The Lord God Made Them All Read online

  From the jerkings and vibrations, I deduced that we were taxi-ing to the end of the runway prior to take-off. Then we stopped, and I knew we were in position.

  The roar of the engines increased to a deep-throated bellow which penetrated the ear plugs and made my head spin. I looked at Noel, and he shaped his lips into, “Taking off now?” I nodded encouragingly. I don’t know what his emotions were, but I felt utterly fatalistic about the whole thing. I am not brave but I have always felt like that about flying and though this was a very special case, my attitude was the same.

  For a long time we sat there, listening to the roar and feeling the great aircraft shaking under and around us. This went on and on until I began to wonder if we had, in fact, left the ground. Noel’s puzzled face and the spreading of his hands told me he was thinking the same thing. After another five minutes I decided we must be high in the air by now but I had to have a look to make sure. I unstrapped myself and crawled on hands and knees to the open side. I pushed my head out and looked down, and with a jolt of disappointment I saw the grey concrete of the runway a few feet below me.

  I slithered back to my place and shook my head at Noel. What, I wondered, was going on? Could the captain not get up enough power, or was he just giving his three remaining engines a long test before making his attempt?

  I think it must have been the latter, because suddenly we were under way. We couldn’t see anything, but the surge forward was unmistakable. There were a tense few seconds as the vibration rose to a crescendo, then a calm that told us we were airborne. I felt the impact of the undercarriage thudding into place, and I pictured Karl and his friends hauling it up over the last few inches. I leaned back in my seat. The first obstacle was behind us.

  The feeling of relief seemed to affect Noel immediately because when I looked round he was sound asleep, slumped against the webbing strap. My natural curiosity was too much for me, and I returned to the gap in the fuselage to view the scene passing below.

  I sat there, entranced, all day, the cotton-wool plugs dangling from my ears. It wasn’t like flying in a modern jet where you can’t see much else besides clouds. I watched an unfolding, ever-changing panorama of mountains and sea, islands, yellow beaches, arid plains, the tightly clustered houses of large cities and tiny villages. Occasionally I took pictures, leaning precariously against the strip of sacking that was the only thing between me and the dazzling blue water thousands of feet below.

  In mid-afternoon I broke off to consume the contents of a white carton the captain had solemnly handed out to each of us in Istanbul. It contained a slab of unidentifiable meat, the inevitable sticky cake and, to my delight, some slices of that delicious bread and a wedge of cheese.

  I also went up to the flight cabin for a few minutes to get some pictures of the stricken engine with its four propellor blades, dangling still and useless. It was a sad sight, but I was glad to see that the other three engines were buzzing away with heartening vigour.

  When I returned to my post by the open side, the great rampart of the Alps was rising before us. This, I knew, was the crucial time. The Globemaster climbed higher, but when we reached the tumbled mass of peaks we still seemed to be very near to the summits. Beneath me I could see the loose boulders and scarred rock on the mountaintops quite plainly, but, like my friends, I had faith in that bearded man’s ability to take us over, and he did.

  It was growing dusk when we circled above Copenhagen, and I had a glimpse of the little mermaid in the bay. Soon Joe was happy at last with a glass of real beer in his hand in the airport bar.

  There isn’t much more to tell. We had to wait till 2 A.M. for a flight to Heathrow, and I was sitting on a luggage barrow trying to read the Sunday Times at seven o’clock in the morning at King’s Cross Station. I wasn’t very successful, because the paper kept slipping from my fingers as my eyes closed involuntarily.

  My last memory is of a friendly old gentleman in the compartment of the north-bound train trying to engage me in conversation, but to my shame I fell asleep in front of him and didn’t wake up until York.

  After I had slipped again into the routine of the practice, I looked back on my Istanbul trip as a memorable experience. A bit too concentrated, perhaps, and by no means the rest cure my friend John had pictured, but fascinating in its way. And, of course, I felt I had greatly exaggerated any possible danger on the flight home. From the comfort of my car as I drove round the familiar roads of the Yorkshire Dales, the whole thing had a touch of fantasy.

  It all came back to me in stark truth when I heard, many months later, that, soon after the Istanbul flight, the Globemaster had plunged into the Mediterranean with the loss of all her crew. The news came to me indirectly, and I did my best to find out if it was true, but it was a long time afterwards and I had no success.

  Ever since, I have thought often about those men: the captain, the two young Americans and Karl. During those few days I had come to admire them, and even now I still cling to the faint hope that that terrible news was wrong.

  Chapter

  36

  WHAT HORRIBLE LITTLE DOGS!

  It was a sentiment that rarely entered my mind because I could find something attractive in nearly all my canine patients.

  I had to make an exception in the cases of Ruffles and Muffles Whithorn. Try as I might, I could find no lovable traits, only unpleasant ones—like their unvarying method of welcoming me into their home.

  “Down! Down!” I yelped, as I always did. The two little animals—West Highland Whites—were standing on their hind limbs, clawing furiously at my trouser legs with their front paws, and I don’t know whether I have unusually tender shins but the effect was agonising.

  As I backed away on tiptoe like a ballet dancer going into reverse, the room resounded to Mr. and Mrs. Whithorn’s delighted laughter. They found this unfailingly amusing.

  “Aren’t they little pets!” Mr. Whithorn gasped between paroxysms. “Don’t they give you a lovely greeting, bless them!”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. Apart from excoriating my flesh through my grey flannels, the dogs were glaring up at me balefully, their mouths half-open, lips quivering, teeth chattering in a characteristic manner. It wasn’t exactly a snarl, but it wasn’t friendly, either.

  “Come, my darlings.” The man gathered the dogs into his arms and kissed them both fondly on the cheeks. He was still giggling. “You know, Mr. Herriot, isn’t it priceless that they welcome you into our house so lovingly and then try to stop you from leaving?”

  I didn’t say anything but massaged my trousers in silence. The truth was that these animals invariably clawed me on my entry, then did their best to bite my ankles on the way out. In between, they molested me in whatever ways they could devise. The strange thing was that they were both old—Ruffles fourteen and Muffles twelve—and one might have experienced some mellowness in their characters, but it was not so.

  “Well,” I said, after reassuring myself that my wounds were superficial, “I understand Ruffles is lame.”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Whithorn took the dog and placed him on the table where she had spread some newspapers. “It’s his left front paw. Just started this morning. He’s in agony, poor dear.”

  Gingerly I took hold of the foot, then whipped my hand away as the teeth snapped shut less than an inch from my fingers.

  “Oh, my precious!” Mrs. Whithorn exclaimed. “It’s so painful. Do be careful, Mr. Herriot, he’s so nervous and I think you’re hurting him.”

  I breathed deeply. This dog should have a tape muzzle applied right at the start, but I had previously caused shock and dismay in the Whithorns by suggesting such a thing, so I had to manage as best I could. Anyway, I wasn’t a novice at the business. It would take a very smart biter to catch me.

  I curled my forefinger round the leg and had another look, and I was able to see what I wanted in the fleeting instant before the next snap—a reddish swelling pouting from between the toes.

  An interdigital cyst!