Vets Might Fly Read online

  carrying a purse. At the gate she stopped and faced me.

  "Ten shill in's, wasn't it?"

  "That's right."

  She rummaged in the purse for some time before pulling out a

  ten-shilling note which was regarded sadly.

  "Oh Georgina, Georgina, you are an expensive pussy," she

  soliloquised.

  Tentatively I began to extend my hand but she pulled the note away.

  "Just a minute, I'm forget tin'. You 'ave to take the stitches out,

  don't you?"

  "Yes, in ten days."

  She set her lips firmly.

  "Well there's plenty of time to pay ye then ye'll be here again."

  "Here again . . .? But you can't expect . . ."

  "I all us think it's unlucky to pay afore a job's finished," she

  said.

  "Sum mat terrible might happen to Georgina."

  "But... but..."

  "Nay, ah've made up me mind," she said. She replaced the money and

  snapped her purse shut with an air of finality before turning towards

  the house.

  Halfway up the path she looked over her shoulder and smiled.

  "Aye, that's what I'll do. I'll pay ye when ye come back."

  Chapter Nineteen ~_ We were ready to march away from Scar borough. And

  it was ironical that we were leaving just when the place was beginning

  to smile on us. `11 In the May sunshine we stood on parade outside the

  Grand at 7 a.m. as ~ had done throughout the Yorkshire winter, mostly

  in darkness, often with the.

  know I'm your friend."

  r ~ ~'l`,gl`` ~ ~y `,~, icy rain blowing in our faces. But now I felt

  a pang of regret as I looked over the heads at the wide beautiful bay

  stretching beneath its cliffs to the far headland, the sand

  clean-washed and inviting, the great blue expanse of sea Shimmering and

  glittering and over everything the delicious sea-smell of salt and

  seaweed, raising memories of holidays and happy things lost in the

  war.

  "At ten-shun!" Flight Sergeant Blacken's bellow rolled over us as we

  stiffened in our ranks, every man carrying full kit, our packs braced

  with sheets of cardboard to give the sharp, rectangular look, hair cut

  short, boots gleaming, buttons shining like gold. Without our knowing,

  No. ten ITW had moulded us into a smart, disciplined unit, very

  different from the shambling, half-baked crew of six months ago. We

  had all passed our exams and were no longer AC2s but Leading Aircraft

  men, and as LAC Herriot my wage had rocketed from three shillings to a

  dizzying seven and threepence a day.

  "Right turn!" Again the roar.

  "By the left qui-ick march!"

  Arms high, moving as one, we swung past the front of the Grand for the

  last time. I shot a parting glance at the great building like a

  dignified Victorian lady stripped of her finery and I made a resolve. I

  would come back some day, when the war was over, and see the Grand

  Hotel as it should be.

  And I did, too. Years later, Helen and I sat in deep armchairs in the

  lounge where the SPs had barked. Waiters padded over the thick carpets

  with tea and muffins while a string orchestra played selections from

  Rose Marie.

  And in the evening we dined in the elegant room with its long unbroken

  line of window loo king down on the sea. This room had been the cold

  open terrace where I learned to read the Aldis lamp flickering from the

  lighthouse, but now we sat in luxurious warmth eating grilled sole and

  watching the lights of the harbour and town beginning to wink in the

  gathering dusk.

  But that was very much in the future as the tramping feet echoed along

  Hunt riss Row on the way to the station and the long lines of blue left

  the emptying square. We didn't know where we were going, everything

  was uncertain.

  Black's Veterinary Dictionary' dug into my back through the layer of

  cardboard.

  It was an unwieldy article but it reminded me of good days and gave me

  hope of more to come.

  Chapter Twenty "It's the same the whole world over, it's the poor wot

  gets the blame. It's the rich wot gets the pleasure . . ."

  We were on a 'toughening course', living under canvas in the depths of

  Shropshire, and this was one of the occasions when we were all gathered

  together - hundreds of sunburned men in a huge marquee waiting to be

  addressed by a visiting air commodore Before the great man arrived the

  platform was occupied by a lascivious sergeant who was whittling away

  the time by leading us in a succession of bawdy ditties accom panied by

  gestures.

  "It's the rich wot gets the . . ." but instead of pleasure, he made a

  series of violent pumping movements with his forearm.

  I was intrigued by the reaction of the airman on my right. He was a

  slim, pink-faced lad of about nineteen and his lank fair hair fell over

  his face as jumped up and down. He was really throwing himself into

  it, bawling out indelicate words, duplicating the sergeant's

  gesticulations with maniacal E He was, I had recently learned, the son

  of a bishop.

  We had been joined on this course by the Oxford University air Squad'

  They were a group of superior and delicately nurtured young men and sin

  had spent three full days peeling potatoes with them I had come to know

  n of them very well.

  "Spud bashing' is an unequalled method of becoming familiar with one's

  fellow men and as, hour after hour, we filled countless bins with

  produce, the barriers crumbled steadily until at the end of three days

  we didn't' have many secrets from each other.

  The bishop's son had found something hilarious in the idea of a

  qualified veterinary surgeon leaving his practice to succour his

  country by removing skins from thousands of tubers. And I, on the

  other hand, derived some reward from watching his antics. He was a

  charming and likeable lad but he sei avidly on any thing with the

  faintest salacious slant. They say persons' sons a bit wild when let

  off the leash, and I suppose an escapee from a bish~ palace is even

  more susceptible to the blandishments of the big world.

  I looked at him again. All round him men were yelling their heads off,

  his voice, mouthing the four-letter words with relish, rang above the

  rest he followed the actions of the conducting sergeant like a devoted

  acolyte.

  It was all so different from Darrow by. My early days in the RAF with

  the swearing and uninhibited conversation made me realise, perhaps for

  the first time, what kind of a community I had left behind me. Because

  I often think t one of the least permissive societies in the history of

  mankind was the agricultural community of rural Yorkshire in the

  thirties. Among the farmers any thing: do with sex or the natural

  functions was unmentionable. .i.

  It made my work more difficult because if the animal's ailment had

  slightest sexual connotation its owner would refuse to go into details

  if Helen or our secretary Miss Harbottle answered the 'phone.

  "I want the vet to to and see a cow," was as far as they would go. _

  Today's case was typical and I looked at Mr Hop ps with some

  irri