animal stories (2 page)

It took about twenty-five seconds. When we had finished, we opened the barn doors and the outpouring lambs were met by a concerted rush of distraught mothers. At first the noise was deafening but it died away rapidly to an occasional bleat as the last stray was rounded up. Then neatly paired off, the flock headed calmly for the field.

On this particular morning, I had been called out to Rob Benson’s farm. At the top of the grassy slope the pens, built of straw bales, formed a long row of square cubicles each holding a ewe with her lambs and I could see the farmer coming round the far end carrying two feeding buckets. He was hard at it; at this time of the year he didn’t go to bed for about six weeks; he would maybe take off his boots and doze by the kitchen fire at night but he was his own shepherd and never very far from the scene of action.

“Ah’ve got a couple of cases for you today, Jim.” His face, cracked and purpled by the weather, broke into a grin. “It’s not really you ah need, it’s that little lady’s hand of yours and right sharpish, too.”

He led the way to a bigger enclosure, holding several sheep. There was a scurry as we went in but he caught expertly at the fleece of a darting ewe. “This is the first one. You can see we haven’t a deal o’ time.”

I lifted the woolly tail and gasped. The lamb’s protruding head had swollen enormously to more than twice its size. The eyes were mere puffed slits and the tongue, blue and engorged, lolled from the mouth.

“Well I’ve seen a few big heads, Rob, but I think this takes the prize.”

“Aye, the little beggar came with his legs back. Just beat me to it. Ah was only away for an hour but he was up like a football. By hell it doesn’t take long. I know he wants his legs bringin’ round, but what can I do with bloody great mitts like mine?” He held out his huge hands, rough and swollen with the years of work.

While he spoke I was stripping off my jacket and as I rolled my shirtsleeves high the wind struck like a knife at my shrinking flesh. I soaped my fingers quickly and began to feel for a space round the lamb’s neck. For a moment the little eyes opened and regarded me disconsolately.

“He’s alive, anyway,” I said. “But he must feel terrible and he can’t do a thing about it.”

Easing my way round, I found a space down by the throat where I thought I might get through. This was where my “lady’s hand” came in useful and I blessed it every spring; I could work inside the ewes with the minimum of discomfort to them and this was all-important because sheep, despite their outdoor hardiness, just won’t stand rough treatment.

With the utmost care I inched my way along the curly wool of the neck to the shoulder. Another push forward and I was able to hook a finger round the leg and draw it forward until I could feel the flexure of the knee; a little more twiddling and I had hold of the tiny cloven foot and drew it gently out into the light of day.

Well that was half the job done. I got up from the sack where I was kneeling and went over to the bucket of warm water; I’d use my left hand for the other leg and began to soap it thoroughly while one of the ewes, marshaling her lambs around her, glared at me indignantly and gave a warning stamp of her foot.

Turning, I kneeled again and began the same procedure and as I once more groped forward a tiny lamb dodged under my arm and began to suck at my patient’s udder. He was clearly enjoying it, too, if the little tail, twirling inches from my face, meant anything.

“Where did this bloke come from?” I asked, still feeling round.

The farmer smiled. “Oh that’s Herbert. Poor little youth’s mother won’t have ‘im at any price. Took a spite at him at birth though she thinks world of her other lamb.”

“Do you feed him, then?”

“Nay, I was going to put him with the pet lambs but I saw he was fendin’ for himself. He pops from one ewe to t’other and gets a quick drink whenever he gets chance. I’ve never seen owt like it.”

“Only a week old and an independent spirit, eh?”

“That’s about the size of it, Jim. I notice ‘is belly’s full every mornin’ so I reckon his ma must let him have a do during the night. She can’t see him in the dark; it must be the look of him she can’t stand.”

I watched the little creature for a moment. To me he seemed as full of knock-kneed charm as any of the others. Sheep were funny things.

I soon had the other leg out and once that obstruction was removed the lamb followed easily. He was a grotesque sight lying on the strawed grass, his enormous head dwarfing his body, but his ribs were heaving reassuringly and I knew the head would shrink back to normal as quickly as it had expanded. I had another search round inside the ewe but the uterus was empty.

“There’s no more, Rob,” I said.

The farmer grunted. “Aye, I thowt so, just a big single ‘un. They’re the ones that cause the trouble.”

Drying my arms, I watched Herbert. He had left my patient when she moved round to lick her lamb and he was moving speculatively among the other ewes. Some of them warned him off with a shake of the head but eventually he managed to sneak up on a big, wide-bodied sheep and pushed his head underneath her. Immediately she swung round andwitha fierce upward butt of her hard skull she sent the little animal flying high in the air in a whirl of flailing legs. He landed with a thud on his back and as I hurried toward him he leaped to his feet and trotted away.

“Awd bitch!” shouted the farmer and as I turned to him in some concern he shrugged. “I know, poor little beggar, it’s rough, but I’ve got a feelin’ he wants it this way rather than being in the pen with the pet lambs. Look at ‘im now.”

Herbert, quite unabashed, was approaching another ewe and as she bent over her feeding trough he nipped underneath her and his tail went into action again. There was no doubt about it—that lamb had guts.

“Rob,” I said as he caught my second patient, “why do you call him Herbert?”

“Well that’s my youngest lad’s name and that lamb’s just like ‘im the way he puts his head down and gets stuck in, fearless like.”

I put my hand into the second ewe. Here was a glorious mix-up of three lambs; little heads, legs, a tail, all fighting their way toward the outside world and effectively stopping each other from moving an inch.

“She’s been hanging about all morning and pa*’,” Rob said. “I knew summat was wrong.”

Moving a hand carefully around inside I began the fascinating business of sorting out the tangle which is just about my favorite job in practice. I had to bring a head and two legs up together in order to deliver a lamb, but they had to belong to the same lamb or I was in trouble. It was a matter of tracing each leg back to see if it was hind or fore, to find if it joined the shoulder or disappeared into the depths.

After a few minutes I had a lamb assembled inside with his proper appendages but as I drew the legs into view the neck telescoped and the head slipped back; there was barely room for it to come through the pelvic bones along with the shoulders and I had to coax it through with a finger in the eye socket. This was groaningly painful as the bones squeezed my hand but only for a few seconds because the ewe gave a final strain and the little nose was visible. After that it was easy and I had him on the grass within seconds. The little creature gave a convulsive shake of his head and the farmer wiped him down quickly with straw before pushing him to his mother’s head.

The ewe bent over him and began to lick his face and neck with little quick darts of her tongue; and she gave the deep chuckle of satisfaction that you hear from a sheep only at this time. The chuckling continued as I produced another pair of lambs from inside her, one of them hind end first and, toweling my arms again, watched her nosing round her triplets delightedly.

Soon they began to answer her with wavering, high-pitched cries and as I drew my coat thankfully over my cold-reddened arms, lamb number one began to struggle to his knees. He couldn’t quite make it to his feet and kept toppling onto his face but he knew where he was going all right; he was headed for that udder with a singleness of purpose which would soon be satisfied.

Despite the wind cutting over the straw bales into my face I found myself grinning down at the scene; this was always the best part, the wonder that was always fresh, the miracle you couldn’t explain.

I heard from Rob Benson again a few days later. It was a Sunday afternoon and his voice was strained, almost panic-stricken.

“Jim, I’ve had a dog in among me in-lamb ewes. There was some folk up here with a car about dinner-time and my neighbor said they had an Alsatian and it was chasing the sheep all over the field. There’s a hell of a mess—I tell you I’m frightened to look.”

“I’m on my way.” I dropped the receiver and hurried out to the car. I had a sinking dread of what would be waiting for me; the helpless animals lying with their throats torn, the terrifying lacerations of limbs and abdomen. I had seen it all before. The ones which didn’t have to be slaughtered would need stitching and on the way I made a mental check of the stock of suture silk in the trunk.

The in-lamb ewes were in a field by the roadside and my heart gave a quick thump as I looked over the wall; arms resting on the rough loose stones, I gazed with sick dismay across the pasture. This was worse than I had feared. The long slope of turf was dotted with prostrate sheep—there must have been about fifty of them, motionless woolly mounds scattered at intervals on the green.

Rob was standing just inside the gate. He hardly looked at me. Just gestured with his head.

“Tell me what you think. I daren’t go in there.”

I left him and began to walk among the stricken creatures, rolling them over, lifting their legs, parting the fleece of their necks to examine them. Some were completely unconscious, others comatose; none of them could stand up. But as I worked my way up the field I felt a growing bewilderment. Finally I called back to the farmer.

“Rob, come over here. There’s something very strange.”

“Look,” I said as the farmer approached hesitantly. “There’s not a drop of blood nor a wound anywhere and yet all the sheep are flat out. I can’t understand it.”

Rob bent over and gently raised a lolling head. “Aye, you’re right. What the ‘ell’s done it, then—”

At the moment I couldn’t answer him, but a little bell was tinkling far away in the back of my mind. There was something familiar about that ewe the farmer had just handled. She was one of the few able to support herself on her chest and she was lying there, blank-eyed and oblivious of everything; but … that drunken nodding of the head, that watery nasal discharge … I had seen it before. I knelt down and as I put my face close to hers I heard a faint bubbling—almost a rattling—in her breathing. I knew then.

“It’s calcium deficiency,” I cried and began to gallop down the slope toward the car.

Rob trotted alongside me. “But what the ‘ell? They get that after lambin’, don’t they?”

“Yes, usually,” I puffed, “but sudden exertion and stress can bring it on.”

“Well ah never knew that,” panted Rob. “How does it happen?”

I saved my breath. I wasn’t going to start an exposition on the effects of sudden derangement of the parathyroid. I was more concerned with wondering if I had enough calcium in the trunk for fifty ewes. It was reassuring to see the long row of round tin caps peeping from their cardboard box; I must have filled up recently.

I injected the first ewe in the vein just to check my diagnosis—calcium works as quickly as that in sheep, and felt a quiet elation as the unconscious animal began to blink and tremble, then tried to struggle onto its chest.

“We’ll inject the others under the skin,” I said. “It’ll save time.”

I began to work my way up the field. Rob pulled forward the fore leg of each sheep so that I could insert the needle under the convenient patch of unwoolled skin just behind the elbow, and by the time I was halfway up the slope the ones at the bottom were walking about and getting their heads into the food troughs and hayracks.

It was one of the most satisfying experiences of my working life. Not clever, but a magical transfiguration; from despair to hope, from death to life within minutes.

I was throwing the empty bottles into the trunk when Rob spoke. He was looking wonderingly up at the last of the ewes getting to its feet at the far end of the field.

“Well Jim, I’ll tell you. I’ve never seen owt like that afore. But there’s one thing bothers me.” He turned to me and his weathered features screwed up in puzzlement. “Ah can understand how gettin’ chased by a dog could affect some of them ewes, but why should the whole bloody lot go down?”

“Rob,” I said. “I don’t know.”

And, thirty years later, I still wonder. I still don’t know why the whole bloody lot went down.

I thought Rob had enough to worry about at the time, so I didn’t point out to him that other complications could be expected after the Alsatian episode. I wasn’t surprised when I had a call to the Benson farm within days.

I met him again on the hillside with the same wind whipping over the straw bale pens. The lambs had been arriving in a torrent and the noise was louder than ever. He led me to my patient.

“There’s one with a bellyful of dead lambs, I reckon,” he said, pointing to a ewe with her head drooping, ribs heaving. She stood quite motionless and made no attempt to move away when I went up to her; this one was really sick and as the stink of decomposition came up to me I knew the farmer’s diagnosis was right.

“Well I suppose it had to happen to one at least after that chasing round,” I said. “Let’s see what we can do, anyway.”

This kind of lambing is without charm but it has to be done to save the ewe. I delivered the little bodies with least discomfort to the mother. When I had finished, the ewe’s head was almost touching the ground; she was panting rapidly and grating her teeth. I had nothing to offer her—no wriggling new creature for her to lick and revive her interest in life. What she needed was an injection of penicillin, but this was 1939 and the antibiotics were still a little way round the corner.

“Well I wouldn’t give much for her,” Rob grunted. “Is there owt more you can do?”