All Creatures Great and Small Read online

  I found it damaging to my own ego when their eyes passed over me without recognition or interest and fastened themselves hungrily on my colleague. I wasn’t envious, but I was puzzled. I used to study him furtively, trying to fathom the secret of his appeal. Looking at the worn jacket hanging from the thin shoulders, the frayed shirt collar and anonymous tie, I had to conclude that clothes had nothing to do with it.

  There was something attractive in the long, bony face and humorous blue eyes, but a lot of the time he was so haggard and sunken-cheeked that I wondered if he was ill.

  I often spotted Diana Brompton in the queue and at these times I had to fight down an impulse to dive under the sofa. She was difficult to recognise as the brassy beauty of that afternoon as she looked up meltingly at Siegfried, hanging on his words, giggling like a schoolgirl.

  I used to grow cold at the thought that Siegfried might pick her out of the mob and marry her. It worried me a lot because I knew I would have to leave just when I was beginning to enjoy everything about Darrowby.

  But Siegfried showed no sign of marrying any of them and the procession continued hopefully. I finally got used to it and stopped worrying.

  I got used, too, to my employer’s violent changes of front. There was one morning when Siegfried came down to breakfast, rubbing a hand wearily over red-rimmed eyes.

  “Out at 4 a.m.,” he groaned, buttering his toast listlessly. “And I don’t like to have to say this, James, but it’s all your fault.”

  “My fault?” I said, startled.

  “Yes, lad, your fault. This was a cow with a mild impaction of the rumen. The farmer had been mucking about with it himself for days; a pint of linseed oil one day, a bit of bicarb and ginger the next, and at four o’clock in the morning he decides it is time to call the vet. When I pointed out it could have waited a few hours more he said Mr. Herriot told him never to hesitate to ring—he’d come out any hour of the day or night.”

  He tapped the top of his egg as though the effort was almost too much for him. “Well, it’s all very well being conscientious and all that, but if a thing has waited several days it can wait till morning. You’re spoiling these chaps, James, and I’m getting the backwash of it. I’m sick and tired of being dragged out of my bed for trifles.”

  “I’m truly sorry, Siegfried. I honestly had no wish to do that to you. Maybe it’s just my inexperience. If I didn’t go out, I’d be worried the animal might die. If I left it till morning and it died, how would I feel?”

  “That’s all right,” snapped Siegfried. “There’s nothing like a dead animal to bring them to their senses. They’ll call us out a bit earlier next time.”

  I absorbed this bit of advice and tried to act on it. A week later, Siegfried said he wanted a word with me.

  “James, I know you won’t mind my saying this, but old Sumner was complaining to me today. He says he rang you the other night and you refused to come out to his cow. He’s a good client, you know, and a very nice fellow, but he was quite shirty about it. We don’t want to lose a chap like that.”

  “But it was just a chronic mastitis,” I said. “A bit of thickening in the milk, that’s all. He’d been dosing it himself for nearly a week with some quack remedy. The cow was eating all right, so I thought it would be quite safe to leave it till next day.”

  Siegfried put a hand on my shoulder and an excessively patient look spread over his face. I steeled myself. I didn’t mind his impatience; I was used to it and could stand it. But the patience was hard to take.

  “James,” he said in a gentle voice, “there is one fundamental rule in our job which transcends all others, and I’ll tell you what it is. YOU MUST ATTEND. That is it and it ought to be written on your soul in letters of fire.” He raised a portentous forefinger. “YOU MUST ATTEND. Always remember that, James; it is the basis of everything. No matter what the circumstances, whether it be wet or fine, night or day, if a client calls you out, you must go; and go cheerfully. You say this didn’t sound like an urgent case. Well, after all, you have only the owner’s description to guide you and he is not equipped with the knowledge to decide whether it is urgent or not. No, lad, you have to go. Even if they have been treating the animal themselves, it may have taken a turn for the worse. And don’t forget,” wagging the finger solemnly, “the animal may die.”

  “But I thought you said there was nothing like a dead animal to bring them to their senses,” I said querulously.

  “What’s that?” barked Siegfried, utterly astonished. “Never heard such rubbish. Let’s have no more of it. Just remember—YOU MUST ATTEND.”

  Sometimes he would give me advice on how to live. As when he found me hunched over the phone which I had just crashed down; I was staring at the wall, swearing softly to myself.

  Siegfried smiled whimsically. “Now what is it, James?”

  “I’ve just had a torrid ten minutes with Rolston. You remember that outbreak of calf pneumonia? Well, I spent hours with those calves, poured expensive drugs into them. There wasn’t a single death. And now he’s complaining about his bill. Not a word of thanks. Hell, there’s no justice.”

  Siegfried walked over and put his arm round my shoulders. He was wearing his patient look again. “My dear chap,” he cooed. “Just look at you. Red in the face, all tensed up. You mustn’t let yourself get upset like this; you must try to relax. Why do you think professional men are cracking up all over the country with coronaries and ulcers? Just because they allow themselves to get all steamed up over piffling little things like you are doing now. Yes, yes, I know these things are annoying, but you’ve got to take them in your stride. Keep calm, James, calm. It just isn’t worth it—I mean, it will all be the same in a hundred years.”

  He delivered the sermon with a serene smile, patting my shoulder reassuringly like a psychiatrist soothing a violent patient.

  I was writing a label on a jar of red blister a few days later when Siegfried catapulted into the room. He must have kicked the door open because it flew back viciously against the rubber stop and rebounded almost into his face. He rushed over to the desk where I was sitting and began to pound on it with the flat of his hand. His eyes glared wildly from a flushed face.

  “I’ve just come from that bloody swine Holt!” he shouted.

  “Ned Holt, you mean?”

  “Yes, that’s who I mean, damn him!”

  I was surprised. Mr. Holt was a little man who worked on the roads for the county council. He kept four cows as a sideline and had never been known to pay a veterinary bill; but he was a cheerful character and Siegfried had rendered his unpaid services over the years without objection.

  “One of your favourites, isn’t he?” I said.

  “Was, by God, was,” Siegfried snarled. “I’ve been treating Muriel for him. You know, the big red cow second from the far end of his byre. She’s had recurrent tympany—coming in from the field every night badly blown—and I’d tried about everything. Nothing did any good. Then it struck me that it might be actinobacillosis of the reticulum. I shot some sodium iodine into the vein and when I saw her today the difference was incredible—she was standing there, chewing her cud, right as rain. I was just patting myself on the back for a smart piece of diagnosis, and do you know what Holt said? He said he knew she’d be better today because last night he gave her half a pound of epsom salts in a bran mash. That was what had cured her.”

  Siegfried took some empty cartons and bottles from his pockets and hurled them savagely into the wastepaper basket. He began to shout again.

  “Do you know, for the past fortnight I’ve puzzled and worried and damn nearly dreamt about that cow. Now I’ve found the cause of the trouble, applied the most modern treatment and the animal has recovered. And what happens? Does the owner express his grateful thanks for my skill? Does he hell—the entire credit goes to the half point of epsom salts. What I did was a pure waste of time.”

  He dealt the desk another sickening blow.

  “But I frightened him, Jame