The Lord God Made Them All

by James Herriot

  I think the thing he enjoyed most was accompanying me on an evening call, if Helen would allow him to postpone his bedtime. He was in heaven driving into the country in the darkness, training my torch on a cow’s teat while I stitched it.

  The farmers were kind, as they always are with young people. Even the most uncommunicative would grunt, “Ah see you’ve got t’apprentice with ye,” as we got out of the car.

  But those farmers had something Jimmy coveted: their big hob-nailed boots. He had a great admiration for farmers in general; strong hardy men who spent their lives in the open and who pushed fearlessly among plunging packs of cattle and slapped the rumps of massive cart horses. I could see he was deeply impressed as he watched them—quite often small and stringy—mounting granary steps with twelve or sixteen stone stacks on their shoulders, or hanging on effortlessly to the noses of huge bullocks, their boots slithering over the floor, a laconic cigarette hanging from their lips.

  It was those boots that got under Jimmy’s skin most of all. Sturdy and unyielding, they seemed to symbolise for him the character of the men who wore them.

  Matters came to a head one day when we were conversing in the car. Or, rather, my son was doing the conversing in the form of a barrage of questions which I did my best to fend off while trying to think about my cases. These questions went on pretty well nonstop every day, and they followed a well-tried formula.

  “What is the fastest train—the Blue Peter or the Flying Scotsman?”

  “Well now … I really don’t know. I should say the Blue Peter.”

  Then, getting into deeper water, “Is a giant train faster than a phantom racing car?”

  “That’s a difficult one. Let’s see, now … maybe the phantom racer.”

  Jimmy changed his tack suddenly. “That was a big man at the last farm wasn’t he?”

  “He certainly was.”

  “Was he bigger than Mr. Robinson?”

  We were launching into his favourite “big man” game, and I knew how it would end, but I played my part. “Oh yes, he was.”

  “Was he bigger than Mr. Leeming?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Was he bigger than Mr. Kirkley?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  Jimmy gave me a sidelong glance, and I knew he was about to play his two trump cards. “Was he bigger than the gas man?”

  The towering gentleman who came to read the gas meters at Skeldale House had always fascinated my son, and I had to think very carefully about my reply.

  “Well, you know, I really think he was.”

  “Ah, but …” The corner of Jimmy’s mouth twitched up craftily. “Was he bigger than Mr. Thackray?”

  That was the killer punch. Nobody was bigger than Mr. Thackray, who looked down on the other inhabitants of Darrowby from six feet seven inches.

  I shrugged my shoulders in defeat. “No, I have to admit it. He wasn’t as big as Mr. Thackray.”

  Jimmy smiled and nodded, well satisfied, then he began to hum a little tune, drumming his fingers on the dashboard at the same time. Soon I could see he was having trouble. He couldn’t remember how it went. Patience was not his strong point, and as he tried and stopped again and again, it was plain that he was rapidly becoming exasperated.

  Finally, as we drove down a steep hill into a village and another abortive session of tum-te-tum-te-tum came to an abrupt halt, he rounded on me aggressively.

  “You know,” he exploded, “I’m getting just about fed up of this!”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, old lad.” I thought for a moment “I think it’s Lilliburlero you’re trying to get.” I gave a swift rendering.

  “Yes, that’s it!” He slapped his knee and bawled out the melody at the top of his voice several times in triumph. This put him in such high good humour that he broached something that must have been on his mind for some time.

  “Daddy,” he said. “Can I have some boots?”

  “Boots? But you’ve got some already, haven’t you?” I pointed down at the little Wellingtons in which Helen always rigged him before he set out for the farms.

  He gazed at his feet sadly before replying. “Yes, I know, but I want proper boots like the farmers.”

  This was a facer. I didn’t know what to say. “But, Jim, little boys like you don’t have boots like that. Maybe when you’re bigger …”

  “Oh, I want them now,” he moaned in anguished tones. “I want proper boots.”

  At first I thought it was a passing whim, but he kept up his campaign for several days, reinforcing it with disgusted looks as Helen drew on the Wellingtons each morning and a listless slouching to convey the message that his footwear was entirely unsuitable for a man like him.

  Finally Helen and I talked it over one night after he had gone to bed.

  “They surely don’t have farm boots his size, do they?” I asked.

  Helen shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but I’ll look around in any case.”

  And it seemed that Jimmy wasn’t the only little boy to have this idea because within a week my wife returned, flushed with success and bearing the smallest pair of farm boots I had ever seen.

  I couldn’t help laughing. They were so tiny, yet so perfect—thick hob-nailed soles, chunky uppers and a long row of lace-holes with metal loops at the top.

  Jimmy didn’t laugh when he saw them. He handled them almost with awe and once he had got them on, his demeanour changed. He was naturally square-set and jaunty, but to see him striding round a farmyard in corduroy leggings and those boots you would think he owned the place. He clumped and stamped, held himself very upright and his cries of “Hello! Hello!” took on a new authority.

  He was never what I would call naughty—certainly never destructive or cruel—but he had that bit of devil which I suppose all boys need to have. He liked to assert himself, and, perhaps unconsciously, he liked to tease me. If I said, “Don’t touch that,” he would keep clear of the object in question but later would give it the merest brush with his finger, which could not be construed as disobedience but nevertheless served to establish his influence in the household.

  Also, he was not above taking advantage of me in awkward situations. There was one afternoon when Mr. Garrett brought his sheepdog in. The animal was very lame and as I hoisted him onto the table in the consulting room, a small head appeared for a moment at the window that overlooked the sunlit garden.

  I didn’t mind that. Jimmy often watched me dealing with our small animal patients, and I half expected him to come into the room for a closer look.

  It is often difficult to locate the source of a dog’s lameness, but in this case I found it immediately. When I gently squeezed the outside pad on his left foot he winced, and a tiny bead of serum appeared on the black surface.

  “He’s got something in there, Mr. Garrett,” I said. “Probably a thorn. I’ll have to give him a shot of local anaesthetic and open up his pad.”

  It was when I was filling the syringe that a knee came into view at the corner of the window. I felt a pang of annoyance. Jimmy surely couldn’t be climbing up the wistaria. It was dangerous, and I had expressly forbidden it. The branches of the beautiful creeper curled all over the back of the house, and though they were as thick as a man’s leg near ground level, they became quite slender as they made their way up past the bathroom window to the tiles of the roof.

  No, I decided that I was mistaken and began to infiltrate the pad. These modern anaesthetics worked very quickly and within a minute or two I could squeeze the area quite hard without causing pain.

  I reached for the scalpel. “Hold his leg up and keep it as steady as you can,” I said.

  Mr. Garrett nodded and pursed his lips. He was a serious-faced man at any time and obviously deeply concerned about his dog. His eyes narrowed in apprehension as I poised my knife over the telltale drop of moisture.

  For me it was an absorbing moment. If I could find and remove this foreign body, the dog would be instantly rid of hi
s pain. I had dealt with many of these cases in the past, and they were so easy, so satisfying.

  With the point of my blade I made a careful nick in the tough tissue of the pad, and at that moment a shadow crossed the window. I glanced up. It was Jimmy, all right, this time at the other side, just his head grinning through the glass from halfway up.

  The little blighter was on the wistaria, but there was nothing I could do about it then, except to give him a quick glare. I cut a little deeper and squeezed, but still nothing showed in the wound. I didn’t want to make a big hole, but it was clear that I had to make a cruciate incision to see further down. I was drawing the scalpel across at right angles to my first cut when, from the corner of my eye, I spotted two feet dangling just below the top of the window. I tried to concentrate on my job but the feet swung and kicked repeatedly, obviously for my benefit. At last they disappeared, which could only mean that their owner was ascending to the dangerous regions. I dug down a little deeper and swabbed with cotton wool.

  Ah yes, I could see something now, but it was very deep, probably the tip of a thorn which had broken off well below the surface. I felt the thrill of the hunter as I reached for forceps, and just then the head showed itself again, upside down this time.

  My God, he was hanging by his feet from the branches, and the face was positively leering. In deference to my client, I had been trying to ignore the by-play from outside, but this was too much. I leaped at the glass and shook my fist violently. My fury must have startled the performer, because the face vanished instantly and I could hear faint sounds of feet scrambling upwards.

  That was not much comfort, either. Those top branches might not support a boy’s weight. I forced myself back to my task.

  “Sorry, Mr. Garrett,” I said. “Will you hold the leg up again, please?”

  He replied with a thin smile, and I pushed my forceps into the depths. They grated on something hard. I gripped, pulled gently and—oh, lovely, lovely—out came the pointed, glistening head of a thorn. I had done it.

  It was one of the tiny triumphs that lighten vets’ lives and I was beaming at my client and patting his dog’s head when I heard the crack from above. It was followed by a long howl of terror, then a small form hurtled past the window and thudded with horrid force into the garden.

  I threw down the forceps and shot out of the room, along the passage and through the side door into the garden. Jimmy was already sitting up among the wallflowers, and I was too relieved to be angry.

  “Have you hurt yourself?” I gasped, and he shook his head.

  I lifted him to his feet and he seemed to be able to stand all right. I felt him over carefully. There appeared to be no damage.

  I led him back into the house. “Go along and see Mummy,” I said and returned to the consulting room.

  I must have been deathly pale when I entered because Mr. Garrett looked startled. “Is he all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes, I think so. But I do apologise for rushing out like that. It was really too bad of me to …”

  Mr. Garrett laid his hand on my shoulder. “Say no more, Mr. Herriot, I have children of my own.” And then he spoke the words that have become engraven on my heart. “You need nerves of steel to be a parent.”

  Later at tea I watched my son demolishing a poached egg on toast, then he started to slap plum jam on a slice of bread. Thank heaven he was no worse for his fall, but still I had to remonstrate with him.

  “Look, young man,” I said. “That was a very naughty thing you did out there. I’ve told you again and again not to climb the wistaria.”

  Jimmy bit into his bread and jam and regarded me impassively. I have a big streak of old hen in my nature and down through the years, even to this day, he and later my daughter, Rosie, have recognised this and developed a disconcerting habit of making irreverent clucking noises at my over-fussiness. At this moment I could see that whatever I was going to say he wasn’t going to take too seriously.

  “If you’re going to behave like this,” I went on, “I’m not going to take you round the farms with me. I’ll just have to find another little boy to help me with my cases.”

  His chewing slowed down, and I looked for some reaction in this morsel of humanity who was later to become a far better veterinary surgeon than I could ever be, in fact, to quote thirty years later a dry Scottish colleague who had been through college with me and didn’t mince words, “A helluva improvement on his old man.”

  Jimmy dropped the bread on his plate. “Another little boy?” he enquired.

  “That’s right. I can’t have naughty boys with me. I’ll have to find somebody else.”

  Jimmy thought this over for a minute or so, then he shrugged and appeared to accept the situation philosophically. He started again on the bread and jam.

  Then in a flash his sang froid evaporated. He stopped in mid-chew and looked up at me in wide-eyed alarm.

  His voice came out in a high quaver. “Would he have my boots?”

  Chapter

  6

  “BY GAW, IT’S DOCTOR Fu Manchu!”

  The farmer dropped the buttered scone onto his plate and stared, horror-struck, through the kitchen window.

  I was drinking a cup of tea with him and I almost choked in mid-sip as I followed his gaze.

  Beyond the glass an enormous Oriental was standing. Slit eyes regarded us menacingly from a pock-marked face whose left cheek was hideously scarred from ear to chin, but the most arresting feature was the one-sided mustachio, black and greasy, with its single end dangling several inches from the upper lip. A robe of exotic colouring flowed from the man’s shoulders and his hands, held across his body, were tucked deeply into the sleeves.

  The farmer’s wife screamed and jumped from the table, but I sat transfixed. I couldn’t believe this apparition, framed as it was against the buildings and pastures of a Yorkshire farm.

  The wife’s rising screams were bordering on hysteria when suddenly she stopped and advanced slowly to the window. As she came close the big man’s mouth relaxed into a friendly leer, then he withdrew a hand from the sleeve and waggled the fingers at her in Oliver Hardy fashion.

  “It’s Igor!” she gasped and swung round on her husband. “And that’s me good house coat he’s got on. You rotten devil, you put him up to this!”

  The farmer rolled about in his chair, laughing helplessly. He couldn’t have asked for a better response to his little joke.

  Igor was one of a batch of prisoners of war who had recently arrived to work on the farm. There were hundreds of these men employed on the land at the end of the war and it was a happy arrangement all round. The farmers had a windfall in the shape of abundant labour, and the prisoners were content to spend their pre-repatriation time in the open air with ample farm meals to sustain them in a world of food rationing. I personally had a respite from one of my constant problems—the lack of help in my job. I found now that there were always willing hands to assist me in the rough-and-tumble of large-animal practice.

  The prisoners were, of course, mainly German, but there were a number of Italians and, strangely, Russians. It baffled me at first when I saw hundreds of men who looked like Chinese in German uniforms disembarking at Darrowby railway station. I learned later that they were Mongolian Russians who had been pressed into fighting for the Germans and later were captured by the British. Igor was one of these.

  I know of farming families who to this day spend their holidays at the homes of the Germans and Italians whom they befriended at this time.

  I was still laughing after the Igor incident and the farmer was still receiving a tongue lashing from his wife when I climbed into my car and consulted the list of calls.

  “Preston, Scarth Lodge, lame cow,” I read. It was twenty minutes’ drive away and, as always, I idly turned over the possibilities in my mind. Probably foul, maybe pus in the foot, which would entail some hacking with my hoof knife. Or it could be a strain. I’d soon see.

  Hal Preston was bringing my
patient in from the field as I arrived, and I didn’t even have to get out of the car to make my diagnosis. It was one which gave me no joy.

  The cow was hobbling slowly, her right hind foot barely touching the ground. The limb was shortened and carried underneath the body, while a bulge in the pelvic region showed where the great trochanter of the femur pushed against the skin. Upward displacement. Absolutely typical.

  “Just happened this mornin’,” the farmer said. “She was as right as rain last night. Ah can’t think …”

  “Say no more, Mr. Preston,” I said. “I know what it is. She’s got a dislocated hip.”

  “Is that serious?”

  “Yes, it is. You see, it takes tremendous force to pull the head of the displaced bone back into its socket. Even in a dog it is a difficult job, but in cattle it’s sometimes impossible.”

  The farmer looked glum. “That’s a beggar. This is a right good cow, smashin’ milker. What ’appens if you can’t get it back?”

  “I’m afraid she’d always be a bit of a cripple,” I replied. “Dogs usually form a very good false joint, but it’s different with a cow. In fact, many farmers decide to slaughter the animal.”

  “Oh, ’ell, I don’t want that!” Hal Preston rubbed his chin vigorously. “We’ll have to have a go.”

  “Good, that’s what I want.” I turned towards my car. “I’m going back to the surgery for the chloroform muzzle, and, in the meantime, will you go round your neighbours and get a few strong chaps? We’ll need all the manpower we can find.”

  The farmer looked round the rolling green miles with not another dwelling in sight. “Me neighbours are a long way away, but I don’t need ’em today. Look ’ere.”

  He led the way into the farm kitchen where the savoury aroma of roast bacon was heavy in the air. Four burly Germans were seated at the table. In front of each lay a plate mounded high with potatoes, cabbage, bacon and sausage.

  “They’ve sent me these fellers to help with haytime,” Mr. Preston explained. “I reckon they look pretty useful.”