James Herriot (36 page)

“Ah, the innocence of youth,” he murmured.

“What do you mean?” After all, I was only six years younger than Siegfried.

He came over and patted my shoulder. “I’m not mocking you, James. This is the worst case of canker I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a few.”

“You mean I couldn’t do it at one go?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. There’s six weeks’ work here, James.”

“Six weeks
…
?”

“Yes, and there’ll be three men involved. We’ll have to get this horse in to one of the loose boxes at Skeldale House and then the two of us plus a blacksmith will have a go at him. After that his feet will have to be dressed every day in the stocks.”

“I see.”

“Yes, yes.” Siegfried was warming to his subject. “We’ll use the strongest caustic—nitric acid—and he’ll be shod with special shoes with a metal plate to exert pressure on the sole.” He stopped, probably because I was beginning to look bewildered, then he continued in a gentler tone. “Believe me, James, all this is necessary. The alternative is to shoot a fine horse, because he can’t go on much longer than this.”

I looked at Bobby, at the white face again turned towards us. The thought of a bullet entering that noble head was unbearable.

“All right, whatever you say, Siegfried,” I mumbled, and just then Mr. Mount’s vast bulk darkened the entrance to the stable.

“Ah, good afternoon to you, Mr. Mount,” my boss said. “I hope you’re getting a good crop of hay.”

“Aye, thank ye, Mr. Farnon. We’re doing very nicely. We’ve been lucky with the weather.” The big man looked curiously from one of us to the other, and Siegfried went on quickly.

“Mr. Herriot asked me to come and look at your horse. He’s been thinking the matter over and has decided that it would be better to hospitalise him at our place for a few weeks. I must say I agree with him. It’s a very bad case and the chances of a permanent cure would be increased.”

Bless you, Siegfried, I thought I had expected to emerge from this meeting as the number one chump, but all was suddenly well. I congratulated myself, not for the first time, on having an employer who never let me down.

Mr. Mount took off his hat and drew a forearm across his sweating brow. “Aye well, if that’s what you think, both of ye, we’d better do it. Ah want the best for Bobby. He’s a favourite o’ mine.”

“Yes, he’s a grand sort, Mr. Mount.” Siegfried went round the big animal, patting and stroking him, then as we walked back to the car he kept up an effortless conversation with the farmer. I had always found it difficult to speak to this formidable man, but in my colleague’s presence he became quite chatty. In fact there were one or two occasions when he almost smiled. Bobby came in to the yard at Skeldale House the following day and when I saw the amount of sheer hard labour which the operation entailed I realised the utter impossibility of a single man doing it at one go.

Pat Jenner the blacksmith with his full tool kit was pressed into service and between us, taking it in turns, we removed all the vegetations and diseased tissue, leaving only healthy horn. Siegfried applied the acid to cauterise the area, then packed the sole with twists of tow which were held in place by the metal plate Pat had made to fit under the shoe. This pressure from the tow was essential to effect a cure.

After a week I was doing the daily dressings myself. This was when I began to appreciate the value of the stocks with their massive timbers sunk deep into the cobbles of the yard. It made everything so much easier when I was able to lead Bobby into the stocks, pull up a foot and make it fast in any position I wished.

Some days Pat Jenner came in to check on the shoes and he and I were busy in the yard when I heard the familiar rattle of my little Austin in the back lane. The big double doors were open and I looked up as the car turned in and drew alongside us. Pat looked too, and his eyes popped.

“Bloody ’ell!” he exclaimed, and I couldn’t blame him, because the car had no driver. At least it looked that way since there was nobody in the seat as it swung in from the lane.

A driverless car in motion is quite a sight, and Pat gaped open-mouthed for a few seconds. Then just as I was about to explain, Tristan shot up from the floor with a piercing cry.

“Hi there!” he shrieked.

Pat dropped his hammer and backed away. “God ’elp us!” he breathed.

I was unaffected by the performance because it was old stuff to me. Whenever I was in the yard and a call came in, Tristan would drive my car round from the front street and this happened so many times that inevitably he grew bored and tried to find a less orthodox method.

After a bit of practice he mastered the driverless technique. He crouched on the floor with a foot on the accelerator and one hand on the wheel and nearly frightened the life out of me the first time he did it. But I was used to it now, and blasé.

Within a few days I was able to observe another of Tristan’s little jokes. As I turned the corner of the passage at Skeldale House I found him lurking by the waiting-room door which was slightly ajar.

“I think I’ve got a victim in there,” he whispered. “Let’s see what happens.” He gently pushed the door and tiptoed inside.

As I peeped through the crack I could see that he had indeed scored a success. A man was standing there with his back to him and he was poring over the nudist magazine with the greatest absorption. As he slowly turned the pages, his enthralment showed in the way he frequently moved the pictures towards the light from the french window, inclining his head this way and that to take in all the angles. He looked as though he would be happy to spend all day there but when he heard Tristan’s exquisitely timed cough he dropped the magazine as though it was white hot, snatched hurriedly at the
Farmer’s Weekly
and swung round.

That was when Tristan’s victory went flat. It was Mr. Mount.

The huge farmer loomed over him for a few seconds and the deep bass rumble came from between clenched teeth.

“It’s you, is it?” He glanced quickly from the young man to the embarrassing magazine and back again and the eyes in the craggy face narrowed dangerously.

“Yes … yes .. . yes, Mr. Mount,” Tristan replied unsteadily. “And how are you, Mr. Mount?”

“Ah’m awright.”

“Good … good … splendid.” Tristan backed away a few steps. “And how is Deborah?”

The eyes beneath the sprouting bristles drew in further. “She’s awright.”

There was a silence which lingered interminably and I felt for my young friend. It was not a merry meeting.

At last he managed to work up a sickly smile. “Ah well, yes, er … and what can we do for you, Mr. Mount?”

“Ah’ve come to see me ’oss.”

“Yes, indeed, of course, certainly. I believe Mr. Herriot is just outside the room.”

I led the big man down the long garden into the yard. His encounter with Tristan had clearly failed to improve his opinion of the young man and he glowered as I opened the loose box.

But his expression softened when he saw Bobby eating hay contentedly. He went in and patted the arching neck. “How’s he goin’ on, then?”

“Oh, very well.” I lifted a hind foot and showed him the metal plate. “I can take this off for you if you like.”

“Nay, nay, ah don’t want to disturb the job. As long as all’s well, that’s all ah want to know.”

The dressings went on for a few more weeks till finally Siegfried was satisfied that the last remnants of the disease had been extirpated. Then he telephoned for Mr. Mount to collect his horse the following morning.

It is always nice to be in on a little triumph, and I looked over my boss’s shoulder as he lifted Bobby’s feet and displayed the finished job to the owner. The necrotic jumble on the soles had been replaced by a clean, smooth surface with no sign of moisture anywhere.

Mr. Mount was not enthusiastic by nature but he was obviously impressed. He nodded his head rapidly several times. “Well now, that’s champion. I’m right capped wi’ that.”

Siegfried lowered the foot to the ground and straightened with a pleased smile. There was a general air of bonhomie in the yard, and then I heard my car in the back lane.

I felt a sudden tingle of apprehension. Oh no, Tristan, not this time, please. You don’t know …. My toes curled as I waited but I realised all was lost when the car turned in through the double doors. It had no driver.

With a dreadful feeling of imminent catastrophe I watched as it stopped within a few feet of Siegfried and Mr. Mount who were staring at it in disbelief.

Nothing happened for a few seconds, then without warning Tristan catapulted like a jack-in-the-box into the open window.

“Yippeeee!” he screeched, but his happy grin froze as he found himself gazing into the faces of his brother and Mr. Mount. Siegfried’s expression of exasperation was familiar to me, but the farmer’s was infinitely more menacing. The eyes in the stony visage were mere slits, the jaw jutted, the great tangle of eyebrows bristled fiercely. There was no doubt he had finally made up his mind about Tristan.

I felt the young man had suffered enough, and I kept off the subject for a week or two afterwards, but we were sitting in the big room at Skeldale House when he mentioned casually that he wouldn’t be taking Deborah out any more.

“Seems her father has forbidden it,” he said.

I shrugged in sympathy, but said nothing. After all, it had been an ill-starred romance from the beginning.

“C
IRCUITS AND BUMPS” THEY
called it. Taking off, circling the field and landing, over and over and over. After an hour of it with F. O. Woodham in full voice I had had enough and it was a blessed relief when we climbed out at the end.

As my instructor walked away, one of his fellow officers strolled by his side. “How are you getting on with that chap, Woody?” he asked, smiling.

F. O. Woodham did not pause in his stride or turn his head. “Oh God!” he said with a hollow groan, and that was all.

I knew I wasn’t meant to hear the words but they bit deep. My spirits did not rise till I entered the barrack hut and was greeted by the cheerful voices of my fellow airmen.

“Hello, Jim!” “How’s it going, Jim?” The words were like balm.

I looked around at the young men sprawled on their beds, reading or smoking and I realised that I needed them and their friendship.

Animals are the same. They need friends. Have you ever watched two animals in a field? They may be of different species—a pony and a sheep—but they hang together. This comradeship between animals has always fascinated me, and I often think of Jack Sanders’ two dogs as a perfect example of mutual devotion.

One of them was called Jingo and as I injected the local anaesthetic alongside the barbed wire tear in his skin the powerful white bull terrier whimpered just once. Then he decided to resign himself to his fate and looked stolidly to the front as I depressed the plunger.

Meanwhile his inseparable friend, Skipper the corgi, gnawed gently at Jingo’s hind leg. It was odd to see two dogs on the table at once, but I knew the relationship between them and made no comment as their master hoisted them both up.

After I had infiltrated the area around the wound I began to stitch and Jingo relaxed noticeably when he found that he could feel nothing.

“Maybe this’ll teach you to avoid barbed wire fences in future, Jing,” I said.

Jack Sanders laughed. “I doubt if it will, Mr. Herriot I thought the coast was clear when I took him down the lane this morning, but he spotted a dog on the other side of the fence and he was through like a bullet. Fortunately it was a greyhound and he couldn’t catch it.”

“You’re a regular terror, Jing.” I patted my patient, and the big Roman-nosed face turned to me with an ear-to-ear grin and at the other end the tail whipped delightedly.

“Yes, it’s amazing, isn’t it?” his master said. “He’s always looking for a fight yet people and children can do anything with him. He’s the best natured dog in the world.”

I finished stitching and dropped the suture needle into a kidney dish on the trolley. “Well, you’ve got to remember that the bull terrier is the original English fighting dog and Jing is only obeying an age-old instinct.”

“Oh I realise that I’ll just have to go on scanning the horizon every time I let him off the lead. No dog is safe from him.”

“Except this one, Jack.” I laughed and pointed to the little corgi who had tired of his companion’s leg and was now chewing his ear.

“Yes, isn’t it marvellous. I think he could bite Jing’s ear off without reprisal,”

It was indeed rather wonderful. The corgi was eleven years old and beginning to show his age in stiffness of movement and impairment of sight while the bull terrier was only three, at the height of his strength and power. A squat barrel-chested bundle of bone and muscle, he was a formidable animal. But when the ear-chewing became too violent all he did was turn and gently engulf Skipper’s head in his huge jaws till the little animal desisted. Those jaws could be as merciless as a steel trap but they held the tiny head in a loving embrace.

Ten days later their master brought both dogs back to the surgery for the removal of the stitches. He looked worried as he lifted the animals on to the table.

“Jingo isn’t at all well, Mr. Herriot,” he said. “He’s been off his food for a couple of days and he looks miserable. Could that wound make him ill if it turned septic?”

“Yes it could, of course.” I looked down anxiously at the area of the flank where I had stitched, and my fingers explored the long scar. “But there’s not the slightest sign of infection here. No swelling, no pain. He’s healed beautifully.”

I stepped back and looked at the bull terrier. He was strangely disconsolate, tail tucked down, eyes gazing ahead with total lack of interest. Not even the busy nibbling of his friend at one of his paws relieved his apathy.

Clearly Skipper didn’t like being ignored in this fashion. He transferred his operations to the front end and started on the big dog’s ear. As his efforts still went unnoticed he began to chew and tug harder, dragging the massive head down to one side, but as far as Jingo was concerned he might as well not have been there.