Very soon a large number of officials came aboard, and I was relieved to find that they were cheerful and smiling. There was much shaking of hands and loud laughter and everybody addressed me as Doktor in a guttural tone with the accent on the second syllable. Most of them were from the customs and immigration authorities, and among them were several young women, one of whom spoke very good English. In fact, nearly all of them seemed to be able to get along in English; the other language in which they conversed with the captain was German.
The exception in this merry company was a tall, lugubrious sanitary inspector, wearing breeches and a cowboy hat. I had to go down into the hold with him, where he looked around him sadly but said nothing.
Immediately afterwards, a little fat woman beckoned to me to accompany her to where the animals’ food was kept. There were several tons of this surplus, and it was all to be left for the Russians, free of charge. But it seemed that they suspected some catch in this because, to my astonishment, the little woman began to slash open the bags of super-quality sheep nuts and the bales of sweet hay. She pushed her hand into the centre of each bag and bale and dropped some of the contents into a series of polythene bags. Apparently these samples had to go to a laboratory to be examined before they would accept the food.
I went back up to the captain’s room, where the officials were still signing forms and smoking and drinking. They had been joined by the chief of “Saufratt,” which deals with all the incoming and outgoing cargoes, and like the others, he was polite, friendly and ready to roar with laughter at the slightest excuse.
I was interested in the dress of these men who are obviously important people. They all wore smartly cut dark suits, and some had greenish gabardine macintoshes, but the materials of their clothes looked cheap and shoddy. Still, they were trim and neatly turned out, but the whole effect was spoiled by the fact that every man sported an abominable off-white tweedy cloth cap pulled right down to his ears. This was clearly the fashion in these parts, but to me the result was truly ghastly.
However they were very pleasant, and I found their conversation fascinating. I was struck forcefully by their tremendous willingness to work and their desire to learn. They told me that most of them had begun as factory workers but had studied at night and in every available moment to rise to their present positions.
Of course all the time I was anxiously awaiting the veterinary examination of the sheep. The veterinary surgeon turned out to be a little fat woman very like the one who had inspected the food. Unlike the officials she could not speak a word of English, but she marched up to me, tapped her chest and said, “Doktor.” As we shook hands as colleagues she burst into an infectious, bubbling laugh.
She had a helper with her, a big, tough-looking chap in blue dungarees and we all went down to the hold together. I was intrigued by her method of examining the sheep. The man penned five animals in a corner while she opened a little bag and took out a whole bunch of thermometers. These were strange-looking flat things with centigrade markings and attached to each was a piece of string with a clip on the end.
She methodically dipped each nozzle in a jar of vaseline before inserting it in the rectum and clipping the string to the wool. Then she stood looking at her watch for what seemed an age. Finally, she removed the thermometers and took the readings.
After that she had another five caught up, and again we had the lengthy wait and the reading before moving to another pen.
The realisation burst on me with a sense of shock that these were two-minute thermometers, unlike our half-minute ones, and also that she was going to examine ten sheep in every pen. This was going to take an awfully long time.
Gallantly holding her jar of vaseline, I tried to alleviate the boredom by making conversation. It was difficult since neither of us spoke a word of the other’s language, but I managed to get over to her that most of the sheep were of the Romney Marsh breed. This appeared to delight her because thereafter, when she pushed the thermometer up a sheep’s rectum, she would cry, “Rromnee Marrsh!” and laugh happily, then on to the next one and again the thrust of the thermometer and the joyous, “Rromnee Marrsh!”
It lightened the proceedings to a certain extent, but after an hour and a half we had covered only one side of the ’tween decks hold—about a quarter of the sheep—and I quailed at the thought of another four and a half hours of this.
But there was no doubt she was a pleasant little woman. She was dressed in a cheap-looking, navy-blue raincoat and the kind of velour hat you see in jumble sales in England, and her chubby face never stopped smiling.
The only time she looked serious was when she heard a cough from one of the Lincolns. It was the moment I had been dreading, and she turned to me questioningly.
“Ah-ah, ah-ha, ah-ha,” she said in a fair imitation of the parasitic bark and raised her eyebrows.
I shrugged my shoulders. What could I do? How could I explain?
The animal’s temperature was normal and she appeared reassured, but some time later another sheep coughed.
“Ah-ah, ah-ha, ah-ha?” she asked, and again I shrugged and gave a noncommittal smile.
About halfway through, we were joined by another vet, obviously the little woman’s superior. He was very well dressed in dark overcoat and black trilby hat, and his handsome, high-cheekboned, Asiatic face radiated charm as he shook my hand and thumped me on the back.
“Salaam aleikum, “ he said, somewhat to my surprise.
He, too, spoke no English, and when he heard the cough he swung round on me.
“Ah-ah, ah-ha, ah-ha?” he enquired.
I spread my hands and shook my head, and he laughed suddenly. He seemed a happy-go-lucky fellow and was clearly in a hurry to be off. He waved goodbye to his colleague, shook my hand warmly and smiled, then he strode from the hold.
I was still baffled by the oriental greeting and turned to the little woman. “Salaam aleikum?”
“Irkutsk, Tartar,” she replied.
I realised that he came from the other end of this vast country, and, to let her know I understood, I pulled the corners of my eyes outwards.
She burst into a high-pitched giggle. She did love to laugh.
But the strain of hanging around with the pot of vaseline was beginning to tell. I tried to get rid of the tension by saying things like, “Look, this is driving me right up the bloody wall,” at which she would give me a nod and a sweet, uncomprehending smile, but at last I could stand it no longer. I gave her back the vaseline and fled to the sanctuary of my cabin, I heard later that it took her five hours to get round the sheep.
The unloading berth is occupied by another ship, the Ubbergen, which is discharging a cargo of cattle and taking on a lot of little cob-like horses, so we cannot start our unloading until she moves. My immediate ambition was to get ashore, but the customs and immigration people had taken our passports, and until they came back nobody could leave the ship.
When the passports were returned I looked around for a companion, because John Crooks had warned me not to go ashore alone. The mate and engineer would not budge as they were worried about relations between Denmark and Russia, following a verbal attack on the Scandinavian countries by Khrushchev which they had heard on the radio in the Danish news. In fact, as I went around, it soon became obvious that none of the ship’s company had any intention of going ashore.
It was the captain, gentlemanly as always, who stepped in. He could see that I was disappointed and said that, if I gave him a few minutes to wash and change, he would come with me.
As I waited on the deck the daylight faded rapidly to dusk, and lights began to appear in the tenements beyond the port. They all seemed like forty-watt bulbs, and the general effect was dreary in the extreme.
By the time the captain was ready, it was quite dark. I had been strongly advised by the man from Saufratt to visit the seamans’ club called Interklub and I decided to do this and leave the exploration of the town until tomorrow.
We we
nt down the gangway, showed our passports to the soldiers and I took my first step onto Russian soil. I said, “Interklub?” and the soldiers pointed vaguely along the railway lines into the distance. They still preserved the deadpan look I had seen in the morning, and it struck me that they were just about the only unsmiling Russians I had met all day. I wondered why they acted so very differently.
There were floodlights shining down from the cranes, and we began to pick our way along by their light. But it was slow going. We were in a maze of sheds, cranes and wagons, and the quayside seemed to stretch indefinitely ahead.
I soon became impatient. “Look,” I said to the captain. “The town’s just over there.” I pointed to the high fence that surrounded the harbour. “Surely there’s a gate of some kind here.”
The captain shook his head. “I think not. There will be a gate house somewhere along at the end. We must go through there.”
Now, I believe I am fundamentally a fairly solid citizen, but every now and then I do something daft. This was one of those times. I decided to look for a shortcut.
I groped my way into the darkness behind a row of wagons, and I was studying the dim silhouette of the fence when suddenly an enormous dog shot out at me from the gloom. It was of an Alsatian type, and it came at me with a terrifying baying sound. I caught a glimpse of a snarling mouth and white teeth, but I didn’t wait to make a closer examination. I took off at great speed, but after a few yards I tripped over a railway line and fell flat on my face.
At that moment I was sure it was all over with me. I am not going to suggest that my past life flashed before my eyes, but in that second or two I did have a vivid impression of the incongruity of my situation. I, James Herriot, Yorkshire Dales veterinary surgeon and dog lover, meeting my end by being torn to pieces by a dog behind a railway wagon on a dark night in Russia.
I was waiting for the first crunch when I heard the animal twang to a stop at the end of its chain, and as I looked back, I could see it fighting to get at me, the great teeth, gleaming in the floodlights, about six inches from my leg.
I scrabbled along on my stomach to where the captain was waiting. That usually calm man was visibly shaken, and he helped me up, gripped my arm and hurried me along the road we had first taken.
As I struggled to regain my breath, I felt I had learned my first lesson. Do not go nosing about in dark places in Russia. Keep to the proper path.
When we came to the gate house, I had to smile to myself. My nerves were still vibrating after my encounter with that creature back there, but when I saw the groups of soldiers around the brightly lit room and more soldiers behind a sliding window carrying out an interminable, hard-eyed scrutiny of our passports and ourselves, the absurdity of my idea of a shortcut was forced on me. Before passing through, I took a last glance at the long stretch of quayside behind us, and I wondered how many more four-legged killers were lurking in the shadows under the fence.
Once in the street, we asked a young fellow in the inevitable light cloth cap about Interklub, and he politely marched us to the door before shaking hands and leaving us.
Inside we found a very comfortable, even mildly luxurious club. Russian time is two hours ahead of ours so most of the activities had ceased for the night, but nevertheless the little man in charge was effusive in his welcome.
The captain spoke to him in German and told him who we were, and he kept bowing and smiling as though we were his long-lost brothers.
He insisted on taking us on a tour of the establishment and ushered us into each room with a deferential, “Please, please”— a common and much-used word among the people I have met here.
There were a little cinema, dance hall, bar, and a billiard room where some young German sailors were knocking balls about. We saw several cosy lounges, in one of which a large radio was giving a commentary of Tottenham Hotspur in the European Cup.
Our guide led us into a library and reading room where there were newspapers in all languages, and I hastened to the English section, hoping to catch up with some of the latest news. However, I found only a pile of the Daily Worker, and the most recent was a fortnight old. I was moodily reading about the long-past England v. Wales football match when the little man bustled up, all smiles, and began to load me with a huge quantity of books and pamphlets, all in English.
These books were all beautifully produced, and one of them, Khrushchev in the U.S.A., would be very expensive to buy in England. I was also presented with a roll of cine film of the same visit and a little badge which I must keep for Rosie.
We left on a wave of cordiality, and as I came out into the night and looked at the gaunt tenements nearby, it struck me how sharply they contrasted with that club.
Tonight, as I complete my journal, two thoughts are uppermost in my mind. First, my bed will keep still for a change, and second, it has been an eventful day.
Chapter
15
“THIS IS AMBER,” SISTER Rose said. “The one I wanted you to examine.”
I looked at the pale, almost honey-coloured shading of the hair on the dog’s ears and flanks. “I can see why you’ve given her that name. I bet she’d really glow in the sunshine.”
The nurse laughed. “Yes, funnily enough it was sunny when I first saw her, and the name just jumped into my mind.” She gave me a sideways glance. “I’m good at names, as you know.”
“Oh yes, without a doubt,” I said, smiling. It was a little joke between us. Sister Rose had to be good at christening the endless stream of unwanted animals passing through the little dog sanctuary that lay behind her house and which she ran and maintained by organising small shows and jumble sales, and by spending her own money.
And she didn’t only give her money, she gave her precious time, because as a nursing sister she led a full life of service to the human race. I often asked myself how she found the time to fight for the animals, too. It was a mystery to me, but I admired her.
“Where did this one come from?” I asked.
Sister Rose shrugged. “Oh, found wandering in the streets of Hebbleton. Nobody knows her, and there have been no enquiries to the police. Obviously abandoned.”
I felt the old tightening of anger in my throat. “How could they do this to such a beautiful dog? Just turn it away to fend for itself.”
“Oh, people like that have some astonishing reasons. In this case I think it’s because Amber has a little skin disease. Perhaps it frightened them.”
“They could at least have taken her to a vet,” I grunted as I opened the door of the pen.
I noticed some bare patches around the toes, and as I knelt and examined the feet, Amber nuzzled my cheek and wagged her tail. I looked up at her, at the flopping ears, the pronounced jowls and the trusting eyes that had been betrayed.
“It’s a hound’s face,” I said. “But how. about the rest of her? What breed would you call her?”
Sister Rose laughed. “Oh, she’s a puzzle. I get a lot of practice at guessing, but this one beats me. I wondered if a fox hound had got astray and mated with something like a Labrador or Dalmatian, but I don’t know.”
I didn’t know, either. The body, dappled with patches of brown, black and white, was the wrong shape for a hound. She had very large feet, a long thin tail in constant motion and everywhere on her coat the delicate sheen of gold.
“Well,” I said. “Whatever she is, she’s a bonny one, and good-natured, too.”
“Oh, yes, she’s a darling. We’ll have no difficulty in finding a home for her. She’s the perfect pet. How old do you think she is?”
I smiled. “You can never tell for sure, but she’s got a juvenile look about her.” I opened the mouth and looked at the rows of untainted teeth. “I’d say nine or ten months. She’s just a big pup.”
“That’s what I thought. She’ll be really large when she reaches full size.”
As if to prove the sister’s words, the young bitch reared up and planted her forefeet on my chest. I looked again at the laug
hing mouth and those eyes. “Amber,” I said. “I really like you.”
“Oh, I’m so glad,” Sister Rose said. “We must get this skin trouble cleared up as quickly as possible, and then I can start finding her a home. It’s just a bit of eczema, isn’t it?”
“Probably … probably … I see there’s some bareness around the eyes and cheeks, too.” Skin diseases in dogs, as in humans, are tricky things, often baffling in origin and difficult to cure. I fingered the hairless areas. I didn’t like the combination of feet and face, but the skin was dry and sound. Maybe it was nothing much. I banished to the back of my mind a spectre that appeared for a brief instant. I didn’t want to think of that, and I had no intention of worrying Sister Rose. She had enough on her mind.
“Yes, probably eczema,” I said briskly. “Rub this ointment well into the parts, night and morning.” I handed over the box of zinc oxide and lanolin. A bit old-fashioned, maybe, but it had served me well for a few years and ought to do the trick, in combination with the nurse’s good feeding.
When two weeks passed without news of Amber, I was relieved. I was happy, too, at the thought that she would now be in a good home among people who appreciated her.
I was brought back to reality with a bump when Sister Rose phoned one morning.
“Mr. Herriot, those bare patches aren’t any better. In fact, they’re spreading.”
“Spreading? Where?”
“Up her legs and on the face.”
The spectre leaped up, mouthing and gesticulating. Oh, not that, please. “I’ll come right out, Sister,” I said, and on my way to the car I picked up the microscope.
Amber greeted me as she had before, with dancing eyes and lashing tail, but I felt sick when I saw the ragged denudation of the face and the naked skin staring at me on the legs.
I got hold of the young animal and held her close, sniffing at the hairless areas.
Sister Rose looked at me in surprise. “What are you doing?”
‘Trying to detect a mousy smell.”