Lord God Made Them All (29 page)

Mrs. Cundall laughed. “Oh, listen to ’im. But I’m right glad we came to Gilthorpe. We used to spend all our holidays in the Dales. We were great walkers, and it was lovely to get away from the smoke and the chimneys. The bedroom in our old house just looked out on a lot o’ brick walls, but Ron has this big window right by ’im and he can see for miles.”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “This is a lovely situation.” The village was perched on a high ridge on the fell-side, and that window would command a wide view of the green slopes running down to the river and climbing high to the wildness of the moor on the other side. This sight had beguiled me so often on my rounds, and the grassy paths climbing among the airy tops seemed to beckon to me. But they would beckon in vain to Ron Cundall.

“Gettin’ Hermann was a good idea, too,” he said. “Ah used to feel a bit lonely when t’missus went into Darrowby for shoppin’, but the little feller’s made all the difference. You’re never alone when you’ve got a dog.”

I smiled. “How right you are. What is his age now, by the way?”

“He’s six,” Ron replied. “Right in the prime o’ life, aren’t you, old lad?” He let his arm fall by the bedside, and his hand fondled the sleek ears.

“That seems to be his favourite place.”

“Aye, it’s a funny thing, but ’e allus sits there. T’missus is the one who has to take ’im for walks and feeds ’im, but he’s very faithful to me. He has a basket over there but this is ’is place. I only have to reach down and he’s there.”

This was something that I had seen on many occasions with disabled people: that their pets stayed close by them as if conscious of their role of comforter and friend.

I finished my beer and got to my feet. Ron looked up at me. “Reckon I’ll spin mine out a bit longer.” He glanced at his half-full glass. “Ah used to shift about six pints some nights when I went out wi’ the lads but you know, I enjoy this one bottle just as much. Strange how things turn out.”

His wife bent over him, mock-scolding, “Yes, you’ve had to right your ways. You’re a reformed character, aren’t you?”

They both laughed as though it were a stock joke between them.

“Well, thank you for the drink, Mrs. Cundall. I’ll look in to see Hermann on Tuesday.” I moved towards the door.

As I left I waved to the man in the bed, and his wife put her hand on my arm. “We’re very grateful to you for comin’ out at this time on a Sunday night, Mr. Herriot. We felt awful about callin’ you, but you understand it was only today that the little chap started going off his legs like that.”

“Oh, of course, of course, please don’t worry. I didn’t mind in the least.”

And as I drove through the darkness I knew that I didn’t mind —now. My petty irritation had evaporated within two minutes of my entering that house, and I was left only with a feeling of humility. If that man back there had a lot to be thankful for, how about me? I had everything. I only wished I could dispel the foreboding I felt about his dog. There was a hint of doom about those symptoms of Hermann’s, and yet I knew I just had to get him right. …

On Tuesday he looked much the same, possibly a little worse.

“I think I’d better take him back to the surgery for X-ray,” I said to Mrs. Cundall. “He doesn’t seem to be improving with the treatment.”

In the car Hermann curled up happily on Rosie’s knee, submitting with good grace to her petting.

I had no need to anaesthetise him or sedate him when I placed him on our newly acquired X-ray machine. Those hind quarters stayed still all by themselves—a lot too still for my liking.

I was no expert at interpreting X-ray pictures, but at least I could be sure there was no fracture of the vertebrae. Also, there was no sign of bony extoses, but I thought I could detect a narrowing of the space between a couple of the vertebrae, which would confirm my suspicions of a protrusion of a disc.

Laminectomy or fenestration had not even been heard of in those days, so I could do nothing more than continue with my treatment, and hope.

By the end of the week, hope had grown very dim. I had supplemented the salycilates with long-standing remedies like tincture of nux vomica and other ancient stimulant drugs, but when I saw Hermann on the Saturday he was unable to rise. I tweaked the toes of his hind limbs and was rewarded by a faint reflex movement, but with a sick certainty I knew that complete posterior paralysis was not far away.

A week later, I had the unhappy experience of seeing my prognosis confirmed in the most classical way. When I entered the door of the Cundalls’ cottage, Hermann came to meet me, happy and welcoming in his front end but dragging his hind limbs helplessly behind him.

“Hello, Mr. Herriot.” Mrs. Cundall gave me a wan smile and looked down at the little creature stretched frog-like on the carpet. “What d’you think of him now?”

I bent and tried the reflexes. Nothing. I shrugged my shoulders, unable to think of anything to say. I looked at the gaunt figure in the bed, the arm outstretched as always on the quilt.

“Good morning, Ron,” I said as cheerfully as I could, but there was no reply. The face was averted, looking out of the window. I walked over to the bed. Ron’s eyes were staring fixedly at the glorious panorama of moor and fell, at the pebbles of the river, white in the early sunshine, at the criss-cross of the grey walls against the green. His face was expressionless. It was as though he did not know I was there.

I went back to his wife. I don’t think I have ever felt more miserable.

“Is he annoyed with me?” I whispered.

“No, no, no, it’s this.” She held out a newspaper. “It’s upset him something awful.”

I looked at the printed page. There was a large picture at the top, a picture of a dachshund exactly like Hermann. This dog, too, was paralysed, but its hind end was supported by a little four-wheeled bogie. In the picture it appeared to be sporting with its mistress. In fact, it looked quite happy and normal, except for those wheels.

Ron seemed to hear the rustle of the paper because his head came round quickly. “What d’ye think of that, Mr. Herriot? D’ye agree with it?”

“Well … I don’t really know, Ron. I don’t like the look of it, but I suppose the lady in the picture thought it was the only thing to do.”

“Aye, maybe.” The husky voice trembled. “But ah don’t want Hermann to finish up like that.” The arm dropped by the side of the bed and his fingers felt around on the carpet, but the little dog was still splayed out near the door. “It’s ’opeless now, Mr. Herriot, isn’t it?”

“Well, it was a black lookout from the beginning,” I said. “These cases are so difficult. I’m very sorry.”

“Nay, I’m not blamin’ you,” he said. “You’ve done what ye could, same as the vet for that dog in the picture did what ’e could. But it was no good, was it? What do we do now—put ’im down?”

“No, Ron, forget about that just now. Sometimes paralysis cases just recover on their own after many weeks. We must carry on. At this moment I honestly cannot say there is no hope.”

I paused, then turned to Mrs. Cundall. “One of the problems is the dog’s natural functions. You’ll have to carry him out into the garden for that. If you gently squeeze each side of his abdomen, you’ll encourage him to pass water. I’m sure you’ll soon learn how to do that.”

“Oh, of course, of course,” she replied. “I’ll do anything. As long as there’s some hope.”

“There is, I assure you, there is.”

But on the way back to the surgery, the thought hammered in my brain. That hope was very slight. Spontaneous recovery did sometimes occur, but Hermann’s condition was extreme. I repressed a groan as I thought of the nightmarish atmosphere that had begun to surround my dealings with the Cundalls. The paralysed man and the paralysed dog. And why did that picture have to appear in the paper just at this very time? Every veterinary surgeon knows the feeling that fate has loaded the scales against him, and it weighed on me, despite the bright sunshine spreading into the car.

However, I kept going back every few days. Sometimes I took a couple of bottles of brown ale along in the evening and drank them with Ron. He and his wife were always cheerful, but the little dog never showed the slightest sign of improvement. He still had to pull his useless hind limbs after him when he came to greet me, and, though he always returned to his station by his master’s bed, nuzzling up into Ron’s hand, I was beginning to resign myself to the certainty that one day that arm would come down from the quilt and Hermann would not be there.

It was on one of these visits that I noticed an unpleasant smell as I entered the house. There was something familiar about it.

I sniffed, and the Cundalls looked at each other guiltily. There was a silence, and then Ron spoke.

“It’s some medicine ah’ve been givin’ Hermann. Stinks like ’ell, but it’s supposed to be good for dogs.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Aye, well …” His fingers twitched uncomfortably on the bedclothes. “It was Bill Noakes put me onto it. He’s an old mate o’ mine—we used to work down t’pit together—and he came to visit me last weekend. Keeps a few whippets, does Bill. Knows a lot about dogs, and ’e sent me this stuff along for Hermann.”

Mrs. Cundall went to the cupboard and sheepishly presented me with a plain bottle. I removed the cork, and as the horrid stench rose up to me, my memory became suddenly clear. Asafoetida, a common constitutent of quack medicines before the war and still lingering on the shelves of occasional chemist shops and in the medicine chests of people who liked to doctor their own animals.

I had never prescribed the stuff myself, but it was supposed to be beneficial in horses with colic and dogs with digestive troubles. My own feeling had always been that its popularity had been due solely to the assumption that anything which stank as badly as that must have some magical properties, but one thing I knew for sure was that it could not possibly do anything for Hermann.

I replaced the cork. “So you’re giving him this, eh?”

Ron nodded. “Aye, three times a day. He doesn’t like it much, but Bill Noakes has great faith in it. Cured hundreds o’ dogs with it, ’e says.” The deep-sunk eyes looked at me with a silent appeal.

“Well, fine, Ron,” I said. “You carry on. Let’s hope it does the trick.”

I knew the asafoetida couldn’t do any harm, and since my treatment had proved useless I was in no position to turn haughty. But my main concern was that these two nice people had been given a glimmer of hope, and I wasn’t going to blot it out.

Mrs. Cundall smiled and Ron’s expression relaxed. “That’s grand, Mr. Herriot,” he said. “Ah’m glad ye don’t mind. I can dose the little feller myself. It’s summat for me to do.”

It was about a week after the commencement of the new treatment that I called in at the Cundall’s as I was passing through Gilthorpe.

“How are you today, Ron?” I asked.

“Champion, Mr. Herriot, champion.” He always said that, but today there was a new eagerness in his face. He reached down and lifted his dog onto the bed. “Look ’ere.”

He pinched the little paw between his fingers, and there was a faint but definite retraction of the leg. I almost fell over in my haste to grab at the other foot. The result was the same.

“My God, Ron,” I gasped. “The reflexes are coming back.”

He laughed his soft, husky laugh. “Bill Noakes’s stuff’s working, isn’t it?”

A gush of emotions, mainly professional shame and wounded pride, welled in me, but it was only for a moment. “Yes, Ron,” I replied. “It’s working. No doubt about it”

He stared up at me. “Then Hermann’s going to be all right?”

“Well, it’s early days yet, but that’s the way it looks to me.”

It was several weeks more before the little dachshund was back to normal, and, of course, it was a fairly typical case of spontaneous recovery, with nothing whatever to do with the asafoetida or, indeed, with my own efforts. Even now, thirty years later, when I treat these puzzling back conditions with steroids, broad-spectrum antibiotics and sometimes colloidal calcium, I wonder how many of them would have recovered without my aid. Quite a number, I imagine.

Sadly, despite the modern drugs, we still have our failures, and I always regard a successful termination with profound relief.

But that feeling of relief has never been stronger than it was with Hermann, and I can recall vividly my final call at the cottage in Gilthorpe. As it happened, it was around the same time as my first visit—eight o’clock in the evening—and when Mrs. Cundall ushered me in, the little dog bounded joyously up to me before returning to his post by the bed.

“Well, that’s a lovely sight,” I said. “He can gallop like a racehorse now.”

Ron dropped his hand down and stroked the sleek head. “Aye, isn’t it grand? By heck, it’s been a worryin’ time.”

“Well, I’ll be going.” I gave Hermann a farewell pat. “I just looked in on my way home to make sure all was well. I don’t need to come anymore now.”

“Nay, nay,” Ron said. “Don’t rush off. You’ve time to have a bottle o’ beer with me before ye go.”

I sat down by the bed, and Mrs. Cundall gave us our glasses before pulling up a chair for herself. It was exactly like that first night. I poured my beer and looked at the two of them. Their faces glowed with friendliness, and I marvelled because my part in Hermann’s salvation had been anything but heroic.

In their eyes everything I had done must have seemed bumbling and ineffectual, and, in fact, they must be convinced that all would have been lost if Ron’s old chum from the coal face had not stepped in and effortlessly put things right.

At best, they could only regard me as an amiable fathead, and all the explanations and protestations in the world would not alter that. But though my ego had been bruised, I did not really care. I was witnessing a happy ending instead of a tragedy, and that was more important than petty self-justification. I made a mental resolve never to say anything that might spoil their picture of this triumph.

I was about to take my first sip when Mrs. Cundall spoke up. “This is your last visit, Mr. Herriot, and all’s ended well. I think we ought to drink some sort o’ toast.”

“I agree,” I said. I looked around for an inspiration, and on a far shelf my eye caught a glimpse of the asafoetida bottle. The memory of its stench lanced briefly at my nose, defying me to put my humbled resolution to the test. “I have just the right toast,” I said, raising my glass. “Here’s to Bill Noakes.”