Let Sleeping Vets Lie Read online

  and grinning sheepishly moved with care along the side of the horse. He

  passed Cliff on the way and the little man's head didn't . reach his

  shoulder. :.

  Cliff seemed thoroughly insulted by the whole business. He took hold of

  the I head collar and regarded the big animal with the disapproving

  stare of a schoolmaster at a naughty child. The horse, still in the mood

  for trouble, laid i back his ears and began to plunge about the stall,

  his huge feet clattering ominously on the stone floor, but he came to

  rest quickly as the little man uppercutted him furiously in the ribs.

  "Get stood up straight there, ye big bugger. What's the matter with ye?"

  Cliff barked and again he planted his tiny fist against the swelling

  barrel of the chest, ' a puny blow which the animal could scarcely have

  felt but which reduced him to quivering submission. "Try to kick, would

  you, eh? I'll bloody fettle you!" He shook the head collar and fixed the

  horse with a hypnotic stare as he spoke. Then he turned to me. "You can

  come and do your job, Mr. Herriot, he won't hurt tha."

  I looked irresolutely at the huge, lethal animal. Stepping open-eyed

  into 4' dangerous situations is something vets are called upon regularly

  to do and I suppose we all react differently. I know there were times

  when an over-vivid imagination made me acutely aware of the dire

  possibilities and now my mind seemed to be dwelling voluptuously on the

  frightful power in those enormous shining quarters on the unyielding

  flintiness of the spatulate feet with their rims of metal. Cliff's voice

  cut into my musings. ~

  "Come on, Mr. Herriot, I tell ye he won't hurt tha."

  I reopened my box and tremblingly threaded another needle. I didn't seem

  to have much option; the little man wasn't asking me, he was telling me.

  I'd have to try again.

  I couldn't have been a very impressive sight as I shuffled forwards,

  almost tripping over the tattered hula-hula skirt which dangled in front

  of me, my shaking hands reaching out once more for the wound, my heart

  thundering in my ears. But I needn't have worried. It was just as the

  little man had said; he didn't hurt me. In fact he never moved. He

  seemed to be listening attentively to the muttering which Cliff was

  directing into his face from a few inches" range. I powdered and

  stitched and clipped as though working on an anatomical specimen.

  Chloroform couldn't have done it any better.

  As I retreated thankfully from the stall and began again to put away my

  instruments the monologue at the horse's head began to change its

  character.

  The menacing growl was replaced by a wheedling, teasing chuckle. ::

  "Well, ye see, you're just a daft awd bugger, getting yourself all

  airigated over nowt. You're a good lad, really, aren't ye, a real good

  lad." Cliff's hand ran caressingly over the neck and the towering animal

  began to nuzzle his cheek, as completely in his sway as any Labrador

  puppy.

  When he had finished he came slowly from the stall, stroking the back,

  ribs, belly and quarters, even giving a playful tweak at the tail on

  parting while what had been a few minutes ago an explosive mountain of

  bone and muscle submitted happily.

  I pulled a packet of Gold Flake from my pocket. "Cliff, you're a marvel.

  Will you have a cigarette?"

  "It 'ud be like givin" a pig a strawberry," the little man replied, then

  he thrust forth his tongue on which reposed a half-chewed gobbet of

  tobacco. "It's allus there. Ah push it in just thing every mornin" soon

  as I get out of bed and there it stays. You'd never know, would you?"

  I must have looked comically surprised because the dark eyes gleamed ann

  the rugged little face split into a delighted grin. I looked at that

  grin - boyish, invincible - and reflected on the phenomenon that was

  Cliff Tyreman.

  In a community in which toughness and durability was the norm he stood

  out as something exceptional. When I had first seen him nearly three

  years ago barging among cattle, grabbing their noses and hanging on

  effortlessly, I had put him down as an unusually fit middle-aged man;

  but he was in fact nearly seventy There wasn't much of him but he was

  formidable; with his long arms swinging, his stumping, pigeon-toed gait

  and his lowered head he seemed always to be butting his way through

  life.

  "I didn't expect to see you today," I said. "I heard you had pneumonia."

  He shrugged. "Aye, summat of t'sort. First time I've ever been off work

  since I was a lad."

  "And you should be in your bed now, I should say." I looked at the

  heaving chest and partly open mouth. "I could hear you wheezing away

  when you were at the horse's head."

  "Nay, I can't stick that nohow. I'll be right in a day or two." He

  seized a shovel and began busily clearing away the heap of manure behind

  the horse, his breathing loud and stertorous in the silence.

  Harland Grange was a large, mainly arable farm in the low country at the

  foot of the Dale, and there had been a time when this stable had had a

  horse standing in every one of the long row of stalls. There had been

  over twenty with at least twelve regularly at work, but now there were

  only two, the young horse I had been treating and an ancient grey called

  Badger.

  Cliff had been head horseman and when the revolution came he turned to

  tractoring and other jobs around the farm with no fuss at all. This was

  typical of the reaction of thousands of other farm workers throughout

  the country; they didn't set up a howl at having to abandon the skills

  of a lifetime and start anew - they just got on with it. In fact, the

  younger men seized avidly upon the new machines and proved themselves

  natural mechanics.

  But to the old experts like Cliff, something had gone. He would say:

  "It's a bloody sight easier sitting on a tractor - it used to play 'elf

  with me feet walking up and down them fields all day." But he couldn't

  lose his love of horses; the fellow feeling between working man and

  working beast which had grown in him since childhood and was in his

  blood forever.

  My next visit to the farm was to see a fat bullock with a piece of

  turnip stuck in his throat but while I was there, the farmer, Mr.

  Gilling, asked me to have a look at old Badger.

  "He's had a bit of a cough lately. Maybe it's just his age, but see what

  you The old horse was the sole occupant of the stable now. "I've sold

  the three year old," Mr. Gilling said. "But I'll still keep the old 'un

  he'll be useful for a bit of light carting."

  I glanced sideways at the farmer's granite features. He looked the least

  sentimental of men but I knew why he was keeping the old horse. It was

  for "Cliff will be pleased, anyway," I said.

  Mr. Gilling nodded. "Aye, I never knew such a feller for 'osses. He was

  never happier than when he was with them." He gave a short laugh. "Do

  you know, I can remember years ago when he used to fall out with his

  missus he'd come down to this stable of a night and sit among his

  'osses. Just sit here for