All Things Bright and Beautiful (7 page)

We went back along the passage and as I followed him into the big sitting room Tristan got up from his favourite chair and yawned deeply. His face looked as boyish and innocent as ever but the lines of exhaustion round his eyes and mouth told an eloquent story. Last night he had travelled with the darts team from the Lord Nelson and had taken part in a gruelling match against the Dog and Gun at Drayton. The contest had been followed by a pie and peas supper and the consumption of something like twelve pints of bitter a man. Tristan had crawled into bed at 3 a.m. and was clearly in a delicate condition.

“Ah, Tristan,” Siegfried said. “I’m glad you’re here because what I have to say concerns you just as much as James. It’s about leaving instruments on farms and you’re as guilty as he is.” (It must be remembered that before the Veterinary Surgeons’ act of 1948 it was quite legal for students to treat cases and they regularly did so. Tristan in fact had done much sterling work when called on and was very popular with the farmers.)

“Now I mean this very seriously,” my partner said, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece and looking from one of us to the other. “You two are bringing me to the brink of ruin by losing expensive equipment. Some of it is returned but a lot of it is never seen again. What’s the use of sending you to visits when you come back without your artery forceps or scissors or something else? The profit’s gone, you see?”

We nodded silently.

“After all, there’s nothing difficult about bringing your instruments away, is there? You may wonder why I never leave anything behind—well I can tell you it’s just a matter of concentration. When I lay a thing down I always impress on my mind that I’ve got to lift it up again. That’s all there is to it.”

The lecture over, he became very brisk. “Right, let’s get on. There’s nothing much doing James, so I’d like you to come with me to Kendall’s of Brookside. He’s got a few jobs including a cow with a tumour to remove. I don’t know the details but we may have to cast her. You can go on to Thompson’s later.” He turned to his brother. “And you’d better come too, Tristan. I don’t know if we’ll need you but an extra man might come in handy.”

We made quite a procession as we trooped into the farm yard and Mr. Kendall met us with his customary ebullience.

“Hello, ’ello, we’ve got plenty of man power today, I see. We’ll be able to tackle owt with this regiment.”

Mr. Kendall had the reputation in the district of being a “bit clever” and the phrase has a different meaning in Yorkshire from elsewhere. It meant he was something of a know-all; and the fact that he considered himself a wag and legpuller of the first degree didn’t endear him to his fellow farmers either.

I always felt he was a good-hearted man, but his conviction that he knew everything and had seen it all before made him a difficult man to impress.

“Well what d’you want to see first, Mr. Farnon?” he asked. He was a thick-set little man with a round, smooth-skinned face and mischievous eyes.

“I believe you have a cow with a bad eye,” Siegfried said. “Better begin with that.”

“Right squire,” the farmer cried, then he put his hand in his pocket. “But before we start, here’s something for you.” He pulled forth a stethoscope. “You left it last time you were ’ere.”

There was a silence, then Siegfried grunted a word of thanks and grabbed it hastily from his hand.

Mr. Kendall continued. “And the time afore that you left your bloodless castrators. We did a swop over, didn’t we? I gave you back the nippers and you left me the earphones.” He burst into a peal of laughter.

“Yes, yes, quite,” Siegfried snapped, glancing uneasily round at us, “but we must be getting on. where is…?”

“You know lads,” chuckled the farmer, turning to us. “Ah don’t think I’ve ever known ’im come here without leaving summat.”

“Really?” said Tristan interestedly.

“Aye, if I’d wanted to keep ’em all I’d have had a drawerful by now.”

“Is that so?” I said.

“Aye it is, young man. And it’s the same with all me neighbours. One feller said to me t’other day, ‘He’s a kind man is Mr. Farnon—never calls without leavin’ a souvenir.’” He threw back his head and laughed again.

We were enjoying the conversation but my partner was stalking up the byre. “Where’s this damn cow, Mr. Kendall? We haven’t got all day.”

The patient wasn’t hard to find; a nice light roan cow which looked round at us carefully, one eye almost closed. From between the lashes a trickle of tears made a dark stain down the hair of the face, and there was an eloquent story of pain in the cautious movements of the quivering lids.

“There’s something in there,” murmured Siegfried.

“Aye, ah know!” Mr. Kendall always knew. “She’s got a flippin’ great lump of chaff stuck on her eyeball but I can’t get to it. Look here.” He grabbed the cow’s nose with one hand and tried to prise the eyelids apart with the fingers of the other, but the third eyelid came across and the whole orbit rolled effortlessly out of sight leaving only a blank expanse of white sclera.

“There!” he cried. “Nowt to see. You can’t make her keep her eye still.”

“I can, though.” Siegfried turned to his brother. “Tristan, get the chloroform muzzle from the car. Look sharp!”

The young man was back in seconds and Siegfried quickly drew the canvas bag over the cow’s face and buckled it behind the ears. From a bottle of spirit he produced a small pair of forceps of an unusual type with tiny jaws operated by a spring. He poised them just over the closed eye.

“James,” he said, “Give her about an ounce.”

I dribbled the chloroform on to the sponge in the front of the muzzle. Nothing happened for a few moments while the animal took a few breaths then her eyes opened wide in surprise as the strange numbing vapour rolled into her lungs.

The whole area of the affected eye was displayed, with a broad golden piece of chaff splayed out across the dark cornea. I only had a glimpse of it before Siegfried’s little forceps had seized it and whisked it away.

“Squeeze in some of that ointment, Tristan,” said my partner. “And get the muzzle off, James, before she starts to rock.”

With the bag away from her face and the tormenting little object gone from her eye the cow looked around her, vastly relieved. The whole thing had taken only a minute or two and was as slick a little exhibition as you’d wish to see, but Mr. Kendall didn’t seem to think a great deal of it.

“Aye right,” he grunted. “Let’s get on with t’next job.”

As we went down the byre I looked out and saw a horse being led across the yard. Siegfried pointed to it.

“Is that the gelding I operated on for fistulous withers?” he asked.

“That’s the one.” The farmer’s voice was airy.

We went out and Siegfried ran his hand over the horse’s shoulders. The broad fibrous scar over the withers was all that was left of the discharging, stinking sinus of a few weeks back. Healing was perfect. These cases were desperately difficult to treat and I remembered my partner cutting and chiselling at the mass of necrotic tissue, curetting deeply till only healthy flesh and bone remained. His efforts had been rewarded; it was a brilliant success.

Siegfried gave the gelding a final pat on the neck. “That’s done rather well.”

Mr. Kendall shrugged and turned back towards the byre. “Aye, not so bad, I suppose.” But he really wasn’t impressed.

The cow with the tumour was standing just inside the door. The growth was in the perineal region, a smooth round object like an apple projecting from the animal’s rear end, clearly visible an inch to the right of the tail.

Mr. Kendall was in full cry again. “Now we’ll see what you’re made of. How are you chaps going to get that thing off, eh? It’s a big ’un—you’ll need a carving knife or a hack saw for t’job. And are you goin’ to put her to sleep or tie her up or what?” He grinned and his bright little eyes darted at each of us in turn.

Siegfried reached out and grasped the tumour, feeling round the base with his fingers. “Hmm…yes…hmm…bring me some soap and water and a towel, will you please?”

“I have it just outside t’door.” The farmer scuttled into the yard and back again with the bucket

“Thank you very much,” Siegfried said. He washed his hands and gave them a leisurely towelling. “Now I believe you have another case to see. A scouring calf, wasn’t it?”

The farmer’s eyes widened. “Yes, I ’ave. But how about getting this big lump off the cow first?”

Siegfried folded the towel and hung it over the half door. “Oh, I’ve removed the tumour,” he said quietly.

“What’s that?” Mr. Kendall stared at the cow’s backside. We all stared at it. And there was no doubt about it—the growth was gone. And there was another funny thing—there wasn’t even a scar or mark remaining. I was standing quite close to the animal and I could see exactly to a fraction of an inch where that big ugly projection had been; and there was nothing, not a drop of blood, nothing.

“Aye,” Mr. Kendall said irresolutely. “You’ve er…you’ve removed…you’ve removed it, aye, that’s right.” The smile had vanished from his face and his entire personality seemed suddenly deflated. Being a man who knew everything and was surprised by nothing he was unable to say, “When the devil did you do it? And how? And what on earth have you done with it?” He had to maintain face at all costs, but he was rattled. He darted little glances around the byre, along the channel. The cow was standing in a clean-swept stall with no straw and there was nothing lying on the floor there or anywhere. Casually, as though by accident he pushed a milking stool to one side with his foot—still nothing.

“Well now, perhaps we can see the calf.” Siegfried began to move away.

Mr. Kendall nodded. “Yes…yes…the calf. He’s in t’corner there. I’ll just lift bucket first.”

It was a blatant excuse. He went over to the bucket and as he passed behind the cow he whipped out his spectacles, jammed them on his nose and directed a piercing glare at the cow’s bottom. He only took an instant because he didn’t want to show undue concern, but when he turned back towards us his face registered utter despair and he put his spectacles away with a weary gesture of defeat.

As he approached I turned and brushed against my partner.

“Where the hell is it?” I hissed.

“Up my sleeve,” murmured Siegfried without moving his lips or changing expression.

“What…?” I began, but Siegfried was climbing over a gate into the makeshift pen where the calf was cornered.

He was in an expansive mood as he examined the little creature and injected it. He kept up a steady flow of light conversation and Mr. Kendall, showing great character, managed to get his smile back on and answer back. But his preoccupied manner, the tortured eyes and the repeated incredulous glances back along the byre floor in the direction of the cow betrayed the fact that he was under immense strain.

Siegfried didn’t hurry over the calf and when he had finished he lingered a while in the yard, chatting about the weather, the way the grass was springing, the price of fat bullocks.

Mr. Kendall hung on grimly but by the time Siegfried finally waved farewell the farmer’s eyes were popping and his face was an anguished mask. He bolted back into the byre and as the car backed round I could see him bent double with his glasses on again, peering into the corners.

“Poor fellow,” I said. “He’s still looking for that thing. And for God’s sake where is it, anyway?”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Siegfried removed one arm from the wheel and shook it. A round fleshy ball rolled down into his hand.

I stared at it in amazement. “But…I never saw you take it off…what happened?”

“I’ll tell you.” My partner smiled indulgently. “I was fingering it over to see how deeply it was attached when I felt it begin to move. The back of it was merely encapsulated by the skin and when I gave another squeeze it just popped out and shot up my sleeve. And after it had gone the lips of the skin sprang back together again so that you couldn’t see where it had been. Extraordinary thing.”

Tristan reached over from the back seat. “Give it to me,” he said. “I’ll take it back to college with me and get it sectioned. We’ll find out what kind of tumour it is.”

His brother smiled. “Yes, I expect they’ll give it some fancy name, but I’ll always remember it as the only thing that shook Mr. Kendall.”

“That was an interesting session in there,” I said. “And I must say I admired the way you dealt with that eye, Siegfried. Very smooth indeed.”

“You’re very kind, James,” my partner murmured. “That was just one of my little tricks—and of course the forceps helped a lot.”

I nodded. “Yes, wonderful little things. I’ve never seen anything like them. Where did you get them?”

“Picked them up on an instrument stall at the last Veterinary Congress. They cost me a packet but they’ve been worth it. Here, let me show them to you.” He put his hand in his breast pocket then his side pockets, and as he continued to rummage all over his person a look of sick dismay spread slowly across his face.

Finally he abandoned the search, cleared his throat and fixed his eyes on the road ahead.

“I’ll er…I’ll show you them some other time, James,” he said huskily.

I didn’t say anything but I knew and Siegfried knew and Tristan knew.

He’d left them on the farm.

O
NE OF THE NICEST
things about my married life was that my new wife got on so well with the Farnon brothers. And this was fitting because both of them had done their utmost to further my suit, Siegfried by means of some well-timed kicks in the pants, Tristan by more subtle motivation. The young man had been reassuring when I consulted him in the dispensary about my wooing that early summer morning.

“Well, it’s a good sign.” Tristan reluctantly expelled a lungful of Woodbine smoke and looked at me with wide, encouraging eyes.

“You think so?” I said doubtfully.

Tristan nodded “Sure of it. Helen just rang you up, did she?”

“Yes, out of the blue. I haven’t seen her since I took her to the pictures that night and it’s been hectic ever since with the lambing—and suddenly there she was asking me to tea on Sunday.”