Every Living Thing Read online

  “I’ll have to try something else, Molly,” I said. I had with me one of the new steroid drugs, dexamethasone, and I injected 1 c.c.

  “You must be sick of the sight of me, but I’ll call tomorrow morning to see if this new stuff has done any good.”

  Molly didn’t wait till the next day. Her cottage was only about a hundred yards from my house and she was on my doorstep the same afternoon.

  She was out of breath. “There’s a wonderful improvement, Mr. Herriot!” she gasped. “He’s like another dog. I wish you’d come and see ’im!”

  I was only too eager and almost trotted along the road. Robbie looked almost like the little dog I used to know so well. He was still stiff, but he could walk carefully over the kitchen floor and his tail gave a slow wag as he saw me. The trembling was gone and he had lost his terrified look.

  My relief was tremendous. “Has he eaten anything?”

  “Yes, he had his nose in his bowl about two hours after you left.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful.” I took the temperature and it was 102—on the way down at last. “I’ll still come tomorrow, because I think one more shot will put him absolutely right.”

  It did indeed, and a week later it was good to see the little animal leaping around in his garden, playing with a stick. He was full of life, back to normal, and though it niggled me that I still had no idea what had ailed him, I was able to file away the whole episode comfortably in my mind as just another happy ending.

  I was wrong. A month later, Molly arrived at my door, looking distressed. “He’s starting again, Mr. Herriot!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Same as before. Tremblin’ and can’t move!”

  Once again, an injection of the steroid brought a rapid recovery, but it wasn’t the end of the affair, it was only the beginning of a saga.

  Over the next two years I fought a long battle with the mysterious condition. Robbie would be a normal, healthy-looking animal for a few weeks, then the dreaded symptoms would suddenly reappear and Molly would rush along to my house, and when I opened the door she would be on the step, head on one side and an anxious half-smile on her face, saying, “SOS, Mr. Herriot, SOS.” Desperately worried though she was, she always tried to brighten the situation with a wry humour.

  Each time it happened, I dashed to the cottage with my steroids. Sometimes the symptoms were very severe, being accompanied by gasping respiration, and I felt that I was saving the dog’s life every time I treated him. I adopted various tactics along the way, the most successful being to supplement the injection with steroid tablets given regularly for a few days, then tailing off gradually before finally stopping. Then we would wait breathlessly until the next recurrence.

  Sometimes nothing happened for many weeks and we relaxed, thinking we had won and the whole thing could be forgotten like a bad dream. Then Molly would be back again at my door, head on one side. “SOS, Mr. Herriot, SOS.”

  It became part of our lives. Being a near neighbour I had always known Molly well, but now during those frantic visits she talked about her life as I cradled a cup of tea in the kitchen by the tiny window with its trailing ivy and the branches of the apple tree beyond.

  She had been in domestic service as a young girl and had lived in the cottage for over thirty years. She had been very ill some time ago and would have died but for a life-saving operation carried out in Brawton by the brilliant surgeon Sir Charles Armitage.

  Her face became radiant when she talked about Sir Charles. “Eee, he’s that clever and world famous, but he was so kind to me. I’m only a poor old body with no money, but I might ’ave been a queen. He couldn’t do enough for me.”

  There was another hero in her life, the actor John Wayne. Whenever one of his films came to the little cinema in Darrowby Molly would be there, and when she discovered that I too was a Wayne fan we had long discussions about his films. “Oh, he’s such a lovely man,” she would say, giggling at her own infatuation.

  It was a warm friendship, but hanging over it at all times was the spectre of Robbie’s recurring illness. I was at her cottage scores of times and of course I never charged her. She had only her old-age pension and previously I had made a nominal charge, but now even that went out of the window. Often she pleaded with me to accept something, but it was obviously unthinkable. In return she knitted little things for Helen and the children and gave us jars of her home-made tomato chutney.

  When I look back over the years, that part of my life shines like a vivid thread running through the busy routine of my veterinary practice. Robbie’s unique illness, Sir Charles Armitage, John Wayne and SOS.

  At all times I wondered at the little dog’s forgiving nature. Every time I met him I stuck a hypodermic needle into him. He must have felt like a pincushion, but when he had recovered he always wagged his tail furiously when he saw me and rushed up, planting his paws on my legs and looking up at me in delight.

  There came a time, however, when the attacks became more violent and more frequent. The little animal’s distress on those occasions was pitiful to see and though I always managed to pull him round, I was gradually having to face the grim fact that the battle was going to be a losing one.

  The climax came at three o’clock one morning. I heard the bell ringing, pulled on a dressing gown and went to the door. Molly was on the step again but this time she was unable to summon her half-humorous password of SOS.

  “Will you come, Mr. Herriot?” she gasped. “Robbie’s real bad.”

  I didn’t bother to dress, but grabbed my bag and hurried with her to the cottage. The little dog was in a terrible rigor, shaking, panting, hardly able to breathe. It was the worst attack yet.

  “Will you put him to sleep, please,” Molly said quietly.

  “You really want that?”

  “Aye, it’s the end of the road for ’im. I just know it. And I can’t stand any more of it, Mr. Herriot. I’ve not been too well myself, and it’s getting me down.”

  I knew she was right. As I injected the barbiturate into the vein and saw the little dog relax into his last repose, there was no doubt in my mind that I was doing the best thing in ending his suffering for ever.

  As before, there were no tears. Just a quiet “Oh, Robbie, Robbie,” as she patted the shaggy little body.

  I slumped into the kitchen chair where I had drunk so many cups of tea. Sitting there, in dressing gown and slippers, I could hardly believe that the long struggle had ended this way.

  “Molly,” I said after a minute. “I’d really like to get to the bottom of this.”

  She looked at me. “You mean a post-mortem?” She shook her head. “No, no, nothing like that.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything I could do or say. I went out, leaving the mystery behind me, and as I walked through the moonlit garden, sick with failure and frustration, I reflected that it was a mystery that would never be solved.

  I was soon swept along in the rush of my everyday work, but I found it difficult to put Robbie out of my mind. Inevitably, some vets’ patients die and with dogs, heartache is always round the corner; their lives are too short. I knew I would not survive if I suffered every time along with the bereaved owners, and I did my best to preserve a professional attitude. But it didn’t always work and it didn’t work with Robbie.

  The association had gone on too long and the memories of that little dog wouldn’t go away. And it made it worse that I had to pass Molly’s cottage every day of my life, seeing her white head bobbing about in her garden where she used to play with Robbie. She looked very alone.

  I had withheld my usual advice to “get another dog,” because the old lady’s health was obviously failing and I knew she could not bring herself to start all over again.

  Sadly, my fears were confirmed, and Molly died a few weeks after Robbie. That chapter was finally closed.

  It was late afternoon some time later that I came into the surgery and found Siegfried making up some medicine in the dispensary.