All Creatures Great and Small Read online

  There was only one jarring note; it was the time of the horse. In the thirties there were still quite a lot of horses on the farms though the tractors had already sounded their warning knell. In the farms near the foot of the Dale where there was a fair amount of arable land the rows of stables were half empty but there were still enough horses to make May and June uncomfortable. This was when the castrations were done.

  Before that came the foaling and it was a common enough thing to see a mare with her foal either trotting beside her or stretched flat on the ground as its mother nibbled at the grass. Nowadays the sight of a cart mare and foal in a field would make me pull up my car to have another look.

  There was all the work connected with the foalings; cleansing the mares, docking the foals’ tails, treating the illnesses of the new born—joint ill, retained meconium. It was hard and interesting but as the weather grew warmer the farmers began to think of having the year-old colts castrated.

  I didn’t like the job and since there might be up to a hundred to be done, it cast a shadow over this and many subsequent springs. For generations the operation had been done by casting the colt and tying him up very like a trussed chicken. It was a bit laborious but the animal was under complete restraint and it was possible to concentrate entirely on the job; but about the time I qualified, standing castration was coming very much to the fore. It consisted simply of applying a twitch to the colt’s upper lip, injecting a shot of local anaesthetic into each testicle and going straight ahead. There was no doubt it was a lot quicker.

  The obvious disadvantage was that the danger of injury to the operator and his helpers was increased tenfold, but for all that the method rapidly became more popular. A local farmer called Kenny Bright who considered himself an advanced thinker took the step of introducing it to the district. He engaged Major Farley, the horse specialist, to give a demonstration on one of his colts, and a large gathering of farmers came to spectate. Kenny, smug and full of self-importance, was holding the twitch and beaming round the company as his protégé prepared to disinfect the operation site, but as soon as the major touched the scrotum with his antiseptic the colt reared and brought a forefoot crashing down on Kenny’s head. He was carried away on a gate with his skull fractured and spent a long time in hospital. The other farmers didn’t stop laughing for weeks but the example failed to deter them. Standing castration was in.

  I said it was quicker. It was when everything went smoothly, but there were other times when the colt kicked or threw himself on top of us or just went generally mad. Out of ten jobs nine would be easy and the tenth would be a rodeo. I don’t know how much apprehension this state of affairs built up in other vets but I was undeniably tense on castration mornings.

  Of course, one of the reasons was that I was not, am not and never will be a horseman. It is difficult to define the term but I am convinced that horsemen are either born or acquire the talent in early childhood. I knew it was no good my trying to start in my mid twenties. I had the knowledge of equine diseases, I believed I had the ability to treat sick horses efficiently but that power the real horseman had to soothe and quieten and mentally dominate an animal was beyond my reach. I didn’t even try to kid myself.

  It was unfortunate because there is no doubt horses know. It is quite different with cows; they don’t care either way; if a cow feels like kicking you she will kick you; she doesn’t give a damn whether you are an expert or not. But horses know.

  So on those mornings my morale was never very high as I drove out with my instruments rattling and rolling about on an enamel tray on the back seat. Would he be wild or quiet? How big would he be? I had heard my colleagues airily stating their preference for big horses—the two-year-olds were far easier, they said, you could get a better grip on the testicles. But there was never any doubt in my own mind. I liked them small; the smaller the better.

  One morning when the season was at its height and I had had about enough of the equine race, Siegfried called to me as he was going out. “James, there’s a horse with a tumour on its belly at Wilkinson’s of White Cross. Get along and take it off—today if possible but otherwise fix your own time; I’ll leave it with you.”

  Feeling a little disgruntled at fate having handed me something on top of the seasonal tasks, I boiled up a scalpel, tumour spoons and syringe and put them on my tray with local anaesthetic, iodine and tetanus antitoxin.

  I drove to the farm with the tray rattling ominously behind me. That sound always had a connotation of doom for me. I wondered about the horse—maybe it was just a yearling; they did get those little dangling growths sometimes—nanberries, the farmers called them. Over the six miles I managed to build up a comfortable picture of a soft-eyed little colt with pendulous abdomen and overlong hair; it hadn’t done well over the winter and was probably full of worms—shaky on its legs with weakness, in fact.

  At Wilkinson’s all was quiet. The yard was empty except for a lad of about ten who didn’t know where the boss was.

  “Well, where is the horse?” I asked.

  The lad pointed to the stable. “He’s in there.”

  I went inside. At one end stood a high, open-topped loose box with a metal grill topping the wooden walls and from within I heard a deep-throated whinnying and snorting followed by a series of tremendous thuds against the sides of the box. A chill crept through me. That was no little colt in there.

  I opened the top half door and there, looking down at me, was an enormous animal; I hadn’t realised horses ever came quite as big as this; a chestnut stallion with a proud arch to his neck and feet like manhole covers. Surging swathes of muscle shone on his shoulders and quarters and when he saw me he laid back his ears, showed the whites of his eyes and lashed out viciously against the wall. A foot-long splinter flew high in the air as the great hoof crashed against the boards.

  “God almighty,” I breathed and closed the half door hurriedly. I leaned my back against the door and listened to my heart thumping.

  I turned to the lad. “How old is that horse?”

  “Over six years, sir.”

  I tried a little calm thinking. How did you go about tackling a man-eater like this? I had never seen such a horse—he must weigh over a ton. I shook myself; I hadn’t even had a look at the tumour I was supposed to remove. I lifted the latch, opened the door about two inches and peeped inside. I could see it plainly dangling from the belly; probably a papilloma, about the size of a cricket ball, with a lobulated surface which made it look like a little cauliflower. It swung gently from side to side as the horse moved about.

  No trouble to take it off. Nice narrow neck to it; a few c.c.’s of local in there and I could twist it off easily with the spoons.

  But the snag was obvious. I would have to go under that shining barrel of an abdomen within easy reach of the great feet and stick a needle into those few inches of skin. Not a happy thought.

  But I pulled my mind back to practical things; like a bucket of hot water, soap and a towel. And I’d need a good man on the twitch. I began to walk towards the house.

  There was no answer to my knock. I tried again; still nothing—there was nobody at home. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to leave everything till another day; the idea of going round the buildings and fields till I found somebody never entered my head.

  I almost broke into a gallop on my way to the car, backed it round with the tyres squealing and roared out of the yard.

  Siegfried was surprised. “Nobody there? Well that’s a damn funny thing. I’m nearly sure they were expecting you today. But never mind, it’s in your hands, James. Give them a ring and fix it up again as soon as possible.”

  I found it wonderfully easy to forget about the stallion over the days and weeks that followed; except when my defences were down. At least once a night it thundered through my dreams with gaping nostrils and flying mane and I developed an uncomfortable habit of coming bolt awake at five o’clock in the morning and starting immediately to operate on the ho