All Things Bright and Beautiful Read online

  I mumbled something. I had found it useless to argue this point. The knacker man’s amazing ability to tell at a glance the cause of an animal’s illness or death was a frequent source of embarrassment to me. No examination was necessary—he just knew, and of all his weird catalogue of diseases stagnation of t’lungs was the favourite.

  He turned to the farmer. “Well, ah’d better shift ’em now, Willie. Reckon they won’t last much longer.”

  I bent down and lifted the head of the nearest calf. They were all shorthorns, three roans, a red and this one which was pure white. I passed my fingers over the hard little skull, feeling the tiny horn buds under the rough hair. When I withdrew my hand the head dropped limply on to the straw and it seemed to me that there was something of finality and resignation in the movement.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the roar of Jeff’s engine. He was backing his wagon round to the door of the calf house and as the high unpainted boards darkened the entrance the atmosphere of gloom deepened. These little animals had suffered two traumatic journeys in their short lives. This was to be the last, the most fateful and the most sordid.

  When the knacker man came in he stood by the farmer, looking at me as I squatted in the straw among the prostrate creatures. They were both waiting for me to quit the place, leaving my failure behind me.

  “You know, Mr. Clark,” I said. “Even if we could save one of them it would help to reduce your loss.”

  The farmer regarded me expressionlessly. “But they’re all dyin’, lad. You said so yourself.”

  “Yes, I did, I know, but the circumstances could be a bit different today.”

  “Ah know what it is.” He laughed suddenly. “You’ve got your heart set on havin’ a go with them little tablets, haven’t you?”

  I didn’t answer but looked up at him with a mute appeal.

  He was silent for a few moments then he put a hand on Mallock’s shoulder. “Jeff, if this young feller is that concerned about ma stock I’ll ’ave to humour ’im. You’re not bothered, are you?”

  “Nay, Willie, nay,” replied Jeff, completely unruffled. “I can pick ’em up tomorrow, just as easy.”

  “Right,” I said. “Let’s have a look at the instructions.” I fished out the pamphlet from the tin and read rapidly, working out the dose for the weights of the calves. “We’ll have to give them a loading dose first. I think twelve tablets per calf then six every eight hours after that.”

  “How do you get ’em down their necks?” the farmer asked.

  “We’ll have to crush them and shake them up in water. Can we go into the house to do that?”

  In the farm kitchen we borrowed Mrs. Clark’s potato masher and pounded the tablets until we had five initial doses measured out. Then we returned to the shed and began to administer them to the calves. We had to go carefully as the little creatures were so weak they had difficulty in swallowing, but the farmer held each head while I trickled the medicine into the side of the mouth.

  Jeff enjoyed every minute of it. He showed no desire to leave but produced a pipe richly decorated with nameless tissues, leaned on the top of the half door and, puffing happily, watched us with tranquil eyes. He was quite unperturbed by his wasted journey and when we had finished he climbed into his wagon and waved to us cordially.

  “I’ll be back to pick ’em up in t’mornin, Willie,” he cried, quite without malice I’m sure. “There’s no cure for stagnation of t’lungs.”

  I thought of his words next day as I drove back to the farm. He was just stating the fact; his supply of dog meat was merely being postponed for another twenty four hours. But at least, I told myself, I had the satisfaction of having tried, and since I expected nothing I wasn’t going to be disappointed.

  As I pulled up in the yard Mr. Clark walked over and spoke through the window. “There’s no need for you to get out of the car.” His face was a grim mask.

  “Oh,” I said, the sudden lurch in my stomach belying my calm facade. “Like that, is it?”

  “Aye, come and look ’ere.” He turned and I followed him over to the shed. By the time the door creaked open a slow misery had begun to seep into me.

  Unwillingly I gazed into the interior.

  Four of the calves were standing in a row looking up at us with interest. Four shaggy, rough-jacketed figures, bright-eyed and alert. The fifth was resting on the straw, chewing absently at one of the strings which held his sack.

  The farmer’s weathered face split into a delighted grin, “Well ah told you there was no need to get out of your car, didn’t I? They don’t need no vitnery, they’re back to normal.”

  I didn’t say anything. This was something which my mind, as yet, could not comprehend. As I stared unbelievingly the fifth calf rose from the straw and stretched luxuriously.

  “He’s wraxin’, d’you see?” cried Mr. Clark. “There’s nowt much wrong wi’ them when they do that.”

  We went inside and I began to examine the little animals. Temperatures were normal, the diarrhoea had dried up, it was uncanny. As if in celebration the white calf which had been all but dead yesterday began to caper about the shed, kicking up his legs like a mustang.

  “Look at that little bugger!” burst out the farmer. “By gaw I wish I was as fit meself!”

  I put the thermometer back in its tube and dropped it into my side pocket. “Well, Mr. Clark,” I said slowly, “I’ve never seen anything like this. I still feel stunned.”

  “Beats hen-racin’, doesn’t it,” the farmer said, wide-eyed, then he turned towards the gate as a wagon appeared from the lane. It was the familiar doom-burdened vehicle of Jeff Mallock.

  The knacker man showed no emotion as he looked into the shed. In fact it was difficult to imagine anything disturbing those pink cheeks and placid eyes, but I fancied the puffs of blue smoke from his pipe came a little faster as he took in the scene. The pipe itself showed some fresh deposits on its bowl—some fragments of liver, I fancied, since yesterday.

  When he had looked his fill he turned and strolled towards his wagon. On the way he gazed expansively around him and then at the dark clouds piling in the western sky.

  “Ah think it’ll turn to rain afore t’day’s out, Willie,” he murmured.

  I didn’t know it at the time but I had witnessed the beginning of the revolution. It was my first glimpse of the tremendous therapeutic breakthrough which was to sweep the old remedies into oblivion. The long rows of ornate glass bottles with their carved stoppers and Latin inscriptions would not stand on the dispensary shelves much longer and their names, dearly familiar for many generations—Sweet Spirits of Nitre, Sal ammoniac, Tincture of Camphor—would be lost and vanish for ever.

  This was the beginning and just around the corner a new wonder was waiting—Penicillin and the other antibiotics. At last we had something to work with, at last we could use drugs which we knew were going to do something.

  All over the country, probably all over the world at that time, vets were having these first spectacular results, going through the same experience as myself; some with cows, some with dogs and cats, others with valuable racehorses, sheep, pigs in all kinds of environments. But for me it happened in that old converted railway wagon among the jumble of rusting junk on Willie Clark’s farm.

  Of course it didn’t last—not the miraculous part of it anyway. What I had seen at Willie Clark’s was the impact of something new on an entirely unsophisticated bacterial population, but it didn’t go on like that. In time the organisms developed a certain amount of resistance and new and stronger sulphonamides and antibiotics had to be produced. And so the battle has continued. We have good results now but no miracles, and I feel I was lucky to be one of the generation which was in at the beginning when the wonderful things did happen.

  Those five calves never looked behind them and the memory of them gives me a warm glow even now. Willie of course was overjoyed and even Jeff Mallock gave the occasion his particular accolade. As he drove away he called back at us: