The Plague Dogs Read Free Page B

of a wire pen at the far end of the canine shed. A label on the pen door bore the same number—732—as that stamped on the dog's green plastic collar, while below this was typed: SURVIVAL EXPECTATION CONDITIONING: (WATER IMMERSION): DR. J. R. BOYCOTT.
    The shed comprised, in all, forty pens, arranged in two double rows. Most of these contained dogs, though one or two were empty. With the majority of the pens, all four sides consisted of stout wire netting, so that for the occupants of these there were three party walls and three canine neighbours, except where an adjacent cage happened to be empty. The pen of seven-three-two, however, being at the end of Row 4 and also at the end of the block, had one brick wall, which was, in fact, part of the periphery wall of the building itself. Since the adjacent pen in Row 4 happened to be empty, seven-three-two had only one neighbour—the dog in the back-to-back cage in Row 3 afeo situated against the brick wall. This dog was not at the moment to be seen, and was evidently in its kennel (for each pen contained a kennel), though there were is of occupation—a well-gnawed rubber ball in one ler, a yellowing blade-bone with no meat remaining t, several fresh scratches along the brickwork, some ire, a half-empty water-bowl and, of course, a label on the door: 815. BRAIN
    SURGERY, GROUP D. MR. s. w. c. FORTESCUE.
    Over the whole interior of the shed lay a pervading smell of dog, together with the sharp smells of clean straw and of concrete brushed down with water and Jeyes fluid. Through the high-placed, bottom-hung hoppers, however, most of which were open, other smells came blowing, borne on a fresh wind—bracken and bog myrtle, sheep shit and cow dung, oak leaves, nettles and the lake at damp nightfall. The evening was growing dark and the few electric bulbs—one at each end of each row—
    seemed, as the twilight deepened, less to take the place of the declining day than to form isolated patches of yellow light, too hard to be melted by the gentle dusk, from which the nearest dogs turned their eyes away. It was surprisingly silent in the block. Here and there a dog scuffled in its straw. One, a brown retriever with a great scar across its throat, whined from time to time in sleep, while a mongrel whippet with three legs and a bandaged stump stumbled clumsily round and against the sides of its pen with a soft, wiry sound not unlike that produced by a jazz drummer with brushes. No dog, however, of the thirty-seven in the block, seemed lively enough or sufficiently disturbed or stimulated to give tongue, so that the quiet noises of evening flickered plainly in their ears, as sunlight twinkling through silver-birch leaves flickers back and forth in the eyes of a baby lying in its cot: the distant call of a shepherd, "Coom bye, coom bye 'ere!''; a passing cart down on the Coniston road; the lapping (just perceptible to dogs' hearing) of the lake water on the stones; the tug of the wind in rough grass tussocks; and the quick, croaking "Go back, go back, go back" of a grouse somewhere in the heather.
    After a while, when the October night had almost completely fallen outside, there came a sharp clawing and scratching of straw from inside the kennel of eight-one-five. This continued for some time, with a sound rather as though the occupant, whoever he might be, were trying to burrow through his kennel floor. Finally, indeed, there were distinct noises of gnawing and splintering, followed by several minutes' silence. Then a smooth- haired, black-and-white head—the head of a fox terrier—emerged from the door of the kennel. The ears cocked, listening, the sniffing muzzle was raised for some moments, and finally the entire dog came out, shook itself, lapped a little water from its tin bowl, raised a leg against the brickwork, and then made its way across to the party wire separating it from the next pen. The terrier certainly presented a strange appearance, for at first sight it seemed to