I leaned back against the wooden rail and tried to rationalise my thoughts. This was stress—a classical example. It must be; up in my case I had a few bottles of the new wonder drug, cortisone, and one of its indications was just this.
I was up to my cabin and down again quicker than I thought was possible and in the pockets of my working coat the precious bottles bumped against each other. The brand name was Predsolan; it was one of the first of the steroid products and though I had used it for arthritic and inflammatory conditions, I had never tried it in a case like this.
It wasn’t only the ship’s pitching that made my hand shake and wobble as I drew the liquid into my syringe. The supply was very limited, and heaven only knew how many more sheep would go down. I rationed the injections to 3 c.c. per sheep, and as I went round the stricken animals, my spirits sank lower. Only three of them could stand; the others were slumped on their chests, necks craning forward, eyes starting from their heads, their flanks heaving uncontrollably.
As I worked, Raun stroked the woolly heads and muttered endearments in Danish. It was the first time I had seen him look unhappy, and I knew how he felt. I hadn’t been seasick, but I was sick now with apprehension.
These beautiful pedigree animals. And it was the rams, the most valuable of all, which were struck down. I could only wait now, but I was convinced that the whole business was hopeless. I realised that I couldn’t bear to stand there watching them any longer, and I hurried up the iron ladders to the top deck, which was running with water and slanting at crazy angles. It was clearly no place for me, and I went up to the bridge.
The captain, as always, greeted me courteously, and when I told him about the sheep he looked thoughtful. Then he smiled.
“I know they are in good hands, Mr. Herriot. Do not be upset. I am sure you will cure them.”
I couldn’t share his optimism, and, in any case, I was pretty certain he was only trying to cheer me up. To take my mind off my troubles he again showed me our position on the chart and began to talk of maritime things.
“We are out of the sea lanes now,” he said. He waved a hand round the desolation on all sides. “You see no ships now, and I think you see no ships all day.”
As we talked we looked out through the glass at the bows of the ship, dipping into each gulf, then climbing up the green mountain on the other side. This was the best position to appreciate the size of those mighty waves, and a part of me never stopped being surprised as our tiny vessel fought her way up again and again.
The captain fell silent for a few minutes and gazed impassively at the endless stretch of sea beyond the glass.
“I tell you again, Mr. Herriot, we are running before the wind now, and if it is like this on our return journey, we are in big trouble.” He turned and smiled. “You see, once we are unloaded, we must come back straightaway. A ship is doing no good lying in harbour.”
All the time I was hanging on grimly to a rail, and it fascinated me to see the mate stroll casually onto the bridge, pipe in mouth, hands in pockets, and begin to move around effortlessly. At times his body seemed to be at an angle of forty-five degrees to the ground. I have noticed that all the crew are wonderfully adept at this, but for me it is frankly very dangerous to walk anywhere at all without support.
After two hours I had to give in to my gnawing anxiety. It would be too soon to expect any improvement in my patients, but at least I could check to see that they were no worse.
I struggled, a foot at a time, back to my cabin to get my gear, and on the way I passed the galley. The cell-like room was a chaos of tumbled pans and plates, and the walls were almost entirely covered with soup which Nielsen, the cook, was wiping away with a cloth. When he saw me, he nodded and smiled as he worked. He didn’t seem in the least put out; this was probably a common occurrence for him.
Down those iron ladders again; they really are uncomfortable when the world is whirling and wet. I rushed straight to the pen that held the first ram, and for a moment I was sure I had gone to the wrong place, because a large woolly head was regarding me placidly over the rails. A few strands of hay hung from the mouth, then the jaws began to move in a contented chew.
I was standing there, bewildered, when from the deep straw in the pen the massive figure of Raun rose like a golden-maned genie and began to wave his arms about.
“Look, Doctor, look!” His boxer’s face vibrated in every feature as he gestured at the ram, then at the other patients in the hold.
I moved among them like a man in a dream. They were all normal. Not just improved, but right back to where they were before the trouble started, and all within two hours.
Over my veterinary career, I have learned about new things in various odd places, and I learned about cortisone in the bowels of a little cattle ship on the way to Russia.
And it was sweet, made sweeter by the ecstatic response of Raun to the little miracle. He vaulted over the rails from pen to pen, hugging the sheep as though they were dogs, and laughing nonstop.
“Is wonderful, Doctor, is wonderful! So queek—they dying, now they live. So queek, how you do it?” He stared at me with undisguised admiration.
Just then, I felt a pang of envy for Danish vets. I have had my black moments in practice, but I have also pulled off the occasional spectacular cure without seeing anything like this reaction from the Yorkshiremen. But then, maybe Danish farmers don’t leap about with joy, either. After all, Raun is a sailor.
Anyway, I was filled with the exhilaration every veterinary surgeon knows when the curtain of despair is unexpectedly lifted. The pre-lunch beer with the captain tasted like nectar, and lunch itself in the swaying mess room was a celebration.
Somehow, the wonder man in the galley had conjured up a glorious vegetable soup with pieces of sausage and dumpling floating around in it. This was followed by “Fregadillas,” which were delicious and, I was told, are made from chopped pork and veal rolled into balls bound together with egg and highly spiced.
As I write, I am conscious that my journal is in danger of degenerating into a kind of Cattle Boat Cook Book, but how Nielsen manages to produce this kind of food in a cubbyhole and in stormy weather is a constant source of wonder to me. I am going to find it difficult to resist making references to his artistry.
He has a habit of poking his head round the door halfway through every meal. He looks only at me, the one who recognises him as a culinary genius, and when I put my fingers to my lips and close my eyes, his sweating face beams with delight. He thinks I am wonderful.
My cabin is almost opposite the galley, and between meals he experiments on me constantly with his own special tidbits. I admit I am a willing subject.
The bad weather continued throughout the day, and, as the captain had prophesied, we did not see another ship at any time. I kept a close eye on the sheep and a few more showed the beginnings of the stress symptoms, but I was on them immediately with my Predsolan and crushed the trouble before it became alarming.
Tonight, the ritual after-dinner session with the schnapps and lager was particularly pleasant. The ship’s officers are such likable men. They showed me pictures of their families and of the places they have visited, and the conversation never flagged. At the end, the captain raised a finger and looked at me smilingly. “Would you like to telephone your wife?”
I laughed. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”
“No, no, it is quite simple.”
He took me up to the bridge, and within a few minutes I was talking to Helen and daughter Rosie in the darkness. With a sense of unreality, I heard their voices giving me the news of home, of Jimmy at the university, of the latest football scores. It put the final touch on a rewarding day.
I have made a close inspection of the sheep before I came to my cabin, because tomorrow we will be in Klaipeda and I will have to hand them over, then. They look fine. No more stress; the lame animal has recovered, as has the one with the discharging eyes. There is just that cough among the Lincolns, and it is a
worry. What will those Russians make of it? I know that it is just a touch of parasitic bronchitis, that it is getting better all the time and that it will soon be gone completely. But will I be able to explain that to the Russian vets? I will soon know.
Chapter
13
THE FARM MAN MOVED between the cows and took hold of my patient’s tail, and when I saw his haircut, I knew immediately that Josh Anderson had been on the job again. It was a Sunday morning and everything fitted into place. I really didn’t have to ask.
“Were you in the Hare and Pheasant last night?” I enquired carelessly as I inserted my thermometer.
He ran a hand ruefully over his head. “Aye, bugger it, ah was. Ye can see straight off, can’t ye? T’missus has been playin’ ’ell with me ever since.”
“I suppose Josh had had one too many, eh?”
“Aye, he had. I should’ve known better, pickin’ a Saturday night. It’s me own fault.”
Josh Anderson was one of the local barbers. He liked his job, but he also liked his beer. In fact he was devoted to it, even to the extent of taking his scissors and clippers to the pub with him every night. For the price of a pint, he would give anybody a quick trim in the gents’ lavatory.
Habitués of the Hare and Pheasant were never surprised to find one of the customers sitting impassively on the toilet seat with Josh snip-snipping round his head. With beer at sixpence a pint it was good value, but Josh’s clients knew they were taking a chance. If the barber’s intake had been moderate, they would escape relatively unscathed because the standard of hair styling in the Darrowby district was not very fastidious, but if he had imbibed beyond a certain point, terrible things could happen.
Josh had not as yet been known to cut off anybody’s ear, but if you strolled around the town on Sundays and Mondays, you were liable to come across some very strange coiffures.
I looked again at the farm man’s head. From my experience, I judged that Josh had been around the ten-pint mark when he did that one. The right sidebum had been trimmed off meticulously just below eye level, while the left was nonexistent. The upper hair seemed to have been delved into at random, leaving bare patches in some parts and long dangling wisps in others. I couldn’t see the back, but I had no doubt it would be interesting, too. There could be a pigtail or anything lurking behind there.
Yes, I decided, definitely a ten-pinter. After twelve to fourteen pints, Josh was inclined to cast away all caution and simply run over his victim’s head with the clippers, leaving a tuft in front. The classical convict’s crop necessitated wearing a cap, well pulled down at all times, for several weeks thereafter.
I always played safe, and when my hair needed cutting, I went to Josh’s shop where he operated in a state of strict sobriety.
I was sitting there a few days later, waiting my turn with my dog, Sam, under my seat, and as I watched the barber at work, the wonder of human nature seemed to glow with a particular radiance. There was a burly man in the chair, and his red face, reflected in the mirror above the enveloping white sheet, was contorted every few seconds with spasms of pain. Because the simple fact was that Josh didn’t cut hair, he pulled it out.
He did this not only because his equipment was antiquated and needed sharpening, but because he had perfected a certain flick of the wrist with his hand clippers which wrenched the hairs from their follicles at the end of each stroke. He had never got round to buying electric clippers, but with his distinctive technique I doubt whether it would have made any difference.
One wonder was that anybody went to Josh for a haircut because there was another barber in the town. My own opinion was that it was because everybody liked him.
Sitting there in his shop I looked at him as he worked. He was a tiny man in his fifties with a bald head that made a mockery of the rows of hair restorer on his shelves, and on his face rested the gentle smile which never seemed to leave him. That smile and the big, curiously unworldly eyes gave him an unusual attraction.
And then there was his obvious love of his fellow men. As his client rose from the chair, patently relieved that his ordeal was over, Josh fussed around him, brushing him down, patting his back and chattering gaily. You could see that he hadn’t been just cutting this man’s hair, he had been enjoying a happy social occasion.
Next to the big farmer, Josh looked smaller than ever, a minute husk of humanity, and I marvelled as I had often done at how he managed to accommodate all that beer.
Of course, foreigners are often astonished at the Englishman’s ability to consume vast quantities of ale. Even now, after forty years in Yorkshire, I cannot compete. Maybe it is my Glasgow upbringing, but after two or three pints, discomfort sets in. The remarkable thing is that, throughout the years, I can hardly recall seeing a Yorkshireman drunk. Their natural reserve relaxes and they become progressively jovial as the long cascade goes down their throats, but they seldom fall about or do anything silly.
Josh, for instance. He would swallow around eight pints every night of the week, except Saturday when he stepped up his intake to between ten and fourteen, yet he never looked much different. His professional skill suffered, but that was all.
He was turning to me now. “Well, Mr. Herriot, it’s good to see you again.” He warmed me with his smile and those wide eyes with their almost mystic depths caressed me as he ushered me to the chair. “Are you very well?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Mr. Anderson,” I replied. “And how are you?”
“Nicely, sir, nicely.” He began to tuck the sheet under my chin, then laughed delightedly as my little beagle trotted in under the folds.
“Hullo, Sam, you’re there as usual, I see.” He bent and stroked the sleek ears. “By gum, Mr. Herriot, he’s a faithful friend. Never lets you out of ’is sight if he can help it.”
“That’s right,” I said. “And I don’t like to go anywhere without him.” I screwed round in my chair. “By the way, didn’t I see you with a dog the other day?”
Josh paused, scissors in hand. “You did an’ all. A little bitch. A stray—got ’er from the Cat and Dog Home at York. Now that our kids have all left home, t’missus and I fancied gettin’ a dog, and we think the world of her. I tell ye, she’s a grand ’un.”
“What breed is she?”
“Eee, now you’re askin’. Nobbut a mongrel, I reckon. I can’t see any pedigree about her, but money wouldn’t buy ’er.”
I was about to agree with him when he held up a hand. “Hang on a minute and I’ll bring ’er down.”
He lived above the shop, and his feet clumped on the stairs as he returned with a little bitch in his arms. “There you are, Mr. Herriot. What d’you think of that?” He stood her on the floor for my inspection.
I looked at the little animal. She was a light grey in colour, with very long crinkled hair. In fact, at a quick glance she looked like a miniature Wensleydale sheep. Definitely a hound of baffling lineage, but the panting mouth and swishing tail bore witness to her good nature.
“I like her,” I said. “I think you’ve picked a winner there.”
“That’s what we think.” He stooped and fondled his new pet, and I noticed that he kept picking up the long hairs and rubbing them gently between finger and thumb again and again. It looked a little odd, then it occurred to me that that was what he was used to doing with his human customers. “We’ve called her Venus,” he said.
“Venus?”
“Aye, because she’s so beautiful.” His tone was very serious.
“Ah yes,” I said. “I see.”
He washed his hands, took up his scissors again and grasped a few strands of my hair. Again, I saw that he went through the same procedure of rubbing the hairs between his fingers before cutting them.
I couldn’t understand why he did this, but my mind was too preoccupied to give the matter much thought. I was steeling myself. Still, it wasn’t too bad with the scissors—just an uncomfortable tug as the blunt edges came together.
It was when he
reached for the clippers that I gripped the arms of the chair as though I were at the dentist. It was all right as long as he was running the things up the back of my neck; it was that jerk at the end, plucking the last tuft from its roots, that set my face grimacing at me in the mirror. Once or twice an involuntary “Ooh!” or “Aah!” escaped me, but Josh gave no sign of having heard.
I remembered that for years I had sat in that shop listening to the half-stifled cries of pain from the customers, but at no time had the barber shown any reaction.
The thing was that, though he was the least arrogant or conceited of men, he did consider himself a gifted hairdresser. Even now, as he gave me a final combing, I could see the pride shining from his face. Head on one side, he patted my hair repeatedly, circling the chair and viewing me from all angles, making a finicky snip here and there before holding up the hand mirror for my inspection.
“All right, Mr. Herriot?” he enquired with the quiet satisfaction that comes from a job well done.
“Lovely, Mr. Anderson, just fine.” Relief added warmth to my voice.
He bowed slightly, well pleased. “Aye, you know, it’s easy enough to cut hair off. The secret is knowin’ what to leave on.”
I had heard him say it a hundred times before, but I laughed dutifully as he whisked his brush over the back of my coat.
My hair used to grow pretty fast in those days, but I didn’t have time to pay another visit to the barber before he arrived on my front doorstep. I was having tea at the time and I trotted to the door in answer to the insistent ringing of the bell.
He was carrying Venus in his arms but she was a vastly different creature from the placid little animal I had seen in his shop. She was bubbling saliva from her mouth, retching and pawing frantically at her face.
Josh looked distraught. “She’s chokin’, Mr. Herriot. Look at ’er! She’ll die if you don’t do summat quick!”
“Wait a minute, Mr. Anderson. Tell me what’s happened. Has she swallowed something?”
“Aye, she’s ’ad a chicken bone.”