Vets Might Fly Read online

  temporal muscles which I had dreaded.

  "I'm afraid he's got chorea, Wes." I said.

  "What's that?"

  "It's one of the things I was telling you about. Sometimes they call

  it St Vitus' Dance. I was hoping it wouldn't happen."

  The boy looked suddenly small and forlorn and he stood there silent,

  twisting the new leather lead between his fingers. It was such an

  effort for him to speak that he almost closed his eyes.

  "Will'e die?"

  "Some dogs do get over it, Wes." I didn't tell him that I had seen it

  happen only once.

  "I've got some tablets which might help him. I'll get you some."

  I gave him a few of the arsenical tablets I had used in my only cure. I

  didn't even know if they had been responsible but I had nothing more to

  offer.

  Duke's chorea pursued a text book course over the next two weeks. All

  the things which I had feared turned up in a relentless progression.

  The twitching spread from his head to his limbs, then his hindquarters

  began to sway as he walked.

  His young master brought him in repeatedly and I went through the

  motions, trying at the same time to make it clear that it was all

  hopeless. The boy persisted doggedly, rushing about meanwhile with his

  paper deliveries and other jobs, insisting on paying though I didn't

  want his money. Then one afternoon he called in.

  "Ah couldn't bring Duke," he muttered.

  "Can't walk now. Will you come and see 'im ?"

  We got into my car. It was a Sunday, about three o'clock and the

  streets were quiet. He led me up the cobbled yard and opened the door

  of one of the houses.

  The stink of the place hit me as I went in. Country vets aren't easily

  sickened but I felt my stomach turning. Mrs Bin ks was very fat and a

  filthy dress hung shapelessly on her as she slumped, cigarette in

  mouth, over the kitchen table.

  She was absorbed in a magazine which lay in a clearing among mounds of

  dirty dishes and her curlers nodded as she looked up briefly at us.

  On a couch under the window her husband sprawled asleep, open-mouthed,

  snoring out the reek of beer. The sink, which held a further supply of

  greasy dishes, was covered in a revolting green scum. Clothes,

  newspapers and nameless rubbish littered the floor and over everything

  a radio blasted away at full I strength.

  The only clean new thing was the dog basket in the corner. I went

  across and bent over the little animal. Duke was now prostrate and

  helpless, his body emaciated and jerking uncontrollably. The sunken

  eyes had filled up again with pus and gazed apathetically ahead.

  "Wes," I said.

  "You've got to let me put him to sleep."

  He didn't answer, and as I tried to explain, the blaring radio drowned

  my words. I looked over at his mother.

  "Do you mind turning the radio down?" I asked.

  She jerked her head at the boy and he went over and turned the knob. in

  the ensuing silence I spoke to him again.

  "It's the only thing, believe me. You can't let him die by inches like

  this."

  He didn't look at me. All his attention was fixed desperately on his

  dog. Then he raised a hand and I heard his whisper.

  "Aw right."

  I hurried out to the car for the Nembutal.

  "I promise you he'll feel no pain," I said as I filled the syringe. And

  indeed the little creature merely sighed before Lying motionless, the

  fateful twitching stilled at last.

  I put the syringe in my pocket.

  "Do you want me to take him away, Wes?"

  He looked at me bewilderedly and his mother broke in.

  "Aye, get 'im out. Ah never wanted "'bloody thing 'ere in t'first

  place." She resumed her reading.

  I quickly lifted the little body and went out. Wes followed me and

  watched as I opened the boot and laid Duke gently on top of my black

  working coat.

  As I closed the lid he screwed his knuckles into his eyes and his body

  shook.

  I put my arm across his shoulder, and as he leaned against me for a

  moment and sobbed I wondered if he had ever been able to cry like this

  like a little boy with somebody to comfort him.

  But soon he stood back and smeared the tears across the dirt on his

  cheeks.

  "Are you going back into the house, Wes?" I asked.

  He blinked and looked at me with a return of his tough expression.

  "Naw!" he said and turned and walked away. He didn't look back and I

  watched him cross the road, climb a wall and trail away across the

  fields towards the river.

  And it has always seemed to me that at that moment Wes walked back into

  his old life. From then on there were no more odd jobs or useful

  activities. He never played any more tricks on me but in other ways he

  progressed into more serious misdemeanours. He set barns on fire, was

  up before the magistrates for theft and by the time he was thirteen he

  was stealing cars.

  Finally he was sent to an approved school and then he disappeared from

  the district. Nobody knew where he went and most people forgot him.

  One person who didn't was the police sergeant.

  "That young Wesley Bin ks," he said to me ruminatively.

  "He was a wrong 'un if ever I saw one. You know, I don't think he ever

  cared a damn for anybody or any living thing in his life."

  "I know how you feel sergeant," I replied,

  "But you're not entirely right. There was one living thing. .".

  Chapter Six ~; Tristan would never have won any prizes as an exponent

  of the haute cuisine.

  We got better food in the RAF than most people in wartime Britain but

  it didn't com pare with the Darrow by fare. I suppose I had been

  spoiled; first by Mrs hall, then by Helen. There were only brief

  occasions at Skeldale House when we did not eat like kings and one of

  those was when Tristan was installed as temporary cook.

  It began one morning at breakfast in the days when I was still a

  bachelor and Tristan and I were taking our places at the mahogany

  dining table. Siegfried bustled in, muttered a greeting and began to

  pour his coffee. He was unusually distrait as he buttered a slice of

  toast and cut into one of the rashers on his plate, then after a

  minute's thoughtful chewing he brought down his hand on the table with

  a suddenness that made me jump.

  "I've got it!" he exclaimed.

  "Got what?" I enquired.

  Siegfried put down his knife and fork and wagged a finger at me.

  "Silly, really, I've been sitting here puzzling about what to do and

  it's suddenly clear."

  "Why, what's the trouble?"

  "It's Mrs Hall," he said.

  "She's just told me her sister has been taken ill and she has to go and

  look after her. She thinks she'll be away for a week and I've been

  wondering who I could get to look after the house."

  "I see."

  "Then it struck me." He sliced a corner from a fried egg.

  "Tristan can do it."

  "Eh?" His brother looked up, startled, from his Daily Mirror.

  "Me?"

  "Yes, you! You spend a lot of time on your arse. A bit of useful

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