All Things Wise and Wonderful Read online

  “Oh, she should’ve calved last night Must be summat amiss.” He began to pour his bucket of milk over the cooler into the churn.

  “Have you had a feel inside her?”

  “Nay, haven’t had time.” He turned harassed eyes towards me. “We’re a bit behind with milkin’ this mornin’. We can’t be late for t’milk man.”

  I knew what he meant. The drivers who collected the churns for the big dairy companies were a fierce body of men. Probably kind husbands and fathers at normal times but subject to violent outbursts of rage if they were kept waiting even for an instant. I couldn’t blame them, because they had a lot of territory to cover and many farms to visit, but I had seen them when provoked and their anger was frightening to behold.

  “All right,” I said. “Can I have some hot water, soap and a towel, please?”

  Mr. Blackburn jerked his head at the corner of the milk house. “You’ll ’ave to help yourself. There’s everythin’ there. Ah must get on.” He went off again at a brisk walk. Clearly he was more in fear of the milk man than he was of me.

  I filled a bucket, found a piece of soap and threw a towel over my shoulder. When I reached my patient I looked in vain for some sign of a name. So many of the cows of those days had their names printed above their stalls but there were no Marigolds, Alices or Snowdrops here, just numbers.

  Before taking off my jacket I looked casually in the ear where the tattoo marks stood out plainly against the creamy white surface. She was number eighty seven.

  I was in more trouble when I stripped off my shirt. In a modern byre like this there were no nails jutting from the walls to serve as hangers. I had to roll my clothes into a ball and carry them through to the milk house. There I found a sack which I tied round my middle with a length of binder twine.

  Still ignored by everybody, I returned, soaped my arm and inserted it into the cow. I had to go a long way in to reach the calf, which was strange considering the birth should have taken place last night. It was the top of the little creature’s head I touched first; the nose was tucked downwards instead of thrusting its way along the vagina towards the outside world, and the legs were similarly coiled under the body.

  And I noticed something else. The entry of my arm did not provoke any answering strain from the cow, nor did she try to rise to her feet. There was something else troubling Number Eighty Seven.

  Lying flat on the concrete, still buried to the shoulder in the cow, I raised my head and looked along the shaggy back with its speckle of light red and white hairs, and when I reached the neck I knew I need seek no further. The lateral kink was very obvious. Number Eighty Seven, slumped on her chest was gazing wearily and without interest at the wall in front of her but there was that funny little bend in her neck that told me everything.

  I got up, washed and dried my arm and looked for Mr. Blackburn. I found him bending by the side of a fat brown animal, pulling the cups from her teats. I tapped him on the shoulder.

  “She’s got milk fever,” I said.

  “Oh aye,” he replied, then he hoisted the bucket, brushed past me and made off down the byre.

  I kept pace with him. “That’s why she can’t strain. Her uterus has lost its tone. She’ll never calve till she gets some calcium.”

  “Right.” He still didn’t look at me. “Ye’ll give ’er some then?”

  “Yes,” I said to his retreating back.

  The snow still swirled in the outer darkness and I toyed with the idea of getting dressed. But I’d only have to strip again so I decided to make a dash for it. With the car boot open it seemed to take a long time to fish out the bottles and flutter valve with the flakes settling thickly on my naked flesh.

  Back in the byre I looked around for a spare man to help me but there was no lessening of the feverish activity. I would have to roll this cow onto her side and inject into her milk vein without assistance. It all depended on how comatose she was.

  And she must have been pretty far gone because when I braced my feet against the tubular steel and pushed both hands against her shoulder she flopped over without resistance. To keep her there I lay on top of her as I pushed in the needle and ran the calcium into the vein.

  One snag was that my sprawling position took me right underneath the neighbouring cow on the right, a skittish sort of animal who didn’t welcome the rubber-booted legs tangling with her hind feet. She expressed her disapproval by treading painfully on my ankles and giving me a few smart kicks on the thigh, but I daren’t move because the calcium was flowing in beautifully.

  When the bottle was empty I kneed my patient back onto her chest and ran another bottle of calcium magnesium and phosphorus under her skin. By the time I had finished and rubbed away the subcutaneous fluid Number Eighty Seven was looking decidedly happier.

  I didn’t hurry over cleaning and putting away my injection outfit and re-soaping my arms because I knew that every minute would bring back strength to my patient.

  The lightning response to intravenous calcium has always afforded me a simple pleasure and when I pushed my arm in again the difference was remarkable. The previously flaccid uterus gripped at my hand and as the cow went into a long expulsive effort she turned her head, looked back at me and opened her mouth in a muffled bellow. It was not a sound of pain but rather as though she was saying, “I’m back in business now.”

  “All right, my lass,” I replied. “I’ll stay with you till it’s all over.”

  At other times I might have been a little chary of being overheard conversing with a cow, but with the clamour of buckets and the nonstop blasting of the radio there was no chance of that happening.

  I knew that I had to guide the calf back into the correct position and that it would take time, but I had a strange sense of oneness with this animal because neither of us seemed to be of the slightest importance in the present setting. As I lay there face down on the concrete which grew harder all the time and with the milkers stumbling over my prostrate form I felt very much alone. There was just myself and Number Eighty Seven for it.

  Another thing I missed was the sense of occasion. There was a compensation in many an arduous calving in the feeling of a little drama being enacted; the worried farmer, attentive stockmen, the danger of losing the calf or even the mother—it was a gripping play and there was no doubt the vet was the leading man. He may even be the villain but he was number one. And here I was now, a scrabbling nonentity with hardly a mention in the cast. It was the shape of things to come.

  And yet … and yet … the job was still there. I lifted the calf’s lower jaw and as the cow gave a heave I eased it over the brim of the pelvis. Then I groped for the tiny legs and straightened them as another expulsive effort pushed the little creature towards me. He was definitely on his way now.

  I didn’t rush things—just lay there and let the cow get on with it. My worst moment was when one of the men came to put the milking machine on the temperamental animal on my right. As he tried to step up beside her she swung round, cocked her tail and sent a jet of feces cascading across my back.

  The man pushed her back into place, slipped on the teat cups then lifted the hose which was lying ready for swilling down the byre. A moment later I felt the icy flow of water playing from my shoulders to my hips then the application of a spare udder cloth as the helpful fellow cleaned me off.

  “Thanks very much,” I gasped. And I was really grateful. It was the only attention I had received all morning.

  Within half an hour the feet appeared at the vulva followed by a wet nose whose nostrils twitched reassuringly. But they were big feet—this would be a bull calf and his final entry into the world could be a tight squeeze.

  I got into a sitting position and gripped a slippery cloven hoof in each hand. Leaning back, feet against the dung channel, I addressed Number Eighty Seven again.

  “Come on, old lass. A couple of good shoves and we’re there.”

  She responded with a mighty inflation of the abdomen and the calf surged