James Herriot (53 page)

Corporal Weekes was fat and he gave me a quick look over with crafty eyes.

“Herriot, eh? Well you can make yourself useful around ’ere. Not much to do, really. This ain’t a main stores—we deal mainly wiv laundry and boot repairs.”

As he spoke a fair-haired young man came in.

“AC2 Morgan, corporal,” he said. “Come for my boots. They’ve been re-soled.”

Weekes jerked his head and I had my first sight of the boot mountain. “They’re in there. They’ll be labelled.”

The young man looked surprised but he came round behind the counter and began to delve among the hundreds of identical black objects. It took him nearly an hour to find his own pair during which the corporal puffed at cigarettes with a total lack of interest. When the boots were finally unearthed he wordlessly ticked off the name on a long list.

“This is the sort of thing you’ll be doin’,” he said to me. “Nothin’to it.”

He wasn’t exaggerating. There was nothing to life in those stores. It took me only a day or two to realise the sweet existence Weekes had carved out for himself. Store-bashing is an honourable trade but not the way he did it. The innumerable compartments, niches and alcoves around the big hut were all marked with letters or numbers and there is no doubt the incoming boots and shirts should have been tucked away in order for easy recovery. But that would have involved work and the corporal was clearly averse to that.

When the boots came in they were tipped out in the middle of the floor and the string-tied packages of laundry were stacked, shirts uppermost where they formed a blue tumulus reaching almost to the roof.

After three days I could stand it no longer.

“Look,” I said. “It would pass the time if I had something to do. Do you mind if I start putting all this stuff on the shelves? It would be a lot easier to hand out.”

Weekes continued to study his magazine—he was a big reader—and at first I thought he hadn’t heard me. Then he tongued his cigarette to the corner of his mouth and glanced at me through the smoke.

“Now just get this through your ’ead, mate,” he drawled. “If I want anything done, I’ll well tell you. I’m the boss in ’ere and I give the orders, awright?” He resumed his perusal of the magazine.

I subsided in my chair. Clearly I had offended my overseer and I would have to leave things as they were.

But overseer is a misnomer for Weekes because on the following day, after a final brain-washing that the procedure must remain unchanged, he disappeared and except for a few minutes each morning he left me on my own. I had nothing to do but sit there behind the wooden counter, ticking off the comings and goings of the boots and shirts and I had the feeling that I was only one of many displaced persons who had fallen under his thrall.

I found it acutely embarrassing to watch the lads scrabbling for their belongings and the strongest impression left with me was of the infinite tolerance of the British race. Since I was in charge they thought I was responsible for the whole system but despite the fact that I was of lowly rank nobody attacked me physically. Most of them muttered and grumbled as they searched and one large chap came over to the counter and said, “You should be filing away these boots in their proper order instead of sitting there on your arse, you lazy sod!” But he didn’t punch me on the nose and I marvelled at it.

But still, the knowledge that great numbers of decent young men shared his opinion was uncomfortable and I found I was developing a permanently ingratiating smile.

The only time I came very near to being lynched was when a mob suddenly appeared one afternoon. An unexpected leave pass had been granted and there were hundreds of men miling around on the tarmac and grass outside the stores. They wanted their laundry—and quick, because they had trains to catch.

For a moment panic seized me. I couldn’t let them all inside to fight for their shirts. Then inspiration came. I grabbed an armful of the flat packets from the table and shouted the name on the label.

“Walters!” And from somewhere among the surging heads an eager voice replied, “Here!”

I located the source, held the packet between thumb and finger and with a back-handed flick sent it skimming over the crowd.

“Reilly!”

“Here!”

“McDonald!”

“Here!”

“Gibson!”

“Here!”

I was getting quite skilful at it, propelling the blue oblongs unerringly towards their owners, but it was a slow method of distribution. Also, there were occasional disasters when the strings broke in mid-air, sending a shower of collars on the upturned faces. Sometimes the shirts themselves burst free from their wrappings and plunged to earth.

It wasn’t long before the voices had turned from eager to angry. As my projectiles planed and glided, volleys of abuse came back at me.

“You’ve made me miss my train, you useless bugger!”

“Bloody skiver, you want locking up!”

Much of it was in stronger language which I would rather not record here, but I have a particularly vivid memory of one young man scraping up his laundry from the dusty ground and approaching me with rapid strides. He pushed his face to within inches of mine. Despite the rage which disfigured it I could see it was a gentle, good-natured face. He looked a well-bred lad, the type who didn’t even swear, but as he stared into my eyes his lips trembled and his cheeks twitched.

“This is a …” he stammered. This is a … a BASTARD system!”

He spat the words out and strode away.

I agreed entirely with him, of course, but continued to hurl the packets doggedly while somewhere in the back of my mind a little voice kept enquiring how James Herriot, Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and trainee pilot, had ever got into this.

After half an hour there was no appreciable diminution in the size of the multitude and I began to be aware of an increasing restlessness among the medley of waiting faces.

Suddenly there was a concerted movement and the packed mass of men surged at me in a great wave. I shrank back, clutching an armful of shirts, quite certain that this was when they rushed me and beat me up, but my fears were groundless. All they wanted was a speedier delivery and about a dozen of them swept past me behind the counter and began to follow my example.

Whereas there had been only a single missile winging over the heads the sky was now dark with the flying objects. Mid-air collisions were frequent. Collars sprayed, handkerchiefs fluttered, underpants parachuted gracefully, but after an unbearably long period of chaos the last airman had picked up his scattered laundry, given me a disgusted glance and departed.

I was left alone in the hut with the sad knowledge that my prestige was very low and the equally sad conviction that the RAF still did not know what to do with me.

O
CCASIONALLY MY PERIOD IN
limbo was relieved when I was allowed out of camp into the city of Manchester. And I suppose it was the fact that I was a new-fangled parent that made me look at the various prams in the streets. Mostly the prams were pushed by women but now and then I saw a man doing the job.

I suppose it isn’t unusual to see a man pushing a pram in a town, but on a lonely moorland road the sight merits a second glance. Especially when the pram contains a large dog.

That was what I saw in the hills above Darrowby one morning and I slowed down as I drove past. I had noticed the strange combination before—on several occasions over the last few weeks—and it was clear that man and dog had recently moved into the district.

As the car drew abreast of him the man turned, smiled and raised his hand. It was a smile of rare sweetness in a very brown face. A forty year old face, I thought, above a brown neck which bore neither collar nor tie, and a faded striped shirt lying open over a bare chest despite the coldness of the day.

I couldn’t help wondering who or what he was. The outfit of scuffed suede golf jacket, corduroy trousers and sturdy boots didn’t give much clue. Some people might have put him down as an ordinary tramp, but there was a businesslike energetic look about him which didn’t fit the term.

I wound the window down and the thin wind of a Yorkshire March bit at my cheeks.

“Nippy this morning,” I said.

The man seemed surprised. “Aye,” he replied after a moment “Aye, reckon it is.”

I looked at the pram, ancient and rusty, and at the big animal sitting upright inside it. He was a lurcher, a cross-bred greyhound, and he gazed back at me with unruffled dignity.

“Nice dog,” I said.

“Aye, that’s Jake.” The man smiled again, showing good regular teeth. “He’s a grand ’un.”

I waved and drove on. In the mirror I could see the compact figure stepping out briskly, head up, shoulders squared, and, rising like a statue from the middle of the pram, the huge brindled form of Jake.

I didn’t have to wait long to meet the unlikely pair again. I was examining a carthorse’s teeth in a farmyard when on the hillside beyond the stable I saw a figure kneeling by a dry stone wall. And by his side, a pram and a big dog sitting patiently on the grass.

“Hey, just a minute.” I pointed at the hill. “Who is that?”

The farmer laughed. “That’s Roddy Travers. D’you ken ’im?”

“No, no I don’t. I had a word with him on the road the other day, that’s all.”

“Aye, on the road.” He nodded knowingly. “That’s where you’d see Roddy, right enough.”

“But what is he? Where does he come from?”

“He comes from somewhere in Yorkshire, but ah don’t rightly know where and ah don’t think anybody else does. But I’ll tell you this—he can turn ’is hand to anything.”

“Yes,” I said, watching the man expertly laying the flat slabs of stone as he repaired a gap in the wall. “There’s not many can do what he’s doing now.”

“That’s true. Wallin’ is a skilled job and it’s dying out, but Roddy’s a dab hand at it. But he can do owt—hedgin’, ditchin’, lookin’ after stock, it’s all the same to him.”

I lifted the tooth rasp and began to rub a few sharp corners off the horse’s molars. “And how long will he stay here?”

“Oh, when he’s finished that wall he’ll be off. Ah could do with ’im stoppin’ around for a bit but he never stays in one place for long.”

“But hasn’t he got a home anywhere?”

“Nay, nay.” The farmer laughed again. “Roddy’s got nowt. All ’e has in the world is in that there pram.”

Over the next weeks as the harsh spring began to soften and the sunshine brought a bright speckle of primroses on to the grassy banks I saw Roddy quite often, sometimes on the road, occasionally wielding a spade busily on the ditches around the fields. Jake was always there, either loping by his side or watching him at work. But we didn’t actually meet again till I was inoculating Mr. Pawson’s sheep for pulpy kidney.

There were three hundred to do and they drove them in batches into a small pen where Roddy caught and held them for me. And I could see he was an expert at this, too. The wild hill sheep whipped past him like bullets but he seized their fleece effortlessly, sometimes in mid-air, and held the fore leg up to expose that bare clean area of skin behind the elbow that nature seemed to provide for the veterinary surgeon’s needle.

Outside, on the windy slopes the big lurcher sat upright in typical pose, looking with mild interest at the farm dogs prowling intently around the pens, but not interfering in any way.

“You’ve got him well trained,” I said.

Roddy smiled. “Yes, ye’ll never find Jake dashin’ about, annoyin’ people. He knows ’e has to sit there till I’m finished and there he’ll sit.”

“And quite happy to do so, by the look of him.” I glanced again at the dog, a picture of contentment. “He must live a wonderful life, travelling everywhere with you.”

“You’re right there,” Mr. Pawson broke in as he ushered another bunch of sheep into the pen. “He hasn’t a care in t’world, just like his master.”

Roddy didn’t say anything, but as the sheep ran in he straightened up and took a long steady breath. He had been working hard and a little trickle of sweat ran down the side of his forehead but as he gazed over the wide sweep of moor and fell I could read utter serenity in his face. After a few moments he spoke.

“I reckon that’s true. We haven’t much to worry us, Jake and me.”

Mr. Pawson grinned mischievously. “By gaw, Roddy, you never spoke a truer word. No wife, no kids, no life insurance, no overdraft at t’bank—you must have a right peaceful existence.”

“Ah suppose so,” Roddy said. “But then ah’ve no money either.”

The farmer gave him a quizzical look. “Aye, how about that, then? Wouldn’t you feel a bit more secure, like, if you had a bit o’ brass put by?”

“Nay, nay. Ye can’t take it with you and any road, as long as a man can pay ’is way, he’s got enough.”

There was nothing original about the words, but they have stayed with me all my life because they came from his lips and were spoken with such profound assurance.

When I had finished the inoculations and the ewes were turned out to trot back happily over the open fields I turned to Roddy. “Well, thanks very much. It makes my job a lot quicker when I have a good catcher like you.” I pulled out a packet of Gold Flake. “Will you have a cigarette?”

“No, thank ye, Mr. Herriot I don’t smoke.”

“You don’t?”

“No—don’t drink either.” He gave me his gentle smile and again I had the impression of physical and mental purity. No drinking, no smoking, a life of constant movement in the open air without material possessions or ambitions—it all showed in the unclouded eyes, the fresh skin and the hard muscular frame. He wasn’t very big but he looked indestructible.

“C’mon, Jake, it’s dinner time,” he said and the big lurcher bounded around him in delight. I went over and spoke to the dog and he responded with tremendous body-swaying wags, his handsome face looking up at me, full of friendliness.

I stroked the long pointed head and tickled the ears. “He’s a beauty, Roddy—a grand ’un, as you said.”

I walked to the house to wash my hands and before I went inside I glanced back at the two of them. They were sitting in the shelter of a wall and Roddy was laying out a thermos flask and a parcel of food while Jake watched eagerly. The hard bright sunshine beat on them as the wind whistled over the top of the wall. They looked supremely comfortable and at peace.