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 for its consumption until next day. (He was not going to raid the sinking fund intended for the purchase of a wet suit and scuba equipment.) The image of the pestilential dogs, macabre in appearance and lethal in effect, came stalking across his peace of mind as the Red Death through the irregular apartments of Prince Prospero's castellated abbey. In his mind's eye he saw himself relentlessly pursuing them over the Scafell range, tracking them across Helvellyn's snowy wastes, following them from the larch copses of Eskdale to the plunging falls of Low Door. In his imagination their bodies, each neatly bullet-pierced through heart or brain, lay warm and still at last upon the fell. To hell with the Orator, with photographs, interviews or public acclaim. This ought properly to be an austere, individual vendetta, hunter against hunted, the putting of a salubrious and necessary stop to the dirty brutes who had had the audacity to spoil his car and gobble up three or four pounds' worth of meat and groceries. Having shot them, he would not even bother himself to go up to the bodies. 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 more than two days' sick leave of absence without a medical certificate, and after his known ordeal and at this wintry time of year no awkward questions were likely to be asked. True, if enquired for he would not in fact be at home, but in all probability he would not be enquired for, and in any case Mrs. Green would if necessary cover up for him. He would need to brief her to that effect before he set out. As for the chance of being seen on the hills by anyone who might tell the bank, it seemed too remote to take into account.
Methodically he checked and laid out his fell boots, clothing and equipment--thin and thick socks, mackintosh overtrousers, scarf, gloves, anorak, Balaclava helmet, vacuum flask, map, whistle, prismatic compass, binoculars and light pack, together with the four-foot-long, waterproof rope-and-alpenstock bag which had never housed an alpenstock but which he used to carry in concealment his Winchester .22, together with its telescopic backsight (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 tongue 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 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 Thirlmere 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 it might turn out to be a long, hard one. He was determined to find and kill the dogs. It was an entirely personal conflict between himself and them, the spoilers of his possessions, the wreckers of scientific order. It ought not to be unduly easy, for he meant to prove to himself--or to someone--what he was worth in defence of his little realm. The dogs might have proved too much for everyone from Keswick to Hawkshead. They were not going to prove too much for him.
In the course of the next five and a half hours, until the fall of early darkness, Mr. Westcott covered thirteen miles. He was lucky enough to have no mist. Having climbed Sticks Gill up to the pass, where he saw but, since the snow was almost gone, could not follow for more than a few yards the vestigial tracks of two dogs, he spent some little time in searching with his binoculars the area between Stang and the reservoir. It was devoid of everything but curlews and buzzards, and at length he turned south and strode easily up to the summit of Raise. From there he made his way along the whole ridge--White Side and Low Man to Helvellyn itself--continually stopping to observe the slopes below. He paid particular attention to the sheltered Red Tarn basin between Striding Edge and Catstycam, where once, long ago, a terrier bitch had kept herself alive for three months, guarding the body of her master fallen from a precipitous height above. Someone had told him that the place was haunted, though neither Wordsworth's nor Scott's poems on the incident--both of which he had once taken the trouble to get hold of and read--told what had finally become of the dog.
White Side
Still bootless, he continued for two miles south to Dollywaggon Pike and, having stopped for about fifteen minutes to eat, began the rather tricky descent to the east, down the narrow, still-frosty Tongue. In these conditions of part-frost, part-thaw, the Tongue was more than a little dangerous, which was why Mr. Westcott chose it. He would have attempted the north face of Scafell if he had thought that to do so would give him a shot at the dogs. No course, whether involving fatigue, discomfort or actual danger, was going to remain unpursued, provided it held out the promise of success. More than once he slipped 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; Grisedale Forest, Nethermost Cove Beck, Birkhouse Moor and Stang End. There was no least sign of the dogs; and he met no one all day. He regained the car by way of Sticks Pass, wondering whether his best course would be to spend the following day on the Dodds to the north. He was still wondering when he got back to Windermere, to hear from Mrs. Green the news that on Sunday afternoon the dogs had been encountered in the high valley of Levers Water by a Coniston farmer looking for odd sheep to bring down out of the snow. He had recognized them at once and taken to his heels, but not before observing that they appeared thin and fair shrammed with the cold.
Digby Driver, hastening back to Coniston to learn nothing different from what he had already heard from other eye-witnesses on previous occasions, left this farmer after no more than fifteen minutes and, back in his room, fairly cursed with frustration.
"The bloody brutes--they're just going to fizzle out--die up there--the whole thing'll collapse without one more story, yucky or otherwise! Simpson'll be livid! What a load of crap! Come on, Driver, you're not beat yet! What to do? What to do? Well, we'll just have to try the Research Station and hope for some sort of indiscretion. Any port in a storm!"
He rang up Lawson Park and this time, by some curious turn of the wheel, found himself talking to Dr. Boycott, who offered to see him by appointment forty-eight hours la
ter, on the afternoon of Wednesday the 24th.
As has been said, Digby Driver had little time for set-piece, formal press interviews with official representatives. In his view--a not altogether inaccurate one--such interviews were often designed to soft-pedal or even to conceal things likely to provide material for news copy. It was usually more profitable to talk to the boot-boy or the cleaning-woman, but in this case he already had an even better contact, if only he could get at him.
"Look, Mr. Boycott," he said, "it's good of you to offer to see me, but the man I'd really like to talk to is Stephen Powell. 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 concentration, 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 Dow Crag.
Carrs
"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 off, 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."
"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 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 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. Powell's 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 tom
orrow 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 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.
The Plague Dogs Page 35
