Read Online The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Richard Adams
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy, Contemporary, Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction, Fantastic fiction, Pets, Animals, Nature, Dogs, Lake District (England), Laboratory animals, Animal Rights, Laboratory animals - England, Animal experimentation, Animal experimentation - England
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is. You can smell it." Snitter was quivering with urgency. Rowf stood still, as though considering. At last he said, "There isn't any out—isn't any free. There's nothing, anywhere, except—
well, it's a bad world for animals. I know that."
"Rowf, don't start smelling like that. I won't sniff it—vinegar, paraffin—worse. I've lived outside this place, I've had a master, I know you're wrong!"
"Makes no difference."
"Yes, it does. Out of that hole. You first."
Rowf, pushing the stoke-hole door wider, looked out into the rainy darkness. "You'd better go alone. The opening's too small for me."
"Go on, Rowf, get on! I'll come behind you."
Rowf, black as the darkness, drew back his head from the stoke-hole, crouched on the floor and then, springing up, thrust head and front paws together through the opening, blocking it entirely. His claws scraped and scrabbled on the metal outside. "Rowf, get on!"
Rowf's reply came back to Snitter grotesquely, through the control-vent, up from the grid beneath his paws. "Too small!"
"Fight it, bite it!"
Rowf struggled helplessly, breaking wind as his belly squeezed against the iron. One hind leg, thrashing wildly, caught Snitter across the face. "Get on, Rowf, damn you!"
Rowf began to pant and gasp. Snitter realised with horror that his struggles were becoming weaker. His body was no longer moving at all. The truth—which Snitter could not have grasped—was that, whereas at first Rowf's front paws had been able to push strongly against the vertical side of the furnace immediately below him, the further he forced his body through the door the less effectively he was able to thrust against the brickwork. Now, two thirds of the way through, he was helplessly and agonisingly stuck, without a purchase to drag or push himself forward. In the fire-box behind him Snitter, as his desperation mounted, felt a stabbing pain in his skull and a wolf-like ferocity that seemed to consume him, throbbing in the surrounding iron, the ashes and bones.
"Damn the whitecoats!" cried Snitter, frothing at the mouth. "Damn Annie, damn the policeman and the white bell-car! Damn you all, damn you! You've killed my master!"
His teeth closed on Rowf's haunch. With a howl Rowf—by what means none can ever know—
convulsed his body, the iron square of the opening compressing and excoriating his loins as he did so, and fell forward into the puddled mud below the stoke-hole. Almost before he had had time to draw one gasping breath and feel the pain in his ribs, Snitter was beside him, licking his face and panting while the rain ran in streams off his back. "Are you all right?"
"You bit me, you damned cur."
Snitter's astonishment was plainly unfeigned. "Bit you? Of course not!"
With some difficulty Rowf stood up and sniffed at him.
"No, I can smell, it wasn't you. But something bit me." He paused, then lay down in the mud.
"I'm hurt."
"Get up and come with me," replied the voice of Snitter, an invisible dog-smell ahead of him in the hissing darkness.
Rowf limped forward on three legs, feeling under his pads unfamiliar textures of gravel, sticks and mud. These by their very nature were reassuring, assuaging his pain with kindlier sensations of reality. He tried to limp faster and broke into a clumsy run, overtaking Snitter at the corner of the building. "Which way?"
"Any," answered Snitter, "as long as we're well away from here by daylight." A quick run past the rabbits' execution shed, a turn round the kittens' quicklime pit, a moment's hesitation beyond the monkeys' gas-chamber—and they are gone: ay, not so long ago these canines fled away into the storm.
It would be pleasant to report that that night Dr. Boycott dreamt of many a woe, and all his whitecoat-men with shade and form of witch and demon and large coffin-worm were long be-nightmared. One might even have "hoped to add that Tyson the old died palsy-twitched, with meagre face deform. But in fact—as will be seen—none of these things
well, it's a bad world for animals. I know that."
"Rowf, don't start smelling like that. I won't sniff it—vinegar, paraffin—worse. I've lived outside this place, I've had a master, I know you're wrong!"
"Makes no difference."
"Yes, it does. Out of that hole. You first."
Rowf, pushing the stoke-hole door wider, looked out into the rainy darkness. "You'd better go alone. The opening's too small for me."
"Go on, Rowf, get on! I'll come behind you."
Rowf, black as the darkness, drew back his head from the stoke-hole, crouched on the floor and then, springing up, thrust head and front paws together through the opening, blocking it entirely. His claws scraped and scrabbled on the metal outside. "Rowf, get on!"
Rowf's reply came back to Snitter grotesquely, through the control-vent, up from the grid beneath his paws. "Too small!"
"Fight it, bite it!"
Rowf struggled helplessly, breaking wind as his belly squeezed against the iron. One hind leg, thrashing wildly, caught Snitter across the face. "Get on, Rowf, damn you!"
Rowf began to pant and gasp. Snitter realised with horror that his struggles were becoming weaker. His body was no longer moving at all. The truth—which Snitter could not have grasped—was that, whereas at first Rowf's front paws had been able to push strongly against the vertical side of the furnace immediately below him, the further he forced his body through the door the less effectively he was able to thrust against the brickwork. Now, two thirds of the way through, he was helplessly and agonisingly stuck, without a purchase to drag or push himself forward. In the fire-box behind him Snitter, as his desperation mounted, felt a stabbing pain in his skull and a wolf-like ferocity that seemed to consume him, throbbing in the surrounding iron, the ashes and bones.
"Damn the whitecoats!" cried Snitter, frothing at the mouth. "Damn Annie, damn the policeman and the white bell-car! Damn you all, damn you! You've killed my master!"
His teeth closed on Rowf's haunch. With a howl Rowf—by what means none can ever know—
convulsed his body, the iron square of the opening compressing and excoriating his loins as he did so, and fell forward into the puddled mud below the stoke-hole. Almost before he had had time to draw one gasping breath and feel the pain in his ribs, Snitter was beside him, licking his face and panting while the rain ran in streams off his back. "Are you all right?"
"You bit me, you damned cur."
Snitter's astonishment was plainly unfeigned. "Bit you? Of course not!"
With some difficulty Rowf stood up and sniffed at him.
"No, I can smell, it wasn't you. But something bit me." He paused, then lay down in the mud.
"I'm hurt."
"Get up and come with me," replied the voice of Snitter, an invisible dog-smell ahead of him in the hissing darkness.
Rowf limped forward on three legs, feeling under his pads unfamiliar textures of gravel, sticks and mud. These by their very nature were reassuring, assuaging his pain with kindlier sensations of reality. He tried to limp faster and broke into a clumsy run, overtaking Snitter at the corner of the building. "Which way?"
"Any," answered Snitter, "as long as we're well away from here by daylight." A quick run past the rabbits' execution shed, a turn round the kittens' quicklime pit, a moment's hesitation beyond the monkeys' gas-chamber—and they are gone: ay, not so long ago these canines fled away into the storm.
It would be pleasant to report that that night Dr. Boycott dreamt of many a woe, and all his whitecoat-men with shade and form of witch and demon and large coffin-worm were long be-nightmared. One might even have "hoped to add that Tyson the old died palsy-twitched, with meagre face deform. But in fact—as will be seen—none of these things
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