One Dog and His Boy

20 Otto Remembers

They had come to the monastery of St Roc. The tall man who had greeted them was the abbot, in charge of the monks who lived there, and now he led them along a corridor hung with paintings of various saints. It was warm and very quiet and there was a smell of beeswax and lilies. To the frozen children it seemed like paradise.

Otto did not follow the abbot. He walked beside him, his nose within inches of the abbot’s robe.

“Of course,” whispered Pippa. “Otto came from a monastery in Switzerland. The abbot there bred him himself, Kayley told me.”

They were put in the charge of a round-faced monk with a friendly smile who introduced himself as Brother Malcolm and took them into a room where a fire burned brightly. Their wet clothes were peeled off and taken away and dry clothes brought in all sorts of shapes and sizes into which they fitted themselves as best they could. In a corner of the room, another monk was busy towelling the soaking dogs.

Then they were led into the refectory, where the monks were sitting at a long table, eating their supper. The abbot was in a carved seat at the top, while a very old monk, perched against a kind of high desk, was reading aloud from The Lives of the Saints.

The children slipped on to the end of a bench. Two plates of soup were put before them, and two hunks of bread, and as they began to eat they saw that five bowls had been put down on the floor beside the wall, and the dogs, with their heads down, were eating hungrily.

After the soup came a dish of fruit. Hal managed to make out the shape of the apples and pears; then they became blurred, and he could only just stop himself from falling forward with his head on his plate.

At the head of the table, the abbot made a sign, and Brother Malcolm came up to the children.

“You must be ready for your beds,” he said.

He led Pippa and Hal out of the room, and Li-Chee, Francine, Honey and Fleck followed close behind them. But not Otto. Otto gave an affectionate goodnight lick to his friends, then padded over to the head of the table and flopped down with his great muzzle across the abbot’s feet.

They followed Brother Malcolm up the stairs and along a silent corridor with a number of identical doors. They were hardly surprised any more when he opened the first of the doors and they found a number of dog beds and a water bowl.

“It’s like Goldilocks, only with dogs instead of bears,” whispered Pippa, and Hal nodded.

There was no need to persuade Li-Chee and Francine and Honey to lie down. They had already chosen their beds and begun to turn themselves round and round, getting ready to settle down for the night. But Fleck stood beside Hal, waiting. He did not seem pathetic or frightened as he had done before when he expected to be separated from his master. It was rather that he felt that it was necessary to look after Hal, and Brother Malcolm picked this up at once.

“Perhaps he’d better stay with you tonight,” he said.

Ten minutes later, Pippa was in bed in one of the small, whitewashed rooms which the monks kept for their guests, and Hal was in another, with Fleck on the floor beside him.

Hal fell asleep at once, but after an hour he was woken by a thump and found Fleck preparing to settle down on top of him.

“No, Fleck, get down,” Hal ordered, looking at the spotless white cotton bedspread and remembering Albina’s agitation about dogs on the coverlet. And as Fleck did not move: “You heard me. Dogs don’t sleep on beds, it’s not allowed.”

Fleck got down, but reluctantly. The door was ajar, and he went out into the corridor, then back into the room, then out again.

“All right, if you want to go and sleep with your friends, I’ll take you back,” said Hal, getting out of bed.

But as they passed the next door, which was ajar, Fleck stopped.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

Hal followed Fleck’s gaze. Lying on the bed of what must have been a fairly portly monk were three retriever puppies. The monk was snoring gently, the bedclothes going rhythmically up and down, and the dogs lying across him rose and fell also, soothed and lulled into the deepest of sleeps.

“OK, Fleck, you win,” said Hal.

In less than five minutes Hal was asleep again, and his dog lay curled up at his side.

It was not until the following morning that Pippa understood about the place they had come to.

She had been too tired to take in anything much the night before, but now as she woke, she looked eagerly round her room. It was very plainly furnished, but there was one oil painting on the wall above her bed. It was of a man in sandals wearing a robe and carrying a staff. Round his head was a halo, and at his feet sat a dog holding a piece of bread in his mouth. It was a very nice dog, white with big black patches and concerned eyes. The bread was not for him, you could see that. It was for the man with the halo.

Underneath the picture, in gold letters, were the words “St Roc”.

“Of course,” said Pippa aloud. “I’ve been an idiot.”

Her grandmother had been very devout and told her the stories of the saints. St Roc had been a healer who looked after people with the plague until he caught the illness himself and went into the forest to die. But he didn’t die because a dog brought him food from his master’s table until he recovered. Saints usually have a bad time, being shot full of arrows or broken on wheels, but this dog, who did not even have a name, had saved him, and since then Roc had been the patron saint of dogs. He was the patron saint of other things too – surgeons and people with knee problems and tile makers – but dogs were what he was famous for.

And this monastery was dedicated to his name!

Brother Malcolm, when he brought their dry clothes, told them more. “There is a picture of him in stained glass in our chapel window. As you will see, we try to carry on his work,” he said.

The monks had already had their breakfast, but two places were laid for the children, with glasses of milk and home-baked bread and honey from the monk’s own hives. And the dogs’ breakfast too was waiting in their bowls.

But there was no sign of Otto, who had eaten earlier.

When they had finished their meal, Brother Malcolm took them through a door in the building and out into a walled garden. The weather had cleared; the air was soft and gentle after the storm. They walked between neatly kept herb beds and rows of young vegetables into an orchard full of blossoming apple trees. Under the trees stood a dozen beehives, which the dogs respectfully avoided.

“Is it true that you have to tell bees all the important things that happen?” asked Pippa. “Like when somebody dies.”

Brother Malcolm turned to her. “Yes, it’s true. Bees are messengers. They will carry anything you tell them straight up to God.”

Hal had almost forgotten that they were on the run. He felt completely safe and contented. Perhaps he could be a monk when he grew up, he thought. It was true that monks couldn’t get married, but from what he’d seen of married people that might be no bad thing.

The dogs had been snuffling about peacefully, but now they began to bark excitedly, while the whole of Li-Chee’s back end quivered with pleasure. The children looked up to see the abbot coming towards them. Beside him, as though he had been there all his life, was Otto.

The abbot spoke quietly to Brother Malcolm, then turned to the children. “We’ve something to show you which you’ll find interesting, I think,” he said.

He led them to a low building standing by itself, and opened the door.

The floor of the room they entered was covered in a thick layer of straw and in the straw, playing and squealing and rolling over and over, was a host of puppies. The straw was golden in a shaft of sunlight and the puppies were golden too. Retrievers with dark brown eyes and the softest of milk-filled stomachs.

“We breed guide dogs for the blind,” said the portly monk who was in charge of them. “This litter is from a mother who comes from a long line of working dogs. We keep them till they’re ready to go off for their training. Not all of them are suitable but we’ve learnt to pick out those who should go forward and the rest go to good homes.”

He scooped up a very energetic puppy who was trying to make friends with Fleck.

“This one is very promising,” he said. “Alert but not nervous.”

The abbot nodded. “Brother Ambrose can tell when they’re just a few weeks old.”

“There’s a guide dog who comes past the place where my sister works,” said Pippa. “Grace, she’s called. She’s incredible.”

The puppies were becoming overexcited, scurrying about all over the place as they tried to make friends with the visiting dogs. But now Otto took a few paces forward and sat down.

At once the puppies went to him, and began to clamber over his legs, to play with his tail and dig their noses into his fur. Then carefully the huge dog rolled over on to his back, giving them even more places to climb, and with squeals of delight they crawled over his stomach, hung on to his ears. He had turned himself into a warm and living climbing frame and the abbot looked down at him with a glow in his eyes. It was almost as though Otto knew that each of these little creatures would one day be responsible for a person’s safety and life.

But the time had come for the children to hear their fate and the abbot led them to a bench under the apple tree.

“Now,” he said. “Tell me your story.”

Hal turned anxiously to Pippa. She was usually the one who spoke for both of them, but though he was proud of Pippa’s ability to make things up, he hated the idea of telling lies here in this place.

Pippa moved closer to the abbot and began to speak.

“It really started with Hal. His parents got him this dog and he thought it was for good but after two days they took it back to Easy Pets and he was desperate and so was Fleck. I knew about it because my sister is the kennel maid there…”

She went on to tell the abbot about her own brainstorm in letting the dogs go, their determination to reach Hal’s grandfather in his cottage, what had happened in the circus and their mishaps with Kevin the Dumper. And Hal listened in amazement, for every word she spoke was true.

When she had finished, the abbot turned to Hal.

“Your grandfather’s cottage is near here?”

Hal nodded. “It’s down on the shore opposite Farra Island. He’s a fisherman and he has a smallholding there. If I could get to him before there’s a fuss with my parents he would understand.”

“And you think he would take you in?” asked the abbot.

“Yes, I do. He’s always thought I should have a dog.”

“But five dogs? Has he always thought you should have five?”

Hal hung his head. It was true that all he and Pippa had thought of was getting safely to the cottage, but he could see how it would look to the abbot. Was it possible that they were going to be sent back or turned over to the police? They’d come so far, but even now a single phone call could end it all.

The abbot was silent, occasionally pulling one of Otto’s ears. The minutes passed.

When he spoke, the words were solemn and slow.

“Since you’re so near your journey’s end I’ll let you go on your way. But if I haven’t had a telephone call within twenty-four hours to say that you have arrived safely, I shall straightaway call the police. Now go and find Brother Malcolm. He will give you some sandwiches and make sure you know the right path.”

As they reached the building, the abbot went up the stairs with Otto, but the relief the children felt was mixed with anxiety. What of Otto, who had found his true place and his true master? Remembering Francine and Honey and what those two had suffered, they were very much afraid. Would Otto refuse to come? And what would it be like to finish the journey without him?

“It isn’t for us to decide,” said Hal. “The abbot will know.”

When they were ready, the children and the other dogs waited at the front door. The abbot came downstairs with Otto at his side. He laid his hand on the great head.

“If God wills, we shall meet again,” he said to him.

Otto made no fuss. He knew that his job was not yet done. He only moaned once, and pushed his muzzle against the abbot’s robe. Then he turned and followed the children out of the door.