The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams Page A

bones, hot bones. I'll throw my head in." He put his paws up once more, peering into the mouth of the square, metal cavern. Suddenly he gave a whine of excitement.
    "Fresh air," cried Snitter. "Sheep, rain! Smell underneath the ashes! I tell you—"
    The brick-encased, iron chute, sloping downwards through the wall of the building, led directly into a small furnace, not unlike that of a greenhouse, sited just out- side. This was used for burning not only rubbish, such as old surgical dressings, fouled straw and bedding from the hutches, but also the dead bodies of guinea-pigs and any other creatures small enough to be conveniently disposed of in this way. There had been a brisk fire that afternoon, which had included the truncated remains of some twenty guinea-pigs unable to be of further help to the station, as well as a couple of kittens and a mongoose. Tom, the lad who helped Tyson about the place, had been told to go and draw the furnace at about five o'clock but, knowing that Tyson was in a hurry to get away and was unlikely to come and see what sort 01 a job he had made of it, had merely raked quickly through the ashes and fragmentary remains of straw, bones and hair, and decided to leave the job of clearing out until Monday morning.
    Tyson had not specially told him to conclude by closing the doors both of the furnace and of the chute in Block 12, and he was certainly not the sort of lad to allow such a refinement to occur to his mind spontaneously—there being, as a matter of fact, little room to spare there, what with the heavy demands made upon it by the fortunes of Manchester United, the products of Messrs. Yamaha and the charms of Miss Nana Mouskouri. After he had gone, the fire had revived for a time in the strong through-draught, filling the guinea-pig block with a light smoke and the smell of burnt guinea-pig coming up the chute; but had then died out, the furnace gradually cooling as darkness fell and the wind sifted its way through the tinkling, clicking ashes.
    "Fresh air," said Snitter again. "Yellow smell—prickles—bees—only faint—and somewhere there's wet rhododendrons, too. Rhododendrons, Rowf!"
    "What?"
    "Gorse, the yellow. We could fall there! We could! We could fall there!" Snitter gaped, showing teeth brown about the gums, the teeth of a dog recovered from distemper. He began trying to pull himself up and into the square opening of the chute, thrusting in his head and front paws and hanging a moment on the Up before falling back to the concrete floor. Rowf watched him.
    "Is it hot?"
    "No hotter than your dam's belly in the basket. Remember? But I can't get at the teat."
    "Get in there?"
    "The rhododendrons, don't you see? Outside. Smell comes in, so dog can go out."
    Rowf considered. "Smells come through cracks. So do mice. Dogs don't. Suppose there's nothing but a crack? You'll stick in there and die. Never get back."
    "You damned flea-bitten street-corner bitch-jumper, why do you think I'm going on like this?
    Once you get your head in there, you can feel the wind, wide as your arse, and smell the rain." Snitter jumped up and again fell back, his wet muzzle grey with powdered ash. "Burn, little bones, burn! Like my head." He wiped at his nose with a forepaw.
    Rowf, the bigger dog, stood on his hind legs, rested his front paws on the lip of the chute and looked in. For some little while he remained thus, peering and listening. Then, without a word, he hoisted his body up and into the opening. His hind paws left the floor and for some moments kicked and scrabbled in the air, trying in vain to get a purchase on the iron lip. As he jerked himself forward, inch by inch, pulling and scraping as best he could with front paws pressed against the smooth iron floor of the chute, his penis caught on the sill of the door and was forced painfully downwards. He rolled on one side and as he did so succeeded in getting the claws of one hind paw as far as the projecting hinges. Using this purchase, he thrust