James Herriot (24 page)

It seemed a long time before I came out of my first shock and found myself staring stupidly at the animal. And when I spoke the voice didn’t sound like my own.

“Bring him in,” I muttered, and as I led the way back through the odorous waiting room the realisation burst on me that I had been wrong when I thought that nothing ever happened here.

I
HELD THE CURTAINS
apart as the young man staggered in and placed his burden on the table.

Now I could see the whole thing; the typical signs of a road accident; the dirt driven savagely into the glossy gold of the coat, the multiple abrasions. But that mangled leg wasn’t typical. I had never seen anything like it before.

I dragged my eyes round to the girl, “How did it happen?”

“Oh, just in a flash.” The tears welled in her eyes. “We are on a caravanning holiday. We had no intention of staying in Hensfield”—(I could understand that)—“but we stopped for a newspaper, Kim jumped out of the car and that was it.”

I looked at the big dog stretched motionless on the table. I reached out a hand and gently ran my fingers over the noble outlines of the head.

“Poor old lad,” I murmured and for an instant the beautiful hazel eyes turned to me and the tail thumped briefly against the wood.

“Where have you come from?” I asked.

“Surrey,” the young man replied. He looked rather like the prosperous young stockbroker that the name conjured up.

I rubbed my chin. “I see. …” A way of escape shone for a moment in the tunnel. “Perhaps if I patch him up you could get him back to your own vet there.”

He looked at his wife for a moment then back at me. “And what would they do there? Amputate his leg?”

I was silent. If an animal in this condition arrived in one of those high-powered southern practices with plenty of skilled assistance and full surgical equipment that’s what they probably would do. It would be the only sensible thing.

The girl broke in on my thoughts. “Anyway, if it’s at all possible to save his leg something has to be done right now. Isn’t that so?” She gazed at me appealingly.

“Yes,” I said huskily. “That’s right.” I began to examine the dog. The abrasions on the skin were trivial. He was shocked but his mucous membranes were pink enough to suggest that there was no internal haemorrhage. He had escaped serious injury except for that terrible leg.

I stared at it intently, appalled by the smooth glistening articular surfaces of the tibio-tarsal joint. There was something obscene in its exposure in a living animal. It was as though the hock had been broken open by brutal inquisitive hands.

I began a feverish search of the premises, pulling open drawers, cupboards, opening tins and boxes. My heart leaped at each little find; a jar of catgut in spirit, a packet of lint, a sprinkler tin of iodoform, and—treasure trove indeed—a bottle of barbiturate anaesthetic.

Most of all I needed antibiotics, but it was pointless looking for those because they hadn’t been discovered yet. But I did hope fervently for just an ounce or two of sulphanilamide, and there I was disappointed, because Stewie’s menage didn’t stretch to that. It was when I came upon the box of plaster of paris bandages that something seemed to click.

At that time in the late thirties the Spanish civil war was vivid in people’s minds. In the chaos of the later stages there had been no proper medicaments to treat the terrible wounds. They had often been encased in plaster and left, in the grim phrase, to “stew in their own juice.” Sometimes the results were surprisingly good.

I grabbed the bandages. I knew what I was going to do. Gripped by a fierce determination I inserted the needle into the radial vein and slowly injected the anaesthetic. Kim blinked, yawned lazily and went to sleep. I quickly laid out my meagre armoury then began to shift the dog into a better position. But I had forgotten about the table and as I lifted the hind quarters the whole thing gave way and the dog slithered helplessly towards the floor.

“Catch him!” At my frantic shout the man grabbed the inert form, then I reinserted the slots in their holes and got the wooden surface back on the level.

“Put your leg under there,” I gasped, then turned to the girl. “And would you please do the same at the other end. This table mustn’t fall over once I get started.”

Silently they complied and as I looked at them, each with a leg jammed against the underside, I felt a deep sense of shame. What sort of place did they think this was?

But for a long time after I forgot everything. First I put the joint back in place, slipping the ridges of the tibial-tarsal trochlea into the grooves at the distal end of the tibia as I had done so often in the anatomy lab at college. And I noticed with a flicker of hope that some of the ligaments were still intact and, most important, that a few good blood vessels still ran down to the lower part of the limb.

I never said a word as I cleaned and disinfected the area, puffed iodoform into every crevice and began to stitch. I stitched interminably, pulling together shattered tendons, torn joint capsule and fascia. It was a warm morning and as the sun beat on the surgery window the sweat broke out on my forehead. By the time I had sutured the skin a little river was flowing down my nose and dripping from the tip. Next, more iodoform, then the lint and finally two of the plaster bandages, making a firm cast above the hock down over the foot.

I straightened up and faced the young couple. They had never moved from their uncomfortable postures as they held the table upright but I gazed at them as though seeing them for the first time.

I mopped my brow and drew a long breath. “Well, that’s it. I’d be inclined to leave it as it is for a week, then wherever you are let a vet have a look at it.”

They were silent for a moment then the girl spoke. “I would rather you saw it yourself.” Her husband nodded agreement.

“Really?” I was amazed. I had thought they would never want to see me, my smelly waiting room or my collapsible table again.

“Yes, of course we would,” the man said. “You have taken such pains over him. Whatever happens we are deeply grateful to you, Mr. Brannan.”

“Oh, I’m not Mr. Brannan, he’s on holiday. I’m his locum, my name is Herriot.”

He held out his hand. “Well thank you again, Mr. Herriot. I am Peter Gillard and this is my wife, Marjorie.”

We shook hands and he took the dog in his arms and went out to the car.

For the next few days I couldn’t keep Kim’s leg out of my mind. At times I felt I was crazy trying to salvage a limb that was joined to the dog only by a strip of skin. I had never met anything remotely like it before and in unoccupied moments the hock joint with all its imponderables would float across my vision.

There were plenty of these moments because Stewie’s was a restful practice. Apart from the three daily surgeries there was little activity, and in particular the uncomfortable pre-breakfast call so common in Darrowby was unknown here.

The Brannans had left the house and me in the care of Mrs. Holroyd, an elderly widow of raddled appearance who slouched around in a flowered overall down which ash cascaded from a permanently dangling cigarette. She wasn’t a good riser but she soon had me trained, because after a few mornings when I couldn’t find her I began to prepare my own breakfast and that was how it stayed.

However, at other times she looked after me very well. She was what you might call a good rough cook and pushed large tasty meals at me regularly with a “There y’are, luv,” watching me impassively till I started to eat. The only thing that disturbed me was the long trembling finger of ash which always hung over my food from the cigarette that was part of her.

Mrs. Holroyd also took telephone messages when I wasn’t around. There weren’t many outside visits but two have stuck in my memory.

The first was when I looked on the pad and read, “Go to Mr. Pimmarov to see bulldog,” in Mrs. Holroyd’s careful backsloped script.

“Pimmarov?” I asked her. “Was he a Russian gentleman?”

“Dunno, luv, never asked ’im.”

“Well—did he sound foreign? I mean did he speak broken English?”

“Nay, luv, Yorkshire as me, ’e were.”

“Ah well, never mind, Mrs. Holroyd. What’s his address?”

She gave me a surprised look. “How should ah know? He never said.”

“But … but Mrs. Holroyd. How can I visit him when I don’t know where he lives?”

“Well you’ll know best about that, luv.”

I was baffled. “But he must have told you.”

“Now then, young man, Pimmarov was all ’e told me. Said you would know.” She stuck out her chin, her cigarette quivered and she regarded me stonily. Maybe she had had similar sessions with Stewie, but she left me in no doubt that the interview was over.

During the day I tried not to think about it but the knowledge that somewhere in the neighbourhood there was an ailing bulldog that I could not succour was worrying. I just hoped it was nothing fatal.

A phone call at 7 p.m. resolved my fears.

“Is that t’vet?” The voice was gruff and grumpy.

“Yes … speaking.”

“Well, ah’ve been waitin’ all day for tha. When are you comin’ to see ma flippin’ bulldog?”

A light glimmered. But still … that accent … no suggestion of the Kremlin … not a hint of the Steppes.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” I gabbled. “I’m afraid there’s been a little misunderstanding. I’m doing Mr. Brannan’s work and I don’t know the district. I do hope your dog isn’t seriously ill.”

“Nay, nay, nobbut a bit o’ cough, but ah want ’im seein’ to.”

“Certainly, certainly, I’ll be right out, Mr. … er …”

“Pym’s ma name and ah live next to t’post office in Roff village.”

“Roff?”

“Aye, two miles outside Hensfield.”

I sighed with relief. “Very good, Mr. Pym, I’m on my way.”

“Thank ye.” The voice sounded mollified. “Well, tha knows me now, don’t tha—Pym o’ Roff.”

The light was blinding, “Pym o’ Roff!” Such a simple explanation.

A lot of Mrs. Holroyd’s messages were eccentric but I could usually interpret them after some thought. However one bizarre entry jolted me later in the week. It read simply: “Johnson, 12, Back Lane, Smiling Harry Syphilis.”

I wrestled with this for a long time before making a diffident approach to Mrs. Holroyd.

She was kneading dough for scones and didn’t look up as I entered the kitchen.

“Ah, Mrs. Holroyd.” I rubbed my hands nervously. “I see you have written down that I have to go to Mr. Johnson’s.”

“That’s right, luv.”

“Well, er … fine, but I don’t quite understand the other part—the Smiling Harry Syphilis.”

She shot a sidelong glance at me. “Well that’s ’ow you spell the word, isn’t it? Ah looked it up once in a doctor’s book in our ’ouse,” she said defensively.

“Oh yes, of course, yes, you’ve spelled it correctly. It’s just the Smiling … and the Harry.”

Her eyes glinted dangerously and she blew a puff of smoke at me. “Well, that’s what t’feller said. Repeated it three times. Couldn’t make no mistake.”

“I see. But did he mention any particular animal?”

“Naw, ’e didn’t. That was what ’e said. That and no more.” A grey spicule of ash toppled into the basin and was immediately incorporated in the scones. “Ah do ma best, tha knows!”

“Of course you do, Mrs. Holroyd,” I said hastily. “I’ll just pop round to Back Lane now.”

And Mr. Johnson put everything right within seconds as he led me to a shed on his allotment.

“It’s me pig, guvnor. Covered wi’ big red spots. Reckon it’s Swine Erysipelas.”

Only he pronounced it arrysipelas and he did have a slurring mode of speech. I really couldn’t blame Mrs. Holroyd.

Little things like that enlivened the week but the tension still mounted as I awaited the return of Kim. And even when the seventh day came round I was still in suspense because the Gillards did not appear at the morning surgery. When they failed to show up at the afternoon session I began to conclude that they had had the good sense to return south to a more sophisticated establishment. But at five thirty they were there.

I knew it even before I pulled the curtains apart. The smell of doom was everywhere, filling the premises, and when I went through the curtains it hit me; the sickening stink of putrefaction.

Gangrene. It was the fear which had haunted me all week and now it was realised.

There were about half a dozen other people in the waiting room, all keeping as far away as possible from the young couple who looked up at me with strained smiles. Kim tried to rise when he saw me but I had eyes only for the dangling useless hind limb where my once stone-hard plaster hung in sodden folds.

Of course it had to happen that the Gillards were last in and I was forced to see all the other animals first. I examined them and prescribed treatment in a stupor of misery and shame. What had I done to that beautiful dog out there? I had been crazy to try that experiment. A gangrenous leg meant that even amputation might be too late to save his life. Death from septicaemia was likely now and what the hell could I do for him in this ramshackle surgery?

When at last it was their turn the Gillards came in with Kim limping between them, and it was an extra stab to realise afresh what a handsome animal he was. I bent over the great golden head and for a moment the friendly eyes looked into mine and the tail waved.

“Right,” I said to Peter Gillard, putting my arms under the chest. “You take the back end and we’ll lift him up.”

As we hoisted the heavy dog on to the table the flimsy structure disintegrated immediately, but this time the young people were ready for it and thrust their legs under the struts like a well-trained team till the surface was level again.

With Kim stretched on his side I fingered the bandage. It usually took time and patience with a special saw to remove a plaster but this was just a stinking pulp. My hands shook as I cut the bandage lengthways with scissors and removed it.

I had steeled myself against the sight of the cold dead limb with its green flesh but though there was pus and serous fluid everywhere the exposed flesh was a surprising, healthy pink. I took the foot in my hand and my heart gave a great bound. It was warm and so was the leg, right up to the hock. There was no gangrene.