James Herriot (43 page)

“No … no … er … no, thank you, Jeff. It’s kind of you, but no … no … not just now.”

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled as he stretched an arm for his pipe which was balanced on a sheep’s skull. Flicking away some shreds of stray tissue from the stem he applied a match and settled down blissfully on the hides.

“I’ll see ye later, then,” he said. “Come round tonight and everything’ll be ready for you.” He closed his eyes and again his shoulders quivered. “Ah’d better get the right ’un this time.”

It must be more than twenty years since I took a cow under the TB Order, because the clinical cases so rarely exist now. “Ring Min” no longer has the power to chill my blood, and the dread forms which scarred my soul lie unused and yellowing in the bottom of a drawer.

All these things have gone from my life. Charles Harcourt has gone too, but I think of him every day when I look at the little barometer which still hangs on my wall.

T
HE FOOD WAS SO
good at the Winckfield flying school that it was said that those airmen whose homes were within visiting distance wouldn’t take a day’s leave because they might miss some culinary speciality. Difficult to believe, maybe, but I often think that few people in wartime Britain fared as well as the handful of young men in the scatter of wooden huts on that flat green stretch outside Windsor.

It wasn’t as though we had a French chef, either. The cooking was done by two grizzled old men—civilians who wore cloth caps and smoked pipes and went about their business with unsmiling taciturnity.

It was rumoured that they were two ex-army cooks from the first world war, but whatever their origins they were artists. In their hands, simple stews and pies assumed a new significance and it was possible to rhapsodise even over the perfect flouriness of their potatoes.

So it was surprising when at lunch time my neighbour on the left threw down his spoon, pushed away his plate and groaned. We ate on trestle tables, sitting in rows on long forms, and I was right up against the young man.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “This apple dumpling is terrific.”

“Ah, it’s not the grub.” He buried his face in his hands for a few seconds then looked at me with tortured eyes. “I’ve been doing circuits and bumps this morning with Routledge and he’s torn the knackers off me—all the time, it never stopped.”

Suddenly my own meal lost some of its flavour. I knew just what he meant. F. O. Woodham did the same to me.

He gave me another despairing glance then stared straight ahead.

“I know one thing, Jim. I’ll never make a bloody pilot.”

His words sent a chill through me. He was voicing the conviction which had been gradually growing in me. I never seemed to make any progress—whatever I did was wrong, and I was losing heart. Like all the others I was hoping to be graded pilot, but after every session with F. O. Woodham the idea of ever flying an aeroplane all on my own seemed more and more ludicrous. And I had another date with him at 2 p.m.

He was as quiet and charming as ever when I met him—till we got up into the sky and the shouting started again.

“Relax! For heaven’s sake, relax!” or “Watch your height! Where the hell d’you think you’re going?” or “Didn’t I tell you to centralise the stick? Are you bloody deaf or something?” And finally, after the first circuit when we juddered to a halt on the grass, “That was an absolutely bloody ropy landing! Take off again!”

On the second circuit he fell strangely silent. And though I should have felt relieved I found something ominous in the unaccustomed peace. It could mean only one thing—he had finally given me up as a bad job. When we landed he told me to switch off the engine and climbed out of the rear cockpit. I was about to unbuckle my straps and follow him when he signalled me to remain in my seat.

“Stay where you are,” he said. “You can take her up now.”

I stared down at him through my goggles. “What …?”

“I said take her up.”

“You mean, on my own … ? Go solo …?”

“Yes, of course. Come and see me in the flight hut after you’ve landed and taxied in.” He turned and walked away over the green. He didn’t look back.

After a few minutes a fitter came over to where I sat trembling in my seat. He spat on the turf then looked at me with deep distaste.

“Look, mate,” he said. “That’s a good aircraft you’ve got there.”

I nodded agreement

“Well I don’t want it well smashed up, okay?”’

“Okay.”

He gave me a final disgusted glance then went round to the propellor.

Panic-stricken though I was, I did not forget the cockpit drill which had been dinned in to me so often. I never thought I’d have to use it in earnest but now I automatically tested the controls—rudder, ailerons and elevator. Fuel on, switches off, throttle closed, then switches on, throttle slightly open.

“Contact!” I cried.

The fitter swung the propellor and the engine roared. I pushed the throttle full open and the Tiger Moth began to bump its way over the grass. As we gathered speed I eased the stick forward to lift the tail, then as I pulled it back again the bumping stopped and we climbed smoothly into the air with the long dining hut at the end of the airfield flashing away beneath.

I was gripped by exhilaration and triumph. The impossible had happened. I was up here on my own, flying, really flying at last. I had been so certain of failure that the feeling of relief was overpowering. In fact it intoxicated me, so that for a long time I just sailed along, grinning foolishly to myself.

When I finally came to my senses I looked down happily over the side. It must be time to turn now, but as I stared downwards cold reality began to roll over me in a gathering flood. I couldn’t recognise a thing in the great hazy tapestry beneath me. And everything seemed smaller than usual. Dry-mouthed, I looked at the altimeter. I was well over 2,000 feet.

And suddenly it came to me that F. O. Woodham’s shouts had not been meaningless; he had been talking sense, giving me good advice, and as soon as I got up in the air by myself I had ignored it all. I hadn’t lined myself up on a cloud, I hadn’t watched my artificial horizon, I hadn’t kept an eye on the altimeter. And I was lost.

It was a terrible feeling, this sense of utter isolation as I desperately scanned the great chequered landscape for a familiar object. What did you do in a case like this? Soar around southern England till I found some farmer’s field big enough to land in, then make my own abject way back to Winckfield? But that way I was going to look the complete fool, and also I’d stand an excellent chance of smashing up that fitter’s beloved aeroplane and maybe myself.

It seemed to me that one way or another I was going to make a name for myself. Funny things had happened to some of the other lads—many had been air-sick and vomited in the cockpit, one had gone through a hedge, another on his first solo had circled the airfield again and again—seven times he had gone round—trying to find the courage to land while his instructor sweated blood and cursed on the ground. But nobody had really got lost like me. Nobody had flown off into the blue and returned on foot without his aeroplane.

My visions of my immediate fate were reaching horrific proportions and my heart was hammering uncontrollably when far away on my left I spotted the dear familiar bulk of the big stand on Ascot racecourse. Almost weeping with joy, I turned towards it and within minutes I was banking above its roof as I had done so often.

And there, far below and approaching with uncomfortable speed was the belt of trees which fringed the airfield and beyond, the windsock blowing over the wide green. But I was still far too high—I could never drop down there in time to hit that landing strip, I would have to go round again.

The ignominy of it went deep. They would all be watching on the ground and some would have a good laugh at the sight of Herriot over-shooting the field by several hundred feet and cruising off again into the clouds. But what was I thinking about? There was a way of losing height rapidly and, bless you, F. O. Woodham, I knew how to do it.

Opposite rudder and stick. He had told me a hundred times how to side slip and I did it now as hard as I could, sending the little machine slewing like an airborne crab down, down towards those trees.

And by golly it worked! The green copse rushed up at me and before I knew I was almost skimming the branches. I straightened up and headed for the long stretch of grass. At fifty feet I rounded out then checked the stick gradually back till just above the ground when I slammed it into my abdomen. The undercarriage made contact with the earth with hardly a tremor and I worked the rudder bar to keep straight until I came to a halt. Then I taxied in, climbed from the cockpit and walked over to the flight hut.

F. O. Woodham was sitting at a table, cup in hand, and he looked up as I entered. He had got out of his flying suit and was wearing a battle dress jacket with the wings we all dreamed about and the ribbon of the DFC.

“Ah, Herriot, I’m just having some coffee. Will you join me?”

“Thank you, sir.”

I sat down and he pushed a cup towards me.

“I saw your landing,” he said. “Delightful, quite delightful.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And that side-slip.” One corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “Very good indeed, really masterly.”

He reached for the coffee pot and went on. “You’ve done awfully well, Herriot. Solo after nine hours’ instruction, eh? Splendid. But then I never had the slightest doubt about you at any time.”

He poised the pot over my cup. “How do you like your coffee—black or white?”

I
WAS ONLY THE THIRD
man in our flight of fifty to go solo and it was a matter of particular pride to me because so many of my comrades were eighteen and nineteen year olds. They didn’t say so but I often had the impression that they felt that an elderly gentleman like me in my twenties with a wife and baby had no right to be there, training for aircrew. In the nicest possible way they thought I was past it.

Of course, in many ways they had a point. The pull I had from home was probably stronger than theirs. When our sergeant handed out the letters on the daily parade I used to secrete mine away till I had a few minutes of solitude to read about how fast little Jimmy was growing, how much he weighed, the unmistakable signs of outstanding intelligence, even genius, which Helen could already discern in him.

I was missing his babyhood and it saddened me. It was something I deeply regret because it comes only once and is gone so quickly. But I still have the bundles of letters which his proud mother wrote to keep me in touch with every fascinating stage, and when I read them now it is almost as though I had been there to see it all.

At the time, those letters pulled me back almost painfully to the comforts of home. On the other hand there were occasions when life in Darrowby hadn’t been all that comfortable … .

I think it was the early morning calls in the winter which were the worst. It was a fairly common experience to be walking sleepy-eyed into a cow byre at 6 a.m. for a calving but at Mr. Blackburn’s farm there was a difference. In fact several differences.

Firstly, there was usually an anxious-faced farmer to greet me with news of how the calf was coming, when labour had started, but today I was like an unwelcome stranger. Secondly, I had grown accustomed to the sight of a few cows tied up in a cobbled byre with wooden partitions and an oil lamp, and now I was gazing down a long avenue of concrete under blazing electric light with a seemingly endless succession of bovine backsides protruding from tubular metal standings. Thirdly, instead of the early morning peace there was a clattering of buckets, the rhythmic pulsing of a milking machine and the blaring of a radio loudspeaker. There was also a frantic scurrying of white-coated, white-capped men, but none of them paid the slightest attention to me.

This was one of the new big dairy farms. In place of a solitary figure on a milk stool, head buried in the cow’s side, pulling forth the milk with a gentle “hiss-hiss,” there was this impersonal hustle and bustle.

I stood just inside the doorway while out in the yard a particularly cold snow drifted from the blackness above. I had left a comfortable bed and a warm wife to come here and it seemed somebody ought at least to say “hello.” Then I noticed the owner hurrying past with a bucket. He was moving as fast as any of his men.

“Hey, Mr. Blackburn!” I cried. “You rang me—you’ve got a cow calving?”

He stopped and looked at me uncomprehendingly for a moment. “Oh aye … aye … she’s down there on fright.” He pointed to a light roan animal half way along the byre. She was easy to pick out—the only one lying down.

“How long has she been on?” I asked, but when I turned round Mr. Blackburn had gone. I trotted after him, cornered him in the milk house and repeated my question.

“Oh, she should’ve calved last night Must be summat amiss.” He began to pour his bucket of milk over the cooler into the churn.

“Have you had a feel inside her?”

“Nay, haven’t had time.” He turned harassed eyes towards me. “We’re a bit behind with milkin’ this mornin’. We can’t be late for t’milk man.”

I knew what he meant. The drivers who collected the churns for the big dairy companies were a fierce body of men. Probably kind husbands and fathers at normal times but subject to violent outbursts of rage if they were kept waiting even for an instant. I couldn’t blame them, because they had a lot of territory to cover and many farms to visit, but I had seen them when provoked and their anger was frightening to behold.

“All right,” I said. “Can I have some hot water, soap and a towel, please?”

Mr. Blackburn jerked his head at the corner of the milk house. “You’ll ’ave to help yourself. There’s everythin’ there. Ah must get on.” He went off again at a brisk walk. Clearly he was more in fear of the milk man than he was of me.

I filled a bucket, found a piece of soap and threw a towel over my shoulder. When I reached my patient I looked in vain for some sign of a name. So many of the cows of those days had their names printed above their stalls but there were no Marigolds, Alices or Snowdrops here, just numbers.