I went over the sleeping animal carefully; there wasn’t a thing amiss except that pathetically drooping jaw. Meditatively I stroked the smooth, shining fur. She was only a young cat with years of life in front of her and as I stood there the decision came to me with a surge of relief and I trotted back along the passage to ask the colonel if I could take Maudie through to Granville Bennett.
It had started to snow heavily when I set out and I was glad it was downhill all the way to Hartington; many of the roads higher up the Dale would soon be impassable on a night like this.
In the Veterinary Hospital I watched the big man drilling, screwing, stitching. It wasn’t the sort of job which could be hurried but it was remarkable how quickly those stubby fingers could work. Even so, we had been in the theatre for nearly an hour and Granville’s complete absorption showed in the long silences broken only by the tinkling of instruments, occasional barking commands and now and then a sudden flare of exasperation. And it wasn’t only the nurses who suffered; I had scrubbed up and had been pressed into service and when I failed to hold the jaw exactly as my colleague desired he exploded in my face.
“Not that bloody way, Jim!…What the hell are you playing at?…No, no, no, no, NO!…Oh God Almighty!”
But at last all was finished and Granville threw off his cap and turned away from the table with that air of finality which made me envy him the first time. He was sweating. In his office he washed his hands, towelled his brow and pulled on an elegant grey jacket from the pocket of which he produced a pipe. It was a different pipe from the last time; I learned in time that all Granville’s pipes were not only beautiful but big and this one had a bowl like a fair sized coffee cup. He rubbed it gently along the side of his nose, gave it a polish with the yellow cloth he always seemed to carry and held it lovingly against the light.
“Straight grain, Jim. Superb, isn’t it?”
He contentedly scooped tobacco from his vast pouch, ignited it and puffed a cloud of delectable smoke at me before taking me by the arm. “Come on, laddie. I’ll show you round while they’re clearing up in there.”
We did a tour of the hospital, taking in the waiting and consulting rooms, X-ray room, dispensary and of course the office with its impressive card index system with case histories of all patients, but the bit I enjoyed most was walking along the row of heated cubicles where an assortment of animals were recovering from their operations.
Granville stabbed his pipe at them as we went along. “Spay, enterotomy, aural haematoma, entropion.” Then he bent suddenly, put a finger through the wire front and adopted a wheedling tone. “Come now, George, come on little fellow, don’t be frightened, it’s only Uncle Granville.”
A small West Highland with a leg in a cast hobbled to the front and my colleague tickled his nose through the wire.
“That’s George Wills-Fentham,” he said in explanation. “Old Lady Wills-Fentham’s pride and joy. Nasty compound fracture but he’s doing very nicely. He’s a bit shy is George but a nice little chap when you get to know him, aren’t you, old lad?” He continued his tickling and in the dim light I could see the short white tail wagging furiously.
Maudie was lying in the very last of the recovery pens, a tiny, trembling figure. That trembling meant she was coming out of the anaesthetic and I opened the door and stretched my hand out to her. She still couldn’t raise her head but she was looking at me and as I gently stroked her side, her mouth opened in a faint rusty miauw. And with a thrill of deep pleasure I saw that her lower jaw belonged to her again; she could open and close it; that hideous dangling tatter of flesh and bone was only a bad memory.
“Marvellous, Granville,” I murmured. “Absolutely bloody marvellous.”
Smoke plumed in quiet triumph from the noble pipe. “Yes, it’s not bad, is it laddie. A week or two on fluids and she’ll be as good as new. No problems there.”
I stood up. “Great! I can’t wait to tell Colonel Bosworth. Can I take her home tonight?”
“No, Jim, no. Not this time. I just want to keep an eye on her for a couple of days then maybe the colonel can collect her himself.” He led me back into the brightly lit office where he eyed me for a moment.
“You must come and have a word with Zoe while you’re here,” he said. “But first, just a suggestion. I wonder if you’d care to slip over with me to…”
I took a rapid step backward. “Well…er…really. I don’t think so.” I gabbled. “I enjoyed my visit to the club that other night but…er…perhaps not this evening.”
“Hold on, laddie, hold on,” Granville said soothingly. “Who said anything about the club? No, I just wondered if you’d like to come to a meeting with me?”
“Meeting?”
“Yes, Professor Milligan’s come through from Edinburgh to speak to the Northern Veterinary Society about metabolic diseases. I think you’d enjoy it.”
“You mean milk fever, acetonaemia and all that?”
“Correct. Right up your street, old son.”
“Well it is, isn’t it? I wonder…” I stood for a few moments deep in thought, and one of the thoughts was why an exclusively small animal man like Granville wanted to hear about cow complaints. But I was maybe doing him an injustice; he probably wanted to maintain a broad, liberal view of veterinary knowledge.
It must have been obvious that I was dithering because he prodded me a little further.
“I’d like to have your company, Jim, and anyway I see you’re all dressed and ready for anything. Matter of fact when you walked in tonight I couldn’t help thinking what a smart lad you looked.”
He was right there. I hadn’t dashed through in my farm clothes this time. With the memory of my last visit still painfully fresh in my mind I was determined that if I was going to meet the charming Zoe again I was going to be: (a) Properly dressed, (b) Sober, (c) in a normal state of health and not bloated and belching like an impacted bullock. Helen, agreeing that my image needed refurbishing, had rigged me out in my best suit.
Granville ran his hand along my lapel. “Fine piece of serge if I may say so.”
I made up my mind. “Right, I’d like to come with you. Just let me ring Helen to say I won’t be straight back and then I’m your man.”
24
OUTSIDE IT WAS STILL SNOWING; city snow drifting down in a wet curtain which soon lost itself in the dirty churned-up slush in the streets. I pulled my coat higher round my neck and huddled deeper in the Bentley’s leather luxury. As we swept past dark buildings and shops I kept expecting Granville to turn up some side street and stop, but within a few minutes we were speeding through the suburbs up towards the North Road. This meeting, I thought, must be out in one of the country institutes, and I didn’t say anything until we had reached Scotch Corner and the big car had turned on to the old Roman Road to Bowes.
I stretched and yawned. “By the way, Granville, where are they holding this meeting?”
“Appleby,” my colleague replied calmly.
I came bolt upright in my seat then I began to laugh.
“What’s the joke, old son?” Granville enquired.
“Well…Appleby…ha-ha-ha! Come on, where are we really heading?”
“I’ve told you, laddie, the Pemberton Arms, Appleby, to be exact.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Of course.”
“But hell, Granville, that’s on the other side of the Pennines.”
“Quite right. Always has been, laddie.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Wait a minute. Surely it isn’t worth going about forty miles in weather like this. We’ll never get over Bowes Moor you know—in fact I heard yesterday it was blocked. Anyway, it’s nearly eight o’clock—we’d be too late.”
The big man reached across and patted my knee.
“Stop worrying, Jim. We’ll get there and we’ll be in plenty of time. You’ve got to remember you’re sitting in a proper motor car now. A drop of snow is nothing.”
As if determined to prove his words he put his foot down
and the great car hurtled along the dead straight stretch of road. We skidded a bit on the corner at Greta Bridge then roared through Bowes and up to the highest country. I couldn’t see much. In fact on the moor top I couldn’t see anything, because up there it was the real country snow; big dry flakes driving straight into the headlights and settling comfortably with millions of their neighbours on the already deep white carpet on the road. I just didn’t know how Granville was able to see, never mind drive fast; and I had no idea how we were going to get back over here in a few hours time when the wind had drifted the snow across the road. But I kept my mouth shut. It was becoming increasingly obvious that I emerged as a sort of maiden aunt in Granville’s company, so I held my peace and prayed.
I followed this policy through Brough and along the lower road where the going was easier until I climbed out with a feeling of disbelief in the yard of the Pemberton Arms. It was nine o’clock.
We slipped into the back of the room and I settled into my chair, prepared to improve my mind a little. There was a man on the platform holding forth and at first I had difficulty in picking up the substance of his words; he wasn’t mentioning anything about animal diseases but suddenly everything clicked into place.
“We are indeed grateful,” the man was saying “to Professor Milligan for coming all this way and for giving us a most interesting and instructive talk. I know I speak for the entire audience when I say we have enjoyed it thoroughly, so may I ask you to show your appreciation in the usual manner.” There was a long round of applause then an outburst of talk and a pushing back of chairs.
I turned to Granville in some dismay. “That was the vote of thanks. It’s finished.”
“So it is, laddie.” My colleague didn’t seem unduly disappointed or even surprised. “But come with me—there are compensations.”
We joined the throng of vets and moved across the richly carpeted hall to another room where bright lights shone down on a row of tables laden with food. Then I recognised Bill Warrington and Burroughs Wellcome representative and all became clear.
This was a commercially sponsored evening and the real action, in Granville’s estimation, began right here. I remembered then that Siegfried had once told me that Granville hated to miss any of these occasions. Though the most generous of men there was some piquancy in the gratis food and drink which attracted him irresistibly.
Even now he was guiding me purposefully towards the bar. But our progress was slow due to a phenomenon peculiar to Granville; everybody seemed to know him. Since those days I have been with him to restaurants, pubs, dances and it has been just the same. In fact I have often thought that if I took him to visit some lost tribe in the jungles of the Amazon one of them would jump and say “Well hello, Granville old boy!” and slap him on the back.
Finally however he fought his way through his fellow vets and we reached the bar where two dark little men in white coats were already under pressure; they were working with the impersonal concentration of people who knew that the whisky always took a hammering on veterinary evenings, but they paused and smiled as my colleague’s massive presence hovered at the counter.
“Now then, Mr. Bennett. How are you, Mr. Bennett?”
“Good evening, Bob. Nice to see you, Reg.” Granville responded majestically.
I noticed that Bob put down his bottle of ordinary whisky and reached down for a bottle of Glenlivet Malt to charge Granville’s glass. The big man sniffed the fine spirit appreciatively.
“And one for my friend, Mr. Herriot,” he said.
The barmen’s respectful expressions made me feel suddenly important and I found myself in possession of my own vast measure of Glenlivet. I had to get it down quickly followed by a few speedy refills since the barmen took their cue from my companion’s consumption.
Then I followed in Granville’s regal wake as he made his way among the tables with the air of a man in his natural environment. Messrs. Burroughs Wellcome had done us proud and we worked our way through a variety of canapes, savouries and cold meats. Now and again we revisited the bar for more of the Glenlivet then back to the tables.
I knew I had drunk too much and now I was eating too much. But the difficulty with Granville was that if I ever declined anything he took it as a personal insult.
“Try one of those prawn things,” he would say, sinking his teeth into a mushroom vol au vent and if I hesitated a wounded look would come into his eyes.
But I was enjoying myself. Veterinary surgeons are my favourite people and I revelled as I always did in their tales of successes and failures. Especially the failures; they were particularly soothing. Whenever the thought of how we were going to get home stole into my mind I banished it quickly.
Granville seemed to have no qualms because he showed no signs of moving when the company began to thin out; in fact we were the last to leave, our departure being accorded a touch of ceremony by a final substantial stirrup cup from Bob and Reg.
As we left the hotel I felt fine; a little light-headed perhaps and with the merest hint of regret at being pressed to a second helping of trifle and cream, but otherwise in excellent shape. As we settled once more into the Bentley Granville was at his most expansive.
“Excellent meeting that, Jim. I told you it would be worth the journey.”
We were the only members of the company who were headed eastward and were alone on the road. In fact it occurred to me that we hadn’t seen a single car on the road to Appleby and now there was something uncomfortable in our total isolation. The snow had stopped and the brilliant moon flooded its cold light over a white empty world. Empty, that is, except for us, and our solitary state was stressed by the smooth, virgin state of the glistening carpet ahead.
I was conscious of an increasing disquiet as the great gaunt spine of the Pennines bulked before us and as we drew nearer it reared up like an angry white monster.
Past the snow-burdened roofs of Brough then the long climb with the big car slipping from side to side as it fought its way up the bending, twisting hill, engine bellowing. I thought I’d feel better when we reached the top but the first glimpse of the Bowes Moor road sent my stomach into a lurch of apprehension; miles and miles of it coiling its way across the most desolate stretch of country in all England. And even from this distance you could see the drifts, satin smooth and beautiful, pushing their deadly way across our path.
On either side of the road a vast white desert rolled and dipped endlessly toward the black horizon; there was not a light, not a movement, not a sign of life anywhere.
The pipe jutted aggressively as Granville roared forward to do battle. We hit the first drift, slewed sideways for a tense few seconds then we were on the other side, speeding into the unbroken surface. Then the next drift and the next and the next. Often I thought we were stuck but always, wheels churning, engine screaming we emerged. I had had plenty of experience of snow driving and I could appreciate Granville’s expertise as, without slackening speed he picked out the shallowest, narrowest part of each obstruction for his attack. He had this heavy powerful car to help him but he could drive all right.
However, my trepidation at being stranded in this waste land was gradually being overshadowed by another uneasiness. When I had left the hotel I was pretty well topped up with food and drink and if I had been handled gently for the next few hours I’d have been all right. But on the bumpy journey to Brough I had been increasingly aware of a rising queasiness; my mind kept flitting back unhappily to that exotic cocktail, Reg’s speciality, which Granville had said I must try; he had prevailed on me, too, to wash down the whiskies with occasional beers which, he said, were essential to maintain a balanced intake of fluids and solids. And that final trifle—it had been a mistake.
And now I wasn’t just being bumped, I was being thrown around like a pea in a drum as the Bentley lurched and skidded and occasionally took off altogether. Soon I began to feel very ill indeed. And like a seasick man who didn’t care if the ship foundered I lost all interes
t in our progress; I closed my eyes, braced my feet on the floor and shrunk into an inner misery.
I hardly noticed as, after an age of violent motion, we finally began to go downhill and thundered through Bowes. After that there was little danger of having to spend the night in the car but Granville kept his foot down and we rocked over the frozen ground while I felt steadily worse.
I would dearly have loved to ask my colleague to stop and allow me to be quietly sick by the roadside but how do you say such a thing to a man who never seemed to be in the least affected by over indulgence and who, even at that moment was chatting gaily as he refilled his pipe with his free hand. The internal pounding seemed to have forced extra alcohol into my bloodstream because on top of my other discomforts my vision was blurred, I was dizzy and had the strong conviction that if I tried to stand up I would fall flat on my face.
I was busy with these preoccupations when the car stopped.
“We’ll just pop in and say hello to Zoe,” Granville said.
“Wha’s that?” I slurred.
“We’ll go inside for a few minutes.”
I looked around. “Where are we?”
Granville laughed. “Home old son. I can see a light, so Zoe’s still up. You must come and have a quick cup of coffee.”
I crawled laboriously from the seat and stood leaning on the car. My colleague tripped lightly to the door and rang the bell. He was as fit as a fiddle I thought bitterly as I reeled after him. I was slumped against the porch breathing heavily when the door opened and there was Zoe Bennett, bright eyed, glowing, beautiful as ever.
“Why Mr. Herriot!” she cried. “How nice to see you again!”
Slack-jawed, green-faced, rumpled-suited, I stared into her eyes, gave a gentle hiccup and staggered past her into the house.
Next morning Granville rang to say all was going to be well because Maudie had been able to lap a little milk. It was kind of him to let me know and I didn’t want to sound churlish by saying that was all I had managed to do, too.
It happened that morning by a coincidence that I had a far outlying visit and had to pass the Scotch Corner turning on the North Road. I stopped the car and sat gazing at the long snow-covered road stretching towards the Pennines. I was starting my engine when an A.A. man came over and spoke at my window.