Let Sleeping Vets Lie Read online

  fact that the old man should find the idea of my bullet less repugnant

  than the: knacker man's. Mr. Gilling was waiting in the box and by his

  side Cliff,~ shoulders hunched, hands deep in his pockets. He turned to

  me with a strange smile. :

  "I was just saying to t'boss how grand t'awd lad used to look when I got

  'im up for a show. By Gaw you should have seen him with 'is coat

  polished and the~ feathers on his legs scrubbed as white as snow and a

  big blue ribbon round his tail."

  "I can imagine it, Cliff," I said. "Nobody could have looked after; him

  better."

  He took his hands from his pockets, crouched by the prostrate animal and

  for: a few minutes stroked the white-flecked neck and pulled at the ears

  while the old sunken eye looked at him impassively.

  He began to speak softly to the old horse but his voice was steady,

  almost conversational, as though he was chatting to a friend.

  "Many's the thousand miles I've walked after you, awd lad, and many's

  the talk we've had together. But I didn't have to say much to the, did

  I? I reckon you knew every move I made, everything I said. Just one

  little word and you always did what ah wanted you to do."

  He rose to his feet. "I'll get on with me work now, boss," he said

  firmly, and: strode out of the box.

  I waited awhile so that he would not hear the bang which signalled the

  end of Badger, the end of the horses of Harland Grange and the end of

  the sweet core of Cliff Tyreman's life.

  As I was leaving I saw the little man again. He was mounting the iron

  seat of a roaring tractor and I shouted to him above the noise.

  "The boss says he's going to get some sheep in and you'll be doing a bit

  shepherding. I think you'll enjoy that."

  Cliffs undefeated grin flashed out as he called back to me.

  "Aye, I don't mind learnin" summat new. I'm nobbut a lad yet!"

  :

  :

  _

  Chapter Sixteen.

  This was a different kind of ringing. I had gone to sleep as the great

  bells in the church tower down the street pealed for the Christmas

  midnight mass, but this was a sharper, shriller sound.

  It was difficult at first to shake off the mantle of unreality in which

  I had wrapped myself last night. Last night - Christmas Eve. It had been

  like a culmination of all the ideas I had ever held about Christmas - a

  flowering of emotions I had never experienced before. It had been

  growing in me since the afternoon call to a tiny village where the snow

  lay deep on the single street and on the walls and on the ledges of the

  windows where the lights on the tinselled trees glowed red and blue and

  gold; and as I left it in the dusk I drove beneath the laden branches of

  a group of dark spruce as motionless as though they had been sketched

  against the white background of the fields. And when I reached Darrowby

  it was dark and around the market place the little shops were bright

  with decorations and the light from the windows fell in a soft yellow

  wash over the trodden snow of the cobbles. People, anonymously muffled,

  were hurrying about, doing their last minute shopping, their feet

  slithering over the rounded stones.

  I had known many Christmases in Scotland but they had taken second place

  to the New Year celebrations; there had been none of this air of subdued

  excitement which started days before with folks shouting good wishes and

  coloured lights winking on the lonely fell-sides and the farmers" wives

  plucking the fat geese, the feathers piled deep around their feet. And

  for fully two weeks you heard the children piping carols in the street

  then knocking on the door for sixpences. And best of all, last night the

  Methodist choir and sung out there, filling the night air with rich,

  thrilling harmony.

  Before going to bed and just as the church bells began, I closed the

  door of Skeldale House behind me and walked again into the market place.

  Nothing stirred now in the white square stretching smooth and cold and

  empty under the moon, and there was a Dickens look about the ring of

  houses and shops put together long before anybody thought of town

  planning; tall and short, fat and thin, Squashed in crazily around the

  cobbles, their snow-burdened roofs jagged and uneven against the frosty

  sky.

  As I walked back, the snow crunching under my feet, the bells clanging,

  the sharp air tingling in my nostrils, the wonder and mystery of

  Christmas enveloped me in a great wave. Peace on earth, goodwill towards

  men; the words became meaningful as never before and I saw myself

  suddenly as a tiny particle in the Scheme of things; Darrowby, the

  farmers, the animals and me seemed for the first time like a warm,

  comfortable entity. I hadn't been drinking but I almost floated up the

  stairs of Skeldale House to my bedroom.

  The temperature up there was about the same as in the street. It was

  always !like that and I had developed the habit of hurling off my

  clothes and leaping Into bed before the freezing air could get at me,

  but tonight my movements were leisurely and when I finally crawled

  between the sheets I was still wallowing in my Yuletide euphoria. There

  wouldn't be much work tomorrow; I'd have a long lie - maybe till nine

  and then a lazy day, a glorious hiatus in my busy life. As I drifted

  into sleep it was as though I was surrounded by the smiling; faces of my

  clients looking down at me with an all-embracing benevolence; and

  strangely I fancied I could hear Singing, sweet and haunting, just like

  the ~ methodist choir - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen ... l But now there

  was this other bell which wouldn't stop. Must be the alarm. :] But as I

  pawed at the clock the noise continued and I saw that it was six

  o'clock.

  It was the phone of course. I lifted the receiver A metallic voice,

  crisp and very Wideawake jarred in my ear. "Is that the vet?"

  "Yes, Herriot speaking," I mumbled "This is Brown, Willet Hill. I've got

  a cow down with milk fever. I want you here quick."

  "Right, I'll see to it."

  "Don't take ower long." Then a click at the far end.

  I rolled on to my back and stared at the ceiling. So this was Christmas

  Day The :lay when I was going to step out of the world for a spell and

  luxuriate in the seasonal spirit. I hadn't bargained for this fellow

  jerking me brutally back to reality. And not a word of regret Or

  apology. No 'sorry to get you out of bed", or anything else, never mind

  "Merry Christmas". It was just a bit hard.

  Mr. Brown was waiting for me in the darkness of the farmyard. I had been

  to his place a few times before and as my headlights blazed on him I was

  struck, as always, by his appearance of perfect physical fitness. He was

  a gingery man of about forty with high cheekbones set in a

  sharp-featured clear-skinned face. Red hair peeped from under a check

  cap and a faint auburn down covered his cheeks, his neck, the backs of

  his hands. It made me a bit more sleepy just to look at him.

  He didn't say good morning but nodded briefly then jerked his head in

  the direction of