It was a completely unconscious reaction which hoisted me from my bath of self-pity and left me dripping on the brink, regarding the immediate future with a return of some of my natural optimism. For one thing, Dixon’s place was down at the foot of the Dale just off the main road and they had that unusual luxury, electric light in the buildings. And I couldn’t be all that tired; not at the age of twenty-four with all my faculties unimpaired. I’d take a bit of killing yet.
I smiled to myself and relapsed into the state of half suspended animation which was normal to me at these times; a sleepy blanketing of all the senses except those required for the job in hand. Many times over the past months I had got out of bed, driven far into the country, done my job efficiently and returned to bed without ever having been fully awake.
I was right about Dixon’s. The graceful Clydesdale mare was in a well-lit loose box and I laid out my ropes and instruments with a feeling of deep thankfulness. As I tipped antiseptic into the steaming bucket I watched the mare straining and paddling her limbs. The effort produced nothing; there were no feet protruding from the vulva. There was almost certainly a malpresentation.
Still thinking hard, I removed my macintosh and was jerked out of my reverie by a shout of laughter from the farmer. “God ’elp us, what’s this; the Fol-de-rols?”
I looked down at my pyjamas which were pale blue with an arresting broad red stripe. “This, Mr. Dixon,” I replied with dignity, “is my night attire. I didn’t bother to dress.”
“Oh, I see now.” The farmer’s eyes glinted impishly. “I’m sorry, but I thought I’d got the wrong chap for a second. I saw a feller just like you at Blackpool last year—same suit exactly, but he ’ad a stripy top hat too and a stick. Did a champion little dance.”
“Can’t oblige you, I’m afraid,” I said with a wan smile. “I’m just not in the mood right now.”
I stripped off, noting with interest the deep red grooves caused by the calf’s teeth a couple of hours ago. Those teeth had been like razors, peeling off neat little rolls of skin every time I pushed my arm past them.
The mare trembled as I felt my way inside her. Nothing, nothing, then just a tail and the pelvic bones and the body and hind legs disappearing away beyond my reach. Breech presentation; easy in the cow for a man who knew his job but tricky in the mare because of the tremendous length of the foal’s legs.
It took me a sweating, panting half hour with ropes and a blunt hook on the end of a flexible cane to bring the first leg round. The second leg came more easily and the mare seemed to know there was no obstruction now. She gave a great heave and the foal shot out on to the straw with myself, arms around its body, sprawling on top of it. To my delight I felt the small form jerking convulsively; I had felt no movement while I was working and had decided that it was dead, but the foal was very much alive, shaking its head and snorting out the placental fluid it had inhaled during its delayed entry.
When I had finished towelling myself I turned to see the farmer, with an abnormally straight face, holding out my colourful jacket like a valet. “Allow me, sir,” he said gravely.
“O.K., O.K.,” I laughed, “I’ll get properly dressed next time.” As I was putting my things in the car boot the farmer carelessly threw a parcel on to the back seat.
“Bit o’ butter for you,” he muttered. When I started the engine he bent level with the window. “I think a bit about that mare and I’ve been badly wanting a foal out of her. Thank ye, lad, thank ye very much.”
He waved as I moved away and I heard his parting cry. “You did all right for a Kentucky Minstrel!”
I leaned back in my seat and peered through heavy lids at the empty road unwinding in the pale morning light. The sun had come up—a dark crimson ball hanging low over the misted fields. I felt utterly content, warm with the memory of the foal trying to struggle on to its knees, its absurdly long legs still out of control. Grand that the little beggar had been alive after all—there was something desolate about delivering a lifeless creature.
The Dixon farm was in the low country where the Dale widened out and gave on to the great plain of York. I had to cross a loop of the busy road which connected the West Riding with the industrial North East. A thin tendril of smoke rose from the chimney of the all night transport café which stood there and as I slowed down to take the corner a faint but piercing smell of cooking found its way into the car; the merest breath but rich in the imagery of fried sausages and beans and tomatoes and chips.
God, I was starving. I looked at my watch; five fifteen, I wouldn’t be eating for a long time yet. I turned in among the lorries on the broad strip of tarmac.
Hastening towards the still lighted building I decided that I wouldn’t be greedy. Nothing spectacular, just a nice sandwich. I had been here a few times before and the sandwiches were very good; and I deserved some nourishment after my hard night.
I stepped into the warm interior where groups of lorry drivers sat behind mounded plates, but as I crossed the floor the busy clatter died and was replaced by a tense silence. A fat man in a leather jacket sat transfixed, a loaded fork half way to his mouth, while his neighbour, gripping a huge mug of tea in an oily hand, stared with bulging eyes at my ensemble.
It occurred to me then that bright red striped pyjamas and Wellingtons might seem a little unusual in those surroundings and I hastily buttoned my macintosh which had been billowing behind me. Even closed, it was on the short side and at least a foot of pyjama leg showed above my boots.
Resolutely I strode over to the counter. An expressionless blonde bulging out of a dirty white overall on the breast pocket of which was inscribed “Dora” regarded me blankly.
“A ham sandwich and a cup of Bovril, please,” I said huskily. As the blonde put a teaspoonful of Bovril into a cup and filled it with a hissing jet of hot water I was uncomfortably aware of the silence behind me and of the battery of eyes focused on my legs. On my right I could just see the leather-jacketed man. He filled his mouth and chewed reflectively for a few moments.
“Takes all kinds, don’t it, Ernest?” he said in a judicial tone.
“Does indeed, Kenneth, does indeed,” replied his companion.
“Would you say, Ernest, that this is what the Yorkshire country gentleman is wearing this spring?”
“Could be, Kenneth, could be.”
Listening to the titters from the rear, I concluded that these two were the accepted café wags. Best to eat up quickly and get out. Dora pushed the thickly meated sandwich across the counter and spoke with all the animation of a sleep walker. “That’ll be a shillin’.”
I slipped my hand inside my coat and encountered the pocketless flannelette beneath. God almighty, my money was in my trousers back in Darrowby! A wave of sickly horror flooded me as I began a frantic, meaningless search through my macintosh.
I looked wildly at the blonde and saw her slip the sandwich under the counter. “Look, I’ve come out without any money. I’ve been in here before—do you know who I am?”
Dora gave a single bored shake of her head.
“Well, never mind,” I babbled, “I’ll pop in with the money next time I’m passing.”
Dora’s expression did not alter but she raised one eyebrow fractionally; she made no effort to retrieve the sandwich from its hiding place.
Escape was the only thing in my mind now. Desperately I sipped at the scalding fluid.
Kenneth pushed back his plate and began to pick his teeth with a match. “Ernest,” he said as though coming to a weighty conclusion, “it’s my opinion that this ’ere gentleman is eccentric.”
“Eccentric?” Ernest sniggered into his tea. “Bloody daft, more like.”
“Ah, but not so daft, Ernest. Not daft enough to pay for ’is grub.”
“You ’ave a point there, Kenneth, a definite point.”
“You bet I have. He’s enjoying a nice cup of Bovril on the house and if ’e hadn’t mistimed his fumble he’d be at the sandwich too. Dora moved a bit sharpis
h for ’im there—another five seconds and he’d have had ’is choppers in the ham.”
“True, true,” muttered Ernest, seemingly content with his role of straight man.
Kenneth put away his match, sucked his teeth noisily and leaned back. “There’s another possibility we ’aven’t considered. He could be on the run.”
“Escaped convict, you mean, Kenneth?”
“I do, Ernest, I do indeed.”
“But them fellers allus have arrows on their uniforms.”
“Ah, some of ’em do. But I ’eard somewhere that some of the prisons is going in for stripes now.”
I had had enough. Tipping the last searing drops of Bovril down my throat I made headlong for the door. As I stepped out into the early sunshine Kenneth’s final pronouncement reached me.
“Prob’ly got away from a working party. Look at them Wellingtons …”
THIRTY-TWO
I COULD SEE THAT Mr. Handshaw didn’t believe a word I was saying. He looked down at his cow and his mouth tightened into a stubborn line.
“Broken pelvis? You’re trying to tell me she’ll never get up n’more? Why, look at her chewing her cud! I’ll tell you this, young man—me dad would’ve soon got her up if he’d been alive today.”
I had been a veterinary surgeon for a year now and I had learned a few things. One of them was that farmers weren’t easy men to convince—especially Yorkshire Dalesmen.
And that bit about his dad. Mr. Handshaw was in his fifties and I suppose there was something touching about his faith in his late father’s skill and judgement. But I could have done very nicely without it.
It had acted as an additional irritant in a case in which I felt I had troubles enough. Because there are few things which get more deeply under a vet’s skin than a cow which won’t get up. To the layman it may seem strange that an animal can be apparently cured of its original ailment and yet be unable to rise from the floor, but it happens. And it can be appreciated that a completely recumbent milk cow has no future.
The case had started when my boss, Siegfried Farnon, who owned the practice in the little Dales market town of Darrowby, sent me to a milk fever. This suddenly occurring calcium deficiency attacks high yielding animals just after calving and causes collapse and progressive coma. When I first saw Mr. Handshaw’s cow she was stretched out motionless on her side, and I had to look carefully to make sure she wasn’t dead.
But I got out my bottles of calcium with an airy confidence because I had been lucky enough to qualify just about the time when the profession had finally got on top of this hitherto fatal condition. The breakthrough had come many years earlier with inflation of the udder and I still carried a little blowing-up outfit around with me (the farmers used bicycle pumps), but with the advent of calcium therapy one could bask in a cheap glory by jerking an animal back from imminent death within minutes. The skill required was minimal but it looked very very good.
By the time I had injected the two bottles—one into the vein, the other under the skin—and Mr. Handshaw had helped me roll the cow on to her chest the improvement was already obvious; she was looking about her and shaking her head as if wondering where she had been for the last few hours. I felt sure that if I had had the time to hang about for a bit I could see her on her feet. But other jobs were waiting.
“Give me a ring if she isn’t up by dinner time,” I said, but it was a formality. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be seeing her again.
When the farmer rang at midday to say she was still down it was just a pinprick. Some cases needed an extra bottle—it would be all right. I went out and injected her again.
I wasn’t really worried when I learned she hadn’t got up the following day, but Mr. Handshaw, hands deep in pockets, shoulders hunched as he stood over his cow, was grievously disappointed at my lack of success.
“It’s time t’awd bitch was up. She’s doin’ no good laid there. Surely there’s summat you can do. I poured a bottle of water into her lug this morning but even that hasn’t shifted her.”
“You what?”
“Poured some cold water down her lug ’ole. Me dad used to get ’em up that way and he was a very clever man with stock was me dad.”
“I’ve no doubt he was,” I said primly. “But I really think another injection is more likely to help her.”
The farmer watched glumly as I ran yet another bottle of calcium under the skin. The procedure had lost its magic for him.
As I put the apparatus away I did my best to be hearty. “I shouldn’t worry. A lot of them stay down for a day or two—you’ll probably find her walking about in the morning.”
The phone rang just before breakfast and my stomach contracted sharply as I heard Mr. Handshaw’s voice. It was heavy with gloom. “Well, she’s no different. Lyin’ there eating her ’ead off, but never offers to rise. What are you going to do now?”
What indeed, I thought as I drove out to the farm. The cow had been down for forty-eight hours now—I didn’t like it a bit.
The farmer went into the attack immediately. “Me dad allus used to say they had a worm in the tail when they stayed down like this. He said if you cut tail end off it did the trick.”
My spirits sagged lower. I had had trouble with this myth before. The insidious thing was that the people who still practised this relic of barbarism could often claim that it worked because, after the end of the tail had been chopped off, the pain of the stump touching the ground forced many a sulky cow to scramble to her feet.
“There’s no such thing as worm in the tail, Mr. Handshaw,” I said. “And don’t you think it’s a cruel business, cutting off a cow’s tail? I hear the R.S.P.C.A. had a man in court last week over a job like that.”
The farmer narrowed his eyes. Clearly he thought I was hedging. “Well, if you won’t do that, what the hangment are you going to do? We’ve got to get this cow up somehow.”
I took a deep breath. “Well, I’m sure she’s got over the milk fever because she’s eating well and looks quite happy. It must be a touch of posterior paralysis that’s keeping her down. There’s no point in giving her any more calcium so I’m going to try this stimulant injection.” I filled the syringe with a feeling of doom. I hadn’t a scrap of faith in the stimulant injection but I just couldn’t do nothing. I was scraping the barrel out now.
I was turning to go when Mr. Handshaw called after me. “Hey, Mister, I remember summat else me dad used to do. Shout in their lugs. He got many a cow up that way. I’m not very strong in the voice—how about you having a go?”
It was a bit late to stand on my dignity. I went over to the animal and seized her by the ear. Inflating my lungs to the utmost I bent down and bawled wildly into the hairy depths. The cow stopped chewing for a moment and looked at me enquiringly, then her eyes drooped and she returned contentedly to her cudding. “We’ll give her another day,” I said wearily. “And if she’s still down tomorrow we’ll have a go at lifting her. Could you get a few of your neighbours to give us a hand?”
Driving round my other cases that day I felt tied up inside with sheer frustration. Damn and blast the thing! What the hell was keeping her down? And what else could I do? This was 1938 and my resources were limited. Thirty years later there are still milk fever cows which won’t get up but the vet has a much wider armoury if the calcium has failed to do the job. The excellent Bagshaw hoist which clamps on to the pelvis and raises the animal in a natural manner, the phosphorus injections, even the electric goad which administers a swift shock when applied to the rump and sends many a comfortably ensconced cow leaping to her feet with an offended bellow.
As I expected, the following day brought no change and as I got out of the car in Mr. Handshaw’s yard I was surrounded by a group of his neighbours. They were in festive mood, grinning, confident, full of helpful advice as farmers always are with somebody else’s animals.
There was much laughter and legpulling as we drew sacks under the cow’s body and a flood of weird suggestions to whi
ch I tried to close my ears. When we all finally gave a concerted heave and lifted her up, the result was predictable; she just hung there placidly with her legs dangling whilst her owner leaned against the wall watching us with deepening gloom.
After a lot of puffing and grunting we lowered the inert body and everybody looked at me for the next move. I was hunting round desperately in my mind when Mr. Handshaw piped up again.
“Me dad used to say a strange dog would allus get a cow up.”
There were murmurs of assent from the assembled farmers and immediate offers of dogs. I tried to point out that one would be enough but my authority had dwindled and anyway everybody seemed anxious to demonstrate their dogs’ cow-raising potential. There was a sudden excited exodus and even Mr. Smedley the village shopkeeper pedalled off at frantic speed for his border terrier. It seemed only minutes before the byre was alive with snapping, snarling curs but the cow ignored them all except to wave her horns warningly at the ones which came too close.
The flash-point came when Mr. Handshaw’s own dog came in from the fields where he had been helping to round up the sheep. He was a skinny, hard-bitten little creature with lightning reflexes and a short temper. He stalked, stiff-legged and bristling, into the byre, took a single astounded look at the pack of foreigners on his territory and flew into action with silent venom.
Within seconds the finest dog fight I had ever seen was in full swing and I stood back and surveyed the scene with a feeling of being completely superfluous. The yells of the farmers rose above the enraged yapping and growling. One intrepid man leaped into the mêlée and reappeared with a tiny Jack Russell hanging on determinedly to the heel of his Wellington boot. Mr. Reynolds of Clover Hill was rubbing the cow’s tail between two short sticks and shouting “Cush! Cush!” and as I watched helplessly a total stranger tugged at my sleeve and whispered: “Hasta tried a teaspoonful of Jeyes’ Fluid in a pint of old beer every two hours?”
All Creatures Great and Small Page 21