Vet in Harness Read online

Mrs Dalby. -~

  "I'm afraid my cattle aren't doing any good, Mr Herriot.' Her voice wad

  ]1

  strained. ~; I grimaced into the receiver. "And the ones I injected ..

  .?'

  "Just the same as the others.'

  I had to face up to reality now and drove out to Prospect House

  immediately but the feeling of cold emptiness, of having nothing to

  offer, made the journey a misery I hadn't the courage to go to the

  farmhouse and face Mrs Dalby but hurried straight up through the fields

  to where the young beasts were gathered.

  And when I walked among them and studied them at close range the

  apprehension I had felt on the journey was nothing to the sick horror

  which rushed through me now. Another catastrophe was imminent here. The

  big follow-up blow which was all that was needed to knock the Dalby

  family out once and for all was on its way. These animals were going to

  die. Not just half of them like last year but all of them, because there

  was hardly any variation in their symptoms; there didn't seem to be a

  single one of them which was fighting off the disease.

  But what disease? God almighty, I was a veterinary surgeon! Maybe not

  steeped in experience but I wasn't a new beginner any more. I should

  surely have some small inkling why a whole great batch of young beasts

  was sinking towards the knacker yard in front of my eyes.

  I could see Mrs Dalby coming up the field with little William, striding

  in his tough, arm-swinging way by her side, and Charlie following

  behind.

  What the hell was I going to say to them? Shrug my shoulders with a

  light laugh and say I hadn't a single clue in my head and that it would

  probably be best to phone Mallock now and ask them to shoot the lot of

  them straight away for dog meat? They wouldn't have any cattle to bring

  on for next year but that wouldn't matter because they would no longer

  be farming.

  Stumbling among the stricken creatures I gazed at them in turn, almost

  choking as I looked at the drooping, sunken-eyed heads, the gaunt little

  bodies, the eternal trickle of that deadly scour. There was a curious

  immobility about the group, probably because they were too weak to walk

  about; in fact as I watched, one of them took a few steps, swayed and

  almost fell.

  Charlie was pushing open the gate into the field just a hundred yards

  away. I turned and stared at the nearest animal, almost beseeching it to

  tell me what was wrong with it, where it felt the pain, how this thing

  had all started. But I got no response. The stirk, one of the smallest,

  only calf-size, with a very dark roan-coloured head showed not the

  slightest interest but gazed back at me incuriously through its

  spectacles. What was that .. . what was I thinking about ...

  spectacles? Was my reason toppling ... ? But yes, by God, he did have

  spectacles .. . a ring of lighter hair surrounding each eye. And that

  other beast over there .. . he was the same. Oh glory be, now I knew!

  At last I knew!

  Mrs Dalby, panting slightly, had reached me.

  "Good morning, Mr Herriot,' she said, trying to smile. "What do you

  think then?' She looked around the cattle with anxious eyes.

  "Ah, good morning to you, Mrs Dalby,' I replied expansively, fighting

  down the impulse to leap in the air and laugh and shout and perhaps do a

  few cartwheels. "Yes, I've had a look at them and it is pretty clear now

  what the trouble is.'

  "Really? Then what .. .?'

  It's copper deficiency.' I said it casually as though I had been turning

  such a thing over in my mind right from the beginning. "You can tell by

  the loss of the pigment in the coat, especially around the eyes. In fact

  when you look at them you can see that a lot of them are a bit paler

  than normal.' I waved an airy hand in the general direction of the

  stirks.

  Charlie nodded. "Aye, by yaw, you're right. Ah thowt they'd gone a funny

  colour.'

  "Can we cure it?' Mrs Dalby asked the inevitable question.

  "Oh yes, I'm going straight back to the surgery now to make up a copper

  mixture and we'll dose the lot. And you'll have to repeat that every

  fortnight while they are out at grass. It's a bit of a nuisance, I'm

  afraid, but there's no other way. Can you do it?'

  "Oh aye, we'll do it,' Charlie said.

  And "Oh aye, we'll do it,' little William echoed, sticking out his chest

  and strutting around aggressively as though he wanted to start catching

  the beasts right away.

  The treatment had a spectacular effect. I didn't have the modern

  long-lasting copper injections at my disposal but the solution of copper

  sulphate which I concocted under the surgery tap at Skeldale House

  worked like magic. Within a few weeks that batch of stirks was capering,

  lively and fully fleshed, over those hillside fields. Not a single

  death, no lingering unthriftiness. It was as though the whole thing had

  never happened, as though the hand of doom had never hovered over not

  only the cattle but the little family of humans.

  It had been a close thing and, I realised, only a respite. That little

  woman had a long hard fight ahead of her still.

  ~_

  I have always abhorred change of any kind but it pleases me to come

  forward twenty years and spectate at another morning in the kitchen at

  Prospect House. I was seated at the same little table picking a buttered

  scone from the same tray and wondering whether I should follow it with a

  piece of malt bread or one of the jam tarts.

  Billy still smiled down from the mantelpiece and Mrs Dalby, hands

  clasped in front of her, was watching me, her head a little on one side,

  the same half smile curving her lips. The years had not altered her

  much; there was some grey in her hair but the little red, weathered face

  and the bright eyes were as I had always known them.

  I sipped my tea and looked across at the vast bulk of William sprawled

  in his father's old chair, smiling his father's smile at me. There were

  about fifteen stones of William and I had just been watching him in

  action as he held a fully grown bullock's hind foot while I examined it.

  The animal had made a few attempts to kick but the discouragement on its

  face had been obvious as William's great hands effortlessly engulfed its

  fetlock and a corner of his wide shoulder span dug into its abdomen.

  No, I couldn't expect William to be the same, nor Dennis and Michael

  clattering into the kitchen now in their heavy boots and moving over to

  the sink to wash their hands. They were six footers too with their

  father's high-shouldered easy slouching walk but without Williams sheer

  bulk.

  Their tiny mother glanced at them then up at the picture on the

  mantelpiece.

  "It would have been our thirtieth anniversary today,' she said

  conversationally.

  I looked up at her, surprised. She never spoke of such things and I

  didn't know how to answer. I couldn't very well say 'congratulations'

  when she had spent twenty of those years alone. She had never said a

  word about her long fight; and it had been a winni