Let Sleeping Vets Lie Read online

  "Get out here, quick. There's one of me pigs going bezique."

  "Bezique?" With an effort I put away from me a mental picture of two

  porkers facing each other over a green baize table. "I'm afraid I don't

  quite ... '

  "Aye, ah gave him a dose of worm medicine and he started jumpin" about

  and: rollin" on his back. I tell you he's going proper bezique."

  "Ah! Yes, yes I see, right. I'll be with you in a few minutes."

  The pig had quietened down a bit when I arrived but was still in

  considerable pain, getting up, lying down, trotting in spurts round the

  pen. I gave him half a grain of morphine hydrochloride as a sedative and

  within a few minutes he began to relax and finally curled up in the

  straw.

  "Looks as though he's going to be all right," I said. "But what's this

  worm medicine you gave him?"

  Mr. Pickersgill produced the bottle sheepishly.

  "Bloke was coming round sellin" them. Said it would shift any worms you

  cared to name."

  "It nearly shifted your pig, didn't it?" I sniffed at the mixture. "And

  no wonder. It smells almost like pure turpentine."

  "Turpentine! Well by gaw is that all it is? And bloke said it was summat

  new. Charged me an absorbent price for it too."

  I gave him back the bottle. "Well never mind, I don't think there's any

  harm done, but I think the dustbin's the best place for that."

  As I was getting into my car I looked up at the farmer. "You must be

  about; sick of the sight of me. First the mastitis, then the calf and

  now your pig. You've had a bad run."

  Mr. Pickersgill squared his shoulders and gazed at me with massive

  composure Again I was conscious of the sheer presence of the man.

  "Young feller," he said. "That don't bother me. Where there's stock

  there" trouble and ah know from exderience that trouble~ comes in

  cyclones."

  ~:

  Chapter Four.

  I knew I shouldn't do it, but the old Drovers" Road beckoned to me

  irresistibly. I ought to be hurrying back to the surgery after my

  morning call but the broad green path wound beguilingly over the moor

  top between its crumbling walls and almost before I knew, I was out of

  the car and treading the wiry grass.

  The wall skirted the hill's edge and as I looked across and away to

  where Darrowby huddled far below between its folding green fells the

  wind thundered in my ears; but when I squatted in the shelter of the

  grey stones the wind was only a whisper and the spring sunshine hot on

  my face. The best kind of sunshine - not heavy or cloying but clear and

  bright and clean as you find it down behind a wall in Yorkshire with the

  wind singing over the top.

  I slid lower till I was stretched on the turf, gazing with half closed

  eyes into the bright sky, luxuriating in the sensation of being detached

  from the world and its problems.

  This form of self-indulgence had become part of my life and still is; a

  reluctance to come down from the high country; a penchant for stepping

  out of the stream of life and loitering on the brink for a few minutes

  as an uninvolved spectator.

  And it was easy to escape, Lying up here quite alone with no sound but

  the wind sighing and gusting over the empty miles and, far up in the

  wide blue, the endless brave trilling of the larks.

  Not that there was anything unpleasant about going back down the hill to

  Darrowby. I had worked there for two years now and Skeldale House had

  become home and the two bright minds in it my friends. It didn't bother

  me that both the brothers were cleverer than I was. Siegfried

  unpredictable, explosive, generous; I had been lucky to have him as a

  boss. As a city bred youth trying to tell expert stock farmers how to

  treat their animals I had needed all his skill and guidance behind me.

  And Tristan; a rum lad as they said, but very sound. His humour and zest

  for life had lightened my days.

  And all the time I was adding practical experience to my theory. The

  mass of facts I had learned at college were all coming to life, and

  there was the growing realisation, deep and warm, that this was for me.

  There was nothing else I'd rather do.

  It must have been fifteen minutes later when I finally rose, stretched

  pleasurably, took a last deep gulp of the crisp air and pottered slowly

  back to the car for the six mile journey back down the hill to Darrowby.

  When I drew up by the railings with Siegfried's brass plate hanging

  lopsidedly by the fine Georgian doorway I looked up at the tall old

  house with the ivy Swarming untidily over the weathered brick. The white

  paint on windows and doors was flaking and that ivy needed trimming but

  the whole place had style, a serene unchangeable grace.

  But I had other things on my mind at the moment. I went inside, stepping

  quietly over the coloured tiles which covered the floor of the long

  passage till I reached the long offshoot at the back of the house. And I

  felt as I always did the Subdued excitement as I breathed the smell of

  our trade which always hung there; ether, carbolic and pulv aromas. The

  latter was the spicy powder which we mixed with the cattle medicines to

  make them more palatable and it had a distinctive bouquet which even now

  can take me back thirty years with a single sniff.

  And today the thrill was stronger than usual because my visit was of a

  surreptitious nature. I almost tiptoed along the last stretch of

  passage, dodged quickly round the corner and into the dispensary.

  Gingerly I opened the cupboard door at one end and pulled out a little

  drawer. I was pretty sure Siegfried had a spare hoof knife hidden away

  within and I had to suppress a cackle of triumph when I saw it Lying

  there; almost brand new with a nicely turned gleaming blade and a

  polished wooden handle.

  My hand was outstretched to remove it when a cry of anger exploded in my

  right ear.

  "Caught in the act! Bloody red-handed, by God!" Siegfried, who had

  apparently shot up through the floorboards was breathing fire into my

  face.

  The shock was so tremendous that the instrument dropped from my

  trembling fingers and I cowered back against a row of bottles of

  formalin bloat mixture.

  "Oh hello, Siegfried," I said with a ghastly attempt at nonchalance.

  "Just on my way to that horse of Thompson's. You know - the one with the

  pus in the foot. I seem to have mislaid my knife so I thought I'd borrow

  this one."

  "Thought you'd nick it, you mean! My spare hoof knife! By heaven, is

  nothing sacred, James."

  I smiled sheepishly. "Oh you're wrong. I'd have given it back to you

  straight away."

  "A likely story!" Siegfried said with a bitter smile. "I'd never have

  seen it again and you know damn well I wouldn't. Anyway, where's your

  own knife? You've left it on some farm, haven't you?"

  "Well as a matter of fact I laid it down at Willie Denholm's place after

  I'd finished trimming his cow's overgrown foot and I must have forgotten

  to pick it up." I gave a light laugh.

  "But God help us, James, you're always forgetti