James Herriot (9 page)

He was silent for the first half mile, then he beat the wheel suddenly with one hand. “There’s an irritant poison there, James! As sure as God made little apples there is. But I’m damned if I know where it’s coming from.”

Our visit had taken a long time and we returned to Skeldale House for lunch. Like myself, his mind was still wrestling with Mr. Billings’s problem and he hardly winced as Tristan placed a steaming plateful of sausage and mash before him. Then, as he prodded the mash with a fork, he appeared to come to the surface.

“God almighty!” he exclaimed. “Have we got this again?”

Tristan smiled ingratiatingly. “Yes, indeed. Mr. Johnson told me they were a particularly fine batch of sausages today. Definitely superior, he said.”

“Is that so?” His brother gave him a sour glance. “Well, they look the bloody same to me. Like supper yesterday—and like lunch.” His voice began to rise, then he subsided.

“Oh, what the hell,” he muttered, and began to toy listlessly with the food. Clearly those calves had drained him and I knew how he felt.

I got through my share without much difficulty—I’ve always liked sausage and mash.

But my boss is a resilient character and when we met in the late afternoon he was bursting with his old spirit

“That call to Billings’s shook me, James, I can tell you,” he said. “But I’ve revisited a few of my other cases since then and they’re all improving nicely. Raises the morale tremendously. Here, let me get you a drink.”

He reached into the cupboard above the mantelpiece for the gin bottle and after pouring a couple of measures he looked benignly at his brother who was tidying the sitting room.

Tristan was making a big show, running a carpet sweeper up and down, straightening cushions, flicking a duster at everything in sight. He sighed and panted with effort as he bustled around, the very picture of a harassed domestic. He needed only a mob cap and frilly apron to complete the image.

We finished our drinks and Siegfried immersed himself in the
Veterinary Record
as savoury smells began to issue from the kitchen. It was about seven o’clock when Tristan put his head round the door.

“Supper is on the table,” he said.

My boss put down the
Record,
rose and stretched expansively. “Good, I’m ready for it, too.”

I followed him into the dining room and almost cannoned into his back as he halted abruptly. He was staring in disbelief at the tureen in the middle of the table.

“Not bloody sausage and mash again!” he bellowed.

Tristan shuffled his feet. “Well, er, yes—it’s very nice, really.”

“Very nice! I’m beginning to dream about the blasted stuff. Can’t you cook anything else?”

“Well I told you.” Tristan looked wounded. “I told you I could cook sausage and mash.”

“Yes, you did!” shouted his brother. “But you didn’t say you couldn’t cook anything BUT sausage and bloody mash!”

Tristan made a non-committal gesture and his brother sank wearily down at the table.

“Go on, then,” he sighed. “Dish it out and heaven help us.”

He took a small mouthful from his plate then gripped at his stomach and emitted a low moan. “This stuff is killing me. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same after this week.”

The following day opened in dramatic fashion. I had just got out of bed and was reaching for my dressing gown when an explosion shook the house. It was a great “WHUFF” which rushed like a mighty wind through passages and rooms, rattling the windows and leaving an ominous silence in its wake.

I dashed out to the landing and ran into Siegfried, who stared wide-eyed at me for a moment before galloping downstairs.

In the kitchen Tristan was lying on his back amid a litter of pans and dishes. Several rashers of bacon and a few smashed eggs nestled on the flags.

“What the hell’s going on?” Siegfried shouted.

His brother looked up at him with mild interest. “I really don’t know. I was lighting the fire and there was a bang.”

“Lighting the fire …?”

“Yes, I’ve had a little difficulty these last two mornings. The thing wouldn’t go. I think the chimney needs sweeping. These old houses …”

“Yes, yes!” Siegfried burst out. “We know, but what the hell happened?”

Tristan sat up. Even then, among the debris with smuts all over his face, he still retained his poise. “Well, I thought I’d hurry things along a bit.” (His agile mind was forever seeking new methods of conserving energy.) “I soaked a piece of cotton wool in ether and chucked that in.”

“Ether?”

“Well yes, it’s inflammable, isn’t it?”

“Inflammable!” His brother was pop-eyed. “It’s bloody well explosive! It’s a wonder you didn’t blow the whole place up.”

Tristan rose and dusted himself off. “Ah well, never mind. I’ll soon have breakfast ready.”

“You can forget that.” Siegfried took a long shuddering breath then went over to the bread tin, extracted a loaf and began to saw at it. “The breakfast’s on the floor, and anyway, by the time you’ve cleared up this mess we’ll be gone. Bread and marmalade all right for you, James?”

We went out together again. My boss had arranged that Ken Billings should postpone his calf feeding till we got there so that we could witness the process.

It wasn’t a happy arrival. Both the calves had died and the farmer’s eyes held a look of desperation.

Siegfried’s jaw clenched tight for a moment, then he motioned with his hand. “Please carry on, Mr. Billings. I want to see you feed them.”

The nuts were always available for the little animals but we watched intently as the farmer poured the milk into the buckets and the calves started to drink. The poor man had obviously given up hope and I could tell by his apathetic manner that he hadn’t much faith in this latest ploy.

Neither had I, but Siegfried prowled up and down like a caged panther as though willing something to happen. The calves raised white-slobbered muzzles enquiringly as he hung over them but they could offer no more explanation of the mystery than I could myself.

I looked across the long row of pens. There were still more than thirty calves left in the building and the terrible thought arose that the disease might spread through all of them. My mind was recoiling when Siegfried stabbed a finger at one of the buckets.

“What’s that?” he snapped.

The farmer and I went over and gazed down at a circular black object about half an inch across floating on the surface of the milk.

“Bit o’ muck got in somehow,” Mr. Billings mumbled. “I’ll ’ave it out.” He put his hand into the bucket.

“No, let me!” Siegfried carefully lifted the thing, shook the milk from his fingers and studied it with interest.

This isn’t muck,” he murmured. “Look, it’s concave—like a little cup.” He rubbed a corner between thumb and forefinger. “I’ll tell you what it is, it’s a scab. Where the heck has it come from?”

He began to examine the neck and head of the calf, then became very still as he handled one of the little horn buds. “There’s a raw surface here. You can see where the scab belongs.” He placed the dark cup over the bud and it fitted perfectly.

The farmer shrugged. “Aye, well, I can understand that. I disbudded all the calves about a fortnight sin’.”

“What did you use, Mr. Billings?” My colleague’s voice was soft.

“Oh, some new stuff. Feller came round sellin’ it. You just paint it on—it’s a lot easier than t’awd caustic stick.”

“Have you got the bottle?”

“Aye, it’s in t’house. I’ll get it”

When the farmer returned Siegfried read the label and handed the bottle to me.

“Butter of Antimony, Jim. Now we know.”

“But … what are you on about?” asked the farmer bewilderedly.

Siegfried looked at him sympathetically. “Antimony is a deadly poison, Mr. Billings. Oh, it’ll burn your horn buds off, all right, but if it gets in among the food, that’s it.”

The farmer’s eyes widened. “Yes, dang it and when they put their heads down to drink that’s just when the scabs would fall off !”

“Exactly,” Siegfried said. “Or they maybe knocked the horn buds on the sides of the bucket. Anyway, let’s make sure the others are safe.”

We went round all the calves, removing the lethal crusts and scrubbing the buds clean, and when we finally drove away we knew that the brief but painful episode of the Billings calves was over.

In the car, my colleague put his elbows on the wheel and drove with his chin cupped in his hands. He often did this when in contemplative mood and it never failed to unnerve me.

“James,” he said, “I’ve never seen anything like that before. It really is one for the book.”

His words were prophetic, for as I write about it now I realise that it has never been repeated in the thirty-five years that have passed since then.

At Skeldale House we parted to go our different ways. Tristan, no doubt anxious to redeem himself after the morning’s explosive beginning, was plying mop and bucket and swabbing the passage with the zeal of one of Nelson’s sailors.

But when Siegfried drove away, the activity stopped abruptly and as I was leaving with my pockets stuffed with the equipment for my round I glanced into the sitting room and saw the young man stretched in his favourite chair.

I went in and looked with some surprise at a pan of sausages balanced on the coals.

“What’s this?” I asked.

Tristan lit a Woodbine, shook out his
Daily Mirror
and put his feet up. “Just prepared lunch, old lad.”

“In here?”

“Yes, Jim, I’ve had enough of that hot stove—there’s no comfort through there. And anyway, the kitchen’s such a bloody long way away.”

I gazed down at the reclining form. “No need to ask what’s on the menu?”

“None at all, old son.” Tristan looked up from his paper with a seraphic smile.

I was about to leave when a thought struck me. “Where are the potatoes?”

“In the fire.”

“In the fire!”

“Yes, I just popped them in there to roast for a while. They’re delicious that way.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely, Jim. I’ll tell you—you’ll fall in love with my cooking all over again.”

I didn’t get back till nearly one o’clock. Tristan was not in the sitting room but a haze of smoke hung on the air and a reek like a garden bonfire prickled in my nostrils.

I found the young man in the kitchen. His
savoir faire
had vanished and he was prodding desperately at a pile of coal black spheres.

I stared at him. “What are those?”

“The bloody potatoes, Jim! I fell asleep for a bit and this happened!”

He gingerly sawed through one of the objects. In the centre of the carbonaceous ball I could discern a small whitish marble which seemed to be all that remained of the original vegetable.

“Hell’s bells, Triss! What are you going to do?”

He gave me a stricken glance. “Hack out the centres and mash ‘em up together. It’s all I CAN do.”

This was something I couldn’t bear to watch. I went upstairs, had a wash then took my place at the dining table. Siegfried was already seated and I could see that the little triumph of the morning had cheered him. He greeted me jovially.

“James, wasn’t that the damndest thing at Ken Billings’? It’s so satisfying to get it cleared up.”

But his smile froze as Tristan appeared and set down the tureens before him. From one peeped the inevitable sausages and the other contained an amorphous dark grey mass liberally speckled with black foreign bodies of varying size.

“What in the name of God,” he enquired with ominous quiet, “is this?”

His brother swallowed. “Sausage and mash,” he said lightly.

Siegfried gave him a cold look. “I am referring to this.” He poked warily at the dark mound.

“Well, er, it’s the potatoes.” Tristan cleared his throat. “Got a little burnt, I’m afraid.”

My boss made no comment. With dangerous calm he spooned some of the material on to his plate, raised a forkful and began to chew slowly. Once or twice he winced as a particularly tough fragment of carbon cracked between his molars, then he closed his eyes and swallowed.

For a moment he was still, then he grasped his midriff with both hands, groaned and jumped to his feet.

“No, that’s enough!” he cried. “I don’t mind investigating poisonings on the farms but I object to being poisoned myself in my own home!” He strode away from the table and paused at the door. “I’m going over to the Drovers for lunch.”

As he left another spasm seized him. He clutched his stomach again and looked back.

“Now I know just how those poor bloody calves felt!”

I
SUPPOSE IT WAS
a little thoughtless of me to allow my scalpel to flash and flicker quite so close to Rory O’Hagan’s fly buttons.

The incident came back to me as I sat in my room in St John’s Wood reading Black’s
Veterinary Dictionary.
It was a bulky volume to carry around and my RAF friends used to rib me about my “vest pocket edition,” but I had resolved to keep reading it in spare moments to remind me of my real life.

I had reached the letter “C” and as the word “Castration’’ looked up at me from the page I was jerked back to Rory.

I was castrating pigs. There were several litters to do and I was in a hurry and failed to notice the Irish farm worker’s mounting apprehension. His young boss was catching the little animals and handing them to Rory who held them upside down, gripped between his thighs with their legs apart, and as I quickly incised the scrotums and drew out the testicles my blade almost touched the rough material of his trouser crutch.

“For God’s sake, have a care, Mr. Herriot!” he gasped at last.

I looked up from my work. “What’s wrong, Rory?”

“Watch what you’re doin’ with that bloody knife! You’re whippin’ it round between me legs like a bloody Red Indian. You’ll do me a mischief afore you’ve finished!”

“Aye, be careful, Mr. Herriot,” the young farmer cried. “Don’t geld Rory instead of the pig. His missus ud never forgive ye.” He burst into a loud peal of laughter, the Irishman grinned sheepishly and I giggled.

That was my undoing because the momentary inattention sent the blade slicing across my left forefinger. The razor-sharp edge went deep and in an instant the entire neighborhood seemed flooded with my blood. I thought I would never stanch the flow. The red ooze continued, despite a long session of self-doctoring from the car boot, and when I finally drove away my finger was swathed in the biggest, clumsiest dressing I had ever seen. I had finally been forced to apply a large pad of cotton wool held in place with an enormous length of three-inch bandage.