All Creatures Great and Small Read online

  Back at the surgery, I decided to wait up for my boss and I sat there trying to rid myself of the feeling that I had blasted my career before it had got started. Yet, looking back, I knew I couldn’t have done anything else. No matter how many times I went over the ground, the conclusion was always the same.

  It was 1 a.m. before Farnon got back. His evening with his mother had stimulated him. His thin cheeks were flushed and he smelt pleasantly of gin. I was surprised to see that he was wearing evening dress and though the dinner jacket was of old-fashioned cut and hung in loose folds on his bony frame, he still managed to look like an ambassador.

  He listened in silence as I told him about the horse. He was about to comment when the phone rang. “A late one,” he whispered, then “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Soames.” He nodded at me and settled down in his chair. He was a long time saying “Yes” and “No” and “I see,” then he sat up decisively and began to speak.

  “Thank you for ringing, Mr. Soames, and it seems as though Mr. Herriot did the only possible thing in the circumstances. No, I cannot agree. It would have been cruel to leave him. One of our duties is to prevent suffering. Well, I’m sorry you feel like that, but I consider Mr. Herriot to be a highly capable veterinary surgeon. If I had been there I have no doubt I’d have done the same thing. Good night, Mr. Soames, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I felt so much better that I almost launched into a speech of gratitude, but in the end, all I said was “Thanks.”

  Farnon reached up into the glass-fronted cupboard above the mantelpiece and pulled out a bottle of whisky. He carelessly slopped out half a tumblerful and pushed it at me. He gave himself a similar measure and fell back into the armchair.

  He took a deep swallow, stared for a few seconds at the amber fluid in the glass then looked up with a smile. “Well, you certainly got chucked in at the deep end tonight, my boy. Your first case! And it had to be Soames, too.”

  “Do you know him very well?”

  “Oh, I know all about him. A nasty piece of work and enough to put anybody off their stroke. Believe me, he’s no friend of mine. In fact, rumour has it that he’s a bit of a crook. They say he’s been feathering his nest for a long time at his lordship’s expense. He’ll slip up one day, I expect.”

  The neat whisky burned a fiery path down to my stomach but I felt I needed it. “I wouldn’t like too many sessions like tonight’s, but I don’t suppose veterinary practice is like that all the time.”

  “Well, not quite,” Farnon replied, “but you never know what’s in store for you. It’s a funny profession, ours, you know. It offers unparalleled opportunities for making a chump of yourself.”

  “But I expect a lot depends on your ability.”

  “To a certain extent. It helps to be good at the job, of course, but even if you’re a positive genius humiliation and ridicule are lurking just round the corner. I once got an eminent horse specialist along here to do a rig operation and the horse stopped breathing half way through. The sight of that man dancing frantically on his patient’s ribs taught me a great truth—that I was going to look just as big a fool at fairly regular intervals throughout my career.”

  I laughed. “Then I might as well resign myself to it right at the beginning.”

  “That’s the idea. Animals are unpredictable things so our whole life is unpredictable. It’s a long tale of little triumphs and disasters and you’ve got to really like it to stick it. Tonight it was Soames, but another night it’ll be something else. One thing, you never get bored. Here, have some more whisky.”

  I drank the whisky and then some more and we talked. It seemed no time at all before the dark bulk of the acacia tree began to emerge from the grey light beyond the french window, a blackbird tried a few tentative pipes and Farnon was regretfully shaking the last drops from the bottle into his glass.

  He yawned, jerked the knot out of his black tie and looked at his watch. “Well, five o’clock. Who would have thought it? But I’m glad we had a drink together—only right to celebrate your first case. It was a right one, wasn’t it?”

  SIX

  TWO AND A HALF hours’ sleep was a meagre ration but I made a point of being up by seven thirty and downstairs, shaved and scrubbed, by eight.

  But I breakfasted alone. Mrs. Hall, impassively placing scrambled eggs before me, told me that my employer had left some time ago to do the P.M. on Lord Hulton’s horse. I wondered if he had bothered to go to bed at all.

  I was busy with the last of the toast when Farnon burst into the room. I was getting used to his entrances and hardly jumped at all as he wrenched at the door handle and almost leaped into the middle of the carpet. He looked rosy and in excellent spirits.

  “Anything left in that coffee pot? I’ll join you for a cup.” He crashed down on a protesting chair. “Well, you’ve nothing to worry about. The P.M. showed a classical torsion. Several loops of bowel involved—black and tympanitic. I’m glad you put the poor beggar down straight away.”

  “Did you see my friend Soames?”

  “Oh, he was there, of course. He tried to get in a few digs about you but I quietened him. I just pointed out that he had delayed far too long in sending for us and that Lord Hulton wasn’t going to be too pleased when he heard how his horse had suffered. I left him chewing over that.”

  The news did a lot to lighten my outlook. I went over to the desk and got the day book. “Here are this morning’s calls. What would you like me to do?”

  Farnon picked out a round of visits, scribbled the list on a scrap of paper and handed it over. “Here you are,” he said, “a few nice, trouble-free cases to get yourself worked in.”

  I was turning to leave when he called me back. “Oh, there’s one other thing I’d like you to do. My young brother is hitching from Edinburgh today. He’s at the Veterinary College there and the term finished yesterday. When he gets within striking distance he’ll probably give us a ring. I wonder if you’d slip out and pick him up?”

  “Certainly. Glad to.”

  “His name is Tristan, by the way.”

  “Tristan?”

  “Yes. Oh, I should have told you. You must have wondered about my own queer name. It was my father. Great Wagnerian. It nearly ruled his life. It was music all the time—mainly Wagner.”

  “I’m a bit partial myself.”

  “Ah well, yes, but you didn’t get it morning, noon and night like we did. And then to be stuck with a name like Siegfried. Anyway, it could have been worse—Wotan, for instance.”

  “Or Pogner.”

  Farnon looked startled. “By golly, you’re right. I’d forgotten about old Pogner. I suppose I’ve a lot to be thankful for.”

  It was late afternoon before the expected call came. The voice at the other end was uncannily familiar.

  “This is Tristan Farnon.”

  “Gosh, you sound just like your brother.”

  A pleasant laugh answered me. “Everybody says that—oh, that’s very good of you. I’d be glad of a lift. I’m at the Holly Tree Café on the Great North Road.”

  After the voice I had been expecting to find a younger edition of my employer but the small, boyish-faced figure sitting on a rucksack could hardly have been less like him. He got up, pushed back the dark hair from his forehead and held out his hand. The smile was charming.

  “Had much walking to do?” I asked.

  “Oh, a fair bit, but I needed the exercise. We had a roughish end of term party last night.” He opened the car door and threw the rucksack into the back. As I started the engine he settled himself in the passenger seat as though it were a luxurious armchair, pulled out a paper packet of Woodbines, lit one with tender concentration and gulped the smoke down blissfully. He produced the Daily Mirror from a side pocket and shook it open with a sigh of utter content. The smoke, which had been gone a long time, began to wisp from his nose and mouth.

  I turned west off the great highway and the rumble of traffic faded rapidly behind us. I glanced round at Tristan. �