like a small boy admiring a film star.
"How do you do," I said.
Meg Brannan took my hand and smiled. Any glamour about her existed
only in her husband's eyes. A ravaged prettiness still remained but
her face bore the traces of some tough years. I could imagine her life
of mother, housewife, cook, secretary, receptionist and animal nurse.
"Oh, Mr Herriot, it is good of you and Mr Far non to help us out like
this.
We're so loo king forward to going away." Her eyes held a faintly
desperate gleam but they were kind.
I shrugged.
"Oh it's a pleasure, Mrs Brannan. I'm sure I'll enjoy it and I hope
you all have a marvellous holiday." I really meant it she looked as
though she needed one.
I was introduced to the children but I never really got them sorted
out. Apart from the baby, who yelled indefatigably from leather lungs,
I think there were three little boys and two little girls, but I
couldn't be sure they moved around too quickly.
The only time they were silent was for a brief period at supper when
Meg fed them and us from a kind of cauldron in which floated chunks of
mutton, potatoes and carrots. It was very good, too, and was followed
by a vast blancmange with jam on top.
The tumult broke out again very soon as the youngsters raced through
their meal and began to play in the room. One thing I found
disconcerting was that the two biggest boys kept throwing a large, new,
painted ball from one to the other across the table as we ate. The
parents said nothing about it Meg, I felt, because she had stopped
caring, and Stewie because he never had cared.
Only once when the ball whizzed past my nose and almost carried away a
poised spoonful of blancmange did their father remonstrate.
"Now then, now then," he murmured absently, and the throwing was
re-sited more towards the middle of the table.
Next morning I saw the family off. Stewie had changed his dilapidated
Austin Seven for a large rust-encrusted Ford V Eight. Seated at the
wheel he waved and beamed through the cracked side windows with serene
contentment. Meg, by his side, managed a harassed smile and at the
other windows an assortment of dogs and children fought for a vantage
point. As the car moved away a pram, several suitcases and a cot
swayed perilously on the roof, the children yelled, the dogs barked,
the baby bawled, then they were gone.
As I re-entered the house the unaccustomed silence settled around me,
and with the silence came a faint unease. I had to look after this
practice for two weeks and the memory of the thinly furnished surgery
was not reassuring. I just didn't have the tools to tackle any major
problem.
But it was easy to comfort myself. From what I had seen this wasn't
the sort of place where dramatic things happened. Stewie had once said
he made most of his living by castrating tom cats and I supposed if you
threw in a few ear' cankers and minor ailments that would be about
it.
The morning surgery seemed to confirm this impression; a few humble fol
.
Ied in nondescript pets with mild conditions and I happily dispensed a
series ol Bovril bottles and meat paste jars containing Stewie's
limited drug store.
I had only one difficulty and that was with the table, which kept
collapsing when I lifted the animals on to it. For some obscure reason
it had folding leg' held by metal struts underneath and these were apt
to disengage at crucial moments, causing the patient to slide abruptly
to the floor. After a while I go the hang of the thing and kept one
leg jammed against the struts throughout the' examination. ' It was
about 10.30a.m. when I finally parted the curtains and found the
waiting room empty and only the distinctive cat-dog smell lingering on
the air As I locked the door it struck me that I had very little to do
till the afternoon surgery. At Darrow by I would have been dashing out
to start the long day" driving round the countryside, but here almost
all the work was done at the practice house. .
I was wondering how I would put the time in after the single outside
visit on ~ the book when the door bell rang. Then it rang again
followed by a frantic ~q pounding on the wood. I hurried through the
curtain and turned the handle. A well dressed young couple stood on
the step. The man held a Golden Labrador in his arms and behind them a
caravan drawn by a large gleaming car stood by the kerb.
"Are you the vet?" the girl gasped. She was in her twenties, auburn
haired, I extremely attractive, but her eyes were terrified.
I nodded.
"Yes yes, I am. What's the trouble?"
"It's our dog." The young man's voice was hoarse, his face deathly
pale.
"A
car hit him." .
I glanced over the motionless yellow form.
"Is he badly hurt?"
There were a few moments of silence then the girl spoke almost in a
whisper.
"Look at his hind leg."
I stepped forward and as I peered into the crook of the man's arm a
freezing:: wave drove through me. The limb was hanging off at the
hock. Not fractured but snapped through the joint and dangling from
what looked like a mere shred of skin. In the bright morning sunshine
the white ends of ankle hon~ ~iitt~r-A with a sickening lustre.
It took me a long time before ~ came out of my first shock and found
myself staring stupidly at the animal. And when I spoke the voice
didn't sound like my own.
"Bring him in," I muttered, and as I led the way back through the
odorous waiting room the realisation burst on me that I had been wrong
when I thought that nothing ever happened here.
. Chapter Twenty-two I held the curtains apart as the young man
staggered in and placed his burden on the table.
Now I could see the whole thing; the typical signs of a road accident;
the dirt driven savagely into the glossy gold of the coat, the multiple
abrasions. But that mangled leg wasn't typical. I had never seen any
thing like it before.
I dragged my eyes round to the girl.
"How did it happen?"
"Oh, just in a flash." The tears welled in her eyes.
"We are on a caravanning holiday We had no intention of staying in Hens
field' - (I could understand that) - 'but we stopped for a newspaper,
Kim jumped out of the car and that was it."
I looked at the big dog stretched motionless on the table. I reached
out a hand and gently ran my fingers over the noble outlines of the
head.
"Poor old lad," I murmured and for an instant the beautiful hazel eyes
turned to me and the tail thumped briefly against the wood.
"Where have you come from?" I asked.
"Surrey," the young man replied. He looked rather like the prosperous
young stockbroker that the name conjured up.
I rubbed my chin.
"I see...." A way of escape shone for a moment in the tunnel.
"Perhaps if I patch him up you could get him back to your own vet
there."
He looked at his wife f
or a moment then back at me.
"And what would they do there? Amputate his leg?"
I was silent. If an animal in this condition arrived in one of those
high powered southern practices with plenty of skilled assistance and
full surgical equipment that's what they probably would do. It would
be the only sensible thing.
The girl broke in on my thoughts.
"Anyway, if it's at all possible to save his leg something has to be
done right now. Isn't that so?" She gazed at me appealingly.
"Yes," I said huskily.
"That's right." I began to examine the dog. The abrasions on the skin
were trivial. He was shocked but his mucous membranes were pink enough
to suggest that there was no internal haemorrhage. He had escaped
serious injury except for that terrible leg.
I stared at it intently, appalled by the smooth glistening articular
surfaces of the tibio tarsal joint. There was something obscene in its
exposure in a living animal It was as though the hock has been broken
open by brutal inquisitive hands.
I began a feverish search of the premises, pulling open drawers,
cupboards, Opening tins and boxes. My heart leaped at each little
find; a jar of catgut in Spirit, a packet of lint, a sprinkler tin of
iodoform, and treasure trove indeed - a bottle of barbiturate
anaesthetic.
most of all I needed antibiotics, but it was pointless loo king for
those because they hadn't been discovered yet. But I did hope
fervently for just an ounce or two of sulphanilamide, and there I was
disappointed, because Stewie's menage didn't stretch to that. It was
when I came upon the box of plaster of paris bandages that something
seemed to click.
At that time in the late thirties the Spanish civil war was vivid in
people' minds. In the chaos of the later stages there had been no
proper medicament to treat the terrible wounds. They had often been
encased in plaster and left in the grim phrase, to 'stew in their own
juice'. Sometimes the results we' surprisingly good.
I grabbed the bandages. I knew what I was going to do. Gripped by a
firm determination I inserted the needle into the radial vein and
slowly injected the anaesthetic. Kim blinked, yawned lazily and went
to sleep. I quickly laid out my meagre armoury then began to shift the
dog into a better position. But I ha forgotten about the table and as
I lifted the hind quarters the whole thing gave, way and the dog
slithered helplessly towards the floor.
"Catch him!" At my frantic shout the man grabbed the inert form, then
reinserted the slots in their holes and got the wooden surface back on
the level :~ "Put your leg under there," I gasped, then turned to the
girl.
"And would you :.] please do the same at the other end. This table
mustn't fall over once I g ~ started." 3 Silently they complied and as
I looked at them, each with a leg jammed again the underside, I felt a
deep sense of shame. What sort of place did they thin .~ this was? :~]
But for a long time after I forgot everything. First I put the joint
back i place, slipping the ridges of the tibial-tarsal trochlea into
the grooves at t i distal end of the tibia as I had done so often in
the anatomy lab. at college.
An I noticed with a flicker of hope that some of the ligaments were
still intact and most important. that a few good blood vessels still
ran down to the lower Da of the limb.
I never said a word as I cleaned and disinfected the area, puffed
iodoform into every crevice and began to stitch. I stitched
interminably, pulling together.
shattered tendons, torn joint capsule and fascia. It was a warm
morning and.
the sun beat on the surgery window the sweat broke out on my forehead.
By the time I had sutured the skin a little river was flowing down my
nose and dripping from the tip. Next, more iodoform, then the lint and
finally two of the plaster' bandages, making a firm cast above the hock
down over the foot.
I straightened up and faced the young couple. They had never moved
from' their uncomfortable postures as they held the table upright but I
gazed at the' as though seeing them for the first time. .
I mopped my brow and drew a long breath.
"Well, that's it. I'd be incline to leave it as it is for a week, then
wherever you are let a vet have a look at il They were silent for a
moment then the girl spoke.
"I would rather you see' it yourself." Her husband nodded agreement.
4; "Really?" I was amazed. I had thought they would never want to see
me, my smelly waiting room or my collapsible table again.
"Yes, of course we would," the man said.
"You have taken such pains over.
him. Whatever happens we are deeply grateful to you, Mr Brannan." i
"Oh, I'm not Mr Brannan, he's on holiday. I'm his lo cum, my name, Her
riot."
He held out his hand.
"Well thank you again, Mr Herriot. I am Peter Gilla' and this is my
wife. Marjorie." ~ We shook hands and he took the dog in his arms and
went out to the car.1 For the next few days I couldn't keep Kim's leg
out of my mind. At timff -~It I was crazy trying to salvage a limb
that was joined to the dog only by ~ of skin. I had never met any
thing remotely like it before and in unoccupi' >~ 5~s that hock joint
with all its imponderables would float across my vision' ~.
There were plenty of these moments because Stewie's was a restful
practice.
Apart from the three daily surgeries there was little activity, and in
particular the uncomfortable pre-breakfast call so common in Darrow by
was unknown The Brannans had left the house and me in the care of Mrs
Holroyd, an elderly widow of raddled appearance who slouched around in
a flowered overall dOwn which ash cascaded from a permanently dangling
cigarette. She wasn't a good riser but she soon had me trained,
because after a few mornings when I couldn't find her I began to
prepare my own breakfast and that was how it stayed.
However, at other times she looked after me very well. She was what
you might call a good rough cook and pushed large tasty meals at me
regularly with a 'there yare, luv," watching me impassively till I
started to eat. The only thing that disturbed me was the long
trembling finger of ash which always hung over my food from the
cigarette that was part of her.
Mrs Holroyd also took telephone messages when I wasn't around There
weren't many outside visits but two have stuck in my memory.
The first was when I looked on the pad and read,
"Go to Mr Pimmarov to see bulldog," in Mrs Holroyd's careful back
sloped script.
"Pimmarov?" I asked her.
"Was he a Russian gentleman?"
"Dunno, lov, never asked 'im."
"Well did he sound foreign? I mean did he speak broken English?"
"Nay, luv, Yorkshire as me, 'e were."
"Ah well, never mind, Mrs Holroyd. What's his address?"
She gave me a surprised look.
"How should ah know? He never said."
"But ... but Mrs Holroyd. How can I visit him wh
en I don't know where
he lives?"
"Well you'll know best about that, luv."
I was baffled.
"But he must have told you."
"Now then, young man, Pimmarov was all 'e told me. Said you would
know."
She stuck out her chin, her cigarette quivered and she regarded me
stonily.
Maybe she had had similar sessions with Stewie, but she left me in no
doubt that the interview was over.
During the day I tried to think about it but the knowledge that
somewhere in the neighbour hood there was an ailing bulldog that I
could not succour was worrying I just hoped it was nothing fatal.
A phone call at 7 p.m. resolved my fears.
"Is that t'vet?" The voice was gruff and grumpy.
"Yes ... speaking.
"Well, ah've been wait in' all day for tha. When are you com in' to
see ma flip pin' bulldog?"
A light glimmered. But still .. . that accent . . . no suggestion of
the Kremlin ... not a hint of the Steppes.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," I gabbled.
"I'm afraid there's been a little misunderstanding I'm doing Mr
Brannan's work and I don't know the district. I do hope your dog isn't