Every Living Thing Read online

  With a wistful feeling that my sudden popularity would be soon exploded I took the coupon and, using the cow’s back as a desk, I did as they asked.

  It was a winner and, during the week, Danny appeared at my surgery. “We’ve got thirty bob apiece, Mr. Herriot. It’s never happened before and t’lads are over the moon. Will ye do t’same again?”

  “Certainly,” I replied airily and put my crosses in the little squares. It won again, and this time all four of the men turned up at the surgery, smiling and triumphant. “Another thirty bob each, Mr. Herriot! It’s champion! We’re goin’ to put a bit more on this week.”

  I felt that things were getting out of hand. “Look, chaps, I’d really rather not do this again. I don’t want to lose you a lot of money and you will if you start putting on bigger stakes. Anyway, I’m no expert at this—I was only kidding when I gave you the idea that I won every week.”

  A hush fell upon the room and four pairs of eyes narrowed to slits. They didn’t believe a word.

  Helplessly I looked from one to the other, but they stood there as though carved from stone, waiting for me to make my move.

  “I tell you what,” I said at length. “I’ll do your coupon this week, but it will be for the last time. All right?”

  There were nods all round. “Aye, that’ll do us fine,” Danny said.

  “Just this week and never n’more.”

  Once more I entered the crosses in the squares and as I handed over the coupon I made my final appeal. “And you’ll never ask me to do this again?”

  Danny raised a hand. “Nay, never n’more, Mr. Herriot. That’s a promise.”

  For the third successive week, their coupon was a winner. Even as I write, I feel I can hardly ask anybody to believe it, but it is a true story. And a growing sensation of the eerie workings of fate was strengthened when I myself had my biggest-ever win—seventy-seven pounds, four shillings and eleven pence—on the treble chance. The sum is engraved on my memory till the end of time.

  That evening I showed the postal order tremblingly to my partner. “Look at this, Siegfried. All this money! And if I had had just one more draw I’d have won the first prize—sixteen thousand pounds!” Siegfried whistled as he studied the postal order. “James, this calls for a celebration. Let’s get over to the Drovers’.”

  In the bar, Siegfried bustled to the counter. “Two large whiskies, Betty,” he cried. “Mr. Herriot’s just won sixteen thousand pounds on the pools!”

  “No, no…” I protested, trying to restrain my ebullient colleague. “It wasn’t as much as that…”

  But it was too late. The barmaid’s eyes popped, the other occupants nearly choked on their beer and the damage was done. The news swept through Darrowby like a prairie fire.

  Sixteen thousand pounds was a vast fortune in those days and wherever I went over the next few weeks I was greeted with secret smiles and knowing winks. It happened nearly forty years ago, but to this day there are many people in our little town who are convinced that Herriot became rich on the pools.

  The next time I had to visit Lord Gresham’s farm was to carry out the tuberculin test on the cattle. I didn’t have to do anything clever to the beasts—just clip a couple of inches of hair from the necks and inject into the skin, but there was a different atmosphere altogether from the previous occasions when I was pulling off miracle cures, saving animals’ lives with my veterinary skill. The four men seemed to hang on my every word, treating my requests with the greatest deference. “Yes, Mr. Herriot.” “Right you are, Mr. Herriot.” And, whereas before they had always acted as though I wasn’t there, today they watched my smallest move with the greatest concentration. It became clear to me that I was forever enshrined in their minds as the one man to whom the mysteries of the football pools were an open book, to be manipulated as the fancy took me, and as I looked round the four men I could read something in their eyes I had never seen before.

  It was respect—deep, abiding respect.

  Chapter 38

  I WAS IN A familiar position. Lying flat on my face on a hard cobbled floor with my arm up to the shoulder inside a straining heifer. I had been doing this for over an hour and was beginning to despair. There was a huge live calf in there and the only thing stopping the delivery was that there was a leg back—normally a simple malpresentation and easily corrected. That was the cause of my frustration—I couldn’t believe that such a thing could beat me, but the trouble was that this was a very small heifer and there was no room to work. Time and again I had managed to reach the calf’s foot but I could only get a couple of fingers round it and as soon as I tried to pull, it slipped away from me. And on top of this the heifer was giving me hell with her expulsive efforts, trapping my hand painfully between the calf’s head and the pelvic bones.

  With all my soul I wished that my arm had been a few inches longer. If only I could get my fingers beyond the smooth wall of the hoof and grasp the hairy leg, the job would be over in minutes, but this was what I had been trying to do for that long hour and my arm was becoming paralysed and useless.

  In these situations I would often get a big farm lad to strip off and try to reach inaccessible places for me, but Mr. Kilding and his son were stocky, short-armed chaps—they wouldn’t get as far as I had.

  Suddenly I remembered something. Calum was doing a tuberculin test on a farm less than a mile away. If I could get hold of him, my troubles would be over because among his many attributes Calum had very long arms.

  “Mr. Kilding,” I said, “would you phone the Ellertons and ask Mr. Buchanan to come round and give me a hand? I’m afraid I need a bit of help.”

  “Buchanan? Vet wi’ t’badger?”

  I smiled. Calum was known as such not only in our own practice but for many miles beyond, “Yes, that’s the man.”

  The farmer hurried off and returned quickly. “Aye, he’s just finished the test. Says ’e’ll be round in a minute or two.” He was a nice man, and wasn’t complaining at my long, unproductive rolling about on his byre floor, but he couldn’t hide his anxiety. “I ’ope you’ll be able to do summat, Mr. Herriot, I’ve been really lookin’ forward to getting this calf.”

  As he spoke, Calum strode into the byre. He looked down at the prostrate animal and grinned. “Having a little trouble, Jim?” His manner, as always, was breezy.

  I explained the situation and he quickly whipped off his shirt. We lay down together on those cobbles, which had been getting steadily harder. I inserted my left arm until I could feel the calf’s muzzle against the palm of my hand and Calum pushed in his right arm alongside mine.

  “Right,” I said, “I’ll push the head back while you try to get hold of that foot.”

  “Okay,” he replied. “Fire away.”

  I pushed and just as the head moved away, making the vital room we needed, the heifer gave a mighty strain and pushed it back at me. Calum yelped as his fingers were trapped. “Ouch, that hurt! You’ll have to do a bit better than that.”

  I gritted my teeth and tried again, bracing my arm desperately against the heifer’s expulsive efforts.

  “I’m nearly there,” grunted Calum. “Nearly…nearly…push, you’re not pushing!”

  “I am pushing, dammit!” I gasped. “But she’s stronger than I am, and I’ve been doing this for an hour, you know. My arm’s like spaghetti.”

  We tried again, several times, groaning and panting, then Calum let his head slump onto his shoulder. “I know. Let’s have a rest for a few seconds.”

  I was all for that and I relaxed, feeling the calf’s rough tongue licking at my palm. He was still alive, anyway.

  As we lay there, practically cheek to cheek, arms still inside the heifer, my colleague put on a bright smile. “Well, now, what shall we talk about while we’re resting?”

  I didn’t feel like light conversation, but I tried to fall in with his sally. “Oh, I don’t know. Have you any interesting news?”

  “Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I have. I’m go