All Creatures Great and Small Read online

  It seemed to me that all the forces of black magic had broken through and were engulfing me and that my slender resources of science had no chance of shoring up the dyke. I don’t know how I heard the creaking sound above the din—probably because I was bending low over Mr. Reynolds in an attempt to persuade him to desist from his tail rubbing. But at that moment the cow shifted her position slightly and I distinctly heard it. It came from the pelvis.

  It took me some time to attract attention—I think everybody had forgotten I was there—but finally the dogs were separated and secured with innumerable lengths of binder twine, everybody stopped shouting, Mr. Reynolds was pulled away from the tail and I had the stage.

  I addressed myself to Mr. Handshaw. “Would you get me a bucket of hot water, some soap and a towel, please.”

  He trailed off, grumbling, as though he didn’t expect much from the new gambit. My stock was definitely low.

  I stripped off my jacket, soaped my arms and pushed a hand into the cow’s rectum until I felt the hard bone of the pubis. Gripping it through the wall of the rectum I looked up at my audience. “Will two of you get hold of the hook bones and rock the cow gently from side to side.”

  Yes, there it was again, no mistake about it. I could both hear and feel it—a looseness, a faint creaking, almost a grating.

  I got up and washed my arm. “Well, I know why your cow won’t get up—she has a broken pelvis. Probably did it during the first night when she was staggering about with the milk fever. I should think the nerves are damaged, too. It’s hopeless, I’m afraid.” Even though I was dispensing bad news it was a relief to come up with something rational.

  Mr. Handshaw stared at me. “Hopeless? How’s that?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but that’s how it is. The only thing you can do is get her off to the butcher. She has no power in her hind legs. She’ll never get up again.”

  That was when Mr. Handshaw really blew his top and started a lengthy speech. He wasn’t really unpleasant or abusive but firmly pointed out my shortcomings and bemoaned again the tragic fact that his dad was not there to put everything right. The other farmers stood in a wide-eyed ring, enjoying every word.

  At the end of it I took myself off. There was nothing more I could do and anyway Mr. Handshaw would have to come round to my way of thinking. Time would prove me right.

  I thought of that cow as soon as I awoke next morning. It hadn’t been a happy episode but at least I did feel a certain peace in the knowledge that there were no more doubts. I knew what was wrong, I knew that there was no hope. There was nothing more to worry about.

  I was surprised when I heard Mr. Handshaw’s voice on the phone so soon. I had thought it would take him two or three days to realise he was wrong.

  “Is that Mr. Herriot? Aye, well, good rnornin’ to you. I’m just ringing to tell you that me cow’s up on her legs and doing fine.”

  I gripped the receiver tightly with both hands.

  “What? What’s that you say?”

  “I said me cow’s up. Found her walking about byre this morning, fit as a fiddle. You’d think there’d never been owt the matter with her.” He paused for a few moments then spoke with grave deliberation like a disapproving schoolmaster. “And you stood there and looked at me and said she’d never get up n’more.”

  “But … but …”

  “Ah, you’re wondering how I did it? Well, I just happened to remember another old trick of me dad’s. I went round to t’butcher and got a fresh-killed sheep skin and put it on her back. Had her up in no time—you’ll ’ave to come round and see her. Wonderful man was me dad.”

  Blindly I made my way into the dining-room. I had to consult my boss about this. Siegfried’s sleep had been broken by a 3 a.m. calving and he looked a lot older than his thirty-odd years. He listened in silence as he finished his breakfast then pushed away his plate and poured a last cup of coffee. “Hard luck, James. The old sheep skin, eh? Funny thing—you’ve been in the Dales over a year now and never come across that one. Suppose it must be going out of fashion a bit now but you know it has a grain of sense behind it like a lot of these old remedies. You can imagine there’s a lot of heat generated under a fresh sheep skin and it acts like a great hot poultice on the back—really tickles them up after a while, and if a cow is lying there out of sheer cussedness she’ll often get up just to get rid of it.”

  “But damn it, how about the broken pelvis? I tell you it was creaking and wobbling all over the place!”

  “Well, James, you’re not the first to have been caught that way. Sometimes the pelvic ligaments don’t tighten up for a few days after calving and you get this effect.”

  “Oh God,” I moaned, staring down at the table cloth. “What a bloody mess I’ve made of the whole thing.”

  “Oh, you haven’t really.” Siegfried lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “That old cow was probably toying with the idea of getting up for a walk just when old Handshaw dumped the skin on her back. She could just as easily have done it after one of your injections and then you’d have got the credit. Don’t you remember what I told you when you first came here? There’s a very fine dividing line between looking a real smart vet on the one hand and an immortal fool on the other. This sort of thing happens to us all, so forget it, James.”

  But forgetting wasn’t so easy. That cow became a celebrity in the district. Mr. Handshaw showed her with pride to the postman, the policeman, corn merchants, lorry drivers, fertiliser salesmen, Ministry of Agriculture officials and they all told me about it frequently with pleased smiles. Mr. Handshaw’s speech was always the same, delivered, they said, in ringing, triumphant tones:

  “There’s the cow that Mr. Herriot said would never get up n’more!”

  I’m sure there was no malice behind the farmer’s actions. He had put one over on the young clever-pants vet and nobody could blame him for preening himself a little. And in a way I did that cow a good turn; I considerably extended her life span, because Mr. Handshaw kept her long beyond her normal working period just as an exhibit. Years after she had stopped giving more than a couple of gallons of milk a day she was still grazing happily in the field by the roadside.

  She had one curiously upturned horn and was easy to recognise. I often pulled up my car and looked wistfully over the wall at the cow that would never get up n’more.

  THIRTY-THREE

  SIEGFRIED CAME AWAY FROM the telephone; his face was expressionless. “That was Mrs. Pumphrey. She wants you to see her pig.”

  “Peke, you mean,” I said.

  “No, pig. She has a six-week-old pig she wants you to examine for soundness.”

  I laughed sheepishly. My relations with the elderly widow’s Peke was a touchy subject. “All right, all right, don’t start again. What did she really want? Is Tricki Woo’s bottom playing him up again?”

  “James,” said Siegfried gravely. “It is unlike you to doubt my word in this way. I will repeat the message from Mrs. Pumphrey and then I shall expect you to act upon it immediately and without further question. The lady informed me that she has become the owner of a six-week-old piglet and she wants the animal thoroughly vetted. You know how I feel about these examinations and I don’t want the job scamped in any way. I should pay particular attention to its wind—have it well galloped round a paddock before you get your stethoscope on it and for heaven’s sake don’t miss anything obvious like curbs or ringbones. I think I’d take its height while you’re about it; you’ll find the measuring stick in …”

  His words trailed on as I hurried down the passage. This was a bit baffling; I usually had a bit of leg-pulling to stand ever since I became Tricki the Peke’s adopted uncle and received regular presents and letters and signed photographs from him, but Siegfried wasn’t in the habit of flogging the joke to this extent. The idea of Mrs. Pumphrey with a pig was unthinkable; there was no room in her elegant establishment for livestock. Oh, he must have got it wrong somehow.

  But he hadn’t.