Gingerly I drew it out through the incision and dropped it in the straw. It wasn’t till I had closed the stomach wound with the gut, stitched up the muscle layer and had started on the skin that I realised that the sweat was running down my face. As I blew away a droplet from my nose end Harry broke the silence.
“It’s a hell of a tricky job, isn’t it?” he said. Then he laughed and thumped my shoulder. “I bet you felt a bit queer the first time you did one of these!”
I pulled another strand of suture silk through and knotted it. “You’re right, Harry.” I said. “How right you are.”
When I had finished we covered Monty with a horse rug and piled straw on top of that leaving only his head sticking out, I bent over and touched a corner of the eye. Not a vestige of a corneal reflex. God, he was deep—had I given him too much anaesthetic? And of course there’d be surgical shock, too. As I left I glanced back at the motionless little animal. He looked smaller than ever and very vulnerable under the bare walls of the pen.
I was busy for the rest of the day but that evening my thoughts kept coming back to Monty. Had he come out of it yet? Maybe he was dead. I hadn’t the experience of previous cases to guide me and I simply had no idea of how a calf reacted to an operation like that. And I couldn’t rid myself of the nagging consciousness of how much it all meant to Harry Sumner. The bull is half the herd, they say, and half of Harry’s future herd was lying there under the straw—he wouldn’t be able to find that much money again.
I jumped suddenly from my chair. It was no good, I had to find out what was happening. Part of me rebelled at the idea of looking amateurish and unsure of myself by going fussing back, but, I thought, I could always say I had returned to look for an instrument.
The farm was in darkness as I crept into the pen. I shone my torch on the mound of straw and saw with a quick bump of the heart that the calf had not moved. I dropped to my knees and pushed a hand under the rug; he was breathing anyway. But there was still no eye reflex—either he was dying or he was taking a hell of a time to come out.
In the shadows of the yard I looked across at the soft glow from the farmhouse kitchen. Nobody had heard me. I slunk over to the car and drove off with the sick knowledge that I was no further forward. I still didn’t know how the job was going to turn out.
Next morning I had to go through the same thing again and as I walked stiffly across to the calf pen I knew for sure I’d see something this time. Either he’d be dead or better. I opened the outer door and almost ran down the passage. It was the third pen along and I stared hungrily into it.
Monty was sitting up on his chest. He was still under the rug and straw and he looked sorry for himself but when a bovine animal is on its chest I always feel hopeful. The tensions flowed from me in a great wave. He had survived the operation—the first stage was over; and as I knelt rubbing the top of his head I had the feeling that we were going to win.
And, in fact, he did get better, though I have always found it difficult to explain to myself scientifically why the removal of that pad of tangled fibres could cause such a dramatic improvement in so many directions. But there it was. His temperature did drop and his breathing returned to normal, his eyes did stop staring and the weird stiffness disappeared from his limbs.
But though I couldn’t understand it, I was none the less delighted. Like a teacher with his favourite pupil I developed a warm proprietary affection for the calf and when I happened to be on the farm I found my feet straying unbidden to his pen. He always walked up to me and regarded me with friendly interest; it was as if he had a fellow feeling for me, too.
He was rather more than a year old when I noticed the change. The friendly interest gradually disappeared from his eyes and was replaced by a thoughtful, speculative look; and he developed a habit of shaking his head at me at the same time.
“I’d stop going in there, Mr. Herriot, if I were you,” Harry said one day. “He’s getting big and I reckon he’s going to be a cheeky bugger before he’s finished.”
But cheeky was the wrong word. Harry had a long, trouble-free spell and Monty was nearly two years old when I saw him again. It wasn’t a case of illness this time. One or two of Harry’s cows had been calving before their time and it was typical of him that he should ask me to blood test his entire herd for Brucellosis.
We worked our way easily through the cows and I had a long row of glass tubes filled with blood in just over an hour.
“Well, that’s the lot in here,” the farmer said. “We only have bull to do and we’re finished.” He led the way across the yard through the door into the calf pens and along a passage to the bull box at the end. He opened the half door and as I looked inside I felt a sudden sense of shock.
Monty was enormous. The neck with its jutting humps of muscle supported a head so huge that the eyes looked tiny. And there was nothing friendly in those eyes now; no expression at all, in fact, only a cold black glitter. He was standing sideways to me, facing the wall, but I knew he was watching me as he pushed his head against the stones, his great horns scoring the whitewash with slow, menacing deliberation. Occasionally he snorted from deep in his chest but apart from that he remained ominously still. Monty wasn’t just a bull—he was a vast, brooding presence.
Harry grinned as he saw me staring over the door. “Well, do you fancy popping inside to scratch his head? That’s what you allus used to do.”
“No thanks.” I dragged my eyes away from the animal. “But I wonder what my expectation of life would be if I did go in.”
“I reckon you’d last about a minute,” Harry said thoughtfully. “He’s a grand bull—all I ever expected—but by God he’s a mean ’un. I never trust him an inch.”
“And how,” I asked without enthusiasm, “am I supposed to get a sample of blood from him?”
“Oh I’ll trap his head in yon corner.” Harry pointed to a metal yoke above a trough in an opening into the yard at the far side of the box. “I’ll give him some meal to ’tice him in.” He went back down the passage and soon I could see him out in the yard scooping meal into the trough.
The bull at first took no notice and continued to prod at the wall with his horns, then he turned with awesome slowness, took a few unhurried steps across the box and put his nose down to the trough. Harry, out of sight in the yard, pulled the lever and the yoke crashed shut on the great neck.
“All right,” the farmer cried, hanging on to the lever, “I have ’im. You can go in now.”
I opened the door and entered the box and though the bull was held fast by the head there was still the uneasy awareness that he and I were alone in that small space together. And as I passed along the massive body and put my hand on the neck I sensed a quivering emanation of pent up power and rage. Digging my fingers into the jugular furrow I watched the vein rise up and poised my needle. It would take a good hard thrust to pierce that leathery skin.
The bull stiffened but did not move as I plunged the needle in and with relief I saw the blood flowing darkly into the syringe. Thank God I had hit the vein the first time and didn’t have to start poking around. I was withdrawing the needle and thinking that the job had been so simple after all when everything started to happen. The bull gave a tremendous bellow and whipped round at me with no trace of his former lethargy. I saw that he had got one horn out of the yoke and though he couldn’t reach me with his head his shoulder knocked me on my back with a terrifying revelation of unbelievable strength. I heard Harry shouting from outside and as I scrambled up and headed for the box door I saw that the madly plunging creature had almost got his second horn clear and when I reached the passage I heard the clang of the yoke as be finally freed himself.
Anybody who has travelled a narrow passage a few feet ahead of about a ton of snorting, pounding death will appreciate that I didn’t dawdle. I was spurred on by the certain knowledge that if Monty caught me he would plaster me against the wall as effortlessly as I would squash a ripe plum, and though I was clad in a long oi
lskin coat and Wellingtons I doubt whether an Olympic sprinter in full running kit would have bettered my time.
I made the door at the end with a foot to spare, dived through and crashed it shut. The first thing I saw was Harry Sumner running round from the outside of the box. He was very pale. I couldn’t see my face but it felt pale; even my lips were cold and numb.
“God, I’m sorry!” Harry said hoarsely. “The yoke couldn’t have closed properly—that bloody great neck of his. The lever just jerked out of my hand. Damn, I’m glad to see you—I thought you were a goner!”
I looked down at my hand. The blood-filled syringe was still tightly clutched there. “Well I’ve got my sample anyway, Harry. And it’s just as well, because it would take some fast talking to get me in there to try for another. I’m afraid you’ve just seen the end of a beautiful friendship.”
“Aye, the big sod!” Harry listened for a few moments to the thudding of Monty’s horns against the door. “And after all you did for him. That’s gratitude for you.”
19
PROBABLY THE MOST DRAMATIC occurrence in the history of veterinary practice was the disappearance of the draught horse. It is an almost incredible fact that this glory and mainstay of the profession just melted quietly away within a few years. And I was one of those who were there to see it happen.
When I first came to Darrowby the tractor had already begun to take over, but tradition dies hard in the agricultural world and there were still a lot of horses around. Which was just as well because my veterinary education had been geared to things equine with everything else a poor second. It had been a good scientific education in many respects but at times I wondered if the people who designed it still had a mental picture of the horse doctor with his top hat and frock coat busying himself in a world of horse-drawn trams and brewers’ drays.
We learned the anatomy of the horse in great detail, than that of the other animals much more superficially. It was the same with the other subjects; from animal husbandry with such insistence on a thorough knowledge of shoeing that we developed into amateur blacksmiths—right up to medicine and surgery where it was much more important to know about glanders and strangles than canine distemper. Even as we were learning, we youngsters knew it was ridiculous, with the draught horse already cast as a museum piece and the obvious potential of cattle and small animal work.
Still, as I say, after we had absorbed a vast store of equine lore it was a certain comfort that there were still a lot of patients on which we could try it out. I should think in my first two years I treated farm horses nearly every day and though I never was and never will be an equine expert there was a strange thrill in meeting with the age-old conditions whose names rang down almost from mediaeval times. Quittor, fistulous withers, poll evil, thrush, shoulder slip—vets had been wrestling with them for hundreds of years using very much the same drugs and procedures as myself. Armed with my firing iron and box of blister I plunged determinedly into what had always been the surging mainstream of veterinary life.
And now, in less than three years the stream had dwindled, not exactly to a trickle but certainly to the stage where the final dry-up was in sight. This meant in a way, a lessening of the pressures on the veterinary surgeon because there is no doubt that horse work was the roughest and most arduous part of our life.
So that today, as I looked at the three year old gelding it occurred to me that this sort of thing wasn’t happening as often as it did. He had a long tear in his flank where he had caught himself on barbed wire and it gaped open whenever he moved. There was no getting away from the fact that it had to be stitched.
The horse was tied by the head in his stall, his right side against the tall wooden partition. One of the farm men, a hefty six footer, took a tight hold of the head collar and leaned back against the manger as I puffed some iodoform into the wound. The horse didn’t seem to mind, which was a comfort because he was a massive animal emanating an almost tangible vitality and power. I threaded my needle with a length of silk, lifted one of the lips of the wound and passed it through. This was going to be no trouble, I thought as I lifted the flap at the other side and pierced it, but as I was drawing the needle through, the gelding made a convulsive leap and I felt as though a great wind had whistled across the front of my body. Then, strangely, he was standing there against the wooden boards as if nothing had happened.
On the occasions when I have been kicked I have never seen it coming. It is surprising how quickly those great muscular legs can whip out. But there was no doubt he had had a good go at me because my needle and silk were nowhere to be seen, the big man at the head was staring at me with wide eyes in a chalk white face and the front of my clothing was in an extraordinary state. I was wearing a “gaberdine mac” and it looked as if somebody had taken a razor blade and painstakingly cut the material into narrow strips which hung down in ragged strips to ground level. The great iron-shod hoof had missed my legs by an inch or two but my mac was a write-off.
I was standing there looking around me in a kind of stupor when I heard a cheerful hail from the doorway.
“Now then, Mr. Herriot, what’s he done at you?” Cliff Tyreman, the old horseman, looked me up and down with a mixture of amusement and asperity.
“He’s nearly put me in hospital, Cliff,” I replied shakily. “About the closest near miss I’ve ever had. I just felt the wind of it.”
“What were you tryin’ to do?”
“Stitch that wound, but I’m not going to try any more. I’m off to the surgery to get a chloroform muzzle.”
The little man looked shocked. “You don’t need no chloroform. I’ll haul him and you’ll have no trouble.”
“I’m sorry, Cliff.” I began to put away my suture materials, scissors and powder. “You’re a good bloke, I know, but he’s had one go at me and he’s not getting another chance. I don’t want to be lame for the rest of my life.”
The horseman’s small, wiry frame seemed to bunch into a ball of aggression. He thrust forward his head in a characteristic posture and glared at me. “I’ve never heard owt as daft in me life.” Then he swung round on the big man who was still hanging on to the horse’s head, the ghastly pallor of his face now tinged with a delicate green. “Come on out o’ there, Bob! You’re that bloody scared you’re upsetting t’oss. Come on out of it and let me have ’im!”
Bob gratefully left the head and, grinning sheepishly moved with care along the side of the horse. He passed Cliff on the way and the little man’s head didn’t reach his shoulder.
Cliff seemed thoroughly insulted by the whole business. He took hold of the head collar and regarded the big animal with the disapproving stare of a schoolmaster at a naughty child. The horse, still in the mood for trouble, laid back his ears and began to plunge about the stall, his huge feet clattering ominously on the stone floor, but he came to rest quickly as the little man uppercutted him furiously in the ribs.
“Get stood up straight there, ye big bugger. What’s the matter with ye?” Cliff barked and again he planted his tiny fist against the swelling barrel of the chest, a puny blow which the animal could scarcely have felt but which reduced him to quivering submission. “Try to kick, would you, eh? I’ll bloody fettle you!” He shook the head collar and fixed the horse with a hypnotic stare as he spoke. Then he turned to me. “You can come and do your job, Mr. Herriot, he won’t hurt tha.”
I looked irresolutely at the huge, lethal animal. Stepping open-eyed into dangerous situations is something vets are called upon regularly to do and I suppose we all react differently. I know there were times when an over-vivid imagination made me acutely aware of the dire possibilities and now my mind seemed to be dwelling voluptuously on the frightful power in those enormous shining quarters, on the unyielding flintiness of the spatulate feet with their rim of metal. Cliff’s voice cut into my musings.
“Come on, Mr. Herriot, I tell ye he won’t hurt tha.”
I reopened my box and tremblingly threaded another needle. I di
dn’t seem to have much option; the little man wasn’t asking me, he was telling me. I’d have to try again.
I couldn’t have been a very impressive sight as I shuffled forwards, almost tripping over the tattered hula-hula skirt which dangled in front of me, my shaking hands reaching out once more for the wound, my heart thundering in my ears. But I needn’t have worried. It was just as the little man had said; he didn’t hurt me. In fact he never moved. He seemed to be listening attentively to the muttering which Cliff was directing into his face from a few inches’ range. I powdered and stitched and dipped as though working on an anatomical specimen. Chloroform couldn’t have done it any better.
As I retreated thankfully from the stall and began again to put away my instruments the monologue at the horse’s head began to change its character. The menacing growl was replaced by a wheedling, teasing chuckle.
“Well, ye see, you’re just a daft awd bugger, getting yourself all airigated over nowt. You’re a good lad, really, aren’t ye, a real good lad.” Cliffs hand ran caressingly over the neck and the towering animal began to nuzzle his cheek, as completely in his sway as any Labrador puppy.
When he had finished he came slowly from the stall, stroking the back, ribs, belly and quarters, even giving a playful tweak at the tail on parting while what had been a few minutes ago an explosive mountain of bone and muscle submitted happily.
I pulled a packet of Cold Flake from my pocket. “Cliff, you’re a marvel. Will you have a cigarette?”
“It ’ud be like givin’ a pig a strawberry,” the little man replied, then he thrust forth his tongue on which reposed a half-chewed gobbet of tobacco. “It’s allus there. Ah push it in fust thing every mornin’ soon as I get out of bed and there it stays. You’d never know, would you?”