James Herriot's Dog Stories

by James Herriot

  And just at that moment, as the unkind words were thick upon the air, I saw Helen and Richard Edmundson on the fringe of the circle, taking it all in. I wasn’t worried about him but again it struck me as strange that it should be my destiny always to be looking a bit of a clown when Helen was around.

  Anyway, the measuring was over and I felt in need of sustenance. I retreated and went to find Tristan.

  The memory of Darrowby Show has stayed with me and it has left me with a deep respect and sympathy for the many veterinarians who have the thankless task of adjudicating at these functions. People just don’t like it when you have to turn their animals down. Of course I have had many trouble-free occasions since then, and I sometimes think it was my youth and inexperience which made me such a target for disapproval. I didn’t mention it in the story, but things got so bad on that day that I was glad to see the local police sergeant strolling round the field. I quite seriously thought that I would ultimately have to ask for police protection.

  12. A Momentous Birth

  The occasion was the Daffodil Ball at the Drovers’ Arms and we were dressed in our best. This was a different kind of function from the usual village institute hop with the farm lads in their big boots and music from a scraping fiddle and piano. It was a proper dance with a popular local band – Lenny Butterfield and His Hot Shots – and was an annual affair to herald the arrival of spring.

  I watched Tristan dispensing the drinks.

  ‘Nice little gathering, Jim,’ he said, appearing at my elbow. ‘A few more blokes than girls but that won’t matter much.’

  I eyed him coldly. I knew why there were extra men. It was so that Tristan wouldn’t have to take the floor too often. It fitted in with his general dislike of squandering energy that he was an unenthusiastic dancer; he didn’t mind walking a girl round the floor now and again during the evening, but he preferred to spend most of the time in the bar.

  So, in fact, did a lot of the Darrowby folk. When we arrived at the Drovers’ the bar was congested while only a dedicated few circled round the ballroom. But as time went on more and more couples ventured out and by ten o’clock the dance floor was truly packed.

  And I soon found I was enjoying myself. Tristan’s friends were an effervescent bunch, likeable young men and attractive girls; I just couldn’t help having a good time.

  Butterfield’s famed band in their short red jackets added greatly to the general merriment. Lenny himself looked about fifty-five and indeed all four of the Hot Shots ensemble were rather elderly, but they made up for their grey hairs by sheer vivacity. Not that Lenny’s hair was grey; it was dyed a determined black and he thumped the piano with dynamic energy, beaming out at the company through his horn-rimmed glasses, occasionally bawling a chorus into the microphone by his side, announcing the dances, making throaty wisecracks. He gave value for money.

  There was no pairing off in our party and I danced with all the girls in turn. At the peak of the evening I was jockeying my way around the floor with Daphne and the way she was constructed made it a rewarding experience. I never have been one for skinny women but I suppose you could say that Daphne’s development had strayed a little too far in the other direction. She wasn’t fat, just lavishly endowed.

  Battling through the crush, colliding with exuberant neighbours, bouncing deliriously off Daphne, with everybody singing as they danced and the Hot Shots pouring out an insistent boom-boom beat, I felt I hadn’t a care in the world. And then I saw Helen.

  She was dancing with the inevitable Richard Edmundson, his shining gold head floating above the company like an emblem of doom. And it was uncanny how in an instant my cosy little world disintegrated, leaving a chill, gnawing emptiness.

  When the music stopped I returned Daphne to her friends and went to find Tristan. The comfortable little bar in the Drovers’ was overflowing and the temperature like an oven. Through an almost impenetrable fog of cigarette smoke I discerned my colleague on a high stool holding court with a group of perspiring revellers. Tristan himself looked cool and, as always, profoundly content. He drained his glass, smacked his lips gently as though it had been the best pint of beer he’d ever tasted, then, as he reached across the counter and courteously requested a refill, he spotted me struggling towards him.

  When I reached his stool he laid an affable hand on my shoulder. ‘Ah, Jim, nice to see you. Splendid dance, this, don’t you think?’

  I didn’t bring up the fact that I hadn’t seen him on the floor yet, but making my voice casual I mentioned that Helen was there.

  Tristan nodded benignly. ‘Yes, saw her come in. Why don’t you go and dance with her?’

  ‘I can’t do that. She’s with a partner – young Edmundson.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Tristan surveyed his fresh pint with a critical eye and took an exploratory sip. ‘She’s with a party, like us. No partner.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I watched all the fellows hang their coats out there while the girls went upstairs. No reason at all why you shouldn’t have a dance with her.’

  ‘I see.’ I hesitated for a few moments then made my way back to the ballroom.

  But it wasn’t as easy as that. I had to keep doing my duty with the girls in our group, and whenever I headed for Helen she was whisked away by one of her men friends before I got near her. At times I fancied she was looking over at me but I couldn’t be sure; the only thing I knew for certain was that I wasn’t enjoying myself any more; the magic and gaiety had gone and I felt a rising misery at the thought that this was going to be another of my frustrating contacts with Helen when all I could do was look at her hopelessly. Only this time was worse – I hadn’t even spoken to her.

  I was almost relieved when the manager came up and told me there was a call for me. I went to the phone and spoke to Mrs Hall. There was a bitch in trouble whelping and I had to go. I looked at my watch – after midnight, so that was the end of the dance for me.

  I stood for a moment listening to the muffled thudding from the dance floor, then slowly pulled on my coat before going in to say goodbye to Tristan’s friends. I exchanged a few words with them, waved, then turned back and pushed the swing door open.

  Helen was standing there, about a foot away from me. Her hand was on the door, too. I didn’t wonder whether she was going in or out but stared dumbly into her smiling blue eyes.

  ‘Leaving already, Jim?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got a call, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh what a shame. I hope it’s nothing very serious.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, but her dark beauty and the very nearness of her suddenly filled my world and a wave of hopeless longing swept over and submerged me. I slid my hand a few inches down the door and gripped hers as a drowning man might, and wonderingly I felt her fingers come round and entwine themselves tightly in mine.

  And in an instant there was no band, no noise, no people, just the two of us standing very close in the doorway.

  ‘Come with me,’ I said.

  Helen’s eyes were very large as she smiled that smile I knew so well.

  ‘I’ll get my coat,’ she murmured.

  This wasn’t really me, I thought, standing on the hall carpet watching Helen trotting quickly up the stairs, but I had to believe it as she reappeared on the landing pulling on her coat. Outside, on the cobbles of the market-place my car, too, appeared to be taken by surprise because it roared into life at the first touch of the starter.

  I had to go back to the surgery for my whelping instruments and in the silent moonlit street we got out and I opened the big white door to Skeldale House.

  And once in the passage it was the most natural thing in the world to take her in my arms and kiss her gratefully and unhurriedly. I had waited a long time for this and the minutes flowed past unnoticed as we stood there, our feet on the black and red eighteenth-century tiles, our heads almost touching the vast picture of the Death of Nelson which dominated the entrance.

  We k
issed again at the first bend of the passage under the companion picture of the Meeting of Wellington and Blücher at Waterloo. We kissed at the second bend by the tall cupboard where Siegfried kept his riding coats and boots. We kissed in the dispensary in between searching for my instruments. Then we tried it out in the garden and this was the best of all, with the flowers still and expectant in the moonlight and the fragrance of the moist earth and grass rising about us.

  I have never driven so slowly to a case. About ten miles an hour, with Helen’s head on my shoulder and all the scents of spring drifting in through the open window. And it was like sailing from stormy seas into a sweet, safe harbour, like coming home.

  The light in the cottage window was the only one showing in the sleeping village, and when I knocked at the door Bert Chapman answered. Bert was a council roadman – one of the breed for whom I felt an abiding affinity.

  The council men were my brethren of the roads. Like me they spent most of their lives on the lonely by-ways around Darrowby and I saw them most days of the week, repairing the tarmac, cutting back the grass verges in the summer, gritting and snow ploughing in the winter. And when they spotted me driving past they would grin cheerfully and wave as if the very sight of me had made their day. I don’t know whether they were specially picked for good nature, but I don’t think I have ever met a more equable body of men.

  One old farmer remarked sourly to me once, ‘There’s no wonder the buggers are ’appy, they’ve got nowt to do.’ An exaggeration, of course, but I knew how he felt; compared with farming every other job was easy.

  I had seen Bert Chapman just a day or two ago, sitting on a grassy bank, his shovel by his side, a vast sandwich in his hand. He had raised a corded forearm in salute, a broad smile bisecting his round, sun-reddened face. He had looked eternally carefree but tonight his smile was strained.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you this late, Mr Herriot,’ he said as he ushered us into the house, ‘but I’m gettin’ a bit worried about Susie. Her pups are due and she’s been making a bed for them and messing about all day but nowt’s happened. I was goin’ to leave her till morning but about midnight she started panting like ’ell – I don’t like the look of her.’

  Susie was one of my regular patients. Her big, burly master was always bringing her to the surgery, a little shame-faced at his solicitude, and when I saw him sitting in the waiting-room looking strangely out of place among the ladies with their pets, he usually said, ‘T’missus asked me to bring Susie.’ But it was a transparent excuse.

  ‘She’s nobbut a little mongrel, but very faithful,’ Bert said, still apologetic, but I could understand how he felt about Susie, a shaggy little ragamuffin whose only wile was to put her paws on my knees and laugh up into my face with her tail lashing. I found her irresistible.

  But she was a very different character tonight. As we went into the living room of the cottage the little animal crept from her basket, gave a single indeterminate wag of her tail, then stood miserably in the middle of the floor, her ribs heaving. As I bent to examine her she turned a wide panting mouth and anxious eyes up to me.

  I ran my hands over her abdomen. I don’t think I have ever felt a more bloated little dog; she was as round as a football, absolutely bulging with pups, ready to pop, but nothing was happening.

  ‘What do you think?’ Bert’s face was haggard under his sunburn and he touched the dog’s head briefly with a big calloused hand.

  ‘I don’t know yet, Bert,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to have a feel inside. Bring me some hot water, will you?’

  I added some antiseptic to the water, soaped my hand and with one finger carefully explored the vagina. There was a pup there, all right; my fingertip brushed across the nostrils, the tiny mouth and tongue; but he was jammed in that passage like a cork in a bottle.

  Squatting back on my heels I turned to the Chapmans.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s a big pup stuck fast. I have a feeling that if she could get rid of this chap the others would come away. They’d probably be smaller.’

  ‘Is there any way of shiftin’ him, Mr Herriot?’ Bert asked.

  I paused for a moment. ‘I’m going to put forceps on his head and see if he’ll move. I don’t like using forceps but I’m going to have one careful try, and if it doesn’t work I’ll have to take her back to the surgery for a caesarian.’

  ‘An operation?’ Bert said hollowly. He gulped and glanced fearfully at his wife. Like many big men he had married a tiny woman and at this moment Mrs Chapman looked even smaller than her four foot eleven inches as she huddled in her chair and stared at me with wide eyes.

  ‘Oh I wish we’d never had her mated,’ she wailed, wringing her hands. ‘I told Bert five year old was too late for a first litter but he wouldn’t listen. And now we’re maybe going to lose ’er.’

  I hastened to reassure her. ‘No, she isn’t too old, and everything may be all right. Let’s just see how we get on.’

  I boiled the instrument for a few minutes on the stove then kneeled behind my patient again. I poised the forceps for a moment and at the flash of steel a grey tinge crept under Bert’s sunburn and his wife coiled herself into a ball in her chair. Obviously they were non-starters as assistants so Helen held Susie’s head while I once more reached in towards the pup. There was desperately little room but I managed to direct the forceps along my finger till they touched the nose. Then very gingerly I opened the jaws and pushed them forward with the very gentlest pressure until I was able to clamp them on either side of the head.

  I’d soon know now. In a situation like this you can’t do any pulling, you can only try to ease the thing along.’ This I did and I fancied I felt just a bit of movement; I tried again and there was no doubt about it, the pup was coming towards me. Susie, too, appeared to sense that things were taking a turn for the better. She cast off her apathy and began to strain lustily.

  It was no trouble after that and I was able to draw the pup forth almost without resistance.

  ‘I’m afraid this one’ll be dead,’ I said, and as the tiny creature lay across my palm there was no sign of breathing. But, pinching the chest between the thumb and forefinger I could feel the heart pulsing steadily, and I quickly opened his mouth and blew softly down into his lungs.

  I repeated this a few times then laid the pup on his side in the basket. I was just thinking it was going to be no good when the little rib cage gave a sudden lift, then another and another.

  ‘He’s off!’ Bert exclaimed happily. ‘That’s champion! We want these puppies alive tha knows. They’re by Jack Dennison’s terrier and he’s a grand ’un.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mrs Chapman put in. ‘No matter how many she has, they’re all spoken for. Everybody wants a pup out of Susie.’

  ‘I can believe that,’ I said. But I smiled to myself. Jack Dennison’s terrier was another hound of uncertain ancestry, so this lot would be a right mixture. But none the worse for that.

  I gave Susie half a cc of pituitrin. ‘I think she needs it after pushing against that fellow for hours. We’ll wait and see what happens now.’

  And it was nice waiting. Mrs Chapman brewed a pot of tea and began to slap butter on to home-made scones. Susie, partly aided by my pituitrin, pushed out a pup in a self-satisfied manner about every fifteen minutes. The pups themselves soon set up a bawling of surprising volume for such minute creatures. Bert, relaxing visibly with every minute, filled his pipe and regarded the fast-growing family with a grin of increasing width.

  ‘Ee, it is kind of you young folks to stay with us like this.’ Mrs Chapman put her head on one side and looked at us worriedly. ‘I should think you’ve been dying to get back to your dance all this time.’

  I thought of the crush at the Drovers’. The smoke, the heat, the non-stop boom-boom of the Hot Shots, and I looked around the peaceful little room with the old-fashioned black grate, the low, varnished beams, Mrs Chapman’s sewing box, the row of Bert’s pipes on the wall. I took a firmer grasp of Helen’s
hand which I had been holding under the table for the last hour.

  ‘Not at all, Mrs Chapman,’ I said. ‘We haven’t missed it in the least.’ And I have never been more sincere.

  It must have been about half past two when I finally decided that Susie had finished. She had six fine pups which was a good score for a little thing like her and the noise had abated as the family settled down to feast on her abundant udder.

  I lifted the pups out one by one and examined them. Susie didn’t mind in the least but appeared to be smiling with modest pride as I handled her brood. When I put them back with her she inspected them and sniffed them over busily before rolling on to her side again.

  ‘Three dogs and three bitches,’ I said. ‘Nice even litter.’

  Before leaving I took Susie from her basket and palpated her abdomen. The degree of deflation was almost unbelievable; a pricked balloon could not have altered its shape more spectacularly and she had made a remarkable metamorphosis to the lean, scruffy little extrovert I knew so well.

  When I released her she scurried back and curled herself round her new family who were soon sucking away with total absorption.

  Bert laughed. ‘She’s fair capped wi’ them pups.’ He bent over and prodded the first arrival with a horny forefinger. ‘I like the look o’ this big dog pup. I reckon we’ll keep this ’un for ourselves, mother. He’ll be company for t’awd lass.’

  It was time to go. Helen and I moved over to the door and little Mrs Chapman with her fingers on the handle looked up at me.

  ‘Well, Mr Herriot,’ she said, ‘I can’t thank you enough for comin’ out and putting our minds at rest. I don’t know what I’d have done wi’ this man of mine if anything had happened to his little dog.’

  Bert grinned sheepishly. ‘Nay,’ he muttered. ‘Ah was never really worried.’