“I’m sorry …”
“Please don’t be sorry, it’s bloody marvellous how you do it. I have all the figures here—skin measurements, the lot I see you found they were both thin-skinned animals even though they were about fifteen miles away at the time. Clever stuff!”
“Well I …”
“All right Herriot, I’ll dispense with the comedy. I’m going to tell you once more, for the last time, and I hope you’re listening.” He paused and I could almost see the big shoulders hunching as he barked into the phone. “LOOK IN THE BLOODY EARS IN FUTURE!”
I broke into a rapid gabble. “I will indeed, Mr. Harcourt, I assure you from now on …”
“All right, all right but there’s something else.”
“Something else?”
“Yes, I’m not finished yet.” The voice took on a great weariness. “Can I ask you to cast your mind back to that cow you took under the TB order from Wilson of Low Parks?”
I dug my nails into my palm. We were heading for deep water. “Yes—I remember it.”
“Well now, Herriot, lad, do you remember a little chat we had about the forms?” Charles was trying to be patient, because he was a decent man, but it was costing him dearly. “Didn’t anything I told you sink in?”
“Well yes, of course.”
“Then why, why didn’t you send me a receipt for slaughter?”
“Receipt for … didn’t I …?”
“No, you didn’t” he said. “And honestly I can’t understand it. I went over it with you step by step last time when you forgot to forward a copy of the valuation agreement.”
“Oh dear, I really am sorry.”
A deep sigh came from the other end. “And there’s nothing to it.” He paused. “Tell you what we’ll do. Let’s go over the procedure once more, shall we?”
“Yes, by all means.”
“Very well,” he said. “First of all, when you find an infected animal you serve B. 205 D.T., Form A., which is the notice requiring detention and isolation of the animal. Next,” and I could hear the slap of finger on palm as he enumerated his points. “Next, there is B. 207 D.T., Form C., Notice of intended slaughter. Then B. 208 D.T., Form D., Post Mortem Certificate. Then B. 196 D.T., Veterinary Inspector’s report. Then B. 209 D.T., Valuation agreement, and in cases where the owner objects, there is B. 213 D.T., Appointment of valuer. Then we have B. 212 D.T., Notice to owner of time and place of slaughter, followed by B. 227 D.T., Receipt for animal for slaughter, and finally B. 230 D.T., Notice requiring cleansing and disinfection. Dammit, a child could understand that. It’s perfectly simple, isn’t it?”
“Yes, yes, certainly, absolutely.” It wasn’t simple to me, but I didn’t mention the fact. He had calmed down nicely and I didn’t want to inflame him again.
“Well thank you, Mr. Harcourt,” I said. “I’ll see it doesn’t happen again.” I put down the receiver with the feeling that things could have turned out a lot worse, but for all that my nerves didn’t stop jangling for some time. The trouble was that the Ministry work was desperately important to general practitioners. In fact in those precarious days it was the main rent payer.
This business of the Tuberculosis Order. When a veterinary surgeon came upon a cow with open TB it was his duty to see that the animal was slaughtered immediately because its milk could be a danger to the public. That sounds easy, but unfortunately the law insisted that the demise of each unhappy creature be commemorated by a confetti-like shower of the doom-laden forms.
It wasn’t just that there were so many of these forms, but they had to be sent to an amazing variety of people. Sometimes I used to think that there were very few people in England who didn’t get one. Apart from Charles Harcourt, other recipients included the farmer concerned, the police, the Head Office of the Ministry, the knacker man, the local authority. I nearly always managed to forget one of them. I used to have nightmares about standing in the middle of the market place, throwing the forms around me at the passers-by and laughing hysterically.
Looking back, I can hardly believe that for all this wear and tear on the nervous system the payment was one guinea plus ten and sixpence for the post mortem.
It was a mere two days after my interview with the Divisional Inspector that I had to take another cow under the T.B. Order. When I came to fill in the forms I sat at the surgery desk in a dither of apprehension, going over them again and again, laying them out side by side and enclosing them one by one in their various envelopes. This time there must be no mistake.
I took them over to the post myself and uttered a silent prayer as I dropped them into the box. Charles would have them the following morning, and I would soon know if I had done it again. When two days passed without incident I felt I was safe, but midway through the third morning I dropped in at the surgery and read the message in letters of fire. “RING MIN!”
Kitty Pattison sounded strained. She didn’t even try to appear casual. “Oh yes, Mr. Herriot,” she said hurriedly. “Mr. Harcourt asked me to call you. I’m putting you through now.”
My heart almost stopped as I waited for the familiar bellow, but when the quiet voice came on the line it frightened me even more.
“Good morning, Herriot.” Charles was curt and impersonal. “I’d like to discuss that last cow you took under the Order.”
“Oh yes?” I croaked.
“But not over the telephone. I want to see you here in the office.”
“In the … the office?”
“Yes, right away if you can.”
I put down the ’phone and went out to the car with my knees knocking. Charles was really upset this time. There was a kind of restrained fury in his words, and this business of going to the office—that was reserved for serious transgressions.
Twenty minutes later my footsteps echoed in the corridor of the Ministry building. Marching stiffly like a condemned man I passed the windows where I could see the typists at work, then I read “Divisional Inspector”’ on the door at the end.
I took one long shuddering breath then knocked. “Come in.” The voice was still quiet and controlled.
Charles looked up unsmilingly from his desk as I entered. He motioned me to a chair and directed a cold stare at me.
“Herriot,” he said unemotionally. “You’re really on the carpet this time.”
Charles had been a Major in the Punjabi Rifles and he was very much the Indian Army officer at this moment. A fine looking man, clear-skinned and ruddy, with massive cheek bones above a powerful jaw. Looking at the dangerously glinting eyes it struck me that only a fool would trifle with somebody like him—and I had a nasty feeling that I had been trifling.
Dry-mouthed, I waited.
“You know, Herriot,” he went on. “After our last telephone conversation about TB forms I thought you might give me a little peace.”
“Peace …?”
“Yes, yes, it was silly of me, I know, but when I took all that time to go over the procedure with you I actually thought you were listening.”
“Oh I was, I was!”
“You were? Oh good.” He gave me a mirthless smile. “Then I suppose it was even more foolish of me to expect you to act upon my instructions. In my innocence I thought you cared about what I was telling you.”
“Mr. Harcourt, believe me, I do care, I …”
“THEN WHY,” he bawled without warning, bringing his great hand flailing down on the desk with a crash that made pens and inkwells dance. “WHY THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU KEEP MAKING A BALLS OF IT?”
I resisted a strong impulse to run away. “Making a … I don’t quite understand.”
“You don’t?” He kept up his pounding on the desk. “Well I’ll tell you. One of my veterinary officers was on that farm, and he found that you hadn’t served a Notice of Cleansing and Disinfection!”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it bloody well is so! You didn’t give one to the farmer but you sent one to me. Maybe you want me to go and disinfect the place, is tha
t it? Would you like me to slip along there and get busy with a hosepipe—I’ll go now if it’ll make you feel any happier!”
“Oh no, no, no … no.”
Charles was apparently not satisfied with the thunderous noise he was making because he began to use both hands, bringing them down simultaneously with sickening force on the wood while he glared wildly.
“Herriot!” he shouted. “There’s just one thing I want to know from you—do you want this bloody work or don’t you? Just say the word and I’ll give it to another practice and then maybe we’d both be able to live a quiet life!”
“Please, Mr. Harcourt, I give you my word, I … we … we do want the work very much.” And I meant it with all my heart.
The big man slumped back in his chair and regarded me for a few moments in silence. Then he glanced at his wrist watch.
“Ten past twelve,” he murmured. “They’ll be open at the Red Lion. Let’s go and have a beer.”
In the pub lounge he took a long pull at his glass, placed it carefully on the table in front of him, then turned to me with a touch of weariness.
“You know, Herriot, I do wish you’d stop doing this sort of thing. It takes it out of me.”
I believed him. His face had lost a little of its colour and his hand trembled slightly as he raised his glass again.
“I’m truly sorry, Mr. Harcourt, I don’t know how it happened. I did try to get it right this time and I’ll do my best to avoid troubling you in future.”
He nodded a few times then clapped me on the shoulder. “Good, good—let’s just have one more.”
He moved over to the bar, brought back the drinks then fished out a brown paper parcel from his pocket.
“Little wedding present, Herriot. Understand you’re getting married soon—this is from my missus and me with our best wishes.”
I didn’t know what to say. I fumbled the wrapping away and uncovered a small square barometer.
Shame engulfed me as I muttered a few words of thanks. This man was the head of the Ministry in the area while I was the newest and lowest of his minions. Not only that, but I was pretty sure I caused him more trouble than all the others put together—I was like a hair shirt to him. There was no earthly reason why he should give me a barometer.
This last experience deepened my dread of form filling to the extent that I hoped it would be a long time before I encountered another tuberculous animal, but fate decreed that I had some concentrated days of clinical inspections and it was with a feeling of inevitability that I surveyed Mr. Moverley’s Ayrshire cow.
It was the soft cough which made me stop and look at her more closely, and as I studied her my spirits sank. This was another one. The skin stretched tightly over the bony frame, the slightly accelerated respirations and that deep careful cough. Mercifully you don’t see cows like that now, but in those days they were all too common.
I moved along her side and examined the wall in front of her. The tell-tale blobs of sputum were clearly visible on the rough stones and I quickly lifted a sample and smeared it on a glass slide.
Back at the surgery I stained the smear by Ziehl-Nielson’s method and pushed the slide under the microscope. The red clumps of tubercle bacilli lay among the scattered cells, tiny, iridescent and deadly. I hadn’t really needed the grim proof but it was there.
Mr. Moverley was not amused when I told him next morning that the animal would have to be slaughtered.
“It’s nobbut got a bit of a chill,” he grunted. The farmers were never pleased when one of their milk producers was removed by a petty bureaucrat like me. “But ah suppose it’s no use arguin’.”
“I assure you, Mr. Moverley, there’s no doubt about it I examined that sample last night and …”
“Oh never mind about that.” The farmer waved an impatient hand. “If t’bloody government says me cow’s got to go she’s got to go. But ah get compensation, don’t I?”
“Yes, you do.”
“How much?”
I thought rapidly. The rules stated that the animal be valued as if it were up for sale in the open market in its present condition. The minimum was five pounds and there was no doubt that this emaciated cow came into that category.
“The statutory value is five pounds,” I said.
“Shit!” replied Mr. Moverley.
“We can appoint a valuer if you don’t agree.”
“Oh ’ell, let’s get t’job over with.” He was clearly disgusted and I thought it imprudent to tell him that he would only get a proportion of the five pounds, depending on the post mortem.
“Very well,” I said. “I’ll tell Jeff Mallock to collect her as soon as possible.”
The fact that I was unpopular with Mr. Moverley didn’t worry me as much as the prospect of dealing with the dreaded forms. The very thought of sending another batch winging hopefully on its way to Charles Harcourt brought me out in a sweat.
Then I had a flash of inspiration. Such things don’t often happen to me, but this struck me as brilliant. I wouldn’t send off the forms till I’d had them vetted by Kitty Pattison.
I couldn’t wait to get the plan under way. Almost gleefully I laid the papers out in a long row, signed them and laid them by their envelopes, ready for their varied journeys. Then I ’phoned the Ministry office.
Kitty was patient and kind. I am sure she realised that I did my work conscientiously but that I was a clerical numbskull and she sympathised.
When I had finished going through the list she congratulated me. “Well done, Mr. Herriot you’ve got them right this time! All you need now is the knacker man’s signature and your post mortem report and you’re home and dry.”
‘“Bless you, Kitty,” I said. “You’ve made my day.”
And she had. The airy sensation of relief was tremendous. The knowledge that there would be no come-back from Charles this time was like the sun bursting through dark clouds. I felt like singing as I went round to Mallow’s yard and arranged with him to pick up the cow.
“Have her ready for me to inspect tomorrow, Jeff,” I said, and went on my way with a light heart.
I couldn’t understand it when Mr. Moverley waved me down from his farm gate next day. As I drew up I could see he was extremely agitated.
“Hey!” he cried. “Ah’ve just got back from the market and my missus tells me Mallock’s been!”
I smiled. “That’s right Mr. Moverley. Remember I told you I was going to send him round for your cow.”
“Aye, ah know all about that!” He paused and glared at me. “But he’s took the wrong one!”
“Wrong … wrong what?”
“Wrong cow, that’s what! He’s off wi’ the best cow in me herd. Pedigree Ayrshire—ah bought ’er in Dumfries last week and they only delivered ’er this mornin’.”
Horror drove through me in a freezing wave. I had told the knacker man to collect the Ayrshire which would be isolated in the loose box in the yard. The new animal would be in a box, too, after her arrival. I could see Jeff and his man leading her up the ramp into his wagon with a dreadful clarity.
“This is your responsibility, tha knaws!” The farmer waved a threatening finger. “If he kills me good cow you’ll ’ave to answer for it!”
He didn’t have to tell me. I’d have to answer for it to a lot of people, including Charles Harcourt.
“Get on the ’phone to the knacker yard right away!” I gasped.
The farmer waved his arms about. “Ah’ve tried that and there’s no reply. Ah tell ye he’ll shoot ’er afore we can stop ’im. Do you know how much ah paid for that cow?”
“Never mind about that! Which way did he go?”
“T’missus said he went towards Grampton—about ten minutes ago.”
I started my engine. “He’ll maybe be picking up other beasts—I’ll go after him.”
Teeth clenched, eyes popping, I roared along the Grampton road. The enormity of this latest catastrophe was almost more than I could assimilate. The wrong form was bad
enough, but the wrong cow was unthinkable. But it had happened. Charles would crucify me this time. He was a good bloke but he would have no option, because the higher-ups in the Ministry would get wind of an immortal boner like this and they would howl for blood.
Feverishly but vainly I scanned each farm entrance in Grampton village as I shot through, and when I saw the open countryside ahead of me again the tension was almost unbearable. I was telling myself that the thing was hopeless when in the far distance above a row of trees I spotted the familiar top of Mallock’s wagon.
It was a high, wooden-sided vehicle and I couldn’t mistake it. Repressing a shout of triumph I put my foot on the boards and set off in that direction with the fanatical zeal of the hunter. But it was a long way off and I hadn’t travelled a mile before I realised I had lost it.
Over the years many things have stayed in my memory, but the Great Cow Chase is engraven deeper than most. The sheer terror I felt is vivid to this day. I kept sighting the wagon among the maze of lanes and side roads but by the time I had cut across country my quarry had disappeared behind a hillside or dipped into one of the many hollows in the wide vista. I was constantly deceived by the fact that I expected him to be turning towards Darrowby after passing through a village, but he never did. Clearly he had other business on the way.
The whole thing seemed to last a very long time and there was no fun in it for me. I was gripped throughout by a cold dread, and the violent swings—the alternating scents of hope and despair—were wearing to the point of exhaustion. I was utterly drained when at last I saw the tall lorry rocking along a straight road in front of me.
I had him now! Forcing my little car to the limit, I drew abreast of him, sounding my horn repeatedly till he stopped. Breathlessly I pulled up in front of him and ran round to offer my explanations. But as I looked up into the driver’s cab my eager smile vanished. It wasn’t Jeff Mallock at all. I had been following the wrong man.
James Herriot Page 33