Vet in a Spin Read online

which ~ me and left a deep conviction in my mind. Deborah was a little

  smash right, and she looked nice, but no . . . no . . . never.

  Tristan had more co than I had. .

  Mr Mount turned away abruptly.

  "This 'oss is in the stable," he grunt In those late thirties the

  tractor had driven a lot of the draught horses the land but most of the

  farmers kept a few around, perhaps because they al ways worked horses

  and it was part of their way of life and maybe b' of the sheer proud

  beauty of animals like the one which stood before me It was a

  magnificent Shire gelding, stan ding all of eighteen hands. He a

  picture of massively muscled power but when his master spoke, the

  white-blazed face which turned to us was utterly docile. i The farmer

  slapped him on the rump.

  "He's a good sort is Bobby and I a bit about 'im. What ah noticed

  first was a st range smell about his hind and then ah had a look for me

  self. I've never seen owt like it."

  I bent and seized a handful of the long feathered hair behind the h

  pastern. Bobby did not resist as I lifted the huge spatulate foot and

  rested my knee. It seemed to occupy most of my lap but it was not the

  size ~ astonished me. Mr Mount had never seen owt like it and neither

  had I. The was a ragged, sodden mass with a stinking exudation oozing

  from the und horn, but what really bewildered me was the series of

  growths sprouting every crevice.

  They were like nightmare toadstools long papillae with horny caps

  growing' from the diseased surface. I had read about them in the

  books; they were ergots, but I had never imagined them in such

  profusion. My thoughts rat I moved behind the horse and lifted the

  other foot. It was just the same.

  as bad.

  I had been qualified only a few months and was still trying to gain the

  confidence of the Darrow by farmers. This was just the sort of thing I

  want.

  "What is it?" Mr Mount asked, and again I felt that un winking gaze

  pi.

  me.

  I straightened up and rubbed my hands.

  "It's canker, but a very bad a knew all about the the ory of the thing,

  in fact I was bursting with the or r~ it into practice with this animal

  was a bit different.

  N~,are you going to cure it?" Mr Mount had an uncomfortable habit of

  get ting right to the heart of things.

  see, all that loose horn and those growths will have to be cut

  N`surface dressed with caustic," I replied, and it sounded easy say~,

  Tristan.

  Woodbine w'.~ "Yeas, yeas, goo.

  ~ter on its own, then?" .

  ~it the sole will disintegrate and the pedal bone will.

  Nxarge will work up under the wall of the hoof and~

  NN

  vet zn a apin ~he farmer nodded.

  "So he'd never walk again, and that would be the end of Bobby "I'm

  afraid so."

  ~Right. then." Mr Mount threw up his head with a decisive gesture.

  "When are you going to do it."

  It was a nasty question, because I was preoccupied at that moment not

  so much with when I would do it but how I would do it.

  ~Well now, let's see," I said huskily.

  "Would it be . . ." The farmer broke in.

  We're busy hay-ma kin' all this week, and you'll be wan tin' some men

  to help out How about Monday next week?"

  Y A wave of relief surged through me. Thank heavens he hadn't said

  tomorrow.

  I had a bit of time to think now.

  "Very well, Mr Mount. That suits me fine. Don't feed him on the

  Sunday because he'll have to have an anaesthetic."

  Driving from the farm, a sense of doom oppressed me. Was I going to

  ruin that beautiful animal in my ignorance? Canker of the foot was

  unpleasant at any time and was not uncommon in the days of the draught

  horse, but this was something away out of the ordinary. No doubt many.

  of my contemporaries have seen feet like Bobby's, but to the modern

  young veterinary surgeon it must be like a page from an ancient manual

  of farriery.

  As is my wont when I have a worrying case I started mulling it over

  right away. As I drove, I rehearsed various procedures. Would that

  enormous horse go down with a chloroform muzzle? Or would I have to

  collect all Mr Mount's men and rope him and pull him down? But it

  would be like trying to pull down St Paul's Cathedral. And then how

  long would it take me to hack away all that horn all those dreadful

  vegetations?

  Within ten minutes my palms were sweating and I was tempted to throw

  the whole lot over to Siegfried. But I was restrained by the knowledge

  that I had to establish myself not only with the farmers but with my

  new boss. He wasn't going to think much of an assistant who couldn't

  handle a thing on his own.

  I did what I usually did when I was worried; drove off the unfenced

  road, got out of the car and followed a track across the moor. The

  track wound beneath the brow of the fell which overlooked the Mount

  farm and when I had left the road far behind I flopped on the grass and

  looked down on the sunlit valley floor a thousand feet below.

  In most places you could hear something the call of a bird, a car in

  the distance but here there was a silence which was absolute, except

  when the wind sighed over the hill top, rustling the bracken around

  me.

  The farm lay in one of the soft places in a harsh countryside; lush

  flat fields where cattle grazed in comfort and the cut hay lay in long

  even swathes.

  It was a placid scene, but it was up here in the airy heights that you

  found true serenity Peace dwelt here in the high moorland, stealing

  across the empty miles, breathing from the silence and the tufted grass

  and the black, peaty earth.

  The heady fragrance of the hay rose in the warm summer air and as al

  ways I felt my troubles dissolving. Even now, after all the years, I

  still count myself lucky that I can so often find tranquillity of mind

  in the high places.

  As I rose to go I was filled with a calm resolve. I would do the job

  somehow.

  SUrely I could manage the thing without troubling Siegfried.

  In any case Siegfried had other things on his mind when I met him over

  the lunch table.

  j-I looked in at Granville Bennett's surgery at Hartington this

  morning," he said, helping himself to some new potatoes which had been

  picked that morning L from the garden.

  "And I must say I was very impressed with his waiting room.

  often a lot of farmers in there." He poured gravy on to a corner of his

  I "Tristan, I'll give you the job. Slip round to Gar low's and order a

  few silly things to be delivered every week, will you?"

  "Okay," his student brother replied.

  "I'll do it this afternoon."

  "Splendid." Siegfried chewed happily.

  "We must keep progressing in ~ way. Do have some more of these

  potatoes, James, they really are very good Tristan went into action

  right away and within two days the table and shelf in our waiting room

  carried a tasteful selection of periodicals. The Illustrated