Vets Might Fly Read online

  been no 'feel' to the soft London air and I half closed my eyes as I

  followed the tingle all the way down to my lungs.

  Mind you, it was cold. Yorkshire is a cold place and I could remember

  the sensation almost of shock at the start of my first winter in Darrow

  by.

  It was after the first snow and I followed the clanging ploughs up the

  Dale bumping along between high white mounds till I reached old Mr

  Stokill's gate With my fingers on the handle I looked through the glass

  at the new world beneath me. The white blanket rolled down the

  hillside and lapped over the roofs of the dwelling and outbuildings of

  the little farm. Beyond, it smoothed out and concealed the familiar

  features, the stone walls bordering the fields the stream on the valley

  floor, turning the whole scene into something unknown and exciting.

  But the thrill I felt at the strange beauty was swept away as I got out

  and the wind struck me. It was an Arctic blast screaming from the

  east, picking up extra degrees of cold as it drove over the frozen

  white surface. I was wearing a heavy overcoat and woollen gloves but

  the gust whipped its way right into my bones.

  I gasped and leaned my back against the car while I buttoned the coat

  up under my chin, then I struggled forward to where the gate shook and

  rattled. I fought it open and my feet crunched as I went through.

  Coming round the corner of the byre I found Mr Stokill forking muck on

  to a heap, making a churned brown trail across the whiteness.

  "Now then," he muttered along the side of a half-smoked cigarette. He

  was over seventy but still ran the small holding single-handed. He

  told me once that he had worked as a farm hand for six shillings a day

  for thirty years, yet still managed to save enough to buy his own

  little place. Maybe that was why he didn't want to share it.

  "How are you, Mr Stokill?" I said, but just then the wind tore through

  the yard, clutching icily at my face, snatching my breath away so that

  I turned involuntarily to one side with an explosive

  "Aaahh!"

  The old farmer looked at me in surprise, then glanced around as though

  he had just noticed the weather.

  "Aye, blows a bit thin this morn in', lad." Sparks flew from the end

  of his cigarette as he leaned for a moment on the fork.

  He didn't seem to have much protection against the cold. A light khaki

  smock fluttered over a ragged navy waistcoat, clearly once part of his

  best suit, and his shirt bore neither collar nor stud. The white

  stubble on his fleshless jaw was a reproach to my twenty-four years and

  suddenly I felt an inadequate city-bred softie.

  The old man dug his fork into the manure pile and turned towards the

  buildings.

  "Ah've got a nice few cases for ye to see today. Fust 'un's in 'ere."

  He opened a door and I staggered gratefully into a sweet bovine warmth

  where a few shaggy little bullocks stood hock deep in straw.

  "That's the youth we want." He pointed to a dark roan standing with

  one hind foot knuckled over.

  "He's been on three legs for a couple o' days. Ah reckon he's got

  foul."

  I walked up to the little animal but he took off at a speed which made

  light of his infirmity.

  "We'll have to run him into the passage. Mr Stokill," I said.

  "Just open the gate, will you?"

  With the rough timbers pushed wide I got behind the bullock and sent

  him on to the opening. It seemed as though he was going straight

  through but at the entrance he stopped, peeped into the passage and

  broke away. I galloped a few times round the yard after him, then had

  another go. The result was the same.

  After half a dozen tries I wasn't cold any more. I'll back chasing

  young cattle against any thing else for working up a sweat, and I had

  already forgotten the uncharitable world outside. And I could see I

  was going to get warmer still because the bullock was beginning to

  enjoy the game, kicking up his heels and frisking around after each

  attempt.

  I put my hands on my hips, waited till I got my breath back then turned

  to the farmer.

  "This is hopeless. He'll never go in there," I said.

  "We'd maybe better try to get a rope on him."

  "Nay, lad, there's no need for that. We'll get him through t'gate

  right enough."

  The old man ambled to one end of the yard and returned with an armful

  of clean straw. He sprinkled it freely in the gate opening and beyond

  in the passage, then turned to me.

  "Now send 'im on."

  I poked a finger into the animal's rump and he trotted forward,

  proceeded unhesitatingly between the posts and into the passage.

  Mr Stokill must have noticed my look of bewilderment.

  "Aye, 'e just didn't like t'look of them cobbles. Once they was

  covered over he was aw right."

  "Yes . . . yes . . . I see." I followed the bullock slowly

  through.

  He was indeed suffering from foul of the foot, the mediaeval term given

  because of the stink of the necrotic tissue between the cleats, and I

  didn't have any antibiotics or sulphon amides to treat it. It is so

  nice and easy these days to give an injection, knowing that the beast

  will be sound in a day or two. But all I could do was wrestle with the

  lunging hind foot, dressing the infected cleft with a crude mixture of

  copper sulphate and Stockholm tar and finishing with a pad of cotton

  wool held by a tight bandage. When I had finished I took off my coat

  and hung it on a nail. I didn't need it any more.

  Mr Stokill looked approvingly at the finished job.

  "Capital, capital," he: murmured.

  "Now there's some little pigs in this pen got a bit o' scour. I want

  you give 'em a jab wi' your needle."

  We had various E cold vaccines which sometimes did a bit of good in

  these cases and I entered the pen hopefully. But I left in a hurry

  because the piglets' mother didn't approve of a stranger wandering

  among her brood and she came at me open-mouthed, barking explosively.

  She looked as big as a donkey and when the cavernous jaws with the

  great yellowed teeth brushed my thigh I knew it was time to go. I

  hopped rapidly into the yard and crashed the door behind me.

  I peered back ruminatively into the pen.

  "We'll have to get her out of there before I can do any thing, Mr

  Stokill."

  "Aye, you're right, young man, ahtll shifter." He began to shuffle

  away.

  I held up a hand.

  "No, it's all right, I'll do it." I couldn't let this frail old man go

  in there and maybe get knocked down and savaged, and I looked around

  for a means of protection. There was a battered shovel standing

  against a wall and I seized it.

  "Open the door, please," I said.

  "I'll soon have her out."

  Once more inside the pen I held the shovel in front of me and tried to

  usher the huge sow towards the door. But my efforts at poking her rear

  end were fruitless; she faced me all the time, wide-mouthed and

  growling as I circled.

  When she got the blade of the shovel between her teeth and be