiod—" he began. He stopped. *'I think—could I see the
Director myself?"
"You could" replied Dr. Boycott, "but I think you'd I be ill advised—I mean,
to go in there and make some-| thing out of it before he's decided whether to
take it any further himself. Qui s'excuse s'accuse, you know." ;     Mr.
Powell didn't know.
i1 "Besides, you're not established yet, are you?" said :FDr. Boycott. "I
think, in view of that, you'd do better to ; sit tight and see whether it
blows over, even now." '& "Well, it all depeds what he thinks, doesn't it? If
he | thinks that I've—God dabbit, I hardly dew Goodner was f doig plague at
all, so how could I—"
*     "Well, I know what he'll think if you go in to see him
* with that cold on you," said Dr. Boycott. "One hundred feand twenty-nine
sheep last year—tests on wounds caused fjby—er—high-velocity bullets. The
Director's got an ab-J;solute obsession about cold and infection. Anyway, he ¥
can't see you now. He can't see anyone. He's drafting a f personal letter to
the Secretary of State. But you're obvi-V "ously not well. You ought to be at
home. Yes, go home, ^Stephen—go home and drink hot whisky in bed. Ring up ^ on
Monday morning if you're not feeling better. Er—one and thirty-five goats, let
me see—jagged shrap-
&    "Thanks. But where are we at with this lot dow thed, ^chief?"
'I    "Hard to say, really," replied Dr. Boycott. "Ministers are bothering
themselves,   apparently.  Someone's  here j|?now from the Department, come to
see the Director and a look round. Damned snoopers—I should have (327)
thought a written report from us would have been enough for any reasonable
person. It's all rubbish, anyway. I'll give you a five-pound note for every
case of plague confirmed from Land's End to John O'Groats. And that includes
Bedfordshire. Go there, Stephen, now. Hot whisky."
As Mr. Powell reached the door he added, "Before you go, make sure someone
else takes over that monkey in the cylinder. The Director attaches importance
to that experiment. We mustn't have anything go wrong with it after all this
time. How long has it done now?"
"Thirty-five days," answered Mr. Powell. "Five weeks. I wonder whether it
feels worse than I do?"
"My feet are colder than the whitecoats' glass table," said Snitter. "I wish I
had my dear old blanket here. Wonder what happened to it? It used to smell so

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Page No 166

nice. I bet Annie threw it away."
Rowf, half-asleep, rolled over on the stones, drew in a long, snuffling breath
and released it in a steamy cloud.
"Rowf, you did promise we wouldn't stay here another night, didn't you? I
couldn't face—you know—even wondering whether—whether it might come back. If I
only heard it out there, I believe I'd—"
"We'll get out before dark, don't worry. Where to, though?"
"I don't mind where. Just not here." Snitter sat up and looked out into the
bitter, louring afternoon. "Funny—I was going to say I believed I'd go mad.
But of course, I forgot, I am mad, so—"
"That's why you saw it. It was one of your bad turns. If I'd been there you
wouldn't have seen anything at all."
"I dare say not, but it was there, all the same. I didn't imagine it. Oh,
let's not talk about it any more, Rowf. My feet feel like stones in the water.
It's turned much colder. Does it seem to you as though we were under some sort
of surface—you know, down in some deep place, like a lake?"
"No, it certainly doesn't. And let me tell you, I've been down at the bottom
of—"
"I didn't mean that. Don't get angry, Rowf. But why is the sky so heavy and
sort of pressing down? And there's
(328)
a funny smell, too—a kind of clean, light smell. Or is it something I'm
imagining again?"
Rowf sat up suddenly, sniffed the air, ran a few yards outside and then
tensed, nose turned to the slight but rising wind.
"Snitter, come out here, quick! What on earth is it?"
Snitter, following him into the open, raised his muzzle also towards the low,
thick clouds. Both dogs stood silent, gazing westwards at the flat summit of
Raise outlined against the bleak winter light. As far as eye could see, a vast
flurry filled the horizon; a silent, regular commotion that flickered, darkly
speckled, through the space between earth and clouds. As it came moving onward
towards the place where they were standing, Snitter began to whine and almost
turned tail. But in the same moment it was down upon them, swift as swallows
on an evening lake, feathers and ice-pins, pricking and tingling minutely in
eyes, ears and open skull, innumerable, momentary sharpnesses of cold on lips
and moist noses, all the fell from sky to sky blotted out under a steady,
whirling drift of melting particles, smaller than leaves, larger than dust or
sand.
"They're flies, Rowf! They must be—white flies! But no sound, no smell, like
the—the ghost dog! Oh Rowf, don't let them get me! Don't let them—"
"Come on, Snitter, come back inside! Be sensible! Whatever they are, they're
not flies. Look at the ground —they disappear the moment they touch it."
"No, they don't—they turn into water. Look at your nose—no, well, look at
mine, then."
They watched as the crevices between the stones began slowly to fill with
frail, dully glinting, crystalline fragments that crumbled, renewed
themselves, crumbled again and grew, clinging together and gradually forming
piles light as cat's fur caught on garden bushes. At last Snitter said, "Why
d'you suppose they've done it?"
"To try and kill us, I suppose. We know now that for some reason or other
they're afraid to come near us, don't we? So they must mean to make it too
cold for us to stay alive."
"But it's not as cold as that. At least, it wouldn't be if
(329)
Raise
only we had food. Anyway, Rowf, it'll be dark soon. Let's go away now—
anywhere—please. I can't help being dreadfully afraid. You would be too, if

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you'd—if you'd seen—there's a garden in my ear, you know," said Snitter,
(330)
once more going outside. "Some of this stuffs falling on it. All the bushes
are white."
Twenty minutes later, plodding in the direction of the pallid sunset still
faintly visible through the drift, they crossed the north shoulder of Raise
above Sticks Pass and looked down at the innumerable, scudding flakes
disappearing as they fell upon the dark sheet of Thirlmere.
"Where are we, Rowf?"
"I don't know about you, but I'm a good throat's length away from my stomach."
"I wish the tod were here. He'd know what to do."
"The tod—it's all my fault. I'm sorry, Snitter."
"Never mind, old Rowf. It can't be helped now. Oh, Rowf! Oh, my dam! Look—
look! Thafs why they've done it! Oh, they're clever, aren't they? If they're
so clever, why can't they just come and kill us and be done with it?"
Behind them, up the slope of the shoulder they had climbed, their tracks
showed clearly, black paw-marks impressed on the lightly covered, white
ground; two lines stretching back and down until they were lost in the
blotted-out waste of Stang.
"Everywhere we go!" breathed Snitter. "They can see where we've been and
everywhere we go!"
"No, they can't," said Rowf after a few moments' thought. "They've been too
clever this time. Don't you see, as long as this stuff goes on falling, it
blots out the marks we make in it?"
"But when it's finished falling? They're just not ready for us yet, that's
all."
"I know a trick worth two of that. The tod's got nothing on me. We're not beat
yet, Snitter. It doesn't lie in the becks—look. The water melts it. So down
that beck we go, come on. There you are—not a print to be seen. Are you all
right?"
"My feet are cold," gasped Snitter, splashing and shivering.
House  of  Commons, Westminster, swl. Dear Basil,
It was a great pleasure for Cecily and I [Sic, thought the (331)
Under Secretary, reading] to see Molly and yourself once again at the
Guildhall dinner last week, and I trust that it may not be long before your
many engagements permit you to pay the visit to my constituency of which we"
spoke in general terms on that occasion. I think there are quite a few
floating votes which might well be picked up by a judicious appearance on your
part in key places, when you can spare the time.
As you will, of course, be aware, a good deal of uneasiness is felt throughout
this constituency area at the moment on account of the trouble given rise to
by the dogs which have escaped from Lawson Park. I know that Bill Harbottle
and yourself take the view that dogs can't carry bubonic plague, but if I may
say so, it is one thing to affirm from Westminster and quite another to
persuade constituents—some of whom are not scientifically minded—after they
have had the full benefit of the kind of stuff which the London Orator has
been disseminating lately. I'm afraid I need convincing that there are no firm
grounds for anxiety. Shouldn't things be put right sooner rather than later?
In my view, reassurance needs to be accompanied by action!
Sorry to bother you on top of all your other preoccupations, but I would
welcome a line to say what advice I should give my constituents. Perhaps we
might profitably have a word in the House at some convenient moment?
Ever yours, Jack
Immediate. Private Secretary's Office. For Advice, Please, and Draft Reply as
soon as possible.
"Oh, bother!" said the Under Secretary, wrinkling his nose and staring at the
red slip stapled across the green folder. "I suppose Michael has departed for

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Page No 168

Lawson Park, has he?"
"Oh, yes, he's been gone some time. I phoned to make sure," answered his
personal assistant, raising one hand to pat her hair as she cleared the OUT
tray with the other.
"Well, I suppose we'll just have to ,do it ourselves," said the Under
Secretary. "No time like the present. Could you take dictation, please, Jean—
one plus—er—two, draft, double-space? Er—h'm—yes—'I am replying at once to
your letter of 18th November, in which you speak
(332)
Vof local anxiety caused by the recent escape of two dogs
^ from the Animal Research Station at Lawson Park.
" 'While I fully understand and sympathize with your very natural feelings in
this matter, I should, I think, make
.... it clear that the Secretary of State is strongly of the view : that this,
which is essentially a local problem, should re-
,; main one for tackling, at all events in the first place, by
r, the local authorities concerned. The Medical Officers of Health in the area
(whose Association are in full agreement with my Chief Medical Officer as to
the extreme unlikelihood of these dogs being able to carry bubonic
% plague) will no doubt wish to take immediate steps to allay local anxiety—'
"
¥      Two starlings alighted outside, strutted, tussled and let their liquid
siftings fall to stain the Under Secretary's
A stiff, dishonoured window-sill.
Saturday the 20th November
I PLAGUE DOG "DANGEROUS BRUTE"
i-
> Former Master's Sifter Tells Why I:.                              She
Sold It to Research Station tf>'-Office executive Mrs. Aon Moss, of Dalton-in-
Furness, got a shock <f\yesterday. The reason? She learned that "Snifter," the
fox terrier *' formerly belonging to her solicitor brother before his tragic
death '". fn a traffic accident, was none other than one of the escapees
from "Animal  Research  (Scientific  and  Experimental),  Lawson  Park,
Cumberland, better known to millions as the "Plague Dogs." The 7  two dogs,
which are widely believed to be infected with bubonic :," plague contracted in
the course of their nocturnal escape, have fanugurated a reign of terror
throughout the Lakeland, indlscrimi-r aately killing sheep, ducks and hens and
terrifying farmers and their wives by their ruthless attacks on lonely
homesteads.
Not to Blame
"I cant really think myself to blame," said handsome, dignified Mrs. Moss,
interviewed yesterday at her Dalton-in-Furness home.
(333)
"The dog had always been dangerous—wild and hard to control— given to
attacking cats and making trouble for my brother and myself. It was really
only kept on because my brother b*d such a kind heart and couldn't face the
idea of getting rid df it After the accident—which was actually brought about
by the dog itself, but I can't bear to talk about mat—I was left with me
responsibility of dealing with my poor brother's things and had to do as I
nought best Naturally, I couldn't be expected to take such a dog into my own
home. I was going to have ft put down, bnt when my sister's husband, who is a
vet, told me that Animal Research were seeking an adult, domesticated dog for
experimental purposes, that seemed better for everyone concerned, including
the dog. Of course, I never had any notion mat my well-meant Idea would have
sucb terrible results, or that the Research Station would allow it to escape.
I really think they ought to have taken more care."
Capable of Savagery

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Mrs. Moss left me in no doubt that "Snifter" is a dog capable of savagery and
one that—
"Oh, hell!" said Digby Driver, putting out his cigarette with a hiss in the
slopped saucer of his teacup. "All this is beginning to smell of day jar voo.
What we need now is something new—pep the whole thing up to a higher level. A
photograph of the dogs in action—some indiscretion by the people at Lawson
Park—an official statement by a Minister; not that I could cover that from
here—but some bloody thing or other we need, to get a fresh driving force
behind the story. Undiagnosed illness somewhere round about? No, that's no
good—only fall flat when it's proved not to be plague—as of course it would
be. Hell's bells, let me think, let me think—"
"I can't tell, Rowf. It's puzzling, and I'm afraid I'm not making much sense
after wandering about all night in this cold. But perhaps the people in the
cars aren't looking for us after all. They all go by at such a rate. If they
were after us they wouldn't have far to look, would they?"
"Damn them, they all look as fat as castrated Labra-dors. Why can't one of
them stop and give, us some food?"
"I'm starving, Rowf. I'm perished with this cold. It's
(334)
a long time since sunrise now, but it doesn't -=eem to get any warmer. Can you
feel your paws?"
"Don't be silly. They must have dropped off hours ago."
"Rowf, let's find a house, or a farm or something and give ourselves up.
Licking men's hands would be better than licking this cold stuff off our paws.
They might feed us before they took us back to the whitecoats, you never know.
Otherwise we'll die out here for sure."
Rowf threw back his head and barked at the close, muffling sky. The snow,
which had ceased during the night, had been falling steadily again for the
past hour, and in the swirling confusion neither dog could make out either the
hills whence they had come or what lay beyond the main road, where the cars
and lorries went whang-whanging past behind the dismal sheen of their lights
in the gloom.
"Rowf-rowf! Rowf-rowf! Go on, pour down the lot and bury us underneath it,
blast you! I don't care! You're not as cruel or contemptible as the whitecoats
who used to put me in the tank! They were supposed to be masters —you're not!
I'm just a dog, starving to death, but I'm still better than you, whatever you
are! You're licking the whitecoats' hands. Aren't you ashamed? Miles of bitter
sky and freezing cold powder against a couple of starving dogs! Rowf-rowf!
Rowf-rowf!"
"Rowf, even a whitecoat indoors would be better than this cold stuff out of
doors. If only I had my head in a decent kennel, it'd be a lot less mad than
it is now."
"I shan't say any more. I never barked when they drowned me: I knew my duty
all right. I can die out here as well as ever I did in there."
"I say, Rowf, there's a car stopping! Look, it's pulled in to the side, just
up there. Can you see?"
"Don't care. Let it."
"D'you think they're looking for us?"
"If they're looking for me they'll find a lot of teeth."
"There's a woman getting out. She looks a bit like Annie Mossity, in that fur
coat. It isn't Annie, though. Oh, look, Rowf, she's gone up behind that rock
to pee! I always wondered how they did it. Look at the steam! It seems rather
a funny bit of ground to want to lay claim
(335)
to—still, I suppose she knows what she wants. What's the man doing? He's got
out, too. He's looking at the lights or something on the car. Oh, Rowf, can
you smell the meat? Meat, Rowf, meat! There's meat in that car!"

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"Snitter, come back!"
"I'll be shot if I come back! Look, you can see into the back of the car!
That's a shopping basket. My master used to have one. It's full of things to
eat—they always wrap them up in paper like that. Wherever there's men there's
paper—and food!"
Rowf caught up with him. "Snitter, stop! They'll only hurt you or shut you up
again, like they did in that shed."
"They won't! I'm desperate, I'm mad, I'm dangerous— remember me? They throw
chickens after me to get rid of me faster! I'm bold untold in the great white
cold, I'm the dread with the head, the nit with the split! Here I go, who
dares say no!"
Capering, ears erect, staring white-eyed, rolling head over heels, wagging a
frothing muzzle, curling his upper lip until the black gums showed above his
teeth, Snitter, out of the thickened gloom, came mopping and mowing down upon
the car. In the sight of the driver (a young man named Geoffrey Westcott),
starting in surprise and peering quickly round with vision half-dazzled from
his examination of the alignment of the headlight beams, his eyes were two
full moons, he had a thousand noses, horns whelked and waved like the enridged
sea. Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar, and the creature run from
the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of Snitter. So did Mr.
Westcott. With a spasm of horror he recognized the features of which he had
read in thd paper —the green plastic collar, the split head, the air of gaunt,
crazy savagery. Even as he cried out and ran, Snitter leapt into the car,
jumped over the back of the driving seat and, slavering, began to drag the
soft, squashy, meat-reeking parcels out of the wicker basket on the back seat.
Rowf, up beside him in a moment, gripped a joint of mutton in his jaws and
sprang with it out of the car door. As they gulped and chewed, the snow grew
dappled red with blood, brown with fragments of sausage, chocolate and kidney,
(336)
it-yellow with butter and biscuit-crumbs. Plastic wrappers fG>and shreds of
paper blew away on the wind. !r.    "Look out, Snitter, the man's coming
back!" a;     "I don't care. Tell him I want a blanket as well! A rifarfoud
would do—ashes, hay, newspapers tell him—" ||;,  "Snitter, he's got a gun!
That's a gun!" If    Snitter looked up quickly. "No, it isn't. I've seen those
fiat, black boxes before. Lots of men have them. My master had one. They just
make little snicking noises, that's
ill."
"But he's pointing it at usf"
"I know. I tell you, they do that. You needn't worry: it's not a gun. There—
did you hear that little click? That's all they do. Anyway, that's the lot
now, except for what's left of this great lump of meat here. You licked up the
I eggs off the back seat, didn't you?" §    "Of course I did. What d'you take
me for? Better than the tod's eggs, those were. You grab that soft stuff and
I'll carry this great bone here. Come on!"
They vanished into the whirling desolation as Mr. |Westcott supported his
sobbing, trembling lady passenger ' back towards the road. It had indeed been
a terrible experience, and Mrs. Green might very well have wet her knickers if
she had had anything left to wet them with. The driving door was swinging ajar
and the back seat looked like a field of war and if it was not Mungojerrie and
Rumpelteazer, that redoubtable pair would certainly not have been ashamed of
the job. Shocked and dazed, but nevertheless deeply thankful at least to have
escaped contact and infection, the two of them left the deadly, contaminated
vehicle where it stood and set out to walk the four miles to Keswick through
the snow.
Five minutes later Snitter reappeared, followed by the ^reluctant Rowf, and
set to work to finish off the scraps.
"I'm not leaving anything, I tell you!"

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Page No 171

"It's not safe, Snitter! They'll come back, or another 'car will stop."
"I don't care! I shall have eaten the lot, and nothing can alter that."
"Come on! Don't overdo it! There's a man coming!" (337)
"I'll sing him a song!

"O I'm a bold dog with a skull like a drain,   ' (Sing chompety, chumpety,
piddle-de-dee!)
I'm horribly wild and completely insane,
(Sing wiggety waggety, hark at him braggety, Mumble a bone on the lea!)"
Nevertheless when, a minute later, the police Jaguar drew up to see why an
empty car, with headlights on and driving door wide open, was parked on the
hard shoulder, the only canine traces were two lines of paw-marks disappearing
into the mirk.
The telephone rang. Digby Driver picked it up.
"Driver Orator."
"Is that Mr. Digby Driver himself speaking?"
"It is indeed. Who might I—"
"Mr. Driver, you don't know me, but my name's West-cott, Geoffrey Westcott,
and I believe I've got something of considerable interest both to tell and to
show you. My landlady and I were attacked and robbed this morning by your
Plague Dogs. They drove us off and then ransacked my car,"
"Christ Almighty! Where?"
"It was during a snowstorm, near Smaithwaite Bridge, a little north of
Thirlmere. We'd stopped the car and got out for a minute, when the dogs just
appeared and fell on it."
"But you say ransacked and robbed? What of, for God's sake?"
"All my landlady's shopping, out of the back of the car. Everything that was
edible, that is. They ate the lot."
"You sure it was the Plague Dogs?"
"I'm as good as certain, Mr. Driver. But more than that, I've got several
photographs of them, taken from about twenty-five to thirty yards' distance.
Would you be interested in acquiring those for your paper?"
"I'd like to meet you right away. Where are you?"
Mr. Westcott gave an address in Windermere.
(338)
"I'm on my way," said Digby Driver, and slammed down the receiver.
Vaguely aware of the two glimmering squares of the case-; merits opposite and
of the wash-basin between and below them—its waste-pipe an elephant's grey
trunk curving downward into the floor—Mr. Powell staggered on through the
snow, shivering with fever and tormented with a sick headache that never left
him. Sometimes he clutched a drift of cotton snow about him for warmth. Anon,
he flung it aside as he clambered, sweating with the effort, out of the piled
heap of snow into which he had fallen and become engulfed to the neck.
He was at Stalingrad, lost, out of touch with his unit and as a last hope of
making his way back to 6th Army headquarters. The enemy were shaggy, black
dogs, armed with casks of hot whisky slung round their necks, the terrible
effect of which was to intensify headache and induce nausea and vomiting. They
could be seen everywhere . —dark shapes scudding down from the bitter hills
to cut ' communications on the roads, or skulking in the balance-: cupboards
behind isolated cylinders, to ambush any fugitive who might try to seek
shelter. All organized resistance had broken down and the stragglers were
wandering to the rear in desperate search of relief. But there was no relief
for Mr. Powell.
'[.     "The tanks!" muttered Mr. Powell, tossing from side ' to side. "Too
many tanks—too many dogs in tanks!"
As he spoke he came in sight at last of headquarters, a s huge, grey ruin
standing alone in an expanse of white snow. ; He floundered towards it,

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scratching, through his sweat-'jf Sodden pyjamas, at his unwashed, itching
body, and as he jr came closer saw that it was, or had once been, a cathedral.
 ' Struggling, he turned the heavy, iron ring of the door and I stumbled
inside.
;     At first he could perceive nothing, but then, raising his
^..eyes to the source of the dim light, he saw, with a sense of
fe recognition and relief,  the rabbits—row upon row of
them—gazing gravely down from the hammer beams and
the lamp-lit reredos. Even here it was very cold and
(339)
throughout the building there was not a sound save that of his own coughing,
which echoed in the nave. 
"Help me!" cried Mr. Powell to the ranks of silent heads.
They gave no sign of having heard him and he fell on his knees.
"Help me! I'm ill! Can't you see me?"
"We can't see you," said a rabbit. "We can't see anyone. We're drafting a
personal letter to the Secretary of State."
"I've brought you some tea," said a dog with a slung tommy gun, entering the
nave from behind him. "How are you feeling?"
Mr. Powell sat up, coughed, spat yellow into his handkerchief and looked
confusedly round the cold, darkening room.
"Oh, fine. I'll be all right a bit later, love," he replied. "Sorry—I had a
lousy dream—not too good at all. Must be tune to draw the curtains, isn't it?
Tell Stephanie she's a sweetie, won't you, and I'll try to be fit enough to
read her some more about Dr. Dolittle tomorrow? I must aim to get back to work
by Tuesday, I really must."
FIT 9
(340)
Sunday the 21st November
(From the Sunday Orator)
AT LAST!
THESE ARE THE PLAGUE DOGS! ;: ASTONISHING PHOTOGRAPHS BY BELEAGUERED MOTORIST
Wlndennere bank executive Geoffrey Westcott and his landlady, 1 Mrs. Rose
Green, returning home by car through snow which for past twenty-four hours has
held Lakeland In its Icy grip, got terrifying shock yesterday. The reason? You
can see it here, for ilankman Geoffrey possesses not only courage and presence
of but a camera In whose use he is expert, for which the public re much cause
to be grateful to him.
"You could have knocked me down with a feather," said Geof-depicted here
recovering yesterday from his ordeal at his tollable flat in Mrs. Green's
Windermere home, where he is lodger. "I'd driven Mrs. Green over to Keswkk to
do some ping and pay a visit to a friend, and on the way back we'd got out of
the car for a moment, about five miles north of lil Raise, when all of a
sudden I saw these mad dogs—and Ps what they were, make no mistake—rushing
down on us. were two of them, bom as wild and ferocious as wolves on Russian
steppes. I don't know if plague sends its victims mad, I wouldn't be surprised
to team that it does—not after what (341)
I've seen. They tore every scrap of Mrs. Green's shopping out of the car—meat,
butter, biscuits, the lot—and ate It in about three minutes flat In fact, they
were so busy that I risked getting close enough to take some photographs. The
car? Ob, it just about breaks my heart—my super-tuned Volvo sports—but PU just
have to write it off. I could never bring myself to risk sitting in it again,
whatever tests the local authority may carry out and whatever assurances they
may see fit to give me. I mean, you never know, do you—bubonic plague?"
Time for Action
You never know—that shrewd comment of bankman Geoffrey, ace amateur cameraman
and sports car driver, might well go for many other people in England today.

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You never know—where these dangerous brutes—themselves insane from the
terrible disease they are carrying—may attack next: what harm they may do; and
uho may be their victims. SEE these ghastly photographs of wild beasts at
large—supplied exclusively to the Orator by Intrepid Geoffrey Westcott HEAR
what the Orator has to say about the danger to our fair land and its people.
SMELL the stink of evasion and bureaucratic We-Know-Best which is still
drifting, all-pervasive, from Lawson Park to Whitehall and back. Suppose j-our
child were to TOUCH one of these dogs? No danger of that, you say? But how can
you be sure? And others may well be less fortunate. The TASTE of danger is all
abroad in Lakeland, and where its deadly flavour may next seep—
"Yeah, well, all right," said Digby Driver, throwing down his copy of the
Sunday Orator with satisfaction. "And the photographs look first-rate. Lucky
the bigger dog's in front—it looks a lot fiercer than the little one. Tom's
touched out that cleft in the head quite a bit, too: good idea—some readers
might have started feeling sorry for it. O.K., let's get on the blower to old
Simp, the agony king."
Digby Driver made his way to the hotel call-box and reversed the charges to
the Orator.
"Desmond? Yeah. Yeah, I've seen it. Glad you're pleased. Oh, fine, thanks.
What now? Well, I thought Westcott might be good for a bit more, properly
shoved and guided from behind, you know. What? Yeah, he's stimulatable all
right. Sure. A yibbedy yobbedy, out to be
(342)
|ck)bberdy, up in the courts young man. What? Patience, sDesmond. No, I said
Patience. No, not patience, Patience. ? Oh, skip it! Oh, you don't think he'll
do? You want it J stronger? Stronger than that? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I see— Ijprce
their hand, eh? But that's a bit of a tall order, isn't it? fWell, dammit all,
Desmond, I just got you the photo-": graphs, didn't I? O.K., O.K., never mind.
You say Sir Ivor
 wants a disaster? Something the Government can't duck ;: out of? Well, that
is a tall order, Desmond, but I'll do my
 level best. Yeah, that's about it—pray for something to f turn up. Never
know what the dogs themselves might get t .up to, of course, specially if this
snow goes on. Father for-f give them for they know not what they bloody do,
eh?
O.K. Desmond, do my best. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye." I Having rung off, Digby
Driver remained musing in the |call-box for fully half a minute, tapping his
front teeth gwith his pencil. At length he once more, and resolutely,
grasped the receiver.
"The time has come the walrus said," he remarked, and ^proceeded to put a call
through to Animal Research. "Lawson Park? Yes, that's right, duty officer, I
said.
ndon Orator here. Yes, of course I know it's Sunday. Look, can you give me
the home phone number of the young fellow I talked to at Broughton last week?
No, not Boycott, no, his name's—er—yeah, that's it, Powell, Stephen Powell.
What? You say he's sick? Oh, is he? Sick, ! What's he sick with? You don't
know? I see! And you iWon't give me his number? Right, thank you. Thank you
pery much. Good-bye."
What is the mysterious illness afflicting young research ientist Stephen
Powell?" muttered Digby Driver to him-' 'Animal Station Preserves Suspicious
Secrecy.' Well, 'ell play it for what it's worth, but it's not really what
ismond's after—not for a body-blow. It's got to be igger than that. What we
ought to be praying for is imething nasty, nasty—really nasty, oh yuck! Come
on, iver, get with it! But what, what, what?" Mr. Driver, smiting his forehead
with an open palm,
oceeded to seek inspiration in the bar.
don't think we shall ever be able to find the tod now,"

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Page No 174

(343)
said Snitter. "If I were a mouse I couldn't even run as far as the gully in
the floor."
He sat up, looking round uneasily at the sky. "I suppose the buzzards will
come,-but I hope we're properly dead first. Tug tug, munch munch, I say,
Beakrip, old chap, which d'you like best, Snitter or Rowf?"
"Shut up."
"Have you ever thought, though, Rowf, we shan't need food or even names when
we're dead? No names—like the tod—just the wind making those little whistling
noises along the ribs, like that yow's bones last night that had nothing left
on them. Nothing—not even maggots. That'll be us. Thank goodness we're out of
the wind here. It's enough to blow a cat over the hill into the tarn. Here I
come help miaow oh splash how did that happen?"
Rowf said nothing, licked Snitter's ear for a few moments and then let his
head fall back between his numbed paws.
"Rowf, do you—"
"I can still smell that stuff you said the whitecoats put into the hole in
your head."
"You weren't cut open. All the dogs who were cut open smelt of it. If you'd
been cut open you'd have it too and you wouldn't notice. Rowf, d'you really
think it's because of us that the dustbins had been taken indoors last night?"
"Probably. They're all afraid of us, aren't they?"
"So they all know—every one of them—about me killing people?"
A few moments later Rowf was asleep again—a light, wary sleep, in which
exhaustion barely turned the scale against hunger and the fighting animal's
fear of being surprised and killed without the chance of a struggle. Snitter
pressed himself deeper into the cleft between Rowfs shaggy coat and the base
of the crag and lay gazing out over the fell and the dark tarn below. The sun,
which had been shining from a clear sky during the early afternoon, was now
hidden behind a bank of clouds like an arctic sea. From height to height,
across the bitter waste, the snow lay austere and silent, knowing neither hate
nor pity for whatever creatures it would kill during the darkness of the
coming fourteen-hour night.
(344)
"I'm a whitecoat," murmured Snitter drowsily, looking down at the slate-
coloured surface of Levers Water, like an eye-socket in a skull, surrounded by
its white, still shores. "I need to find out how and in what way you two dogs
are going to die under this particular crag. You'll
have noticed that I smell very smooth and clean, which is just as it should
be: and that I cover everything up. You must understand that I'm not
insensitive to the situation of my charges. My experiments have taught me
great respect for all creatures. Your life certainly won't be wasted. Even
your bones will have a use—you should feel proud and interested. Let me
explain. There's a kind of buzzard that looks like a maggot—flying, of course—
"
A flock of gulls drifted into sight over the crag, sailing up into an aureate
beam, high and remote above the deepening twilight below. Not a wing moved as
they glided silently against the darkening blue, their out-stretched pinions
and white plumage tinged with gold as often as they circled towards the west.
"Whatever have I been dreaming about?" said Snitter.
."That mouse has been chattering nonsense in my head again. It's not
surprising, really—I feel quite light-headed. We've come such a long way since
the car yesterday morning, and not a mouthful, not even the lick of a dust-
, bin lid. We'll never be able to pull down a sheep again— never." He dozed
off once more, but started up almost immediately at the cry of a passing
buzzard. "No more wading down becks for me. I split my brains into that beck,
I.believe; anyway, I could feel them running down inside my head, so there you

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Page No 175

are." He looked upward. "Those
.birds—they're beautiful, soaring round up there. They look just like this
coid stuff the men have put down—
^silent and needing nothing. The birds lie on the sky and
'the white stuff lies on the ground. I used to lie on a rug, once. I wonder
where they come from? Perhaps we could get there, Rowf and I. Perhaps that's
where Kiff is. If we
>;don't find the tod—and we never shall, now—we'll starve [-all to pieces.
Well, we're starving now, come to that. Poor old Rowf—it's worse for him."
All day they had been hoping against hope to come upon tracks of the tod.
After the raid on the car the pre-
(345)
Saturday  as\<j 20iA &"d 2?
TO LEVERS   HAU5E
/, jKrffT"*1 HV J     .,
.--,. CHAT1; CRAC'm,
-w- .':"-.„ -..-"TV-- *%>-
hbltf>dl'~*ii Te"*
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looking    50UtK
Evious morning they had crossed the main road, rounded | the northern end of
Thirlmere and then wandered south-;.' westward, up the forested slopes of
Raven Crag, and so | by way of the moor south of High Seat, to the lonely
jliamlet of Watendlath beside its little tarn. Here, although f they had
waited for darkness and gone most stealthily £ about their business, they had
had no success and fled I away empty, with the barking of angry dogs behind
them. f. The sound of Digby Driver had gone out into all lands, v so that
here, as at many dwellings throughout the Lakes, I-even the dustbins had been
taken indoors. The ducks and f hens, naturally, were no less securely out of
harm's way. That they were both weaker and more exhausted than on that warmer
morning, more than seven days before, when Rowf had killed at dawn above Bull
Crag—pads sorer, courage and hope lower, energy much diminished and bodies
more quickly fatigued—these things they felt continually.   Later  that
night,   at  moonrise,   they  had 'searched the dismal, snowy fell, but found
not a single /sheep, save for a skeleton, long picked clean, lying among
sodden hanks of old wool. Giving up all hope of a kill, 'they went on
southward, crossing Greenup Gill among crumbles of snow and thin splinters of
ice which dissolved even as they dropped into the biting water. It was when
.they realized that they were once more near Bull Crag Ithat the thought of
the tod had returned to Rowf. Impelled lpartly, perhaps, by that abused but
still dog-like sense jfvOf loyalty and duty which had so often made him feel
^.ashamed of his flight from Lawson Park and the drowning-iank, he had begun
by blaming himself once more for the jarrel and then insisted that, somehow or
other, the tod be found and persuaded to rejoin them: it was pos-that he might
have returned, by himself, to the old ur. So they had set out, towards
moonset, to retrace the by which they had come from Caw and Brown Haw. |By
noon of the following day their hunger had become lidesperate. Above Levers
Water they had lain down to st and Snitter, in a kind of foolish, light-headed
gaiety privation, had spent the afternoon chattering about janything that came
into his head, while Rowf slept and "shivered in the lee of a tall crag.
(347)
"Shell we be ghosts, Rowf, d'you think?" asked Snitter, wriggling like a
puppy. "I say, Rowf, shall we be ghosts? I don't want to be a ghost and
frighten other dogs. Look, there's a pink cloud drifting over now, right above
those white birds. I'll bet KifFs on it. I wish we could go wherever those
birds have come from. It must be warmer there, and I expect their tobacco man
gives them—I say, Rowf, I can pee backwards on a rock, look—** He tumbled head

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Page No 176

over heels and got up crowned with a helmet of freezing snow. In the act of
shaking it off, he suddenly stopped and looked about him in surprise.
"Rowf, listen, I've just realized where we are! Rowf! D'you remember that day—
the first day after we escaped
—when we chased the sheep—that shepherd man came— and those dogs got so angry
with us? It's the same place
—remember, the water and these rocks, and look, that's the beck over there? I
wonder what made me realize it just now and not sooner? And come to that, I
wonder where all the sheep have gone? Up in the sky, d'you suppose?"
As he spoke, the sun shone for a moment through a rift in the clouds, glinting
stilly on the distant water. There was the smell of a cigarette and a sound of
crunching boots. A blue, moving shadow appeared and the next moment a man—
surely, the very man of whom Snitter had been speaking—came striding round the
end of the crag and stood still, his back toward them, looking intently out
across the tarn. At his heels was following one of the two dogs who had so
fiercely resented their chasing of the sheep. Seeing them, it stopped, with a
low growl, and at once the man turned his head and saw them also.
Rowf rose slowly and stiffly from the depression which his body had made in
the snow, hobbled out of range of the man's stick and stood uncertainly on the
defensive. Snitter, almost as though at play with some chance-met stranger in
a park, took a few gambolling steps towards the man, wagging his tail. At this
the man immediately backed away, flinging down his cigarette, which quenched,
in the silence, with a quick hiss like a tiny utterance of alarm. Then, as
Snitter hesitated, he swung his stick, shouting, "Git out, y'boogger!", turned
quickly on his heel
(348)
id disappeared at a run. Evidently he was too much led and frightened even to
remember his own dog, for did not call it and it remained where it was, facing
Eowf in the chilly shadow. At length, in a guarded but not igether unfriendly
manner, and looking at the depres-in the snow, it said, "Tha's bin layin'
there a guidish ile, then. Art tha noan cold?"
Rowf made no reply but Snitter, having cautiously iroached the dog, stood
still while it sniffed him over. "By, tha smells queer," said the dog at
length. "Where
goin'?"
"Nowhere," answered Rowf.
The dog looked puzzled. "How doosta mean? Tha'lt an be bidin ont' fell the
neet?" "We've nowhere to go," said Snitter The dog, plainly at a loss, looked
from one to the other. "Wheer's thy farm at? Tha'rt noan tourists' dogs, Ah'm
a sure—tha'rt nowt but skin and bone. What art doin' e?"
There was a pause.
"We live in a shed," said Snitter suddenly. "There are clouds like
rhododendrons. I know it sounds silly, but in going to clean the cobwebs off
my eyes and then you'll be able to see what I mean. Just for the time being I
have i |o leave it to the mouse. Can you tell us why your man as afraid of us?
Why did he run away? He did run „ ay, didn't he?"
t "Ay, he did that. Ah've nobbut seen t' like once afore, *".* that were when
he reckoned dog were sick wi' rabies, ;e. It were yoong pooppy, an' he
reckoned it were in voolsions—it were foamin' an' that." "Rabies?" said
Snitter. "What's that?" Doosta not knaw? A sickness—kind of plague, like— it
kills dogs; but it's noan common. Happen he thinks ,a's got it—tha smells
queer enoof, an' that head on thee :e rat split oop belly." "But you're not
afraid of us, are you?" "Nay. Ah'd knaw reel enoof if tha had plague or sick-s
like, but that's whit t' gaffer thinks, for sure. Else
not 'a run." "Where have all the sheep gone?" asked Rowf.
(349)
i> The dog looked surprised. "Sheep? We doan't leave : sheep ont' fell in

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Page No 177

snaw. Sheep were browt down yesterday, 'an' damn' cold work it were an' all.
That's what we're on -, with now—lookin' for any more as might 'a coom down
?*pft tops lasst neet." :| "I see," said Snitter. "So we shan't be able to—
yes, I
I "So ye're livin' oop an' down ont' fell?" said the dog. § "By, ye're thin
wi't, poor booggers. An1 ye're noan reet | int' head an' all," it added to
Snitter. "Happen ye'll die |~onf fell. Nay, cheer oop, poor lyle fella, it's
gan to thaw bi /morning, canst tha not feel it?"
A sudden shouting—" 'Ere Wag, 'ere Wag—" sounded in the distance and the dog,
without another word, van-| ished like a trout upstream. In the view from the
crag, e white fell stretched bare as a roof down to the tarn. "He didn't
recognize us," said Snitter after a little, "and ; obviously thought we
couldn't do any harm." "We can't." "My feet are cold."
"They'll be colder if we stay here. We've got to find fsome sort of shelter.
It may thaw by morning, as he said, ' but it's cold enough to freeze your eyes
out under this rock." "What a sad sight that would be," said Snitter. "I
mldn't see anything, could I? Not a maggot not a mouse a dustbin round the
house. Cheer up, old Rowf. We light find the tod yet, and perhaps there's a
bit of the rorld somewhere that nobody wants. Anyway, wouldn't rather die here
than in the whitecoats' tank? I would. t's little enough dignity we've got
left. Of all the things ic whitecoats stole, that's what I feel worst about, I
think. hope we die alone, like decent animals."
Sunday the 21st November to Monday the 22nd November
Langttrath
igby Driver's  assessment  of Mr.   Geoffrey  Westcott, (351)
though characteristically flippant, exaggerated and uncharitable, had
nevertheless been—also characteristically—by no means entirely inaccurate.
While Mr. Westcott had never, in fact, seen the inside of a police court,
either in a defendant or any other capacity, there was, notwithstanding, a
certain unscrupulousness in his make-up, together with a kind of self-centred,
insensitive roughness. He lived largely by his own rules and sometimes
stretched even them. Humanity in general he did not care for, preferring
objects, especially artifacts; and he was not, as a rule, concerned to conceal
this preference. When it came to getting the best out of fine or delicate
mechanism, he had penetration and unlimited patience; for people, little or
none. He possessed an above-average intellect and strong powers of
concentration, but together with his solitary single-mindedness there went a
potential (and at times something rather more than a potential) for
intolerance and even fanaticism.
He had been the second of six children of a railway linesman, and in the
cramped, overcrowded home had, in sheer self-defence, grown up tough and
impervious. He had developed a preference for his own company, and a passion
for acquiring and mastering technological instruments, so much more satisfying
and solacing, in their smooth, controllable predictability, than the emotional
inconsistencies of human relationships. During adolescence he grew still
further apart both from his indigent parents and his rough-and-tumble brothers
and sisters; and met with no opposition—rather the reverse—when, as soon as he
had taken his A-levels, he left home and set up for himself. His family, in
effect, forgot him.
He secured a good starting job at a bank in Winder-mere, yet it was not long
before he came to be generally regarded as a misfit. Dour and quick to take
offence, he tended to get on the wrong side of his colleagues and on more than
one occasion displayed a total inability to appreciate the client's point of
view.
Westcott did not need people or want to get on with them. Living alone and
without luxury, h'is income was already sufficient for more self-indulgence
and private enjoyment than as a boy he had dared to hope for. His

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(352)
:e-style took the form of a fairly rigorous regime of :lf-denial, directed
towards the acquisition of a planned ission of fine technological durables. It
would, per-be tedious to catalogue his possessions—the pris-itic compass, the
Zeiss binoculars, the wrist-watch which mid play "Annie Laurie" under water
while displaying fluorescent script the date and operative sign of the iac (or
something like that), the quadraphonic gramo-lone which made the sound of a
piano seem to come
m four directions instead of one (which might have med strange even to poor
Westcott if he had ever been
le to stop fiddling with the controls long enough to ;tisten with any
concentration), the three electric shavers,
id so on. Not his least source of pride and joy, however, as his small
collection of guns and pistols. These were, course, illegal, but sometimes,
taking out one or an-ier, he would risk a few rounds' fire in suitably lonely
id secluded places. He had a good eye and was no bad
tot. With the only rifle he possessed—a Winchester .22
he reckoned himself particularly handy, and was fond shooting matchsticks at
twenty-five or thirty yards. Some of his money had not been honestly come by.
He id certain shady acquaintances and had more than once lowed himself, his
car or his rooms to be made use of these people.
Mr. Westcott possessed at any rate one friend and that his landlady, Mrs. Rose
Green, a middle-aged widow, time an odd relationship grew up between these
two, 'ho had both experienced so little of what most people :gard as
affection. In winter, Mrs. Green would after a ihion reassure Mr. Westcott by
pooh-poohing his fears infection—for in this regard he was inclined to indulge
mild neurosis. When he was setting off for a long day the Pillar or the
Scafell range, she would make him idwiches and admonish him to be sure to
return punc-ially in the evening for oxtail stew. When she had a mind spend a
Saturday morning shopping in Keswick, Kendal even Preston, Mr. Westcott, if he
were not bound for tops, would drive her there and back in the Volvo. cy had
little conversation—Mrs. Green was not a or talkative woman—but that in itself
rather in-(353)
creased than diminished their mutual respect. For chat and laughter they felt,
by and large, contempt.
The indignity, inconvenience and loss which Mrs. Green and he had suffered
from the Plague Dogs aroused in Mr. Westcott all the brooding resentment of
which he was capable (which was quite some), and this .his dealings with Digby
Driver had done nothing to allay? It was true that Driver had paid him quite
well for the photographs, but while interviewing him Driver had—like many
others before him—found himself disliking Mr. Westcott, who counted and
pocketed the money without a word of thanks and tended to answer questions
with a glowering and defensive "What? Well, for the simple reason that . . ."
Driver had therefore begun to needle him, lightly but deftly, in his best
Fleet Street manner, in his own mind comparing Westcott's reactions to those
of a bull pierced by banderillas. Mr. Westcott had parted from Driver with the
surly feeling—which he had been meant to have— that some of these smart London
fellows thought they were too damned clever by half. Although on the following
day the police had succeeded in persuading him that he could with safety
resume the use of his car, they had not, of course, cleaned up the mess of
eggs, butter and mud which had soaked well into the back seat, while the
germicidal fumigator used by the local authority had had a noticeable effect
on the upholstery (already torn in two places by Rowfs claws). Moreover the
delicate valve-tuning, over which he had taken such pains, had been impaired
by whoever had driven the car back to Winder-mere. Among his final questions
to Digby Driver, before they parted, had been, "Why don't you go out and
settle the damn | dogs yourself, instead of writing newspaper articles about

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Page No 179

them?" To which Driver, perhaps a trifle stung, after all, by the thrust, had
managed to reply only "Oh, we're content to leave that to burly dalesmen like
you."
The following night—the Sunday—Mr. Westcott was sitting alone in his room,
morosely watching colour television and wrapping himself in two blankets when
the gas fire (greedier in cold weather, like all lodging-house metered fires)
had consumed the last shilling earmarked
(354)
r its consumption until next day. (He was not going to the sinking fund
intended for the purchase of a wet and scuba equipment.) The image of the
pestilential gs, macabre in appearance and lethal in effect, came Iking across
his peace of mind as the Red Death through ie irregular apartments of Prince
Prospero's castellated
fbbey. In his mind's eye he saw himself relentlessly pur-uing them over the
Scafell range, tracking them across fflelvellyn's snowy wastes, following them
from the larch fijopses of Eskdale to the plunging falls of Low Door. In jjiis
imagination their bodies, each neatly bullet-pierced flhrough heart or brain,
lay warm and still at last upon the £iell. To hell with the Orator, with
photographs, interviews
§" r public acclaim. This ought properly to be an austere, idividual vendetta,
hunter against hunted, the putting of salubrious and necessary stop to the
dirty brutes who Hpiad had the audacity to spoil his car and gobble up three
for four pounds' worth of meat and groceries. Having shot *jhem, he would not
even bother himself to go up to the lies. He would simply walk away and go
home. By eleven o'clock his mind was made up. Monday and Tuesday were both, of
course, working days, but under Employment regulations he was entitled to take
up to not than two days' sick leave of absence without a medal certificate,
and after his known ordeal and at this itry time of year no awkward questions
were likely to asked. True, if enquired for he would not in fact be at Mne,
but in all probability he would not be enquired , and in any case Mrs. Green
would if necessary cover for him. He would need to brief her to that effect
fore he set out. As for the chance of being seen on the Is by anyone who might
tell the bank, it seemed too lote to take into account.
Methodically he checked and laid out his fell boots, )thing and equipment—thin
and thick socks, mackin-sh overtrousers, scarf, gloves, anorak, Balaclava
helmet, cuum flask, map, whistle, prismatic compass, binoculars light pack,
together with the four-foot-long, water-rope-and-alpenstock bag which had
never housed alpenstock but which he used to carry in concealment Winchester
.22, together with its telescopic backsight (355)
(in padded bag) and the screwdriver for mounting it. The tobacco man himself
could not have been more deliberate in his preparations. When all was ready he
undressed, washed briefly in tepid water, set his alarm clock for the usual
time and went to bed wearing his socks, with his overcoat piled on top of his
eiderdown.
At breakfast Mrs. Green clicked her tongufi and shook her head, but made no
effort to dissuade him. It never occurred to either of them to go in for
anything so articulate or demonstrative as the discussion of opinions or the
rational influencing of each other's point of view. One might say, "Pass the
salt," or "I'm not leaving until this afternoon," but one did not say, "I see
this matter in rather a different light from you and will try to explain why."
Nor did it occur to them that if Mr. Westcott were to succeed in killing one
or both of the dogs he might not, in the current state of publicity, be able
to return as obscurely as he had set out. Neither was that kind of person.
There had had to be sausages for Sunday dinner— of that Mrs. Green was still
fully conscious—and apparently Mr. Westcott was not going to take it lying
down. Good for him. She was also conscious of the need, in Mr. Westcott's
interest, for a well-buttoned lip. By twenty to ten he was on his way in the

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Page No 180

Volvo.
Mr. Westcott commenced by returning to the scene of the attack. He parked the
car in the same place and waited to see whether the dogs would reappear. After
half an hour they had not done so and he began considering his next step. On
that morning two days ago, he reflected, they had apparently come down the
fell from the east—probably more or less down the line of Fisher Gill. He had
read in the paper of the panic caused by their appearance at a Glenridding
farm a few days before. So it seemed most likely that they had some sort of
lair in or under the Helvellyn range, somewhere between Thirl-mere and
southern Ullswater.
Mr. Westcott got out of the car, locked it, shouldered his pack and set off up
Fisher Gill, in and out of the grass tussocks, over the soaking, spongey peat
and moss and the last of the almost-melted snow. He was glad that he was going
to have to make a search. He even hoped that
(356)
turn out to be a long, hard one. He was deter-to find and kill the dogs. It
was an entirely personal Conflict between himself and them, the spoilers of
his sssions, the wreckers of scientific order. It ought not unduly easy, for
he meant to prove to himself—or ; someone—what he was worth in defence of his
little i. The dogs might have proved too much for everyone Keswick to
Hawkshead. They were not going to jve too much for him.
the course of the next five and a half hours, until fall of early darkness,
Mr. Westcott covered thirteen les. He was lucky enough to have no mist. Having
ibed Sticks Gill up to the pass, where he saw but, since snow was almost gone,
could not follow for more than .few yards the vestigial tracks of two dogs, he
spent little time in searching with his binoculars the area ireen Stang and
the reservoir. It was devoid of every-ig but curlews and buzzards, and at
length he turned ith and strode easily up to the summit of Raise. From re he
made his way along the whole ridge—White and Low Man to Helvellyn itself—
continually stop-ig to observe the slopes below. He paid particular at-ition
to the sheltered Red Tarn basin between Striding ge and Catstycam, where once,
long ago, a terrier bitch kept herself alive for three months, guarding the
body her master fallen from a precipitous height above. leone had told him
that the place was haunted, though Jther Wordsworth's nor Scott's poems on the
incident— of which he had once taken the trouble to get hold and read—told
what had finally become of the dog. ^Still bootless, he continued for two
miles south to lywaggon Pike and, having stopped for about fifteen rates to
eat, began the rather tricky descent to the east, the narrow, still-frosty
Tongue. In these conditions part-frost, part-thaw, the Tongue was more than a
dangerous, which was why Mr. Westcott chose it. He Id have attempted the north
face of Scafell if he had ight that to do so would give him a shot at the
dogs. ; course, whether involving fatigue, discomfort or actual jger, was
going to remain unpursued, provided it held the promise of success. More than
once he slipped
(357)
f*>^*    ->/,''*   I. -  - V  -    T.  ^--*-* '    'J  '—i;T*J'.47y*_^*r
^^J
^^S^fi&i^^^^^
White Side
on the rocks of the Tongue but, undeterred, pressed on into the gully and so
to the cascades of Ruthwaite Beck. He returned northward across the valleys
and ridges east of the Helvellyn heights; straight over peat and ling, rock
and grass, stones and moss; G rise dale Forest, Nether-
(358) :
5t Cove Beck, Birkhouse Moor and Stang End. There no least sign of the dogs;
and he met no one all day. regained the car by way of Sticks Pass, wondering
sther his best course would be to spend the following on the Dodds to the

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Page No 181

north. He was still wondering he got back to Windermere, to hear from Mrs. ;n
the news that on Sunday afternoon the dogs had sn encountered in the high
valley of Levers Water by a listen farmer looking for odd sheep to bring down
out Lthe snow. He had recognized them at once and taken 'iis heels, but not
before observing that they appeared and fair shrammed with the cold.
Hgby Driver, hastening back to Coniston to learn nothing Terent from what he
had already heard from other -witnesses on previous occasions, left this
fanner after more than fifteen minutes and, back in his room, fairly
;d with frustration. ;"The bloody brutes—they're just going to fizzle out— up
there—the whole thing'll collapse without one story, yucky or otherwise!
Simpson'll be livid! What load of crap! Come on, Driver, you're not beat yet!
lat to do? What to do? Well, we'll just have to try the ;arch Station and hope
for some sort of indiscretion, port in a storm!"
le rang up Lawson Park and this time, by some curious of the wheel, found
himself talking to Dr. Boycott, offered to see him by appointment forty-eight
hours sr, on the afternoon of Wednesday the 24th. As has been said, Digby
Driver had little time for set-, formal press interviews with official
representa-In his view—a not altogether inaccurate one—such riews were often
designed to soft-pedal or even to iceal things likely to provide material for
news copy. |'Was usually more profitable to talk to the boot-boy or cleaning-
woman, but in this case he already had an
better contact, if only he could get at him. "Look, Mr. Boycott," he said,
"it's good of you to offer 'see me, but the man I'd really like to talk to is
Stephen sll. Is he still off sick?"
"I'm afraid he is," answered Dr. Boycott/'Why do you want to talk to Mr.
Powell so particularly?"
"Because he was so darned helpful when I met him before, the day I drove him
back from Dunnerdale. It was him that—oh, well, never mind. But I don't want
to waste your time unnecessarily, and it'll suit me perfectly well just to
have a word with Powell. Could you give me his address, perhaps?"
"Well, he'll be back tomorrow or the next day, I understand," said Dr.
Boycott, "so if you like we'll both see you on Wednesday afternoon. Will three
o'clock suit you? Excellent. Well, until then, good-bye."
Tuesday the 23rd November
The following morning was more than a little misty on the tops, but
nevertheless Mr. Westcott set out even earlier than before. Having reached
Little Langdale, he was able to see that the northern end of the Coniston
range was considerably less obscured by mist than the Old Man itself
Accordingly he ran up to the Wreynus Pass, left the Volvo and climbed the Grey
Friar by way of Wetside Edge. The weather had become warmer and damp, with a
light west wind, and he sweated in his anorak as he stood swinging his
binoculars this way and that across the slopes above Seathwaite Tarn and
Cockley Beck. There were no dogs to be seen. He crossed the saddle to Carrs
ate an early lunch and tramped southward to Swirral, Great How Crags and the
Levers Hause. Here the mist was troublesome, and Westcott, knowing himself to
be immediately above Levers Water and the very place where the dogs had last
been seen two days before, went down as far as Cove Beck and covered that area
very thoroughly indeed. He found nothing and climbed back to the Hause. His
tenacious and obsessive nature was not yet dispirited but, like a fisherman
who has not had a rise all day, he now made a deliberate demand on his concen-
(360)
OtffTf
tration, persistence and staying-power to play the game out to the end and
finish the day in style, win or lose. Who could tell? Mist or no mist, he
might even now run slap into the dogs sheltering in a peat-rift or under a
thorn. This, apparently, was what the farmer had done. Making use of his
prismatic compass in the mist, he set off for Brim Fell, Goat's Hause and the

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Dow Crag.
(361)
"I'm very glad you've felt well enough to come back today, Stephen," said Dr.
Boycott. "There are several important things. I trust you're quite recovered,
by the way?" "Yeah, more or less, I think," replied Mr. Powell. "A bit post-
influenzal, you know, but it'll pass offf I dare say." In point of fact he
felt dizzy and off colour^
"Well, work's often a good thing to put you back on your feet, as long as you
don't overdo it," said Dr. Boycott. "You should certainly go home early
tonight, but I'd like you to be familiarizing yourself today with the details
of this new project that we've been asked to set up. I shall want you to take
entire charge of it in due course."
"What's the present position with those dogs, chief, by the way? Are they
still at large?"
"Oh, yes, the dogs—I'm glad you mentioned that. Yes, they're still very much
at large, I'm afraid; they seem to keep turning up all over the place. On
Saturday, apparently, they actually robbed a car of a load of groceries.
There've been a lot of phone calls, and I dare say you may very well get some
more today. Mind you, we're still not admitting that those dogs are ours. Ours
may be dead long ago."
"What about Whitehall?"
"Oh, they're still blathering away. There's going to be some sort of debate in
Parliament, I gather. That Michael What's-His-Name was up here last Friday, as
you know. He wanted to see Goodner's laboratory and then he was pressing me to
give an assurance that the dogs couldn't have been in contact with any plague-
infected fleas." Mr. Powell made an effort to show interest. "Did you
give it?"
"Certainly not. How could I? How could anyone? Anyway, we're scientists here—
we don't get mixed up in politics. We've got work to do, and we're not to be
run from Westminster or Whitehall or anywhere else."
"That's where the money comes from, I suppose."
Dr. Boycott waved the triviality away with one hand.
"That's quite incidental. This work's got to be done, so the money's got to be
found. You might just as well say the money for water-borne sewage comes from
Westminster and Whitehall."
(362)
"It does—some of it, anyway."
Dr. Boycott looked sharply at Mr. Powell for a moment, but then continued.
"Well—well. No, I think the principal thing that's bothering the Ministry is
having to admit that bubonic plague's being studied here at all—as a Ministry
of Defence project, that is. It was secret, of course. No one was supposed to
know—even you weren't supposed to know."
"I didn't know—well, hardly."
"I still can't imagine how it got out," said Dr. Boycott. "But I suppose the
press will continue to make all they can of it. And talking of the press, that
reminds me. I've agreed to see this Orator man, Driver, tomorrow afternoon at
three. I'd like you to join me. If I'm going to talk to a fellow like that,
there ought to be a witness, in case he misrepresents us later."
"O.K. chief, I'll be there."
"Now, this new project I was starting to tell you about," said Dr. Boycott.
"It's a pretty big one, with American money behind it—another defence thing,
of course. We're going to construct a specially large refrigeration unit, the
interior of which will simulate tundra; or steppe-like conditions, anyway.
There'll be a wind tunnel, too, and some means of precipitating blizzard.
These will be near-arctic conditions, you understand. There'll be food and
some kind of shelter situated in one place, and a built-in escalator whose
effect will be that the subject animals have to cover the equivalent of

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Page No 183

anything from thirty to sixty miles to reach it. We may install certain
deterrents— fear-precipitants and so on. Actually, we're not quite agreed yet
on that aspect of the work, but—"
"What subject animals, chief?"
"Dogs, almost certainly. Much the most suitable. Now as to timing—"
Mr. Powell closed his eyes. He had come over faint and his head was swimming.
He began to realize that he was more post-influenzal than he had thought. As
he made an effort to concentrate once more on what Dr. Boycott was saying,
there came from outside a sudden burst of tommy-gun fire. He started, sat up
quickly and
(363)
looked out of the window. Tyson's boy Tom, emerging with a pail of bran mash
from the shed across the way, was idly running the mixing-stick along a sheet
of corrugated iron which had been used to patch the wall. "—As to timing,
Stephen, I was saying—'*     . Mr. Powell hesitated. "I—I—it's kind of—I*
wonder, chief—only,  you see—look,  do you  think you could possibly put
someone else on this? The thing is—"
"Put someone else on it?" asked Dr. Boycott, puzzled. "How d'you mean?"
"Well, I can't explain exactly, but—" Mr. Powell buried his face in his hands
for a moment. When he looked up he said, "Perhaps I'm not quite back to normal
yet. I only meant—well, you see—"
To his horror, Dr. Boycott saw—or thought he saw— tears standing in Mr.
PowelFs eyes. Hurriedly he said, "Well, we needn't go into that any more just
now. We'll come back to it another time. You'll want to be having a look at
your other stuff. By the way, Avril finally finished off that hairspray thing
while you were away yesterday. The stuff was absolutely hopeless—the second
lot of rabbits all had to be destroyed. I can't imagine how anyone ever
supposed he could get away with marketing a product like that to the public.
Just wasting our time and everybody else's. We shall charge him for the
rabbits, naturally. Anyway, if I don't see you again before, we'll meet at
three tomorrow afternoon."
In a confused fantasy of mist and hunger, Snitter was hunting for the tod
across the hills and rocks of dream. A bitter rain was falling and twice, as
he topped a slope, he glimpsed momentarily but never winded, disappearing over
the next, the familiar, grey-haired figure with yellow scarf and walking-
stick.
"Ah ha!" said Snitter to the vanishing figure, "I know better than to run
after you! You look real, but you're not real. I've got to find the tod, or
else we're going to die in this horrible place."
He knew now where he was; on the long, heathery slope that led down to the
road winding up out of the green dale—the empty road that crossed the pass by
the
(364)
square stone post set upright in the turf. He remembered the post: he had
lifted his leg against it for luck when the tod had led them across the pass
on their way to Helvellyn. The wind was tugging in uneven gusts over the ling
and up from below wavered the falling of the becks. A curlew cried, "Whaup,
whaup," in the hills and as he came down to the road a blackcock went
rocketing away from almost under his paws. It was all just as he remembered.
He paused, looking about him and sniffing the wet ground for some trace of the
tod. Suddenly he saw, below him, a blue car ascending the pass, threading in
and out of sight, steadily climbing the steep edge of the hillside, crossing
the bridge and coming on towards the stone where he stood watching. As it
reached level ground and drew to a halt on the short grass of the verge, he
saw that the driver was a merry-looking, pretty girl, who smiled at him,
calling and beckoning.
Snitter ran up eagerly and jumped into the car by the near-side door which she

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Page No 184

leant across to hold open. She smelt deliciously of soap, scent, leather and
femininity. He put his muddy paws in her lap and licked her face and she
laughed, scratching his ears.
"You're a friendly chap, aren't you?" she said. "Poor doggie, you've hurt your
head, haven't you? And where have you sprung from, mmh? I bet your master's
worried to death about you." His old, original collar had apparently come back
and she read it, twisting round the little brass plaque with two slim, cool
fingers pressed against his neck. "Would you like me to take you home? D'you
suppose there's a reward, mmh?"
Head close to hers, Snitter wagged his tail, smelling her hairspray and the
trace of wax in one small, dainty ear. 'Til give you a reward," she said, and
popped a toffee into his mouth. He bit it. It had no taste at all and he shook
his head, teeth squelching in the sticky gluten.
"It's dream toffee," she said, laughing and kissing him. "This is all just a
dream, you know. Are you hungry? Poor old chap, then—it's no good looking in
the back of this car. There's nothing there—only my bag."
She started the engine and backed to the road, leaving the still-unclosed
passenger door to swing back and forth
(365)
as she did so. "You can help me if you like," she said. "D'you know what I'm
looking for? I need a mouse—a live one."
Snitter found speech. "I've got a mouse; he's in my head."
"Could he be injected? Only, you see, I'm overdue and of course my boy-friend
and I want to kncrtv as quick as we can." She looked at her watch. "Oo, gosh,
I'd better be getting on. He'll be home soon. We're living together, you
know." She laughed. "Living in sin, as they used to say."
"Sin?" said Snitter. "I don't understand, but then I'm only a dog, of course.
A kind of house you live in, is it? The men have taken all the houses away,
you know. I don't believe there's a house for miles."
She patted him, leaning across, about to close the door.
"Why," she said, "we both believe the very same. There's no such thing as sin,
is there? No such thing any more."
Suddenly Snitter realized that they were not alone in the car. The shining fur
coat pressed against them began to writhe and hunch into folds, which resolved
themselves into odorous, furry, fox-like creatures leaping past him into the
back seat. On the instant there started up among them a great, brown lizard,
with burnished neck of verdant gold, smooth, supple scales and forked tongue
flickering in and out between its eyes. From the girl's feet, pressed to the
controls, two tawny snakes came writhing.
The girl drew a knife from the top of her skirt.
"You don't mind blood, do you?" she said. "I was explaining, wasn't I, it's
what I hope I'm going to see quite soon."
Snitter flung up his head, howling in terror.
"What's the matter now?" growled Rowf, startled out of sleep beside him. "Why
on earth can't you keep quiet?"
"Oh, thank goodness! A dream! I'm sorry, Rowf—I suppose it's the hunger. It's
more than three days now since we've eaten anything—not a beetle, not a
caterpillar—"
"I know that as well as you do. Well, then. Three days, four days. Go to
sleep. I deserve it even if you don't."
(366)
"I'd eat anything—anything, Rowf; if only there was—"
The lethargy of starvation, returning, flowed over Snitter, pressing him down
like a soft, heavy paw. He slept, dreamed of the dog shed and the tobacco man,
and woke to find himself half under Rowfs shaggy flank.
"Lodo," murmured Snitter. "I thought—yes, it was Lodo—"
"The bitch, you mean—that spaniel-eared one? Always smelt of burning?"

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Page No 185

"Yes, she—was telling me—"
"What?"
"She told us—d'you remember?—the whitecoats made her breathe some kind of
smoke, same as the tobacco man does. They put a thing over her face so that
she had to breathe this smoke."
"Well?"
"Well, she said she hated it to begin with, but then later on, when they
didn't give her the smoke, she wanted it."
Rowf turned his head, biting at a flea in his rump.
"We'll be like that, won't we?" said Snitter. "When we aren't here any longer,
when we're not hungry or cold, we'll miss it. We'll wish we were."
"When d'you mean?"
"When we're dead."
"When you're dead you're dead. Ask the tod."
From the misty gully above came a faint rattling of stones and the scramble of
a sheep's hooves. Two or three pebbles, pattering down the precipice, came to
rest not far away.
"Flies on the window-pane," murmured Snitter drowsily. "There's nothing to be
seen, but they can't get through it. Nothing's very strong, of course—much too
strong for us. Like black milk."
"Black milk? Where?"
"It was in a lighted bowl, kept upside down on the ceiling. Very strong stuff.
You couldn't look at it for long or it boiled. Well, after all, rain, you
know—that just stays up there in the sky, I suppose until the men want it to
come down. If rain can stay up there, why not milk?
(367 )
Or Kiff. I mean, Kiff's not dead, is he? There's nothing at all strange,
really, about black milk." "I never thought of it like that." For many hours
past they had been dozing and waking, sheltered from the wind at the foot of
the Dow Crag. Below them, beyond the tumbled screes, lay the narrow expanse of
Goat's Water, treeless, grassless, weedless— cold water and stones.
After the dog Wag had left them, two days before, they had wandered aimlessly
southward, up over Grey Crag, down into Boulder Valley and so round, below the
eastern precipices of the Old Man, into this dreary vale, remote and
sequestered, an open mouthful of tooth-stumps, a stone-grey muzzle asleep by a
dead fire on a winter's night: a place where appetite and energy—almost life
itself—seemed futile, as though among the craters of the moon. Only the clouds
and gulls, far overhead, maintained their effortless sailing; a moving sky
above a still land.
"The tobacco man will be round," said Snitter, looking about him in the
gathering dusk.
"Not here."
"No, but it's like that here, too, isn't it? Whatever we were there for—you
know, in the tobacco man's shed— it was nothing to do with us—with dogs—no
good to dogs. And this—whatever it's for—this is nothing to do with us,
either."
"We've been here before, Snitter, do you know that? With the tod. I chased the
yow until it fell over and then we came down here and ate it—remember?"
"It seems a long time ago. The tod won't come back now."
"Snitter, there's a cave up there, among those boulders. I remember seeing it
that night. We'll lie up there for now and find a sheep tomorrow. I'll kill it
somehow."
During the night it thawed, as the sheep-dog had said it would, and by first
light almost all the snow had gone. Rowf, however, woke surly and listless,
biting at his staring ribs and falling asleep again, head on paws. There was
not a sheep to be seen and he could not be persuaded to hunt for one.
(368)

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Page No 186

During the afternoon Snitter limped down to the water, :' drank and returned.
He woke Rowf and together they went to look for the remains of the sheep which
they had driven over the precipice, but found only wool and bones f at the
foot of a sheer gully. They returned to the cave ? and passed a third night
without food. r      It was on the following afternoon that Snitter suffered I
the dream of the girl in the car.
^      "Nothing strange about it really," repeated Snitter in
1 the solitude. "Nothing strange about black milk. I dare
|: say men might make black bread, or even black sheep
if they wanted, come to that. They sometimes make black
f   clouds when they want it to rain—I've seen them." Then,
with sudden determination, "Rowf, I'm going to look for
the tod: and if I can't find him, I'm going down to some
;£;'farm or other and give myself up to the men. Anything's
^better than starving to death—"
w    Rowf* battered and hollow as an old kettle discarded among the stones,
grinned up at him from his refuge of C despair.
If;    "Your dignity! 'I hope we die alone!' " "Oh, Rowf—"
"Go on, then, off you go! I'm damned if I'm going to be taken back to the
whitecoats' tank. I'd rather starve —it'll be less trouble. And as for finding
the tod, I Jell you, Snitter, if you can do that, /'ll make some food ;drop
down to us off the tops. There you are, that's a ^bargain. One's as likely as
the other."
'Now the snow's gone the men may have brought some Isheep back up here.
Couldn't we try to find one?" j;   Without replying, Rowf put his head back on
his paws <;and shut his eyes.
£   Snitter, wandering away through the stones and loose shale, came down to
the northern end of Goat's Water splashed through the infall turbid with
melted snow. little tarn lay still, unruffled by any wind, grey water
effecting clouds and grey gulls sailing.
I suppose there are fish in there, thought Snitter, like the ones in the river
where my master used to take me for if walks: and I suppose they think they
can swim anywhere they like. The gulls, too—those gulls up there must think
(369)
they've decided to glide round and round. I wonder whether I've really decided
of my own accord to go this way? K I have, I'm sure I don't know why. I
remember hearing that dogs often go away by themselves to die. Jimjam said he
wanted to go away but of course he couldn't get out of the pen, poor chap.
He was climbing the south-west slope of Brim Fell and, as he came to the lower
level of the mist, paused a moment before heading on into the thick mirk
above. The sighing, moving air, the gloom and solitude about him appeared more
sinister and hostile than ever before. Both the sky above and the tarn below
were hidden and now— or so it seemed—even his ears had begun to deceive him,
for from somewhere below and beyond—somewhere distant—he thought he could hear
the barking of dogs. Urgent and excited they sounded, as though the tobacco
man had come among them with his pails.
That must be it, thought Snitter. I keep on remembering feeding-time—not
surprising—and now it even sounds real. Of course it isn't really, any more
than my poor master when I see him. I wonder where I'm going? And —and who—
what sort of man is this coming? I don't like the smell of him, somehow.
He was thick in the mist now, high up on the starved, sheep-cropped turf of
Brim Fell. He could hear a soft, rhythmic thud-thud-thud of approaching boots,
sounds of creaking leather and steady breathing. Quickly he hid himself,
crouching flat in a peat-rift as a dark, burly young man came looming through
the mist, striding purposefully towards him—a young man all hung about with
jolting tubes on straps and discs of glass and leather; with a long, narrow
bag on his back, a scarf round his neck and a coloured paper clutched in the

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Page No 187

fingers of one hand. For one fleeting moment he turned his head in Snitter's
direction and Snitter, though he could not tell why, cowered close and let him
go past. As he remained lying still, with closed eyes, the distant dog-sounds
from below seemed muted, in his ears, to a kind of lullaby.
"You were disturbed inside your head, And thought to clean the cobwebs out.
(370)
There will be none when you are dead— The skull untroubled, have no doubt. And
you will learn to do without This flesh and blood quotidian: Refined to
nothing, bleached to nowt, Need seek no more your vanished man."
.L     "I suppose not," said Snitter, torpid with starvation and ' half-
asleep on the spongey peat. "One ought to try not to
mind too much, I suppose. We're only dogs, and it's a bad ;,- world for
animals, as Rowf's always saying. After all—
why, it's getting positively crowded up here! Who's this
coming now? Oh, no—it can't—it can't be—"
The mist swirled, the wet grass tugged in the wind, and
; now Snitter felt sure that he must indeed be mad and,
jjt as so often in the past, the victim of delusion, for up
Jf through the mist and wind came the tod. Limping it was,
its breath coming in great, steaming gasps, brush trailing, .-eyes staring,
belly caked with mud. Its teeth were bared f' above and below its lolling
tongue and it turned its head |i this way and that, continually listening and
sniffing the ! air. As Snitter jumped up, it snapped at him and made f as if
to run away, but he had no difficulty in overtaking
U'
Jr      "Tod! Tod! It's me, it's Snitter! Tod, don't you know
trae?" The tod halted, staring round at him with a kind of w Slow, glazed
recognition. It reeked of a deadly fear. j     "Oh, ay, it's th' wee fella.
Ye'd best boogger off sharp, l'hinny, unless ye fancy th' Dark wi' me." As he
made no
§%nswer it added more urgently, "Go on, kidder, haclda-*y!"
It sank down on the turf, panting convulsively, rubbing 'its spattered mask on
the grass.
"Tod, what—oh, what is it? What's happened?" "Can ye not hear them bastards
ahint? A puff o' wind fmto yon mist an' ye'll sharp see them forbye; ay, an'
they'll ;e ye. Shift yersel', marrer, haddaway hyem!"
"Tod, come back with me! Come on, run!  Rowfs lown there—whatever it is, we'll
save you! Quickly, tod!" The many-mouthed barking and yelping broke out
(371)
again, louder and nearer, and now could be heard also a man's voice hollering
and other, more distant human voices answering from further off. The tod
grinned mirthlessly.
"Can ye not hear what the bastards is yammerin' on aboot, one to t'other—
'Ah'll have first bite at his belly'? Ah've browt them siven mile, but Ah'll
niwer lose them noo. Ah thowt last neet th' frost wad cum doon an' they'd not
be oot th' morn. Ah wez wrong. A tod only hez to be wrong once, ye knaw."
"Oh, tod, tod! There must be something we can do—"
"Divven't fash yersel', hinny! Ah ken weel where Ah'm goin'. It's akward eneuf
noo, but there'll be n« akward-ness i' th' Dark. It's not th' Dark that
frightens me, it's their rivin', bloody teeth. Have ye niwer hord say, 'Ne
deeth over bad fer a tod'? Mebbies it'll soon be done. Ah'm not whinjin'—Ah'd
rather go te th' Dark like a tod than in yon whitecoat dump o' yours. Tell th'
big fella taa taa from me. He wez a grand lad—reel mazer wi' yows, tell him."
It was gone like smoke into the mist, down over the edge, down the north-
western slope of Brim Fell, making for Tarn Head Moss and Blake Rigg Crag
beyond. Snitter ran after it a few yards, then pulled up and lay shivering in
the gloom. Some overwhelming thing was taking place —something old and

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Page No 188

dreadful, something which he remembered to have happened before in this very
spot. About him was flowing a rank, feral scent, savage, and blood-seeking.
Big, shadowy creatures were approaching, voracious and intent, running swiftly
up out of the mist, lemon and white, black and tawny, noses to ground, sterns
feathering, long ears swinging as they came loping over the top; some running
mute, others giving tongue in fierce excitement. Hounds they were, great
hounds shouldering past him where he crouched on the verge of the steep,
heedless of him, paying him no attention in the heat and concentration of
their pursuit. Behind them, on foot, ran the lean-faced huntsman, red-coated,
horn clutched in one hand, almost spent with the long chase but still finding
voice to urge them on. Over the edge they went, tumbling and jostling, each
eager for his share, and were lost to
(372)
view among the boulders. Yet still from a thousand feet ."below rose up their
excited notes, one under another like the sound of a river in flood upon the
unseen valley floor. Snitter pattered in their wake. The wet turf and stones
fc6re their clean, sharp smell—the smell of hunting, meat-gating animals in
perfect health. It was as though a band itf demUgods had swept past him in
fulfilment of their Cappointed function of pursuit and death; a ghastly,
apoca-Ifyptic duty for ever carried out in some timeless region .;Wsyond, now—
on this occasion—superimposed and en-^|cted upon the bare hillside where he
found himself, as in ijl dream, running alone through the clouds of swirling
ivapour.
I Suddenly the wind freshened, carrying a far-off smell fbf seaweed, the
heavy-sweet odour of cows in a shed and, " lid atop of these, an instant's
scent of the tod. The curtain mist broke up into streamers eddying away across
the l, and now he could see clearly enough all that lay Blow him—could see the
peat-hags and moss above sathwaite Tarn, the sullen, black stream winding
through aem, the mouth of the cavern beyond; and the tod ranging, running,
staggering over the moss, its brush a >pping weight dragged behind it. After
it came the Minds, spread out, clamouring in frenzy to crush, con-ide and
quell, to dust the varmint and be done. Even he watched, the foremost hound,
on the very verge the beck, reached the tod's shoulder and, turning {uickly
inward, butted and rolled it over on the stones. He shut his eyes then, and
scrabbled head-downward the turf, for he did not want to see the pack close
in, id not want to see the tod leaping, snapping and biting, itnumbered thirty
to one, the blood spurting, the tearing, rashing and worrying, the huntsman
whipping his way Ito the turmoil and the tod's body snatched, lifted high id
knife-hacked for brush and mask before being tossed ick—oh, so merrily—among
the baying, tussling fox-nmds.
IT. Westcott pressed on up the northern ridge of Brim Fell. The mist was
moderately thick, but he had known it >rse and furthermore he had an intuitive
feeling, born
(373)
of wide experience of Lakeland weather, that it was likely to lift, possibly
very soon and certainly before sunset. He came to the cairn on the summit, sat
down on it and, having examined his map, took a compass bearing into the mist
of 225 degrees. Then he made allowance for the magnetic variation, selected a
rock on the bearing as far ahead as he could see and set off downhill to cover
the six or seven hundred yards to Goat's Hause.
It was silent in the mist, and his solitude gave him a satisfying sense of
power, integrity and self-sufficiency. Alone with his instruments, his fell
experience and his health and stamina he, like a well-found ship in the
Atlantic, was a match for his surroundings jn all their wildness and
adversity. In his mind's eye he saw himself, purposeful, grim, intent, well-
equipped and organized, moving through the fog like avenging Nemesis,
deliberate and irresistible. The dogs, wherever they were, might as well give

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Page No 189

up now, for he, equal to all contingencies and possessed of the will and
endurance of Spencer-Chapman himself, would get them in the end, if not today
then later. He was retribution, timer mortis and the two-handed engine at the
door.
Once he thought he noticed some kind of furtive movement a short distance off
in the grass, and turned his head to look. He caught a glimpse of something
off-white apparently skulking in a peat-rift, but then concluded that it was
nothing but a sodden paper bag blown there by the wind. As he strode on he
could hear behind him, coming up from somewhere below Levers Hause, the cry of
hounds and the hollering of the huntsman. It sounded as though they were
approaching, and in full cry. However, that was nothing to do with him and his
mission. Indeed it was, if anything, a nuisance, for, if the Plague Dogs were
anywhere close by, it might alarm them and cause them to be off. By all that
he had heard, they were as cunning as foxes and more like wild animals than
dogs.
Five minutes later his boots squelched across the muddy, snow-patched wet of
the saddle and began to climb the slope of Dow Crag. It was at this moment
that the mist began to lift. He could hear hounds pouring down into the valley
above Seathwaite Tarn, and went so
(374)
as to stop, focus his binoculars and look down at the
tyss before calling himself sharply to order. There were ly about two hours of
daylight left and tomorrow he %nust be back at work. Since Seathwaite Tarn
valley would
tw be an unlikely place in which to find the dogs, he mid make the most of the
remaining light by going >lilong the tops as far as Walna Scar, descending
into J|3oat's Water valley (a remote place and as likely a J|tude-out as
anywhere), up to the Hause again and so back fro Wreynus by the way he had
come. There was time iiinough for that, and he could safely come down Wetside
/Edge in the late twilight.
\,    He was well up on Dow Crag now and approaching the ibead of North Gully.
Except for a patch on the summit mist had cleared and it would, he reflected,
be possible see down to the valley floor on his left. With this irpose he left
the path and struck off over the rocks, standing to find a place near the top
of Easter Gully from Fhich he could command a view of Goat's Water and
screes at the foot of the Dow precipices. Suddenly he stopped dead, with a
heave in his belly Ce that felt by an angler when a big trout rises to the t.
For an instant, through a cleft between two projecting :ks about thirty feet
down in the gully, he had caught tight of a dog—a large, black, rough-haired
dog—lying, >parently asleep, beside a heap of stones at the foot of ie pitch.
The field of view between the two rocks was narrow that by the time he had
taken it in he had |walked past the line of vision which had shown him the >g.
He hastened back, dodging about with his head like 1man spying, from the
street, through a chink in some-ly else's curtains.
The dog came into view again and he got the binoculars it. Yes: it was,
unmistakably, one of the two dogs irhich had set upon his car near Thirlmere.
The collar ?as half-buried in the rough, staring coat at the nape of its ck,
but the dog was emaciated and beneath the chin, lere it hung loose, the green
plastic showed up as plainly a necklace.
"Steady, now, steady," muttered Mr. Westcott. Clasp-his hands to stop their
trembling, he drew a deep
(375)
breath and considered. The quicker he shot the better. To go down below would
take the best part of an hour and the dog might well be gone. His very
approach, which he could not conceal, would be enough to alarm it. The trouble
was that his view down the precipitous gully was so awkward and so much
restricted that probably he could get only a standing shot. He checked this.

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Page No 190

He was right. Lying down or on one knee, he could not see the dog. And he
would have only one chance—that was virtually certain. If his first shot
missed, the dog would be off into dead ground under the Crag. Considering that
what he had was a rifle, not a shot-gun, and that he could not get a lying
shot, he ought to try to find some soij of steady rest.
He took the Winchester out of its bag and mounted the telescopic backsight.
Then he removed the binoculars and compass from his neck and laid them on the
ground. Scanning the top of the gully, he could see a way down to the cleft
that was certainly feasible, if only he could get there without dislodging
scree or pebbles and so alarming the dog.
The Winchester had no sling and, gripping it in his left hand, he began the
descent. It was a distinctly nerve-racking business and at each step he bit
his lip, moving from one hand-hold to another and wondering how the hell he
was going to get back. He would think about that later, when the dog was dead.
Slowly, Snitter's head cleared and he recognized once more his bleak
surroundings. The tod—the hounds—the dreadful squealing of the tod—the
huntsman and his knife —he himself must not stay here. The mist was almost
gone. He would be in view. He began running back along the edge of Brim Fell,
in the opposite direction from the terrible thing he had tried not to see.
Soon he came round as far as Goat's Hause. Here, on the track, he at once
picked up the smell of a man, very fresh; a man who could, indeed, only just
have gone by. A moment's nose-reflection told him that this must be none other
than the dark, burly young man from whom
(376)
he had hid before meeting the tod; the man of whom he had felt so distinct a
distrust and fear.
But the man was alone and a long way from the hunt. Perhaps he was carrying
food. Indeed, it was extremely likely that he was and to approach him would
not really be much to risk. A sensible dog could keep at a distance and give
the man no chance to put him on a lead; and the man might very well throw him
some food, even if it was only a mouthful. Looking up and ahead, he could now
actually see the man striding away towards the summit, not very far off.
Snitter set off in pursuit, watching closely in case the man should turn
round. Then there came a sudden swirl of mist and when it had blown aside the
man had vanished.
Puzzled, Snitter ran cautiously on. Could the man have hidden and now be lying
in wait for him? But there seemed to be nowhere for him to hide. Nearing the
top he went still more slowly, following the man by scent. The scent left the
path and led away across the rocks. It seemed to be leading towards a steep
gully, very like the one into which he, Rowf and the tod had hunted the yow by
night.
He came hesitantly up to the mouth of the gully and looked in. Sure enough,
there below him, quite close, stood the man, peering down through a cleft
between two rocks. It would be safe enough to attract his attention— in a
place like that no human could possibly grab a dog. Furthermore, he was
carrying food. Snitter could smell it. Yapping eagerly, he made a quick leap
down to a convenient ledge below.
Mr. Westcott's bowels were loose and his breath was coming short with fear and
excitement. The black dog had not moved and from moment to moment, as he
clambered, he continued to catch glimpses of it. He estimated that it must be
about three hundred feet below him—a sure shot if only he could find the right
point of vantage.
He reached the cleft between the two projecting rocks. It was a frightening
place, much less secure than it had
(377)
appeared from above, with an almost sheer drop below and the smooth surfaces
glistening with icy moisture. He had planned to lean against the left-hand

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Page No 191

rock and rest the rifle on its outer edge, near the centre of the gully. But
now, at close quarters, this idea proved impracticable, for the rock was too
tall and in any case projected downward, at considerably more than a right
angle to the side of the gully. The opposite rock was better, its height
diminishing to about four feet at the outer edge, but to use this for a
support would, of course, involve a left-handed, left-eyed shot.
However, thought Mr. Westcott, with the telescopic sight and at such short
range a left-handed shot pffered a good chance of success. Anyway, it was the
only'chance that was being offered. In spite of his determination he was
growing increasingly nervous. The drop below alarmed him and a glance over his
shoulder confirmed that, unless he was prepared to jettison his rifle", the
climb back was going to be horribly precarious.
With a thrust against the rock wall, he pushed himself across the breadth of
the gully to the opposite side, leant forward, resting his weight against the
right-hand rock, laid the barrel of the Winchester over its upper edge and
eased himself into position. He was able to lean out towards the centre just
far enough for the shot and no more.
There was his quarry and no mistake. The dog showed up in the back-sight like
a black haystack. He slipped the safety-catch, aligned the fore-sight on the
dog's ear and —awkwardly, with his left index finger—took the first trigger-
pressure.
At this moment, not twenty feet above him in the gully, there broke out a
sharp, excited yapping. Mr. Westcott started and simultaneously fired. The
shot severed the dog's collar and as it leapt up he saw the blood spurt from
its neck. In the same instant he lost his balance, clutching frantically at
the icy top of the rock. The rifle slipped from his grasp, a stone turned
under his fodt, he grabbed at the rock again, found a slippery hold, retained
it for one appalling, nightmare moment—time enough to
(378)
recognize the dog looking down at him—and then pitched headlong.
When Snitter had left him, Rowf tried to return once more to his dreary sleep
on the stones. Yet despite the feeling of exhaustion which seemed to permeate
his whole body as the wind the hawthorn, he remained awake, gnawing on his
misery like an old, meatless bone. Snitter had said that in the last resort he
meant to go down into the valley and give himself up to the men. And it was
this to which Rowf knew that he himself was not equal. This was the fear of
which he was ashamed—the fear of which he had always been too much ashamed to
tell even Sn'tter. In the instant after the electric light had filled the
Glen-ridding farmyard, he had thought: What if they don't shoot? What if they
send for the whitecoats and take me back to the drowning-tank? The drowning-
tank, he knew, was his and his alone. No other dog in the shed had ever been
put into the drowning-tank. So it was a fair assumption that the whitecoats
wanted him back to go on putting him in the tank. His fear of the tank knew no
bounds and of that fear he was ashamed. The whitecoats, whom he could not help
but think of as his masters, wanted him to go on drowning in the tank, and he
could not do it. Once, long ago, he reflected, the poor terrier bitch whom
Snitter had seen—the bitch that was now a ghost—must, to remain by her master
and guard him, have faced protracted death from hunger. Yet the drowning-tank
was the true reason why, after the Glenridding escape, he, Rowf, had refused
to attempt another farm raid; and the reason why, though he shared Snitter's
despair, he had now let him set out alone.
He remembered a dog called Licker, who had told him how the whitecoats
sometimes killed animals instantaneously. "This other dog and I," Licker had
said, "were being restrained in metal harnesses. It was horribly painful, and
suddenly this other dog stopped yelping and went unconscious. The whitecoats
took him out of the harness and looked at him, and then one of them nodded to
the other and just struck him dead on the spot. I tell you, I envied him."

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Page No 192

(379)
And I envy him too, thought Rowf. Why couldn't there be just a quick shot,
now, and that would be that? The tod was right; you'd wonder why we take so
much trouble to stay alive. The reason is that no creature can endure being
hungry—as the tod very well knew. The bitch—how did she do it?
Indeed, his hunger had now become an unendurable torment. His instincts were
cloudy with hunger; he smelt the scree and the tarn as though through a
drifting smoke of hunger, saw them as though through a sheet of hunger-
coloured glass. He took a paw between his teeth and for a moment seriously
wondered whether he could eat it. The pain of biting answered him.
He tried to gnaw a stone, then laid his head back on his paws and began to
think of all the enemies he would have been ready to fight, if only fighting
could have saved Snitter's life and his own. If nothing else, he had always
been a fighter. Might it not be possible, in some way or other, to go down
fighting? To bite, to bite, to sink the teeth in, aarrgh!—if only I hadn't
driven the tod away, perhaps we might have learned at last how to be wild
animals. Men—how I hate men! I wish I'd killed one, like Snitter. Oh, I'd rip
his throat out, tear open his stomach and eat it, shloop, shloop!
Suddenly he felt a stinging pain in his neck, like the bite of a horse-fly but
sharper, fiercer. As he leapt up, the sound of the shot reached him, magnified
in the gully walls. Tearing over the loose stones, he could hear Snitter
yapping somewhere far above and then a shriek—a human shriek—of fear. He
stopped, confused. Where was Snitter? Pebbles were falling, yes and something
else, something much heavier than pebbles. He could hear it, whatever it was,
slithering, bumping, thudding to rest behind him in the gully. Holding himself
ready to run, he watched to see what would emerge, but now there was complete
stillness. He waited some time. Nothing moved. Not a sound. He could hear his
own blood dripping on the stones.
He returned cautiously round the buttress to the foot of the gully. A little
way off, sprawled on the scree, lay a man's body, the head bent grotesquely
sideways, one outstretched arm ending in a gashed and bleeding hand.
(380)
SWiKHAL CdHtfToH
*,j&?&    L«vt"    "u     OLtLMAN
^^m^-^JSk,.^^
Old
Me. ///i< of foil of Mr. h/estcotl,
route,,
The smell of blood was warm and strong. Rowf began to salivate. Slowly he
moved nearer, drooling, licking his chops, urinating over the stones. The body
smelt of sweat and fresh, meaty flesh. The smell obliterated the sky, the
tarn, the stones, the wind, Rowf's own fear. There was nothing else in the
world—only toothy, doggy Rowf and the meaty smell of the body. He went nearer
still.
Snitter could not make out where the man had gone. Beyond doubt, however, he
had disappeared, and further than round the rock too, for even the smell of
his presence—his fear and his sweat and breath—had vanished. For a little
while Snitter pattered ineffectively about in the top of the gully, but then
gave up and climbed out. As he was doing so, he heard Rowf barking below him—
an excited, exciting sound. Something must have happened; something had
changed.
Poor old Rowf! thought Snitter. I can't really leave him, just to go down to a
farm and get myself killed. Killed! Oh, good heavens, oh, the tod! That
settles it! I shall have to go back and tell Rowf about the poor tod. What was
it he said I was to say? "Reet mazer wi' yows" —I can't just ignore the poor
tod's last message to Rowf.
Still bemused with shock and hunger, he made his way back to the Hause and so

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Page No 193

down to Goat's Water. Stopping to bark as he crossed the tnfall beck, he heard
a curiously muffled reply from Rowf, coming, apparently, from deep in one of
the gullies. It was not until he got nearer that he heard also the sounds of
dragging and worrying, smelt blood and began to salivate in his turn. Yet upon
entering the gully itself, he was altogether unprepared for what he saw.
Wednesday the 24th November
Punctually at five minutes to three on the afternoon of the following day,
Digby Driver presented himself at the
( 382.)
front door of Animal Research. It was warmer, pleasant weather, with a pale-
blue, windy sky, the becks running brown and strong with the thaw and a smell
of resinous larch trees in the air. Down on Coniston Water a flock of Canada
geese had come in and the big, brown-breasted, black-necked birds could be
seen and heard, trumpeting and honking as they hustled across the surface of
the lake. They were, one would have thought, worth a glance; but if they had
been anhingas and black-browed albatrosses, Digby Driver would not have taken
a single step aside, since he would not have been aware of anything unusual.
He stubbed out his cigarette on the porch wall, threw it down on the step,
rang the bell and shortly found himself in a stuffy interview room, facing Dr.
Boycott, Mr. Powell and a cup of thin tea.
Digby Driver had, in a manner of speaking, his back to the wall, and was
beginning to realize that the Research Station's policy of sitting tight and
saying as little as possible was proving, from their point of view, more
effective than he had originally supposed that it would. A press campaign,
like a drama, has got to be dynamic. It has to be kept moving. It is vital
that it should go on finding fresh grist to its mill. The wretch who on Monday
was helping the police with their inquiries must be arrested on Tuesday, tried
on Wednesday, sentenced on Thursday and finally kicked when he is down with a
calumnious and slanted biography on Friday. Otherwise the newspaper is
slipping as a democratic organ and readership is likely to fall off. Ever
since the death of Mr. Ephraim, Digby Driver, in accordance with his masters'
instructions, had trailed his coat in front of Animal Research as
resourcefully as he knew how. Being a clever, energetic journalist, he had
managed to keep the story of the dogs very much alive. Nevertheless, none of
his ploys had succeeded in .provoking the scientists. Those within the castle
had declined to come out and fight, reckoning, accurately enough, that in time
the public were likely to lose interest in a pair of stray dogs who did no
more than raid farms and kill a few sheep and of whom—whatever might be bawled
to the contrary—it would ultimately have to be admitted that they were not in
fact carrying bubonic
(383)
plague. Some other topic would eventuate elsewhere, as it always does, and the
newspaper would detach itself from the dogs and cease from troubling. As a
matter of fact Driver, from his telephone calls to the London office, had
already begun to have an unpleasant inkling that the inception of the said
detachment might, indeed, be only just around the corner. Yet he himself, from
the point of view of his own profit and career, had a strong interest in
keeping the dogs' story going, if he could. Should he be recalled now and the
story allowed to fizzle out, the whole thing would not have concluded with
that feather in his cap which his employers, relying on his journalistic
acumen to boost circulation and further their own political ends, had sent him
up to the Lakes to acquire. The plain truth was that Digby Driver did not know
what^the hell to do next. By this time the dogs ought to ha*ve been
dramatically shot, after a colourful and exciting hunt spontaneously organized
by enraged farmers. Or better still, the countryside should have risen up in
public protest and terror of the pestilence. These things, had not happened.
People had merely taken in their dustbins at night and hoped that the dogs

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Page No 194

would be found dead elsewhere. Unless Animal Research could be provoked into
some kind of indiscretion on the eve of the forthcoming House of Commons'
Supply Day debate on the cost of research establishments, the whole thing was
likely to come to a lame conclusion for lack of a Pelion to pile on Ossa.
Digby Driver, if not yet up a tree, was beyond argument gripping a lower
branch with one hand.
Dr. Boycott, who was perfectly well aware of all this, greeted him with
appropriately courteous urbanity.
"I'm very glad," said Dr. Boycott, offering Driver a cigarette, "that you've
at last come along to see us this afternoon. Better late than never, you know.
Now do tell us how you think we can help you. I'm sure we'll be delighted to
do so if we can."
It took a lot more than this sort of thing to put Digby Driver off his stroke.
As a professional bastard, he would not have been unduly troubled by the most
adroit manipulation of chairs, ashtrays and lights within the capacity of Mr.
Michael Korda himself. Like the great image in
(384)
Nebuchadnezzar's dream, his belly and thighs were as of brass and his legs as
of iron.
"Well, I'd like to ask you to tell me a little more about these dogs," he
began.
"Now, let me see, which particular dogs are we talking about?" asked Dr.
Boycott with a warm smile.
"Come, Mr.—er—Boycott," said Driver (and now, in-deed, they were both smiling
away like a couple of hyenas), "I can't help feeling that that's just a shade
lacking in—well, in frankness and honesty, if you don't mind my saying so. You
know quite well which dogs."
"Well, I think I do," replied Dr. Boycott, "but what I'm trying to get at is
how and in what terms you identify them: your attributions, if one may use the
term. So can I, once again, begin as the idiot boy and ask you, 'Which dogs?'"
"The dogs that escaped from here and have been causing all this trouble
locally."
"Ah," said Dr. Boycott triumphantly, with the air of a Q.C. who has now in
very sooth extracted from a witness
ffor the other side the fundamental piece of disingenuous bilge which he
intended to extract. "Now that's precisely the point. What locality and what
trouble?" ,    Deliberately, Driver knocked the ash off his cigarette | and
sipped some of his foul tea.
"Well, O.K., let's start from scratch, then, if that's the lway you want it.
You're not denying that some time ago f'lwo dogs got out of this place and
that they've been : running wild on the fells?"
"We're certainly not denying that two dogs got out. As
think you know, we said as much in an early press latement we issued. What
happened to them after that v:Pm afraid I can't tell you. They may very well
have been i dead for some time."
y'    "And it can't be denied that these dogs may quite I likely have been in
contact with bubonic plague?" |!   "It's improbable in the last degree that
they were," fsaid Dr. Boycott.
;K;   "But you can't give  a definite assurance that  they |-weren't?" |l
"When we say something here?' answered Dr. Boycott,
'& ( 385 )
with radiant cordiality, "it's always one hundred per cent reliable. That's
why we haven't given any such assurance. But I repeat, for all practical
purposes it's improbable in the last degree that—"
"Would you like to amplify that a little? Explain why?"
It did not escape Dr. Boycott that Digby Driver had been stung into
interrupting him.

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Page No 195

"No, I—er—don't think I—er—would," he said reflectively and with a musing
frown, as though giving a lunatic suggestion every possible benefit of fair
consideration, "because, you see, that's really a matter between the local
health authority and the responsible Government Department. We have, of
course, been in close touch with those bodies and complied with the
appropriate sta.utory requirements. And if they're not bothered, then I think
it follows—"
"You say they're not bothered? That you let two dogs escape?"
"I say they're not bothered about any public health risk of bubonic plague. If
you want to know more than that, I should ask them. They're the statutorily
appointed custodians of public health, after all."
Digby Driver, fuming inwardly, decided to come in on another beam.
"What experiments were these dogs being used for?" he asked.
Oddly enough, this took Dr. Boycott unawares. It was plain that he had not
expected the question and was unable to decide, all in a moment, whether or
not there was likely to be any harm in answering it.
"I don't see why you shouldn't know that''' he replied at length, thereby
inadvertently suggesting that there were things which he thought Digby Driver
should not know. "One was taking part in certain tests connected with
physiological and psychological reactions to stress; and the other was a brain
surgery subject."
"What specific benefits were expected to result from these tests—experiments—
whatever you call them?"
"I think the best way I can answer that," replied Dr. Boycott, "is to refer
you to paragraph—er—270, I think —yes, here it is—of the 1965 Report of the
Littlewood
(386)
Committee, the Home Office Departmental Committee on Experiments on Animals.
'From our study of the evidence ; about unnecessary experiments and the
complexity of biological science, we conclude that it is impossible to tell
what practical applications any new discovery in biological
- knowledge may have later for the benefit of man or animal. Accordingly, we
recommend that there should be no general barrier to the use of animal
experimentation in seeking new biological knowledge, even if it cannot be
shown to be of immediate or foreseeable value.' "
"In other words there wasn't any specific purpose. You just do these things to
animals to see what's going to happen?"
"The specific purpose of a test," said Dr. Boycott, with an air of grave
responsibility, "is always the advancement of knowledge with a view to the
ultimate benefit both of man and of animals."
"Such as forcing animals to smoke to see how safely humans can?"
Like George Orwell's inquisitor O'Brien, when Winston Smith burst out that he
must have tortured his mistress, Dr. Boycott shrugged this irrelevant remark
aside. In any case Driver did not want to pursue it.
"So anyway, these dogs get out," he said, "and you do nothing about it—"
"We haven't got people to spare to go chasing all over the countryside looking
for dogs on spec," replied Dr. Boycott crisply. "We've complied with the law.
We told the police and the local authorities. For the matter of that, dogs
round here sometimes run away from farmers [who own them, and those farmers
sometimes lose track of
them altogether. We've done the same as a farmer does." , "But these dogs—
first they kill sheep: then they actually cause the death of a man; then they
begin attacking shops and farmyards—"
"Ah," said Dr. Boycott again, "I thought you might be ; going to say something
like that. Do they? I need con-'vincing. With regard to the death of poor
Ephraim, it's the merest conjecture that any dog was involved—ours or anybody
else's. A dog—no one knows what dog—was seen running away in the distance; and

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that's all. Put two and
(387)
two together and make five. Again, no one's ever actually identified these
particular dogs in the act of worrying sheep—"
"The Miss Dawsons at Seathwaite saw their green collars—"
"Certainly. That is almost the only occasion on which dogs wearing green
collars have been indisputably identified. Tipping over a dustbin is not the
same thing as sheep-worrying. And on that occasion we had an officer at the
premises within two hours," added Dr. Boycott, conveniently forgetting that he
had originally blamed Mr. Powell for going on his own initiative.
"What about the farmer at Glenridding and the attack on Westcott's car near
Dunmail Raise? Have you forgotten that this matter is going to be raised in a
Parliamentary debate in the House tomorrow night? If I may say so, Mr.
Boycott, you're being grossly irresponsible!"
"If anyone is being irresponsible," replied Dr. Boycott gravely, "it is
popular newspapers who alarm the public with totally unfounded tales about
bubonic plague—"
"Yes," said Mr. Powell, weighing in for the first time, "and with regard to
that, I think we'd like to ask by what unauthorized means you obtained
information about work being done here on bubonic plague which you later
twisted and used all wrong for sensational purposes—"
"Why, you told me yourself!" answered Driver instantly, with raised eyebrows
and an air of surprise.
"/ told you?" cried Mr. Powell, with a great deal too much indignation in his
voice. Dr. Boycott turned and looked at him. "I most certainly did not!"
"Come, come, Mr. Powell, you won't have forgotten that I gave you a lift back
from Seathwaite on the morning you went over to see the Miss Dawsons, and that
on the way we went to the bar of the Manor Hotel in Brough-ton and met your
friend Mr, Gray over a few pints of beer. And then later, you told me all
about Dr. Goodner and his secret defence work."
Dr. Boycott was frowning, his face expressing surprise and perplexity. As Mr.
Powell drew fresh breath to struggle and splash, the telephone rang. Dr.
Boycott nodded to him and he picked it up.
(388)
I'  "Hallo? Yes. Yes, I'm an officer at Animal Research. O.K., carry on,
then." There was a pause as he listened.
**Under the Dow Crag? He's dead? I see. The dogs—you
—you say they'd what? They'd—oh, my God! A green 'collar? You're sure? You've
got it down at the station 'i»ow? Oh, my God! Yes, all right—oh, God, how
awful!— Yes, I'll ring you back—anyway, someone will—very ijuickly. Yes, very
quickly indeed. Yes, I'm sure someone
will come straight down. Good-bye."
Mr. Powell, staring and open-mouthed, put down the ^receiver.
"Chief," he said, half-whispering, "I think you and I had better have a word
outside."
Five minutes later Digby Driver was belting on his way to the police station.
(389)
FIT 10
Thursday the 25th November
PLAGUE DOGS DEVOUR SECOND VICTIM!
APPALLING TRAGEDY OF YOUNG HILLWALKER
BODY DESECRATED ON MOUNTAINSIDE
The Plague Dogs—escapees from the Government-owned Animal Research Station
near Collision—who for some time past have been terrorizing Lakeland with
their ruthless sheep-killing and poultry raids on farms and domestic premises,
have committed a culminating deed of horror at which the whole British public
will shudder, wondering whether this country has been plunged back into the

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Dark Ages. If you are squeamish DO NOT READ ON!
Yesterday, in the early afternoon, the body of Geoffrey West-cott, 28, a bank
employee of Windermere, Westmorland, was found at the foot of one of the steep
gullies below the east face of the Dow Crag, near Coniston, famed mecca of
Lakeland mountaineers. Mr. Westcott had evidently fallen to his death from the
top of the gully, three hundred feet above, for on the grass not far from the
summit of the Crag were found his binoculars and prismatic compass, customary
equipment of the hlllwalker.
THE BODY HAD BEEN TORN TO PIECES AND LARGELY DEVOURED BY CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS.
NEAR IT WAS FOUND A SEVERED DOC COLLAR MADE OF GREEN PLASTIC.
"Terrible Sight" Mr. Westcotfs body was found by Dennis Wllliamson, a sheep
(390)
^fanner 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 some-
thing dark lying at the foot of one of the steep gullies running
4own from the summit area. The weather was a bit misty, but
after I'd moved back and forth for some tune to get the best
k|ht of it I could and shouted without getting any reply, I felt
, lore 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
"-  bit I found the body. It was a terrible sight — worse that I can
tell you. I left everything as it was and went back at once to in-
form 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,
*Tbe discovery of a damaged Winchester .22 rifle in the gully, together with
a severed dog-collar made of green plastic, suggested to as 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."
i Inquiries subsequently made of his landlady, Mrs. Rose Green of i
Windermere, have corroborated that Mr. Westcott had told her that I be
intended to track down and shoot the dogs in revenge for their f attack upon
his car two days previously, after he had stopped for a illew minutes on a
lonely part of the Grasmere-Keswick road. Mr.
g&^sr.
||mstcott was particularly upset that the dogs should have terrified fslHrs.
Green and torn her week's shopping of meat and groceries out fepf the car hi
order to devour it.
; "Practical — Determined" ti pandsome, middle-aged Mrs. Green,
interviewed by the Orator yes-irday evening, described Mr. Westcott as a
practical and very de-Cnntaed young man, and an experienced and capable
hillwalker. *He told me his mind was made up to find and kill those terrible
she said. "I only wish he had. This terrible tragedy has upset deeply,
especially as I feel that hi a way Geoffrey was doing he did for my sake. He
was terribly upset about the dogs the groceries and also about the terrible
way they had t his car. I shall miss him terribly. We were great friends. He
frag almost like a son."
(391)
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
investigations! procedures. We are, of course, ready to give evidence to the

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Page No 198

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 mat the Government act NOW to put an end to a
menace mat 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 rattlesnake 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, mat
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
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, bonnden 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
(393)
to Goat's Water. Mist was still lying, but only upon the peaks, where it moved

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Page No 199

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, then can, Rowf! I know more about men than you do. They wilir
"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."
(394)
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 aasking questions, Ah'll
belt the bluidy arse off him. Ah will met."
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."
"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'

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Page No 200

that, Ah told thee as he'd be real 'andy fella, put paid to trooble an' all."
(395)
';$
rty Friar
"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* news-
(396)
paper 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 'Arry Tyson says they're no more carryin'
plague than he is. Never read sooch a looad 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 body."
"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 rooad."
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 hit' 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, (397)
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

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Page No 201

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
logi-
(398)
cal—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 dogs 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 (399)
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.

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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) 1 Like the
hon. and learned Member for Lakeland Central, I aip anxious to hear what
assurances my rt. hon. Friend has to £Jve 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—
MR. BUOWASH: You ought to.
CAPTAIN MORTON-HARDSHAW: The hon. and learned Member says that I ought to.
With respect, I cannot agree with him. I wish—
MR. BUGWASH: Because you are deliberately blind to what is—
CAPTAIN MORTON-HARDSHAW: At any rate I am not a lackey of the gutter press.
MR. BUGWASH: Who is the hon. and gallant Member suggesting is a lackey of the
gutter press? Would the hon. and gallant Member care to say plainly who he
suggests is a lackey of the gutter press?
(400)
>>>    CAPTAIN MORTON-HARDSHAW:  I am afraid the hon. and
I learned Member for Lakeland Central is going to burst a
'£ blood vessel in a moment. If the cap fits he can wear it.
;V   MR. SPEAKER: I am afraid the cap will not fit. That was an
^unparliamentary expression. The hon. and gallant Member
$for Keswick must withdraw it. It is desirable to keep the
temper of the House down, if possible.
fry.   CAPTAIN  MORTON-HARDSHAW:   Is  it  only  the   hon.   and
^teamed Member with the brain of a fox and the manners of
;>|>a dog who is entitled to your protection, Mr. Speaker? Am I
4,,not to be given any protection—
|:    HON. MEMBERS: Withdraw!
|     CAPTAIN   MORTON-HARDSHAW:   It  is   often   said   by   Mr.
f Speaker that he is conveniently deaf.
I        SEVERAL HON.  MEMBERS rose——
4 MR. SPEAKER: Order. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is ^entitled to complete
his speech. But he must withdraw that Expression.
|;f. MR. MICHAEL HAND (Oban): On a point of order, Mr. ^Speaker. If we are
considering manners and the pot is calling !phe kettle black—
:|    MR. SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. /    HON. MEMBERS: It is!
MR. SPEAKER: No, it is not. I do not take my orders from back-benchers. I have
said that the hon. and gallant Gentle-
must withdraw, and no doubt he is waiting to do so. CAPTAIN MORTON-HARDSHAW: I
withdraw the words that I and I apologize to every lackey of the gutter press
in lis country for bringing him down to the level of the people
sit on the opposite side of the House. MR. SPEAKER: I am obliged.
MR. BUGWASH: I accept the hon. and gallant Gentleman's  H»3thdrawal, but not
his apology. Our sympathy should per-ps go out to the Secretary of State for
the company he
today.
CAPTAIN MORTON-HARDSHAW:  I will conclude by simply sfaaying what I have been
prevented from saying for the last re minutes. I sincerely hope that my rt.

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Page No 203

hon. Friend will able to include in his reply some undertaking about en-ring
the safety of the public when carrying out work on agerous things of this
nature which ought not to be done places where there is the minutest risk of
infection getting
out. I hope my rt. hon. Friend will have something to tell us about that.
Up in the Strangers' Gallery, Mr. Anthony Hogpenny turned to Mr. Desmond
Simpson.
"Let's go out and have a couple across the way, shall we? They'll be happy for
at least half an hour yet. Then we can come back and hear whatever Hot Bottle
Bill can find to tell them. One thing's certain, he'll have to concede
something—quite a lot, I'd say, considering that he's under fire from his own
back-benchers as well as from the Opposition. Should be an interesting-
spectacle."
When they returned, they found that the debate had evidently folded rather
more quickly than Mr. Hogpenny had expected, for Hot Bottle Bill was already
on his feet and had apparently been on them for some little time.
—I have already stressed to the House that Make a most serious view of the
public anxiety brought about by the escape of these dogs. Let me say at once
that I have every confidence in the people who run Animal Research. They are
extremely good at their job.
MR. HAND: What is it?
MR. HARBOTTLE: Their job is scientific research by means of experiments upon
animals, and I repeat, they are very good at it. I am satisfied that, in
saying nothing initially about the dogs' escape, their aim was to avoid giving
rise to public anxiety in a manner which might have proved alarmist and worse
in its effect than silence. I want to assure the House that for all practical
purposes there is no risk whatever of bubonic plague. That has been made far
too much of in certain quarters and by certain people. There is a possible
chance in ten thousand—in fifty thousand—that the dogs might have encountered
an infected flea, and that is why the station, quite rightly, would not say
that such a thing was out of the question. I repeat, they are men of science,
not public relations officers.
MR. GULPIN MCGURK (Adlestrop) rose—
MR. HARBOTTLE: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but what I have to say is of the
greatest importance and I cannot give way now.
The hon. and learned Member for Lakeland Central spoke (402)
*' of public expenditure at Lawson Park. A balance sheet for t the past three
years will be laid on the Table of the House .. within the next two days. I do
not accept for one moment that there has been any excessive expenditure. I am
sure that inhere has not and the balance sheet will prove it—
:fv     MR.  BUGWASH rOSC——
;)'.''   MR. HARBOTTLE: I must continue, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry.
'' (Interruption.) This sort of thing only wastes time—
£"     MR. BUGWASH:  Better than wasting money.
f-     MR. HARBOTTLE: I intend personally to examine the re-
f''search programmes, staffing and costs at Lawson Park for ,, the current
year and next year, and see whether economies 4; cannot be made. I will let
the House know my conclusions.
I
I.     "Christ!" muttered Mr. Hogpenny to Mr. Simpson,
..?£' -,
:,6| I come finally to the matter of the distressing tragedy which ^occurred
on the Dow Crag two days ago. It would be point-fcless for me or anyone to try
to allot blame for a thing of this |(.kind. The point is, what is going to be
done and how quick o^and effective will it be? What I have to tell the House
is that if time has been lost, we are making up for it now. With the co-
operation of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence—

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Miss JOYCE O'FARRELL (Abergavenny): Where is he? MR. HARBOTTLE: The hon. Lady
asks where he is. That is irrelevant. The point is that he has already made a
decisive ntribution to this problem. Two companies of the 3rd Bat-, the
Parachute Regiment, are at this moment on their to the Lake District. Tomorrow
they will begin an inten-i»ive search of the most likely areas and they will
continue puntil the dogs are found and killed, which I hope will be . Also
taking part in the search will be two Royal Naval s, which will be directly in
touch with the ground vi'force by radio.
'? There is one more thing I want to say. It is important and |^I hope it will
be widely reported. Members of the public who ^have no real business there
positively must keep out of the
:|i*rea. Anything in the nature of rubber-necking, taking photo-t|jjraphs,
sight-seeing, and so on would certainly be a hindrance ^:$o the soldiers and
could also be dangerous to the sight-seers ^themselves. We are not going to
close the roads. That might |fcreate serious difficulties for doctors,
veterinary surgeons,
(403)
farmers and others. We rely on people's good sense to stay away.
I myself am going to the area tomorrow. I shall be in personal touch with
those conducting the hunt and it will not be called off until it is
successful.
MR. BUGWASH: I am sure I am expressing the feelings of the entire House in
thanking the Secretary of State for his speech and for the action he is
initiating in various different spheres. It is a case of better late than
never. We on this side of the House welcome his co-operation.
"Hell's bells!" said Mr. Hogpenny, as he and Mr. Simpson left the Strangers'
Gallery en route for Mr. Bugwash's room in the House, "talk about grovelling!
Harbottle makes it too easy. A penny a kick and twopence a brick and sewage
was threepence a bucket, eh?"
"He knows what he's doing, though," said Mr. Simpson. "Don't you see, the
implicit line is that his'chaps have clanged, he's too decent to say so and
now he's Honest Joe acting like lightning to clean up the mess that wasn't
brought to his notice earlier. A head will roll, as sure as fate, you mark my
words. Give it forty-eight hours."
"Well, the Plague Dogs racket has certainly proved very successful from the
Orator's point of view, all things considered," said Mr. Hogpenny. "In fact,
far better than I expected. How to make good use of our four-footed friends. A
Cabinet Minister gravely embarrassed, some sort of junior resignation, if
you're right, and circulation up more than half a million. Your Driver fellow
has done very well. However, I think we need to be looking for a really
resounding denouement of some kind now. Fearsome dogs shot by gallant lads'll
be about the size of it, I suppose. But I hope Driver may be able to contrive
some unexpected conclusion that pays us and pleases the public."
"Don't worry," replied Mr. Simpson. "If anyone can, he will."
"Snitter! Wake up, blast you! Wake up, Snitter!" Snitter was lying asleep on
the shale. He woke, rolled over, turned towards the patch of daylight at the
distant
(404)
1 opening and sniffed the flow of air. It was late morning, cloudy but without
rain.
Rowf ran a few yards, stopped and turned his head. "Come and look. Take care,
though—keep well out of sight. You'll see why."
When they were about fifteen or twenty feet from the
.mouth of the cavern, Snitter gave a yap of .surprise and
.flung himself down on the stones,
v     "Oh my dam! How long—how long have all those peo-
i pie been up there, Rowf? What a—"

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Page No 205

<     "I don't know. I only looked out myself just now. We've
-never seen anything like that, have we? What are they all .  doing and what
do you think it means?" I     "Such a lot of them!"
I     A mile away, on the opposite side of the Moss, the fridge of the Dow
Crag was covered with human figures, fblack against the sky. Some were
standing still, while Ipthers could be seen moving along the undulant top,
trail-ling down towards Goat's Hause and thence out of sight Ifbeyond the
brow. Rowf growled. I-   "I can hear them talking—can you?" |    "Yes—and
smell them—clothes, leather, tobacco. I was I afraid yesterday—I said, didn't
I?—I was afraid they'd 1 come: but I didn't think there'd be all those," S
"Do you think they're looking for us? They're not
frmers, are they?" "No. They look more like the sort of people I remem-Ipber
my master talking to, in the old days. There are fwomen up there, as well as
men. They all seem to be peer-'f ing over the edge, look, and some of them are
going down 3&p where—to where the man was." ;|v  "I'm hungry," said Rowf.
|- "So am I; but we can't risk going out now. We'll have ijlo wait—wait—what
was I saying? The tod said—everything's so confused—the garden—oh, yes, we'll
have to Ijpiit till—till it's dark. They mustn't see us, not a mouse." w
"Starve, then," said Rowf, scratching his staring ribs Ipgainst the rock wall.
"We've done that often enough. Getting easy, isn't it?"
A drizzle began to fall from the clouds drifting up mnerdale from the west. In
half an hour mist had blot-(405)
ted out the mile of moss and fell lying between the sightseers on the Dow Crag
and the watchers in the cavern. Rowf stretched, and shook himself.
"Hope they get wet. It might be worth going across there tonight, when they've
gone. A crowd of people like that's sure to have left some bits of bread or
something. But we'll have to take care. There might be men still watching.
They hate us, don't they? You said so."
Snitter, staring into the blown rain, made no immediate answer. At last he
said slowly, "I—know. And yet—I don't understand. My—my master's out there
somewhere."
"What on earth d'you mean? Talk sense, Snitter! Your master's dead—you told me
so. How can he be out there?"
"I don't know. The mist blows about, doesn't it? I'm so tired of it. I'm tired
of being a wild animal, Rowf."
Snitter ran outside, lapped from a shallow puddle in the turf and sat upon his
hind legs, begging.
"The gully in the shed floor—the lady with the gloves. It's all different
since the second man died, and the poor tod. I must have dreamt the tod,
because I saw him—after he'd gone—they tore him to pieces. It's the mist that
makes everything so confused. And the tod said something very important, Rowf,
that I was to tell you, but I've forgotten—"
"That's a change," said Rowf brutally. "Listen! Isn't that the sound of a
man's boots? No, somewhere over there. We'd better get a good long way back
inside. This is no good, is it? We shan't be able to go on like this— not for
long."
FROM SNACKET J. MOREE, THE WONDER KING
Twenty-Seven Eighty-Four,  Okmulgee Oklahoma 74447
Dear Sirs,
I am a promoter and exhibitor of wide experience and distinction, having
worked in this profession for many years in three continents and now sole
director of the celebrated Three Continents Exhibitions Inc. I enclose a
brochure relative to the work of this company, from which you will observe
that its exhibits have been tributized by the Sultan of Nargot, President Amin
of Uganda and others of worldwide
(406)
£ note and fame. Exhibits during the last five years include the t triple-

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Page No 206

breasted priestess of Kuwait, "Doghead" Slugboni, a | former associate of Al
Capone, and Mucks Clubby, the boy
-, evangelist who at the age of eight convinced thousands in "-Texas that he
was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. These are 4-bnly a few of the high-class
exhibits characteristic of world-:f famous Three Continents service to the
public. V It is my view that the "Plague Dogs" would constitute an | exhibit
of superior quality and on the assumption that they |" are still legally the
property of your Research Station I am I prepared to offer four thousand
dollars for their outright .^purchase in good condition. Please wire your
reply or if you
-/ prefer call collect to myself at the above address. Trusting to
I talk to you soon,
I Best,
t Snacket J. Moree
£.. (The Wonder King)
ft "We're going to be inundated with this sort of thing and Jail manner of
other rubbish, I dare say," said Dr. Boycott, Icndorsing a direction at the
foot of the letter and throw-ling it into his OUT tray. "I don't know why that
should 'fhave come here. It should have gone straight to Admin., i, and
they're welcome to it."
"I've had two or three loopy phone calls this morning llready," said Mr.
Powell. "We really need someone put to deal with that sort of thing until
public interest dies |down a bit. It's such a fearful interruption to work,
you vfcnow."
I "I'll mention it to the Director," replied Dr. Boycott, £"but I can tell you
now that we're not going to get anyone Mttra just at the moment. You know the
Secretary of tate's called for an urgent memorandum listing practicable
eductions and economics throughout the station—ap-Jparently he intends to give
some sort of undertaking in f|his speech in the debate tonight. There'll
probably be rastic changes both in work and staff. Goodner'll be almost
certainly, but that's very much for your ear just at the moment."
'I see," said Mr. Powell. "Anyway, chief, can you ^Countersign this report on
the kittens experiment—the ^tang-worm infections? That was what I really came
in for.
C407)
I'm afraid none of the experimental forms of treatment were successful; and
most of the subjects died, as you'll notice."
"Oh dear," said Dr. Boycott, reading. "What a shame! 'Death of almost entire
group'—h'm—'preceded by'— h'm, h'm—'excessive salivation, impairment of
locomotion and vision, muscular twitchings, panting, respiratory distress,
convulsions'—how disappointing! Are the experimental treatments concluded
now?"
" Traid so, for the time being. They've all been given a very fair trial.
Davies says it would be pointless to continue without further consultation
with Glasgow, and anyway we haven't any kittens left, not until next month.
That's why I've completed a report at this stage."
"I see," said Dr. Boycott. "Well, it can't-be helped. Anyway, more painful
matters seem to be looming all round just at the moment. What about the
monkey, by the way? How long has it done now?"
"Forty and a half days," replied Mr. Powell. "I believe it's going to die. I
wish—I wish to God—"
"That's very unlikely," interrupted Dr. Boycott swiftly, "if it's been fed and
watered in accordance with ttie schedule. But obviously it's the worse for
wear. You must expect that. It's a social deprivation experiment, after all."
"Rowf! Rowf—the rhododendrons, can you smell them?"
Amid the stirrings of glabrous leaves and the glitter and hum of summer
insects, Snitter recognized with excitement the old, familiar spot where his

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Page No 207

body had made a hollow in the peaty soil. Rowf, awake instantly, bristled,
sniffing and peering in bewilderment and darkness.
"What? What do you mean?"
"That damned cat's been here again, too. I'll cat it! Til chew its tail off,
you see if I don't!"
"Snitter, lie down! Go to sleep."
"I'm going to, don't worry, When the sun gets round just a bit more it strikes
right in here, do you see, between those two branches? I tell you, it's the
most comfortable place in the whole garden. I'm glad you're here too, Rowf:
youll like my master; he's a really good sort,"
(408)
Snitter wriggled carefully along the shale, flattening his back to squeeze
under one of the stouter branches.
"The leaves flash in your eyes, don't they, when they catch the light? Used to
make me jump now and then, until I got used to it."
And now it really did seem to Rowf that they were both surrounded by a grove
of dark-green leaves, cemuous on their short, tough stems; by brown, fibrous,
peeling branches and great speckle-throated, rosy blooms. Yet all these he
perceived as figmentary and as it were in motion, present while forever
slipping away in the edge of the nose and the tail of the eye, superimposed
upon the shale and the rock walls, covering them as a shallow, flowing stream
its bed; or still more insubstantially, as smoke from a bonfire drifts over
the trees and bushes of a garden. His hearing, too—or so it seemed—had become
clouded; nevertheless a faint, sharp call, like an audible recollection of a
human cry rather than the sound itself, came to his ears from a distance and
he jumped up, turning towards the cave-mouth, where moonlight and stars showed
faintly luminescent beyond and outside the ghostly den of foliage.
"Thats only the paraffin man," said Snitter, settling himself comfortably. "He
usually comes round about now. Can't you smell him and his van? Fairly stinks
the place out, doesn't it?"
A spectral odour of paraffin stole through the vault, indistinct yet
undeniably present, like the twinking of bats at twilight. Rowf trembled where
he crouched. His very senses seemed outside his own body. He heard a car pass
by, over the curve of the world and down the other side. Above him an
invisible flock of starlings flew cackling on their evening way, an impalpable
bluebottle settled on his ear, and always the long, oval, glittering leaves
nodded and rustled about him.
"Here he conies," whispered Snitter gaily, "out of the door, look, old brown
coat, scarf and all. On his way to poke some paper into the red box, you bet!
Look—no, through here—see him? Come on, let's give him a surprise!"
But now Rowf could perceive nothing. There was only
(409)
the glimmer of the rocky wall and something like a bank of mist blowing nearer
and nearer across a desolate, windy field.
"Here he comes!" said Snitter again. "Can't see him now for the bushes, but
you can hear him, can't you? He'll go right past us in a moment."
Rowf turned his head, trying to catch a glimpse of the approaching footsteps
crunching on the gravel with a sound faint as that of blown leaves.
"O tallywack and tandem!" whispered Snitter, quivering with mischievous
excitement. "Here we go! You can jump the gate all right, can't you? It's not
a high one, you know. Don't be nervous—he always loves a joke."
The mist enveloped Rowf completely. He lay tense in a directionless, scentless
obscurity where there was neither up nor down, a void in which a raindrop
would become lost on its way from clouds to earth. He opened his mouth, but no
sound came forth to break the windless silence.
Suddenly Snitter's body struck violently against his own. He fell to one side
and found himself struggling and kicking on the floor of the cavern. t

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Page No 208

"Rowf! Oh Rowf, it's the huntsman, the huntsman with his red coat! They've
torn the poor tod to pieces! They're coming! They're coming!'*
As the spare, bent-kneed huntsman came panting through the rhododendrons,
knife in hand, Snitter tried to burrow under Rowf s flank and then, in frenzy,
bit him in the haunch; a moment after, he fled yelping out of the cave, away
from the smoke-breathed, shadowy hounds bounding into it through the cleft in
his head. By the time that Rowf, cursing and bleeding, had picked himself up
and followed him outside, he had already reached the upper end of the tarn.
When sheer exhaustion brought him to a halt at last by the beck above Long
House Farm, he did not at first recognize Rowf, turning on him, as he came up,
with bared teeth and white, staring eyes. Rowf, still half-stupefied by the
illusion which he had shared and by his two-mile pursuit of Snitter down the
hillside, dropped, panting, on the other side of the beck, and after a time
Snitter came hesitantly across to him, sniffing him over like a stranger, but
(410)
saying nothing. Little by little—as though his sight were clearing—he returned
to the surrounding realities of night, of the fell, the chattering beck, the
clouds and starlight; and an hour later the two got up and wandered away
together, refugees without destination or purpose, except never to return to
the cavern.
Thus it was that when, on the following afternoon, a section of No. 7 Platoon,
B Company, 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, patrolling the southern and
eastern faces of the Gray Friar, entered and searched the old cop-permine
shaft, they found no more than either No. 9 Platoon, patrolling the Goat's
Water area, or No. 10 Platoon, searching from Walna Scar across to the
fellside north of Dow Crag. The mysterious Plague Dogs had vanished once
again.
CONFIDENTIAL
To: The Director, A.R.S.E.
Your confidential instruction, reference KAE/11/77, of yesterday's date,
relating to and covering a copy of the Secretary of State's personal letter to
yourself about the necessity of effecting, as an urgent and immediate matter,
reductions in expenditure throughout the station, asks heads of sections to
submit two reports by close of play tonight: the first to deal with
experimental work and projects (both "going concerns" and those "in the
pipeline") which can practicably be either deferred or dropped altogether; the
second with feasible reductions in staff, either by transfer to other
scientific establishments or alternatively by outright dismissal. This report
deals with the second of those matters.
It is recommended first, that it would be both prudent and practicable to
dispense with the supernumerary post of "assistant" to Tyson, the livestock
keeper and shed warden. This "assistant" is a local school-leaver of sixteen
named Thomas Birkett, who was engaged more or less casually last August on the
suggestion of Tyson himself. The post is surplus to establishment and this in
itself may be felt to constitute a good and sufficient reason for terminating
it forthwith, since it might well come under criticism in the event of station
staffing becoming subject to any kind of independent examination from outside.
In addition to that consideration, Birkett has not shown himself, during the
few months he has been
(411)
here, to be much of an asset, and il seems doubtful whether even Tyson would
be likely to put up much resistance to his departure. The matter has not, of
course, been mentioned as yet to Tyson, but I will discuss it with him if the
proposed dismissal is approved. It will be appreciated that one effect of
retrenchment throughout the station will be to diminish Tyson's work, and the
departure of his "assistant" could undoubtedly be justified to him on those
grounds.

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Page No 209

After prolonged and careful consideration, I have concluded that we should
also part with Scientific Officer Class II, Mr. Stephen Powell. Mr. Powell has
been with the station since early this year and has shown himself capable of
honest work of an average standard. While he certainly cannot be said to be a
liability, at the same time his capacity is in no way outstanding. On at least
one occasion he has allowed himself to express inappropriately emotional
feelings about a proposed experimental project, although in fairness one
should add that this was shortly after he had been ill with influenza. More
disturbingly, he has displayed unsound judgement in handling an unexpected
crisis, and on his own admission spent working time drinking with a newspaper
reporter in a public house while returning from an official errand (which he
would have done better not to have undertaken at all) on behalf of the
station. It is possible—and I wish to emphasize that it is no more than a
possibility—that he may on that occasion have been guilty of a breach of
security. This is a matter which I would in the normal way have pursued with
him, but since it came to light only recently, it seems better to leave it
over, pending the decision on his proposed dismissal. What is indisputable is
that an embarrassing breach of security occurred, and that shortly before it
occurred Mr. Powell was drinking in a pub with the newspaper reporter who was
responsible for it. I am, of course, ready to discuss further if desired.
I wish to stress that in the normal way no question of Mr. Powell's dismissal
would arise. Both as a man and as a scientist he is somewhat immature, but
capable of acceptable work. However, his ability is in no way outstanding, his
"copybook" is not entirely "unblotted," and you have said that we are
positively required to recommend staff reductions at the level of scientific
officers of his class. He is unestablished (by a few weeks) and can therefore
be transferred or dismissed
(412)
f :ferithout raising any serious establishment problem. In a word,
j-he is expendable.
>     I should find it difficult, even in the state of play envisaged
:;>|or the future, to recommend further staff reductions. It is,
%flf course, as I realize, a case of seeing how little we can get
|r*way with. May I conclude, however, by saying that I will
-; be very ready to go over the ground, as far as my section is
. concerned, at the Heads of Section conference convened for
& 2:30 p.m. tomorrow?
?. (signed) J. R. Boycott
Friday the 26th November
frin the darkness of the early small-hours, Digby Driver lay
|* sleeping the sleep of the unjust, his dreams flickering
|r upwards from the incongruously honest, but cryptic and
| therefore unheeded, caves of the unconscious like marsh-
I gas rising through the ooze of a bog. Images and even
I phrases capered within his sleeping skull like lambent,
I phosphorescent corkscrews. Miss Mandy Pryce-Morgan—
«' an animal given to him (or to somebody) for his pleasure
' —clad in a gown of transparent airline tickets and a
^feullfighter's red cape, was reading to him from a silver-
f Amounted copy of the London Orator.
i?     "POLITICIAN CHEWS WRITER'S MEMORY ON FELL," read
| Miss Pryce-Morgan. "SCUBA DIVERS PROBE TARN IN BID TO
I ESTABLISH DOGS' INNOCENCE."
J    "Poet Wordsworth, celebrated Lakeland sheep, got a
jlshock yesterday." She paused.
I    "The reason?" moaned Digby Driver automatically,
"tossing and turning where he lay.

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Page No 210

>     "He found one of his odes had been chewed up by Mr.
Basil Forbes, the Parliamentary Secretary. Mr. Forbes, in |'an exclusive press
statement to the Orator, said 'I ode him [nothing. Anyone alleging otherwise
is up the Walpoie. In f any event, Mrs. Ann Moss has now sold herself to
Animal
Research for experimental purposes, and a dog has bitten
(413)
the Secretary of State. Cet animal est tres mechant. Quand on I' attaque, it
se defend."
It is learned from an official source in Gainesville, Florida, that Mr. Greg
Shark, the well-known scuba-diver, is to descend into the day before yesterday
in an attempt to discover the Plague Dogs' whereabouts. Mr. Shark, interviewed
at a depth of two atmospheres in fresh water—
"That rings a bell," muttered Driver, half-awake. "Rings a bell. I can almost—
almost hear—" He opened his eyes and sat up sharply. A bell was ringing—a real
bell. A moment more and his awakened faculties, closing over the dream like
mud over a flung stone, had recognized it as the telephone. He got out of bed
and picked up the receiver.
"Driver Orator."
"It's Quilliam, Kevin."
"Who?"
"Quilliam—Skillicorn. Got it? Come on, dear boy, come on! You were asleep, I
suppose?" (Mr. Skillicorn did not, of course, run to an apology.)
"Of course I—yeah—yeah, I was actually. Nice to hear you, Quilliam. Where are
you, in the office?"
"No, I'm down at Sir Ivor's. Tony Hogpenny's here too. We've been having a
talk with Sir Ivor about a lot of things, including this dogs business.
Haven't been to bed yet, actually." (So that's the explanation of the
malicious glee in the bastard's voice, thought Driver, shivering.) He said
nothing and waited.
"Well, look, anyway—Sir Ivor thinks you've done very well on the dogs job. Are
we right in thinking that it can't possibly go on much longer? They're bound
to be killed within a couple of days at most, aren't they?"
"Yeah, bound to be. Well, I mean, there's two companies of paratroops after
'em, isn't there?" (Digby Driver, like far too many otherwise quite sensible
people, habitually used the term "paratroops.") "They'll be shot to bits —I
couldn't alter that with a million bloody pounds, and nor could anyone else."
"Yes, Kevin, I know that all right, but this is the point. Sir Ivor thinks
you've done very very well, and you may like to know that it's rumoured that
Basil Forbes is re-
(4J4)
signing—there's glory for you! But the thing is, before we switch the story
off and put you on to child prostitution in the Home Counties yum yum, he
thinks there i-might   be   a   chance   to   discredit   Harbottle   by
some
 means. Harbottle's coming up your way tonight, you know, Von purpose to be
in at the death. The death can't possibly ; be averted, can it? Because if it
could, Sir Ivor says we'd ; back you with everything, to make Harbottle look a
fool—"
"Oh, have a heart, Quilliam! You know there's not a hope in hell—"
"All right, all right, dear boy, keep it cool! Well, now, look, next best
thing. Can you watch out for a chance to show Harbottle in a bad light? You
know, bullet-riddled dog screaming in agony and Harbottle grinning, or
something? The public wouldn't dig that, however much they've
/been upset by the Westcott business. If you could manage it, Sir Ivor would
be enormously pleased. Just do your best, laddie. I'll have to go now. Good
luck, my boy!" Click.

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Page No 211

"O my God!" said Driver, banging down the dead receiver and turning to stare
out of the window at the moonlit fell. "Lo, I am with you always, even unto
the end of the bloody world, eh? Who'd be a reporter?" |.     He made a cup of
tea and then, thoroughly depressed, -.dialled the London number of the young
woman who had R played the part of Chubby Cherub in Out for the Count. j?
(Digby Driver was currently "between girls.")  If Susie I" was in a good
temper, and in her bed, and if there did not $. happen to be anyone else in
it, perhaps she might chat |l with him for a bit. No man is an island, and it
was only H by force of circumstance that Digby Driver was continent.
!-"
|: "Soldiers aal ower bluidy fell," said Dennis Williamson,
|V "chasin' hither and yon and frittenin' yows to booggery, f~tha knaws.
Newspaper chaps bangin' on't door hafe th' |p day, an' folk in cars drivin'
oop an' down t' lonnin, op-H.penin* gates and crooshin' wire fences when they
reverse. J Ah reckon forty pounds' worth o' damage. Ah'll tell thee, | Bob,
theer's soomone's goin' to get a bang from me best fore this lot's doon with."
(415)
"Ay, an' yon helicopter scar in' cows—they've all been gallopin' oop an' down
field fit to bust theirselves. An' theer's joost nowt ye can do, owd lad, so
ye can set yeself down and thank your stars as theer's political chaps to
stand oop for British farmer."
"Theer were soldier fella saw one of my dogs ont' fell, tha knaws, Bob, when
Ah were tryin' to get yows down out o't waay. Dog were oop top o' Blaake Rigg
an' I were down below, like, an' this basstard took a shot at it an' missed."
"Oh, 'ell!" said Robert.
"Ay, that's about soom of what Ah said an' all. He only took the one."
"Ah'll tell thee what," said Robert. "We've joost got bluidy noothing out of
this lot, owd lad. Science chaps an' newspaper chaps an' political chaps—
they've alfbeen joost pain int' neck. Dogs have doon no harm at alf compared
with them, that's about it. Ah wouldn't mind seein' dogs get clean awaay,
would you?"
"Well, that's one thing ye'll not see, Bob," said Dennis. "The booggers have
got no more channce nowthan tick in a sheep-dip, tha knaws."
He nodded grimly and drove on down the valley, while Robert went to drive the
cows into the cowshed to be out of the way of the helicopter.
Thursday the 25th November to Friday the 26th November
The assurances given by the Secretary of State in the House had been as
effective as he had intended. There could be no possible doubt in the minds of
the vast majority—if not of all—the newspaper-reading public that the drama of
the Plague Dogs was now hastening—rushing—to its catastrophe. The sagacious
power of hounds and death drew closer every hour. Certainly the dogs seemed to
have vanished from the vicinity of the Dow
(416)
|Crag, and since the discovery of Westcott's body no one "        reported
seeing them elsewhere. Obviously, however, could not be long before one or the
other of the patrol-helicopters spotted them, or else, as heretofore, some
orist or farmer would encounter them on one of their turnal forays. Once their
approximate whereabouts known the soldiers would close in and that would be I
that. Like the journeyings of King Charles after Naseby, dogs' movements had
become, though they might not icmselves be aware of it, those of hunted
fugitives. Their ith was now a foregone conclusion—indeed, an anti-Climax—and
public interest was, if anything, on the wane. Where did they wander that
night, when they left the fields of Long House in the Tarn Beck valley of
Dunner-|dale, soon after Hot Bottle Bill had uttered his winged >rds to the
Commons and the airborne soldiers had be-m moving into billets at Coniston?
They went southward, :ading into a wind that bore the smells of salt, sheep
|Jmd seaweed, the only communication reaching them out all the encompassing

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Page No 212

miles of darkness. A cold rain lad begun to fall, and before they passed above
Seath-church and rounded the Newfield this had become |a heavy downpour, so
that Rowf, jibbing at the roaring, riling beck beyond the old school-house,
turned down-ream along its right bank, following it to where it runs ider the
Ulpha road. Slinking down that long, exposed >ad in almost pitch blackness,
they sought what shelter ley could from the flanking stone waits; and in a
mile IB, cold and clemmed with hunger, to Hall Dunnerdale. Jut here Robert
Lindsay's dogs began to bark, and on went once more until they reached the
Duddon bridge Phyllis Dawson's. They could see almost nothing and smell of the
rain weakened all smells else, so that they not recognize the scene of
Snitter's escape from Mr. *owell and the inside of his own head. But indeed,
they Fere now oppressed by a sense of hopelessness and dread iraich, as it
continued during hour after hour of the stormy light, weighed upon them more
heavily than their own i-sodden coats, so that for much of the time they were
!*onscious of little but the wind and rain. Not one car met >r overtook them
all night, yet they did not stop or look
(417)
for shelter. The continuous sound of flowing water, from the chattering rills
along the verges under his paws to the distant commotion of the Duddon,
troubled Rowf like an evil dream of fear and suffering revived, while to
Snitter it seemed that the wind carried grim echoes—heavy, hound-like panting
and far-off squeals of desperation and death. Not until dawn began to reveal,
little by little, the dull shine of the sodden grass and the tugging of the
bushes in the wind, did they rest at last for a time, behind Jenkinson's
tombstone opposite the door of Ulpha church, from the pelting of the pitiless
storm.
It will have been about an hour later that their bedraggled forms were seen,
lurking at the bottom of his garden, by Roy Greenwood, former Himalayan
mountaineer and Outward Bound instructor, the vicar of Ulpha-with-Seathwaite.
Roy, as was his practice, had got up in the dark of the winter's morning to
pray for two hours before breakfast and a full day's work; and as he knelt in
intercession for the sins and grief of the world and the misery of its
countless victims, human and animal, he caught sight, through the window, of
two furtive shapes beneath the bare ash trees, where Japanese-faced tomtits
swung on a bone suspended from a branch and brown, seatrout-harbouring Duddon
overflowed its banks below.
Roy knew little or nothing of the Plague Dogs, for he could not afford the
London Orator and had in any case more urgent and important things to do than
read it— such as visiting the sick, lonely and afflicted, or giving one or
other of the local fanners a hand out with yows. He had, indeed, vaguely heard
some local talk, but this did not now return to mind. He could see that the
dogs were famished and in distress, so he went outside and tried to get them
to come to him, but they would not. Then— having precious little else to give
them—he went in and got the greater part of what had been going to be his own
breakfast, together with all he could find edible among the scraps (which was
not much). This he put outside and, since he still could not induce the dogs
to approach, went back indoors. When, an hour and a half later, he set out for
Seathwaite, largely breakfastless, the food was gone and so were the dogs.
This (it is interesting now to re-
(418)
Hotter Fell
cord) was the last person to have any real contact with the dogs before the
end and the only person, apart from Mr. Ephraim and Vera Dawson, who showed
them any kindness throughout the time that they were at large.
Exactly where they spent that stormy Friday, while the sodden, cursing
soldiers searched for them from Walna Scar to the Grey Friar and over to
Wreynus Pass, is uncertain and perhaps not really important. But during some

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Page No 213

of the daylight hours—those of the afternoon, perhaps— they must have crossed,
unseen by anyone in the dismal weather, the deserted wastes of Ulpha Fell and
Birker Moor, and so come down into Eskdale. Probably they went almost as far
north as Harter Fell and then down by Kepple Crag, crossing the swollen Esk by
the bridge near Penny Hill, for Rowf would hardly have faced the thunder of
Dalegarth Force, or even Birker Fofce in spate after twenty hours' continuous
rain. At all "events, we know that by nightfall they were not far from* the
Wool-pack—that justly illustrious pub, with its excellent beer, slate
flagstones and snug, draughtless rooms—for here, only a short while after
closing time, they committed their last depredation when, appearing suddenly
out of the darkness, they pushed past Mrs. Armstrong, the licensee, as she was
about to close the back door, grabbed a tongue and a cold roast chicken from
the kitchen table and made oft with them in a matter of seconds. If Mrs.
Armstrong were not a most competent and practical lady, the Wool-pack would
not be the pub it is; but black Rowf, snarling like a wolf, was an alarming
sight and in addition had all the advantage of surprise. Snitter, with his
green collar and cloven skull, would by now have been recognized anywhere from
Barrow to Carlisle. As he followed Rowf at a run along the steep zig-zag path
leading from the back of the Woolpack up to Great Barrow and the Eel Tarn,
Mrs. Armstrong was already—and very understandably— on the telephone. Before
midnight Major Awdry, second-in-command of the 3rd Parachute Battalion and
officer in charge of Operation Gelert, had appreciated the situation and drawn
up his plan; and soon after dawn on Saturday morning the two companies of
airborne soldiers, browned off at the shortage of sleep but consoled by the
prospect
(420)
a quick end to the business, were already moving into eir allotted positions.
so I'm afraid that's really the long and short of it," Dr. Boycott.
Mr. Powell remained standing by the window in silence, face wore a puzzled
expression and he had something
 I the air of a man who, having just been stopped in his '\ racks by a bullet
or a heavy blow, has not yet begun to i eel the pain. He seemed not to know
what to make of
j h". Boycott's news.
Ijf "There's really no need to let it upset you," went on Ipr. Boycott after a
pause. "In fact, you know, it might well turn out to be a blessing in
disguise. We don't nt you to think of it as a dismissal; you're not being
missed at all, you're being transferred in your grade. don't know where, yet.
It might be Porton Down, it ight be somewhere else."
"There's still the question of why me and not anyone said Mr. Powell, looking
out at the gulls circling >ve the fell in the rainy, silver sunset. Well,
obviously we can't discuss the matter in those s," said Dr. Boycott, with the
matter-of-fact briskness one prepared to do anything reasonable but to enter-
in nothing foolish. "Has there been some sort of report and if so can I see
asked Mr. Powell.
"Now, Stephen, you really must be sensible about this," id Dr. Boycott. "You
know very well that even if there :re a report you couldn't see it. You're
quite entitled to interview with the Director if you wish, but he'll only you
the same as I'm telling you. And I repeat it: this a transfer in your grade.
It will mean no loss of pay d no loss of prospects. It's primarily an
unfortunate latter of expediency—an experiment in retrenchment, if like, that
we've been told we've got to carry out. That's right way to look at it. One
has to think of the job t. We all do."
"An experiment. Yes, well, I can see that." What Mr. well could actually see
were the outspread, barely mov-ig wings of the gulls, at one and the same time
gliding
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Page No 214

and remaining, like a spiralling eddy in a beck. He had not in fact been
enabled by Dr. Boycott's last utterance to arrive at any new way of looking at
the matter, and this was not surprising, since that utterance added nothing
whatever to what he had already been told. But he was not by temperament a
fighter, being naturally disposed to respect his superiors and to proceed upon
the assumption that their wishes were probably right and justified. His normal
inclination was to co-operate with them and accept what he was told.
Suddenly he blurted out, "Only—only you see, chief, I
—er—well, I didn't really want to make a move just at the moment. I mean, the
upheaval of a move—all the— well, I mean, the disturbance and that. It's—er—
someone
—well, I mean, personal reasons, sort of, you know—"
Dr. Boycott looked down at his blotting-pad in silence. What might this be—a
mistress—some cryptd-homosexual friendship? He knew Mr. Powell to be immature
and ingenuous. He hoped he was not about to say anything embarrassing. Mr.
Powell, however, seemed to have come to a full stop.
"Well," replied Dr. Boycott at length, "I can only repeat, Stephen, that
you're quite entitled to see the Director if you like. I'm sure he'd welcome a
chat in any case. You've done us all a good turn, you know, that's quite
clear. You must never think anything else. We all wish you well and I'm sure
you'll go on to do great things. Anyway, you certainly don't have to get up
and go this minute: you do appreciate that, I hope." He smiled. "We've got to
find you a job commensurate to your abilities and potential, you know. You
really mustn't let it worry you. Think it all over this week-end and if you
like we'll certainly have another word on Monday; although I don't honestly
know whether there's anything I shall be able to add." After a pause he went
on, "By the way, we've got another dog to spare now for that water immersion
experiment, so we'll be able to make a fresh start on that before you go.
Could you be looking out the papers on the first dog—you know, the former
number seven-three-two? And now good night; and mind you have a really good
break over the week-end."
(422)
*Yeah, righty-o. Thanks, chief. Thanks very much.
night."
'Mr. Powell went out into the long corridor and walked Ay down it, hands in
pockets, rocking first on one foot then on the other, toe-heel, toe-heel, like
a man lost thought. Yet what his thoughts were he could not have The boy Tom
came towards him, carrying a long rire cage of guinea-pigs, and he moved to
one side to let pass. At the far end of the corridor he paused for a by the
window, looking down at the beck, which had to submerge the tussocks of grass
and tufts of bog lyrtle growing along its banks.  There was a trailing . ranch
which dipped continually into the water, was swept Ibackwards and out again by
the force of the current and Iflien, rebounding from the extremity of the
thrust, once sore sprang forward and plunged itself under the surface. le
wondered how long it had been doing this and when pliancy would be exhausted:
then idly took a stop-fetch from his pocket and timed the little cycle. During
full minute, it did not vary from a regular three and TO fifths seconds. Well
done, branch. Still plenty of re-lience and no sign of letting up.
After a while he went across to Lab. 4, took off his irhite coat, washed his
hands and made preparations to home, packing into his despatch case his
newspaper, „ nasal spray and pen left on his desk, a phial of corrosive rid
for his domestic do-it-yourself kit (the habitual mis-jpropriation of which
from laboratory stock saved him ; trifle) and some papers which he had
intended to look : over the week-end.
Suddenly he threw down his mackintosh, walked quickly Cross to the balance
cupboard and opened it. The cylin-er, secured by its clip, was standing in the
far corner. lere were no sounds of movement, but he noticed some idensed drops

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Page No 215

of moisture round the ventilation holes. le slate showed 41+ days. Mr. Powell
undipped the ;avy cylinder, lifted it out with both hands, carried it rer to a
bench and unscrewed the top. The monkey was crouching in a foetal posture,
knees awn up to chin and head bowed between them. It did
(423)
not move as he peered in. There was a stench of ordure mixed with
disinfectant.
Mr. Powell reached in and lifted the monkey out by the scruff of the neck. It
made no resistance and he thought it must be unconscious, but as he gently
raised its head with one finger and thumb it opened its eyes and immediately
closed them once more against the unaccustomed light. Mr. Powell tucked it
under his coat, screwed down the top and put the cylinder back in the balance-
cupboard, draped his mackintosh over his shoulders and went out to his car.
Saturday the 27th November.
It was about half past seven and the rain had ceased. On the open gravel in
front of the Woolpack, Major John Awdry, M.C., stood briefing company and
platoon commanders in the first light. It was a mild enough morning, though
very wet underfoot, and at least one thrush could be heard from a mountain-ash
down by the Esk, as well as two robins who were asserting themselves to one
another from opposite ends of the Woolpack garden.
"O.K., now just to recap," said Major Awdry. "The dogs were seen here, on
these premises, hardly more than eight hours ago. They're almost certainly not
far away, and if that's correct the nature of the area should enable us, with
the help of the helicopters, first to surround them and then—well, to shoot
them. B company will go three miles down the valley to Eskdale Green, where
they'll deploy two platoons north of the Esk and two south; got the northern
and southern extremities of the line of advance marked, haven't you?"
Captain Cranmer-Byng, commanding B company, nodded.
"Then at 08:30 hours you begin moving eastward up the Esk valley in an
unbroken line, maintaining lateral communication by whistle, Very light,
eyesight and any-
(424)
thing else you like. You search any cover that might conceal the dogs; copses,
of course, thoroughly, but also sheds, recesses in river banks, sheepfolds,
bloody paper ; bags—the lot. And you do NOT repeat NOT on any ac-^count break
the line of advance. You're a drag net, got it? f Between 11:00 and 11:30
hours the company will halt on the line Boot-Eskdale Church and company
commander reports to me, unless of course the operation's finished earlier.
O.K.?"
He glanced round. The B company platoon commanders, together with the C.S.M.,
who was commanding a platoon in substitution for a subaltern on leave, nodded.
"Fine. Now meanwhile, C company will disperse its platoons to the four map
references already given; at Gill Bank on Whillan Beck; Stony Tarn; Taw House;
and the foot of Hard Knott Pass. There they'll deploy as widely as practicable
and at 08:30 hours they'll start patrolling back down the lines of the Esk and
respective tributary streams, until they get here.
"While everybody's doing that, operational H.Q. will remain here, in R/T
contact with both company H.Q.s and in ground-to-air contact with the
helicopters. The two helicopters are due over fifteen minutes from now, and
they'll maintain a continuous watch on the northern and southern fells above
the Esk valley, flying backwards and forwards along the 1,000-foot contour
lines. If they spot the dogs anywhere along the tops, they'll inform this H.Q.
and I shall issue further order as appropriate.
"Now one last thing, gentlemen, and this is of the greatest importance. No
one, but no one, below the rank of platoon commander is to open fire. Is that
quite clear?"
"Excuse me sir," said Captain Reidy, "but at that rate why are the blokes

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Page No 216

carrying live ammo?"
"I'll tell you why," answered Major Awdry, "and this it not to go any further.
Because this damn' Cabinet Minister, Secretary of State, whatever he is, won't
let us alone; and unless I'm very much mistaken, he sees this operation
primarily as a publicity stunt for his own benefit. So orders are to carry
live ammo. Intrepid paratroops—yes, real live paratroops, gentlemen, think of
that—are combing the fells for the wicked Plague Dogs, all armed to the
(425)
balls. And he'll probably be here in a minute, along with the B.B.C.
television, talking to private soldiers and grinning into cameras. And he
knows as much about the blokes as I know about Esquimau Nell—less, I should
think.
"Yesterday afternoon, on the Grey Friar, some bloody man saw a perfectly
harmless sheep-dog on a crag and popped off on his own initiative. He missed
it, thank God. That dog was founding up sheep and it belonged to a local
farmer who quite rightly played merry hell. One more incident like that and
we're all in the shit. The place is stiff with newspaper reporters. Apart from
that, you realize that bullets can travel three miles and ricochet off stones
and God knows what? Once we get blokes like Private Lawes and Corporal
Matthews loosing off at their own sweet will—" He left the sentence
unfinished. ,,
"What's the form then, Major, if someone .spots the dogs?" asked Cranmer-Byng.
"Keep them in sight and inform the section commander, who informs the platoon
commander," replied Awdry. "Platoon commanders are authorized to fire in
person only if they're absolutely certain that it's safe to do so and that the
dogs are beyond doubt the ones we're looking for. Any questions?"
"Will there be anything for the blokes to eat when they get back here, sir?"
asked a platoon commander.
"Yes, Admin, are laying on a meal for 12:00 hours, but you appreciate that
that's dependent on whether some or all of us got to go chasing from here to
Ravenglass or something."
"Sir."
"No other questions? O.K., let's get cracking."
The platoons embussed and departed up and down the valley. John Awdry sat down
on the bench under the sycamore tree which stands in the middle of the gravel
and accepted a cigarette from the R.S.M.
"Well, sir, doesn't look like it'll be much longer now," said the R.S.M.,
"unless the dogs got out of the valley during the night, which 'ardly seems
likely. I don't see how a rat could get through that lot. We ought to be back
in Catterick by this evening."
"You're probably right," answered the Major. "I only
(426)
wish I felt a bit more enthusiasm for the business, that's all."
"Well, it's not much, but at least it gets the lads out on a real job, sir.
They've all been keen enough, in spite of the rain."
"You feel sorry for the dogs, I expect, Major, don't you?" asked Travers, the
H.Q. subaltern. "I know I do."
"Frankly, yes," said Awdry. "I dislike the whole business of experiments on
animals, unless there's some very good and altogether exceptional reason in a
particular case. The thing that gets me is that it's not possible for the
animals to understand why they're being called upon to suffer. They don't
suffer for their own good or benefit at all, and I often wonder how far it's
for anyone's. They're given no choice, and there's no central authority
responsible for deciding whether what's done in this case or that is morally
justifiable. These experimental animals are just sentient objects; they're
useful because they're able to react; sometimes precisely because they're able
to feel fear and pain. And they're used as if they were electric light bulbs

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Page No 217

or boots. What it comes to is that whereas there used to be human and animal
slaves, now there are just animal slaves. They have no legal rights, and no
choice in the matter."
"Well, of course, those are big questions, sir," said the R.S.M. "But these
'ere two dogs 'ave consumed a dead man's body and goodness knows what."
"They're animals and they were starving," said the Major, throwing his
cigarette away and rising to his feet. "They can still suffer, can't they?"
"Well, we don't know how much, sir, do we?" said the R.S.M. comfortably.
"No, not really, but it just occurs to me that creatures living entirely in
the immediate present, through their physical senses, may suffer more rather
than less intensely than we do. Still, I suppose you may be right about the
need to shoot them, sarnt-major—public concern and all that. What I don't like
about this particular lark is what you might call the Spartacus set-up."
"That was a film, wasn't it, sir? About ancient Rome?"
"Well, the film was a lot of balls, really," said John Aw-
(427)
dry. "The real Spartacus was a bloke who led a slave rising in ancient Italy
and got away with it for a bit because there didn't happen to be an adequate
Roman force in the country at the time. They had to bring an army back from
Spain. But my point is that in the event these slaves, whose grouse was that
most of them had been brought to Italy against their wills and made to exist
entirely for other people's benefit and not their own, hadn't really got a
chance. They were ignorant and disorganized. All that happened was that they
went wandering about the country until they were smashed up, which is exactly
what these dogs have done. Apparently one of them was being drowned in a tank
of water every day, or something; so it didn't like it and acted accordingly.
And now we're called in to shoot it at a public cost of thousands of pounds. I
find that depressing. Still, you're rightabout one thing, Mr. Gibbs. It's
bound to be over quite goon now. Where the hell have those R/T blokes got
their feet under the table?"
"In the front dining-room, sir, by invitation of the good lady. She's laid on
char and .wads for them."
"Good for her. Well, let's go and see if they're in contact with B and C
company signals yet. Look, here come the helicopters. Not long to go now.
Let's hope it's over within the hour."
"They're going to kill us, Rowf. As soon as it's light enough for them to see
us."
"How can you tell?"
"I don't know, but I'm quite sure they mean to kill us. They're watching us."
"How can they be? It's still dark."
"No, I mean the flies. The flies out of my head. They've grown huge—they're
circling round and round over the hills. They can talk to the whitecoats. I
dreamt it all."
"You're hungry and tired out. Why don't you go to sleep again?"
"No, I got nearly half the chicken in spite of you, old Rowf; I'm all right. I
wish they hadn't taken the guts out, though. Not half as good as those ones we
killed for our-
(428)
fielves, was it? Rowf, it's the last one we'll ever steal. I Iknow that."
    Rowf stood up and looked about him.
"No, they're not here yet, Rowf. But d'you remember
the tobacco man had a little window he used to open and
lDok in at us? They can watch us. They're going to kill us."
f    "They'll have their work cut out with me. Thought you
'said your master was out there?"
"He is, only he can't—oh, Rowf, I don't know what I meant when I said that. I
was dreaming. Don't make it ; worse!"

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Page No 218

"That's why it's bad for animals. We don't know anything, we don't understand
anything. The men could do something for us if they wanted to, but they
don't."
"There are men all round us. It's the mouse—the mouse told me."
Rowf was about to answer when Snitter threw up his head and howled—a long cry
of anguish and fear. Two grouse got up and rocketed off into the darkness.
Their rattling calls died away and the silence returned—a silence
 made up of wind in the ling and the rustling of the sedges covering half the
surface of the little, lonely Eel Tarn on the edge of Burnmoor, five hundred
feet above the Wool-pack.
"Snitter, where are those men you talk about? They'll '(hear you—"
"I'm howling for my death—no, it's for yours, poor old Rowf; yours and tod's.
I can't remember any more what it was he asked me to say to you. I do so wish
I could."
" 'Gan on till the Dark.' Well, the tod's got no more to [bother him now."
"I remember one thing he said. He said, 'It's not the Dark that frightens me,
it's their riving teeth.' That's how I feel, too. I hope it won't hurt."
Snitter paused, nose in the wind. Suddenly he said, ,**We've finished being
wild animals. That's all finished.
we'll go down now."
"But it's lonely here—safer."
"The flies would see us anyway, as soon as it's light. So we'll go down."
(429)
"I won't go back in the tank! I won't go back in the tank! Rowf! Rowf!"
The wind strengthened across the moor, driving the clouds eastward before it.
Snitter began to move slowly away upwind, westward down the course of the
little outfall from the Eel Tarn. Rowf followed reluctantly. Soon they came to
the Brockshaw Beck, and thence to the big Whillan Beck pouring down off the
moor to join the Esk below Boot. Stone walls and sheepfolds loomed up about
them in the dark and a solitary light shone out from the village half a mile
below. Snitter held on his way following the Whillan Beck down into the
valley.
"Snitter, where on earth are we going?" .
"There's a gully that leads into a drain under the floor. The mouse says we've
got to find it. It's thatiOr nothing now."
On they went, downward, down the course of the noisy beck in spate. Rowf could
hear, somewhere beyond them in the dark waste, the rising, bubbling cry of the
curlew and the whirring of a snipe disturbed from the bog.
"You say we aren't wild animals any more?"
"I don't think we were very good at it really, do you? Only when we had the
poor tod."
"I know. If I were really a wild animal, I'd leave you now, Snitter. Wherever
are you taking us?"
"We've got to be down the gully before daybreak."
"But, Snitter, what gully?"
"I don't know. Oh, look, Rowf, the stones are dancing! D'you remember the
white stuff falling out of the sky?"
They clicked and pattered their way through Boot, watched only by the cats on
the walls. Once, when a rat ran across the road Rowf, fearful and subdued, let
it escape unerased between the stones of the wall. First light was coming into
the east and the crinkled summit of Harter Fell showed plainly against the
dawn. When they reached the road that leads down the valley, Snitter broke
into a run and Rowf followed him, the wound in his neck throbbing as his pulse
beat faster with fear.
"Snitter, this is a road, do you realize? Men, cars, lorries—"
"It's very close," muttered Snitter. "The gully's very
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Page No 219

close now." As though following a scent, he laid his nose to the ground and
ran on.
And now the terrified Rowf could hear plainly the sound -of a car approaching
behind them. As it grew closer he § dashed across to the wall on the opposite
side of the road.
"Quick, Snitter, over the wall!"
Snitter jumped the wall after him, his short legs scrabbling at the top before
he cleared it and dropped down on the other side. The car drove past. Rowf,
lying in a clump of withered goose-grass, docks and dead sorrel, looked about
him.
A little way off, a broad strip of the ground was oddly black and granular,
and along this some strange-looking metal lines went stretching away into the
distance. On these was standing what looked like a row of small, painted
carts—or at any rate, wheeled, wooden contraptions not unlike carts —some with
roofs and others open to the sky. Beyond them, Rowf could make out a flat,
concrete platform in front of what looked like sheds. But all was deserted.
There were no men, there was no noise, no paper, no smell of tobacco: only,
from somewhere in the distance, a hissing of steam and odour of coal-smoke.
Rowf looked back at Snitter and was appalled to see him curled up under the
wall, conspicuous as a plover, apparently in the act of falling asleep. He
reached him in one bound.
"Snitter, what in death's name d'you think you're doing? You can't stay there!
Get up!"
"I'm tired, Rowf—very tired. The mouse says go to sleep now."
"To blazes with the mouse! Do you know where we are? We're in an open field,
in full view—"
"I'm tired, Rowf. I wish you and the tod hadn't pulled me out of my head that
day. I might have found out—"
Rowf bit him in the leg, and he stood up slowly and dazedly, as though roused
not by pain but rather by hunger or some distant noise. Scarcely able to
restrain himself from flight, Rowf urged and bullied him forward until, as
they came up to the line of wooden carts—strange they seemed, on their metal
wheels, like little rooms or pens, with benches inside—Snitter, of his own
accord, made his
(431)
way up on the concrete platform and there lay down once more. It was at this
moment that Rowf heard the unmistakable sound, only a few yards away behind
the sheds, of a man's boots on gravel, and caught a whiff of cigarette smoke.
"Snitter, there's a man coming! Come on, get in there, quick! Yes, there,
under the bench, seat, whatever it is— right to the back!"
Agonizingly slowly, Snitter obeyed. Rowf, following, had just time to flatten
his shaggy belly on the boards and crawl under the wooden seat as a man in
blue overalls came round the corner of the shed and, with a scraping of nailed
boots on the concrete, passed within' three feet of them on his way up the
platform.
"Driver Orator."
It was still dark. Digby Driver had a headach*. He had not cleaned his teeth
the night before, there was a foul taste in his mouth and he was busting for a
pee.
"It's Ted Springer here, Kevin, of the Meteor. Aren't you blessing me, eh? I
can hear you are! Listen, boy, I'm doing you a good turn, that's what. The
dogs turned up late last night in Eskdale."
"Eskdale? Where the hell's that, Ted?"
"North-west of Dunnerdale, The Paras have moved in already. They're going to
start combing the whole valley as soon as it's light this morning. Thought
you'd like to know. Now aren't I a nice bloke? The things we do for England,
eh? Don't forget me next time you run into something good, will you?"

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"You're a pal, Ted. Thanks a lot. I'm on my way. See you down there."
Digby Driver crossed the landing and returned, rinsed out his mouth, put a
Polo mint into it, huddled on his clothes and duffle-coat and made his way
down into the hall. There was no one about. Thank Christ it wasn't freezing,
anyway. As he was pulling on the muddy gum-boots which he had left in the
umbrella-stand (wrought iron, circa 1890), the post came through the letter-
box with a stuffing, a scuffling and a papery scraping, and flumped on the
mat. From somewhere in the lower regions a warm, well-
(432)
house-dog barked to hear it. Digby Driver had his hand on the Yale latch and
was about to open the door when one of the letters caught his eye. It was
addressed, in no hand-writing that he recognized, simply to Digby Driver,
London Orator Reporter in the Lake District. He |picked it up. The postmark
was five days old. Someone ', had endorsed it Try Dunnerdale in violet ink,
and below this someone else had written, in red ink, Try Coniston.
He shook it and bent it. It was thin, light and entirely pliant. It was
evidently not a bomb.
Digby Driver sat down on the hall settle and split open the envelope.
"Well, here we are in Eskdale and it's perfectly possible— indeed, it's more
than likely—that we're going to be in on the last act of this tremendous drama
of the Plague Dogs, who've had the whole Lake District by the ears—yes, I said
by the ears, ha ha—for several weeks past. I'm William Williamson of the
B.B.C., of course, as I expect you know, and with me here is Major Aubrey, of
the Paratroops—oh, sorry, Awdry, is it? Little Audrey laughed and laughed, no
relation, eh, oh well, we're all disappointed, I'm sure. And Major Awdry is in
command of this very necessary and exciting operation to find and shoot these
dogs, who've been putting on a sort of wild west cattle-rustling act up and
down these beautiful Lake :.District hills ever since they escaped from their
Coniston Research Station six weeks ago. Now what's it feel like, Major, to be
in command of a show like this?" "Well, it's a job and it's got to be done."
"Do you feel like a bounty hunter after desperadoes in Arizona?"
"Not really, no. I feel sorry for the dogs. I like dogs." "But not these dogs,
eh? They're something that's just got to be dealt with at once, of course,
before there are any more of these terrible tragedies. Well, that's very
interesting, thank you, Major. Now Major Awdry's men are out on the fells and
meadows of this beautiful Lakeland valley—rather wintry now, but in summer
it's surely one of the great ice-cream carton resorts of England, ha ha— and
as we move along the road you can see what a beau-
(433)
tiful place it is—careful now, everybody, the dogs might be lurking just
behind that shed there, let's have a look, no they're not and on we go. Well,
here's the miniature railway station terminus at Dalegarth, just a little way
below the charming, old-world village of Boot; and I don't know whether you're
surprised, but I know I am, to see that one of the miniature trains is
actually standing in the station and that apparently the engine's got steam
up; because I thought this railway only ran during the summer, for the holiday
visitors. Anyway, here's the driver coming along now, so I expect he'll tell
us something about it. Good morning, sir, now let's see, you're called—er—
Graham Withers, I believe, aren't you?" "Well, just at present, yes."
"Ha ha. Justly celebrated local figure, eh? An0 you're going to drive that
very smart little locomotive-*4 hope, viewers, you can all see the glossy
paint and the brass shining, can you? It's obviously very well looked after
indeed—and the whole train you're going to drive, down to—where, now?"
"Ravenglass." "How far's that?"
" 'Bout seven or eight miles, as the line goes." "Only I thought the train
only ran in summer. Let's see, they call it Ratty, don't they?"
"Ratty, ay, that's right. Everyone oop here calls it

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Ratty."
"Why's it called that?"
"Well, Ah doan't just rightly know. But that's what
everyone calls it, like."
"And how come you're up here at the far end of the line, with steam up, on a
morning in late November?"
"Well, there's three locomotives, see—they're named River Esk, River Mite and
River Irt—after the three rivers that flow into t'estuary at Ravenglass. We
keep 'em in trim during t'winter—maintenance an* so on—and we'd just finished
bit of an overhaul on this one, so I thought I'd just give it a run up to
Dalegarth an' back, see how it were fixed. I came up Thursday, actually, but
it were that wet and stormy yesterday I left takin1 it back while today."
(434)
"Splendid. And of course you haven't seen anything of the Plague Dogs?"
"Nay."
"And what would you do if you did?"
"Happen give 'em a lift."
"Ha ha, very good. Well, there's an unexpected bonus for viewers—the Ratty's
locomotive River In is just about to set out from Dalegarth for Ravenglass,
with veteran driver Graham Withers in the cabin. Casey Jones got nothing on
him, eh? Now we're going on down the Esk valley, as you can see, and here's
the patrolling screen of paratroops—the Red Devils, as they're called—who are
working their way up the valley to meet another lot of paratroops coming down.
Up above, in the sky, you can see the Royal Naval helicopters who are
patrolling the fells on each side, and I'm sure we all feel sure that this has
really got to be the end of the Plague Dogs at last. If we're lucky you might
even be able to see them shot. Now here's one of the paratroopers, and your
name is—?"
"Private Lawes, sir."
"Well, how do you feel about this operation?"
"Well, I mean, like, yer on a job, I mean, aren't yer, and if yer on a job, I
mean, well, yer sort of do the job, like, know what I mean? I mean, like,
well, it's a job, ennit, know what I mean?"
"Yes, of course. And suppose you were to catch sight of the dogs under the
bank of the river there? You'd shout tally-ho, would you?"
"Well, I mean, yer'd sort of see they was dogs, like, wooden yer, and you
report to the section commander like, know what I mean, and the dogs, well,
mean to say—"
"You know what the dogs look like?"
"Oh, yeah, well, I mean, the dogs, see, they're sort of like, well, dogs, know
what I mean—"
"Now here's a very spendid-looking limousine coming along the road, and I
believe this may be—yes, I'm right, it is—the Secretary of State himself, the
Right Hon. William Harbottle. We'll just see if we can have a word with him.
Good morning, Mr. Harbottle. William Williamson;
(435)
B.B.C, Television. I wonder whether you'd care to tell the viewers how you
feel about this business?"
"Well, I'm very much concerned about it, naturally. I attach the greatest
importance to finding and killing these dangerous dogs as soon as we possibly
can. And that's what we're going to do. I believe my political—I mean, I
believe public peace of mind positively requires—"
"Ah, there goes the train, puff puff puff, what a lovely sight! Everybody's
childhood dream, eh? Thank you very much indeed, Secretary of State. Well, as
you've seen, it would hardly be possible for a fly to get through this
magnificent cordon of helicopters and paratroopers, so that probably by the
time viewers see this programme the menace of the Plague Dogs will have been

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ended for good and all. At any rate we all hope so. And so, good hunting, the
Red Devils! This is William Williamson returning you to the studio—"
Rattle and bump and clanking of wheels and puff puff puff from somewhere in
front. Coal-smoke and steam blowing back through the sliding doors of the
little wooden carriage. Chatter of water and hollow rumble over a bridge and
peat-brown stream below.
Rowf lying tense, head on paws, peering out from beneath the seat at the tree-
trunks dashing past and then at the long line of old mining cottages standing
close to the track. Snitter, beside him in the far corner, curled up in the
dust and grit, sleeping as though in a basket. The continual movement and
fugitive shapes a few feet from his muzzle raise in Rowf an almost unendurable
excitement; it's all he can do not to leap up and chase after these runaway
plants and branches as they flick at him and disappear. A long, brown frond of
bracken draws a line of peat-scented moisture along the threshold of the
carriage before vanishing with a sodden slap and a spattering of drops against
the woodwork. Rowf jumps up with a bark and Snitter wakes.
"Snitter! Where are we? What's happening? Why's everything got loose—where's
it going? The wind—rowf, rowf!"
"Lie down, old Rowf! Let it alone! Be quiet!"
(436)
j$    "Someone throwing sticks, rowf, rowf!"
£'-- "We're down the gully; the mouse's gully in the floor,
<:. remember? It's the only place left to hide, but you must
I; keep still. There are men walking about iust over your
fbead."
f    "I do keep still, but everything else is moving."
t      "The tobacco man's washing the floor. Remember? It's
v only rubbish. He's brushing it all away."
^     Through Beckfoot Halt beside the road, labouring a little uphill now and
a robin's sharp twitter here and gone among the trees. Scents of bog myrtle
and soaking moss,
* and a distant shouting—men answering each other, high voice and low voice,
whistles blowing down in the fields below Spout House and beyond the Esk.
"It's something the whitecoats are doing, isn't it? D'you remember, they put
Zigger on some steps that kept on ^moving? He said he had to run until he
dropped."
"Lie down, Rowf. We're all right here. You can tell—it [.doesn't hurt. They're
just breaking up all the rocks and trees and heather they made, that's all."
"All those brown men, look—a whole line of them, red hats, going across the
fields down there—"
"They're only breaking up the fields. Don't let them see you."
Curving down into the little station at Eskdale Green,
\ watched by three children with their chins propped on the
[parapet of the bridge. Polished brasswork gleaming in
' the early morning sunshine and Graham Withers tooting
on the whistle and giving them a wave. Slowly through
the station, platform almost level with the floors of the
carriages and an old paper bag blowing in, patting Rowf
a wet sog on the nose, grab it quick splodge munch no
good at all. A white gate and an old nanny goat grazing
at the end of a long chain.
"The red hat men have gone now. What's coming when it's all gone?"
"The black milk will boil. Go to sleep, Rowf." "You draggd me into this,
Snitter, and now you say go to sleep."
Leaves and branches flying by; helicopter in the sky. Airborne soldiers on the
lea, Plague Dogs riding to the
(437)

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Page No 223

sea. Redwings, fieldfares, cows and sheep; should we cheer, d'you think or
weep? Plague Dogs all the way from A.R.S.E., riding down to Ravenglass. What's
that car so black, sedate? That's the Secretary of State, him as sealed the
Plague Dogs' fate. Wheel and piston, steam and tank, autumn oak-leaves in the
bank, chuff chuff chuff and clank clank clank.
"You know, I was keen to be a good dog, Snitter. I really wanted to be a good
dog. I'd have done anything for them; anything but the metal water."
"They weren't real masters, Rowf. They didn't particularly want you to be a
good dog. They didn't care what sort of dog you were. I don't know what they
did want, I don't believe they knew themselves."
And here's Irton Road station, and the little river Mite, all the way down
from pretty Miterdale—least known and quietest of Lakeland valleys—formed from
the becks of Tongue Moor, Illgill Head and the Wastdale Screes. Hail to thee,
blithe Mite, and hurrah for Keyhow and the Bower House, and your wet green
fields full of black-headed gulls! Whirling snipe, orange-legged sandpipers,
gorse in bloom on a winter's morning. Meadow pipits flighting up and down,
flying ahead of the train, flicker and shut, flicker and shut, tweet tweet.
"But surely, Snitter, dogs ought to be able to trust men, oughtn't they?"
"It doesn't matter any more, old Rowf."
"I know—I'm only saying these things to stop myself jumping up and barking at
the things rushing past. I wasn't a good dog. Wish I had been."
"Whatever dogs were meant for, they weren't meant for the metal water. If you
can't live by rotten rules you have to find some of your own."
"What other rules did we find?"
"The tod's."
"They weren't right for us. We couldn't live by them either."
"I know. The truth is I lost my home and you never had one. But it doesn't
matter any more."
Now there rises on the left the hog's back of Muncaster Fell, its west face
high above the line, throwing the little
(438)
''tain into chilly shadow as it runs under the fellside and
rpast Murthwaite, with only three miles to go.
>   "I remember a butterfly beating itself to bits against
*a window-pane. A whitecoat saw it and opened the ^window and put it out. He'd
come to put me in the metal water. How'd you explain that?"
"The butterfly laid eggs that turned into the caterpillars you ate. Remember?"
Hooker Crag and Chapel Hill, and here's the Thornflatt watermill. A pitch
forward-shot wheel, I rather think, splashing turning among its ferns and
lichens and shining, green liverworts. Come on, wheel, sing up! "War es also
gemeint, mein rauschender Freund, dein Singen, dein Klingen." Is that for poor
Mr. Ephraim? Can you see our friend Rowf, peering out from under the seat and
rattling by in bewilderment? "Ach unten, da unten die kiihle Ruh." Well, you
can't expect him to appreciate that, can you? Be reasonable, wheel.
On the slope behind, look, there are some rabbits who
—yes, have the use of their eyes, really—sit up and watch the train a moment—
then bolt for their holes—you can see the rufous patch at the backs of their
necks. The rabbits get used to the trains in summer, but probably this lot
weren't born when last summer's season ended with waving flags and paper bags
and sticks of rock all round. A cock chaffinch, slate head and plum breast,
flashes white wings and vanishes into the gorse. A magpie flickers in an elder
tree and the Plague Dogs, the Plague Dogs are riding to the sea. Here are the
pancakes of yellow tide-foam, and the Plague Dogs are riding to their salt sea
home. Could you or I have contrived to disappear in Eskdale and turn up in
Ravenglass, with two hundred soldiers looking for us under every stone? I trow
not. Give them a cheer. There's nothing like a good loser, after all.
"Rowf, can you smell the salt?"

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"I can hear gulls calling. How quickly they've changed it all, haven't they?—
even the hills."
Along the estuary we go, black-and-white oyster-catchers flashing rapid,
pointed wings and peeping off their alarm notes as they fly, and an old heron
flapping slowly away by himself. Can that be the tod I see, with
(439)
Kiff, up on a cloud? No, I beg your pardon, must have got some hairspray in my
eyes, but let's raise a cheer all the same. Never again, hide in a drain, ride
in a train, died in the rain—it's not raining yet, anyway.
"Houses, Snitter! Look! Oh, Snitter, real, natural houses!"
As the River Irt came steaming into the Ratty terminus and depot, Snitter
cocked his ears and looked cautiously out through the door. Seagulls he could
certainly hear, and distant, breaking waves. Everything around seemed flat and
open, smelt salty, stony. Sand and grass. Houses, smoke and dustbins.
"They've put the houses back, Rowf. I knew they'd have to, sooner or later."
"The trees and things have stopped flying-past. AH blown away, I suppose."
"I know. But there's the wall we jumped ov»r, look— over there. I can
recognize that all right. Well, obviously they'd want to keep that."
"What shall we do?"
"Stay here until everything's quiet. Then we'll run off among the houses."
"D'you think it might be a change for the better at last?"
"I don't know. It can hardly be a change for the worse."
"I'd like to be sure of that."
The letter was written in pencil and a shaky hand, and Digby Driver was
obliged to take it over to the window.
21st November
Barrow-in-Furness Dear Mr. Driver,
Although I do not know your address in the Lake District, I very much hope
that you will receive this letter. I am seeking information on a matter of
importance to me—though perhaps to no one else—and do not know from whom to
obtain it if not from yourself.
I am at present in hospital, recovering—rather slowly, I'm afraid—from a
traffic accident. My injuries were fairly serious and for the past few weeks,
during which I have undergone three operations, I have read very little and
have not
(440)
been in touch with the news at all. Consequently it was only today that I saw,
in the "Sunday Orator," an account by yourself of the dogs who apparently
escaped some time ago from the Lawson Park Research Station, near Coniston.
With the article were two photographs, taken, as you will know, by a motorist
whose car was raided by the dogs somewhere near Dunmail Raise.
I am writing to say that I believe, on the evidence of the photographs, that
one of these animals is, or used to be, rny own dog. Indeed the markings, as
they appear in one of the photographs, seem unmistakable. I should explain
that I am a bachelor and live alone, so you may perhaps understand that I have
been much attached to the dog, which I acquired as a puppy some three years
ago and trained myself. I was told by my sister, after the accident, that the
dog ran away from her house and that all efforts to find it had proved
unsuccessful. This, while it greatly grieved me, came as no surprise, since
the dog had known only one home and no other master.
I am hoping that you may be able to give me some help and information on this
matter which, as you will now appreciate, is of considerable personal concern
to me. If you could possibly spare the time to come and see me, Mr. Driver,
however briefly, I would be most grateful. Is it possible that in some way or
other the dog might be found and returned to me?
I'm not back to anything like fit yet and I am afraid that writing this letter
has proved tiring. I only hope you can read it. Yours sincerely,

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Page No 225

Alan Wood
"Oh, boy!" cried Digby Driver, aloud. "Now he tells me! But what the hell to
do about it?" He took out his car keys and swung them round and round his
index finger. After a few moments they flew off and landed on the linoleum on
the other side of the hall. Mr. Driver, retrieving them, suddenly addressed
his reflection in the still-dark window-pane.
"The bloody cow!" he said aloud. "Good God! What did she—? Well, Christ, I'll
see her for a start, anyway."
He turned up the collar of his duffle-coat, poked two of the toggles through
the loops and pulled on his gloves.
(441)
"A line, a line, I gotta think of a line! The good journalist ignores no event
that takes place, but turns all to his advantage.' Yes, but what the hell can
I do with this?" He stamped his foot on the floor in frustration, and once
again the dog barked in the basement. A female voice called soothingly, "Lie
down, Honey. Wassa fuss-fuss, eh? There's a girl!"
"Darling doggies!" yelled Digby Driver, in inspiration and triumph. "Stares
you in the face, dunnit? And with just a bit of luck it's got everything,
Harbottle and all! O God, give me time, just time, that's all! What ho for the
great British public!"
He dashed out into the winter dawn. Two minutes later the tyres of the green
Toledo were sizzling down the wet road to Dalton-in-Furness. : .
Ravenglass, on the coast south-west of Muncastcr Fell, has a railway station
(other than Ratty), a pub, a post office, two to three hundred inhabitants and
a single street two hundred yards long. All round it lie the sands and
channels of the estuary of the Irt, Mite and Esk, and it is sheltered from the
Irish Sea outside by the low, sandy peninsula of the Drigg nature reserve—two
miles of dunes and marram grass—which covers the estuary as its flap a letter-
box. As long ago as 1620 the place was noted for gulls' eggs and for the
numbers of waders and sea-birds attracted to the feeding-grounds of these
shallow, tidal waters. It is not a spot where strangers can expect to go
unremarked for long—not in winter, not in the early morning, not if they
happen to be plastered across the newspapers and wanted in three counties.
Was it Harold Tonge, perhaps, the landlord of the Pennington Arms, who first
saw Snitter dancing in the street at sight of a real lamp-post? Or his trusty
henchman Cec., having a look up and down the windy, gull-tumbled street, who
recognized the grim shape of Rowf lifting his leg against a white wall below a
fuchsia hedge? Or perhaps Mrs. Merlin, the postmistress, emptying a metal
waste-paper basket doing-doing against the rim of a dustbin, caught sight of a
black-and-white, cloven head looking perplexedly at the stony beach and
seaweed-strewn pebbles
(442)
below the houses? Before the outgoing tide had laid bare the sands of the
estuary, conviction and consternation had flooded the village. Incredible as
it might be, these were the Plague Dogs, walking the street in bewilderment
and broad daylight. Fasten your gates, lock up the stores, bring all the cats
and dogs indoors. Get on the qul vive, the telephone and the stick. Grimes is
at his exercise. Those who despise us we'll destroy.
The instant Annie Mossity opened the front door, Digby Driver had his foot in
it. At the look on his face she started back.
"Mr. Driver—what—what—you're very early—I—"
Digby Driver pushed past her, turned, slammed the door and stood facing her in
the hall.
"Mr. Driver, what's the meaning of this intrusion? I can't talk to you now.
I'm just going—"
Without a word, Digby Driver drew out the letter and held it up. For a moment
she caught her breath and her eyes opened wide. The next, she had recovered

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Page No 226

herself. Her hand moved towards the Yale lock.
"Mr. Driver, will you please leave my house at—"
Driver put his two hands on her shoulders and spoke quietly.
"You can scream the bloody place down, you cruel, cold-hearted bitch! Now get
this—I'm not going to be lied to and messed around any more, see, whatever you
do to other people. I haven't got much time; and you're not dealing with a
gentleman now, either, so just watch it, because I'm angry. If you try
fainting or throwing hysterics, all that'll happen is you'll wish you hadn't,
got it? Now, listen. Your brother knows that that's his dog, and he knows that
it's alive. You didn't tell him you'd sold it, did you? You told him it ran
away. Why did you let me think your brother was dead? Why? Come on, Mrs.
Bloody Moss, you dirty, lying cow, tell me the truth or I'll break your neck,
so help me Christ I will! I'm angry, see, and I might forget myself!"
"Mr. Driver, don't you dare to lay hands on me! You'll regret it—" He stood
back.
(443)
"Are you afraid of me?"
She nodded, staring.
"So you damn' well ought to be. Well, the remedy's in your own hands. Tell me
the truth and I'll go. And mind it is the truth this time. Because if it's
not, I'll make the whole blasted country loathe the name of Mrs. Moss, you see
if I don't!"
When one rogue has been found out in the deception of another, the scene is
seldom an edifying one. Mrs. Moss, sobbing, sank down on a hall chair, while
Mr. Driver stood over her like Heathcliff getting to work on Isabella Linton.
"I—I—always ha-ated the dog! I hoped—hoped my brother would get married—he
used to make use of the dog to tease me—I know he did—the house always so
untidy and—and mud all over the floor—my .brother didn't care! The dog caused
the accident—people saw it— they told me—the dog ran on the crossing and my
brother ran out after it. I hated the dog—why should I be expected to keep it—
oh!—oh!—"
"Come on," said Driver. "What else?"
"I sold the dog to the research people. They promised me I'd never see it
again! They said it would never leave the station alive."
"You took it up there yourself? And you took the money and spent it on
yourself, didn't you? Keep talking."
"When you came to see me, I knew that if I told you my brother was—was alive
you'd go and see him and he'd get to know what had happened. And then I
realized you thought he was dead, so I let you go on thinking—why shouldn't
I?—oh, hoo, hoo! I'm frightened, Mr. Driver, I'm frightened of you—"
"You needn't be, Mrs. Moss, you rotten, spiteful sow, because I'm leaving your
shit-house now. You'll be delighted to know I'm on my way to see your brother
in the hospital. And I can let myself out, thanks."
He left her drawing shuddering breaths where she sat on the chair, closed the
front door behind him and strode swiftly down the path to the gate. He was
surprised to realize that not all his indignation was for himself.
(444)
lilt's not possible," said Major Awdry. "Ravenglass? There 'must be some
mistake. Two other dogs. Fog of war and that."
"How about asking one of the 'copters to go down, sir?" 'suggested the R.S.M.
"He can be there in a few minutes and report to us on the R/T. Then if
necessary we can call both companies straight in. If it really is our dogs at
Ravenglass, they can't 'ardly run no further, and we could be down there by
eleven-thirty at latest."
"Yes, good idea," said Awdry, putting down his teacup. "How far is it to
Ravenglass by road, Mr. Gibbs?"
"About ten mile I make it, sir," answered the sergeant-major, consulting his

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map.
"Twenty-five minutes, then, once they're embussed. Sergeant Lockyer, can you
call up Lieutenant-Commander Evans, please? I'd like to have a word with him
myself."
"That was one of the flies out of my head, Rowf." "Scared me stiff. I thought
it was going to come down and crush us. The noise alone's enough to—"
"There's nowhere to hide—nowhere to go. What'll we do?"
"Snitter, it's coming back! Run, run!" Bushes flattened in a tearing wind, all
else blotted out by the smacking blat-blat-blat of the blades. Terrified,
aware of nothing but fear, all senses—smell, sight, hearing—overwhelmed with
fear like green grass and branches submerged in a flooding beck, Snitter and
Rowf ran across the shifting stones and shingle, on to the pools and brown
weed of the tideline and down to the bare ebb-tide sands. "Over here, Snitter,
quick!" "No, not that way! This way—this way!" "No—that way!" Rowf voiding his
bowels with fear. "Away from the people! Look at them up there! They're
watching us! I won't go back in the tank! I won't go back hi the tank!"
From the shore of Ravenglass across to the Drigg peninsula is a quarter of a
mile of water at high tide, but at low tide the Mite and Irt flow in a narrow
channel down the centre of the sands and it is possible to cross almost dry-
shod. As the helicopter turned and remained hover-
(445)
ing a hundred yards away, Rowf, with Snitter hard on his tail, raced down the
sands and plunged into the outfall, found a footing, lost it again, struggled,
flung up his head, scrambled, clawed and dragged himself out on the further
side.
Shaking the water out of his shaggy coat, he looked about him. The sodden body
of a dead gull, evidently left by the tide, was lying a few yards away. He
himself was bleeding from one hind paw. Snitter, carried down with the
current, had fetched up against a rock and was clambering out. The helicopter
had not moved. Ahead rose the smooth, sandy dunes, one behind another, tufts
of marram grass blowing against the sky.
"No men up there, Snitter! Come on!"
Running again, wet sand cold between the claws, dry sand blowing into eyes and
nostrils, sound of-breaking waves beyond the hillocks; raucous cries of gully.
"Rowf! Look!"
Rowf stopped dead in his tracks, hackles rising.
"It's the sea, Rowf—the sea the tod told me about that day, after I'd come out
of my head! I remember what he said. He said, 'Salt and weeds. It's all water
there.' I didn't understand how a place could be all water. Look —it's moving
all the time."
"It's not alive, though. It's another of those damned tanks. They've turned
the whole world out there into a tank! I wouldn't have believed it."
"The sand's nice and warm, all the same," said Snitter, lying down at the foot
of a dune. "No men. Out of the wind."
He curled himself up as the song of the waves stole gently along the shore and
through the whorls of his broken skull.
"You have licked clean the bitter bowl And now need wander on no more. The
charm's wound up and dosed the scroll, For you have reached the furthest
shore. Lie down and rest, poor dog, before Your great sea-change cerulean,
(446)
; And sleeping, dream that we restore The lost dog to the vanished man,"
"I wish—I wish I could see my master just once again," .murmured Snitter. "We
were always so happy. That poor terrier—I'd have tried to help her if I hadn't
been so frightened. I wonder what'll happen to them all now—the terrier and
the lorry—the mouse and all the rest of them? I'm afraid they won't be able to
manage without me. They'll disappear, I suppose. But I must go to sleep now
—I'm so tired. Good old Rowf—I must try to remember

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—remember what the tod said—"
Rowf, too, had lain down in the sand and was sleeping as a dog sleeps who has
wandered for two nights and a day. The tide was still ebbing and the sound of
the waves receding, gentler and softer.
The helicopter remained where it was, poised above Ravenglass, for the dogs
were in full view through binoculars and there was nothing to be gained by
disturbing them as the soldiers drove up, got out of their buses and fell in
outside the Pennington Arms.
Major Awdry, having located the dogs, was half of a mind simply to take a
rifle and cross the estuary by himself. On second thoughts, however, it seemed
best to send a platoon across in extended order, for the dogs had already
shown themselves remarkably resourceful and even now might try to escape
northward towards Drigg. No. 7 platoon, swearing at the prospect of more wet
feet and wet boots, crunched down the shingle, deployed on the sands and began
crossing the estuary. Awdry and the platoon commander carried loaded rifles.
It was too early for visitors at the hospital and Digby Driver, in the hall,
was referred to a notice confirming the hours; however, as the reader will
have no difficulty in believing, he knew a trick worth two of that. He spoke
forcefully of urgent and pressing business, flashed his press card and
offered, if desired, to bring Sir Ivor Stone in person to the telephone. The
West Indian sister, an Orator reader, knew his name and found his check rather
(447)
attractive. The hospital were not altogether unused to bending the rules for
visitors on a Saturday and anyway the nurses felt sorry for the nice,
gentlemanly Mr. Wood, who had suffered such dreadful injuries and had so few
visitors. He was, Digby Driver learned, at present convalescent in a small
post-operational ward of only two beds. The other bed was empty at the moment,
the patient having been discharged on Friday. Putting out his cigarette and
following the directions he had been given, Mr. Driver walked, breathing the
familiar hospital smell, along numerous corridors, went up in a lift, and upon
getting out found himself opposite the right door.
Mr. Wood, who had ceased to expect any reply to his letter, was surprised and
gratified to find Digby Priver at his bedside. He looked wretchedly ill and
explained that he still had a good deal of pain in his left leg, wliich had
been broken in two places.
"It'll never be as good as it was, I'm told," he said. "Still, I shall be able
to walk again—after a fashion— and drive a car; and I'll be able to get back
to work, of course, which'll be everything. But Mr. Driver, kind of you as it
is to come here, I'm sure you didn't make the journey simply to hear about my
health. Can you tell me about the dog in the photograph? Is it my dog?"
"You tell me," answered Driver. "There are the originals." And he laid them on
the sheet before Mr. Wood's eyes.
"Why, that is Snitter!" cried Mr. Wood. "There's not a doubt of it!" He looked
up with his eyes full of tears. "Good God, what have they done to him? However
could he have fallen into their hands? I can't bear to look at it. Mr. Driver,
please tell me at once—where is the dog? Have they killed him or what?"
"Look," said Driver, "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid the truth is that
they may have. The two dogs were seen in Eskdale late last night and soldiers
are searching the valley for them at this moment, with orders to shoot on
sight. They certainly wouldn't listen to anything I could say, but if they'll
let you out of here, I'll drive you up to Eskdale myself and give you all the
help I can."
"Well, they can't legally stop me discharging myself.
(448)
Tou're most kind. But it's going to be a hell of a business, can only walk
with someone else's help. I can stand e pain, but I get very tired." "I'm
someone else, Mr. Wood." "You really think there might be a chance of saving

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Page No 229

Snitter?"
"I think there's a sporting chance that we might be ible to do something,
though I'm damned if I can see |what, just off the cuff. And I'm afraid it's
more than likely |that it may be too late. I can only repeat, I'll help to get
pou out and I'll drive you up there as fast as I can. This one hell of a
story, you see, and of course it's the story I'm after—I'll be frank about
that. But I'm on your side, too, Mr. Wood—I genuinely am. Come on, where are
|;your clothes—in that wardrobe? Right, here we go. Once [we're in the car
I'll tell you all about the whole thing."
To pilot Mr. Wood out of the hospital did indeed prove a task almost beyond
the power of Digby Driver I his very self. Only he could have pulled it off.
Heracles I would have owned the Alcestis operation a right doddle tin
comparison. Twice he almost came to actual grips with f members of the staff.
Telephone calls were made to con-k sultants, but these Digby Driver ignored.
The summoned house surgeon on duty, a pleasant enough young man, he invited to
send for a policeman, sue the London Orator or IE; jump into Wastwater, as
preferred. The hall porter (Africa ; Star with 8th Army clasp) was told that
if he laid a hand on the patient or his escort the London Orator would " have
his guts for garters. At the door, however, all re-:,sistance suddenly
evaporated and the resolute, hobbling ipair, watched with uncomprehending
astonishment by the | early visitors, festooned with dire warnings and leaving
; behind hands, both black and white, emphatically washed of them on all
sides, reached the green Toledo and set off for Eskdale by way of Broughton
and Ulpha.
| The wind, veering round into the east, carried to the sleeping Rowfs
unsleeping nostrils the smells of rifle oil, leather and web equipment. A
moment more and his wak-
I ing ears caught the sound of human voices. He stared in terror at the
extended khaki line across the sands.
(449)
"Snitter! The red-hat men are here—they're coming!"
"Oh, Rowf, let me go to sleep—"
"If you do, you'll wake up on the whitecoats' glass table! Come on, run!"
"I know they're all after us—I know they're going to kill us, but I can't
remember why."
"You remember what the sheep-dog said. He said his man believed we had a
plague, a sickness or something. I only wish I had—I'd try biting a few of
them."
In and out of the undulant dunes, the marram, gorse and sea holly, dead trails
of bindweed and dry patches of clubrush. Down winding, sandy valleys doubling
back on themselves, catching sight once more of the soldiers now horribly
nearer; dashing through deep, yielding sand, over the top and down; and so
once more to t&e sea— wet shore, long weeds, gleaming stones, flashes and
pools; and beyond, the breaking waves.
"Snitter, I won't go back in the tank! I won't go back in the tank!"
Rowf ran a few yards into the waves and returned, a great, shaggy dog whining
and trembling in the wind.
"What's out there, Snitter, in the water?"
"There's an island," said Snitter desperately. "Didn't you know? A wonderful
island. The Star Dog runs it. They're all dogs there. They have great, warm
houses with piles of meat and bones, and they have—they have splendid cat-
chasing competitions. Men aren't allowed there unless the dogs like them and
let them in."
"I never knew. Just out there, is it, really? What's it called?"
"Dog," said Snitter, after a moment's thought. "The Isle of Dog."
"I can't see it. More likely the Isle of Man, I should think, full of men—"
"No, it's not, Rowf. It's the Isle of Dog out there, honestly, only just out

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of sight. I tell you, we can swim there, come on—"
The soldiers appeared, topping the dunes, first one or two, here and there,
then the whole line, red berets, brown clothes, pointing and calling to each
other. A bullet struck
(450)
f the rock beside Rowf and ricocheted into the water with
% a whine.
;     Rowf turned a moment and flung up his head.
>;     "It's not us!" barked Rowf. "It's not us that's got the
V plague!"
]     He turned and dashed into the waves. Before the next
shot hit the sand he was beside Snitter and swimming
.resolutely out to sea.
I "To Ravenglass?" said Digby Driver. "Are you sure? Can I they really have
got there since last night? It must be all f of eight miles, even in a dead
straight line." \ "That's what the paratroop officer said, sir. Seems one 'I
of the helicopters actually saw the dogs on the beach. | Anyway, that's where
the soldiers went, and all the news-I paper men have followed them; and the
Secretary of State 1 too, in his car. They're all down there." V "Good God!"
said Digby Driver to Mr. Wood, who was ; half-lying on the back seat and
biting his lip at each spurt j of pain in his leg. "This seems incredible! Are
you all i right? D'you want to go on?"
'      "Yes, if that's where Snitter is, I can make it. It's very good of you,
Mr. Driver—"
"Oh, bollocks!" said Digby Driver, letting in the clutch with a jerk that
almost drew a cry from Mr. Wood. "I'm as big a darling doggies sucker as any
old Kilburn landlady. On we go! We were left galloping, Jorrocks and I."
"Joris and I." "Precious little the matter with you," said Digby Driver.
j. "Don't exhaust yourself, Snitter; don't struggle so hard!
-$ Just keep afloat."
"'       "I can't seem—to manage it! Why have we gone such a
long way already?"
"There's a current carrying us along the shore and away
from it as well. Is it far to the island, Snitter?" I      "Not very far, old
Rowf."
|      "Bite on to my tail if you like. I learnt a lot about staying f  afloat
in the tank, you know." S       "Everything rocks up and down." 1       "Keep
it up. We must get to the Isle of Dog!"
(451)
Splashing and struggling and choking mouthfuls of salt water. Tossing up and
down, spray in the eyes. Bitterly cold now, and Horribly lonely and a sudden
screaming of gulls, fierce and angry, but nothing to be seen.
"Rowf? There's something terribly important I've got to tell you; about the
tod; but I've hurt my head and I can't remember it."
"Never mind. Just stay afloat."
"Dammit!" said Digby Driver, pulling up. "This isn't right. I'm afraid I've
been concentrating on driving at the expense of map-reading. This obviously
can't be the road to Ravenglass. Have you any idea where we are?"
" Traid not," replied Alan Wood. "I'm a bit done up, to tell you the truth—
haven't been noticing much for a bit. I'll try and get myself together."
"That must have been Drigg we just came through," said Driver, looking at his
map. "Yeah, and we've gone under the railway line, you see. I'd better turn
round. Oh look, there's a chap just got out of that Volvo up there ahead.
Let's go on up and ask him."
Jolting and swaying, and Mr. Wood clutching his plaster-of-paris leg and just
succeeding in keeping quiet, with the sweat running down his white face.
"I say, excuse me, sir, we're looking for some soldiers —paratroopers—have you

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Page No 231

seen any? Can you tell us the way to Ravenglass?"
The burly, pleasant-looking, soldierly man in gum-boots and an anorak came up
to the driving window.
"Looking for soldiers, are you? Well, as far as I can make out you've come to
the right place—or rather, the wrong place from my point of view. Just got
back here from Gosforth and find 'em prancing all over my nature reserve,
restricted areas and all. Never so much as a word of warning, let alone a
request for permission to enter. And there's a helicopter up there, terrifying
every bird for miles. I've a damn good mind to ring up the War Office and ask
them what the hell they think they're doing."
"I may be able to help," said Driver. 'Tm a newspaperman. That's why I'm after
the soldiers. And the soldiers are after the so-called Plague Dogs, if you
know about them. D'you mind telling us where you fit in?"
(452)
"My name's Rose—Major Rose. I'm the warden of the
rigg nature reserve. That's all this peninsula, as far as it s down—about two
miles of dunes. Well, what the hell 9o the soldiers think they're doing, can
you tell me? Fortunately it's a slack season now, very few migrants labout,
but dammit all, it's bad enough. My wife's told ^me she heard a couple of
shots fired. I ask you! Shots!"
Mr. Wood could not suppress a cry of anguish.
As quickly as possible, Digby Driver explained the posi-tion. Major Rose
listened with evident sympathy and understanding.
"Well, we might just be in time to do something yet. For one thing, no one can
legally use a firearm in the , nature reserve, and I don't care who the hell
they are. Come on, let's get down there in the car—or as far as we ean. I'm
afraid the track doesn't go anything like as far down as Drigg Point, but
it'll take us a good bit of the way and after that I expect we'll be able to
manage some-thing. Can I hop in beside you, Mr. Driver? Splendid. You all
right, Mr. Wood? God, you've got some guts! Walked out of the hospital, did
you, just like that? Good for you! Sure to be a blessing on that."
They had not gone far down the peninsula when they observed two red berets
stumbling their way towards them over the undulant dunes. They could be seen
pausing, looking out to sea through binoculars and pointing. Major Rose got
out and went briskly to meet them, while Digby Driver helped Mr. Wood out of
the car and gave him his shoulder to do the best he could to follow. It took
them several minutes to reach the soldiers. When they finally did so, Major
Rose seemed to have calmed down a little.
"Mr. Driver," he said, "this is Major Awdry, who tells me he's in charge of
this dogs' exercise, and oddly enough we've both been in the same regiment—
before he trans-ferred and started jumping out of aeroplanes, that is. He
tells me they haven't shot your dog, Mr. Wood, but I'm afraid it's a bad
prospect for the poor beasts, all the same."
"What's happened?" cried Mr. Wood. "Where are they?"
"They're out there," said John Awdry grimly, pointing and handing over his
binoculars. "I'm afraid you can
(453)
hardly see them now. The tide's taken them out pretty far and there's a north-
setting current that's sweeping them up the coast as well."
"They might come ashore on Barn Scar," said Major Rose. "That's a sandy shoal,
you know, that stretches out quite a long way about a mile and a quarter north
of here. Tide's on the turn, too. If only they can stay afloat," he added.
"Your chaps won't be shooting any more,. will they? Where are they, by the
way?"
"I left them down by the point," replied Awdry, "while Mr, Gibbs here and I
came up the shore to try and keep the dogs in sight. No one's authorized to
fire except officers, and we won't, of course, so don't worry ab.out that."

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Mr. Wood, having been helped to sit down, remained staring out to sea through
the binoculars without a word. There was, however, nothing now to be seen
between the tossing waves and the grey, November sky.
"Can't—any more—Rowf."
"Bite on to me, Snitter. Bite!"
"Cold."
"The island, Snitter—the Isle of Dog! We must get there!"
"Cold. Tired."
No feeling in the legs. Cold. Cold. Longing to rest, longing to stop, losing
two gasps in every three for a lungful of air. The stinging, muzzle-slapping
water, rocking up and down. This isn't a dream. It's real, real. We're going
to die.
"I'm sorry—Snitter, about—about the tod. All my fault."
"That's it! Remember—tod—tell you—reel mazer—"
"What?"
"Reel mazer—yows—"
Cold Sinking. Bitter, choking dark.
(HERE ENSUETH THE COLLOQUY BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND HIS READER)
COLLOQUY
THE READER:  But are the Plague Dogs, then, to drown And nevermore come safe
to land?
(454)
Without a fight, to be sucked down
Five fathom deep in tide-washed sand?
Brave Rowf, but give him where to stand—
He'd grapple with Leviathan!
What sort of end is this you've planned
For lost dogs and their vanished man?
THE AUTHOR:  It's a bad world for—well, yon know. But after all, another
slave— It's easy come and easy go.
; We've used them now, like Boycott.  They've \
Fulfilled their part. The story gave Amusement. Now, as best I can, I'll round
it off, but cannot save The lost dogs for the vanished man.
THE READER:   Yet ours is not that monstrous world Where Boycott ruled their
destinies! Let not poor Snitter's bones be hurled Beyond the stormy Hebrides!
Look homeward now! Good author, please Dredge those dark waters Stygian And
then, on some miraculous breeze, Bring lost dogs home to vanished man!
THE AUTHOR: Reader, one spell there is may serve, One fantasy I had forgot,
One saviour that all beasts deserve— The wise and generous Peter Scott. We'll
bring him here—by boat or yacht! He only might—he only can Convert the Plague
Dogs' desperate lot And reconcile bird, beast and man.
CONDENSED EXTRACT FROM THE BRITISH WHO'S WHO
SCOTT, Sir Peter, Companion of the British Empire: Distinguished Service
Cross.
Chairman of the World Wildlife Fund. Director of the Wildfowl Trust. Wildlife
Painter. Ornithologist, naturalist and international wildlife perservationist.
Born 1909, son of Captain Robert Falcon Scott [of the Antarctic]. Exhibited
paintings at the Royal Academy, London, since 1933. Specialist in painting
birds and wildlife.
(455)
Many lectures and nature programmes on British television since World War 2.
Winner of the international 14-foot Dinghy Championship, 1937, 1938, 1946.
Bronze medal, single-handed sailing, Olympic Games, 1936.
Royal Navy, Second World War. Awarded M.B.E., D.S.C. and bar. Three times
mentioned in despatches while serving in destroyers in the Battle of the
Atlantic,
President of the Society of Wildlife Artists.

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President   of   the   International   Yacht-Racing   Union, 1955-69.
President of the Inland Waterways Association.
President of the Camping Club of Great Britain.
Chairman of the Survival Service Commission. *
Chairman of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources.
Chairman of the Fauna Preservation Society,
Chairman of the Olympic Games at Melbourne, 1956; at Rome, 1960; and in Japan,
1964.
Member of the Council of the Winston Churchill Memorial trust.
Explored the unmapped Perry River area of the Canadian Arctic, 1949. Leader of
expeditions to Australasia, the GalS-pagos Islands, the Seychelles Islands and
the Antarctic.
Gliding: International Gold Badge, 1958. International Diamond Badge, 1963.
British Gliding Champion, 1963. Chairman of the British Gliding Association,
1968-70.
Royal Geographical Society Medal, 1967.
Albert Medal, Royal Society of Arts, 1970.
Bernard Tucker Medal, B.O.U. 1970.
Arthur Alien Medal of Cornell University, 1971.
Icelandic Order of the Falcon, 1969,
Publications include: Morning Flight, Wild Chorus, The Battle of the Narrow
Seas, Key to the Wildfowl of the World, Wild Geese and Eskimos, A Thousand
Geese, Wildfowl of the British Isles, Animals in Africa, The Swans and The
Fish-watcher's Guide to West Atlantic Coral Reefs.
Has illustrated (inter alia): Adventures Among Birds and The Handbook of
British Birds.
(456)
ENVOY
Sir Peter Scott, despite his well-known ability as a sailor, did not very
often put to sea in winter. There was always a great deal to do at Slimbridge,
to say nothing of his passion for painting and the heavy load of
correspondence, all over the world, with wildlife conservation groups and the
like. The happy arrival, however, on a visit from New Zealand, of his old
friend and fellow-naturalist Ronald Lockley had coincided with two letters
asking for ornithological advice—one from Bob Haycock, warden of the Calf of
Man nature reserve, and the second from none other than Major Jim Rose of the
Drigg reserve at Raven-glass. The weather being mild for winter and his
visitor entirely ready to fall in with the idea of a little sea adventure—the
more so since, as it happened, he had never visited the Calf of Man—the
distinguished pair had set out in the Orielton, a converted lifeboat which Sir
Peter found extremely handy for coastal and island voyaging.
They had enjoyed unusually fine days during three hundred miles of seafaring
north to Anglesey, putting in at several islands off the Welsh coast to visit
old haunts of Lockley's and in particular staying a night each at the bird
observatories on Skokholm and Bardsey, where they were welcomed with delight
by the resident wardens. Once Anglesey was left behind they had a splendid
following
(457)
wind across the last sixty miles and finally anchored, one Wednesday evening,
in the calm of Port Erin, where Alan Pickard, that best of booksellers,
received them hospitably before their visit to the Calf on the following day.
The visit—though it is always pleasant and heartwarming to see the aerial
games of choughs, to help to clear a mist-net, watch a qualified bird-ringer
at work and read his records of snow buntings, purple sandpipers and yellow-
browed warblers—had in one respect proved disappointing. Lockley, whose
knowledge of sea-birds was unsurpassed and whose forte was the study of

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shearwaters worldwide, still entertained the hope that one day the Manx
shearwater—and with any luck the puffin too— might be restored to the Isle of
Man; or at an£ rate to the Calf, where it had first been discovered. There
were, however, formidable obstacles, chief of which 'was the extreme
difficulty of exterminating the rats which had made survival virtually
impossible for both species by infesting their underground tunnels and
devouring their eggs and young. Against such attacks these burrowing birds had
no remedy. Bob Haycock had not felt able to be encouraging about the
prospects, and Ronald Lockley and Peter Scott, despite their recollections of
the success of various sanctuary projects they had founded (such as the
Wildlife Trust at Slimbridge and more lately the establishment of New
Zealand's first bird observatory on the shores of the Firth of Thames, near
Auckland), were a trifle disposed, as the Orielton approached the end of the
eighty miles between the Calf and Raven glass, to give way to melancholy
thoughts (or perhaps they were just plain hungry).
Ronald sat at the helm, cutting beef for sandwiches off the bone and
reflecting on the frame of things disjointed.
"You know, ignorant sentimentality about animals and birds can be as bad as
deliberate destruction," he remarked, wiping the spray off his glasses and
turning the Orielton's nose a point to starboard. "Well-intentioned amateurs
like that chap Richard Adams—fond of the country—reasonably good observer—
knows next to nothing about rabbits—hopelessly sentimental—everyone starts
thinking rabbits are marvellous when what they
(458)
really need is keeping down if they're not to become an absolute pest to the
farmer—"
"But you said yourself in your book that humans are so rabbit," interrupted
Peter Scott. "If that's not anthropomorphic—"
"Well, that's different," said Ronald firmly. "Anyway, humans need keeping
down, too, come to that. But what is all wrong, for instance, is importing
creatures like Greek tortoises, which are totally unsuited to a British
climate, for sale as pets. The people who buy them usually know far too little
about them; and anyway, for all practical purposes they start dying as soon as
they get here. Sale of hens' chicks as pets is illegal now, but owing to some
stupid loophole sale of duckling chicks isn't. Anyway they all die, too. I
tell you, ignorant, uninstructed enthusiasm for birds and animals is worse
than useless. We ought not to stir it up. Most small wild animals die if they
become pets, simply through misplaced interference and disturbance."
"They always did, of course," replied Scott, opening a rip-off beer and taking
a pull from the can, "from Lesbia's sparrow onwards."
"But it's the scale of the thing under modern conditions," pursued Lockley.
"The demand for pets is so colossal now that it often comes close to
exhausting the available supply and damn nearly brings the species on to the
danger list."
"It can have the opposite effect too, you know," replied the undemonstrative
and fair-minded Peter Scott (who had once, when asked by a television
interviewer the reason for his defeat in a yacht race, given the refreshing
reply, "The other chaps were better than we were"). "Look at budgerigars.
Restricted to Australia until the early thirties. Now there are thousands all
over the place, purely as a result of the demand for them as cage-birds. And
they thrive, by and large."
"Then there are zoos," went on Lockley, ignoring Sir Peter's rejoinder. "I
don't mind a good zoo, but too many will try to acquire rare and delicate
animals which they ought to know they can't keep healthy and happy. Same
story—in effect they start dying before or on arrival. But
(459)
with a zoo, it isn't what you see, it's what you don't see. Animal collectors

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for zoos go into jungles, rain-forests and so on, and offer the natives big
money to catch animals alive. So what happens? The natives go off, savagely
trapping and injuring, killing nursing females to take the young and all that
sort of thing. A few animals survive the journey back; and the collector's as
happy as the public who buy his amusing book or go to his zoo and can't read
between the lines."
"All the same," answered Peter Scott, "as far as goodwill and interest on the
part of the public goes, zoos have played a fairly significant part.
Altogether, in terms of educating people, we've gained a hell of a lot since
the turn of the century—look at leopard-skin coats and stuffed humming-birds
on ladies' hats—but the trouble is we've lost more, simply on account of the
human population explosion. Too many people, animals getting crowded out of
their habitats—"
"And an ignorantly sentimental attitude, as I'm saying," insisted Ronald,
leaving the helm for a moment to rummage for a banana in the deck-locker.
"People like Adams represent animals acting as if they were humans, when
actually it'd be nearer the mark to consider them as automata controlled by
the computer they inherit in their genetical make-up. I mean—in goes the
stimulus and out comes the reaction. Very often the person who knows more than
anyone else about looking after an animal is the man who hunts it—you used to,
as a young man, so did I—simply because he's not sentimental. I say, Peter, is
that the Ravenglass estuary over there on the starboard bow?"
"Yes, that's it. You're pretty well on course, Ronald. Just a shade to the
south and take her down to the mouth of the estuary, can you? We'll have to
hang around a bit for enough water to take us in. Not too long, though—I think
we'll be able to get up to the moorings in time for a jar at the Pennington
Arms. Wind's a bit fresher now, isn't it? I reckon the tide's only just
turned."
A wave struck the Grief/en's bow and burst with a slock and a fountain of
spray. Peter Scott turned up the collar of his anorak and reached for his
binoculars.
(460)
"I must say though," he said, scanning the sea reflectively, "I think that for
ordinary, non-specialist people, a certain amount of anthropomorphism's
probably useful in helping them to arrive at feeling and sympathy for animals—
that's to say, readiness to put the good of a species, or even just the
welfare of an individual creature, above their own advantage or profit. We
can't all have scientific minds. I imagine your poetess friend Ruth Fitter
would agree with that. John Clare, too—excellent amateur naturalist, quite
without sentimentality; yet there's a lot of anthropomorphism in his nature
poetry. It expresses affection, really. But another thing—I'm sure the old
notion of 'God made man in His own image' has a lot to answer for. And it
isn't only western civilization, of course, or ignorant urban populations.
Look at your New Zealand Maoris, killing the giant moa for a thousand years
until there weren't any left. It's time people started thinking of Man as one
of a number of species inhabiting the planet; and if he's the cleverest, that
merely gives him more responsibility for seeing that the rest can lead proper,
natural lives under minimum control."
"Certainly we're the most destructive species, but are we the cleverest?"
replied Lockley. "That's a very debatable point, I should have thought.
Consider a migrant bird. It's as real as you or I or the Secretary of State
for the Environment, and it breathes air and lives with five senses on this
globe. It knows nothing whatever about Monday or Tuesday or clocks or
Christmas or the Iron Curtain or all the things which govern human patterns of
thinking. It has a consciousness of life on the earth which is completely
different from ours—we call it instinct but it's every bit as efficient—more,
if anything—utilizing winds, temperatures, barometric pressures, navigation,

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thermal currents, adjusting its numbers to the food supply, its prey and
predators, in a way we ignorant humans still can't compete with."
"God might just as logically be a dog or an albatross," said Peter Scott,
smiling, "or a tiger. Probably is. Setting aside that we find many living
creatures beautiful—and heaven knows we can't afford to lose any beauty we've
got left—it comes down to a matter of dignity, really, doesn't
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it—real dignity, I mean—sort of a Platonic idea, don't you think? A tiger
presumably ought to have a reasonable chance of being able to approximate to
an ideal of tiger and a sparrow to an ideal of sparrow; rats too, no doubt,"
he added rather bitterly, "on the Isle of Man, you know. Surely our part in
that lot is to do what we can to see that animals live in a world where they
can fulfil their various functions, insofar as that's consistent with our own
reasonable survival and happiness?"
"Yes," answered Ronald, "and of course in thfe total, real world we and our
intellects are superficial. The birds and animals are the real world,
actually, tens of thousands of years of instinctive living in the past; and in
the future they'll outlive our artificial civilization. Our intellects are
just the veneer, the crust over our base instincts, but just now they happen
to have a good deal of power in the world to control its direction, rather
like the rudder on this boat."
He broke off, putting up his binoculars and gazing to port.
"Are my old eyes deceiving me, or is that something swimming over there? It's
a seal, isn't it, Peter? Black and fairly large, anyway. I wouldn't have
thought these were seal waters—could be in passage, I s'pose."
"That's no seal, Ronald," said Peter Scott, also focusing. "Take her over that
way a bit. I can see whatever it is you're on to, but there's something else
as well— something white. Odd-looking—could be a gull sitting on the water,
but somehow I don't think it is. Better investigate."
Lockley opened the throttle, turned the One/ton's bows to port and sent her
bouncing and bucketing over a choppy tide-race.
"My God!" said Peter Scott suddenly, "d'you know what it is, Ronald?"
"What?"
"Two dogs, swimming."
"What? Out here? Nonsense! You might as well say it's your Loch Ness monster."
"That's what they are, all the same—two dogs. One of them's about all in, by
the look of it. We'd better try
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and fish 'em out. Poor devils! How the hell did they get out here? Speed up a
bit more, Ronald, and go a shade further to port."
A minute or two later Sir Peter Scott, having stripped off his anorak and
rolled up his sleeves, engaged a boat-hook in its collar and hauled on board
the limp, deadly cold body of a black-and-white fox terrier. He laid it at
Ronald Lockley's feet in the stern.
"I'm afraid that one's a goner," he said, "but the other's still struggling
away over there, look. Can you bring her round again?"
The larger dog, which had no collar, was hauled aboard by Peter Scott with
both hands and a certain amount of difficulty. As the Orielton gained way and
once more headed south for the mouth of the estuary he dragged it, shivering
and growling, into the deck-cabin and laid it on the floor.
"I'm not sure this terrier is done for, you know," said Ronald from the stern,
running his hands over it. "It's got a fearful head injury from somewhere—God
knows what did that—and it's about drowned, but I can feel its heart ticking
still. If you'll take the helm, Peter, I'll try some respiration."
"It's half-frozen," said Peter Scott, running a hand over it as he settled in
the stern. "We'd better try and warm it up on the engine."
"Well, first we must get it breathing. I can't understand this head wound.

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Look, those are stitches. Ever heard of brain surgery on a dog? Anyway, how on
earth did the two of them get out here, do you s'pose? Could some swine have
pitched 'em overboard?"
Before Peter Scott could answer, the dog in the cabin began to bark as though
for its life against all comers. Its furious, defiant voice rose above the
sounds of engine, wind and sea as though to quail and shake the orb. Oddly
articulate and distinct it sounded, each bark beginning in a low, savage
growl—"R'r'rYr'r—" which rose to a fierce "Owf!" of desperation and rage,
repeated again and again. "Rrrrr-owf! Rrrrr-owf! Rrrrr-owf—rowf!"
"Rowf, rowf, eh?" said Peter Scott. "Sounds like some-
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thing's spoilt his temper all right, doesn't it? Or scared the daylights out
of him; or both."
"This one might just possibly come out all right, I'm beginning to hope," said
Lockley, continuing to press rhythmically. "The heart's stronger, anyway." He
addressed the limp body. "Come on now, me poor little
darling—"
Three minutes later the fox terrier opened its eyes.
"Peter, I know it sounds damn silly," said Ronald, "but d'you know what would
come in handy now? A hot
water bottle."
"Right, I'll heat up some water. I dare say we can put it into this empty
bottle, or just soak a towel in it, as long as it's not too hot. Meanwhile,
keep the poor little beast warm under your coat and hang on to the tiller."
As Sir Peter ducked his head to enter the cabin, the black dog leapt at him,
barking like Cerberus at the damned; and then, still barking, cowered back
under the folding table. Peter Scott, with an air of paying it no attention
whatever, lit the Primus and put on the kettle (which was on gimbals) warming
his hands as the water
heated.
"How's the terrier doing, Ronald?" he called.
"Bit better, I think. It's not breathing too well, but it'll probably pick up
as it gets warmer. I say, have you spotted those people on the sand dunes over
there? Four or five of 'em—couple of soldiers and one or two others. They seem
to be waving at us, for some reason."
Peter Scott put his binoculars outside and his head
after them.
"One of them looks like Jim Rose," he said, "the Drigg warden. That's the
nature reserve all along those dunes, you know. It's not like him to go waving
at passing boats just for the hell of it. Take her in a bit nearer, Ronald,
can you? We've got time on our hands anyway, until the tide really begins to
make. We might as well find out what's exciting them. Come to that, you could
take her gently in until she grounds. Tide'11 soon float her off the sand.
She's got such a shallow draught that we'll easily get close enough for a word
with Jim."
Peter Scott took the terrier from Ronald Lockley,
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wrapped it in a squeezed-out warm towel and laid it on the cabin floor. The
bigger dog stopped barking and began first to sniff at it and then to lick its
ears.
"Will you be wanting any more of that beef, Ronald?"
"No, thanks."
Peter Scott picked up a knife, cut the last of the meat off the bone and made
himself a sandwich. Holding it in one hand, he allowed the closed fist of the
other to drop towards the floor and hang still, close to the terrier's head.
After a long and suspicious pause, the black dog began to sniff it over;
paused again; and at last gave it a cautious lick. Peter Scott, looking up,

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met the amused glance of Ronald Lockley in the stern.
"D'you think it's got a name?" he asked.
As soon as he spoke the dog began to bark again, but ceased as neither of the
two men made the slightest movement or sign of alarm.
"I should think it must be called 'Rowf-Rowf,'" answered Ronald. "It's said
nothing else for the last twenty minutes."
"Hallo, Rowf," said Peter Scott, scratching the dog's ear. "Have a bone."
In the chilly, grey light of the November morning, Mr. I Powell sat at the
kitchen table, stirring his tea and watching the starlings running on the
lawn.
"Why don't you turn the light on, Steve?" said his wife,
coming in with a breakfast tray which she set down on the
draining-board. "There's no need to make it gloomier
-than it is, after all. Oh, come on, now, cheer up," she
iwent on, putting an arm round his shoulder. "It's not that
bad."
: "Feel I've let you down," muttered Mr. Powell wretchedly.
"Course you haven't! Now you listen—" "I still don't understand why they've
done it," said Mr. Powell. "I suppose I just can't have filled the bill for
:some reason or other. I was so keen at one time, too. Wanted to be a good
bloke and all that. I just don't seem to have been able to manage it."
"Now look, don't upset yourself any more, dear. They're (465)
not worth bothering about, those people, honestly they're not. I reckon
they've treated you worse than a dog. Why not forget about it? It'll all come
right, you see; and we don't have to move just yet."
"Is there anything left on that tray that I can give the monkey?" asked Mr.
Powell, looking over his shoulder at the draining-board. "He seems a bit
better this morning."
"The monkey, dear—that's the only thing that does worry me a bit," said Mrs.
Powell. "I mean, they're not going to like it, are they, if they find out you
took it away? Why not go in early on Monday and put it.back? No one'd know,
only that old Tyson, and,'then you could—"
"I won't put it back," said Mr. Powell, "and they can think what they like."
"But it's only one animal, dear, out of thousands. I mean, what's the good,
and they've got to recommend you for a transfer—"
"I can't explain. It's not for the monkey's good, it's for my good. I won't
put it back. I'm going to keep it." "But it doesn't belong to us. It's their
property." "I know. Their property." Mr. Powell paused, drumming his fingers
on the plastic table-top. "It's not—any more than I am. Sandra, love, I've
been thinking. We don't want to leave here, do we? I mean, another move for
Stephanie, maybe back to some big town, and she likes it here so much. It's
done her good. The doctor was only saying—"
"But, Steve, wait a minute—"
"No, hang on, sweetheart." Among those who loved him and meant him well Mr.
Powell could rise, on occasion, to a certain authority—even dignity. "This is
what I want to tell you. I'm seriously considering looking for a different
sort of job altogether, somewhere round here, so that we don't have to leave."
"You mean, not laboratory work at all?" "That's it. It'll mean a financial
drop, I know that, but all the same I'd like to give it a whirl Could be
teaching, might even be farming. I'm going to talk to Gerald Gray
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at The Manor^he knows a hell of a lot about the neighbourhood^—"
"It's a big step, Steve—"
"I know that all right. In jee-oppardy." She laughed. "Just let me go on
thinking about it, will you? I won't do anything pree-cipitate, I promise,"
added Mr. Powell, as though there might be some danger of his being deposited
at the bottom of a tank. "It's just—well, I don't know— it's just that I feel,

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well, sort of that everyone's—well, everyone's sort of entitled to their own
lives, sort of—" said Mr. Powell, frowning and stabbing with a wet forefinger
at the crumbs on the table. "Anyway, not to worry." He got up and kissed his
wife affectionately. "How's Stephanie this morning?"
"She seems a bit under the weather," said Sandra, still in his arms. "She ate
her breakfast all right, though."
"I'll go up and read to her," said Mr. Powell. "I'll just see to the old monk—
"
"You go on up, dear. I'll feed the poor little feller. No honest," said
Sandra, as Mr. Powell hesitated. "I'm going to get really fond of it. Oh,
Steve," and she put her arms round his neck again. "I'll back you up, darling,
honest I will. I think you're terrific! Straight up, I do."
Mr. Powell, filled with the sustaining notion that he was terrific and
pondering on whether it would be feasible to keep his establishment together
while he took a teacher's training course, went upstairs.
Stephanie, whose bed was by the window, was looking out at the bird-table and
the lake beyond. As her father came into the room she put a finger to her lips
and pointed at the nut-bag hanging outside. Mr. Powell came to a stop, craning
his neck. Seeing nothing remarkable, he smiled at her, shaking his head.
"Nuthatch, daddy, but he's gone. And a scobby."
"Scobby—what the dickens is that?"
She laughed. "It's what Jack Nicholson calls a chaffinch."
"Is it, now? Well, I never heard that before. How're you 'doing, pet?" He sat
down on the bed. '"}.   "Sort of—it does—sort of hurt a bit this morning. I
expect it'll be better later."
(467)
"Like one of your pills?"
"Yes, please."
He emptied the tumbler and fetched fresh water and the pill-bottle. She
swallowed, grimacing, and then began to brush her long hair, first one side
and then the other.
"Daddy, you know—" She paused, again looking out of the window.
"What, love?"
"I am going to get better, aren't I?"
"Course you are! Good grief—"
"It's only that—oh, daddy," and she suddenly looked up, flinging back her hair
and putting down the brush. "I sometimes wonder whether they won't be too
late'for me. They won't find out in time."
"Yes, they will," answered Mr. Powell with laudable conviction.
"How d'you know?"
"They're finding out more and more every day." He took the dying child in his
arms, laid his face against hers and rocked her to and fro. "They're doing
masses of experiments all the time, they know more than they've ever known—"
"How do they find out with the experiments?"
"Well, one way they can find out a whole lot is to make an animal ill and then
try different ways to make it better until they find one that works."
"But isn't that unkind to the animal?"
"Well, I suppose it is, sort of; but I mean, there isn't a dad anywhere would
hesitate, is there, if he knew it was going to make you better? It's changed
the whole world during the last hundred years, and that's no exaggeration.
Steph, honest, love, do believe me, I know they're going to be able to put you
right." He rumpled her hair affectionately.
"Oh, daddy, I've just brushed it!" "Oops, sorry! Well, if you can complain you
must be feeling better. Are you?"
She nodded. "Will you read to me now?" "I surely will. Or. Dotittle's Zoo" He
picked it up from the bedside table. "You know, there's only a bit of
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this left. We shall finish it this time. D'you want to go straight on with the
next one, Dr. Dolittle's Garden?"
"Yes, please."
"O.K. Now, where had we got to?"
"Tommy Stubbins and the others had gone to talk to .the Doctor about old Mr.
Throgmorton's will."
"Oh, yes. Right, make yourself comfortable. This is Tommy Stubbins talking to
the Doctor.
" ' "Now, don't you see, Doctor," I ended, showing him the scrap of parchment
again, "it is practically certain that when this piece is joined to the rest
that last line will read 'an Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals,' or some such title. For that is the cause in which this man had
already spent great sums of money while he was alive. And that is the cause
which the wretched son, Sidney Throgmorton, has robbed of probably a large
fortune. Doctor, it is the animals who have been cheated."
" 'We all watched the Doctor's face eagerly as he pondered for a silent moment
over my somewhat dramatic harangue.'"
"What's a harangue?"
"Well, a harangue," said Mr. Powell, "it's sort of— well, if I make a very
intense, excited sort of speech, about animals or something—"
| Gripped by a searing cold which seemed to enclose him as a spider's web a
fly, Snitter soared and circled slowly, wings outspread in a bitter, windy
sunset. There was no stopping, no descending. Like a leaf spiralling above a
drain he turned and turned, himself motionless yet borne :on towards some
terrible, still centre. And here, he now ^perceived, stood Mr. Ephraim, killer
and victim, slapping ''his knee and calling to him without a sound in the
freezing silence. Behind him, one on either side, stood Kiff and the tod;
while far below, the pewter-coloured waves crept stealthily down the wind.
His eyes were filmed with ice and, now that he knew lat he was dead, he peered
through it, without fear of falling, at what lay beneath him in the twilight.
The world, j|vlie now perceived, was in fact a great, flat wheel with a
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myriad spokes of water, trees and grass, for ever turning and turning beneath
the sun and moon. At each spoke was an animal—all the animals and birds he had
ever known—horses, dogs, chaffinches, mice, hedgehogs, rabbits, cows, sheep,
rooks and many more which he did not recognize—a huge, striped cat,  and a
monstrous fish spurting water in a fountain to the sky. At the centre, on the
axle itself, stood a man, who ceaselessly lashed and lashed the creatures with
a whip to make them drive the wheel round. Some shrieked aloud as they bled
and struggled, others silently toppled and were trodden down beneath their
comrades' stumbling feet. And yet,' as he himself could see, the man had
misconceived his task, for in fact the wheel turned of itself and all he
needed to do was to keep it balanced upon its delicate axle by adjusting, as
might be necessary, the numbers of animals upon this side and that. The great
fish poured blood as the man pierced it with a flying spear which exploded
within its body. The striped cat melted, diminishing slowly to the size of a
mouse; and a great, grey beast with a long trunk cried piteously as the man
tore its white tusks out of its face. Still on towards the wheel he circled,
and between him and the wheel Mr. Ephraim called him silently to fellowship
with the dead.
Suddenly the whole vast scene began to crumble and gradually to disappear,
like frost melting from a window-pane or autumn leaves blowing—some, others
and more —from trees on the edge of a wood. Through the growing rents and gaps
in the vision he could glimpse wooden planking and smell—for of course, it had
been an olfactory as well as a visual apparition—oil, tar and human flesh. The
appalling cold, too, was slowly breaking up, penetrated by needles of warmth
as birdsong pierces twilight. Whining with pain and the shock of return,

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Snitter struggled, fluttering eyes and nose to admit incomprehensible smells
and images. Relapsing into darkness, he felt himself nevertheless once more
drawn upward, as though out of a well. The pain, as feeling was restored to
his numbed limbs, seemed unbearable. The wheel, the sky and the sunset were
nearly gone now, faint as an almost-vanished rainbow, giving place to smells
of canvas,
(470)
rope and a salty wind that blew and blew. Someone was scratching his ear.
He raised his head and looked about him. The first thing he saw was  Rowf,
gnawing  a large bone.  He I stretched out and gave it a cautious lick. It
tasted of meat. t Obviously they were both dead. I      "Rowf, I'm terribly
sorry. The island—" 'i,      "What about it?"
\      "The Isle of Dog. It wasn't true. I made it up to try ;  and help you.
It was made up."
I      "It wasn't. (Runch, runch, crowk.) We're going there ; now."
I      "What d'you mean? Where are we—oh, my legs! The ,  bones are going to
burst, I believe! Oh—oh, Rowf!—"
"This man isn't a whitecoat, that's what I mean. And J he's not taking us back
to the whitecoats, either." £      "No, of course not. No more whitecoats
now." f:      "He's a decent sort. I trust him. He pulled me out of
the tank."
i;      "Rowf, I saw—I saw a wheel— How do you know you s can trust him?"
"He smells—well—safe. He's taking us to the Isle of Dog."
: Outside the cubby-hole where they were lying, Rowf s | man cupped his hands
to his mouth and began shouting. j: Rowf, gripping the bone, got up and
carried it as far as | the man's rubber boots, where he lay down again. After
a | few moments Snitter followed, scrabbling off the warm JJ cloth in which he
had been wrapped. Everything was |: moving up and down in a most confusing way
and the ^smell of oil lay over everything like a pungent blanket. ^Another
man, talking gently to him, bent down to pat his f head.
"My dam, these are real masters!" said Snitter.  "I
suppose they must be dead, too. I wonder why we're all
^rocking about like this? I shall have to get used to it.
rverything's different here, except the wind and the sky. hope that wheel's
gone."
$p Rowf's man stopped shouting and was answered by
another voice from some distance away. Rowf had put
; his front paws up and was looking out in the same direc-
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tion as the man. Trying to join him, Snitter, still half* numbed, stumbled and
fell back, but was at once picked up and held in his arms by the man with
glasses who had patted his head.
There were the waves—white, sharp chips like broken plates—and beyond, not
very far off, sand, blown dunes and the long spikes of marram grass blowing,
blowing against the sky. There were men, too; a little group on the sand, and
one of them down on the water-line, shouting to Rowf s man.
"Oh, Rowf, look, two of them have got brown clothes and red hats!"
"It doesn't matter any more. We're all right with this man. We're safe."
"I've never heard you say anything like that before."
"Well, you have now."
There was a gentle scraping, a slight lurch and then everything stopped
rocking and became still. Rowf's man climbed over the side into the water and
began splashing away towards the sand-dunes.
"Why's one of those men lying down on the sand like that?"
"Which one? Where? Oh!—"
Snitter stared and stared, waiting for the figure to disappear. It did not.
Rowf s man, wading away, passed between them. When he had gone by, the

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recumbent figure was still there, and in that moment saw Snitter; and called
him by name.
Snitter went over the side in a welter of waves and sea-drift, Rowf barking,
gulls swooping and the voice calling from beyond a white foam of rhododendrons
all in bloom. And as the morning steals upon the night, melting the darkness,
so his rising senses began to chase the ignorant fumes that had so long
mantled his clearer reason. Water prickling in the ears, and long strands of
brown, crinkled weed slippery under the paws. Snitter shook himself, ran up
the beach like a streak of quicksilver and found himself clasped in the arms
of his master.
Even Shakespeare, with all his marvellous achievements at his back, apparently
felt unequal to depicting the re-
(472)
union between Leontes and his Perdita, whom he had believed lost and mourned
as dead. He showed better sense than his critics. So forgive me—I make a
broken delivery of the business on the sand-dunes at Drigg. I never heard of
such another encounter: a sight which was to be seen, but cannot be spoken of.
They looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed. A notable
passion of wonder appeared in them, but the wisest beholder could not say if
the importance were joy or sorrow.
I have often thought (and this is me again now) that it is strange that no
event or happening, however marvellous or splendid, can transcend the limits
of time and space. They were hours and minutes that Leander spent with Hero,
and certain musical notes necessarily comprised the song the sirens sang. The
finest wine can be drunk only once; and the more words that are used to
describe it, the sillier they sound. But perhaps, as Major Awdry would no
doubt maintain, an animal living entirely in the immediate present (and
believing himself dead) might feel the tide of joy even more intensely—if that
were possible—than his master (who knew he was alive).
As Mr. Wood's tears began to fall upon Snitter's lifted face and slobbering
tongue, Peter Scott, John Awdry and the others turned aside and strolled up
the beach, looking out to sea and talking with careful detachment about the
tide, the Orielton's draft and the Ravenglass anchorage.
Now I saw in my dream that they had gone only a very little way-when they were
ware of a foul limousine coming to meet them across the lea. Bumping along the
track, it made a slow course among the marram grass and came to a halt not far
from where Mr. Wood was holding Snitter in his arms. In the back were seated
the Right Hon. William Harbottle and the Under Secretary.
His companions turned to rejoin Mr. Wood and the Secretary of State got out of
the car and also approached him.
"Good morning," he said, as Mr. Wood looked up. "You must be one of the
splendid people who've helped to capture these dogs at last. I'm very grateful
to you, and so will many other people be, I'm sure."
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Mr. Wood gazed at him with a bewildered air, like a man interrupted in prayer
or the contemplation of some splendid painting.
"Major," said Hot Bottle Bill, turning to John Awdry, "can we get this
unpleasant business over at once? Shoot the dog as quickly as you can, will
you, please?"
"This is the dog's lawful owner, sir," said Awdry. "In all the circumstances—"
"The dog's owner? This is very unexpected news!" said the Secretary of State.
"I thought the Research Station— Well, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid it can't make
any difference. Will you please carry on at once and shoot the dog?"
"With the greatest respect, sir," replied Awdry, "I am not responsible to you,
but to my battalion commander. I don't intend to shoot the dog and I will tell
my battalion commander my reasons at the first opportunity."
Hot Bottle Bill was drawing breath to reply when a second figure appeared

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beside Major Awdry.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Major Rose, "but I happen to be the warden of
this nature reserve. No animal may be killed here, by law, and to bring in a
firearm is illegal. I feel compelled to point out also that motor-cars, apart
from my own, are not allowed and that you have no authority to have brought
one in. I must respectfully ask you to leave at once."
Still Hot Bottle Bill stood his ground.
"I don't think you understand—" he began, when suddenly there appeared beside
the two majors a third figure, terrible indeed, shaggy-haired, duffle-coated
and armed with a camera as Perseus with the Gorgon's head.
"In case you don't know me, Secretary of State, I'm Digby Driver of the London
Orator, If it'll save any time, I may as well tell you that if you have that
dog shot Sir Ivor Stone and I will make your name stink from here to
Buckingham Palace and the House of Commons." He paused, and then added, "We
can, you know."
Hot Bottle Bill was not a British Cabinet Minister for nothing. For one long
moment he contemplated the dauntless three upon the strand. Then he retreated
to the car and could be seen telling his higher civil servant to go and deal
with the matter.
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Thursday,   2$'*' A^J e/n/-c. ;<r '
mi.
FLIGHT TO   THE  SEA
The Under Secretary advanced with circumspection, evidently wondering whether
it would be safer to tackle Titus Herminius or Spurius Lartius. "Er," he
began, "I—er—think—" But we shall never know what the Under Secretary thought,
for at that moment a white-fanged, snarling beast, black as a kodiak bear,
hurled itself forward from behind Sir Peter Scott (even he jumped) and stood
barking fit to defend the Bank of England.
"Rowf! Rowf-rowf! Grrrrrr-owf! Grrrrrr-owf! Rowf!"
The Under Secretary was not a senior civil servant for nothing. He hastened
back to the limousine, which shortly reversed and went bumping away, with
Rowf, still barking, in pursuit.
"Oh, boy!" shouted Digby Driver, literally dancing on the sand. "What a riot!
And I've got two shots of Harbottle looking at the dog out of the window—panic
all over his face—if only they come out!"
"I can't help feeling a bit worried," said Major Awdry. "I only hope to God
we've done right. But to tell you the truth, I really felt so—"
"Don't worry about a thing!" cried Digby Driver, slapping him on the back,
"Not a little thing! You were terrific, Major! What a fantastic turn-up for
the book! Ever heard of the power of the press? Oh, brother, are you about to
see it for real or are you? Sir Ivor'11 give me the Japanese Order of
Chastity, Class Five, for this, wanna bet? Old Harbottle, ho! ho!"
He capered among the laminaria saccharina as the tide came flowing in, but
suddenly checked himself upon catching sight of the pale and sweating face of
Mr. Wood, where he still sat at the foot of the dune.
"I say," he said, crossing quickly over to him, "how's it going? Are you
O.K.?"
"Not too good, I'm afraid," gasped Mr. Wood, "but what's it matter? Oh,
Snitter, Snitter, my dear old chap, there there, don't worry" (to be perfectly
honest, Snitter did not look worried), "we're going home, boy, home! I'll look
after you. We're just a couple of old crocks now, so you can look after me
too. Who's this big, black fellow? This your mate, is he? Well, I dare say we
can find a
(476)
place for him as well. That's a good old chap, then! That's a good boy!" (Rowf
stood like a dog in a dream as his ears were scratched by a second man within

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Page No 244

the hour.)
"I say!" called Ronald Lockley, who all this time had stuck by the Orielton
and held her aground as the tide flowed, "I think it's time we were sailin'
away. Are you fit, Peter?"
Sir Peter Scott, after a hurried exchange with Major Rose (in which the words
"Pennington Arms" and "Saloon Bar" were clearly distinguishable), waded back
on board, the screw went into reverse, the Orielton backed off the sand and
the redoubtable two headed south for the mouth of the estuary. Major Awdry and
the sergeant-major set off to rejoin their men, while Major Rose and Digby
Driver helped Mr. Wood back to the Triumph Toledo.
"Er—I say," said Driver a little tentatively, as they hobbled along, with
Snitter and Rowf following at their heels, rtyou know, you're going to need a
bit of help when you get back to Barrow. I don't know whether you mean to go
to the hospital or home or what, but—"
"Someone's got to look after these dogs," said Mr. Wood, resolutely planting
one foot before the other. "I shall have to try to—"
"Someone's going to have to look after you, I reckon," ; said Driver, "or
you'll wind up in the obituary column. I "was thinking—I'll have to stay up
here for a day or two yet. For one thing, I've got the story of all time to
write —Sunday papers, too, I don't doubt. If you like, I'll move mto your
place and help you sort things out. That's if you don't mind a typewriter and
a fair bit of telephoning— reverse charges, of course."
"I'd be deeply grateful," said Mr. Wood. "But are you sure?"
"Absolutely," said Driver. "To tell you the truth, I haven't felt so much on
anyone's side for years. Not for years! As for that Secretary of State, well,
he will be in a state by the time I've finished with him. He'll look sillier
than that Boycott bloke, and that's saying something." Mr. Wood resumed his
place in the back of the car, Snitter on his lap and Rowf lying somewhat
awkwardly
(477)
The Comsfon Fells
at his feet. A silence of almost stupefied contentment fell, broken only by
the mumblings and chucklings of Digby Driver at the wheel.
"Astounding Scene on Lakeland Beach," muttered Digby Driver. "Secretary of
State Put to Headlong Flight. (Picture, exclusive.) But for the penetration
and vigilance of the London Orator, a serious miscarriage of justice would
have taken place yesterday on the sand-dunes of the Drigg Nature Reserve,
where the so-called Plague Dogs, innocent four-footed victims of a
bureaucratic witch-hunt launched from Whitehall—"
"Rowf?"
"What?"
"Did you want to stay with the man in the rubber boots?"
"Well—I don't know—well, I'd just as soon stay with you, Snitter. After all,
you need looking after. He doesn't. And your man seems a decent sort too. I
must admit I'd no idea there were so many. It's all different on the Isle of
Dog, isn't it? Thank goodness we got there after all. I dare say I may be
going to learn a few things."
"h's jolly being dead, isn't it?" said Snitter. "Who'd ever have thought it?
Oh, Snit's a good dog! Come to that, Rowf s a good dog, too."
The beach is deserted now, save for a few gulls and a flutter of dunlins
running in and out of the waterline. The breeze has fallen; the air is calm
and on the level brine a single, sleek razorbill dives and reappears. The
clustered blades of marram droop along the dunes, arc upon arc intersecting
against the darkening eastern sky, still as their own roots in the drifted
sand beneath. Farther off, where those roots have already changed the sand to
a firmer, loamier soil, the marram has vanished, yielding place to denser,
more compact grasses. The incoming tide, with a rhythmic whisper and seethe of

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Page No 245

bubbles, flows up the beach and back, across and back, smoothing and at
length obliterating the prints of Snitter and Rowf, of Digby Driver and Sir
Peter Scott, and finally even the indented
troughs where the limousine reversed and went its way.
^479;
Before full-tide the gulls are-gone, flying all together along the coast,
gaining height as they turn inland above the estuary of the three rivers,
soaring up on the thermals over Ravenglass, up over Muncaster Fell and the
Ratty line winding away into Eskdale. From this remote height the sun is still
setting, far out at sea beyond the Isle of Man, but below, in the early winter
dusk, the mist has already thickened, blotting out the Crinkles and the lonely
summit of Great Gable, the stony ridge of the Mickle-dore and the long,
southern shoulder of Scafell; creeping lower, as night falls, to cover Hard
Knott Pass, the Three Shire Stone and Cockley Beck between. Far off, to the
east of Dow Crag and the Levers Hause, the lights of Coniston shine out in the
darkness; and beyond, the lake glimmers, a mere streak of grey between
invisible shores.
(480)

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