Pets on Parade (Prospect House 2)

by Welshman, Malcolm D.

  ‘Shall I show him?’ said Rosie, turning to Madge. Or was it Madge turning to Rosie?

  ‘You can if you like. Or I’ll go.’

  ‘Don’t mind.’

  ‘Or we could both go.’

  ‘Probably best if we both went.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘We’ll both go,’ they chorused, their ruddy cheeks glowing.

  I started to grind my teeth. ‘Well let’s get going then,’ I seethed, hastily donning my boots and waterproofs as the mist turned to a steady drizzle, while handing calving ropes and the rest of the kit to the twins.

  As we splashed across the first meadow, water seeped up my sleeves and crept down my collar and mud worked its way up and over the edge of each boot.

  ‘Is it much further?’ I gasped as the gate to a second meadow was opened.

  ‘Vet’s asking is it much further,’ said one twin, squelching to a halt.

  ‘Heard him,’ said the other with a squish, closing the gate behind us.

  ‘Well?’ I asked, squashed between them.

  ‘We’re here,’ they said as one. ‘This is Fox Meadow.’

  The meadow consisted of a small field bounded by overgrown hawthorn hedges – the irregular tops an undulating line of brown spikes in need of cutting back; the grass was poached round the perimeter with patches of mud and puddles leading to a large, corrugated-roofed field shelter, inside of which huddled a group of about ten or so Jerseys, some of which were desultorily snatching mouthfuls of hay from a pile heaped in one corner.

  ‘Deidre’s over there,’ said one of the twins – Madge, I think. She pointed to the far side of the field where, through the drifting sheet of drizzle, I could just discern the outline of a cow, only her flanks visible, the rest of her below the level of the grass. ‘She’s gone down in the ditch,’ added Madge.

  ‘Dear old Deidre,’ said Rosie.

  Between them, the twins explained that earlier they’d noticed Deidre had separated herself from the rest of the herd, showing signs of unease, standing alone, tail flicking, gazing into the distance, emitting the occasional soft moo.

  ‘Thought then she might be due to calve, didn’t I, Madge?’ said Rosie.

  ‘You did, Rosie.’

  ‘I did, Madge.’

  ‘And you were right.’

  ‘I was.’

  So they went back to get a head collar and rope to bring her in but on their return had found she had gone down the side of the ditch that flanked the field, normally dry and grass-filled, but now soggy and water-filled – as I discovered when we got to Deidre and found her hindquarters partially submerged.

  ‘Couldn’t get her to budge,’ commented one twin.

  ‘No, we couldn’t,’ said the other.

  ‘But we did try,’ said the first.

  I asked about contractions and was told some had been seen earlier but they had since eased off. There had been no sign of a water bag bursting, although in these wet conditions that could easily have been missed. I felt in a real dilemma here. Deidre certainly looked as if she was about to calve. An internal examination could establish whether the calf was engaged in the cervix and correctly positioned; but there was no way that was going to be achievable with Deidre’s back end half under water. As if reading my thoughts, the heifer gave a grunt, contracted her abdominal muscles and thrust both hind-legs down through the lank grass of the bank, an action which pushed her rump back level with the field so she was now splayed diagonally across the ditch.

  ‘OK, let’s go for it,’ I exclaimed, and, taking a deep breath, tore off my jacket and sodden shirt and gritted my teeth as I pulled on the red calving apron one twin held out to me, gasping as the freezing rubber slapped across my chest. Lubricating my arm with the oil the other twin gave me, I cautiously levered myself down onto the slippery bank and, while Madge – or was it Rosie? – held Deidre’s tail back, and the other twin, having secured a head collar, was kneeling down, gripping it tightly under Deidre’s chin, I slowly slipped my arm inside the cow, feeling the warmth of the animal’s birth canal instantly enfold me as clouds of steam eddied out.

  With my arm buried up to the elbow, I eventually managed to touch the calf’s head and felt it tweak back as I pinched its nose. At least the calf was still alive.

  But to judge the calf’s head in relation to the size of the heifer’s pelvis, I had a sinking feeling that we weren’t going to have a normal birth. I just felt that head was too big to pass through. Which meant only one option for a safe delivery. A Caesarean.

  I stood up, rapidly re-dressed and told the twins. They sploshed round from either end of the prone cow, only stopping when their hooked noses were almost touching.

  ‘Did you hear what vet said, Madge?’

  ‘I did, Rosie. A Caesarean.’

  ‘That’s what he said, yes.’

  ‘I know. So what do you think?’

  ‘Best let vet do it.’

  ‘That’s what I think’s best,’ said Madge. Or was it Rosie?

  The problem now was how to get Deidre back to the farm, since there was no way I could contemplate carrying out a Caesarean under such dire field conditions unless absolutely forced to. Even if we did manage to haul her back, there was still the problem of who was going to help me. I really didn’t feel it fair to put the onus on the Stockwell twins to assist.

  The first problem resolved itself when Deidre gave an almighty bellow and heaved herself up into a sitting position, at which point Madge and Rosie suddenly sprang into action and bent down, pushing at Deidre’s rump, the slope of the bank helping them to roll Deidre sideways until her back legs folded in under her. She gave another loud snort and then shakily rose to stand on all four feet.

  Problem two was resolved by a mobile call to Prospect House, where Beryl informed me she’d organise someone to come out and help straight away; that created a new problem of its own, though, when after waiting a few minutes while she went and conferred, I was told Lucy was on her way. ‘Hope you don’t mind …’ were Beryl’s parting words.

  No, actually I didn’t mind. Although Lucy was only a trainee nurse, she’d already shown her aptitude for the work involved, with an understanding, patient manner when dealing with creatures of all shapes and sizes, a natural empathy not clouded by sentimentality and that niggling ‘love for animals’ so often expressed by people and which so often obscured and undermined the professionalism required by veterinary nurses to ensure that some of the less glamorous aspects of the work were carried out. That aptitude had been clearly demonstrated the time I had to deal with the Richardsons’ difficult foaling – their darling Clementine with her breech birth. Lucy’s support and reassurance as to my capability to deal with the crisis that night had been instrumental in us hitching up. Maybe Deidre’s problem would be the catalyst required to bring us back together again. We’d have to see.

  The Stockwells and I had managed to push and cajole Deidre across Fox Meadow and the adjacent field, slipping and sliding into the yard just as Lucy drove down the gravel track.

  ‘You remembered to close gate,’ said one of the twins as Lucy climbed out of her somewhat battered old Fiesta, a present from her Mum when she reached her 18th a year back.

  She nodded and then looked at me before saying, ‘I’ve brought out the sterilised emergency op pack and some additional artery forceps. Hope that will be sufficient.’ She dropped her gaze as she finished, and opened the rear car door to gather up the equipment, taking it across the yard to the tithe barn as instructed by the twins, quickly tiptoeing to avoid too much water getting into her shoes.

  ‘These young ’uns … always in a hurry, Rosie,’ said Madge.

  ‘Rush, rush, rush. Always in a rush,’ I heard her twin mutter as I, too, scooted ahead into the barn while Deidre was slowly coaxed in by the sisters. ‘There, there, take your time,’ they were saying as the heifer nervously shuffled onto the straw covering the cobbled barn floor. At least we were now all under cover and I did have somewhere
to operate. Not ideal, though, I thought, gazing up at the cobweb-festooned timbers that arched above us; from the central span of one hung a dust-covered bulb which, although lit, scarcely penetrated the shadows of that cavernous interior.

  I began to shiver, feeling the muscles in my arms and legs tremble. Was it my wet clothing or nerves at the thought of what I was about to do?

  ‘Here, put these on,’ murmured Lucy, handing me a pack containing a T-shirt and operating gown. ‘Wasn’t sure if you’d want them. But at least they’re dry.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I removed my jacket and stripped off my wet shirt. Having put on the ops clothes, I felt much better, although still apprehensive at what lay ahead. One of the twins had tied Deidre to a large iron ring embedded in the flint wall. The heifer was now standing there, next to an old wooden manger, its frame pitted with woodworm, with her head down, her dark eyes dull, partially obscured by her long, black lashes, and her hooves sifting backwards and forwards in the straw. She was clearly distressed. The sooner I operated the better.

  ‘Could we please have a couple of straw bales over here …’ I gesticulated at the stack at the far end of the barn. ‘As quick as you like.’

  Madge and Rosie didn’t do ‘quick’. In the time it had taken them to amble down and bring back a bale each to make a makeshift operating table, I’d drawn up the dose of local anaesthetic required to give an epidural, had pumped Deidre’s tail to locate the right spot between the lumbar vertebrae and had given the injection. Some difference to that time last year when I’d given Clementine a similar spinal injection to stop her straining. Then I’d been all fingers and thumbs.

  The operation site now had to be prepared.

  ‘I did bring the clippers,’ said Lucy, holding them up. ‘And they’re fully charged. I checked before leaving.’

  Good girl. More brownie points.

  ‘You can do it,’ I said, outlining the area on Deidre’s right flank that required shaving. ‘And perhaps one of you would like to get me some hot water,’ I continued, turning to the Stockwells who had lined themselves up by the straw bales.

  ‘Vet wants some hot water, Madge.’

  ‘I heard him, Rosie.’

  ‘Shall I get it?’

  ‘You can if you like. Or I can go.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘You go then.’

  ‘OK, Madge. I will. But it might not be that hot. Boiler’s not on.’

  ‘Vet will just have to make do.’

  ‘He will, Madge, he will.’

  By the time Rosie had returned with a bucket of water, Lucy had finished shaving Deidre’s right flank and had scrubbed it with antiseptic and wiped it down with surgical spirit; and I had injected more local anaesthetic in the skin parallel to the spine to deaden the nerves that ran out to the area where I was going to make my incision.

  I scrubbed my hands with antiseptic, rinsing them in the water provided by Rosie, which, as she had predicted, was tepid, and dried them on some sterilised paper towels from a pack Lucy had opened. I extracted a large green drape from a similar pack and spread it across the straw bales and then Lucy opened the third sterile pack, containing the instruments, and tipped them out. Scalpel, artery and rack-toothed forceps, needle holder, scissors, catgut and nylon, swabs and a gauze pad with a variety of different-sized needles threaded through it tumbled onto my makeshift operating table.

  ‘OK … ready?’ I said, poised with scalpel in hand like a conductor about to wave his baton.

  ‘I’m ready,’ said a twin. ‘Are you, Madge?’

  ‘Yes, Rosie, I am.’

  ‘We’re ready, vet,’ said Rosie.

  A brief smile of reassurance flicked across Lucy’s face. ‘You’ll be fine, Paul,’ she whispered.

  I dropped my wrist and the blade plunged deep into Deidre’s hide to slice down the flank and reveal the underlying bed of glistening white connective tissue criss-crossed with small, pulsating arteries and the dark red striations of the muscles, some of which twitched involuntarily.

  As I sliced deeper, the first of several small arteries was cut. A fine jet of blood sprayed into the air and splattered down my gown, stopped only by a pair of artery forceps clamped to the spurting, severed vessel. I cautiously cut deeper until – with a quiet puff of the vacuum being broken – the abdominal cavity was entered. Enlarging the aperture, I revealed parts of the digestive tract – the grey, glistening, rounded end of the rumen, a sea of small bowel, the dark curve of a kidney – but my main focus was on the massive wall of womb directly in front of me.

  It bulged and rippled as the calf inside twisted about.

  I took a deep breath, realising it was going to be a mammoth task to get the gravid uterus in line with the incision I’d made and then, holding it still, cut through the uterine wall and extricate the calf. And so it proved. Even with both my arms immersed in Deidre’s abdomen and enfolded round the womb, I could barely lift it to the edge of the wound.

  ‘Lucy, I think you’d better scrub up and give me a hand here,’ I gasped.

  She swiftly did as instructed while I grimly held on to the womb, pushing it out towards me as best I could.

  ‘Now see where those feet are poking up?’ I nodded at the tent of grey uterine wall I was supporting, level with the gap in the abdominal wall. ‘Put a scalpel through that.’

  Lucy reached between my arms and cut where I had indicated. A tiny hind-leg immediately popped out.

  ‘Rope it quick.’

  That done, I took the scalpel from Lucy and enlarged the uterine incision to winkle out the other hind-leg, which she roped as well. The two of us then hauled on the ropes and the steaming body of the calf slithered out of the womb, up and over the edge of the abdominal incision, to collapse in a pile of mucus and membranes in the straw.

  ‘Rosie, Madge, see to the calf,’ I urged and was pleasantly surprised to see them move with the speed of – not exactly lightning – but with sufficient alacrity to ensure they’d pulled the calf up by its hind-legs and had swung it to and fro to get its airways cleared, and had then been rewarded by a splutter and a cough.

  ‘It’s a boy,’ said one.

  ‘So I see, Rosie,’ said the other. ‘A boy.’

  ‘That’s what I said, Madge.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s a bull calf,’ they chorused at me.

  I wasn’t really paying attention as there was a pressing need to get the uterine incision stitched and over-stitched as it was rapidly contracting down now the calf had been removed. Within minutes, it would be a tenth of its size. Lucy held up the cut edges while I sewed, and then assisted as I closed the abdominal wall, drawing the layers of muscle and connective tissue together and running sutures through them. Finally, the skin was pulled across and stitched in place, leaving a long, pink line down Deidre’s flank.

  One of the two Stockwells had been rubbing the calf’s coat with a handful of straw while the other waited until I’d finished suturing and dusting the wound with antiseptic powder, and then released Deidre’s halter from the iron ring. The heifer immediately swung round and started to lick and nuzzle her new offspring.

  Lucy, with quiet efficiency, packed up all the instruments, clothes and ropes, taking them across the yard to the back of her car.

  ‘Vet and his young ’un will be needing wash,’ declared a twin.

  ‘Indeed they will, Madge,’ said Rosie, getting to her feet and stepping back from the calf.

  ‘Over in kitchen, then,’ said Madge.

  Lucy and I cleaned ourselves up with the soap and tepid water provided and, having declined the offer of a cup of coffee – for fear it would take hours to make – we made our way back into the yard accompanied by the Stockwells. Before leaving, we decided to check on the calf.

  The sight of a newborn creature starting on its life’s journey never ceases to amaze me, whether a hatched chick flapping its bare wings for the first time, a little froglet swimming or a baby crying with unfocused eyes, waiting
to latch on to its mother’s milk. Deidre’s calf was no exception. He seemed to be all legs, gangly, long-limbed, uncoordinated, as he attempted to stand, his rump up in the air, aquiver, only for him to topple forward onto his side. Undeterred, he tried again, heaving himself up, staggering like a boxer coming round from a knock-out blow. This time, despite lurching backwards and forwards and twisting to one side, he remained standing, all four limbs splayed out; and as if to proclaim his achievement, he emitted a gurgly ‘Naaarh’ while Deidre curled her tongue round his head with a reassuring ‘Naaarh’ of her own.

  ‘Dear old Deidre,’ murmured one twin, looking over the half-door of the barn.

  ‘She is a dear, yes,’ said the other, gazing in as well. ‘Best if we left her to it.’

  ‘I think it’s best, Madge,’ said the first, nodding.

  ‘That’s what I said, Rosie.’

  ‘I heard you.’

  ‘It’s fine by you then?’

  ‘I think it’s best, Madge.’

  ‘You’ve already said that.’

  ‘Just agreeing with you.’

  ‘You think the same then.’

  ‘I do, Madge.’

  ‘We think it’s best,’ they chorused, swinging round, as one, to look at me. ‘What do you think?’

  Oh dear. Best to say our goodbyes, and we did so with the customary addition of ‘Contact us if you have any worries.’

  Hopefully, the Stockwells wouldn’t have any worries. I couldn’t say the same about myself. I drove ahead up the gravel track from the farm and stopped at one side to open the gate and allow Lucy through in her Fiesta. Was I opening the gate to a new future together or, to judge from the lack of acknowledgement as she drove away, just closing the gate firmly on our relationship, in much the same way as I slammed the Stockwells’ gate shut, once I’d driven through it? Hmm … only time would tell.

  COTTAGE SPY

  I’d first bumped into Lucy last June, on the day I went for an interview at Prospect House – ‘bumped’ in the literal sense of the word.

  I’d breezed in that day, surprisingly undaunted by the prospect of the interview, although I was aware that one of the Principals of the practice, Dr Crystal Sharpe, had quite a reputation in the veterinary world as a leading figure in hospital management – in fact, she had been instrumental in turning Prospect House into the country’s first small animal hospital some 26 years earlier; and I already knew from papers she’d had published in the Veterinary Record that she had a keen interest in orthopaedics and was on several high-profile committees dealing with issues of animal welfare.