Richard Adams: The Plague Dogs

“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.

“Adams takes us to places where no author has taken us.”

“A compelling tale of emotional force and high suspense … gripping all the way.”

“Adams writes brilliantly about animals…. When these dogs are on the move, they compel us to follow, trotting along the narrative path on all the legs we have.”

“Excellent.”

“Better and more powerful than Watership Down , it should solidly establish Adams as one of the major English novelists of our time.”

“The genuine and moving feeling for animals that dominated Watership Down emerges here in intense dramatic form. Adams engenders such compassion, such desperate, urgent sympathy for ‘the plague dogs,’ that the reader yearns for a happy ending.”

WATERSHIP DOWN

SHARDIK

THE SHIP’S CAT

THE GIRL IN A SWING

OUR AMAZING SUN

OUR WONDERFUL SOLAR SYSTEM

MAIA

THE UNBROKEN WEB

TRAVELLER

The Plague Dogs is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

2007 Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition

Copyright © 1977 by Richard Adams

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in Great Britain by Allen Lane, London, in 1977.

Subsequently published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of The Knopf Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1978.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to A & C Black Publishers Ltd., London, for permission to reprint a condensed extract from Who’ s Who .

eISBN: 978-0-307-77577-1

www.ballantinebooks.com

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