animal stories (6 page)

“Not at all, Mrs. Chapman,” I said. “We haven’t missed it in the least.” And I have never been more sincere.

It must have been about half past two when I finally decided that Susie had finished. She had six fine pups which was a good score for a little thing like her and the noise had abated as the family settled down to feast on her abundant udder.

I lifted the pups out one by one and examined them. Susie didn’t mind in the least but appeared to be smiling with modest pride as I handled her brood. When I put them back with her she inspected them and sniffed them over busily before rolling onto her side again.

“Three dogs and three bitches,” I said. “Nice even litter.”

Before leaving I took Susie from her basket and palpated her abdomen. The degree of deflation was almost unbelievable; a pricked balloon could not have altered its shape more spectacularly and she had made a remarkable metamorphosis to the lean, scruffy little extrovert I knew so well. When I released her she scurried back and curled herself round her new family who were soon sucking away with total absorption.

Bert laughed. “She’s fair capped wi’ them pups.” He bent over and prodded the first arrival with a horny forefinger. “I like the look o’ this big dog pup. I reckon we’ll keep this ‘un for ourselves, Mother. He’ll be company for t’awd lass.”

It was time to go. Helen and I moved over to the door and little Mrs. Chapman with her fingers on the handle looked up at me. “Well, Mr. Herriot,” she said, “I can’t thank you enough for comin’ out and putting our minds at rest. I don’t know what I’d’ve done wi’ this man of mine if anything had happened to his little dog.”

Bert grinned sheepishly. “Nay,” he muttered. “Ah was never really worried.”

His wife laughed and opened the door and as we stepped out into the silent scented night she gripped my arm and looked up at me roguishly.

“I suppose this is your young lady,” she said.

I put my arm round Helen’s shoulders.

“Yes,” I said firmly, “this is my young lady.”

A Real Happy Harry

The first time I saw Phin Calvert was in the street outside the surgery when I was talking to Brigadier Julian Coutts-Browne about his shooting dogs. The brigadier was almost a stage version of an English aristocrat; immensely tall with a pronounced stoop, hawk features and high, drawling voice. As he spoke, smoke from a narrow cigar trickled from his lips.

I turned my head at the clatter of heavy boots on the pavement. A thick-set figure was stumping rapidly toward us, hands tucked behind his braces, ragged jacket pulled wide to display a curving expanse of collarless shirt, wisps of grizzled hair hanging in a fringe beneath a greasy cap. He was smiling widely at nobody in particular and he hummed busily to himself.

The brigadier glanced at him. “Morning, Calvert,” he grunted coldly.

Phineas threw up his head in pleased recognition. “Now then, Charlie, ‘ow is ta?” he shouted.

The brigadier looked as though he had swallowed a swift pint of vinegar. He removed his cigar with a shaking hand and stared after the retreating back. “Impudent devil,” he muttered.

Looking at Phin, you would never have thought he was a prosperous farmer. I was called to his place a week later and was surprised to find a substantial house and buildings and a fine dairy herd grazing in the fields.

I could hear him even before I got out of the car. “Hello, ‘ello, ‘ello! Who’s this we’ve got then? New chap eh? Now we’re going to learn summat!” He still had his hands inside his braces and was grinning wider than ever.

“My name is Herriot,” I said.

“Is it now?” Phin cocked his head and surveyed me, then he turned to three young men standing by. “Hasn’t he a nice smile, lads? He’s a real Happy Harry!”

He turned and began to lead the way across the yard. “Come on, then, and we’ll see what you’re made of. I ‘ope you know a bit about calves because I’ve got some here that are right dowly.”

As he went into the calf house I was hoping I would be able to do something impressive—perhaps use some of the new drugs I had in my car; it was going to take something special to make an impact here.

There were six well-grown young animals, almost stirk size, and three of them were behaving very strangely, grinding their teeth, frothing at the mouth and blundering about the pen as though they couldn’t see. As I watched, one of them walked straight into the wall and stood with its nose pressed against the stone.

Phin, apparently unconcerned, was humming to himself in a corner. When I started to take my thermometer from its case he burst into a noisy commentary. “Now what’s he doing? Ah, we’re off now, get up there!”

The half-minute spent taking an animal’s temperature is usually devoted to hectic thought. But his time I didn’t need the time to work out my diagnosis; the blindness made it easy. I began to look round the walls of the calf house; it was dark and I had to get my face close to the stone.

Phin gave tongue again. “Hey, what’s going on? You’re as bad as t’calves, nosing about there, dozy like. What d’you think you’re lookin’ for?”

“Paint, Mr. Calvert. I’m very sure your calves have got lead poisoning.”

Phin said what all farmers say at this juncture. “They can’t have. I’ve had calves in here for thirty years and they’ve never taken any harm before. There’s no paint in here, anyway.”

“How about this, then?” I peered into the darkest corner and pulled at a piece of loose board.

“Oh, that’s nobbut a bit of wood I nailed down there last week to block up a hole. Came off an old henhouse.”

I looked at the twenty-year-old paint hanging off in the loose flakes which calves find so irresistible. “This is what’s done the damage,” I said. “Look, you can see the tooth marks where they’ve been at it.”

Phin studied the board at close quarters and grunted doubtfully. “All right, what do we do now?”

“First thing is to get this painted board out of here and then give all the calves Epsom salts. Have you got any?”

Phin gave a bark of laughter. “Aye, I’ve got a bloody great sack full, but can’t you do owt better than that? Aren’t you going to inject them?”

It was a little embarrassing. The specific antidotes to metal poisoning had not yet been discovered and the only thing which sometimes did a bit of good was magnesium sulfate. The homely term for magnesium sulfite is, of course, Epsom salts.

“No,” I said. “There’s nothing I can inject that will help at all and I can’t even guarantee the salts will. But I’d like you to give the calves two heaped tablespoonfuls three times a day.”

“Oh ‘ell, you’ll skitter the poor beggars to death!”

“Maybe so, but there’s nothing else for it,” I said.

Phin took a step toward me so that his face, dark-skinned and deeply wrinkled, was close to mine. The suddenly shrewd, mottled brown eyes regarded me steadily for a few seconds, then he turned away quickly. “Right,” he said. “Come in and have a drink.”

Phin stumped into the farm kitchen ahead of me, threw back his head and let loose a bellow that shook the windows. “Mother! Feller ‘ere wants a glass o’ beer. Come and meet Happy Harry!”

Mrs. Calvert appeared with magical speed and put down glasses and bottles. I glanced at the labels—”Smith’s Nutty Brown Ale”—and filled my glass. It was a historic moment though I didn’t know it then; it was the first of an incredible series of Nutty Browns I was to drink at that table.

Mrs. Calvert sat down for a moment, crossed her hands on her lap and smiled encouragingly. “Can you do anything for the calves, then?” she asked.

Phin butted in before I could reply. “Oh aye, he can an’ all. He’s put them onto Epsom salts.”

“Epsom salts?”

“That’s it, missis. I said when he came that we’d get summat real smart and scientific-like. You can’t beat new blood and modern ideas.” Phin sipped his beer gravely.

Over the following days the calves gradually improved and at the end of a fortnight they were all eating normally. The worst one still showed a trace of blindness, but I was confident this too would clear up.

It wasn’t long before I saw Phin again. It was early afternoon and I was in the office with Siegfried when the outer door banged and the passage echoed to the clumping of hobnails. I heard a voice raised in song-hi-ti-tiddly-rum-te-tum. Phineas was in our midst once more.

“Well, well, well!” he bawled heartily at Miss Harbottle, our secretary. “It’s Flossie! And what’s my little darlin’ doing this fine day?”

There was not a flicker from Miss Harbottle’s granite features. She directed an icy stare at the intruder but Phin swung round on Siegfried with a yellow-toothed grin. “Now, gaffer, ‘ow’s tricks?”

“Everything’s fine, Mr. Calvert,” Siegfried replied. “What can we do for you?”

Phin stabbed a finger at me. “There’s my man. I want him out to my place right sharpish.”

“What’s the trouble?” I asked. “Is it the calves again?”

“Damn, no! Wish it was. It’s me good bull. He’s puffin’ like a bellows—bit like pneumonia but worse than I’ve known. He’s in a ‘ell of a state. Looks like he’s peggin’ out.” For an instant Phin lost his jocularity.

I had heard of this bull; pedigree shorthorn, show winner, the foundation of his herd. “I’ll be right after you, Mr. Calvert. I’ll follow you along.”

“Good lad. I’m off, then.” Phin paused at the door, a wild figure, tieless, tattered; baggy trousers ballooning from his ample middle.

He turned again to Miss Harbottle and contorted his leathery features into a preposterous leer. “Ta-ra, Floss!” he cried and was gone.

For a moment the room seemed very empty and quiet except for Miss Harbottle’s acid “Oh, that man! Dreadful! Dreadful!”

I made good time to the farm and found Phin waiting with his three sons. The young men looked gloomy but Phin was still indomitable. “Here ‘e is!” he shouted. “Happy Harry again. Now we’ll be all right.” He even managed a little tune as we crossed to the bull pen but when he looked over the door his head sank on his chest and his hands worked deeper behind his braces.

The bull was standing as though rooted to the middle of the pen. His great rib cage rose and fell with the most labored respirations I had ever seen. His mouth gaped wide, a bubbling foam hung round his lips and his flaring nostrils; his eyes, almost starting from his head in terror, stared at the wall in front of him. This wasn’t pneumonia, it was a frantic battle for breath; and it looked like a losing one.

He didn’t move when I inserted my thermometer and though my mind was racing I suspected the half-minute wasn’t going to be long enough this time. I had expected accelerated breathing, but nothing like this.

“Poor aud beggar,” Phin muttered. “He’s bred me the fittest calves I’ve ever had and he’s as quiet as a sheep, too. I’ve seen me little grandchildren walk under ‘is belly and he’s took no notice. I hate to see him sufferin’ like this. If you can’t do no good, just tell me and I’ll get the gun out.”

I took out the thermometer and read it—110 degrees F. This was ridiculous; I shook it vigorously and tried again.

I gave it nearly a minute this time so that I could get in some extra thinking. The second reading said 110 degrees F again and I had an unpleasant conviction that if the thermometer had been a foot long the mercury would still have been jammed against the top.

What in the name of God was this? Could be anthrax … must be … and yet … I looked over at the row of heads above the half-door; they were waiting for me to say something and their silence accentuated the agonized groaning and panting. I looked above the heads to the square of deep blue and a tufted cloud moving across the sun. As it passed, a single dazzling ray made me close my eyes and a faint bell rang in my mind.

“Has he been out today?” I asked.

“Aye, he’s been out on the grass on his tether all morning. It was that grand and warm.”

The bell became a triumphant gong. “Get a hosepipe in here quick. You can rig it to the tap in the yard.”

“A hosepipe? What the ‘ell …?”

“Yes, quick as you can—he got sunstroke.”

They had the hose fixed in less than a minute. I turned it full on and began to play the jet of cold water all over the huge form-his face and neck, along the ribs, up and down the legs. I kept this up for about five minutes but it seemed a lot longer as I waited for some sign of improvement. I was beginning to think I was on the wrong track when the bull gulped just once.

It was something—he had been unable to swallow his saliva before, in his desperate efforts to get air into his lungs; and I really began to notice a change in the big animal. Surely he was looking just a little less distressed and wasn’t the breathing slowing down a bit?

Then the bull shook himself, turned his head and looked at us. There was an awed whisper from one of the young men: “By gaw, it’s working!”

I enjoyed myself after that. I can’t think of anything in my working life that has given me more pleasure than standing in that pen directing the life-saving jet and watching the bull savoring it. He liked it on his face best and as I worked my way up from the tail and along the steaming back he would turn his nose full into the water, rocking his head from side to side and blinking blissfully.

Within half an hour he looked almost normal. His chest was still heaving a little but he was in no discomfort. I tried the temperature again. Down to 105 degrees F. “He’ll be all right now,” I said. “But I think one of the lads should keep the water on him for another twenty minutes or so. I’ll have to go now.”

“You’ve time for a drink,” Phin grunted.

In the farm kitchen his bellow of “Mother” lacked some of its usual timbre. He dropped into a chair and stared into his glass of Nutty Brown. “Harry,” he said, “I’ll tell you, you’ve flummoxed me this time.” He sighed and rubbed his chin in apparent disbelief. “I don’t know what the ‘ell to say to you.”

It wasn’t often that Phin lost his voice, but he found it again very soon at the next meeting of the farmers’ discussion group.

A learned and earnest gentleman had been expounding on the advances in veterinary medicine and how the farmers could now expect their stock to be treated as the doctors treated their human patients, with the newest drugs and procedures.