Sirius (28 page)

This improbable story was welcomed by Sirius's enemies. They did not trouble to inquire why the girl did not complain to the Land Army authorities and get herself transferred to another post. They merely redoubled their activities against Sirius. A deputation called on Pugh to persuade him to destroy the lascivious brute, Pugh laughed at their stories and dismissed them with a quip. "You might as well ask me to destroy the nose of my face because you don't like the way it dribbles. No! It's worse than that, because my poor old nose does dribble, but the man-dog does none of the foul things you say he does. And if you try to do any harm to him, I'll put the police on you. If you hurt him there'll be gaol for you, and thousands of pounds damages to pay to the great Laboratory at Cambridge." He sacked the Griffith girl, but found to his horror that no substitute was to be had. Rumour had been busy, and no girl would risk her reputation by working at Caer Blai.

Sirius's enemies were not to be intimidated, Whenever he went to the village, a stone was sure to be thrown at him, and when he whisked round to spot the culprit no one looked guilty. Once, indeed, he did detect the assailant, a young labourer. Sirius approached him threateningly, but immediately a swarm of dogs and men set on him. Fortunately two of his friends, the local doctor and the village policeman, were able to quell the brawl.

Meanwhile Pugh and his wife were sharing the unpopularity of Sirius. Cows and sheep were damaged, crops trampled. The police force had been so depleted by the war that the miscreants were seldom caught.

Matters were brought to a head by a serious incident. This I recount on the evidence of Pugh, who had the story from Sirius himself. The man-dog was out on the hills with one of his canine pupils. Suddenly a shot was fired, and Sirius's companion leapt into the air, then staggered about yelping. The charge, no doubt, was meant for Sirius; it winged the other dog. Sirius at once turned wolf. Getting wind of the man, he charged in his direction. The second barrel of the shot-gun was fired, but the assailant had lost his nerve; he missed again, and then he dropped his gun and ran to some steep rocks. Before he could climb out of reach, Sirius had him by the ankle. There followed a tug of war, with the human leg as rope. Sirius had not secured a good grip, and presently his teeth slipped on the ankle bone, coming away with a good deal of flesh. The dog rolled backwards down the slope, and the man, though in great pain, clambered out of reach. Sirius's rage was now somewhat cooled. He wisely sought out the shot-gun and sank it in a bog. His companion had vanished. Sirius overtook him limping homewards.

When the wounded man, whose name was Owen Parry, had dragged himself back to the village, he told a story of gratuitous attack by the man-dog. He said he had found Sirius squatting on a hillside overlooking the camp, counting ammunition cases that were being unloaded from lorries. When the brute saw him it attacked. The more gullible villagers believed the whole story. They urged Parry to prosecute Pugh for damages, and to tell the military of the canine spy. Parry, of course, took no action.

Some weeks later Plaxy received a telegram from Pugh saying "S.O.S. Sirius wild." As she had a good record with her superiors she was able to secure a spell of "compassionate leave." A couple of days after Pugh had telegraphed she arrived at Caer Blai, tired and anxious.

Pugh told her a distressing story. After the incident with Parry a change seemed to come over Sirius, He carried on his work as usual, but after work hours he avoided all human contacts, retiring to the moors, and often staying out all night. He turned morose and touchy towards all human beings except the Pughs. Then one day he told Pugh he had decided to leave the farm so that the flock and the crops should be safe from violence. "He was very gentle in his speaking," said the farmer, "but there was a look of the wild beast in his eye. His coat was out of condition, not all glossy as it used to be when you were here to look after him, Miss Plaxy, dear. And there was a little wound on his belly, festering with the mud that was always being splashed on it. I was frightened for him. He made his wildness so gentle for us that my eyes dribbled like my nose. I said he must stay, and not be beaten by a bunch of dirty-tongued hooligans. Together we would teach them. But he would not stay. When I asked him what he would do if he left, he looked very strange. It gave me the creeps, yes indeed, Miss Plaxy. As though it was a wild beast I was speaking to, with no sense and no human kindness. Then he seemed to make an effort, for he licked my hand ever so gently. But when I put my other hand on his head he jumped like a shot thing, and stood away from me, looking at me with his head cocked over, as though he was torn between friendliness and fear, and didn't know what to do. His tail was miserable under his belly. 'Bran," I said, 'Sirius, my old friend! Don't go off till I have fetched Miss Plaxy." Then he wagged his old tail under his belly, and he cried softly. But when I put out a hand to him he sprang away again, and then he ran off up the lane. When he was beside Tan-y-Voel he stopped for a moment, but soon he lolloped away up the moel."

After Sirius's disappearance several days passed without incident in the neighbourhood. No one saw anything of the fugitive. Pugh was so busy with farm work, and trying to find help to replace Sirius, that he could not make up his mind whether or not to tell Plaxy of the dog's disappearance. Then one day he came upon Sirius outside Tany-y-Voel and hailed him, but in vain, At this stage Pugh telegraphed to Plaxy. Then a farmer in the Ffestiniog district found one of his sheep killed and partly eaten. Nearer home a dog that had been one of Sirius's opponents in the battle was found dead with its throat torn. The police then organized a party of armed men and dogs to search the moors for the dangerous beast, The party, said Pugh, had just returned. They had drawn the whole district round the slaughtered sheep, arguing that Sirius would return to the carcass to feed, but they had seen nothing of him, To-morrow a larger party would search the whole moorland area between Ffestiniog, Bala and Dolgelly.

While Pugh was telling the story Plaxy listened in silence. "She stared at me," he afterwards said, "as if she was a frightened hare, and me a stoat." When Pugh had finished she insisted that she must sleep at Tany-Voel. "In the morning," she said, "I will go out and look for him. I
know
I shall find him." Mrs. Pugh urged her to stay at Caer Blai, but she shook her head, moving towards the door. Then she checked, and said piteously, "But if I bring him home they will take him from me. Oh, what am I to do?" The Pughs could give no helpful answer.

Plaxy groped her way over to Tan-y-Voel in the dark, lit the kitchen fire, and changed into her old working clothes. She made herself tea, ate a large number of biscuits, and stoked up the fire, so that there might be smoke visible in the morning. Then she went out again into the dark. She made her way over the moors by a familiar route, until after several hours she reached the place where long ago she had found Sirius with the dead pony. The eastern sky was already light. She called his name, or chanted it with the accustomed lilt that she had used ever since childhood. Again and again she called, but there was no answer; nothing but the sad bleating of a sheep and the far-off rippling pipe of a curlew, She wandered about till the sun rose from behind Arenig Fawr. Then she searched carefully round the bog where the pony had lain, until at last she found a large dog's footprint. Bending down she scrutinized it eagerly, and others. One of them, the print of a left hind paw, gave her what she wanted. The mark of the outer toe was very slightly irregular, recording a little wound that Sirius had received when he was a puppy. Plaxy surprised herself by weeping. After standing for a while mopping her eyes, she unbuttoned her coat and dragged out from her waist a corner of the old blue and white check shirt, well known to Sirius. With her clasp knife, often used in the past for paring the hooves of sheep, she cut the hem, and tore out a little square of the material. This she laid beside the footmark. Sirius's monochrome vision would miss the colour, but he might pick up the bold pattern from afar, and when he came near he would recognize it. Moreover, since the shirt had been next her body, it would hold the smell of her for a long time. He would know that she had seen the footprints and would return.

Then she wandered about the moor again for some time, frequently using a little monocular field-glass that I had recently given her for use with the sheep. (In the choice of a gift I had perhaps unconsciously emphasized the pleasure of human eyesight, which was so much more precise than any dog's.) At last fatigue and hunger forced her to return to Tan-yVoel. There she made herself tea, ate the rest of the biscuits, changed into smarter clothes and went straight into the village. People stared at her. Some greeted her warmly for old time's sake. Others looked away. Most of the hostile ones were sufficiently impressed by her elegant appearance to treat her with respect, but a bunch of lads shouted at her in Welsh, and laughed.

She went to the police station, where the search party was already collecting. Her old triend the village constable took her into a private room and listened with distress to her earnest appeal for mercy. "I shall find him," she said, "and take him away from Wales. His madness won't last." The constable shook his head, and said, "If
they
find him they'll kill him. They want blood." "But it would be murder," she cried. "He's not just an animal." "No. he's far more than an animal, Miss Plaxy, I know; but in the eyes of the law that's just what he is, an animal. And the law says that dangerous animals must be destroyed. I have done my best to delay matters, but I can't do more." In desperation Plaxy said. "Tell them he's worth thousands of pounds and must be taken alive. 'Phone the Laboratory at Cambridge, and they will confirm this and put it in writing." He fetched the inspector, who had come over from H.Q. to take charge of the search. After some discussion the inspector allowed Plaxy to call up the Laboratory. She summoned McBane and told him, incidentally, to come with his car as soon as possible to take Sirius away if she could recover him. The inspector then spoke to McBane and was sufficiently impressed to alter his plans. The search party would do their utmost to bring the animal back alive. With some reluctance he even agreed that the search should be called off for a day to give Miss Trelone a chance to capture her dog undisturbed.

When she left the police station she was almost light-hearted. And though she was shocked by the cold reception given her at the grocer's, where she laid in a store of food, the baker was kindly and hopeful, and the warm-hearted lame tobacconist, whose meagre stock was sold out, produced a packet of cigarettes from his own pocket and thrust it upon her, "because you will need them, Miss Plaxy, and for old time's sake." She toiled up the lane to Tan-y-Voel, with a reeling head, made herself a good meal, changed into working clothes, called to tell the Pughs how things stood, and went straight out on to the moor, All morning she searched in vain. Then after eating her lunch she lay down in the sun, and sleep overcame her. Some hours later she woke, sprang to her feet, and renewed her search. At the pony-bog the bit of shirt remained as she had left it. She hurried away in the afternoon light to explore a remoter region, and in particular a certain rocky cleft in the wildest part of the moor, which in the past they had sometimes used as a lair, Near this she found a dog's exeremnent, not recently dropped; but there was no other sign. Once more she left a piece of her shirt as a token. Then with weary limbs and a heavy heart she groped her way back in the dusk, and arrived in pitch darkness at the pony-pool. At a loss to know what to do next, she finally decided to wait there till dawn. She found a sheltered spot among the rocks and heather overlooking the bog, and made herself as comfortable as possible. In spite of the cold, she fell asleep. Not till the sun had risen did she wake, chilled and aching. Once more there was no sign of Sirius. After some desultory searching and calling she set off for home.

At the cottage she made herself breakfast, changed her clothes, attended to her haggard face, and returned to the police station. There she learned with horror that on the previous day a man had been killed and partly eaten. It had happened on the eastern shoulder of Filast, far beyond Arenig. He was a local sheep-farmer. Hearing that Sirius had been seen in the neighbourhood, he announced that he would hunt the brute down and destroy it, no matter what its value to the godless scientists. He went out with an old army rifle and a dog. In the evening the dog returned in great distress without his master, A search party had found the man's body, and near it the rifle, with an empty magazine.

After this incident the police determined to bring about the destruction of Sirius as quickly as possible. Parties of Home Guards were being sent out to comb all the moorland areas of North Wales.

In great distress Plaxy hurried away to the moors again. At the ponybog the bit of shirt was missing, and there were fresh canine footprints; but whether they were Sirius's or not she could not determine. She put down another bit of shirt, then set off towards the lair, searching every hillside and valley with her field-glass. Once she saw on the distant skyline two men with rifles on their shoulders, but there was no other sign of the searchers. It was a bright day, with the wind in the north-west; no day at all for avoiding detection. But the moors were vast, and the searchers few.

As she was approaching the lair, she saw Sirius, his tail between his legs, his head low, like a tired horse, She was coming up wind, and behind him, so that he was unconscious of her presence till she called his name. He leapt at the sound, and whisked round, facing her, with a growl. In his mouth was the bit of shirt. She advanced, repeating his name. Seeing her, he stood still with his head cocked over and his brows puckered; but when she was within a few paces he backed, growling, away from her. At a loss, she stood still, with outstretched hand, saying, "Sirius, dear darling, it's Plaxy." His tail under his belly trembled with recognition and love, but his teeth were still bared. He whimpered with the stress of conflict in his bewildered mind. Every time she advanced, he backed and growled. After Plaxy had tried many times to win his confidence, her spirit broke, She covered her face with her hands and threw herself on the ground sobbing. The sight of her impotent distress evidently worked the miracle which her advances had frustrated; for Sirius crept forward, crying with the strife of fear and love, till at last he reached out and kissed the back of her neck. The intimate smell of her body woke his mind to full clarity. While she continued to lie still, fearing that any movement might scare him away, he nuzzled under her face. She turned over and let his warm tongue caress her cheeks and lips. Though his breath was foul as a wild beast's and the thought of his recent human killing revolted her, she made no resistance. At last he spoke. "Plaxy! Plaxy! Plaxy!" He nosed into the open neck of her shirt. Then she dared to put her arms round him.