James Herriot's Dog Stories Read online

  I shrugged helplessly. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do any more.’

  ‘But is there no antidote to this poison?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid there isn’t.’

  ‘Well. . .’ He looked down with drawn face at the uncon­scious animal. ‘What’s going on? What’s happening to Jasper when he goes stiff like he did? I’m only a layman, but I like to understand things.’

  ‘I’ll try to explain it,’ I said. ‘Strychnine is absorbed into the nervous system and it increases the conductivity of the spinal cord.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that the muscles become more sensitive to outside stimuli so that the slightest touch or sound throws them into violent contractions.’

  ‘But why does a dog stretch out like that?’

  ‘Because the extensor muscles are stronger than the flexors, causing the back to be arched and the legs extended.’

  He nodded. ‘I see, but . . . I believe it is usually fatal. What is it that . . . that kills them?’

  ‘They die of asphyxia due to paralysis of the respiratory centre or contraction of the diaphragm.’

  Maybe he wanted to ask more, but it was painful for him and he stayed silent.

  ‘There’s one thing I’d like you to know, Mr Bartle,’ I said. ‘It is almost certainly not a painful condition.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He bent and briefly stroked the sleeping dog. ‘So nothing more can be done?’

  I shook my head. ‘The barbiturate keeps the spasms in abeyance and we’ll go on hoping he hasn’t absorbed too much strychnine. I’ll call back later, or you can ring me if he gets worse. I can be here in a few minutes.’

  Driving away, I pondered on the irony that made Darrowby a paradise for dog killers as well as dog lovers. There were grassy tracks everywhere: wandering by the river’s edge, climbing the fell-sides and coiling green and tempting among the heather on the high tops. I often felt sympathy for pet owners in the big cities, trying to find places to walk their dogs. Here in Darrowby we could take our pick. But so could the poisoner. He could drop his deadly bait unobserved in a hundred different places.

  I was finishing the afternoon surgery when the phone rang. It was Mr Bartle.

  ‘Has he started the spasms again?’ I asked.

  There was a pause. ‘No, I’m afraid Jasper is dead. He never regained consciousness.’

  ‘Oh . . . I’m very sorry.’ I felt a dull despair. That was the seventh death in a week.

  ‘Well, thank you for your treatment, Mr Herriot. I’m sure nothing could have saved him.’

  I hung up the phone wearily. He was right. Nothing or nobody could have done any good in this case, but it didn’t help. If you finish up with a dead animal there is always the feeling of defeat.

  Next day I was walking on to a farm when the farmer’s wife called to me. ‘I have a message for you to ring back to the surgery.’

  I heard Helen’s voice at the other end. ‘Jack Brimham has just come in with his dog. I think it’s another strychnine case.’

  I excused myself and drove back to Darrowby at top speed. Jack Brimham was a builder. He ran a one-man business and whatever job he was on – repairing roofs or walls or chimneys – his little white rough-haired terrier went with him, and you could usually see the little animal nosing among the piles of bricks, exploring in the surrounding fields.

  Jack was a friend, too. I often had a beer with him at the Drovers’ Arms and I recognised his van outside the surgery. I trotted along the passage and found him leaning over the table in the consulting room. His dog was stretched there in that attitude which I dreaded.

  ‘He’s gone, Jim,’ he muttered.

  I looked at the shaggy little body. There was no movement, the eyes stared silently. The legs, even in death, strained across the smooth surface of the table. It was pointless, but I slipped my hand inside the thigh and felt for the femoral artery. There was no pulse.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ I said.

  He didn’t answer for a moment. ‘I’ve been readin’ about this in the paper, Jim, but I never thought it would happen to me. It’s a bugger, isn’t it?’

  I nodded. He was a craggy-faced man, a tough Yorkshire-man with a humour and integrity which I liked and a soft place inside which his dog had occupied. I did not know what to say to him.

  ‘Who’s doin’ this?’ he said, half to himself.

  ‘I don’t know, Jack. Nobody knows.’

  ‘Well I wish I could have five minutes with him, that’s all.’ He gathered the rigid little form into his arms and went out.

  My troubles were not over for that day. It was about 11 p.m. and I had just got into bed when Helen nudged me.

  ‘I think there’s somebody knocking at the front door, Jim.’

  I opened the window and looked out. Old Boardman, the lame veteran of the First War who did odd jobs for us, was standing on the steps.

  ‘Mr Herriot,’ he called up to me, ‘I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, but Patch is ill.’

  I leaned further out. ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘He’s like a bit o’ wood – stiff like, and laid on ’is side.’

  I didn’t bother to dress, just pulled my working corduroys over my pyjamas and went down the stairs two at a time. I grabbed what I needed from the dispensary and opened the front door. The old man, in shirt sleeves, caught at my arm.

  ‘Come quickly, Mr Herriot!’ He limped ahead of me to his little house about twenty yards away in the lane round the corner.

  Patch was like all the others. The fat spaniel I had seen so often waddling round the top yard with his master was in that nightmare position on the kitchen floor, but he had vomited, which gave me hope. I administered the intravenous injection but as I withdrew the needle the breathing stopped.

  Mrs Boardman, in nightgown and slippers, dropped on her knees and stretched a trembling hand towards the motionless animal.

  ‘Patch . . .’ She turned and stared at me, wide-eyed. ‘He’s dead!’

  I put my hand on the old woman’s shoulder and said some sympathetic words. I thought grimly that I was getting good at it. As I left I looked back at the two old people. Boardman was kneeling now by his wife and even after I had closed the door I could hear their voices: ‘Patch . . . oh Patch.’

  I almost reeled over the few steps to Skeldale House and before going in I stood in the empty street breathing the cool air and trying to calm my racing thoughts. With Patch gone, this thing was getting very near home. I saw that dog every day. In fact all the dogs that had died were old friends – in a little town like Darrowby you came to know your patients personally. Where was it going to end?

  I didn’t sleep much that night and over the next few days I was obsessed with apprehension. I expected another poisoning with every phone call and took care never to let my own dog, Sam, out of the car in the region of the town. Thanks to my job I was able to exercise him miles away on the summits of the fells, but even there I kept him close to me.

  By the fourth day I was beginning to feel more relaxed. Maybe the nightmare was over. I was driving home in the late afternoon past the row of grey cottages at the end of the Houlton Road when a woman ran waving into the road.

  ‘Oh, Mr Herriot,’ she cried when I stopped, ‘I was just goin’ to t’phone box when I saw you.’

  I pulled up by the kerb. ‘It’s Mrs Clifford, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Johnny’s just come in and Fergus ’as gone queer. Collapsed and laid on t’floor.’

  ‘Oh no!’ An icy chill drove through me and for a moment I stared at her, unable to move. Then I threw open the car door and hurried after Johnny’s mother into the end cottage. I halted abruptly in the little room and stared down in horror. The very sight of the splendid dignified animal scrabbling helplessly on the linoleum was a desecration, but strychnine is no respecter of such things.

  ‘Oh God!’ I breathed. ‘Has he vomited, Johnny?’

  ‘Aye, me mum said he was sick in t’b