All Things Wise and Wonderful Read online

  “Marvellous.”

  She cooked me egg and chips and sat by me while I ate. We carried on a rather halting conversation and it came to me with a bump that my mind had been forced on to different tracks since I had left her. In those few months my brain had become saturated with the things of my new life—even my mouth was full of RAF slang and jargon. In our bed-sitter we used to talk about my cases, the funny things that happened on my rounds, but now, I thought helplessly, there wasn’t much point in telling her that AC2 Phillips was on jankers again, that vector triangles were the very devil, that Don McGregor thought he had discovered the secret of Sergeant Hynd’s phenomenally shiny boots.

  But it really didn’t matter. My worries melted as I looked at her. I had been wondering if she was well and there she was, bouncing with energy, shining-eyed, rosy-cheeked and beautiful. There was only one jarring note and it was a strange one. Helen was wearing a “maternity dress” which expanded with the passage of time by means of an opening down one side. Anyway, I hated it. It was blue with a high red collar and I thought it cheap-looking and ugly. I was aware that austerity had taken over in England and that a lot of things were shoddy, but I desperately wished my wife had something better to wear. In all my life there have been very few occasions when I badly wanted more money and that was one of them, because on my wage of three shillings a day as an AC2 I was unable to drape her with expensive clothes.

  The hour winged past and it seemed no time at all before I was back on the top road waiting in the gathering darkness for the Scarborough bus. The journey back was a bit dreary as the black-out vehicle bumped and rattled its way through the darkened villages and over the long stretches of anonymous countryside. It was cold, too, but I sat there, happily with the memory of Helen wrapped around me like a warm quilt.

  The whole day had been a triumph. I had got away by a lucky stroke and there would be no problem getting back into the Grand because one of my pals would be on sentry duty and it would be a case of “pass friend.” Closing my eyes in the gloom I could still feel Helen in my arms and I smiled to myself at the memory of her bounding healthiness. What a tremendous relief to see her looking so wonderful, and though the simple repast of egg and chips had seemed like a banquet I realised that my greatest nourishment had been feasting my eyes on Helen. That dress still niggled at me as it has, for some reason, right down the years, but compared with the other elements of that magic hour it was a little thing.

  CHAPTER 11

  “HEY YOU! WHERE THE ’ell d’you think you’re goin’?”

  Coming from the RAF Special Police it was a typical mode of address and the man who barked it out wore the usual truculent expression.

  “Extra navigation class, corporal,” I replied.

  “Lemme see your pass!”

  He snatched it from my hand, read it and returned it without looking at me. I slunk out into the street feeling like a prisoner on parole.

  Not all the SPs were like that but I found most of them lacking in charm. And it brought home to me with a rush something which had been slowly dawning on me ever since I joined the Air Force; that I had been spoiled for quite a long time now. Spoiled by the fact that I had always been treated with respect because I was a veterinary surgeon, a member of an honourable profession. And I had taken it entirely for granted.

  Now I was an AC2, the lowest form of life in the RAF, and the “Hey you!” was a reflection of my status. The Yorkshire farmers don’t rush out and kiss you, but their careful friendliness and politeness is something which I have valued even more since my service days. Because that was when I stopped taking it for granted.

  Mind you, you have to put up with a certain amount of cheek in most jobs, and veterinary practice is no exception. Even now I can recall the glowering face of Ralph Beamish, the racehorse trainer, as he watched me getting out of my car.

  “Where’s Mr. Farnon?” he grunted.

  My toes curled. I had heard that often enough, especially among the horse fraternity around Darrowby.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Beamish, but he’ll be away all day and I thought I’d better come along rather than leave it till tomorrow.”

  He made no attempt to hide his disgust. He blew out his fat, purpled cheeks, dug his hands deep in his breeches pockets and looked at the sky with a martyred air.

  “Well come on, then.” He turned and stumped away on his short, thick legs towards one of the boxes which bordered the yard. I sighed inwardly as I followed him. Being an unhorsey vet in Yorkshire was a penance at times, especially in a racing stable like this which was an equine shrine. Siegfried, apart altogether from his intuitive skill, was able to talk the horse language. He could discuss effortlessly and at length the breeding and points of his patients; he rode, he hunted, he even looked the part with his long aristocratic face, clipped moustache and lean frame.

  The trainers loved him and some, like Beamish, took it as a mortal insult when he failed to come in person to minister to their valuable charges.

  He called to one of the lads who opened a box door.

  “He’s in there,” he muttered. “Came in lame from exercise this morning.”

  The lad led out a bay gelding and there was no need to trot the animal to diagnose the affected leg; he nodded down on his near fore in an unmistakable way.

  “I think he’s lame in the shoulder,” Beamish said.

  I went round the other side of the horse and picked up the off fore. I cleaned out the frog and sole with a hoof knife; there was no sign of bruising and no sensitivity when I tapped the handle of the knife against the horn.

  I felt my way up over the coronet to the fetlock and after some palpation I located a spot near the distal end of the metacarpus which was painful on pressure.

  I looked up from my crouching position. “This seems to be the trouble, Mr. Beamish, I think he must have struck into himself with his hind foot just there.”

  “Where?” The trainer leaned over me and peered down at the leg. “I can’t see anything.”

  “No, the skin isn’t broken, but he flinches if you press here.”

  Beamish prodded the place with a stubby forefinger.

  “Well, he does,” he grunted. “But he’d flinch anywhere if you squeeze him like you’re doing.”

  My hackles began to rise at his tone but I kept my voice calm. “I’m sure that’s what it is. I should apply a hot antiphlogistine poultice just above the fetlock and alternate with a cold hose on it twice a day.”

  “Well, I’m just as sure you’re wrong. It’s not down there at all. The way that horse carries his leg he’s hurt his shoulder.” He gestured to the lad. “Harry, see that he gets some heat on that shoulder right away.”

  If the man had struck me I couldn’t have felt worse. I opened my mouth to argue but he was walking away.

  “There’s another horse I want you to look at,” he said. He led the way into a nearby box and pointed to a big brown animal with obvious signs of blistering on the tendons of a fore limb.

  “Mr. Farnon put a red blister on that leg six months ago. He’s been resting in here ever since. He’s going sound now—d’you think he’s ready to go out?”

  I went over and ran my fingers over the length of the flexor tendons, feeling for signs of thickening. There was none. Then I lifted the foot and as I explored further I found a tender area in the superficial flexor.

  I straightened up. “He’s still a bit sore,” I said. “I think it would be safer to keep him in for a bit longer.”

  “Can’t agree with you,” Beamish snapped. He turned to the lad. “Turn him out, Harry.”

  I stared at him. Was this a deliberate campaign to make me feel small? Was he trying to rub in the fact that he didn’t think much of me? Anyway, he was beginning to get under my skin and I hoped my burning face wasn’t too obvious.

  “One thing more,” Beamish said. “There’s a horse through here been coughing. Have a look at him before you go.”

  We went through a narrow pa