Lord God Made Them All (32 page)

I could hear Siegfried pottering among the bottles in the dispensary, and I called to him.

He palpated the limb. “Damn! One of those! And just when we didn’t want it.” He looked at the farmer. “We’ll have to try again, Jack, but I don’t like it.”

We applied a fresh plaster, and the farmer grinned confidently. “Just wanted a bit more time, I reckon. He’ll be right next time.”

But it was not to be. Siegfried and I worked together to strip off the second cast, but the situation was practically unchanged. There was little or no healing tissue around the fracture.

We didn’t know what to say. Even at the present time, after the most sophisticated bone-pinning procedures, we still find these cases where the bones just will not unite. They are as frustrating now as they were that afternoon when Rip lay on the surgery table.

I broke the long silence. “It’s just the same, I’m afraid, Jack.”

“You mean it ’asn’t joined up?”

“That’s right.”

The farmer rubbed a finger along his upper lip. “Then ’e won’t be able to take any weight on that leg?”

“I don’t see how he possibly can.”

“Aye … aye … well, we’ll just have to see how he goes on, then.”

“But Jack,” Siegfried said gently. “He can’t go on. There’s no way a dog can get around with two useless legs on the same side.”

The silence set in again, and I could see the familiar curtain coming down over the farmer’s face. He knew what was in our minds, and he wasn’t going to have it. In fact, I knew what he was going to say next.

“Is he sufferin?”

“No, he isn’t,” Siegfried replied. “There’s no pain in the fracture now and the paralysis is painless anyway, but he won’t be able to walk, don’t you see?”

But Jack was already gathering his dog into his arms. “Well, we’ll give him a chance, any road,” he said and walked from the room.

Siegfried leaned against the table and looked at me, wide-eyed. “Well, what do you make of that, James?”

“Same as you,” I replied gloomily. “Poor old Jack. He always gives everything a chance, but he’s got no hope this time.”

But I was wrong. Several weeks later I was called to the Scott farm to see a sick calf and the first thing I saw was Rip bringing the cows in for milking. He was darting to and fro around the rear of the herd, guiding them through the gate from the field, and I watched him in amazement.

He still could not bear any appreciable weight on either of his right limbs, yet he was running happily. Don’t ask me how he was doing it because I’ll never know, but somehow he was supporting his body with his two strong left legs and the paws of the stricken limbs merely brushing the turf. Maybe he had perfected some balancing feat like a one-wheel bicycle rider but, as I say, I just don’t know. The great thing was that he was still the old friendly Rip, his tail swishing when he saw me, his mouth panting with pleasure.

Jack didn’t say anything about “I told you so,” and I wouldn’t have cared because it thrilled me to see the little animal doing the job he loved.

“This calf, Mr. Herriot,” Jack began, then he pointed excitedly at a pigeon perched on the byre roof. “By gaw, that little feller looks better. I’ve been watching ’im for months. He went down to skin and bone, but he’s fillin’ out now.”

I smiled to myself. Even the pigeons were under Jack’s eye.

He dragged himself back to more practical things. “Aye, now, this calf. Never seen one like it. Goin’ round and round as if it was daft.”

Depression flowed over me. I had been hoping for something straightforward this time. My recent contacts with Jack’s animals could be described as abortive treatment and wrong prognosis, and I did want to pull something out of the bag. This didn’t sound good.

It was a bonny little calf about a month old. Dark roan—the Shorthorn farmer’s favourite colour—and it was lying on its straw bed looking fairly normal, except that its head was inclined slightly to one side. Jack touched the hairy rump with his toe, and the calf rose to its feet.

That was where the normality ended because the little creature blundered away to the right, as if drawn by a magnet, until it walked into the wall. It picked itself up and recommenced its helpless progress, always to the right. It managed to complete two full circuits of the pen until it collapsed against the door.

Ah, well, so that was it. I was relieved and worried at the same time because I knew what the trouble was, and I was pretty sure I could cure it … but not quite sure.

The temperature was 106°F.

“This is a thing called listeriosis, Jack,” I said.

He looked at me blankly.

“Circling disease is the other name, and you can see why. It’s a brain disease, and the animal can’t help going round and round like that.”

The farmer looked glum. “Brain again, just like them lambs? God ’elp us, there must be summat in the air about here. Are all me stock goin’ to go off their heads?” He paused, bent over the calf and began to stroke it. “And there’ll be nowt you can do for this, either, I suppose.”

“I hope I can do something, Jack. This is a different thing altogether from the swayback lambs. It’s an actual bug affecting the brain, and with a bit of luck I can put this calf right.”

I felt like crossing my fingers. I was still not vastly experienced. I had seen only a few of these cases and in the prewar days they had been invariably fatal, but the causal organism was sensitive to antibiotics and the whole scene had changed. I had seen animals with listeriosis recover completely within a few days.

I shook up my bottle of penicillin-streptomycin suspension and injected 5 c.c.’s into the thigh. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said. “I hope to find the little thing improved by then.”

Next day the temperature was down, but the symptoms had not abated. I repeated the injection and said I would call again.

I did call, again and again, because I was gripped by a kind of desperation, but after a week, though the temperature was normal and the appetite excellent, the calf was still circling.

“How d’you feel about t’job, then, Mr. Herriot?” the farmer asked.

Actually I felt like screaming and railing against fate. Was there a hoodoo on this place? Could I do nothing right?

I calmed down and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Jack, but we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. The antibiotic has saved the calf’s life, but there must be some brain damage. I can’t see any hope of recovery now.”

He didn’t seem to have heard me. “It’s a grand ’un, a heifer, too, and out of me best cow. She’ll make a smashin’ milker. Just look at the shape of ’er—and that grand colour. We’ve called her Bramble.”

“Yes, but Jack …”

He patted me on the shoulder and led me out to the yard. “Well, thank ye, Mr. Herriot. Ah’m sure you’ve done all you can.” Quite obviously he didn’t want to pursue the matter further.

Before I left, I took a final glance over the door of the pen at that calf reeling in the straw. As I walked to the car, Rip gambolled at my feet, and the almost useless legs mocked me with further evidence of my veterinary skill. What kind of an animal doctor was I, anyway?

As I started the engine, I looked out through the open window and was about to speak when I saw the familiar blank look on Jack’s face. He didn’t want to hear any advice from me on what he should do with his calf. Clearly he had decided to give Bramble a chance.

It turned out that Jack’s faith was rewarded and that my prognosis was wrong again, but I cannot blame myself because the sequence of events in Bramble’s recovery is not contained in any textbook.

Over the next two years the brain symptoms gradually diminished. The improvement was so slow as to be almost imperceptible, but every time I was on Jack’s farm I had a look into her pen and saw to my astonishment that the little animal was just a bit better. For many weeks she circled, then this subsided into an occasional staggering towards the right. This, in turn, faded over the months into an inclination of the head to one side, until one day I looked in and found that this, too, had disappeared and a fine, normal two-year-old heifer was strolling around unconcernedly in the straw. I didn’t mind being wrong. I was delighted.

“Jack,” I said. “How marvellous! I’d have bet anything that this was a hopeless case, and there she is, absolutely perfect.”

The farmer gave me a slow smile with a hint of mischief in it. “Aye, ah’m right capped with her, Mr. Herriot, and she’s goin’ to be one of the best cows in the herd before she’s finished. But …” He raised a finger and his smile broadened. “She’s not perfect, tha knows.”

“Not … what do you mean?”

“I mean there’s just a little somethin’.” He leaned towards me conspiratorially. “Keep watchin’ her face.”

I stared at the heifer, and the calm, bovine eyes looked back at me with mild interest. We inspected each other for a couple of minutes, then I turned to the farmer. “Well, I can’t see a thing wrong with her.”

“Hang on a bit,” Jack said. “She doesn’t allus do it.”

“Do what?” I was mystified. “There’s nothing at all … my God!”

The farmer laughed and thumped me on the back. “Did ye see it?”

I certainly had, and it was startling. Just for an instant Bramble’s placid expression was transfigured by a faint twitch of the eyes and head to the right. There was something human about the gesture; in fact, I was reminded instantly of the film “vamps” of the twenties, when a girl would stand, hand on hip, and beckon seductively at her quarry. It was a come-hither look.

Jack was still laughing. “I reckon you’ve never seen owt like that afore, Mr. Herriot?”

“No, you’re right. I haven’t. What an extraordinary thing. How often does she do it?”

“Oh, every now and then. I suppose it’ll go away in time like all t’other things?”

“I expect it will,” I said. “But how very strange.”

The farmer nodded. “Aye, there’s summat right cheeky about it. I allus get the feelin’ she’s trying to ask me somethin’.”

I laughed, too. “Yes, that’s it, exactly. You’d think she was trying to communicate, but, of course, it’s just the last trace of the condition she had. Anyway, the main thing is, she’s a grand, bonny heifer.”

“She is that,” Jack said. “I’m glad we persevered with ’er.” (It was nice of him to say “we.”) “Ah’ve had ’er served, and she should be calvin’ just right for Darrowby show.”

“Well, that will be interesting. She’s certainly a show animal.”

And there was no doubt that Bramble had developed into a classical Dairy Shorthorn with all the delicacy and grace of that now-lost breed—the beautifully straight back, the neat tail-head and the makings of a fine udder. She was a picture.

She was even more of a picture a few months later as she stood in the centre of the show ring with the August sun glinting on her rich, dark coat. She had recently produced a calf, and her udder, tight and flat-based, with a small teat thrusting proudly from each corner, bulged between the back limbs.

She would take some beating, and it was a pleasant thought that the seemingly doomed little creature of two and a half years ago might be just about to win a championship trophy.

However, Bramble was in pretty hot company. The judge, Brigadier Rowan, had narrowed the field down to three after much cogitation, and the other two contestants, a red-and-white and a light roan, were beautiful animals. It would be a close thing.

Brigadier Rowan himself was a splendid sight. He was a distinguished soldier, a gentleman farmer and an unrivalled judge of dairy cattle in the district.

His dress and general bearing were fully in keeping with his position. That tall, lean figure would have been aristocratic and impressive enough without the beautifully cut check suit, yellow waistcoat, cravat and bowler hat. The fact that he was one of the few people I have ever seen wearing a monocle added the final touch.

The brigadier strolled up and down the little row of cattle, shoulders high, hands clasped behind his back, occasionally screwing the glass tighter into his eye as he bent to inspect a particular point. Clearly, he was having difficulty in deciding.

His normally pink face was bright red, not, I felt, from the sunshine, but from the long succession of brandies and sodas I had seen him consuming in the president’s tent. He pursed his lips and approached Bramble, who stood patiently at the end of the row nearest to me with her head held by Jack Scott on a halter.

The brigadier leaned forward and peered into the animal’s face as though to examine the eyes. Something happened then. I was standing behind Bramble and could not see her face, but my suspicion is that she gave the little twitch which had startled me. In any case, something undoubtedly pierced the brigadier’s patrician calm. His eyebrows shot up and the monocle dropped to the end of its cord, where it dangled for a few seconds before he retrieved it, gave it a thorough polish and returned it to his eye.

He again studied Bramble fixedly for quite a long time, and even after he had moved away, he glanced back at her once or twice. I could read his mind. Had he really seen that, or was it the brandy?

As he came slowly back down the row, he had the look of a man who was definitely going to make up his mind this time, even though he was confronted by three superb animals. He finished up in front of Bramble, and as he gave her a final appraising stare, he flinched suddenly, and I had a strong conviction that she had done her trick again.

The brigadier kept a grip on himself this time, but though the monocle remained in position, the man was obviously shaken. It seemed, however, to remove all doubts from his mind. He immediately placed Bramble first, the red-and-white second and the light roan third.

The brigadier, having made his decision, strode straight as a cadet, albeit a red-faced one, to the edge of the ring where he was greeted by a beaming Jack.

“A bonny lass, ’ant she, Brigadier? Almost human, ye might say.

“Quite,” said the brigadier, adjusting his monocle. “Actually, she reminded me of someone I used to know … briefly.”

“D
ISASTER!
D
ISASTER!
D
ISASTER!”