“They do indeed.” I smiled at the men and waved my hand in greeting. They jumped to their feet and bowed. “Right,” I said to the farmer, “you can be having your dinners while I’m gone. I’ll be back in about half an hour.”
When I returned, we led the cow to a patch of soft grass. Her progress was painfully slow as she trailed her almost useless hind leg.
I buckled the muzzle to her head and dribbled the chloroform onto the sponge. As she inhaled the strange vapour her eyes widened in surprise, then she stumbled forward and sank to the turf.
I slipped a round stake into the animal’s groin and stationed the two biggest men at either end of it, then I fastened a rope above the fetlock and gave the other end to Mr. Preston and the remaining two Germans.
The stage was set. I crouched over the pelvis and placed both hands on the bulging head of the femur. Would it stay obstinately still or would I feel it riding up the side of the acetabulum on the way to its proper home?
Anyway, this was the moment, and I took a deep breath. “Pull!” I shouted, and the three men on the rope hauled away, while the brown corded arms on each side of me took the strain on the stake.
No doubt an unedifying spectacle, this tug of war with the sleeping animal in the middle. Not much science in evidence, but country practice is often like that.
However, I had no time for theorising—all my mind was concentrated on that jutting bone under my hands. “Pull!” I yelled again, and fresh grunts of effort came back in reply.
I clenched my teeth. The thing wasn’t moving. I couldn’t believe it could resist the terrific traction, but it was like a rock.
Then, when the feeling of defeat was rising, I felt a stirring beneath my fingers. It all happened in seconds after that—the lifting of the femoral head as I pushed frantically at it and the loud click as it flopped into its socket. We had won.
I waved my arms in delight. “All right, let go!” I crawled to the cow’s head and whipped off the muzzle.
We heaved her onto her chest, and she lay there, blinking and shaking her head as consciousness returned. I could hardly wait for what is one of the most rewarding moments in veterinary practice, and it came when the cow rose to her feet and strolled over the grass without the trace of a limp. The five faces, sweating in the hot sunshine, watched in happy amazement, and though I had seen it all before, I felt the warm flush of triumph that is always new.
I handed cigarettes round the prisoners, and before I left I drew on my scanty store of German.
“Danke schoen!” I said fervently, and I really meant it.
“Bitte! Bitte!” they cried, all smiles. They had enjoyed the whole thing, and I had the feeling that this would be one of the tales they would tell when they returned to their homes.
A few days later, Siegfried and I alighted at Village Farm, Harford. We had come together because we had been told that our patient, a Red Poll bullock, was of an uncooperative disposition, and we thought that a combined operation was indicated.
The farmer led us to the fold yard where about twenty cattle were eating turnips. “That’s the one,” he said, pointing to an enormously fat beast, “and that’s the thing I was tellin’ ye about.” He indicated a growth as big as a football dangling from the animal’s belly.
Siegfried gave him a hard look. “Really, Mr. Harrison, you should have called us out to this long ago. Why did you let it get so big?”
The farmer took off his hat and scratched his balding head ruminatively. “Aye, well, you know how it is. Ah kept meanin’ to give you a ring, but it slipped me mind and time went on.”
“It’s a hell of a size now,” Siegfried grunted.
“Ah know, ah know. I allus had the hope that it might drop off because he’s a right wild sod. You can’t do much with ’im.”
“All right, then.” Siegfried shrugged. “Bring a halter, and we’ll drive him into that box over there.”
The farmer left, and my partner turned to me. “You know, James, that tumour isn’t as fearsome as it looks. It’s beautifully pedunculated, and if we can get a shot of local into that narrow neck we can ligate it and have it off in no time.”
The farmer returned with the halter, and he was accompanied by a dark little man in denims.
“This is Luigi,” he said. “Italian prisoner. Don’t speak no English, but ’e’s very handy at all sorts o’ jobs.”
I could imagine Luigi being handy. He was short in stature, but his wide spread of shoulder and muscular arms suggested great strength.
We said hello, and the Italian returned our greetings with an inclination of his head and a grave smile. He carried an aura of dignity and self-assurance.
After a bit of galloping round the fold yard, we managed to get our patient into the box, but we soon realised that our troubles were only beginning.
Red Polls are big cattle, and an ill-natured one can be a problem. This fat creature had a mean look in his eyes, and all our attempts to halter him were unavailing. He either whipped away from the rope or shook his head threateningly at us. Once, as he thundered past me I got my fingers into his nose, but he brushed me off like a fly and lashed out with a hind leg, catching me a glancing blow on the thigh.
“He’s like an elephant,” I gasped. “God only knows how we’re going to catch him.”
The sedative injections for such animals and the metal crushes to restrain them were still years in the future, and Siegfried and I were looking gloomily at the bullock when Luigi stepped forward.
He held up a hand and loosed off a burst of Italian at us. None of us could understand him, but we took his point as he ushered us back against the wall with great ceremony. Plainly he was going to do something, but what?
He advanced stealthily on the bullock, then with a lightning movement he seized one of the ears in both hands. The animal took off immediately but without its previous abandon. Luigi was screwing the ear round on its long axis, and it seemed to act as a brake because the beast slowed to a halt and stood there, head on one side, glancing almost plaintively up at the little man.
I was reminded irresistibly of pictures of Billy Bunter being held by a Greyfriars prefect, and I almost expected the bullock to cry, “Ouch! Yaroo! Leggo my ear!”
But I didn’t have much time for musing because Luigi, in full command of the situation, jerked his head towards the hanging tumour.
Siegfried and I leaped forward. We had never seen anybody catch a beast by the ear before, but we weren’t going to discuss it. This was our chance.
I cradled the growth in my hands while Siegfried injected the local into the neck. As the needle entered the skin the hairy leg twitched, and under ordinary circumstances we would have been kicked out of the box, but Luigi took another half-turn on the ear and rapped out a colourful reprimand. The animal subsided immediately and stood motionless as we worked.
Siegfried applied a strong ligature and severed the neck of the growth bloodlessly with an ecraseur. The tumour thudded onto the straw. The operation was over.
Luigi released the ear and received our congratulations with a half-smile and a gracious nod of his head. He really was a man of enormous presence.
Now, more than thirty years later, Siegfried and I still talk about him. We have both tried to catch large cattle by the ears without the slightest success; so was Luigi just an amateur with wrists of steel or was he a farmer, and do they do it that way in Italy after a lifetime of practice? We still don’t know.
One still summer evening I was returning from a call when I heard the sound of singing. It was a rich, swelling chorus of many voices, and it seemed to come from nowhere. I stopped the car and wound down the window. The fells rose around me, their summits glinting in the last sunshine, but the only living creatures were the cattle and sheep grazing on the walled slopes.
Then I saw Knowle Manor perched on a plateau high above, and I remembered that hundreds of Russian prisoners were billeted there.
These men were singing the songs of th
eir homeland, but the sound drifting from the windows of the big house was not that of a casual party. There was a vast, drilled choir up there, deep voices blending in thrilling harmonies that hung and lingered on the soft air.
I sat entranced for a long time, till the light faded and the chill of nightfall made me close my window and drive away.
Years later I read that these Russians went home to death or captivity, and whenever I thought of their fate, I remembered that summer evening and the beautiful music they made in the peace of the Yorkshire hills.
Chapter
7
OCTOBER 29, 1961
“Breakfast, Mr. Herriot.”
I heard the mess boy’s call and his knock on my cabin door. It was the first of many during this day. “Lunch, Mr. Herriot.” “Dinner, Mr. Herriot.” “Coffee time, Mr. Herriot.” He is a fresh-faced lad of seventeen and takes care I don’t miss anything.
I hurried to the mess room. To my surprise I found it was empty, but there was a large pot of coffee on the table, along with a stack of rye bread and a remarkable selection of cold meats and fish. I counted nine different platters on the table.
Well, it was an unusual breakfast but I was hungry, so I started operations immediately. The coffee was delicious, and I was happily washing down wonderful raw herring and onion, smoked ham and a particularly toothsome meat loaf when the mess boy appeared and smilingly deposited two fried eggs and bacon in front of me.
I was surprised but undeterred, and as I started my fresh attack with the ship heaving and pitching, I thanked providence that I had never known sea-sickness.
I was soon joined by two of the ship’s officers, the mate, a tubby little man also called Rasmussen, and the engineer, Hansen, very dark with a humorous face.
Neither of them spoke much English, but we managed to converse on various subjects including football pools which, when they had the chance, they both filled up assiduously without success.
After breakfast I went down to inspect my animals. The general picture was a happy one, but I noticed a sheep limping as it walked to its hay. I examined the feet and found a small area of footrot. I had been told that the Russian vets were meticulous in their examination, but they had missed that one. I directed a long jet of Terramycin aerosol at the affected spot; I was confident that a few more similar treatments would put that right before we reached Klaipeda.
Another animal blinked painfully at me as I passed its pen, and I found that its eyes were weeping and inflamed. It was the only one so affected, and I felt that it had probably picked up some irritant material on the journey to Hull. I squeezed some chloramphenicol eye ointment across the eyeballs and decided to do the same at midday and in the evening.
I finished my tour with the comforting thought that so far my stock of drugs was adequate.
Before lunch the captain asked me to drink a glass of lager with him in his cabin. He himself, despite being a man of natural refinement, drank straight from the bottle; later today I found that this was the approved method among the ship’s officers, but he gave me a glass.
I sat down at the end of the table and poured the lager, and at that moment the ship gave a tremendous roll. My chair went over; I literally flew through the air, shot across the floor on my side and finished up underneath a desk in the corner. My glass was shattered, and a pool of the precious Carlsberg Special spread across the floor.
The captain leaped anxiously to my assistance. “Oh, Mr. Herriot, I hope you do not hurt yourself!” As I have said, his English is very good but occasionally little inaccuracies creep in.
“No, I’m fine,” I replied, laughing. I got up and started on another bottle, but this time I kept my knees jammed against the legs of the table. I am beginning to learn.
After this little contretemps we went down to lunch, passing on the way the cook’s galley. This was about the size of a large cupboard and was crammed with pans, stove, ovens and food. I wondered how anybody could possibly produce proper meals in that tiny place, and it occurred to me that perhaps that was the reason for the lavish breakfast. The other meals would probably be makeshift, and I mentally resigned myself to the fact that I would have to put up with a primitive diet during the voyage.
When we had gathered round the table in the little mess room, the first course arrived. It was an exquisite asparagus soup in which floated meat balls and large stalks of asparagus. This was followed by what the captain described as “boneless birds”— tender veal steaks wrapped around strips of bacon, parsley and spices, with anchovies draped across them. We finished off with a sago pudding thickly sprinkled with cinnamon and with peaches nestling on its bosom. As I sipped my coffee and nibbled delicious Danish cheese, I felt I might have been eating at the Ritz.
The cook, Nielsen by name, a large smiling man in a white apron, pushed his head round the door at the end of the meal, and I called out to him that his food was wonderful. He looked intensely gratified but also surprised because the other ship’s officers seem to take it all for granted.
His smile grew wider, and he nodded his head rapidly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He stared at me as though he had been looking for me all his life. I have a feeling that I have made a friend there.
After lunch, back down to t’ween decks and lower hold, to give them their proper names, for another look at the sheep, but on the way I had to stop for a few minutes on the upper deck to take gulping breaths of the unbelievably fresh air that swept over the heaving miles of water. Walking around is difficult because I find it almost impossible to stand upright with the constant movement of the ship.
Down below I studied the animals carefully. There was something on my mind. Right at the beginning I had heard the odd cough, and I hadn’t paid much attention because all sheep cough occasionally, but since we sailed, it had become more frequent and had a rasping quality that was only too familiar.
As I walked around I heard it again, and this time I traced it to the affected sheep. I climbed into the pen—all Lincolns—and began to stir them around, and after a few seconds there was a regular chorus of coughs. I knew now; they had husk.
I took a few temperatures, leaning back against the swaying wall to read the thermometer, but there was clearly no secondary infection; it was a straightforward parasitic bronchitis, and with my pitiful little stock of drugs in the suitcase upstairs there was nothing I could do about it.
Of course, as I sit here writing in my cabin, I realise it is only a mild attack and since they are off the pasture, in top condition, and with an abundant supply of good food, they will certainly throw it off in time. But for all that, I don’t like it. The vets in Hull didn’t spot it but those in Klaipeda probably will, and I want to present a batch of healthy animals to them.
Later, I had a most interesting hour with the captain on the bridge. He showed me how the radar and other gadgets worked and pointed out our position on the chart. We are off the coast of Holland but out of sight of land.
I was intrigued by the mariner’s view of a map. The sea is a complicated mass of lines, words and figures, while the land is a white blank.
At 6:30 P.M. I began again on what I had thought was to be my frugal living. Mountains of roast chicken with a piquant stuffing I had never tasted before, surrounded by thin layers of cucumber done up with sugar and vinegar. Fruit followed, and, of course, there was the ever-present array of herring in tomato, salami, salt beef, pork, smoked ham, bacon and endless kinds of Danish sliced sausages and cheeses. I haven’t mentioned the two most popular things among the Danes themselves—the liver paste and trays of dripping.
The ship’s officers seem to love these two items, especially the dripping which they spread on rye bread and eat at the end of the meal.
After dinner we settled down to a two-hour session of smoking and swopping yarns over the schnapps and beer. I gather that this is a regular custom in the evenings. The seamen are very interesting with their tales of many countries and peoples and the often startling
adventures they have had on their travels.
Chapter
8
“IT WAS HEMINGWAY WHO said that, wasn’t it?”
Norman Beaumont shook his head. “No, Scott Fitzgerald.”
I didn’t argue because Norman usually knew. In fact, it was one of the attractive things about him.
I enjoyed having veterinary students seeing practice with us. They helped with fetching and carrying, they opened gates and they were company on our lonely rounds. In return, they absorbed a lot of knowledge from us in our discussions in the car, and it was priceless experience for them to be involved in the practical side of their education.
Since the war, however, my relationships with these young men had undergone a distinct change. I found I was learning from them just about as much as they were learning from me.
The reason, of course, was that veterinary teaching had taken a leap forward. The authorities seemed to have suddenly discovered that we weren’t just horse doctors and that the vast new field of small-animal work was opening up dramatically. Advanced surgical procedures were being carried out on farm animals, too, and the students had the great advantage of being able to see such things done in the new veterinary schools with their modern clinics and operating theatres.
New specialist textbooks were being written that made my own thumbed volumes with everything related to the horse seem like museum pieces. I was still a young man, but all the bursting knowledge I had nurtured so proudly was becoming irrelevant. Quittor, fistulous withers, poll evil, bog spavin, stringhalt—they didn’t seem to matter much anymore.
Norman Beaumont was in his final year and was a deep well of information at which I drank greedily. But apart from the veterinary side we had a common love of books and reading.
When we weren’t talking shop the conversation was usually on literary lines, and Norman’s companionship lightened my days and made the journeys between farms seem short.