The Plague Dogs (49 page)

—oh, God, how awful!—Yes, I'll ring you back—anyway, someone will—very quickly. 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.

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 terrorising 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 Dark Ages. If you are squeamish DO NOT READ ON!

Yesterday, in the early afternoon, the body of Geoffrey Westcott, 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 DOG COLLAR MADE OF GREEN PLASTIC.

"Terrible Sight" Mr. Westcott's body was found by Dennis Williamson, a sheep 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 something dark lying at the foot of one of the steep gullies running down 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 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 than I can tell you.

I left everything as it was and went back at once to inform 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. The 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.

Enquiries 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. Westcott was particularly upset that the dogs should have terrified Green and torn her week's shopping of meat and groceries out the car in order to devour it.

"Practical—Determined" the handsome, middle-aged Mrs. Green, interviewed by the Orator yesterday 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 [things],'' 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."

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 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 enquiry—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's 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 to Goat's Water. Mist was still lying, but only upon the peaks, where it moved 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."

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 recognise 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' that, Ah told thee as he'd be real 'andy fella, put paid to trooble an'

all."

'; 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- 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, 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 characterised 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.