All Things Bright and Beautiful Read online

  By shifting round in my seat and craning my neck I was able to get a view of the other side of the kitchen where there was an old-fashioned roll top desk surmounted by a wartime picture of Mr. Anderson looking very stern in the uniform of the Yorkshire Yeomanry, and I was proceeding along the wall from there when Helen opened the door and came quickly into the room.

  “Dad,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Stan’s here. He says one of the cows is down with staggers.”

  Her father jumped up in obvious relief. I think he was delighted he had a sick cow and I, too, felt like a released prisoner as I hurried out with him.

  Stan, one of the cowmen, was waiting in the yard.

  “She’s at t’op of t’field, boss,” he said. “I just spotted ’er when I went to get them in for milkin’.”

  Mr. Alderson looked at me questioningly and I nodded at him as I opened the car door.

  “I’ve got the stuff with me,” I said. “We’d better drive straight up.”

  The three of us piled in and I set course to where I could see the stretched-out form of a cow near the wall in the top corner. My bottles and instruments rattled and clattered as we bumped over the rig and furrow.

  This was something every vet gets used to in early summer; the urgent call to milk cows which have collapsed suddenly a week or two after being turned out to grass. The farmers called it grass staggers and as its scientific name of hypomagesaemia implied it was associated with lowered magnesium level in the blood. An alarming and highly fatal condition but fortunately curable by injection of magnesium in most cases.

  Despite the seriousness of the occasion I couldn’t repress a twinge of satisfaction. It had got me out of the house and it gave me a chance to prove myself by doing something useful. Helen’s father and I hadn’t established anything like a rapport as yet, but maybe when I gave his unconscious cow my magic injection and it leaped to its feet and walked away he might look at me in a different light. And it often happened that way; some of the cures were really dramatic

  “She’s still alive, any road,” Stan said as we roared over the grass. “I saw her legs move then.”

  He was right, but as I pulled up and jumped from the car I felt a tingle of apprehension. Those legs were moving too much.

  This was the kind that often died; the convulsive type. The animal, prone on her side, was pedalling frantically at the air with all four feet, her head stretched backwards, eyes staring, foam bubbling from her mouth. As I hurriedly unscrewed the cap from the bottle of magnesium lactate she stopped and went into a long, shuddering spasm, legs stiffly extended, eyes screwed tightly shut; then she relaxed and lay inert for a frightening few seconds before recommencing the wild thrashing with her legs.

  My mouth had gone dry. This was a bad one. The strain on the heart during these spasms was enormous and each one could be her last.

  I crouched by her side, my needle poised over the milk vein. My usual practice was to inject straight into the blood stream to achieve the quickest possible effect, but in this case I hesitated. Any interference with the heart’s action could kill this cow; best to play safe—I reached over and pushed the needle under the skin of the neck.

  As the fluid ran in, bulging the subcutaneous tissues and starting a widening swelling under the roan-coloured hide, the cow went into another spasm. For an agonising few seconds she lay there, the quivering limbs reaching desperately out at nothing, the eyes disappearing deep down under tight-twisted lids. Helplessly I watched her, my heart thudding, and this time as she came out of the rigor and started to move again it wasn’t with the purposeful peddling of before; it was an aimless laboured pawing and as even this grew weaker her eyes slowly opened and gazed outwards with a vacant stare.

  I bent and touched the cornea with my finger, there was no response.

  The farmer and cowman looked at me in silence as the animal gave a final jerk then lay still.

  “I’m afraid she’s dead, Mr. Alderson,” I said.

  The farmer nodded and his eyes moved slowly over the still form, over the graceful limbs, the fine dark roan flanks, the big, turgid udder that would give no more milk.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m afraid her heart must have given out before the magnesium had a chance to work.”

  “It’s a bloody shame,” grunted Stan. “She was a right good cow, that ’un.”

  Mr. Alderson turned quietly back to the car. “Aye well, these things happen,” he muttered.

  We drove down the field to the house.

  Inside, the work was over and the family was collected in the parlour. I sat with them for a while but my overriding emotion was an urgent desire to be elsewhere. Helen’s father had been silent before but now he sat hunched miserably in an armchair taking no part in the conversation. I wondered whether he thought I had actually killed his cow. It certainly hadn’t looked very good, the vet walking up to the sick animal, the quick injection and hey presto, dead. No, I had been blameless but it hadn’t looked good.

  On an impulse I jumped to my feet.

  “Thank you very much for the lovely tea,” I said, “but I really must be off. I’m on duty this evening.”

  Helen came with me to the door. “Well it’s been nice seeing you again, Jim.” She paused and looked at me doubtfully. “I wish you’d stop worrying about that cow. It’s a pity but you couldn’t help it. There was nothing you could do.”

  “Thanks, Helen, I know. But it’s a nasty smack for your father isn’t it?”

  She shrugged and smiled her kind smile. Helen was always kind.

  Driving back through the pastures up to the farm gate I could see the motionless body of my patient with her companions sniffing around her curiously in the gentle evening sunshine. Any time now the knacker man would be along to winch the carcase on to his wagon. It was the grim epilogue to every vet’s failure.

  I closed the gate behind me and looked back at Heston Grange. I had thought everything would be all right this time but it hadn’t worked out that way.

  The jinx was still on.

  8

  “MONDAY MORNING DISEASE” they used to call it. The almost unbelievably gross thickening of the hind limb in cart horses which had stood in the stable over the weekend. It seemed that the sudden suspension of their normal work and exercise produced the massive lymphangitis and swelling which gave many a farmer a nasty jolt right at the beginning of the week.

  But it was Wednesday evening now and Mr. Crump’s big Shire gelding was greatly improved.

  “That leg’s less than half the size it was,” I said, running my hand over the inside of the hock, feeling the remains of the oedema pitting under my fingers. “I can see you’ve put in some hard work here.”

  “Aye, ah did as you said.” Mr. Crump’s reply was typically laconic, but I knew he must have spent hours fomenting and massaging the limb and forcibly exercising the horse as I had told him when I gave the arecoline injection on Monday.

  I began to fill the syringe for a repeat injection. “He’s having no corn, is he?”

  “Nay, nowt but bran.”

  “That’s fine. I think he’ll be back to normal in a day or two if you keep up the treatment.”

  The farmer grunted and no sign of approval showed in the big, purple-red face with its perpetually surprised expression. But I knew he was pleased all right; he was fond of the horse and had been unable to hide his concern at the animal’s pain and distress on my first visit.

  I went into the house to wash my hands and Mr. Crump led the way into the kitchen, his big frame lumbering clumsily ahead of me. He proffered soap and towel in his slow-moving way and stood back in silence as I leaned over the long shallow sink of brown earthenware.

  As I dried my hands he cleared his throat and spoke hesitantly. “Would you like a drink of ma wine?”

  Before I could answer, Mrs. Crump came bustling through from an inner room. She was pulling on her hat and behind her her teen-age son and daughter followed, dressed ready to go out.