Classical canine distemper is so easy to diagnose but there is never any satisfaction in doing so.
“I didn’t know you had a dog,” I said. “How long have you had him?”
“A month. Feller got ’im from t’dog and cat home at Harrington and sold ’im to me.”
“I see.” I took the temperature and was not surprised to find it was 104°F.
“How old is he?”
“Nine months.”
I nodded. Just about the worst age.
I went ahead and asked all the usual questions but I knew the answers already.
Yes, the dog had been slightly off colour for a week or two. No, he wasn’t really ill, but listless and coughing occasionally. And of course it was not until the eyes and nose began to discharge that the boy became worried and brought him to see me. That was when we usually saw these cases—when it was too late.
Wesley imparted the information defensively, looking at me under lowered brows as though he expected me to clip his ear at any moment. But as I studied him any aggressive feelings I may have harboured evaporated quickly. The imp of hell appeared on closer examination to be a neglected child. His elbows stuck out through holes in a filthy jersey, his shorts were similarly ragged, but what appalled me most was the sour smell of his unwashed little body. I hadn’t thought there were children like this in Darrowby.
When he had answered my questions he made an effort and blurted out one of his own.
“What’s matter with ’im?”
I hestitated a moment. “He’s got distemper, Wes.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, it’s a nasty infectious disease. He must have got it from another sick dog.”
“Will ’e get better?”
“I hope so. I’ll do the best I can for him.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell a small boy of his age that his pet was probably going to die.
I filled a syringe with a “mixed macterin” which we used at that time against the secondary invaders of distemper. It never did much good and even now with all our antibiotics we cannot greatly influence the final outcome. If you can catch a case in the early viral phase then a shot of hyperimmune serum is curative, but people rarely bring their dogs in until that phase is over.
As I gave the injection the dog whimpered a little and the boy stretched out a hand and patted him.
“It’s awright, Duke,” he said.
“That’s what you call him, is it—Duke?”
“Aye.” He fondled the ears and the dog turned, whipped his strange long tail about and licked the hand quickly. Wes smiled and looked up at me and for a moment the tough mask dropped from the grubby features and in the dark wild eyes I read sheer delight. I swore under my breath. This made it worse.
I tipped some boracic crystals into a box and handed it over. “Use this dissolved in water to keep his eyes and nose clean. See how his nostrils are all caked and blocked up—you can make him a lot more comfortable.”
He took the box without speaking and almost with the same movement dropped three and sixpence on the table. It was about our average charge and resolved my doubts on that score.
“When’ll ah bring ’im back?” he asked.
I looked at him doubtfully for a moment. All I could do was repeat the injections, but was it going to make the slightest difference?
The boy misread my hesitation.
“Ah can pay!” he burst out “Ah can get t’money!”
“Oh I didn’t mean that Wes. I was just wondering when it would be suitable. How about bringing him in on Thursday?”
He nodded eagerly and left with his dog.
As I swabbed the table with disinfectant I had the old feeling of helplessness. The modern veterinary surgeon does not see nearly as many cases of distemper as we used to, simply because most people immunise their puppies at the earliest possible moment. But back in the thirties it was only the few fortunate dogs who were inoculated. The disease is so easy to prevent but almost impossible to cure.
The next three weeks saw an incredible change in Wesley Binks’s character. He had built up a reputation as an idle scamp but now he was transformed into a model of industry, delivering papers in the mornings, digging people’s gardens, helping to drive the beasts at the auction mart. I was perhaps the only one who knew he was doing it for Duke.
He brought the dog in every two or three days and paid on the nail. I naturally charged him as little as possible but the money he earned went on other things—fresh meat from the butcher, extra milk and biscuits.
“Duke’s looking very smart today,” I said on one of the visits. “I see you’ve been getting him a new collar and lead.”
The boy nodded shyly then looked up at me, dark eyes intent “Is ’e any better?”
“Well, he’s about the same, Wes. That’s how it goes—dragging on without much change.”
“When … will ye know?”
I thought for a moment. Maybe he would worry less if he understood the situation. “The thing is this. Duke will get better if he can avoid the nervous complications of distemper.”
“Wot’s them?”
“Fits, paralysis and a thing called chorea which makes the muscles twitch.”
“Wot if he gets them?”
“It’s a bad lookout in that case. But not all dogs develop them.” I tried to smile reassuringly. “And there’s one thing in Duke’s favour—he’s not a pure bred. Cross bred dogs have a thing called hybrid vigour which helps them to fight disease. After all, he’s eating fairly well and he’s quite lively, isn’t he?”
“Aye, not bad.”
“Well then, we’ll carry on. I’ll give him another shot now.”
The boy was back in three days and I knew by his face he had momentous news.
“Duke’s a lot better—’is eyes and nose ’ave dried up and he’s eatin’ like a ’oss!” He was panting with excitement.
I lifted the dog on to the table. There was no doubt he was enormously improved and I did my best to join in the rejoicing.
“That’s great, Wes,” I said, but a warning bell was tinkling in my mind. If nervous symptoms were going to supervene, this was the time—just when the dog was apparently recovering.
I forced myself to be optimistic. “Well now, there’s no need to come back any more but watch him carefully and if you see anything unusual bring him in.”
The ragged little figure was overjoyed. He almost pranced along the passage with his pet and I hoped fervently that I would not see them in there again.
That was on the Friday evening and by Monday I had put the whole thing out of my head and into the category of satisfying memories when the boy came in with Duke on the lead.
I looked up from the desk where I was writing in the day book. “What is it, Wes?”
“He’s dotherin’.”
I didn’t bother going through to the consulting room but hastened from behind the desk and crouched on the floor, studying the dog intently. At first I saw nothing, then as I watched I could just discern a faint nodding of the head. I placed my hand on the top of the skull and waited. And it was there; the slight but regular twitching of the temporal muscles which I had dreaded.
“I’m afraid he’s got chorea, Wes,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s one of the things I was telling you about. Sometimes they call it St. Vitus’ Dance. I was hoping it wouldn’t happen.”
The boy looked suddenly small and forlorn and he stood there silent, twisting the new leather lead between his fingers. It was such an effort for him to speak that he almost closed his eyes.
“Will ’e die?”
“Some dogs do get over it, Wes.” I didn’t tell him that I had seen it happen only once. “I’ve got some tablets which might help him. I’ll get you some.”
I gave him a few of the arsenical tablets I had used in my only cure. I didn’t even know if they had been responsible but I had nothing more to offer.
Duke’s chorea pu
rsued a text book course over the next two weeks. All the things which I had feared turned up in a relentless progression. The twitching spread from his head to his limbs, then his hindquarters began to sway as he walked.
His young master brought him in repeatedly and I went through the motions, trying at the same time to make it clear that it was all hopeless. The boy persisted doggedly, rushing about meanwhile with his paper deliveries and other jobs, insisting on paying though I didn’t want his money. Then one afternoon he called in.
“Ah couldn’t bring Duke,” he muttered. “Can’t walk now. Will you come and see ’im?”
We got into my car. It was a Sunday, about three o’clock and the streets were quiet. He led me up the cobbled yard and opened the door of one of the houses.
The stink of the place hit me as I went in. Country vets aren’t easily sickened but I felt my stomach turning. Mrs. Binks was very fat and a filthy dress hung shapelessly on her as she slumped, cigarette in mouth, over the kitchen table. She was absorbed in a magazine which lay in a clearing among mounds of dirty dishes and her curlers nodded as she looked up briefly at us.
On a couch under the window her husband sprawled asleep, open-mouthed, snoring out the reek of beer. The sink, which held a further supply of greasy dishes, was covered in a revolting green scum. Clothes, newspapers and nameless rubbish littered the floor and over everything a radio blasted away at full strength.
The only clean new thing was the dog basket in the corner. I went across and bent over the little animal. Duke was now prostrate and helpless, his body emaciated and jerking uncontrollably. The sunken eyes had filled up again with pus and gazed apathetically ahead.
“Wes,” I said. “You’ve got to let me put him to sleep.”
He didn’t answer, and as I tried to explain, the blaring radio drowned my words. I looked over at his mother.
“Do you mind turning the radio down?” I asked.
She jerked her head at the boy and he went over and turned the knob. In the ensuing silence I spoke to him again.
“It’s the only thing, believe me. You can’t let him die by inches like this.”
He didn’t look at me. All his attention was fixed desperately on his dog. Then he raised a hand and I heard his whisper.
“Awright.”
I hurried out to the car for the Nembutal.
“I promise you he’ll feel no pain,” I said as I filled the syringe. And indeed the little creature merely sighed before lying motionless, the fateful twitching stilled at last.
I put the syringe in my pocket. “Do you want me to take him away, Wes?”
He looked at me bewilderedly and his mother broke in.
“Aye, get ’im out. Ah never wanted t’bloody thing ’ere in t’first place.” She resumed her reading.
I quickly lifted the little body and went out. Wes followed me and watched as I opened the boot and laid Duke gently on top of my black working coat.
As I closed the lid he screwed his knuckles into his eyes and his body shook. I put my arm across his shoulders, and as he leaned against me for a moment and sobbed. I wondered if he had ever been able to cry like this—like a little boy with somebody to comfort him.
But soon he stood back and smeared the tears across the dirt on his cheeks.
“Are you going back into the house, Wes?” I asked.
He blinked and looked at me with a return of his tough expression.
“Naw!” he said and turned and walked away. He didn’t look back and I watched him cross the road, climb a wall and trail away across the fields towards the river.
And it has always seemed to me that at that moment Wes walked back into his old life. From then on there were no more odd jobs or useful activities. He never played any more tricks on me but in other ways he progressed into more serious misdemeanours. He set barns on fire, was up before the magistrates for theft and by the time he was thirteen he was stealing cars.
Finally he was sent to an approved school and then he disappeared from the district. Nobody knew where he went and most people forgot him. One person who didn’t was the police sergeant.
“That young Wesley Binks,” he said to me ruminatively. “He was a wrong ’un if ever I saw one. You know, I don’t think he ever cared a damn for anybody or any living thing in his life.”
“I know how you feel, sergeant,” I replied, “but you’re not entirely right. There was one living thing …”
CHAPTER6
TRISTAN WOULD NEVER HAVE won any prizes as an exponent of the haute cuisine.
We got better food in the RAF than most people in wartime Britain but it didn’t compare with the Darrowby fare. I suppose I had been spoiled; first by Mrs. Hall, then by Helen. There were only brief occasions at Skeldale House when we did not eat like kings and one of those was when Tristan was installed as temporary cook.
It began one morning at breakfast in the days when I was still a bachelor and Tristan and I were taking our places at the mahogany dining table. Siegfried bustled in, muttered a greeting and began to pour his coffee. He was unusually distrait as he buttered a slice of toast and cut into one of the rashers on his plate, then after a minute’s thoughtful chewing he brought down his hand on the table with a suddenness that made me jump.
“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed.
“Got what?” I enquired.
Siegfried put down his knife and fork and wagged a ringer at me. “Silly, really, I’ve been sitting here puzzling about what to do and it’s suddenly clear.”
“Why, what’s the trouble?”
“It’s Mrs. Hall,” he said. “She’s just told me her sister has been taken ill and she has to go and look after her. She thinks she’ll be away for a week and I’ve been wondering who I could get to look after the house.”
“I see.”
“Then it struck me.” He sliced a corner from a fried egg. “Tristan can do it”
“Eh?” His brother looked up, startled, from his Daily Mirror. “Me?”
“Yes, you! You spend a lot of time on your arse. A bit of useful activity would be good for you.”
Tristan looked at him warily. “What do you mean—useful activity?”
“Well, keeping the place straight,” Siegfried said. “I wouldn’t expect perfection but you could tidy up each day, and of course prepare the meals.”
“Meals?”
“That’s right” Siegfried gave him a level stare. “You can cook, can’t you?”
“Well, er, yes … I can cook sausage and mash.”
Siegfried waved an expansive hand. “There you are, you see, no problem. Push over those fried tomatoes, will you, James?”
I passed the dish silently. I had only half heard the conversation because part of my mind was far away. Just before breakfast I had had a phone call from Ken Billings, one of our best farmers, and his words were still echoing in my head.
“Mr. Herriot, that calf you saw yesterday is dead. That’s the third ’un I’ve lost in a week and I’m flummoxed. I want ye out here this mornin’ to have another look round.”
I sipped my coffee absently. He wasn’t the only one who was flummoxed. Three fine calves had shown symptoms of acute gastric pain, I had treated them and they had died. That was bad enough but what made it worse was that I hadn’t the faintest idea what was wrong with them.
I wiped my lips and got up quickly. “Siegfried, I’d like to go to Billings’ first Then I’ve got the rest of the round you gave me.”
“Fine, James, by all means.” My boss gave me a sweet and encouraging smile, balanced a mushroom on a piece of fried bread and conveyed it to his mouth. He wasn’t a big eater but he did love his breakfast.
On the way to the farm my mind beat about helplessly. What more could I do than I had already done? In these obscure cases one was driven to the conclusion that the animal had eaten something harmful. At times I had spent hours roaming around pastures looking for poisonous plants but that was pointless with Billings’s calves because they had never
been out; they were mere babies of a month old.
I had carried out post mortem examinations of the dead animals but had found only a non-specific gastroenteritis. I had sent kidneys to the laboratory for lead estimation with negative result; like their owner, I was flummoxed.
Mr. Billings was waiting for me in his yard.
“Good job I rang you!” he said breathlessly. “There’s another ’un startin’.”
I rushed with him into the buildings and found what I expected and dreaded; a small calf kicking at its stomach, getting up and down, occasionally rolling on its straw bed. Typical abdominal pain. But why?
I went over it as with the others. Temperature normal, lungs clear, only rumenal atony and extreme tenderness as I palpated the abdomen.
As I was putting the thermometer back in its case the calf suddenly toppled over and went into a frothing convulsion. Hastily I injected sedatives, calcium, magnesium, but with a feeling of doom. I had done it all before.
“What the hell is it?” the farmer asked, voicing my thoughts.
I shrugged. “It’s acute gastritis, Mr. Billings, but I wish I knew the cause. I could swear this calf has eaten some irritant or corrosive poison.”
“Well, dang it, they’ve nobbut had milk and a few nuts.” The farmer spread his hands. “There’s nothing they can get to hurt them.”
Again, wearily, I went through the old routine; ferreting around in the calf pen, trying to find some clue. An old paint tin, a burst packet of sheep dip. It was amazing, the things you came across in the clutter of a farm building.
But not at Mr. Billings’s place. He was meticulously tidy, particularly with his calves, and the window sills and shelves were free from rubbish. It was the same with the milk buckets, scoured to spotless cleanliness after every feed.
Mr. Billings had a thing about his calves. His two teenage sons were fanatically keen on farming and he encouraged them in all the agricultural skills; but he fed the calves himself.
“Feeding them calves is t’most important job in stock rearing,” he used to say. “Get ’em over that first month and you’re halfway there.’’
And he knew what he was talking about His charges never suffered from the normal ailments of the young; no scour, no joint ill, no pneumonia. I had often marvelled at it, but it made the present disaster all the more unbearable.
James Herriot Page 6