Lord God Made Them All (16 page)

“Mr. Herriot.” He was twiddling away at a wisp of my hair with his fingers. “I like gardening, too.”

I almost jumped from the chair. “That’s remarkable. I was just thinking about my garden.”

“Aye, ah know.” There was a faraway look in his eyes as he rolled and rolled with finger and thumb. “It comes through the hair, ye know.”

“Eh?”

“Your thoughts. They come through to me.”

“What!”

“Yes, just think about it. Them hairs go right down into your head, and they catch summat from your brain and send it up to me.”

“Oh, really, you’re kidding me.” I gave a loud laugh that nevertheless had a hollow ring.

Josh shook his head. “I’m not jokin’ nor jestin’, Mr. Herriot. I’ve been at this game for nearly forty years, and it keeps happenin’ to me. You’d be flabbergasted if I told ye some of the thoughts that’s come up. Couldn’t repeat ’em, I tell ye.”

I slumped lower in my white sheet. Absolute rubbish and nonsense, of course, but I made a firm resolve never to think of Venus’s anaesthetic during a haircut.

November 1, 1961

W
HEN
I
AWOKE THIS
morning everything was wonderfully still. It was a blessed relief because last night was as the others, and I was thrown about in my bunk like a rag doll.

I went up on deck and found we were anchored in the mouth of a river or inlet. A few hundred yards away I could see the Russian port of Klaipeda.

I couldn’t believe the calm—only a gentle swell rocked the ship—but half a mile back, the great sea waves still dashed themselves against the entrance to the harbour.

Up on the bridge I found the captain, pale and unshaven. He told me he had had a terrible job bringing the ship between the concrete walls at the entrance to the harbour. He had signalled repeatedly for a pilot but none had come, and finally he was forced to bring the ship in himself. Doing this, in the dark, in unfamiliar waters and during a storm, must have been a great strain.

He said we were waiting now for a pilot to take us through the great concrete breakwaters to a berth at the quayside. At length one arrived, a little stubbly-chinned man of about thirty-five, in a very Russian-looking overcoat a couple of sizes too big for him and a large peaked cap.

He was very nervous as he guided us in. He kept hopping about the bridge, peering here and there, and then dashing to have a look over the ship’s side. I was astonished to hear that he gave his commands in English and it was strange to hear him cry, “Starrboard,” and the big Dane at the wheel reply, “Starrboard,” then, “Meedsheeps,” followed by the answering call, “Meedsheeps.”

Up in the bows, the mate and a sailor were gazing down into the water and signalling back to the bridge—apparently testing the depth and looking for obstructions.

To my untutored eyes it seemed that the captain brought the ship in himself. He was as always, calm and self-contained, and as we approached another ship or part of the breakwater, he would say, “Perhaps a little astern, Mr. Pilot,” or, “Port side, perhaps, Mr. Pilot,” in a quiet voice while the little man rushed about the bridge in a panic.

On either side of the estuary, the banks were thickly clothed in pine trees, and further ahead I could see tenement buildings, and then the cranes and quays of the port.

Once we had been moored by the quayside, I looked eagerly ashore, almost into the eyes of a young Russian soldier. There were two of them standing by the gangway of the
Iris Clausen,
and at least two guarding each of the other ships in the port.

They all had automatic guns slung on their backs and were wearing long, greenish coats, crinkly, Wellington-type boots and furry hats turned up at the front and sides.

Leaning over the rail of our little ship, I was only a few yards away from my soldier. I raised my hand and gave him a wave.

“Good morning,” I cried cheerfully.

His expression never changed. He looked back at me with a completely impassive, dead countenance.

I moved along the rail and tried his colleague. “Hello,” I called, waving again.

The response was exactly the same. A blank, unsmiling stare.

Just then it started to rain, and they both reached back and pulled hoods over their heads.

I felt it was not a happy start, and I looked past them at a sight that was not much more cheering: a network of railway lines with wagons; a forest of huge cranes; and, around the perimeter, tall watch towers, each with its armed soldier looking down at us. Beyond the port itself rose an assortment of dilapidated houses.

Klaipeda is, of course, the old Lithuanian port of Memel, and I have previously read that when the Russians took over, a proportion of the native population was deported and replaced by Russians. I am unable to ascertain the extent of this, and since Klaipeda is now part of the Soviet Union, I shall refer to all the people I meet as Russians.

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 went 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.