James Herriot

by All Things Wise;Wonderful

  “Marvellous.”

  She cooked me egg and chips and sat by me while I ate. We carried on a rather halting conversation and it came to me with a bump that my mind had been forced on to different tracks since I had left her. In those few months my brain had become saturated with the things of my new life—even my mouth was full of RAF slang and jargon. In our bed-sitter we used to talk about my cases, the funny things that happened on my rounds, but now, I thought helplessly, there wasn’t much point in telling her that AC2 Phillips was on jankers again, that vector triangles were the very devil, that Don McGregor thought he had discovered the secret of Sergeant Hynd’s phenomenally shiny boots.

  But it really didn’t matter. My worries melted as I looked at her. I had been wondering if she was well and there she was, bouncing with energy, shining-eyed, rosy-cheeked and beautiful. There was only one jarring note and it was a strange one. Helen was wearing a “maternity dress” which expanded with the passage of time by means of an opening down one side. Anyway, I hated it. It was blue with a high red collar and I thought it cheap-looking and ugly. I was aware that austerity had taken over in England and that a lot of things were shoddy, but I desperately wished my wife had something better to wear. In all my life there have been very few occasions when I badly wanted more money and that was one of them, because on my wage of three shillings a day as an AC2 I was unable to drape her with expensive clothes.

  The hour winged past and it seemed no time at all before I was back on the top road waiting in the gathering darkness for the Scarborough bus. The journey back was a bit dreary as the black-out vehicle bumped and rattled its way through the darkened villages and over the long stretches of anonymous countryside. It was cold, too, but I sat there, happily with the memory of Helen wrapped around me like a warm quilt.

  The whole day had been a triumph. I had got away by a lucky stroke and there would be no problem getting back into the Grand because one of my pals would be on sentry duty and it would be a case of “pass friend.” Closing my eyes in the gloom I could still feel Helen in my arms and I smiled to myself at the memory of her bounding healthiness. What a tremendous relief to see her looking so wonderful, and though the simple repast of egg and chips had seemed like a banquet I realised that my greatest nourishment had been feasting my eyes on Helen. That dress still niggled at me as it has, for some reason, right down the years, but compared with the other elements of that magic hour it was a little thing.

  CHAPTER 11

  “HEY YOU! WHERE THE ’ell d’you think you’re goin’?”

  Coming from the RAF Special Police it was a typical mode of address and the man who barked it out wore the usual truculent expression.

  “Extra navigation class, corporal,” I replied.

  “Lemme see your pass!”

  He snatched it from my hand, read it and returned it without looking at me. I slunk out into the street feeling like a prisoner on parole.

  Not all the SPs were like that but I found most of them lacking in charm. And it brought home to me with a rush something which had been slowly dawning on me ever since I joined the Air Force; that I had been spoiled for quite a long time now. Spoiled by the fact that I had always been treated with respect because I was a veterinary surgeon, a member of an honourable profession. And I had taken it entirely for granted.

  Now I was an AC2, the lowest form of life in the RAF, and the “Hey you!” was a reflection of my status. The Yorkshire farmers don’t rush out and kiss you, but their careful friendliness and politeness is something which I have valued even more since my service days. Because that was when I stopped taking it for granted.

  Mind you, you have to put up with a certain amount of cheek in most jobs, and veterinary practice is no exception. Even now I can recall the glowering face of Ralph Beamish, the racehorse trainer, as he watched me getting out of my car.

  “Where’s Mr. Farnon?” he grunted.

  My toes curled. I had heard that often enough, especially among the horse fraternity around Darrowby.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Beamish, but he’ll be away all day and I thought I’d better come along rather than leave it till tomorrow.”

  He made no attempt to hide his disgust. He blew out his fat, purpled cheeks, dug his hands deep in his breeches pockets and looked at the sky with a martyred air.

  “Well come on, then.” He turned and stumped away on his short, thick legs towards one of the boxes which bordered the yard. I sighed inwardly as I followed him. Being an unhorsey vet in Yorkshire was a penance at times, especially in a racing stable like this which was an equine shrine. Siegfried, apart altogether from his intuitive skill, was able to talk the horse language. He could discuss effortlessly and at length the breeding and points of his patients; he rode, he hunted, he even looked the part with his long aristocratic face, clipped moustache and lean frame.

  The trainers loved him and some, like Beamish, took it as a mortal insult when he failed to come in person to minister to their valuable charges.

  He called to one of the lads who opened a box door.

  “He’s in there,” he muttered. “Came in lame from exercise this morning.”

  The lad led out a bay gelding and there was no need to trot the animal to diagnose the affected leg; he nodded down on his near fore in an unmistakable way.

  “I think he’s lame in the shoulder,” Beamish said.

  I went round the other side of the horse and picked up the off fore. I cleaned out the frog and sole with a hoof knife; there was no sign of bruising and no sensitivity when I tapped the handle of the knife against the horn.

  I felt my way up over the coronet to the fetlock and after some palpation I located a spot near the distal end of the metacarpus which was painful on pressure.

  I looked up from my crouching position. “This seems to be the trouble, Mr. Beamish, I think he must have struck into himself with his hind foot just there.”

  “Where?” The trainer leaned over me and peered down at the leg. “I can’t see anything.”

  “No, the skin isn’t broken, but he flinches if you press here.”

  Beamish prodded the place with a stubby forefinger.

  “Well, he does,” he grunted. “But he’d flinch anywhere if you squeeze him like you’re doing.”

  My hackles began to rise at his tone but I kept my voice calm. “I’m sure that’s what it is. I should apply a hot antiphlogistine poultice just above the fetlock and alternate with a cold hose on it twice a day.”

  “Well, I’m just as sure you’re wrong. It’s not down there at all. The way that horse carries his leg he’s hurt his shoulder.” He gestured to the lad. “Harry, see that he gets some heat on that shoulder right away.”

  If the man had struck me I couldn’t have felt worse. I opened my mouth to argue but he was walking away.

  “There’s another horse I want you to look at,” he said. He led the way into a nearby box and pointed to a big brown animal with obvious signs of blistering on the tendons of a fore limb.

  “Mr. Farnon put a red blister on that leg six months ago. He’s been resting in here ever since. He’s going sound now—d’you think he’s ready to go out?”

  I went over and ran my fingers over the length of the flexor tendons, feeling for signs of thickening. There was none. Then I lifted the foot and as I explored further I found a tender area in the superficial flexor.

  I straightened up. “He’s still a bit sore,” I said. “I think it would be safer to keep him in for a bit longer.”

  “Can’t agree with you,” Beamish snapped. He turned to the lad. “Turn him out, Harry.”

  I stared at him. Was this a deliberate campaign to make me feel small? Was he trying to rub in the fact that he didn’t think much of me? Anyway, he was beginning to get under my skin and I hoped my burning face wasn’t too obvious.

  “One thing more,” Beamish said. “There’s a horse through here been coughing. Have a look at him before you go.”

  We went through a narrow pa
ssage into a smaller yard and Harry entered a box and got hold of a horse’s head collar. I followed him, fishing out my thermometer.

  As I approached the animal’s rear end he laid back his ears, whickered and began to caper around. I hesitated, then nodded to the lad.

  “Lift his fore leg while I take his temperature, will you?” I said.

  The lad bent down and seized the foot but Beamish broke in. “Don’t bother, Harry, there’s no need for that. He’s quiet as a sheep.”

  I paused for a moment. I felt I was right but my stock was low on this establishment I shrugged, lifted the tail and pushed the thermometer into the rectum.

  The two hind feet hit me almost simultaneously but as I sailed backwards through the door I remember thinking quite clearly that the one on the chest had made contact fractionally before the one on the abdomen. But my thoughts were rapidly clouded by the fact that the lower hoof had landed full on my solar plexus.

  Stretched on the concrete of the yard I gasped and groaned in a frantic search for breath. There was a moment when I was convinced I was going to die but at last a long wailing respiration came to my aid and I struggled painfully into a sitting position. Through the open door I could see Harry hanging on to the horse’s head and staring at me with frightened eyes. Mr. Beamish, on the other hand, showed no interest in my plight; he was anxiously examining the horse’s hind feet one after the other. Obviously he was worried lest they may have sustained some damage by coming into contact with my nasty hard ribs.

  Slowly I got up and drew some long breaths. I was shaken but not really hurt. And I suppose it was instinct that had made me hang on to my thermometer; the delicate tube was still in my hand.

  My only emotion as I went back into the box was cold rage.

  “Lift that bloody foot like I told you!” I shouted at the unfortunate Harry.

  “Right, sir! Sorry, sir!” He bent, lifted the foot and held it cupped firmly in his hands.

  I turned to Beamish to see if he had any observation to make, but the trainer was silent, gazing at the big animal expressionlessly.

  This time I took the temperature without incident. It was 101°F. I moved to the head and opened the nostril with finger and thumb, revealing a slight muco-purulent discharge. Submaxillary and postpharyngeal glands were normal.

  “He’s got a bit of cold,” I said. “I’ll give him an injection and leave you some sulphonamide—that’s what Mr. Farnon uses in these cases.” If my final sentence reassured him in any way he gave no sign, watching dead-faced as I injected 10 cc of Prontosil.

  Before I left I took a half-pound packet of sulphonamide from the car boot. “Give him three ounces of this immediately in a pint of water, then follow it with one and a half ounces night and morning and let us know if he isn’t a lot better in two days.”

  Mr. Beamish received the medicine unsmilingly and as I opened the car door I felt a gush of relief that the uncomfortable visit was at an end. It seemed to have lasted a long time and there had been no glory for me in it. I was starting the engine when one of the little apprentices panted up to the trainer.

  “It’s Almira, sir. I think she’s chokin’!”

  “Choking!” Beamish stared at the boy then whipped round to me. “Almira’s the best filly I have. You’d better come!”

  It wasn’t over yet, then. With a feeling of doom I hurried after the squat figure back into the yard where another lad stood by the side of a beautiful chestnut filly. And as I saw her a cold hand closed around my heart. I had been dealing with trivia but this was different.

  She stood immobile, staring ahead with a peculiar intensity. The rise and fall of her ribs was accompanied by a rasping, bubbling wheeze and at each intake her nostrils flared wildly. I had never seen a horse breathe like this. And there were other things; saliva drooled from her lips and every few seconds she gave a retching cough.

  I turned to the apprentice. “When did this start?”

  “Not long ago, sir. I saw her an hour since and she were as right as a bobbin.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Aye, I was givin’ ’er some hay. There was nowt ailin’ her then.”

  “What the devil’s wrong with her?” Beamish exclaimed.

  Well, it was a good question and I didn’t have a clue to the answer. As I walked bemusedly round the animal, taking in the trembling limbs and terrified eyes, a jumble of thoughts crowded my brain. I had seen “choking” horses—the dry choke when the gullet becomes impacted with food—but they didn’t look like this. I felt my way along the course of the oesophagus and it was perfectly clear. And anyway the respiration was quite different. This filly looked as though she had some obstruction in her airflow. But what …? And how …? Could there be a foreign body in there? Just possible, but that was something else I had never seen.

  “Well, damn it, I’m asking you! What is it? What d’you make of her?” Mr. Beamish was becoming impatient and I couldn’t blame him.

  I was aware that I was slightly breathless. “Just a moment while I listen to her lungs.”

  “Just a moment!” the trainer burst out. “Good God, man, we haven’t got many moments! This horse could die!”

  He didn’t have to tell me. I had seen that ominous trembling of the limbs before and now the filly was beginning to sway a little. Time was running out.

  Dry mouthed, I ausculated the chest. I knew there was nothing wrong with her lungs—the trouble seemed to be in the throat area—but it gave me a little more time to think. Even with the stethoscope in my ears I could still hear Beamish’s voice.

  “It would have to be this one! Sir Eric Horrocks gave five thousand pounds for her last year. She’s the most valuable animal in my stables. Why did this have to happen?”

  Groping my way over the ribs, my heart thudding, I heartily agreed with him. Why in heaven’s name did I have to walk into this nightmare? And with a man like Beamish who had no faith in me.

  He stepped forward and clutched my arm. “Are you sure Mr. Farnon isn’t available?”

  “I’m sorry,” I replied huskily. “He’s over thirty miles away.”

  The trainer seemed to shrivel within himself. “That’s it then. We’re finished. She’s dying.”

  And he was right. The filly had begun to reel about, the breathing louder and more stertorous than ever, and I had difficulty in keeping the stethoscope on her chest wall. It was when I was resting my band on her flank to steady her that I noticed the little swelling under the skin. It was a circular plaque, like a penny pushed under the tissue. I glanced sharply at it. Yes, it was clearly visible. And there was another one higher up on the back … and another and another. My heart gave a quick double thump … so that was it.

  “What am I going to tell Sir Eric?” the trainer groaned. “That his filly is dead and the vet didn’t know what was wrong with her?” He glared desperately around him as though in the faint hope that Siegfried might magically appear from nowhere.

  I called over my shoulder as I trotted towards the car. “I never said I didn’t know. I do know. She’s got urticaria.”

  He came shambling after me. “Urti … what the blazes is that?”

  “Nettlerash,” I replied, fumbling among my bottles for the adrenalin.

  “Nettlerash!” His eyes widened. “But that couldn’t cause all this!”

  I drew 5 cc of the adrenalin into the syringe and started back. “It’s nothing to do with nettles. It’s an allergic condition, usually pretty harmless, but in a very few cases it causes oedema of the larynx—that’s what we’ve got here.”

  It was difficult to raise the vein as the filly staggered around, but she came to rest for a few seconds and I dug my thumb into the jugular furrow. As the big vessel came up tense and turgid I thrust in the needle and injected the adrenalin. Then I stepped back and stood by the trainer’s side.

  Neither of us said anything. The spectacle of the toiling animal and the harrowing sound of the breathing absorbed us utterly.

  T
he grim knowledge that she was on the verge of suffocation appalled me and when she stumbled and almost fell the hand in my pocket gripped more tightly on the scalpel which I had taken from my car along with the adrenalin. I knew only too well that tracheotomy was indicated here but I didn’t have a tube with me. If the filly did go off her legs I should have to start cutting into her windpipe, but I put the thought away from me. For the moment I had to depend on the adrenalin.

  Beamish stretched out a hand in a helpless gesture. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it?” he whispered.

  I shrugged. “There’s a small chance. If the injection can reduce the fluid in the larynx in time … we’ll just have to wait.”

  He nodded and I could read more than one emotion in his face; not just the dread of breaking the news to the famous owner but the distress of a horse-lover as he witnessed the plight of the beautiful animal.

  At first I thought it was imagination, but it seemed that the breathing was becoming less stertorous. Then as I hovered in an agony of uncertainty I noticed that the salivation was diminishing; she was able to swallow.

  From that moment events moved with unbelievable rapidity. The symptoms of allergies appear with dramatic suddenness but mercifully they often disappear as quickly following treatment. Within fifteen minutes the filly looked almost normal. There was still a slight wheeze in her respirations but she was looking around her, quite free from distress.

  Beamish, who had been watching like a man in a daze, pulled a handful of hay from a bale and held it out to her. She snatched it eagerly from his hand and began to eat with great relish.

  “I can’t believe it,” the trainer muttered almost to himself. “I’ve never seen anything work as fast as that injection.”

  I felt as though I was riding on a pink cloud with all the tension and misery flowing from me in a joyful torrent. Thank God there were moments like this among the traumas of veterinary work; the sudden transition from despair to triumph, from shame to pride.

  I almost floated to the car and as I settled in my seat Beamish put his face to the open window.