Vets Might Fly Read online

  "And could an operation cure it?"

  yes, Ted, it's one of the most satisfying jobs a vet can do. I always

  feel I've done a dog a good turn when I've finished."

  ~Aye, ah bet you do. It must be a nice feel in'. But it'll be a

  costly job, ah reckon ?"

  I smiled wryly.

  "It depends how you look at it. It's a fiddly business and takes time

  We usually charge about a pound for it." A human surgeon would laugh

  at a sum like that, but it would still be too much for old Albert.

  For a few moments we were both silent, loo king across the room at the

  old man, at the threadbare coat, the long tatter of trouser bottoms

  falling over the broken boots. A pound was two weeks of the old age

  pension. It was a fortune.

  Ted got up suddenly.

  "Any road, somebody ought to tell 'im. Ah'll explain it to'im."

  He crossed the room.

  "Are ye ready for another, Albert?"

  The old shepherd glanced at him absently then indicated his glass,

  empty again.

  "Aye, ye can put a drop i' there, Ted."

  The cowman waved to Mr Waters then bent down.

  "Did ye understand what Mr Herriot was tell in' ye, Albert?" he

  shouted.

  "Aye . . aye . . . Mick's got a bit o'caud in 'is eyes."

  "Nay, 'e hasn't! it's nowt of t'soart! It's a en . . . a en . . .

  sum mat different."

  "Keeps get tin' caud in 'em." Albert mumbled, nose in glass.

  Ted yelled in exasperation.

  "Ye daft awd divil! Listen to what ah'm say in' ye' ve got to take

  care of 'im and . . ."

  But the old man was far away.

  "Ever sin 'e were a pup . . . all us been subjeck to it...."

  Though Mick took my mind off my own troubles at the time, the memory of

  those eyes haunted me for days. I yearned to get my hands on them. I

  knew an hour's work would transport the old dog into a world he perhaps

  had not known for years, and every instinct told me to rush back to Cop

  ton, throw him in the car and bear him back to Darrow by for surgery. I

  wasn't worried about the money but you just can't run a practice that

  way.

  I regularly saw lame dogs on farms, skinny cats on the streets and it

  would have been lovely to descend on each and every one and minister to

  them out of my knowledge. In fact I had tried a bit of it and it

  didn't work.

  It was Ted Dobson who put me out of my pain. He had come in to the

  town to see his sister for the evening and he stood leaning on his

  bicycle in the surgery doorway, his cheerful, scrubbed face gleaming as

  if it would light up the street.

  He came straight to the point.

  "Will ye do that operation on awd Mick, Mr Herriot ?"

  "Yes, of course, but . . . how about . . . ?"

  "Oh that'll be right. T'lads at Fox and Hounds are see in' to it.

  We're takin' it out of the club money."

  "Club money?"

  "Aye, we put in a bit every week for an out in' in "'summer. Trip to

  "'seaside or sum mat like."

  "Well it's extremely kind of you, Ted, but are you quite sure? Won't

  any of them mind?"

  Ted laughed.

  "Nay, it's nowt, we won't miss a quid. We drink ower much on them do's

  anyway." He paused.

  "All t'lads want this job done it's been get tin' on our bloody nerves

  watch in' ttawd dog ever since you told us about "Im."

  "Well, that's great," I said.

  "How will you get him down?"

  "Me boss is len din' me'is van. Wednesday night be all right?"

  "Fine." I watched him ride away then turned back along the passage. It

  may seem to modern eyes that a lot of fuss had been made over a pound

  but in those days it was a very substantial sum, and some idea may be

  gained from the fact that four pounds a week was my commencing salary

  as a veterinary surgeon.

  When Wednesday night arrived it was clear that Mick's operation had

  become something of a gala occasion. The little van was crammed with

  regulars from the Fox and Hounds and others rolled up on their

  bicycles.

  The old dog slunk fearfully down the passage to the operating room,

  nostrils twitching at the unfamiliar odours of ether and antiseptic.

  Behind him trooped the noisy throng of farm men, their heavy boots

  clattering on the tiles.

  Tristan, who was doing the anaesthesia, hoisted the dog on the table

  and I looked around at the unusual spectacle of rows of faces regarding

  me with keen anticipation Normally I am not in favour of lay people

  witnessing operations but since these men were sponsoring the whole

  thing they would have to stay.

  Under the lamp I got my first good look at Mick. He was a handsome,

  well-marked animal except for those dreadful eyes. As he sat there he

  opened them a fraction and peered at me for a painful moment before

  closing them against the bright light; that, I felt, was how he spent

  his life, squinting carefully and briefly at his surroundings. Giving

  him the intravenous barbiturate was like doing him a favour, ridding

  him of his torment for a while.

  And when he was stretched unconscious on his side I was able to carry

  out my first examination. I parted the lids, wincing at the matted

  lashes, awash with tears and discharge; there was a long standing

  keratitis and conjunctivitis but with a gush of relief I found that the

  cornea was not ulcerated.

  "You know," I said.

  "This is a mess, but I don't think there's any permanent damage."

  The farm men didn't exactly break into a cheer but they were enormously

  pleased. The carnival air was heightened as they chattered and laughed

  and when I poised my scalpel it struck me that I had never operated in

  such a noisy environment.

  But I felt almost gleeful as I made the first incision; I had been loo

  king forward so much to this moment. Starting with the left eye I cut

  along the full length parallel to the margin of the lid then made a

  semicircular sweep of the knife to include half an inch of the tissue

  above the eye. Seizing the skin with forceps I stripped it away, and

  as I drew the lips of the bleeding wound together with stitches I

  noticed with intense gratification how the lashes were pulled high and

  away from the corneal surface they had irritated, perhaps for years.

  I cut away less skin from the lower lid you never need to take so much

  there - then started on the right eye. I was slicing away happily when

  I realised that the noise had subsided; there were a few mutterings,

  but the chaff and laughter had died. I glanced up and saw big Ken

  Appleton, the horseman from Laurel Grove; it was natural that he should

  catch my eye, Because he was six feet four and built like the Shires he

  cared for.

  "By yaw, it'sot in 'ere," he whispered, and I could see he meant it

  because sweat was streaming down his face.

  I was engrossed in my work or I would have noticed that he wasn't only

  sweating but deadly pale. I was stripping the skin from the eyelid

  when I heard Tristan's yell.

  "Catch him!"

  The big man's surrounding friends supported him as he slid gently to

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