Vets Might Fly Read online

  "Stop them! Stop them!" screamed the little peer, but it was of no

  avail. A hairy torrent flooded through the opening and in no time at

  all the herd was legging it back to the high land in a wild stampede.

  The men followed them and within a few moments Lord Hulton and I were

  standing there just as before watching the tiny figures on the skyline,

  listening to the distant

  "Haow, haow!"

  "Gerraway by!"

  "I say," he murmured despondently.

  "It didn't work terribly well, did it!"

  But he was made of stern stuff. Seizing his hammer he began to bang

  away with undiminished enthusiasm and by the time the beasts returned

  the crush was rebuilt and a stout iron bar pushed across the front to

  prevent further break-outs.

  It seemed to solve the problem because the first cow, confronted by the

  bar, stood quietly and I was able to clip the hair on her neck through

  an opening between the planks. Lord Hulton, in high good humour,

  settled down on an upturned oil drum with my testing book on his

  knee.

  "I'll do the writing for you," he cried.

  "Fire away, old chap!"

  I poised my calipers.

  "Eight, eight." He wrote it down and the next cow came in.

  "Eight, eight," I said, and he bowed his head again.

  The third cow arrived: "Eight, eight." And the fourth,

  "Eight, eight."

  His lordship looked up from the book and passed a weary hand across his

  forehead.

  "Herriot, dear boy, can't you vary it a bit? I'm beginning to lose

  interest."

  All went well until we saw the cow which had originally smashed the

  crush.

  She had sustained a slight scratch on her neck.

  "I say, look at that!" cried the peer.

  "Will it be all right?"

  "Oh yes, it's nothing. Superficial."

  "Ah, good, but don't you think we should have something to put on it?

  Some of that . . ."

  I waited for it. Lord Hulton was a devotee of May and Baker's

  Propamidine Cream and used it for all minor cuts and grazes in his

  cattle. He loved the stuff.

  But unfortunately he couldn't say

  "Propamidine'. In fact nobody on the entire establishment could say it

  except Charlie the farm foreman and he only thought he could say it. He

  called it

  "Propopamide' but his lordship had the utmost faith in him.

  "Charlie!" he bawled.

  "Are you there, Charlie?"

  The foreman appeared from the pack in the yard and touched his cap.

  "Yes, m'lord."

  "Charlie, that wonderful stuff we get from Mr Herriot - you know, for

  cut teats and things. Pro . .. Pero . . . what the hell do you call

  it again?"

  Charlie paused. It was one of his big moments.

  "Propopamide, m'lord."

  The marquis, intensely gratified, slapped the knee of his dungarees.

  "That's it, Propopamide! Damned if I can get my tongue round it. Well

  done, Charlie!"

  Charlie inclined his head modestly.

  The whole test was a vast improvement on last time and we were finished

  within an hour and a half. There was just one tragedy. About half way

  through, one of the cows dropped down dead with an attack of

  hypomagnesaemia, a condition which often plagues sucklers. It was a

  sudden, painless collapse and I had no chance to do any thing Lord

  Hulton looked down at the animal which had just stopped breathing.

  "Do you think we could salvage her for meat if we bled her?"

  "Well, it's typical hypomag. Nothing to harm anybody . . . you could

  try. It would depend on what the meat inspector says."

  The cow was bled, pulled into a van and the peer drove off to the

  abattoir.

  He came back just as we were finishing the test.

  "How did you get on?" I asked him.

  "Did they accept her?"

  He hesitated.

  "No . . . no, old chap," he said sadly.

  "I'm afraid they didn't."

  "Why? Did the meat inspector condemn the carcass?"

  "Well . . . I never got as far as the meat inspector, actually . . .

  just saw one of the slaughter men."

  "And what did he say?"

  "Just two words, Herriot."

  "Two words . . . ?"

  "Yes . . .

  "Bugger off!" ' I nodded.

  "I see." It was easy to imagine the scene. The tough slaughter man

  viewing the small, unimpressive figure and deciding that he wasn't

  going to be put out of his routine by some ragged farm man.

  "Well, never mind, sir," I said.

  "You can only try."

  "True . . . true, old chap." He dropped a few matches as he fumbled

  disconsolately with his smoking equipment.

  As I was get ting into the car I remembered about the Propamidine.

  "Don't forget to call down for that cream, will you?"

  "Ely Jove, yes! I'll come down for it after lunch. I have great faith

  in that Prom . . . Pram . . . Charlie! Damn and blast, what is

  it?"

  Charlie drew himself up proudly.

  "Propopamide, m'lord."

  "Ah yes, Propopamide!" The little man laughed, his good humour quite

  restored.

  "Good lad, Charlie, you're a marvel!"

  "Thank you, m'lord." The foreman wore the smug expression of the

  expert as he drove the cattle back into the field.

  It's a funny thing, but when you see a client about something you very

  often see him soon again about something else. It was only a week

  later, with the district still in the iron grip of winter, that my

  bedside 'phone jangled me from slumber.

  After that first palpitation of the heart which I feel does vets no

  good at all I reached a sleepy hand from under the sheets.

  "Yes?" I grunted.

  "Herriot ... I say, Herriot ... is that you, Herriot?" The voice

  was laden with tension.

  "Yes, it is, Lord Hulton."

  "Oh good . . . good . . . dash it, I do apologise. Frightfully bad

  show, waking you up like this . . . but I've got something damn

  peculiar here." A soft pattering followed which I took to be matches

  falling around the receiver.

  "Really?" I yawned and my eyes closed involuntarily.

  "In what way, exactly?"

  "Well, I've been sitting up with one of my best sows. Been farrowing

  and produced twelve nice piglets, but there's something very odd."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Difficult to describe, old chap . . . but you know the . . . er . .

  . bottom aperture . . . there's a bloody great long red thing hanging

  from it."

  My eyes snapped open and my mouth gaped in a soundless scream.

  Prolapsed uterus! Hard labour in cows, a pleasant exercise in ewes,

  impossible in sows.

  "Long red . . . ! When . . . ? How . . . ?" I was stammering

  pointlessly. I didn't have to ask.

  "Just popped it out, dear boy. I was waiting for another piglet and

  whoops, there it was. Gave me a nasty turn."

  My toes curled tightly beneath the blankets. It was no good telling

  him that I had seen five prolapsed uteri in pigs in my limited

  experience and had failed in every case. I had come to the conclusion

  that there was no way of putting them