The Plague Dogs

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 Ravenglass. 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 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 heart-warming 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 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 any 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 Ravenglass, 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 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 with a zoo, it isn’t what you see, it’s what you don’t see. Animal collectors 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 Orielton’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.

“I must say though,” he said, scanning the sea reflectively, “I think that for ordinary, non-specialist pepple, 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 Pitter 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, 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 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 the 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 Orielton’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 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. 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’r’r’r’r—” which rose to a fierce “Owf!” of desperation and rage, repeated again and again. “Rrrrrr-owf! Rrrrr-owf! Rrrrr-owf—rowf!”

“Rowf, rowf, eh?” said Peter Scott. “Sounds like something’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’ll 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, 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, 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. 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 went 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 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 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, 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.”

“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. Dr. Dolittle’s Zoo.” He picked it up from the bedside table. “You know, there’s only a bit of 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 that he was dead, he peered through it, without fear of falling, at what lay beneath him in the twilight. The world, he now perceived, was in fact a great, flat wheel with a 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, 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, 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 stretched out and gave it a cautious lick. It tasted of meat. Obviously they were both dead.

“Rowf, I’m terribly sorry. The island—”

“What about it?”

“The Isle of Dog. It wasn’t true. I made it up to try and help you. It was made up.”

“It wasn’t. (Runch, runch, crowk.) We’re going there now.”

“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 he’s not taking us back to the whitecoats, either.”

“No, of course not. No more whitecoats now.”

“He’s a decent sort. I trust him. He pulled me out of the tank.”

“Rowf, I saw—I saw a wheel—How do you know you 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. 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 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 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. Everything’s different here, except the wind and the sky. I hope that wheel’s gone.”

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 direction 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 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 reunion 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.”

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 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.

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’ll 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 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 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, “You 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 into 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 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.”

“It’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 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. 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 Mickledore 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.