Dear Hound

by Murphy, Jill

  ‘Come on now, Alfie,’ said Stan. ‘Easy now, boy, that’s it, walk nicely now. That’s it, come on now. Home soon. Good boy, Alfie.’

  Hunched and cowed, Alfie trailed miserably behind Stan, half-heartedly trying to stop but giving up when Stan yanked the lead. Too late, he remembered how near he had been to Charlie and home and began barking wildly, making one last lunge to escape before Stan pulled up the lead so tightly that he was cut off in mid-bark. He turned his head and gave one last desperate look in the direction of the alleyway before Stan dragged him between the houses on the other side of the clearing.

  In the restaurant, Charlie and his mum were sitting at the table with Ken and Rosemary, all just about to start their meal.

  ‘Listen,’ said Charlie. ‘I can hear Alfie barking – I’m sure it’s him.’

  ‘You must have X-ray ears,’ laughed Ken. ‘I can’t hear a thing.’

  They all fell silent as they strained to listen.

  ‘I can’t hear anything either,’ said Charlie’s mum. ‘Let’s have our food before it gets cold. We’ll have plenty of time to watch out for him later on.’

  ‘But there was a dog barking,’ insisted Charlie. ‘Couldn’t we just check?’

  Charlie’s mum gave him a stern look. ‘Later,’ she said. ‘Food now, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ mumbled Charlie, admitting defeat. ‘But I’m sure it was him.’

  A huge full moon rose behind the trees on Hawkland Heath, lighting up the trees in an unearthly shade of grey-blue. Fixit and Sunset emerged from their den for a night out hunting.

  Sunset glanced at the hollowed area beneath Alfie’s bush. ‘It’s odd without him,’ she said sadly. ‘I’d sort of got used to the great big lump. I do hope his people were pleased to see him.’

  ‘Course they were,’ said Fixit. ‘After all those posters and the way they looked for him, they’ll all be going mad right now. I expect he’s forgotten us already!’

  Back at the parade of shops, Charlie and his mum were climbing into their car, deeply disappointed once again after a cold vigil at the bins.

  ‘We don’t even know if it was him at the café,’ said Charlie’s mum.

  ‘I know it was,’ said Charlie. ‘It must have been.’

  ‘But the dog they saw didn’t have a collar,’ said Charlie’s mum. ‘If it was Alfie, he’d still be wearing his red collar. Perhaps it was just a big scruffy dog that belonged to someone else.’

  ‘It was him,’ said Charlie, stubbornly. ‘I know it was.’

  ‘Well, we can’t keep coming here like this!’ said Charlie’s mum as she put the car into gear and drove off towards their home. ‘He’s only been seen six times in all these months and we don’t actually know if it ever was Alfie that they saw.’

  ‘Six times is quite a lot, Mum,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ said Charlie’s mum, ‘I suppose I’m saying we can’t go on doing this forever, spending every spare moment looking for a dog we don’t even know is still out there. Jenny’s offered to buy you a new puppy so perhaps we ought to think about it.’

  Charlie didn’t say anything. He only rested his head against the cold glass and tried his very best not to cry.

  ‘Bert!’ called Stan. ‘Look what I’ve found!’ He let himself into the hallway, dragging Alfie behind him, and slammed the door firmly shut.

  Bert came out of the kitchen at the end of the hall and stared in amazement. ‘Well, blow me down!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s a deerhound, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not just any deerhound,’ said Stan. ‘It’s the one off that poster. It must be! Look at the state of him! He’s been out there for months living rough; you can tell by the smell! Must be the best hunter on the planet to survive that long in the wild – he’ll be the perfect dog to take lamping. I can’t believe our luck.’

  They led Alfie into the kitchen, which was surprisingly cosy, despite its untidy state, with two battered armchairs and a very old Raeburn oven. At one side of the oven, in an alcove with shelves above it, was Lightning, lying in an old dog bed. When he saw Alfie, he half sat up and curled his lip in what was most definitely not a smile.

  ‘Lay off, old boy,’ said Bert. ‘You’ve got to be nice to the new kid.’

  Lightning sank down and watched through narrowed eyes as Stan and Bert sat down in the chairs and examined Alfie thoroughly. ‘What on earth’s he been rolling in?’ said Bert. ‘He smells like a fox.’

  ‘But look at this chest!’ marvelled Stan. ‘Fantastic strength in those shoulders, and his hind legs – strong as a lion – he’s perfect.’

  All the time he was talking, Stan kept smoothing Alfie’s head. Then he shoved him across to Bert, who started massaging him just below his ears on either side of his neck. This was so pleasant that Alfie’s head drooped lower and lower and his front legs buckled.

  ‘That nice, eh?’ laughed Bert. ‘Blimey, Stan, he’s a pushover, isn’t he? Won’t take us five minutes to train him.’

  Bert fetched some blankets and an old coat and made up an extra bed between the chairs while Stan went back to the shop and bought some more dog food.

  To begin with, Alfie couldn’t help enjoying all the attention, especially the neck massage and the food, but when he started listening to Stan and Bert’s plans he realized with alarm that they wanted to turn him into a hunting dog to take with them on the heath at night. As soon as this dawned on him, he started yelping and running round the room.

  Stan grabbed Alfie by the trailing lead and dragged him over to the pile of blankets. ‘On your bed now,’ he ordered sternly, pushing Alfie firmly on to his new bed and pressing his back until he collapsed into a miserable heap.

  Then the two men turned the main light off, leaving only a table lamp on, and went out of the room.

  Lightning let out a low, rumbling growl. ‘Why don’t you go back where you came from,’ he snarled.

  ‘Don’t be cross with me,’ whined Alfie nervously. ‘It’s not my fault that I’m here. They stole me.’

  Lightning made a snorting sound. ‘They’ve only got you cos I’m a bit old and I can’t even walk far these days,’ he muttered. ‘My back legs have gone all wobbly, and now they’ve got this new lamp they’re dying to try out.’

  ‘Lamp?’ asked Alfie.

  ‘Dur-brain!’ said Lightning rudely. ‘They’re lampers – they need a lamp – you know, to go lamping.’

  ‘What is lamping?’ asked Alfie. ‘My friends warned me about lampers, but they didn’t say what they actually did.’

  Lightning peered at Alfie. ‘You really don’t know anything, do you?’ he said.

  ‘I do know some things,’ said Alfie brightly. ‘I know my boy’s name is Charlie and I know tripe’s my best food and I know that I don’t go hunting because I promised our cat, Florence.’

  ‘Well, you can forget that for a start,’ said Lightning. ‘Lamping is a type of hunting. That’s why they caught you, so you can help them hunt. They go out on the heath in the early hours and turn on their lamp. It’s got a fantastic beam and it catches the rabbits or whatever completely unawares, then – this is the fun bit – you get to run down the beam and catch as many rabbits as you can, and Stan and Bert shoot any foxes they see.’

  Alfie sat with his mouth open, completely stunned.

  ‘They got the new lamp in the post this morning,’ Lightning rattled on. ‘It’s got a silent-switch on it, so the animals aren’t alerted by the click and the beam’s so powerful that you can practically see all the way to the moon! I wish my back legs weren’t so bad; it’s just brilliant seeing how many rabbits you can grab in a night.’

  Alfie curled up in a tight ball, ears flopped right over his eyes, nose covered with one of his paws. ‘I think I’ll have a bit of a rest now, if you don’t mind,’ he murmured.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Lightning. ‘Sweet dreams.’

  Alfie tossed and turned, trying to think of a way out of the mess he had blundered into.

  ‘Stop fidgeting abo
ut,’ growled Lightning. ‘I can’t sleep with all that rustling.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Alfie, ‘– supposing I just won’t do it, you know, this lamping thing. What would they do?’

  ‘You really are a weirdo, aren’t you?’ said Lightning, attempting to scratch an ear with his stiff back leg and toppling over in the process. ‘You’re a hound for goodness’ sake – it’s what hounds are made for, hunting. It’s fun. Just pretend for a while and you’ll get used to it. Now shut up for a bit and get some rest.’

  ‘Pretend!’ thought Alfie. ‘What a good idea! I can pretend that I’ll be really good, then they’ll let me off the lead and I can escape.’

  This thought completely calmed him down and he stretched out on his new bed and enjoyed the softness after the hard floor of his bush den.

  The first thing Bert and Stan did the next day was wash Alfie in their back yard with the garden hose. He made a terrific fuss, yelping and twirling on the lead, but Stan was very clever at making him behave, alternately shouting angrily, then sounding gentle and kind, until Alfie gave up struggling and stood quaking with cold while Stan picked out all the brambles and twigs and Bert rinsed off the amazing amount of dried mud. Some of the brambles were almost woven into his fur and had to be cut out with scissors.

  ‘Look, Bert,’ said Stan. ‘He’s got some nasty sore places from all those brambles. Hold still, Alfie. We’ll soon fix those. There now, isn’t that better, eh?’

  It did feel better, drying out by the warm stove, ointment smeared on to the sore patches that had been very itchy. The only thing he didn’t like was the lemon smell of the shampoo. He really had loved his foxy perfume.

  From the very first day with Bert and Stan, Alfie set out to show them how trustworthy he would be. Every time Stan sat down, Alfie rushed over and laid his head lovingly on Stan’s knee and gave him a paw, and when Stan was looking at the newspaper Alfie nudged his nose charmingly underneath it and gave Stan a huge, messy lick.

  ‘Get off!’ laughed Stan.

  ‘He’s really taken to you, that dog,’ said Bert. ‘Look how he follows you around.’

  ‘Probably cos it was me that found him,’ said Stan. ‘He’s the devoted type; hounds are like that. It won’t be long before we can take him out with us and give him a try. Doesn’t bark much either – have you noticed? Only yelped a bit when we were washing him. They don’t bark much, deerhounds – just perfect for lamping.’

  They chose a moonless night for Alfie’s first lamping session. Alfie, still on the lead, walked perfectly to heel as they set off out of the house for the first time since Stan had grabbed him from the heath. Weeks of pretending to be the most obedient dog in the world had paid off. But, to Alfie’s dismay, Bert was carrying a shotgun as well as the silent-switch lamp. Alfie hadn’t realized that they might bring anything as nasty as a gun.

  ‘I can’t believe how easy it’s been to train him,’ said Stan as they left the outskirts of the heath and plunged into the undergrowth away from the houses and deep into the heart of the rough woodland. ‘He just follows me everywhere – even lies outside the bathroom when I’m in there! Old Lightning was never as eager to please as this young fella.’

  Alfie nosed his snout into Stan’s hand.

  ‘Good boy,’ said Stan. ‘Quiet now. Not a sound.’

  They walked for half an hour, deeper and deeper into the thickest areas of bush and brambles, through narrow pathways, some of which Alfie recognized from his nighttime travels. Abruptly, Stan gave the lead a sharp tug and they all stopped. It was so dark that you could only just make out the tops of the trees against the night sky. No one moved for several minutes. Alfie waited, wondering if they were going to walk on again when suddenly, noiselessly, Bert turned on the lamp.

  To Alfie’s utter horror, the brilliant beam of light revealed the worst sight in the world: Fixit, caught in the devastating glare, transfixed with shock.

  Stan let go of Alfie’s lead and raised his gun. In a split second, Alfie hurled himself at Bert, knocking the lamp to the floor where it rolled crazily around, lighting up Bert’s feet and Stan’s angry face.

  ‘Run, Fixit!’ barked Alfie. ‘Run for your life. They’ve got a gun!’

  All hell broke loose. Two shots rang out, then someone picked up the lamp and Alfie heard the furious voices of the two men, yelling his name. Alfie raced into the woodland as fast as he could. He ran on and on, twisting and turning to avoid the beam of light, ripping himself on brambles, catching his flailing lead on branches, stopping to yank himself free then plunging on through woven walls of undergrowth.

  At last, he left the voices and the light far behind and stopped to catch his breath. One of his back legs was really painful and he started whimpering with fright. Alfie waited, crouched in a dense patch of bracken and listened, his deerhound ears going through all the different earstyles, as he strained to make completely sure that he had lost them.

  There was no sound, so he laid his nose on his paws and decided to wait for a good chunk of time until he was sure they hadn’t been able to track him down.

  Fixit dived head first into the den and landed on top of Sunset in a shower of earth.

  ‘Watch out!’ she said. ‘Hey, what’s the matter? Has something happened?’

  Fixit lay alongside her, panting. ‘Lampers!’ he managed to gasp. ‘They had a gun – and, even worse, they had Alfie.’

  ‘Alfie?’ exclaimed Sunset. ‘But he went home ages ago. Are you sure it was him?’

  ‘He saved me,’ said Fixit. ‘Knocked the lamp clean out of the bloke’s hands. It was definitely him.’

  They lay in the darkness, straining their ears and noses for any sign that Fixit had been followed. After a while, they began to relax.

  ‘They were miles away from here,’ said Fixit. ‘I don’t think it’s very likely that they’d find us. Anyway, I came home the long way round, to put them off the scent.’

  ‘Did they have any other dogs – any terriers?’ asked Sunset.

  ‘No,’ said Fixit. ‘Only Alfie, so I think we’re safe.’

  At that very moment, they heard a rustling and scratching outside the entrance to their den. The two foxes huddled together, terrified.

  Then came a voice they knew so well.

  ‘It’s only me. It’s all right – I waited till they’d gone and came the long way round. I’d never bring them here. It’s me – Alfie.’

  Fixit and Sunset scrabbled out and found Alfie collapsed in front of his bush lair.

  ‘What on earth were you doing with those horrible men?’ asked Fixit. ‘We thought you were safe at home ages ago.’

  Alfie let out a low half-howl. ‘So sorry!’ he whimpered. ‘So sorry, but my back leg hurts. It really, really hurts. I think I must have caught it on something.’

  ‘Let’s have a sniff,’ said Sunset, waffling her nose up and down Alfie’s back legs as he lay trying to stifle yelps. ‘He’s been shot,’ she whispered to Fixit. ‘Take a sniff – you can smell the gunpowder and the blood.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Alfie kept apologizing. ‘It wasn’t my fault, honestly. They kidnapped me so they could train me as a lamper’s dog. The only way I could get them to trust me was to pretend that I was keen to do it – AARF!’ He gave a loud yelp as his wounded back leg gave a sharp twinge. ‘What’s wrong? Why does my leg hurt so much?’

  ‘Now, then, dear,’ said Sunset, trying to sound in charge. ‘You mustn’t panic, but it smells as if you’ve been shot.’

  Alfie panicked.

  He tried to scramble to his feet, yelping and barking, but crashed down into the bushes as all his legs gave way with sheer terror.

  ‘Stop!’ barked Fixit. ‘You must keep quiet or they’ll come back and find us.’

  Alfie clamped his teeth together.

  ‘Can you shuffle under your bush, Alfie?’ asked Fixit. ‘You’ll need to shelter in case it rains.’

  ‘Couldn’t I just stay here?’ asked Alfie. ‘I don’t want to move right now
.’

  In the end, when they saw that he really was too weak and exhausted to move, Fixit and Sunset lay down on either side of Alfie to keep him warm.

  ‘Sorry I smell so awful,’ he said. ‘They washed me with some lemon stuff. I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘It is a bit grim,’ agreed Sunset. ‘Never mind. You can roll in our nice messy patch tomorrow. We’ll soon have you smelling like a fox again.’

  It was a Sunday morning. Charlie and his mum sat miserably at the breakfast table, their toast growing cold in front of them.

  ‘I don’t want another puppy,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s very nice of Jenny to offer, but I still think we can find Alfie. How could we look after another dog and have fun with it when Alfie’s still out there on the heath?’

  ‘No one’s seen him at all since that day at the café,’ said his mum, ‘and we really don’t know if it ever was him.’

  ‘Can’t we go and put up some more posters?’ asked Charlie. ‘Just one more lot. The others have either blown away or got tatty in the wind. Please. We could go today; we’re not doing anything.’