James Herriot

by All Things Wise;Wonderful

  I filled a syringe. “Right we’d better give them all a shot. Have you got a marking pencil there?”

  The farmer nodded and lifted one of the little animals which promptly unleashed a protesting scream. “There was never anybody like awd Wilfred,” he shouted above the noise. “It was about half past two and the wicket had had a shower of rain on it when t’skipper threw ’im the ball.”

  I smiled and raised my syringe. It passed the time so pleasantly listening to these reminiscences. Well content, I was about to plunge the needle into the pink thigh when one of the pigs began to nibble at the heel of my Wellington. I looked down at a ring of the little creatures all looking up at me, alarmed by the shrill screeches of their friend.

  My mind was still with Wilfred Rhodes when I noticed what looked like a small white knob on one of the uptilted snouts. And there was another on that one—and that one … I had been unable to see their faces until now because they had been trying to run away from me, but a warning bell clanged suddenly in my head.

  I reached down and seized a pig, and as I squeezed the swelling on the snout a cold wind blew through me, scattering the gentle vision of cricket and sunshine and green grass. It wasn’t a knob, it was a vesicle, a delicate blister which ruptured easily on pressure.

  I could feel my arms shaking as I turned the piglet up and began to examine the tiny cloven feet. There were more vesicles there, flatter and more diffuse, but telling the same dread story.

  Dry mouthed, I lifted two other pigs. They were just the same. As I turned to the farmer I felt bowed down by a crushing weight of pity, almost of guilt. He was still smiling eagerly, anxious to get on with his tale, and I was about to give him the worst news a veterinary surgeon can give a stockman.

  “Mr. Duggleby,” I said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to telephone the Ministry of Agriculture.”

  “The Ministry …? What for?’

  “To tell them I have a case of suspected Foot and Mouth Disease.”

  “Foot and Mouth? Never!”

  “Yes, I’m terribly sorry.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It’s not up to me to be definite about it Mr. Duggleby. One of the Ministry officers will have to do that—I must ’phone them right away.”

  It was an unlikely place to find a telephone but Mr. Duggleby ran a little coal delivery round on the side. I was quickly through to the Ministry and I spoke to Neville Craggs, one of the full time officers.

  He groaned. “Sounds awful like it Jim. Anyway, stay put till I see you.”

  In the farm kitchen Mr. Duggleby looked at me enquiringly. “What now?”

  “You’ll just have to put up with me for a bit” I said. “I can’t leave till I get the verdict.”

  He was silent for a moment. “What happens if it’s what you think?”

  “I’m afraid your pigs will have to be slaughtered.”

  “Every one of ’em?”

  “That is the law—I’m sorry. But you’ll get compensation.”

  He scratched his head. “But they can get better. Why do you have to kill ’em all?”

  “You’re quite right” I shrugged. “Many animals do recover, but Foot and Mouth is fiercely infectious. While you were treating them it would have spread to neighbouring farms, then all over the country.”

  “Aye, but look at the expense. Slaughtering must cost thousands o’ pounds.”

  “I agree, but it would cost a lot more the other way. Apart from the animals that die, just think of the loss of milk, loss of flesh in cows, pigs and sheep. It would come to millions every year. It’s lucky Britain is an island.”

  “Reckon you’ll be right.” He felt for his pipe. “And you’re pretty sure I’ve got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aye well,” he murmured. “These things ’appen.”

  The old Yorkshire words. I had heard them so often under circumstances that would make most city folk, including myself, beat their heads against a wall. Mr. Duggleby’s smallholding would soon be a silent place of death, but he just chewed his pipe and said, “These things ’appen.”

  It didn’t take the Ministry long to make up their minds. The source of the infection was almost certainly some imported meat that Mr. Duggleby hadn’t boiled properly with his swill. The disease was confirmed and a fifteen mile radius standstill order was imposed. I disinfected myself and my car and went home. I undressed, my clothes were taken away for fumigation and I climbed into a hot antiseptic bath.

  Lying there in the steam, I pondered on what might have been. If I had failed to spot the disease I would have gone merrily on my way, spreading destruction and havoc. I always washed my boots before leaving a farm, but how about those little pigs nibbling round the hem of my long coat how about my syringe, even my thermometer? My next call was to have been to Terence Bailey’s pedigree herd of dairy shorthorns—two hundred peerless cows, a strain built up over generations. Foreigners came from all over the world to buy them and I could have been the cause of their annihilation.

  And then there was Mr. Duggleby himself. I could picture him rattling around the farms in his coal wagon. He would have done his bit of spreading, too. And like as not he would have taken a few store pigs to the auction mart this week, sending the deadly contagion all over Yorkshire and beyond. It was easy to see how a major outbreak could have started—a disaster of national importance costing millions.

  If I hadn’t been sweating already I would have started now at the very thought of it. I would have joined the unhappy band of practitioners who had missed Foot and Mouth.

  I knew of some of these people and my heart bled for them. It could happen so easily. Busy men trying to examine kicking, struggling animals in dark buildings with perhaps part of their mind on the list of calls ahead. And the other hazards—the total unexpectedness, the atypical case, various distractions. My distraction had been cricket and it had nearly caused my downfall. But I had escaped and, huddling lower in the hot water, I said a silent prayer of thanks.

  Later, with a complete change of clothes and instruments, I continued on my rounds and as I stood in Terence Bailey’s long byre I realised my luck again. The long rows of beautiful animals meticulously groomed, firm high udders pushing between their hocks, delicate heads, fine legs deep in straw; they were a picture of bovine perfection and quite irreplaceable.

  Once Foot and Mouth is confirmed in a district there is a tense period of waiting. Farmers, veterinary surgeons and, most of all, Ministry officials are on the rack, wondering if there has been any dissemination before diagnosis, bracing themselves against the telephone message that could herald the raging spread they dreaded and which would tear their lives apart.

  To the city dwellers a big Foot and Mouth outbreak is something remote they read about in the newspapers. To the country folk it means the transformation of the quiet farms and fields into charnel houses and funeral pyres. It means heartbreak and ruin.

  We waited in Darrowby. And as the days passed and no frightening news of lame or salivating animals came over the wires it seemed that the Duggleby episode was what we hoped—an isolated case caused by a few shreds of imported meat.

  I almost bathed in disinfectant on every farm, sloshing a strong solution of Lysol over my boots and protective clothing so that my car reeked of the stuff and I caused wrinkled noses when I entered a shop, the post office, the bank.

  After nearly two weeks I had begun to feel reasonably safe but when I had a call from the famous Bailey farm I felt a twinge of apprehension.

  It was Terence Bailey himself. “Will you come and see one of my cows, Mr. Herriot? She’s got blisters on one of her teats.”

  “Blisters!” My heart went bump. “Is she slavering, is she lame?”

  “Nay, nay, she just has these nasty blisters. Seem to have fluid in them.”

  I was breathless as I put down the receiver. One nasty blister would be enough. It sometimes started like that in cows. I almost ran out to my car and on the journey my mind be
at about like a trapped bird.

  Bailey’s was the farm I had visited straight from Duggleby’s. Could I possibly have carried it there? But the change of clothes, the bath, the fresh thermometer and instruments. What more could I do? How about my car wheels? Well, I had disinfected them, too—I couldn’t possibly be blamed, but … but …

  It was Mr. Bailey’s wife who met me.

  “I noticed this cow when I was milking this morning, Mr. Herriot.” The herd was still hand-milked and in the hard-working family tradition Mrs. Bailey did her stint night and morning with her husband and the farm men.

  “As soon as I got hold of the teats I could see the cow was uneasy,” she continued. “Then I saw there was a lot of little blisters and one big one. I managed to milk her and most of the little blisters burst, but the big one’s still there.”

  I bent and peered anxiously at the udder. It was as she said—lots of small ruptured vesicles and one large one, intact and fluctuating. It was all horribly evocative and without speaking I moved along, grasped the cow’s nose and pulled her head round. I pried the mouth open and stared desperately at lips, cheek and dental pad. I think I would have fainted if I had found anything in there but it was all clean and normal.

  I lifted each forefoot in turn and scrubbed out the clefts with soap and water—nothing. I tied a rope round the hind leg, threw it over a beam and with the help of one of the men pulled the foot up. More scrubbing and searching without success then the same with the other hind foot. When I finished I was perspiring but no further forward.

  I took the temperature and found it slightly elevated, then I walked up and down the byre.

  “Is there any trouble among these other cows?” I asked.

  Mrs. Bailey shook her head. “No, there’s just this one.” She was a good-looking woman in her thirties with the red, roughened complexion of the outdoor worker. “What do you think it is?”

  I didn’t dare tell her. I had a cow with vesicles on the teats right in the middle of a district under Foot and Mouth restrictions. I just couldn’t take a chance. I had to bring the Ministry in.

  Even then I was unable to speak the dread words. All I could say was, “Can I use your ’phone, please?”

  She looked surprised, but smiled quickly. “Yes, of course. Come into the house.”

  As I walked down the byre I looked again at the beautiful cows and then beyond, at the fold yard where I could see the young heifers and the tiny calves in their pens. All of them carrying the Bailey blood which had been produced and perfected by generations of careful breeding and selection. But a humane killer is no respecter of such things and if my fears were realised a quick series of bang-bangs would wipe out all this in an hour or two.

  We went into the farm kitchen and Mrs. Bailey pointed to the door at the far end.

  The ’phone’s through there in the front room,” she said.

  I kicked off my Wellingtons and was padding across the floor in my stockinged feet when I almost fell over Giles, the lusty one year old baby of the family, as he waddled across my path. I bent to ease him out of the way and he looked up at me with an enormous cheesy grin.

  His mother laughed. “Just look at him. Full of the devil, and he’s had such a painful arm since his smallpox vaccination.”

  “Poor lad,” I said absently, patting his head as I opened the door, my mind already busy with the uncomfortable conversation ahead. I had taken a few strides over the carpet beyond, when I halted abruptly.

  I turned and looked back into the kitchen. “Did you say smallpox vaccination?”

  “Yes, all our other children have been done when they were this age but they’ve never reacted like this. I’ve had to change his dressing every day.”

  “You changed his dressing … and you milked that cow?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  A great light beamed suddenly, spilling sunshine into my dark troubled world. I returned to the kitchen and closed the door behind me.

  Mrs. Bailey looked at me for a moment in silence, then she spoke hesitantly. “Aren’t you going to use the phone?”

  “No … no …” I replied. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “I see.” She raised her eyebrows and seemed at a loss for words. Then she smiled and lifted the kettle. “Well maybe you’ll have a cup of tea, then?”

  “Thank you, that would be lovely.” I sank happily on to one of the hard wooden chairs.

  Mrs. Bailey put the kettle on and turned to me. “By the way, you’ve never told me what’s wrong with that cow.”

  “Oh yes, of course, I’m sorry,” I said airily as though I’d just forgotten to mention it “She’s got cow pox. In fact you gave it to her.”

  “I gave it …? What do you mean?”

  “Well, the vaccine they use for babies is made from the cow pox virus. You carried it on your hands from the baby to the cow.” I smiled, enjoying my big moment.

  Her mouth fell open slightly, then she began to giggle. “Oh dear, I don’t know what my husband’s going to say. I’ve never heard of anything like that.” She wiggled her fingers in front of her eyes. “And I’m always so careful, too. But I’ve been a bit harassed with the poor little chap’s arm.”

  “Oh well, it isn’t serious,” I said. “I’ve got some ointment in the car which will cure it quite quickly.”

  I sipped my tea and watched Giles’s activities. In a short time he had spread chaos throughout the kitchen and at the moment was busily engaged in removing all the contents of a cupboard in the corner. Bent double, small bottom outthrust, he hurled pans, lids, brushes behind him with intense dedication till the cupboard was empty. Then, as he looked around for further employment, he spotted me and tacked towards me on straddled legs.

  My stocking-clad toes seemed to fascinate him and as I wiggled them at him he grasped at them with fat little hands. When he had finally trapped my big toe he looked up at me with his huge grin in which four tiny teeth glittered.

  I smiled back at him with sincere affection as the relief flowed through me. It wasn’t just that I was grateful to him—I really liked him. I still like Giles today. He is one of my clients, a burly farmer with a family of his own, a deep love and knowledge of pedigree cows and the same big grin, except that there are a few more teeth in it.

  But he’ll never know how near his smallpox vaccination came to giving me heart failure.

  CHAPTER 46

  THEY HAD SENT ME to Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppy and I knew it was the last stop.

  As I looked along the disorderly line of men I realised I wouldn’t be taking part in many more parades. And it came to me with a pang that at the Scarborough ITW this would not have been classed as a parade at all. I could remember the ranks of blue outside the Grand Hotel, straight as the Grenadier Guards and every man standing stiffly, looking neither to left nor right. Our boots gleaming, buttons shining like gold and not a movement anywhere as the flight sergeant led the officer round on morning inspection.

  I had moaned as loudly as anybody at the rigid discipline, the “bull,” the scrubbing and polishing, marching and drilling, but now that it had all gone it seemed good and meaningful and I missed it.

  Here the files of airmen lounged, chatted among themselves and occasionally took a surreptitious drag at a cigarette as a sergeant out in front called the names from a list and gave us our leisurely instructions for the day.

  This particular morning he was taking a long time over it consulting sheaves of papers and making laboured notes with a pencil. A big Irishman on my right was becoming increasingly restive and finally he shouted testily:

  “For—sake, sergeant get us off this—square. Me—feet’s killin’ me!”

  The sergeant didn’t even look up. “Shut your mouth, Brady,” he replied. “You’ll get off the square when I say so and not before.”

  It was like that at Eastchurch, the great filter tank of the RAF where what I had heard described as the “odds and sods” were finally sorted out. It was
a big sprawling camp filled with a widely varied mixture of airmen who had one thing in common; they were all waiting—some of them for remuster, but most for discharge from the service.

  There was a resigned air about the whole place, an acceptance of the fact that we were all just putting in time. There was a token discipline but it was of the most benign kind. And as I said, every man there was just waiting … waiting …

  Little Ned Finch in his remote corner of the high Yorkshire Dales always seemed to me to be waiting, too. I could remember his boss yelling at him.

  “For God’s sake, shape up to t’job! You’re not framin’ at all!” Mr. Daggett grabbed hold of a leaping calf and glared in exasperation.

  Ned gazed back at him impassively. His face registered no particular emotion, but in the pale blue eyes I read the expression that was always there—as though he was waiting for something to happen, but without much hope. He made a tentative attempt to catch a calf but was brushed aside, then he put his arms round the neck of another one, a chunky little animal of three months, and was borne along a few yards before being deposited on his back in the straw.

  “Oh, dang it, do this one, Mr. Herriot!” Mr. Daggett barked, turning the hairy neck towards me. “It looks as though I’ll have to catch ’em all myself.”

  I injected the animal. I was inoculating a batch of twenty with preventive pneumonia vaccine and Ned was suffering. With his diminutive stature and skinny, small-boned limbs he had always seemed to me to be in the wrong job; but he had been a farm worker all his life and he was over sixty now, grizzled, balding and slightly bent, but still battling on.

  Mr. Daggett reached out and as one of the shaggy creatures sped past he scooped the head into one of his great hands and seized the ear with the other. The little animal seemed to realise it was useless to struggle and stood unresisting as I inserted the needle. At the other end Ned put his knee against the calf’s rear and listlessly pushed it against the wall. He wasn’t doing much good and his boss gave him a withering glance.