"Stop them! Stop them!" screamed the little peer, but it was of no
avail. A hairy torrent flooded through the opening and in no time at
all the herd was legging it back to the high land in a wild stampede.
The men followed them and within a few moments Lord Hulton and I were
standing there just as before watching the tiny figures on the skyline,
listening to the distant
"Haow, haow!"
"Gerraway by!"
"I say," he murmured despondently.
"It didn't work terribly well, did it!"
But he was made of stern stuff. Seizing his hammer he began to bang
away with undiminished enthusiasm and by the time the beasts returned
the crush was rebuilt and a stout iron bar pushed across the front to
prevent further break-outs.
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 half way
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 any thing 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 slaughter men."
"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 slaughter man
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 get ting into the car I remembered about the Propamidine.
"Don't forget to call down for that cream, will you?"
"Ely 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-loo king
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 get ting 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 Rat, 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 any thing. 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