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  “I’m quite sure, Mr. Sowden. He’s so weak that I think I’ll do it under a local anaesthetic, so we’ll need some help.”

  The farmer nodded slowiy. “Awright, ah’ll go down t’village and get George Hindley.” He coughed again, painfully. “But by gaw, ah could do without this tonight. Ah’m sure I’ve got brown chitis.”

  Brown chitis was a common malady among the farmers of those days and there was no doubt this poor man was suffering from it but my pang of sympathy faded as he left because he took the lamp with him and the darkness closed tightly on me.

  There are all kinds of barns. Some of them are small, cosy and fragrant with hay, but this was a terrible place. I had been in here on sunny afternoons and even then the dank gloom of crumbling walls and rotting beams was like a clammy blanket and all warmth and softness seemed to disappear among the cobwebbed rafters high above. I used to feel that people with starry-eyed notions of farming ought to take a look inside that barn. It was evocative of the grim comfortless other side of the agricultural life.

  I had it to myself now, and as I stood there listening to the wind rattling the door on its latch a variety of draughts whistled round me and a remorseless drip-drip from the broken pantiles on the roof sent icy droplets trickling over my head and neck. And as the minutes ticked away I began to hop from foot to foot in a vain effort to keep warm.

  Dales farmers are never in a hurry and I hadn’t expected a quick return, but after fifteen minutes in the impenetrable blackness bitter thoughts began to assail me. Where the hell was the man? Maybe he and George Hindley were brewing a pot of tea for themselves or perhaps settling down to a quick game of dominoes. My legs were trembling by the time the oil lamp reappeared in the entrance and Mr. Sowden ushered his neighbour inside.

  “Good evening, George,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Only moderate, Mr. Herriot,” the newcomer sniffled. “This bloody caud’s just—ah—ah—whooosh—just g’tting’ a haud o’ me.” He blew lustily into a red handkerchief and gazed at me wearily.

  I looked around me. “Well let’s get started. We’ll need an operating table. Perhaps you could stack up a few straw bales?”

  The two men trailed out and returned, carrying a couple of bales apiece. When they were built up they were about the right height but rather wobbly.

  “We could do with a board on top.” I blew on my freezing fingers and stamped my feet. “Any ideas?”

  Mr. Sowden rubbed his chin. “Aye, we’ll get a door.” He shuffled out into the yard with his lamp and I watched him struggling to lift one of the cow byre doors from its hinges. George went to give him a hand and as the two of them pulled and heaved I thought wearily that veterinary operations didn’t trouble me all that much but getting ready for them was a killer.

  Finally the men staggered back into the barn, laid the door on top of the bales and the theatre was ready.

  “Let’s get him up,” I gasped.

  We lifted the unresisting little creature on to the improvised table and stretched him on his right side. Mr. Sowden held his head while George took charge of the tail and the rear end.

  Quickly I laid out my instruments, removed coat and jacket and rolled up my shirt sleeves. “Damn! We’ve no hot water. Will you bring some, Mr. Sowden?”

  I held the head and again waited interminably while the farmer went to the house. This time it was worse without my warm clothing and the cold ate into me as I pictured the farm kitchen and the slow scooping of the water from the side boiler into a bucket, then the unhurried journey back to the buildings.

  When Mr. Sowden finally reappeared I added antiseptic to the bucket and scrubbed my arms feverishly. Then I clipped the hair on the left side and filled the syringe with local anaesthetic. But as I infiltrated the area I felt my hopes sinking.

  “I can hardly see a damn thing.” I looked helplessly at the oil lamp balanced on a nearby turnip chopper. “That light’s in the wrong place.”

  Wordlessly Mr. Sowden left his place and began to tie a length of plough cord to a beam. He threw it over another beam and made it fast before suspending the lamp above the calf. It was a big improvement but it took a long time and by the time he had finished I had abandoned all hope of ever throwing off my cold. I was frozen right through and a burning sensation had started in my chest. I would soon be in the same state as my helpers. Brown chitis was just round the corner.

  Anyway, at least I could start now, and I incised skin, muscles, peritoneum and rumenal wall at record speed. I plunged an arm deep into the opened organ, through the fermenting mass of stomach contents, and in a flash all my troubles dissolved. Along the floor of the rumen apples and pears were spread in layers, some of them bitten but most of them whole and intact. Bovines take most of their food in big swallows and chew it over later at their leisure, but no animal could make cud out of this lot.

  I looked up happily. “It’s just as I thought. He’s full of fruit.”

  “Hhrraaagh!” replied Mr. Sowden. Coughs come in various forms but this one was tremendous and fundamental, starting at the soles of his hob-nailed boots and exploding right in my face. I hadn’t realised how vulnerable I was with the farmer leaning over the calf’s neck, his head a few inches from mine. “Hhrraaagh!” he repeated, and a second shower of virus laden moisture struck me. Apparently Mr. Sowden either didn’t know or didn’t care about droplet infection, but with my hands inside my patient there was nothing I could do about it.

  Instinctively I turned my face a little in the other direction.

  “Whoosh!” went George. It was a sneeze rather than a cough, but it sent a similar deadly spray against my other cheek. I realised there was no escape. I was hopelessly trapped between the two of them.

  But as I say, my morale had received a boost. Eagerly I scooped out great handfuls of the offending fruit and within minutes the floor of the barn was littered with Bramley’s seedlings and Conference pears.

  “Enough here to start a shop,” I laughed.

  “Hhrraaagh!” responded Mr. Sowden.

  “Whooosh!” added George, not to be outdone.

  When I had sent the last apple and pear rolling into the darkness I scrubbed up again and started to stitch. This is the longest and most wearisome part of a rumenotomy. The excitement of diagnosis and discovery is over and it is a good time for idle chat, funny stories, anything to pass the time.

  But there in the circle of yellow light with the wind whirling round my feet from the surrounding gloom and occasional icy trickles of rain running down my back I was singularly short of gossip, and my companions, sunk in their respective miseries, were in no mood for badinage.

  I was half way down the skin sutures when a tickle mounted at the back of my nose and I had to stop and stand upright.

  “Ah—ah—ashooo!” I rubbed my forearm along my nose.

  “He’s startin’,” murmured George with mournful satisfaction.

  “Aye, ’e’s off,” agreed Mr. Sowden, brightening visibly.

  I was not greatly worried. I had long since come to the conclusion that my cause was lost. The long session of freezing in my shirt sleeves would have done it without the incessant germ bombardment from either side. I was resigned to my fate and besides, when I inserted the last stitch and helped the calf down from the table I felt a deep thrill of satisfaction. That horrible groan had vanished and the little animal was looking around him as though he had been away for a while. He wasn’t cheerful yet, but I knew his pain had gone and that he would live.

  “Bed him up well, Mr. Sowden.” I started to wash my instruments in the bucket. “And put a couple of sacks round him to keep him warm. I’ll call in a fortnight to take out the stitches.”

  That fortnight seemed to last a long time. My cold, as I had confidently expected, developed into a raging holocaust which settled down into the inevitable brown chitis with an accompanying cough that rivalled Mr. Sowden’s.

  Mr. Sowden was never an ebullient man but I expected him to lo