"But I'll tell you this, I've had enough! So it straight, once and for
all no more of this nonsense. Cut it out!"
I felt my heart thudding as I went down to see the dogs for the next
race.
I examined the five animals the owners and kennel lads fixed me with a
flinty stare as though I were some strange freak. My pulse began to
slow down when I found there were no full stomachs this time and I
glanced back in relief along the line. I was about to walk away when I
noticed that number one looked: little unusual. I went back and bent
over him, trying to decide what it was ate' him that had caught my
attention. Then I realised what it was he fool sleepy. The head was
hanging slightly and he had an air of apathy.
I lifted his chin and looked into his eyes. The pupils were dilated
and every.
now and then there was a faint twitch of nystagmus. There was
absolutely doubt about it he had received some kind of sedative. He
had been doped. .
The men in the paddock was very still as I stood upright. For a few
moments I gazed through the wire netting at the brightly lit green
oval, feeling the nil air cold on my cheeks. George was still at it on
the loudspeakers.
"Oh Mr Wu," he trilled.
"What can I do?"
Well I knew what I had to do, anyway. I tapped the dog on the back.
"This one's out," I said.
I didn't wait for the announcement and was half way up the steps to
manager's office before I heard the request for my presence blared
across I stadium.
When I opened the door I half expected Mr Coker to rush at me and
attack me and I was surprised when I found him sitting at his desk, his
head burl in his hands. I stood there on the carpet for some time
before he raised a ghastly countenance to me.
"Is it true?" he whispered despairingly.
"Have you done it again?"
I nodded.
"Afraid so."
His lips trembled but he didn't say any thing, and after a brief.
disbelieving scrutiny he sank his head in his hands again.
I waited for a minute or two but when he stayed like that, quite
motionless I realised that the audience was at an end and took my
leave.
I found no fault with the dogs for the next race and as I left the
paddock unaccustomed peace settled around me. I couldn't understand it
when I heard the loudspeaker again- "Will the vet please report . . ."
But this time it was the paddock and I wondered if a dog had been
injured. Anyway, it would b.
relief to do a bit of real vet ting for a change. : But when I arrived
there were no animals to be seen; only two men cradling a fat com
panion in their arms. : "What's this?" I asked one of them.
"Ambrose 'ere fell down the steps in the stand and skinned 'is knee."
r I stared at him
"But I'm a vet, not a doctor."
"Ain't no doctor on the track," the man mumbled.
"We reckoned you could patch 'im up."
Ah well, it was a funny night.
"Put him over on that beech," I said.
I rolled up the trouser to reveal a rather revolting fat dimpled knee.
Ambrose emitted a hollow groan as I touched a very minor abrasion on
the patella.
"It's nothing much," I said.
"You've just knocked a bit of skin off."
Ambrose looked at me tremblingly.
"Aye, but it could go t'wrong way, couldn't it? I don't want no blood
poison in'."
"All right, I'll put something on it." I looked inside Stewie's
medical bag.
The selection was limited but I found some tincture of iodine and I
poured a little on a pad of cotton wool and dabbed the wound.
Ambrose gave a shrill yelp.
"Bloody 'elf, that 'urts! What are you coin' to me?" His foot jerked
up and rapped me sharply on the elbow.
Even my human patients kicked me, it seemed. I smiled reassuringly.
"Don't worry, it won't sting for long. I'll put a bandage on now."
I bound up the knee, rolled down the trouser and patted the fat man's
shoulder.
"There you are good as new."
He got off the bench, nodded, then grimacing painfully, prepared to
leave.
But an afterthought appeared to strike him and he pulled a handful of
change from his pocket. He rummaged among it with a forefinger before
selecting a coin which he pressed into my palm.
"There yare," he said.
I looked at the coin. It was a sixpence, the fee for my only piece of
doctoring of my own species. I stared stupidly at it for a long time
and when I finally looked up with the half-formed idea of throwing
Ambrose's honorarium back at his head the man was limping into the
crowd and was soon lost to sight.
Back in the bar I was gazing apathetically through the glass at the
dogs parading round the track when I felt a hand on my arm. I turned
and recognised a man I had spotted earlier in the evening He was one of
a group of three men and three women, the men dark, tight-suited,
foreign-loo king, the women loud and over-dressed. There was something
sinister about them and I remembered thinking they could have passed
without question as members of the Mafia.
The man put his face close to mine and I had a brief impression of
black, darting eyes and a predatory smile.
"Is number three fit?" he whispered.
I couldn't understand the question. He seemed to know I was the vet
and surely it was obvious that if I had passed the dog I considered him
fit.
"Yes," I replied.
"Yes, he is."
The man nodded vigorously and gave me a knowing glance from hooded
eyes.
He returned and held a short, intimate conversation with his friends,
then they all turned and looked over at me approvingly.
I was bewildered, then it struck me that they may have thought I was
giving them an inside tip. To this day I am not really sure but I
think that was it because when number three finished nowhere in the
race their attitude changed dramatically and they flashed me some black
glares which made them look more like the Mafia than ever.
Anyway I had no more trouble down at the paddock for the rest of the
evening No more dogs to take out, which was just as well, because I had
made enough enemies for one night.
After the last race I looked around the long bar. Most of the tables
were occupied by people having a final drink, but I noticed an empty
one and sank wearily into a chair. Stewie had asked me to stay for
half an hour after the finish to make sure all the dogs got away safely
and I would stick to my bargain even though what I wanted most in the
world was to get away from here an, never come back.
George was still in splendid voice on the loudspeakers,
"I always get to be by half past nine," he warbled, and I felt strongly
that he had a point there.
Along the bar counter were assembled most of the people with whom I ha,
clashed; Mr Coker and other officials and dog owners. There was a lot
of nudging and whispering and I didn't have to be told the subje
ct of
their discussion. The Mafia, too, were doing their bit with fierce
side glances and could almost feel the waves of antagonism beating
against me.
My gloomy thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a bookie and his
clerk The bookie dropped into a chair opposite me and tipped out a huge
leather bag on to the table. I had never seen so much money in my
life. I peered at the man over a mountain of fivers and pounds and
ten-shilling notes while little stream and tributaries of coins ran
down its flanks.
The two of them began a methodical stacking and counting of the loot
while I watched hypnotically. They had eroded the mountain to about
half its height when the bookie caught my eye. Maybe he thought I
looked envious or poverty-stricken or just miserable because he put his
finger behind a stray half crown and flicked it expertly across the
smooth surface in my direction.
"Get yourself a drink, son, "he said.
It was the second time I had been offered money during the last hour
and I was almost as much taken aback as the first time. The bookie
looked at me expressionlessly for a moment then he grinned. He had an
attractively ugly, good-natured face that I liked instinctively and
suddenly I felt grateful to him, not for the money but for the sight of
a friendly face. It was the only one I had seen all evening
I smiled back.
"Thanks," I said. I lifted the half crown and went over to the bar.
I awoke next morning with the knowledge that it was my last day at Hens
field.
Stewie was due back at lunch time.
When I parted the now familiar curtains at the morning surgery I still
felt a vague depression, a hangover from my unhappy night at the dog
track.
But when I looked into the waiting room my mood lightened
immediately.
There was only one animal among the odd assortment of chairs but that
animal was Kim, massive, golden and beautiful, sitting between his
owners, and when he saw me he sprang up with swishing tail and laughing
mouth.
There was none of the smell which had horrified me before but as I
looked at the dog I could sniff something else the sweet, sweet scent
of success.
Because he was touching the ground with that leg; not putting any
weight on it but definitely dotting it down as he capered around me.
In an instant I was back in my world again and Mr Coker and the events
of last night were but the dissolving mists of a bad dream.
I could hardly wait to get started.
"Get him on the table," I cried, then began to laugh as the Gillards
automatically pushed their legs against the collapsible struts. They
knew the drill now.
I had to restrain myself from doing a dance of joy when I got the
plaster off.
There was a bit of discharge but when I cleaned it away I found
healthy.
granulation tissue everywhere. Pink new flesh binding the shattered
joint together, smoothing over and hiding the original mutilation.
"Is his leg safe now?" Marjorie Gillard asked softly.
I looked at her and smiled.
"Yes, it is. There's no doubt about it now."
rubbed my hand under the big dog's chin and the tail beat ecstatically
on the wood.
"He'll probably have a stiff joint but that won't matter, will it?"
~ , I applied the last of Stewie's bandages then we hoisted Kim off the
table.
~Well, that's it," I said.
"Take him to your own vet in another fortnight.
After that I don't think he'll need a bandage at all."
The Gillards left on their journey back to the south and a couple of
hours later Stewie and his family returned. The children were very
brown, even the baby. still bawling resolutely, had a fine tan. The
skin had peeled off Meg's nose but she looked wonderfully relaxed.
Stewie, in open necked shirt and with a face like a boiled lobster,
seemed to have put on weight.
~That holiday saved our lives, Jim," he said.
"I can't thank you enough, and please tell Siegfried how grateful we
are." He looked fondly at his turbulent brood flooding through the
house, then as an afterthought he turned to me.
"Is everything all right in the practice?"
"Yes, Stewie, it is. I had my ups and downs of course."
He laughed.
"Don't we all."
"We certainly do, but everything's fine now."
And everything did seem fine as I drove away from the smoke. I watched
the houses thin and fall away behind me till the whole world opened out
clean and free and I saw the green line of the fells rising over Darrow
by.
I suppose we all tend to remember the good things but as it turned out
I had no option. The following Christmas I had a letter from the
Gillards with a packet of snapshots showing a big golden dog clearing a
gate, leaping high for a ball, strutting proudly with a stick in his
mouth. There was hardly any stiffness in the leg, they said; he was
perfectly sound.
So even now when I think of Hens field the thing I remember best is
Kim.
Chapter Twenty-four There was a lot of shouting in the RAF. The NCOs
always seemed to be shouting at me or at somebody else and a lot of
them had impressively powerful voices But for sheer volume I don't
think any of them could beat Len Hamp son.
I was on the way to Len's farm and on an impulse I pulled up the car
and leaned for a moment on the wheel. It was a hot still day in late
summer and this was one of the softer corners of the Dales, sheltered
by the enclosing fells from the harsh winds which shrivelled all but
the heather and the tough moorland grass.
Here, great trees, oak, elm and sycamore in full rich leaf, stood in
gentle majesty in the green dips and hollows, their branches quite
still in the windless air.
In all the grassy miles around me I could see no movement, nor could I
hear any thing except the fleeting hum of a bee and the distant
bleating of a sheep.
Through the open window drifted the scents of summer; warm grass,
clover and the sweetness of hidden Rowers. But in the car they had to
compete with the all-pervading smell of cow. I had spent the last hour
injecting fifty wild cattle and I sat there in soiled breeches and
sweat-soaked shirt loo king out sleepily at the tranquil landscape.
I opened the door and Sam jumped out and trotted into a nearby wood. I
followed him into the cool shade, into the damp secret fragrance of
pine needles ooo vers Ivlten'r~y and fallen leaves which came from the
dark heart of the crowding boles. From somewhere in the branches high
above I could hear that most soothing of sounds the cooing of a wood
pigeon.
Then, although the farm was two fields away, I heard Len Hamp son's
voice He wasn't calling the cattle home or any thing like that. He was
just conversing; with his family as he always did in a long tireless
shout.
I drove on to the farm and he opened the gate to let me into the
yard.
"
Good morning Mr Hamp son," I said.
NOW THEN, MR HER RIOT," he bawled.
"ITS A GRAND MORN IN .
The blast of sound drove me back a step but his three sons smiled
contented No doubt they were used to it.
I stayed at a safe distance.
"You want me to see a pig,"
AYE, A GOOD BACON PIG. GONE RIGHT OFF. IT HASN"T ATE NOWT FOR TWO
DAys We went into the pig pen and it was easy to pick out my patient.
Most of the big white occupants careered around at the sight of a
stranger, but one of them stood quietly in a corner.
O ,...
It isn't often a pig will stand unresisting as you take its temperature
but this one never stirred as I slipped the thermometer into its
rectum. There was only a slight fever but the animal had the look of
doom about it; back slightly arch unwilling to move, eyes withdrawn and
anxious.
I looked up at Len Hamp son's red-faced bulk leaning over the wall of
pen.