Lord God Made Them All (34 page)

“Oh, it would be very nice, but I can’t leave the practice too often. It would have to be you or another of my friends.”

It was the beginning of another little adventure. For the next few weeks as I drove on my rounds, the green hills and bracken-clad slopes that sped past my windows were intermingled with the heady scenes of my imaginings. New places have always intrigued me, and as I have said before, I have seafaring blood. I could smell the salty freshness of the wide ocean that had thrilled me on the voyage to Klaipeda; only this time it would be sunshine and a calm sea and one of the most exciting cities in the world at the end of it.

As John promised, I had a telephone call at the beginning of August from Mr. Costain, the representative of the Export Company.

“I’d like you to be here at two o’clock on Thursday, the eighth, at our offices,” he said. “And then I’ll take you out to Gatwick.”

“Gatwick?”

“Yes, that’s right. The plane takes off at around eight o’clock in the evening.”

“Plane! I thought we were going by sea.”

Mr. Costain laughed for quite a long time at this. “No, no, no —whatever gave you that idea?”

“John Crooks did.”

“Ah, well, as it happened John did go by sea, and I suppose it was natural he would think the next trip would be the same. But you’ll thoroughly enjoy the flight, and it means you get the whole thing over quickly. Less than four days.”

“I see.” I didn’t want to get the whole thing over quickly. I had been looking forward to that leisurely seventeen days. But never mind, this could be fun, too.

“Right,” I said. “I’ll see you on the day.”

The night before I left, I packed the same attaché case I had taken to Russia. Antibiotics, calcium, steroids, bandages and suture materials. I hoped I would not have to use anything in that case, particularly the humane killer lying in the corner.

August 8, 1963

On the train to London my enthusiasm grew steadily. It was a pity about the sea voyage, and I was sorry that it would not be worth keeping a daily diary on such a short trip. I would have to write it up later. But on the other hand, I liked flying, and it would be interesting to see the reaction of the animals. On the Klaipeda voyage I had learned a lot about the behaviour of animals aboard ship, and now I had the chance to observe the reaction of cows to being whisked into the air. I felt a faint twinge of alarm when I remembered a story of how a veterinary surgeon had been in charge of some racehorses flying to America, and one of the animals had gone berserk and kicked a hole in the side of the aircraft. But I put away the disturbing image. Jersey cows would never do that.

Another happy thought was that I was able to take my camera and bring back a record of my adventure. That had been forbidden on the Russian trip.

Mr. Costain was pleasant and friendly. We took the train to Gatwick, and I had my first view of our aircraft standing a few hundred yards away out on the airfield. It looked very smart, its red, white and silver-grey paint glittering in the sunshine.

“Gosh, it’s big!” I said.

Mr. Costain nodded. “Yes, it’s a Globemaster, and to the best of my knowledge it is the biggest aircraft in the world at the present time.”

I don’t know whether he was right about this but it was easy to believe, because as we approached the Globemaster it seemed to get larger all the time. It also became less smart because on closer inspection the paint wasn’t nearly as glossy and there was a faint air of delapidation about the whole mighty machine. The rubber was worn smooth and frayed in parts and, in fact, if you took a motor car out with tyres like that you would be fined and have your licence endorsed.

There were four propellor engines, and along one side the name
Heracles
sprawled in large red letters.

I climbed up the steps into the flight cabin, and here the impression of age and a long, hard life was stronger still. The black paintwork had been almost rubbed away from the bank of dials and levers in the cockpit, leaving the bare metal gleaming through, and the seats showed the outline of their contents bulging dangerously against their leather coverings. A curtain, when drawn aside, revealed a toilet of the most primitive type. This was, indeed, an elderly aeroplane.

I looked back wonderingly at the enormous empty belly stretching away to the tail and at that moment Mr. Costain poked his head in from the steps.

‘Tremendous, isn’t it?” he said. “It was used as a troop carrier and general transport during the war.”

I nodded silently. That was quite a long time ago.

We walked back together to the airport terminal and had a cup of tea and a sandwich while keeping an eye open for the arrival of the cattle. I learned that we were taking forty pedigree cows and heifers, and as the time stretched round to half-past six, I wondered just how they were going to be loaded in time for an eight o’clock take-off.

At length two cattle wagons rumbled onto the airfield, and we hurried to meet them. I was pleased and relieved to find that two Jersey farmers were joining us on the flight, and I was introduced to them before the loading started. They were both dark-haired and spoke with a slow drawl, very different from my Yorkshire clients. Noel would be in his early thirties, smiling and with an ingenious air about him; Joe, probably ten years older, similarly amiable but, it seemed to me, a hard man at bottom. He was easy to like, but I couldn’t imagine him suffering fools gladly.

It didn’t take me long to realise that the two of them knew what they were doing. One of the Clobemaster’s crew, a little Dane called Karl, operated an electric hoist with tubular metal sides that descended from the underside of the aircraft, while Joe and Noel led the cattle up a ramp and jockeyed them into position until the hoist was full and they could be lifted up.

Above, in the cavernous interior, they arranged the animals in rows of six facing the front, with a metal tube clamped behind each row.

Those farmers were good stocksmen. There was no shouting, no brandishing of sticks, just a continual gentle nudging and pushing and soft words of encouragement. And, of course, they had the ideal subjects to handle. I have often said that I wished all cows were Jerseys, and I felt it again that day.

I do not think I have ever seen a more beautiful group of cattle —mostly heifers with a few young cows, and all of them fine-boned and graceful, with their lambent, kind eyes regarding us with mild interest as they took their places.

It was a steamy, hot London evening and as Joe and Noel toiled, the sweat streamed down their faces. But, like my Yorkshire farmers, hard work seemed to be something they took for granted. Sleeves rolled high on their sunburned arms, they kept at it without pausing.

More than half the animals had been loaded when the main members of the crew arrived. Captain Birch looked down at me from a gaunt six feet four as he shook hands, and the sombre face above the black, grey-flecked beard emanated authority. This was a man of formidable presence.

The co-pilot and navigator, Ed, and the engineer, Dave, were in their twenties and grinned cheerfully as they hoisted their bags into the flight cabin. The captain was English and dressed in a formal dark uniform, but these young men were American, and their clothing intrigued me. They wore white, loose-fitting jackets and trousers of a light-weight material which, with their peaked caps cocked at an angle, gave them a carefree appearance.

As I thought, there was no possibility of an eight o’clock takeoff, and it was nearly eleven when the last heifer was loaded and clamped in safely. The forty cattle were quite a sight as they stood patiently in their rows, their feet deep in straw and an armful of hay in front of each of them. The long stretch of backs made a ripple of fawn gold under the interior lights of the aircraft. One snag was that the heat in the packed interior was almost overpowering, and I prayed that some ventilation would come into operation when we were airborne.

Mr. Costain prepared to leave. He had spent quite a long time in a financial negotiation, almost a wrangle with the captain, about the cost of the transportation, and I gathered that the captain either owned the aircraft personally or was a top director of the firm that did. They came to an agreement at last, and Mr. Costain shook my hand.

“Have a good trip, Mr. Herriot,” he said. “You will be refuelling in Rome and reach Istanbul early tomorrow. I know you’ll love that city. Goodbye.”

The thought of this huge, heavily loaded aeroplane landing anywhere on those bald tyres gave me a moment of disquiet, but I put it out of my mind and sat down with Joe and Noel on one of the battered seats in the cabin.

We waited and waited for something to happen, but a seemingly interminable discussion was going on in the cockpit. The humans in the aircraft were quite clearly in two camps—the crew and the cattlemen—and the only attention we three got during this period was a piercing look from the captain and a stern admonition. “You’ll look after these cattle, won’t you? They are very valuable and they’re my responsibility. You’ll keep a constant eye on them, I hope.”

“Of course,” I replied. “That’s what we’re here for.” I spoke confidently, but I had no idea how the animals would react when this monster began to roar its way into the sky. If they started to run amuck and break their legs there wasn’t much I could do but use my humane killer, and I didn’t think the captain would be overjoyed at that.

The two farmers and I talked in the dimly lit cabin during the long wait. They told me of their stock troubles and I described the veterinary life in Yorkshire, then, to our relief, around 1
A.M.
, the aircraft’s engine began to cough into life. We actually started to taxi along to the end of the runway.

This was the moment I had been waiting for, and I turned in my seat and gazed over the forty sleek backs as the aircraft began to roll. The engines bellowed, the vast frame shook and juddered as the machine hurtled down the runway, then there was the wrench of lift-off and the sensation of climbing, climbing.

And all those cattle did was sway gently from side to side, their eyes looking at me, calm and untroubled. Some even nibbled at their hay as we rose into the night sky.

Thank heaven, flying seemed to be second nature to them, and I was relaxing happily when I noticed a commotion in the cabin. The huge undercarriage had not retracted fully and Karl, Dave and Ed were pulling with all their strength on a loop attached to it. After a few moments of concentrated effort, the wheels came up with a clunk, and the crewmen returned to their places. They did this calmly, as though it were a regular procedure. I wondered idly how many other things didn’t work on this aeroplane.

I was grateful for one thing—my worries about the heat had been groundless because as we climbed, the atmosphere became steadily colder.

It had been a long day for Noel, Joe and me. We had left home early that morning and we dozed fitfully on the uncomfortable seats in the semi-darkness, glancing at our charges from time to time. After a few hours, I was jerked to wakefulness. We were coming in to land, descending quickly over the lights of an airfield. I watched the cattle again as we bumped and rattled along the runway, but they took it all with the same aplomb as before.

When we halted, I looked out at a brightly lit sign—Munchen.

“Refuelling,” Karl muttered. Mr. Costain said it would be Rome, and it was Munich. The nagging little thought returned that nothing about this trip since John Crooks first drew the scenario had turned out as expected.

Anyway, we had landed safely on those awful tyres and we took off, too, without disaster, although once more Karl and Dave had to haul with all their might until the undercarriage thumped into position.

By 5 A.M., the two farmers and I were weary and desperate to stretch our cramped limbs. Finally Joe beckoned to us to follow him, and we groped our way down by the side of the animals right to the tail of the aircraft, where a deep pile of hay was lying. He stretched out and Noel and I followed suit.

Again, this was different from my friend John’s bed in his cabin on the Mediterranean, but it was heaven. I closed my eyes and floated away. The captain had adjured us to do our duty carefully, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. And though I was thousands of feet up somewhere in the dark skies above Yugoslavia, I might have been back in Darrowby, because the scents and the sounds were the same. The fragrance of hay, the sweet bovine smell and the soft grunting, coughing and champing of many cattle. These were familiar things and they lulled me into slumber within minutes.

Bright sunshine was streaming into the aircraft when I opened my eyes again. I looked at my watch—seven o’clock. The two farmers were still nestled motionless in the hay, and I got to my feet and looked with a touch of anxiety along the rows of cattle. I need not have worried; they were as contented as if they had been in their byres in Jersey. Some were lying in the straw; others stood chewing their cud. It was a peaceful scene.

It was not peaceful, however, in the flight cabin and cockpit. In fact, as I gazed beyond the animals to the front of the aircraft, I could see evidence of intense activity. The crew members were leaping around, staring at the starboard window and operating controls which I couldn’t see.

I pushed my way past the metal standings to the cabin and had a look for myself.

The starboard inner engine had been switched off, and its four propellor blades hung motionless as oil gushed from its interior, spiralling into the flawless blue of the sky, flowing in black tendrils over the wing and spattering against the window. Nobody bothered to say good morning to me. There was no panic but there was definitely consternation.

As I looked, I saw that there was something more alarming than an oil leak. Flames were licking around the engine cowling, and a long tongue of fire crept back towards the wing. I scarcely had time to digest the meaning of all this when the flames disappeared, apparently extinguished by the crew’s efforts.

There was a general relaxation in the cockpit, and some wan smiles were exchanged.