All Creatures Great and Small Read online

  I wasn’t at all reassured when I saw my patient. The knee was a terrible mess. He had tripped at the bottom of the ramp and come down with his full weight on the stony ground. The lacerated skin hung down in bloody ribbons exposing the joint capsule over an area of about six inches and the extensor tendons gleamed through a tattered layer of fascia. The beautiful three-year-old held the limb up, trembling, with the toe just touching the ground; the ravaged knee made a violent contrast with the sleek, carefully groomed coat.

  Examining the wound, gently feeling round the joint, I was immediately thankful for one thing—it was a quiet animal. Some light horses are so highly strung that the slightest touch sends them up in the air, but this one hardly moved as I tried to piece together the jigsaw of skin pieces Another lucky break—there was nothing missing.

  I turned to the stable head lad, small, square, hands deep in his coat pockets who was standing watching. “I’ll clean up the wound and stitch it but he’ll need some expert care when you get him home. Can you tell me who will be treating him?”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Brayley-Reynolds. He’ll have charge of ’im.”

  I came bolt upright from my crouching position. The name was like a trumpet call echoing down from my student days. When you talked about horses you usually talked about Brayley-Reynolds sooner or later. I could imagine the great man inspecting my handiwork. “And who did you say treated this? Herriot …? Herriot …?”

  I got down to the job again with my heart beating faster. Mercifully the joint capsule and tendon sheaths were undamaged—no escape of synovia. Using a solution of Chinosol, I swabbed out every last cranny of the wound till the ground around me was white with cotton wool pledgets, then I puffed in some iodoform powder and tacked down the loose shreds of fascia. Now the thing was to make a really good job of the skin to avoid disfigurement if possible. I chose some fine silk and a very small suture needle and squatted down again.

  I must have stayed there for nearly an hour, pulling the flaps of skin carefully into position and fastening them down with innumerable tiny sutures. There is a fascination in repairing a ragged wound and I always took pains over it even without an imaginary Brayley-Reynolds peering over my shoulder. When I finally straightened up I did so slowly, like an old man, easing the kinks from neck and back. With shaking knees I looked down at the head lad almost without recognition. He was smiling.

  “You’ve made a proper job of that,” he said. “It looks nearly as good as new. I want to thank you, sir—he’s one of my favourites, not just because he’s a good ’orse, but he’s kind.” He patted the three-year-old’s flank.

  “Well, I hope he does all right.” I got out a packet of gauze and a bandage. “I’m just going to cover up the knee with this and then you can put on a stable bandage. I’ll give him a shot against tetanus and that’s it.”

  I was packing my gear away in the car when the head lad hovered again at my side. “Do you back ’orses?”

  I laughed. “No, hardly ever. Don’t know much about it.”

  “Well never mind.” The little man looked around him and lowered his voice. “But I’ll tell you something to back this afternoon. Kemal in the first race. He’s one of ours and he’s going to win. You’ll get a nice price about him.”

  “Well, thanks, it’ll give me something to do. I’ll have half-a-crown on him.”

  The tough little face screwed up in disgust. “No, no, put a fiver on him. This is the goods, I mean it. Keep it to yourself but get a fiver on him.” He walked rapidly away.

  I don’t know what madness took hold of me, but by the time I had got back to Darrowby I had decided to take his advice. There had been something compelling about that last hoarse whisper and the utter confidence in the black pebble eyes. The little chap was trying to do me a good turn. I had noticed him glancing at my old jacket and rumpled flannels, so different from the natty outfit of the typical horse vet; maybe he thought I needed the money.

  I dropped in at the Midland Bank and drew out five pounds which at the time represented approximately half my available capital. I hurried round the remaining visits, had a quick lunch and got into my best suit. There was plenty of time to get to the course, meet the officials and get my fiver on Kemal before the first race at 2:30.

  The phone rang just as I was about to leave the house. It was Mr. Sidlow. He had a scouring cow which needed attention immediately. It was fitting, I thought dully, that in my moment of eager anticipation it should be my old jinx who should stretch out his cold hand and grasp me. And it was Saturday afternoon; that was fitting too. But I shook myself—the farm was near Brawton and it shouldn’t take long to deal with a scouring cow; I could still make it.

  When I arrived, my immaculate appearance set up an immediate flurry of oblique glances among the assembled family while Mr. Sidlow’s rigid lips and squared shoulders bore witness that he was prepared to endure another visit from me with courage.

  A numbness filled me as we went into the byre. It continued as Mr. Sidlow described how he had battled against this cow’s recurring bouts of diarrhoea for several months; how he had started quietly with ground eggshells in gruel and worked up to his most powerful remedy, blue vitriol and dandelion tea, but all to no avail. I hardly heard him because it was fairly obvious at a glance that the cow had Johne’s disease.

  Nobody could be quite sure, of course, but the animal’s advanced emaciation, especially in the hind end, and the stream of bubbly, foetid scour which she had ejected as I walked in were almost diagnostic. Instinctively I grasped her tail and thrust my thermometer into the rectum: I wasn’t much interested in her temperature but it gave me a couple of minutes to think.

  However, in this instance I got only about five seconds because, without warning, the thermometer disappeared from my fingers. Some sudden suction had drawn it inside the cow. I ran my fingers round just inside the rectum—nothing; I pushed my hand inside without success; with a feeling of rising panic I rolled up my sleeve and groped about in vain.

  There was nothing else for it—I had to ask for a bucket of hot water, soap and a towel and strip off as though preparing for some large undertaking. Over my thirty-odd years in practice I can recall many occasions when I looked a complete fool, but there is a peculiarly piercing quality about the memory of myself, bare to the waist, the centre of a ring of hostile stares, guddling frantically inside that cow. At the time, all I could think of was that this was the Sidlow place; anything could happen here. In my mental turmoil I had discarded all my knowledge of pathology and anatomy and could visualise the little glass tube working its way rapidly along the intestinal tract until it finally pierced some vital organ. There was another hideous image of myself carrying out a major operation, a full-scale laparotomy on the cow to recover my thermometer.

  It is difficult to describe the glorious relief which flooded through me when at last I felt the thing between my fingers; I pulled it out, filthy and dripping and stared down stupidly at the graduations on the tube.

  Mr. Sidlow cleared his throat. “Well, wot does it say? Has she got a temperature?”

  I whipped round and gave him a piercing look. Was it possible that this man could be making a joke? But the dark, tight-shut face was expressionless.

  “No,” I mumbled in reply. “No temperature.”

  The rest of that visit has always been mercifully blurred in my mind. I know I got myself cleaned up and dressed and told Mr. Sidlow that I thought his cow had Johne’s disease which was incurable but I would take away a faeces sample to try to make sure. The details are cloudy but I do know that at no point was there the slightest gleam of light or hope.

  I left the farm, bowed down by an ever greater sense of disgrace than usual and drove with my foot oh the boards all the way to Brawton. I roared into the special car park at the race-course, galloped through the owners’ and trainers’ entrance and seized the arm of the gatekeeper.

  “Has the first race been run?” I gasped.

  “Aye, just finis