James Herriot

by All Things Wise;Wonderful

  “For God’s sake, have a care, Mr. Herriot!” he gasped at last.

  I looked up from my work. “What’s wrong, Rory?”

  “Watch what you’re doin’ with that bloody knife! You’re whippin’ it round between me legs like a bloody Red Indian. You’ll do me a mischief afore you’ve finished!”

  “Aye, be careful, Mr. Herriot,” the young farmer cried. “Don’t geld Rory instead of the pig. His missus ud never forgive ye.” He burst into a loud peal of laughter, the Irishman grinned sheepishly and I giggled.

  That was my undoing because the momentary inattention sent the blade slicing across my left forefinger. The razor-sharp edge went deep and in an instant the entire neighborhood seemed flooded with my blood. I thought I would never stanch the flow. The red ooze continued, despite a long session of self-doctoring from the car boot, and when I finally drove away my finger was swathed in the biggest, clumsiest dressing I had ever seen. I had finally been forced to apply a large pad of cotton wool held in place with an enormous length of three-inch bandage.

  It was dark when I left the farm. About five o’clock on a late December day, the light gone early and the stars beginning to show in a frosty sky. I drove slowly, the enormous finger jutting upwards from the wheel, pointing the way between the headlights like a guiding beacon. I was within half a mile of Darrowby with the lights of the little town beginning to wink between the bare roadside branches when a car approached, went past, then I heard a squeal of brakes as it stopped and began to double back.

  It passed me again, drew into the side and I saw a frantically waving arm. I pulled up and a young man jumped from the driving seat and ran towards me.

  He pushed his head in at the window. “Are you the vet?” His voice was breathless, panic-stricken.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Oh thank God! We’re passing through on the way to Manchester and we’ve been to your surgery … they said you were out this way … described your car. Please help us!”

  “What’s the trouble?”

  “It’s our dog … in the back of the car. He’s got a ball stuck in his throat. I … I think he might be dead.”

  I was out of my seat and running along the road before he had finished. It was a big white saloon and in the darkness of the back seat a wailing chorus issued from several little heads silhouetted against the glass.

  I tore open the door and the wailing took on words.

  “Oh Benny, Benny, Benny …!”

  I dimly discerned a large dog spread over the knees of four small children. “Oh Daddy, he’s dead, he’s dead!”

  “Let’s have him out,” I gasped, and as the young man pulled on the forelegs I supported the body, which slid and toppled on to the tarmac with a horrible limpness.

  I pawed at the hairy form. “I can’t see a bloody thing! Help me pull him round.”

  We dragged the unresisting bulk into the headlights’ glare and I could see it all. A huge, beautiful collie in his luxuriant prime, mouth gaping, tongue lolling, eyes staring lifelessly at nothing. He wasn’t breathing.

  The young father took one look then gripped his head with both hands. “Oh God, oh God …” From within the car I heard the quiet sobbing of his wife and the piercing cries from the back. “Benny … Benny …”

  I grabbed the man’s shoulder and shouted at him. “What did you say about a ball?”

  “It’s in his throat … I’ve had my fingers in his mouth for ages but I couldn’t move it.” The words came mumbling up from beneath the bent head.

  I pushed my hand into the mouth and I could feel it all right. A sphere of hard solid rubber not much bigger than a golf ball and jammed like a cork in the pharynx, effectively blocking the trachea. I scrabbled feverishly at the wet smoothness but there was nothing to get hold of. It took me about three seconds to realise that no human agency would ever get the ball out that way and without thinking I withdrew my hands, braced both thumbs behind the angle of the lower jaw and pushed.

  The ball shot forth, bounced on the frosty road and rolled sadly on to the grass verge. I touched the corneal surface of the eye. No reflex. I slumped to my knees, burdened by the hopeless regret that I hadn’t had the chance to do this just a bit sooner. The only function I could perform now was to take the body back to Skeldale House for disposal. I couldn’t allow the family to drive to Manchester with a dead dog. But I wished fervently that I had been able to do more, and as I passed my hand along the richly coloured coat over the ribs the vast bandaged finger stood out like a symbol of my helplessness.

  It was when I was gazing dully at the finger, the heel of my hand resting in an intercostal space, that I felt the faintest flutter from below.

  I jerked upright with a hoarse cry. “His heart’s still beating! He’s not gone yet!” I began to work on the dog with all I had. And out there in the darkness of that lonely country road it wasn’t much. No stimulant injections, no oxygen cylinders or intratracheal tubes. But I depressed his chest with my palms every three seconds in the old-fashioned way, willing the dog to breathe as the eyes still stared at nothing. Every now and then I blew desperately down the throat or probed between the ribs for that almost imperceptible beat.

  I don’t know which I noticed first, the slight twitch of an eyelid or the small lift of the ribs which pulled the icy Yorkshire air into his lungs. Maybe they both happened at once but from that moment everything was dreamlike and wonderful. I lost count of time as I sat there while the breathing became deep and regular and the animal began to be aware of his surroundings; and by the time he started to look around him and twitch his tail tentatively I realised suddenly that I was stiff-jointed and almost frozen to the spot.

  With some difficulty I got up and watched in disbelief as the collie staggered to his feet. The young father ushered him round to the back where he was received with screams of delight.

  The man seemed stunned. Throughout the recovery he had kept muttering, “You just flicked that ball out … just flicked it out Why didn’t I think of that …?” And when he turned to me before leaving he appeared to be still in a state of shock.

  “I don’t … I don’t know how to thank you,” he said huskily. “It’s a miracle.” He leaned against the car for a second. “And now what is your fee? How much do I owe you?”

  I rubbed my chin. I had used no drugs. The only expenditure had been time.

  “Five bob,” I said. “And never let him play with such a little ball again.”

  He handed the money over, shook my hand and drove away. His wife, who had never left her place, waved as she left, but my greatest reward was in the last shadowy glimpse of the back seat where little arms twined around the dog, hugging him ecstatically, and in the cries, thankful and joyous, fading into the night.

  “Benny … Benny … Benny …”

  Vets often wonder after a patient’s recovery just how much credit they might take. Maybe it would have got better without treatment—it happened sometimes; it was difficult to be sure.

  But when you know without a shadow of a doubt that even without doing anything clever, you have pulled an animal back from the brink of death into the living, breathing world, it is a satisfaction which lingers, flowing like balm over the discomforts and frustrations of veterinary practice, making everything right.

  Yet, in the case of Benny the whole thing had an unreal quality. I never even glimpsed the faces of those happy children nor that of their mother huddled in the front seat. I had a vague impression of their father but he had spent most of the time with his head in his hands. I wouldn’t have known him if I met him in the street. Even the dog, in the unnatural glare of the headlights, was a blurred memory.

  It seemed the family had the same feeling because a week later I had a pleasant letter from the mother. She apologised for skulking out of the way so shamelessly, she thanked me for saving the life of their beloved dog who was now prancing around with the children as though nothing had happened, and she finished with the regret that she hadn
’t even asked me my name.

  Yes, it had been a strange episode, and not only were those people unaware of my name but I’d like to bet they would fail to recognise me if they saw me again.

  In fact, looking back at the affair, the only thing which stood out unequivocal and substantial was my great white-bound digit which had hovered constantly over the scene, almost taking on a personality and significance of its own. I am sure that is what the family remembered best about me because of the way the mother’s letter began.

  “Dear Vet with the bandaged finger …”

  CHAPTER 8

  MY STINT IN LONDON was nearing its end. Our breaking-in weeks were nearly over and we waited for news of posting to Initial Training Wing.

  The air was thick with rumours. We were going to Aberystwyth in Wales; too far away for me, I wanted the north. Then we were going to Newquay in Cornwall; worse still. I was aware that the impending birth of AC2 Herriot’s child did not influence the general war strategy but I still wanted to be as near to Helen as possible at the time.

  The whole London phase is blurred in my memory. Possibly because everything was so new and different that the impressions could not be fully absorbed, and also perhaps because I was tired most of the time. I think we were all tired. Few of us were used to being jerked from slumber at 6 a.m. every morning and spending the day in continual physical activity. If we weren’t being drilled we were being marched to meals, to classes, to talks. I had lived in a motor car for a few years and the rediscovery of my legs was painful.

  There were times, too, when I wondered what it was all about. Like all the other young men I had imagined that after a few brisk preliminaries I would be sitting in an aeroplane, learning to fly, but it turned out that this was so far in the future that it was hardly mentioned. At the ITW we would spend months learning navigation, principles of flight, morse and many other things.

  I was thankful for one blessing. I had passed the mathematics exam. I have always counted on my fingers and still do and I had been so nervous about this that I went to classes with the ATC in Darrowby before my call-up, dredging from my schooldays horrific calculations about trains passing each other at different speeds and water running in and out of bath tubs. But I had managed to scrape through and felt ready to face anything.

  There were some unexpected shocks in London. I didn’t anticipate spending days mucking out some of the dirtiest piggeries I had ever seen. Somebody must have had the idea of converting all the RAF waste food into pork and bacon and of course there was plenty of labour at hand. I had a strong feeling of unreality as, with other aspiring pilots, I threw muck and swill around hour after hour.

  My disenchantment was happily blotted from my mind the day we received news of the posting. It seemed too good to be true—I was going to Scarborough. I had been there and I knew it was a beautiful seaside resort, but that wasn’t why I was so delighted. It was because it was in Yorkshire.

  As we marched out of the station into the streets of Scarborough I could hardly believe I was back in my home county. But if there had been any doubt in my mind it would have been immediately resolved by my first breath of the crisp, tangy air. Even in winter there had been no “feel” to the soft London air and I half closed my eyes as I followed the tingle all the way down to my lungs.

  Mind you, it was cold. Yorkshire is a cold place and I could remember the sensation almost of shock at the start of my first winter in Darrowby.

  It was after the first snow and I followed the clanging ploughs up the Dale, bumping along between high white mounds till I reached old Mr. Stokill’s gate. With my fingers on the handle I looked through the glass at the new world beneath me. The white blanket rolled down the hillside and lapped over the roofs of the dwelling and out-buildings of the little farm. Beyond, it smoothed out and concealed the familiar features, the stone walls bordering the fields, the stream on the valley floor, turning the whole scene into something unknown and exciting.

  But the thrill I felt at the strange beauty was swept away as I got out and the wind struck me. It was an Arctic blast screaming from the east, picking up extra degrees of cold as it drove over the frozen white surface. I was wearing a heavy overcoat and woollen gloves but the gust whipped its way right into my bones. I gasped and leaned my back against the car while I buttoned the coat up under my chin, then I struggled forward to where the gate shook and rattled. I fought it open and my feet crunched as I went through.

  Coming round the corner of the byre I found Mr. Stokill forking muck on to a heap, making a churned brown trail across the whiteness.

  “Now then,” he muttered along the side of a half-smoked cigarette. He was over seventy but still ran the small holding single-handed. He told me once that he had worked as a farm hand for six shillings a day for thirty years, yet still managed to save enough to buy his own little place. Maybe that was why he didn’t want to share it.

  “How are you, Mr. Stokill?” I said, but just then the wind tore through the yard, clutching icily at my face, snatching my breath away so that I turned involuntarily to one side with an explosive “Aaahh!”

  The old farmer looked at me in surprise, then glanced around as though he had just noticed the weather.

  “Aye, blows a bit thin this mornin’, lad.” Sparks flew from the end of his cigarette as he leaned for a moment on the fork.

  He didn’t seem to have much protection against the cold. A light khaki smock fluttered over a ragged navy waistcoat, clearly once part of his best suit, and his shirt bore neither collar nor stud. The white stubble on his fleshless jaw was a reproach to my twenty-four years and suddenly I felt an inadequate city-bred softie.

  The old man dug his fork into the manure pile and turned towards the buildings. “Ah’ve got a nice few cases for ye to see today. Fust ’un’s in ’ere.” He opened a door and I staggered gratefully into a sweet bovine warmth where a few shaggy little bullocks stood hock deep in straw.

  “That’s the youth we want.” He pointed to a dark roan standing with one hind foot knuckled over. “He’s been on three legs for a couple o’ days. Ah reckon he’s got foul.”

  I walked up to the little animal but he took off at a speed which made light of his infirmity.

  “Well have to run him into the passage, Mr. Stokill,” I said. “Just open the gate, will you?”

  With the rough timbers pushed wide I got behind the bullock and sent him on to the opening. It seemed as though he was going straight through but at the entrance he stopped, peeped into the passage and broke away. I galloped a few times round the yard after him, then had another go. The result was the same. After half a dozen tries I wasn’t cold any more. I’ll back chasing young cattle against anything else for working up a sweat, and I had already forgotten the uncharitable world outside. And I could see I was going to get warmer still because the bullock was beginning to enjoy the game, kicking up his heels and frisking around after each attempt.

  I put my hands on my hips, waited till I got my breath back then turned to the farmer.

  “This is hopeless. He’ll never go in there,” I said. “We’d maybe better try to get a rope on him.”

  “Nay, lad, there’s no need for that. We’ll get him through t’gate right enough.” The old man ambled to one end of the yard and returned with an armful of clean straw. He sprinkled it freely in the gate opening and beyond in the passage, then turned to me. “Now send ’im on.”

  I poked a finger into the animal’s rump and he trotted forward, proceeded unhesitatingly between the posts and into the passage.

  Mr. Stokill must have noticed my look of bewilderment

  “Aye, ’e just didn’t like t’look of them cobbles. Once they was covered over he was awright.”

  “Yes … yes … I see.” I followed the bullock slowly through.

  He was indeed suffering from foul of the foot, the mediaeval term given because of the stink of the necrotic tissue between the cleats, and I didn’t have any antibiotics or sulphonamides to trea
t it. It is so nice and easy these days to give an injection, knowing that the beast will be sound in a day or two. But all I could do was wrestle with the lunging hind foot, dressing the infected cleft with a crude mixture of copper sulphate and Stockholm tar and finishing with a pad of cotton wool held by a tight bandage. When I had finished I took off my coat and hung it on a nail. I didn’t need it any more.

  Mr. Stokill looked approvingly at the finished job. “Capital, capital,” he murmured. “Now there’s some little pigs in this pen got a bit o’ scour. I want you give ’em a jab wi’ your needle.”

  We had various E coli vaccines which sometimes did a bit of good in these cases and I entered the pen hopefully. But I left in a hurry because the piglets’ mother didn’t approve of a stranger wandering among her brood and she came at me open-mouthed, barking explosively. She looked as big as a donkey and when the cavernous jaws with the great yellowed teeth brushed my thigh I knew it was time to go. I hopped rapidly into the yard and crashed the door behind me.

  I peered back ruminatively into the pen. “We’ll have to get her out of there before I can do anything, Mr. Stokill.”

  “Aye, you’re right, young man, ah’ll shift ’er.” He began to shuffle away.

  I held up a hand. “No, it’s all right, I‘ll do it.” I couldn’t let this frail old man go in there and maybe get knocked down and savaged, and I looked around for a means of protection. There was a battered shovel standing against a wall and I seized it.

  “Open the door, please,” I said. ‘I’ll soon have her out.”

  Once more inside the pen I held the shovel in front of me and tried to usher the huge sow towards the door. But my efforts at poking her rear end were fruitless; she faced me all the time, wide-mouthed and growling as I circled. When she got the blade of the shovel between her teeth and began to worry it I called a halt.