James Herriot (3 page)

It seemed to solve the problem because the first cow, confronted by the bar, stood quietly and I was able to clip the hair on her neck through an opening between the planks. Lord Hulton, in high good humour, settled down on an upturned oil drum with my testing book on his knee.

“I’ll do the writing for you,” he cried. “Fire away, old chap!”

I poised my calipers. “Eight, eight.” He wrote it down and the next cow came in.

“Eight, eight,” I said, and he bowed his head again.

The third cow arrived: “Eight, eight.” And the fourth, “Eight, eight.”

His lordship looked up from the book and passed a weary hand across his forehead.

“Herriot, dear boy, can’t you vary it a bit? I’m beginning to lose interest.”

All went well until we saw the cow which had originally smashed the crush. She had sustained a slight scratch on her neck.

“I say, look at that!” cried the peer. “Will it be all right?”

“Oh yes, it’s nothing. Superficial.”

“Ah, good, but don’t you think we should have something to put on it? Some of that …”

I waited for it. Lord Hulton was a devotee of May and Baker’s Propamidine Cream and used it for all minor cuts and grazes in his cattle. He loved the stuff. But unfortunately he couldn’t say “Propamidine.” In fact nobody on the entire establishment could say it except Charlie the farm foreman and he only thought he could say it. He called it “Propopamide” but his lordship had the utmost faith in him.

“Charlie!” he bawled. “Are you there, Charlie?”

The foreman appeared from the pack in the yard and touched his cap, “Yes, m’lord.”

“Charlie, that wonderful stuff we get from Mr. Herriot—you know, for cut teats and things, Pro … Pero … what the hell do you call it again?”

Charlie paused. It was one of his big moments. “Propopamide, m’lord.”

The marquis, intensely gratified, slapped the knee of his dungarees. “That’s it, Propopamide! Damned if I can get my tongue round it. Well done, Charlie!”

Charlie inclined his head modestly.

The whole test was a vast improvement on last time and we were finished within an hour and a half. There was just one tragedy. About halfway through, one of the cows dropped down dead with an attack of hypomagnesaemia, a condition which often plagues sucklers. It was a sudden, painless collapse and I had no chance to do anything.

Lord Hulton looked down at the animal which had just stopped breathing. “Do you think we could salvage her for meat if we bled her?”

“Well, it’s typical hypomag. Nothing to harm anybody … you could try. It would depend on what the meat inspector says.”

The cow was bled, pulled into a van and the peer drove off to the abattoir. He came back just as we were finishing the test.

“How did you get on?” I asked him. “Did they accept her?”

He hesitated. “No … no, old chap,” he said sadly. “I’m afraid they didn’t.”

“Why? Did the meat inspector condemn the carcass?”

“Well … I never got as far as the meat inspector, actually just saw one of the slaughtermen.”

“And what did he say?”

“Just two words, Herriot.”

“Two words …?”

“Yes … ‘Bugger off!’ ”

I nodded. “I see.” It was easy to imagine the scene. The tough slaughterman viewing the small, unimpressive figure and deciding that he wasn’t going to be put out of his routine by some ragged farm man.

“Well, never mind, sir,” I said. “You can only try.”

“True … true, old chap.” He dropped a few matches as he fumbled disconsolately with his smoking equipment.

As I was getting into the car I remembered about the Propamidine. “Don’t forget to call down for that cream, will you?”

“By Jove, yes! I’ll come down for it after lunch. I have great faith in that Prom … Pram … Charlie! Damn and blast what is it?”

Charlie drew himself up proudly. “Propopamide, m’lord.”

“Ah yes, Propopamide!” The little man laughed, his good humour quite restored. “Good lad, Charlie, you’re a marvel!”

“Thank you, m’lord.” The foreman wore the smug expression of the expert as he drove the cattle back into the field.

It’s a funny thing, but when you see a client about something you very often see him soon again about something else. It was only a week later, with the district still in the iron grip of winter, that my bedside ’phone jangled me from slumber.

After that first palpitation of the heart which I feel does vets no good at all I reached a sleepy hand from under the sheets.

“Yes?” I grunted.

“Herriot … I say, Herriot … is that you, Herriot?” The voice was laden with tension.

“Yes, it is, Lord Hulton.”

“Oh good … good … dash it, I do apologise. Frightfully bad show, waking you up like this … but I’ve got something damn peculiar here.” A soft pattering followed which I took to be matches falling around the receiver.

“Really?” I yawned and my eyes closed involuntarily. “In what way, exactly?”

“Well, I’ve been sitting up with one of my best sows. Been farrowing and produced twelve nice piglets, but there’s something very odd.”

“How do you mean?”

“Difficult to describe, old chap … but you know the … er … bottom aperture … there’s a bloody great long red thing hanging from it.”

My eyes snapped open and my mouth gaped in a soundless scream. Prolapsed uterus! Hard labour in cows, a pleasant exercise in ewes, impossible in sows.

“Long red …! When …? How …?” I was stammering pointlessly. I didn’t have to ask.

“Just popped it out, dear boy. I was waiting for another piglet and whoops, there it was. Gave me a nasty turn.”

My toes curled tightly beneath the blankets. It was no good telling him that I had seen five prolapsed uteri in pigs in my limited experience and had failed in every case. I had come to the conclusion that there was no way of putting them back.

But I had to try. “I’ll be right out,” I muttered.

I looked at the alarm clock. It was five thirty. A horrible time, truncating the night’s slumber yet eliminating any chance of a soothing return to bed for an hour before the day’s work. And I hated turning out even more since my marriage. Helen was lovely to come back to, but by the same token it was a bigger wrench to leave her soft warm presence and venture into the inhospitable world outside.

And the journey to the Hulton farm was not enlivened by my memories of those five other sows. I had tried everything; full anaesthesia, lifting them upside down with pulleys, directing a jet from a hose on the everted organ, and all the time pushing, straining, sweating over the great mass of flesh which refused to go back through that absurdly small hole. The result in each case had been the conversion of my patient into pork pies and a drastic plummeting of my self-esteem.

There was no moon and the soft glow from the piggery door made the only light among the black outlines of the buildings. Lord Hulton was waiting at the entrance and I thought I had better warn him.

“I have to tell you, sir, that this is a very serious condition. It’s only fair that you should know that the sow very often has to be slaughtered.”

The little man’s eyes widened and the corners of his mouth drooped.

“Oh, I say! That’s rather a bore … one of my best animals. I … I’m rather attached to that pig.” He was wearing a polo-necked sweater of such advanced dilapidation that the hem hung in long woollen fronds almost to his knees, and as he tremblingly attempted to light his pipe he looked very vulnerable.

“But I’ll do my very best,” I added hastily. “There’s always a chance.”

“Oh, good man!” In his relief, he dropped his pouch and as he stooped the open box of matches spilled around his feet. It was some time before we retrieved them and went into the piggery.

The reality was as bad as my imaginings. Under the single weak electric bulb of the pen an unbelievable length of very solid-looking red tissue stretched from the rear end of a massive white sow lying, immobile on her side. The twelve pink piglets fought and worried along the row of teats; they didn’t seem to be getting much.

As I stripped off and dipped my arms into the steaming bucket I wished with all my heart that the porcine uterus was a little short thing and not this horrible awkward shape. And it was a disquieting thought that tonight I had no artificial aids. People used all sorts of tricks and various types of equipment but here in this silent building there was just the pig, Lord Hulton and me. His lordship, I knew, was willing and eager, but he had helped me at jobs before and his usefulness was impaired by the fact that his hands were always filled with his smoking items and he kept dropping things.

I got down on my knees behind the animal with the feeling that I was on my own. And as soon as I cradled the mass in my arms the conviction flooded through me that this was going to be the same as all the others. The very idea of this lot going back whence it came was ridiculous and the impression was reinforced as I began to push. Nothing happened.

I had sedated the sow heavily and she wasn’t straining much against me; it was just that the thing was so huge. By a supreme effort I managed to feed a few inches back into the vaginal opening but as soon as I relaxed it popped quietly out again. My strongest instinct was to call the whole thing off without delay; the end result would be the same and anyway I wasn’t feeling very strong. In fact my whole being was permeated by the leaden-armed pervading weakness one feels when forced to work in the small hours.

I would try just once more. Lying flat, my naked chest against the cold concrete I fought with the thing till my eyes popped and my breath gave out, but it had not the slightest effect and it made my mind up; I had to tell him.

Rolling over on my back I looked up at him, panting, waiting till I had the wind to speak. I would say, “Lord Hulton, we are really wasting our time here. This is an impossible case. I am going back home now and I’ll ring the slaughterhouse first thing in the morning.” The prospect of escape was beguiling; I might even be able to crawl in beside Helen for an hour. But as my mouth framed the words the little man looked down at me appealingly as though he knew what I was going to say. He tried to smile but darted anxious glances at me, at the pig and back again. From the other end of the animal a soft uncomplaining grunt reminded me that I wasn’t the only one involved.

I didn’t say anything. I turned back on to my chest, braced my feet against the wall of the pen and began again. I don’t know how long I lay there, pushing, relaxing, pushing again as I gasped and groaned and the sweat ran steadily down my back. The peer was silent but I knew he was following my progress intently because every now and then I had to brush matches from the surface of the uterus.

Then for no particular reason the heap of flesh in my arms felt suddenly smaller. I glared desperately at the thing. There was no doubt about it, it was only half the size. I had to take a breather and a hoarse croak escaped me.

“God! I think it’s going back!”

I must have startled Lord Hulton in mid fill because I heard a stifled “What … what … oh I say, how absolutely splendid!” and a fragrant shower of tobacco cascaded from above.

This was it, then. Summoning the last of my energy for one big effort I blew half an ounce or so of Redbreast Flake from the uterine mucosa and heaved forward. And, miraculously, there was little resistance and I stared in disbelief as the great organ disappeared gloriously and wonderfully from sight. I was right behind it with my arm, probing frantically away up to the shoulder as I rotated my wrist again and again till both uterine cornua were fully involuted. When I was certain beyond doubt that everything was back in place I lay there for a few moments, my arm still deep inside the sow, my forehead resting on the floor. Dimly, through the mist of exhaustion I heard Lord Hulton’s cries.

“Stout fella! Dash it, how marvellous! Oh stout fella!” He was almost dancing with joy.

One last terror assailed me. What if it came out again? Quickly I seized needle and thread and began to insert a few sutures in the vulva.

“Here, hold this!” I barked, giving him the scissors.

Stitching with the help of Lord Hulton wasn’t easy. I kept pushing needle or scissors into his hands then demanding them back peremptorily, and it caused a certain amount of panic. Twice he passed me his pipe to cut the ends of my suture and on one occasion I found myself trying in the dim light to thread the silk through his reaming tool. His lordship suffered too, in his turn, because I heard the occasional stifled oath as he impaled a finger on the needle.

But at last it was done. I rose wearily to my feet and leaned against the wall, my mouth hanging open, sweat trickling into my eyes. The little man’s eyes were full of concern as they roved over my limply hanging arms and the caked blood and filth on my chest.

“Herriot, my dear old chap, you’re all in! And you’ll catch pneumonia or something if you stand around half naked. You need a hot drink. Tell you what—get yourself cleaned up and dressed and I’ll run down to the house for something.” He scurried swiftly away.

My aching muscles were slow to obey as I soaped and towelled myself and pulled on my shirt. Fastening my watch round my wrist I saw that it was after seven and I could hear the farm men clattering in the yard outside as they began their morning tasks.

I was buttoning my jacket when the little peer returned. He bore a tray with a pint mug of steaming coffee and two thick slices of bread and honey. He placed it on a bale of straw and pulled up an upturned bucket as a chair before hopping on to a meal bin where he sat like a pixie on a toadstool with his arms around his knees, regarding me with keen anticipation.

“The servants are still abed, old chap,” he said. “So I made this little bite for you myself.”

I sank on to the bucket and took a long pull at the coffee. It was black and scalding with a kick like a Galloway bullock and it spread like fire through my tired frame. Then I bit into the first slice of bread; home made, plastered thickly with farm butter and topped by a lavish layer of heather honey from the long row of hives I had often seen on the edge of the moor above. I closed my eyes in reverence as I chewed, then as I reached for the pint pot again I looked up at the small figure on the bin.