I looked at her now as she nosed around the straw in her pen. She was a vast sow and the four inch laceration in her neck muscles was obviously posing no threat to her life; but it was gaping and couldn’t be left like that.
“I’ll have to put a few stitches in there,” I said, and the big Miss Dunn gasped and put a hand to her mouth.
“Oh dear! Will it hurt her? I shan’t be able to look, I’m afraid.”
She was a tall muscular lady in her fifties with a bright red face and often as I looked at the wide shoulders and the great arms with their bulging biceps I had the feeling that she could flatten me effortlessly with one blow if she so desired. But strangely she was nervous and squeamish about the realities of animal doctoring and it was always her little wisp of a sister who helped at lambings, calvings and the rest.
“Oh you needn’t worry, Miss Dunn,” I replied. “It’ll be all over before she knows what’s happening.” I climbed into the pen, went up to Prudence and touched her gently on the neck.
Immediately the sow unleased a petulant scream as though she had been stabbed with a hot iron and when I tried to give her back a friendly scratch the huge mouth opened again and the deafening sound blasted out. And this time she advanced on me threateningly. I stood my ground till the yawning cavern with its yellowed teeth was almost touching my leg then I put a hand on the rail and vaulted out of the pen.
“We’ll have to get her into a smaller space,” I said. “I’ll never be able to stitch her in that big pen. She has too much room to move around and she’s too big to hold.”
Little Miss Dunn held up her hand. “We have the very place. In the calf house across the yard. If we got her into one of those narrow stalls she wouldn’t be able to turn round.”
“Fine!” I rubbed my hands. “And I’ll be able to do the stitching over the top from the passage. Let’s get her over there.”
I opened the door and after a bit of poking and pushing Prudence ambled majestically out on to the cobbles of the yard. But there she stood, grunting sulkily, a stubborn glint in her little eyes, and when I leaned my weight against her back end it was like trying to move an elephant She had no intention of moving any further; and that calf house was twenty yards away.
I stole a look at my watch. Five fifteen, and I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.
The little Miss Dunn broke into my thoughts. “Mr. Herriot, I know how we can get her across the yard.”
“You do?”
“Oh yes, Prudence has been naughty before and we have found a way of persuading her to move.”
I managed a smile. “Great! How do you do it?”
“Well now,” and both sisters giggled. “She is very fond of digestive biscuits.”
“What’s that?”
“She simply loves digestive biscuits.”
“She does?”
“Adores them!”
“Well, that’s very nice,” I said. “But I don’t quite see…”
The big Miss Dunn laughed. “Just you wait and I’ll show you.”
She began to stroll towards the house and it seemed to me that though those ladies were by no means typical Dales farmers they did share the general attitude that time was of no consequence. The door closed behind her and I waited…and as the minutes ticked away I began to think she was brewing herself a cup of tea. In my mounting tension I turned away and gazed down over the hillside fields to where the grey roofs and old church tower of Dollingsford showed above the riverside trees. The quiet peace of the scene was in direct contrast to my mental state.
Just when I was giving up hope, big Miss Dunn reappeared carrying a long round paper container. She gave me a roguish smile as she held it up to me.
“These are what she likes. Now just watch.”
She produced a biscuit and threw it down on the cobbles a few feet in front of the sow. Prudence eyed it impassively for a few moments then without haste strolled forward, examined it carefully and began to eat it.
When she had finished, big Miss Dunn glanced at me conspiratorially and threw another biscuit in front of her. The pig again moved on unhurriedly and started on the second course. This was gradually leading her towards the buildings across toe yard but it was going to take a long time. I reckoned that each biscuit was advancing her about ten feet and the calf house would be all of twenty yards away, so allowing three minutes a biscuit it was going to take nearly twenty minutes to get there.
I broke out in a sweat at the thought, and my fears were justified because nobody was in the slightest hurry. Especially Prudence who slowly munched each titbit then snuffled around picking up every crumb while the ladies smiled down at her fondly.
“Look,” I stammered. “Do you think you could throw the biscuits a bit further ahead of her…just to save time, I mean?”
Little Miss Dunn laughed gaily. “Oh we’ve tried that, but she’s such a clever old darling. She knows she’ll get less that way.”
To demonstrate she threw the next biscuit about fifteen feet away from the pig but the massive animal surveyed it with a cynical expression and didn’t budge until it was kicked back to the required spot. Miss Dunn was right; Prudence wasn’t so daft.
So I just had to wait gritting my teeth as I watched the agonising progress. I was almost at screaming point at the end though the others were thoroughly enjoying themselves. But at last the final biscuit was cast into the calf pen, the pig made her leisurely way inside and the ladies, with triumphant giggles, closed the door behind her.
I leaped forward with my needle and suture silk and of course as soon as I laid a finger on her skin Prudence set up an almost unbearable nonstop squeal of rage. Big Miss Dunn put her hands over her ears and fled in terror but her little sister stayed with me bravely and passed me my scissors and dusting powder whenever I asked in sign language above the din.
My head was still ringing as I drove away, but that didn’t worry me as much as the time. It was six o’clock.
43
TENSELY I ASSESSED MY position. The next and final visit was only a couple of miles away—I could make it in ten minutes. Then say twenty minutes on the farm, fifteen minutes back to Darrowby, a lightning wash and change and I could still be pushing my knees under Mrs. Hodgson’s table by seven o’clock.
And the next job wasn’t a long one; just a bull to ring. Nowadays since the advent of Artificial Insemination there aren’t many bulls about—only the big dairy men and pedigree breeders keep them—but in the thirties nearly every farmer had one, and inserting rings in their noses was a regular job. The rings were put in when they were about a year old and were necessary to restrain the big animals when they had to be led around.
I was immensely relieved when I arrived to find the gaunt figure of old Ted Buckle the farmer and his two men waiting for me in the yard. A classical way for a vet to waste time is to go hollering around the empty buildings then do more of the same out in the empty fields, waving madly, trying to catch the eye of a dot on the far horizon.
“Now then, young man,” Ted said, and even that short phrase took a fair time to come out. To me, the old man was a constant delight; speaking the real old Yorkshire—which you seldom hear now and which I won’t try to reproduce here—with slow deliberation as though he were savouring every syllable as much as I was enjoying listening to him. “You’ve come, then.”
“Yes, Mr. Buckle, and I’m glad to see you’re ready and waiting for me.”
“Aye ah doan’t like keepin’ you fellers hangin’ about.” He turned to his men. “Now then, lads go into that box and get haud’n that big lubber for Mr. Herriot.”
The “lads,” Ernest and Herbert, who were both in their sixties, shuffled into the bull’s loose box and closed the door after them. There was a few seconds of muffled banging against the wood, a couple of bellows and the occasional anglo-saxon expression from the men, then silence.
“Ah think they have ’im now,” Ted murmured and, not for the first time, I looked wonderingly at his wea
ring apparel. I had never seen him in anything else but that hat and coat in the time I had known him. With regard to the coat, which countless years ago must have been some kind of mackintosh, two things puzzled me; why he put it on and how he put it on. The long tatter of unrelated ribbons tied round the middle with binder twine could not possibly afford him any protection from the elements and how on earth did he know which were the sleeve holes among all the other apertures? And the hat, an almost crownless trilby from the early days of the century whose brim drooped vertically in sad folds over ears and eyebrows; it seemed incredible that he actually hung the thing up on a peg each night and donned it again in the morning.
Maybe the answer was to be found in the utterly serene humorous eyes which looked out from the skeleton-thin face. Nothing changed for Ted and the passage of a decade was a fleeting thing. I remember him showing me the old fashioned “reckon” which held the pans and kettles over the fire on his farm kitchen. He pointed out the row of holes where you could adjust it for large pans or small as though it were some modern invention.
“Aye, it’s a wonderful thing, and t’lad that put it in for me made a grand job!”
“When was that, Mr. Buckle?”
“It were eighteen ninety seven. Ah remember it well. He was a right good workman was t’lad.”
But the men had reappeared with the young bull on a halter and they soon had him held in the accepted position for ringing.
There was a ritual about this job, a set pattern as unvarying as a classical ballet. Ernest and Herbert pulled the bull’s head over the half door and held it there by pulling on a shank on either side of the halter. The portable crush had not yet been invented and this arrangement with the bull inside the box and the men outside was adopted for safety’s sake. The next step was to make a hole through the tough tissue at the extremity of the nasal septum with the special punch which I had ready in its box.
But first there was a little refinement which I had introduced myself. Though it was the general custom to punch the hole without any preliminaries I always had the feeling that the bull might not like it very much; so I used to inject a couple of c.c.’s of local anaesthetic into the nose before I started. I poised my syringe now and Ernest, holding the left shank, huddled back apprehensively against the door.
“Tha’s standin’ middlin’ to t’side, Ernest,” Ted drawled. “Doesta think he’s goin’ to jump on top o’ tha?”
“Naw, naw.” The man grinned sheepishly and took a shorter hold of the rope.
But he jumped back to his former position when I pushed the needle into the gristle just inside the nostril because the bull let loose a sudden deep-throated bellow of anger and reared up above the door. Ted had delayed ringing this animal; he was nearly eighteen months and very big.
“Haud ’im, lads,” Ted murmured as the two men clung to the ropes. “That’s right—he’ll settle down shortly.”
And he did. With his chin resting on the top of the door, held by the ropes on either side, he was ready for the next act. I pushed my punch into the nose, gripped the handles and squeezed. I never felt much like a professional gentleman when I did this, but at least my local had worked and the big animal didn’t stir as the jaws of the instrument clicked together, puncturing a small round hold in the hard tissue.
The next stage in the solemn rite was unfolded as I unwrapped the bronze ring from its paper covering, took out the screw and opened the ring wide on its hinge. I waited for the inevitable words.
“Take tha’ cap off, Herbert. Tha woan’t catch caud just for a minute.” Ted supplied them.
It was always a cap. A big bucket, a basin would have been more practical to hold that stupid, tiny screw and equally foolish little screwdriver, but it was always a cap. And a greasy old cap such as Herbert now removed from his polished pate.
My next step would be to slip the ring through the hole I had made, close it, insert the screw and tighten it up. That was where the cap came in; it was held under the ring to guard against sudden movements, because if the screw fell and was lost in the dirt and straw then all was lost. Then Ted would hand me the long rasp or file which every farmer had around somewhere and I would carefully smooth off the rim of the screw whether it needed it or not.
But this time there was to be a modification of the stereotyped little drama. As I stepped forward with my ring the young bull and I stood face to face and for a moment the wide set eyes under the stubby horns looked into mine. And as I reached out he must have moved slightly because the sharp end of the ring pricked him a little on the muzzle; the merest touch, but he seemed to take it as a personal insult because his mouth opened in an exasperated bawl and again he reared on his hind legs.
He was a well grown animal and in that position he looked very large indeed; and when his fore feet clumped down on the half door and the great rib cage loomed above us he was definitely formidable.
“The bugger’s comin’ over!” Ernest gasped and released his hold on the halter shank. He had never had much enthusiasm for the job and he abandoned it now without regret. Herbert was made of sterner stuff and he hung on grimly to his end as the bull thrashed above him, but after a cloven hoof had whizzed past his ear and another whistled just over his gleaming dome he too let go and fled.
Ted, untroubled as always, was well out of range and there remained only myself dancing in front of the door and gesticulating frantically at the bull in the vain hope that I might frighten him back whence he came; and the only thing that kept me there was the knowledge that every inch he scrambled out was taking me further from Mrs. Hodgson’s glorious supper.
I stood my ground until the snorting, bellowing creature was two thirds over, hanging grotesquely with the top of the door digging deep into his abdomen, then with a final plunge he was into the yard and I ran for cover. But the bull was not bent on mischief; he took one look at the open gate into the field and thundered through it like an express train.
From behind a stack of milk churns I watched sadly as he curveted joyously over the grass, revelling in his new found freedom. Bucking and kicking, tail in the air he headed for the far horizon where the wide pasture dipped to a beck which wandered along the floor of a shallow depression. And as he disappeared over the brow of the hill the last hope of my spare ribs went with him.
“It’ll tek us an hour to catch that bugger,” grunted Ernest gloomily.
I looked at my watch. Half past six. The bitter injustice of the whole thing overwhelmed me and I set up a wail of lamentation.
“Yes, dammit, and I’ve got an appointment in Darrowby at seven o’clock!” I stamped over the cobbles for a moment or two then swung round on old Ted. “I’ll never make it now…I’ll have to ring my wife…have you got a phone?”
Ted’s drawl was lazier than ever. “Nay, we ’avent got no phone. Ah don’t believe in them things.” He fished out a tobacco tin from his pocket, unscrewed the lid and produced a battered timepiece which he scrutinised without haste. “Any road, there’s nowt to stop ye bein’ back i’ Darrowby by seven.”
“But…but…that’s impossible…and I can’t keep these people waiting…I must get to a phone.”
“Doan’t get s’flustered, young man.” The old man’s, long face creased into a soothing smile. “Ah tell ye you won’t be late.”
I waved my arms around. “But he’s just said it’ll take an hour to catch that bull!”
“Fiddlesticks! Ernest allus talks like that…’e’s never ’appy unless ’e’s miserable. Ah’ll get bull in i’ five minutes.”
“Five minutes! That’s ridiculous! I’ll…I’ll drive down the road to the nearest phone box while you’re catching him.”
“You’ll do nowt of t’sort, lad.” Ted pointed to a stone water trough against the wall. “Go and sit thissen down and think of summat else…ah’ll only be five minutes.”
Wearily I sank on to the rough surface and buried my face in my hands. When I looked up the old man was coming out of the byre and in f
ront of him ambled a venerable cow. By the number of rings on the long curving horns she must have been well into her teens; the gaunt pelvic bones stood out like a hatstand and underneath her a pendulous udder almost touched the ground.
“Get out there awd lass,” Ted said and the old cow trotted into the field, her udder swinging gently at each step. I watched her until she had disappeared over the hill, then turned to see Ted throwing cattle cake into a bucket.
He strolled through the gate and as I gazed uncomprehendingly he began to beat the bucket with a stick. At the same time he raised his voice in a reedy tenor and called out across the long stretch of green.
“Cush, cush!” he cried. “Cush, pet, cush!”
Almost immediately the cow reappeared over the brow and just behind her the bull. I looked with wonder as Ted banged on his bucket and the cow broke into a stiff gallop with my patient close by her side. When she reached the old man she plunged her head in among the cake while the bull, though he was as big as she, pushed his nose underneath her and seized one of her teats in his great mouth. It was an absurd sight but she didn’t seem to mind as the big animal, almost on his knees, sucked away placidly.
In fact it was like a soothing potion because when the cow was led inside he followed; and he made no complaint as I slipped the ring in his nose and fastened it in with the screw which mercifully had survived inside Herbert’s cap.
“Quarter to seven!” I panted happily as I jumped into the driving seat. “I’ll get there in time now.” I could see Helen and me standing on the Hodgson’s step and the door opening and the heavenly scent of the spare ribs and onions drifting out from the kitchen.