All Things Wise and Wonderful

by James Herriot

I put my hand on the hock and began to push it away from me into the uterus.

  “Now pull,” I said. “But carefully. Don’t jerk.”

  Like a man in a dream he did as I said and within seconds the foot popped out of the vulva.

  “Hell!” said Mr. Edwards.

  “Now for the other one,” I murmured as I removed the loop.

  I repeated the procedure, the farmer, slightly pop-eyed, pulling on the twine. The second little hoof, yellow and moist, joined its fellow on the outside almost immediately.

  “Bloody hell!” said Mr. Edwards.

  “Right,” I said. “Grab a leg and we’ll have him out in a couple of ticks.”

  We each took a hold and leaned back, but the big cow did the job for us, giving a great heave which deposited the calf wet and wriggling into my arms. I staggered back and dropped with it on to the straw.

  “Grand bull calf, Mr. Edwards,” I said. “Better give him a rub down.”

  The farmer shot me a disbelieving glance then twisted some hay into a wisp and began to dry off the little creature.

  “If you ever get stuck with a breech presentation again,” I said, “I’ll show you what you ought to do. You have to push and pull at the same time and that’s where the twine comes in. As you repel the hock with your hand somebody else pulls the foot round, but you’ll notice I have the twine between the calf’s cleats and that’s important. That way it lifts the sharp little foot up and prevents injury to the vaginal wall.”

  The farmer nodded dumbly and went on with his rubbing. When he had finished he looked up at me in bewilderment and his lips moved soundlessly a few times before he spoke.

  “What the … how … how the heck do you know all that?”

  I told him.

  There was a long pause then he exploded.

  “You young bugger! You kept that dark, didn’t you?”

  “Well … you never asked me.”

  He scratched his head. “Well, I don’t want to be nosey with you lads that helps me. Some folks don’t like it …” His voice trailed away.

  We dried our arms and donned our shirts in silence. Before leaving he looked over at the calf, already making strenuous efforts to rise as its mother licked it.

  “He’s a lively little beggar,” he said. “And we might have lost ’im. I’m right grateful to you.” He put an arm round my shoulders. “Anyway, come on, Mister Veterinary Surgeon, and we’ll ’ave some supper.”

  Half way across the yard he stopped and regarded me ruefully. “You know, I must have looked proper daft to you, fumblin’ away inside there for an hour and damn near killin’ myself, then you step up and do it in a couple of minutes. I feel as weak as a girl.”

  “Not in the least Mr. Edwards,” I replied. ‘It’s …” I hesitated a moment. “It’s not a question of strength, it’s just knowing how to do it.”

  He nodded, then became very still and the seconds stretched out as he stared at me. Suddenly his teeth shone as the brown face broke into an ever-widening grin which developed into a great shout of laughter.

  He was still laughing helplessly when we reached the house and as I opened the kitchen door he leaned against the wall and wiped his eyes.

  “You young devil!” he said. “I allus had a feeling there was something behind that innocent face of yours.”

  CHAPTER 27

  AT LAST WE WERE on our way to Flying School. It was at Windsor and that didn’t seem far on the map, but it was a typical wartime journey of endless stops and changes and interminable waits. It went on all through the night and we took our sleep in snatches. I stole an hour’s fitful slumber on the waiting-room table at a tiny nameless station and despite my hard pillowless bed I drifted deliriously back to Darrowby.

  I was bumping along the rutted track to Nether Lees Farm, hanging on to the jerking wheel. I could see the house below me, its faded red tiles showing above the sheltering trees, and behind the buildings the scrubby hillside rose to the moor.

  Up there the trees were stunted and sparse and dotted widely over the steep flanks. Higher still there was only scree and cliff and right at the top, beckoning in the sunshine, I saw the beginning of the moor—smooth, unbroken and bare.

  A scar on the broad sweep of green showed where long ago they quarried the stones to build the massive farmhouses and the enduring walls which have stood against the unrelenting climate for hundreds of years. Those houses and those endlessly marching walls would still be there when I was gone and forgotten.

  Helen was with me in the car. I loved it when she came with me on my rounds, and after the visit to the farm we climbed up the fell-side, panting through the scent of the warm bracken, feeling the old excitement as we neared the summit.

  Then we were on the top, facing into the wide free moorland and the clean Yorkshire wind and the cloud shadows racing over the greens and browns. Helen’s hand was warm in mine as we wandered among the heather through green islets nibbled to a velvet sward by the sheep. She raised a finger as a curlew’s lonely cry sounded across the wild tapestry and the wonder in her eyes shone through the dark flurry of hair blowing across her face.

  The gentle shaking at my shoulder pulled me back to wakefulness, to the hiss of steam and the clatter of boots. The table top was hard against my hip and my neck was stiff where it had rested on my pack.

  “Train’s in, Jim.” An airman was looking down at me. “I hated to wake you—you were smiling.”

  Two hours later, sweaty, unshaven, half asleep, laden with kit, we shuffled into the airfield at Windsor. Sitting in the wooden building we only half listened to the corporal giving us our introductory address. Then suddenly his words struck home.

  “There’s one other thing,” he said. “Remember to wear your identity discs at all times. We had two prangs last week—couple of fellers burned beyond recognition and neither of ’em was wearing his discs. We didn’t know who they were.” He spread his hands appealingly. “This sort of thing makes a lot of work for us, so remember what I’ve told you.”

  In a moment we were all wide awake and listening intently. Probably thinking as I was—that we had only been playing at being airmen up till now.

  I looked through the window at the wind sock blowing over the long flat stretch of green, at the scattered aircraft, the fire tender, the huddle of low wooden huts. The playing was over now. This was where everything started.

  CHAPTER 28

  THIS WAS A VERY different uniform. The Wellingtons and breeches of my country vet days seemed far away as I climbed into the baggy flying suit and pulled on the sheepskin boots and the gloves—the silk ones first then the big clumsy pair on top. It was all new but I had a feeling of pride.

  Leather helmet and goggles next, then I fastened on my parachute passing the straps over my shoulders and between my legs and buckling them against my chest before shuffling out of the flight hut on to the long stretch of sunlit grass.

  Flying Officer Woodham was waiting for me there. He was to be my instructor and he glanced at me apprehensively as though he didn’t relish the prospect. With his dark boyish good looks he resembled all the pictures I had seen of Battle of Britain pilots and in fact, like all our instructors, he had been through this crisis in our history. They had been sent here as a kind of holiday after their tremendous experience but it was said that they regarded their operations against the enemy as a picnic compared with this. They had faced the might of the Luftwaffe without flinching but we terrified them.

  As we walked over the grass I could see one of my friends coming in to land. The little biplane slewed and weaved crazily in the sky, just missed a clump of trees then about fifty feet from the ground it dropped like a stone, bounced high on its wheels, bounced twice again then zig-zagged to a halt. The helmeted head in the rear cockpit jerked and nodded as though it were making some pointed remarks to the head in front. Flying Officer Woodham’s face was expressionless but I knew what he was thinking. It was his turn next.

  The Tiger Moth looked
very small and alone on the wide stretch of green. I climbed up and strapped myself into the cockpit while my instructor got in behind me. He went through the drill which I would soon know by heart like a piece of poetry. A fitter gave the propellor a few turns for priming. Then “Contact!” the fitter swung the prop, the engine roared, the chocks were pulled away from the wheels and we were away, bumping over the grass, then suddenly and miraculously lifting and soaring high over the straggle of huts into the summer sky with the patchwork of the soft countryside of southern England unfolding beneath us.

  I felt a sudden elation, not just because I liked the sensation but because I had waited so long for this moment. The months of drilling and marching and studying navigation had been leading up to the time when I would take the air and now it had arrived.

  F. O. Woodham’s voice came over the intercom. “Now you’ve got her. Take the stick and hold her steady. Watch the artificial horizon and keep it level. See that cloud ahead? Line yourself up with it and keep your nose on it.”

  I gripped the joystick in my gauntleted hand. This was lovely. And easy, too. They had told me flying would be a simple matter and they had been right. It was child’s play. Cruising along I glanced down at the grandstand of Ascot racecourse far below.

  I was just beginning to smile happily when a voice crashed in my ear. “Relax, for God’s sake! What the hell are you playing at?”

  I couldn’t understand him. I felt perfectly relaxed and I thought I was doing fine, but in the mirror I could see my instructor’s eyes glaring through his goggles.

  “No, no, no! That’s no bloody good! Relax, can’t you hear me, relax!”

  “Yes, sir,” I quavered and immediately began to stiffen up. I couldn’t imagine what was troubling the man but as I began to stare with increasing desperation, now at the artificial horizon then at the nose of the aircraft against the cloud ahead, the noises over the intercom became increasingly apoplectic.

  I didn’t seem to have a single problem, yet all I could hear were curses and groans and on one occasion the voice rose to a scream. “Get your bloody finger out, will you!”

  I stopped enjoying myself and a faint misery welled in me. And as always when that happened I began to think of Helen and the happier life I had left behind. In the open cockpit the wind thundered in my ears, lending vivid life to the picture forming in my mind.

  The wind was thundering here, too, but it was against the window of our bed-sitter. It was early November and a golden autumn had changed with brutal suddenness to arctic cold. For two weeks an icy rain had swept the grey towns and villages which huddled in the folds of the Yorkshire Dales, turning the fields into shallow lakes and the farmyards into squelching mudholes.

  Everybody had colds. Some said it was flu, but whatever it was it decimated the population. Half of Darrowby seemed to be in bed and the other half sneezing at each other.

  I myself was on a knife edge, crouching over the fire, sucking an antiseptic lozenge and wincing every time I had to swallow. My throat felt raw and there was an ominous tickling at the back of my nose. I shivered as the rain hurled a drumming cascade of water against the glass. I was all alone in the practice. Siegfried had gone away for a few days and I just daren’t catch cold.

  It all depended on tonight. If only I could stay indoors and then have a good sleep I could throw this off, but as I glanced over at the ’phone on the bedside table it looked like a crouching beast ready to spring.

  Helen was sitting on the other side of the fire, knitting. She didn’t have a cold—she never did. And even in those early days of our marriage I couldn’t help feeling it was a little unfair. Even now, thirty-five years later, things are just the same and, as I go around sniffling, I still feel tight-lipped at her obstinate refusal to join me.

  I pulled my chair closer to the blaze. There was always a lot of night work in our kind of practice but maybe I would be lucky. It was eight o’clock with never a cheep and perhaps fate had decreed that I would not be hauled out into that sodden darkness in my weakened state.

  Helen came to the end of a row and held up her knitting. It was a sweater for me, about half done.

  “How does it look, Jim?” she asked.

  I smiled. There was something in her gesture that seemed to epitomise our life together. I opened my mouth to tell her it was simply smashing when the ’phone pealed with a suddenness which made me bite my tongue.

  Tremblingly I lifted the receiver while horrid visions of calving heifers floated before me. An hour with my shirt off would just tip me nicely over the brink.

  “This is Sowden of Long Pasture,” a voice croaked.

  “Yes, Mr. Sowden?” I gripped the ’phone tightly. I would know my fate in a moment.

  “I ’ave a big calf ’ere. Looks very dowly and gruntin’ bad. Will ye come?”

  A long breath of relief escaped me. A calf with probable stomach trouble. It could have been a lot worse.

  “Right, I’ll see you in twenty minutes,” I said.

  As I turned back to the cosy warmth of the little room the injustice of life smote me.

  “I’ve got to go out, Helen.”

  “Oh, what a shame.”

  “Yes, and I have this cold coming on,” I whimpered. “And just listen to that rain!”

  “Yes, you must wrap up well, Jim.”

  I scowled at her. “That place is ten miles away, and a cheerless dump if ever there was one. There’s not a warm corner anywhere.” I fingered my aching throat. “A trip out there’s just what I need—I’m sure I’ve got a temperature.” I don’t know if all veterinary surgeons blame their wives when they get an unwanted call, but heaven help me, I’ve done it all my life.

  Instead of giving me a swift kick in the pants Helen smiled up at me. “I’m really sorry, Jim, but maybe it won’t take you long. And you can have a bowl of hot soup when you get back.”

  I nodded sulkily. Yes, that was something to look forward to. Helen had made some brisket broth that day, rich and meaty, crowded with celery, leeks and carrots and with a flavour to bring a man back from the dead. I went over and kissed her and trailed off into the night.

  Long Pasture Farm was in the little hamlet of Dowsett and I had travelled this narrow road many times. It snaked its way high into the wild country and on summer days the bare lonely hills had a serene beauty; treeless and austere, but with a clean wind sweeping over the grassy miles.

  But tonight as I peered unhappily through the streaming windscreen the unseen surrounding black bulk pressed close and I could imagine the dripping stone walls climbing high to the summits where the rain drove across the moorland, drenching the heather and bracken, churning the dark mirrors of the bog water into liquid mud.

  When I saw Mr. Sowden I realised that I was really quite fit. He had obviously been suffering from the prevalent malady for some time, but like most farmers he just had to keep going at his hard ceaseless work. He looked at me from swimming eyes, gave a couple of racking coughs that almost tore him apart and led me into the buildings. He held an oil lamp high as we entered a lofty barn and in the feeble light I discerned various rusting farm implements, a heap of potatoes and another of turnips and in a corner a makeshift pen where my patient stood.

  It wasn’t the two week old baby calf I had half expected, but a little animal of six months, almost stirk age, but not well grown. It had all the signs of a “bad doer”—thin and pot-bellied with its light roan coat hanging in a thick overgrown fringe below its abdomen.

  “Allus been a poor calf,” Mr. Sowden wheezed between coughs. “Never seemed to put on flesh. Rain stopped for a bit this afternoon, so ah let ’im out for a bit of fresh air and now look at ’im.”

  I climbed into the pen and as I slipped the thermometer into the rectum I studied the little creature. He offered no resistance as I gently pushed him to one side, his head hung down and he gazed apathetically at the floor from deep sunk eyes. Worst of all was the noise he was making. It was more than a grunt—rather a l
ong, painful groan repeated every few seconds.

  “It certainly looks like his stomach,” I said. “Which field was he in this afternoon?”

  “I nobbut let ’im have a walk round t’orchard for a couple of hours.”

  “I see.” I looked at the thermometer. The temperature was subnormal. “I suppose there’s a bit of fruit lying around there.”

  Mr. Sowden went into another paroxysm, then leaned on the boards of the pen to recover his breath. “Aye, there’s apples and pears all over t’grass. Had a helluva crop this year.”

  I put the stethoscope over the rumen and instead of the normal surge and bubble of the healthy stomach I heard only a deathly silence. I palpated the flank and felt the typical doughy fullness of impaction.

  “Well, Mr. Sowden, I think he’s got a bellyful of fruit and it’s brought his digestion to a complete halt. He’s in a bad way.”

  The farmer shrugged. “Well, if ’e’s just a bit bunged up a good dose of linseed oil ’ud shift ’im.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that,” I said. “This is a serious condition.”

  “Well what are we goin’ to do about it, then?” He wiped his nose and looked at me morosely.

  I hesitated. It was bitterly cold in the old building and already I was feeling shivery and my throat ached. The thought of Helen and the bed-sitter and the warm fire was unbearably attractive. But I had seen impactions like this before and tried treating them with purgatives and it didn’t work. This animal’s temperature was falling to the moribund level and he had a sunken eye—if I didn’t do something drastic he would be dead by morning.

  “There’s only one thing will save him,” I said. “And that’s a rumenotomy.”

  “A what?”

  “An operation. Open up his first stomach and clear out all the stuff that shouldn’t be there.”

  “Are ye sure? D’ye not think a good pint of oil would put ’im right. It ’ud be a lot easier.”

  It would indeed. For a moment the fireside and Helen glowed like a jewel in a cave, then I glanced at the calf. Scraggy and long-haired, he looked utterly unimportant, infinitely vulnerable and dependent. It would be the easiest thing in the world to leave him groaning in the dark till morning.