The old man looked bewildered and his lips trembled. ‘Then he’s going to die?’
I swallowed hard. ‘We really can’t just leave him to die, can we? He’s in some distress now, but it will soon be an awful lot worse. Don’t you think it would be kindest to put him to sleep? After all, he’s had a good, long innings.’ I always aimed at a brisk, matter-of-fact approach, but the old cliches had an empty ring.
The old man was silent, then he said, ‘Just a minute,’ and slowly and painfully knelt down by the side of the dog. He did not speak, but ran his hand again and again over the grey muzzle and the ears, while the tail thump, thump, thumped on the floor.
He knelt there a long time while I stood in the cheerless room, my eyes taking in the faded pictures on the walls, the frayed, grimy curtains, the broken-springed armchair.
At length the old man struggled to his feet and gulped once or twice. Without looking at me, he said huskily, ‘All right, will you do it now?’
I filled the syringe and said the things I always said. ‘You needn’t worry, this is absolutely painless. Just an overdose of an anaesthetic. It is really an easy way out for the old fellow.’
The dog did not move as the needle was inserted, and, as the barbiturate began to flow into the vein, the anxious expression left his face and the muscles began to relax. By the time the injection was finished, the breathing had stopped.
‘Is that it?’ the old man whispered.
‘Yes, that’s it,’ I said. ‘He is out of his pain now.’
The old man stood motionless except for the clasping and unclasping of his hands. When he turned to face me his eyes were bright. ‘That’s right, we couldn’t let him suffer, and I’m grateful for what you’ve done. And now, what do I owe you for your services, sir?’
‘Oh, that’s all right, Mr Dean,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s nothing – nothing at all. I was passing right by here – it was no trouble.’
The old man was astonished. ‘But you can’t do that for nothing.’
‘Now please say no more about it, Mr Dean. As I told you, I was passing right by your door.’ I said goodbye and went out of the house, through the passage and into the street. In the bustle of people and the bright sunshine, I could still see only the stark, little room, the old man and his dead dog.
As I walked towards my car, I heard a shout behind me. The old man was shuffling excitedly towards me in his slippers. His cheeks were streaked and wet, but he was smiling. In his hand he held a small, brown object.
‘You’ve been very kind, sir. I’ve got something for you.’ He held out the object and I looked at it. It was tattered but just recognisable as a precious relic of a bygone celebration.
‘Go on, it’s for you,’ said the old man. ‘Have a cigar.’
This incident, which happened so early in my veterinary career, haunted me for many weeks afterwards, and it still remains as one of my most vivid and poignant memories. Putting old people’s precious pets to sleep is sadly a common duty in veterinary practice, and the fact that it can be done humanely and peacefully with barbiturates makes it tolerable. But there was something about the Mr Dean episode that made it stand out, and I remember it as the very first time I said to myself, ‘If ever I write a book, I’ll put that in.’ Maybe it was that cigar . . .
5. Maternal Instincts
There didn’t seem much point in a millionaire filling up football pools coupons but it was one of the motive forces in old Harold Denham’s life. It made a tremendous bond between us because, despite his devotion to the pools, Harold knew nothing about football, had never seen a match and was unable to name a single player in league football; and when he found that I could discourse knowledgeably not only about Everton and Preston North End, but even about Arbroath and Cowdenbeath, the respect with which he had always treated me deepened into a wide-eyed deference.
Of course we had first met over his animals. He had an assortment of dogs, cats, rabbits, budgies and goldfish which made me a frequent visitor to the dusty mansion whose Victorian turrets peeping above their sheltering woods could be seen for miles around Darrowby. When I first knew him, the circumstances of my visits were entirely normal – his Fox Terrier had cut its pad or the old grey tabby was having trouble with its sinusitis – but later on I began to wonder. He called me out so often on a Wednesday and the excuse was at times so trivial that I began seriously to suspect that there was nothing wrong with the animal but that Harold was in difficulties with his Nine Results or the Easy Six.
I could never be quite sure, but it was funny how he always received me with the same words. ‘Ah, Mr Herriot, how are your pools?’ He used to say the word in a long-drawn, loving way – poools. This enquiry had been unvarying ever since I had won sixteen shillings one week on the Three Draws. I can never forget the awe with which he fingered the little slip from Littlewoods, looking unbelievingly from it to the postal order. That was the only time I was a winner but it made no difference – I was still the oracle, unchallenged, supreme. Harold never won anything, ever.
The Denhams were a family of note in North Yorkshire. The immensely wealthy industrialists of the last century had become leaders in the world of agriculture. They were ‘gentlemen farmers’ who used their money to build up pedigree herds of dairy cows or pigs; they ploughed out the high, stony moorland and fertilised it and made it grow crops; they drained sour bogs and made them yield potatoes and turnips; they were the chairmen of committees, masters of Foxhounds, leaders of the county society.
But Harold had opted out of all that at an early age. He had refuted the age-old dictum that you can’t be happy doing absolutely nothing; all day and every day he pottered around his house and his few untidy acres, uninterested in the world outside, not entirely aware of what was going on in his immediate vicinity, but utterly content. I don’t think he ever gave a thought to other people’s opinions, which was just as well because they were often unkind; his brother, the eminent Basil Denham, referred to him invariably as ‘that bloody fool’ and with the country people it was often ‘nobbut ninepence in t’shillin’’.
Personally I always found something appealing in him. He was kind, friendly, with a sense of fun and I enjoyed going to his house. He and his wife ate all their meals in the kitchen and in fact seemed to spend most of their time there, so I usually went round the back of the house.
On this particular day it was to see his Great Dane bitch which had just had pups and seemed unwell; since it wasn’t Wednesday I felt that there really might be something amiss with her and hurried round. Harold gave me his usual greeting; he had the most attractive voice – round, fruity, mellow, like a bishop’s, and for the hundredth time I thought how odd it was to hear those organ-like vocal chords intoning such incongruities as Mansfield Town or Bradford City.
‘I wonder if you could advise me, Mr Herriot,’ he said as we left the kitchen and entered a long, ill-lit passage. ‘I’m searching for an away winner and I wondered about Sunderland at Aston Villa?’
I stopped and fell into an attitude of deep thought while Harold regarded me anxiously. ‘Well, I’m not sure, Mr Denham,’ I replied. ‘Sunderland are a good side but I happen to know that Raich Carter’s auntie isn’t too well at present and it could easily affect his game this Saturday.’
Harold looked crestfallen and he nodded his head gravely a few times; then he looked closely at me for a few seconds and broke into a shout of laughter. ‘Ah, Mr Herriot, you’re pulling my leg again.’ He seized my arm, gave it a squeeze and shuffled off along the passage, chuckling deeply.
We traversed a labyrinth of gloomy, cob webbed passages before he led the way into a little gun room. My patient was lying on a raised wooden dog-bed and I recognised her as the enormous Dane I had seen leaping around at previous visits;. I had never treated her, but my first sight of her had dealt a blow at one of my new-found theories – that you didn’t find big dogs in big houses. Times without number I had critically observed Bull Mastiffs, Alsatians and Old E
nglish Sheepdogs catapulting out of the tiny, back-street dwellings of Darrowby, pulling their helpless owners on the end of a lead, while in the spacious rooms and wide acres of the stately homes I saw nothing but Border Terriers and Jack Russells. But Harold would have to be different.
He patted the bitch’s head. ‘She had the puppies yesterday and she’s got a nasty dark discharge. She’s eating well, but I’d like you to look her over.’
Great Danes, like most of the big breeds, are usually placid animals and the bitch didn’t move as I took her temperature. She lay on her side, listening contentedly to the squeals of her family as the little blind creatures climbed over each other to get at the engorged teats.
‘Yes, she’s got a slight fever and you’re right about the discharge.’ I gently palpated the long hollow of the flank. ‘I don’t think there’s another pup there but I’d better have a feel inside her to make sure. Could you bring me some warm water, soap and towel please?’
As the door closed behind Harold I looked idly around the gun room. It wasn’t much bigger than a cupboard and, since another of Harold’s idiosyncrasies was that he never killed anything, was devoid of guns. The glass cases contained only musty bound volumes of Blackwood’s Magazine and Country Life. I stood there for maybe ten minutes, wondering why the old chap was taking so long, then I turned to look at an old print on the wall; it was the usual hunting scene and I was peering through the grimy glass and wondering why they always drew those horses flying over the stream with such impossible long legs when I heard a sound behind me.
It was a faint growl, a deep rumble, soft but menacing. I turned and saw the bitch rising very slowly from her bed. She wasn’t getting to her feet in the normal way of dogs, it was as though she were being lifted up by strings somewhere in the ceiling, the legs straightening almost imperceptibly, the body rigid, every hair bristling. All the time she glared at me unblinkingly and for the first time in my life I realised the meaning of blazing eyes. I had only once seen anything like this before and it was on the cover of an old copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles. At the time I had thought the artist ridiculously fanciful but here were two eyes filled with the same yellow fire and fixed unwaveringly on mine.
She thought I was after her pups, of course. After all, her master had gone and there was only this stranger standing motionless and silent in the corner of the room, obviously up to no good. One thing was sure – she was going to come at me any second, and I blessed the luck that had made me stand right by the door. Carefully I inched my left hand towards the handle as the bitch still rose with terrifying slowness, still rumbling deep in her chest. I had almost reached the handle when I made the mistake of making a quick grab for it. Just as I touched the metal the bitch came out of the bed like a rocket and sank her teeth into my wrist.
I thumped her over the head with my right fist and she let go and seized me high up on the inside of the left thigh. This really made me yell out and I don’t know just what my immediate future would have been if I hadn’t bumped up against the only chair in the room; it was old and flimsy but it saved me. As the bitch, apparently tiring of gnawing my leg, made a sudden leap at my face, I snatched the chair up and fended her off.
The rest of my spell in the gun room was a sort of parody of a lion-taming act and would have been richly funny to an impartial observer. In fact, in later years I have often wished I could have a cine film of the episode; but at the time, with that great animal stalking me round those few cramped yards of space, the blood trickling down my leg and only a rickety chair to protect me, I didn’t feel a bit like laughing. There was a dreadful dedication in the way she followed me and those maddened eyes never left my face for an instant.
The pups, furious at the unceremonious removal of their delightful source of warmth and nourishment, were crawling blindly across the bed and bawling, all nine of them, at the top of their voices. The din acted as a spur to the bitch and the louder it became the more she pressed home her attack. Every few seconds she would launch herself at me and I would prance about, stabbing at her with my chair in best circus fashion. Once she bore me back against the wall, chair and all; on her hind legs she was about as tall as me and I had a disturbing close-up of the snarling gaping jaws.
My biggest worry was that my chair was beginning to show signs of wear; the bitch had already crunched two of the spars effortlessly away and I tried not to think of what would happen if the whole thing finally disintegrated. But I was working my way back to the door and when I felt the handle at my back I knew I had to do something about it. I gave a final, intimidating shout, threw the remains of the chair at the bitch and dived out into the corridor. As I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it I could feel the panels quivering as the big animal threw herself against the wood.
I was sitting on the floor with my back against the passage wall, pants round my ankles, examining my wounds, when I saw Harold pass across the far end, pottering vaguely along with a basin of steaming water held in front of him and a towel over his shoulder. I could understand now why he had been so long – he had been wandering around like that all the time; being Harold it was just possible he had been lost in his own house. Or maybe he was just worrying about his Four Aways.
Back at Skeldale House I had to endure some unkind remarks about my straddling gait, but later, in my bedroom, the smile left Siegfried’s face as he examined my leg.
‘Right up there, by God.’ He gave a low, awed whistle. ‘You know, James, we’ve often made jokes about what a savage dog might do to us one day. Well, I tell you boy, it damn nearly happened to you.’
Shortly after this happened, I went walking in Scotland with the rough inside of my khaki shorts rubbing against the semi-circle of tooth marks on my thigh. A constant reminder that even small-animal practice can be dangerous, and a little lesson that even docile bitches are sometimes alarmingly protective towards their pups. Of course, the opposite can be the case. Quite often when I approach a bitch with her puppies nestling close to her I can see that she is bursting with pride, and when I lift out one of the little creatures she wags her tail in obvious delight. You just never know. It is one of the many uncertainties of our job.
6. Dan – and Helen
‘Could Mr Herriot see my dog, please?’
Familiar enough words coming from the waiting-room but it was the voice that brought me to a slithering halt just beyond the door.
It couldn’t be, no of course it couldn’t, but it sounded just like Helen. I tiptoed back and applied my eye without hesitation to the crack in the door. Tristan was standing there looking down at somebody just beyond my range of vision. All I could see was a hand resting on the head of a patient sheepdog, the hem of a tweed skirt and two silk-stockinged legs.
They were nice legs – not skinny – and could easily belong to a big girl like Helen. My cogitations were cut short as a head bent over to speak to the dog and I had a close-up in profile of the small straight nose and the dark hair falling across the milky smoothness of the cheek.
I was still peering, bemused, when Tristan shot out of the room and collided with me. Stifling an oath, he grabbed my arm and hauled me along the passage into the dispensary. He shut the door and spoke in a hoarse whisper.
‘It’s her! The Alderson woman! And she wants to see you! Not Siegfried, not me, but you, Mr Herriot himself!’
He looked at me wide-eyed for a few moments then, as I stood hesitating, he opened the door and tried to propel me into the passage.
‘What the hell are you waiting for?’ he hissed.
‘Well, it’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it? After that dance, I mean. Last time she saw me I was a lovely sight – so pie-eyed I couldn’t even speak.’
Tristan struck his forehead with his hand. ‘God help us! You worry about details, don’t you? She’s asked to see you – what more do you want? Go on, get in there!’
I was shuffling off irresolutely when he raised a hand. ‘Just a minute. Stay right there.’ He
trotted off and returned in a few seconds holding out a white lab coat.
‘Just back from the laundry,’ he said as he began to work my arms into the starched sleeves. ‘You’ll look marvellous in this, Jim – the immaculate young surgeon.’
I stood unresisting as he buttoned me into the garment but struck away his hand when he started to straighten my tie. As I left him he gave me a final encouraging wave before heading for the back stairs.
I didn’t give myself any more time to think but marched straight into the waiting-room. Helen looked up and smiled. And it was just the same smile. Nothing behind it. Just the same friendly, steady-eyed smile as when I first met her.
We faced each other in silence for some moments, then when I didn’t say anything she looked down at the dog.
‘It’s Dan in trouble this time,’ she said. ‘He’s our sheepdog but we’re so fond of him that he’s more like one of the family.’
The dog wagged his tail furiously at the sound of his name but yelped as he came towards me. I bent down and patted his head. ‘I see he’s holding up a hind leg.’
‘Yes, he jumped over a wall this morning and he’s been like that ever since. I think it’s something quite bad – he can’t put any weight on the leg.’
‘Right, bring him through to the other room and I’ll have a look at him. But take him on in front of me, will you, and I’ll be able to watch how he walks.’
I held the door open and she went through ahead of me with the dog.
Watching how Helen walked distracted me over the first few yards, but it was a long passage and by the time we had reached the second bend I had managed to drag my attention back to my patient.
And glory be, it was a dislocated hip. It had to be with that shortening of the limb and the way he carried it underneath his body with the paw just brushing the ground.
My feelings were mixed. This was a major injury, but on the other hand the chances were I could put it right quickly and look good in the process. Because I had found, in my brief experience, that one of the most spectacular procedures in practice was the reduction of a dislocated hip. Maybe I had been lucky, but with the few I had seen I had been able to convert an alarmingly lame animal into a completely sound one as though by magic.
James Herriot's Dog Stories Page 6