Every Living Thing

by James Herriot

  All became suddenly clear and I laughed. “And the face mask is a red-and-white spotted handkerchief?”

  “Aye! How the heck did you know?”

  “Because that’s the Cisco Kid you have there.”

  “What!”

  It would have taken a long time to explain to the sergeant but it all fitted in.

  Bernard was in his forties and he shared a smallholding with his redoubtable elder sister. It would be wrong to say that he ran the place, because he simply did as he was told, Miss Wain’s opinion of him being summed up in her favourite word, “useless.”

  For some years now I had become accustomed to her constant refrain on my visits. “Aye, well, you’ll ’ave to manage as best you can, Mr. Herriot. Bernard won’t be much good to you. He’s useless.”

  I recounted to the sergeant the events surrounding my visit to the Wains’ earlier that evening. It had been a ewe lambing. Miss Wain rang from the village kiosk. “She’s been on all afternoon. Bernard’s had ’is hand in and he says there’s summat far wrong but I don’t suppose you’ll ’ave much trouble. It doesn’t take much to flummox Bernard. He’s useless.”

  There were three gates on the rough track to the farm and, as I drove into the yard, Bernard was standing there in the headlights’ beam. Small, dark, perpetually smiling as I had always known him.

  He rubbed his hands and, ever anxious to please, bowed slightly as I got out of the car. “Now then, Mr. Herriot.” But he didn’t make any sort of move till his sister came strutting from the house, her bandy legs carrying her dumpy little frame rapidly over the cobbles.

  She was at least ten years older than her brother, and her jaw jutted as she looked at him. “Come on, don’t just stand there. Take this bucket and show Mr. Herriot where t’ewe is. Eee, I don’t know.” She turned to me. “We’ve got ’er in the stable, but I think he’s forgotten!”

  As I stripped off in the makeshift pen and soaped my arms, I looked at the ewe. She stood knee-deep in straw, straining occasionally, but she didn’t look unduly distressed. In fact, when Bernard made a clumsy grab at the wool of her neck she skipped away from him.

  “Oh, can’t you even hold the thing for Mr. Herriot?” his sister wailed. “Go on, get your arms round her neck properly and haud her in the corner. Eee, you’re that slow! Aye, that’s it, you’ve got ’er at last. Marvellous! And where’s that towel I gave you to bring? You’ve forgotten that, too!”

  As I slipped my hand into the ewe’s vagina, Miss Wain folded her arms and blew out her cheeks. “Ah don’t reckon you’ll have any problems, Mr. Herriot. Bernard can’t manage, but ’e’s got no idea about lambin’ a ewe, in fact ’e’s got no idea about anything. He’s useless.”

  Bernard, standing at the animal’s head, nodded and his smile widened as though he had received a compliment. He wasn’t really feeble-minded, he was just a supremely ineffectual, vague man, a gentle soul, totally unfitted for the rough farming life.

  Kneeling on the straw, I reached forward into the ewe and Miss Wain spoke again. “Ah bet everything’s all right in there.”

  She was right. Everything was fine. Sometimes this first exploration revealed a single, oversized lamb, maybe dead, with no room for the hand to move and everything dry and clinging; little wonder that the farmer was unsuccessful, however long he had tried doing the job himself. But on this occasion, there was all the room in the world, with at least two tiny lambs lying clean and clear and moist in the large uterus, beautifully lubricated by the placental fluid. The only thing that was stopping them from popping out was that two little heads and a bunch of legs were trying to enter the cervix at the same time. It was simply a case of repelling a head and relating the legs to the relevant lamb and I’d have them out, wriggling in the straw, in one minute flat. In fact I had corrected the legs with one finger while I was thinking about it, then I realised that if I did a lightning job Bernard was going to be in big trouble.

  He could, of course, have done the whole thing easily, but anything so earthy as guddling round inside a ewe was anathema to him. I could just imagine his single, shuddering exploration before he capitulated.

  I looked up and detected a trace of anxiety in the smiling face. There was no doubt about it; I was going to have to hold these lambs in for a little while.

  I gasped and grunted as I rotated my arm and the first lamb moved his tongue against my hand.

  “My word, Miss Wain, this is a right mix-up. Could be triplets in here and all tangled up together. It’s a tricky business, I can tell you. Now let’s see…which lamb does that leg belong to… no… no…gosh, it isn’t easy.” I gritted my teeth and groaned again as I fought my imaginary battle. “This is a real vet’s job, I can tell you.”

  As I spoke, Miss Wain’s eyes narrowed. Maybe I was overdoing it. Anyway, Bernard was in the clear now. I hooked a finger round the tiny legs that were first in the queue and drew out lamb number one. I deposited him in the straw and he raised his head and shook it vigorously; always a good sign, but possibly he was puzzled at the delay.

  “Now then, what else have we got?” I said worriedly as I reached back into the ewe. The job was as good as over now, but I was still making a meal of it for Bernard’s sake and I did a bit more panting and grunting before producing a second and then a third lamb. They made a pretty sight as they lay wriggling and snuffling in the straw. The first one was already making efforts to rise on wobbly legs. It would soon be on its way to the milk bar.

  I smiled up at Miss Wain. “There you are, then. Three grand lambs. I’ll put in a couple of pessaries and that’s that. It was a complicated business, though, with the legs all jumbled up together. It’s a good job you called me or you might have lost these three.”

  Arms still folded, her head sunk on her chest, she regarded me unsmilingly. I had the impression that part of her was sorry she had been deprived of another opportunity of castigating her brother. However, she had another line of attack.

  “Tell ye what,” she said suddenly. “There’s a cow been hanging her cleansin’ for five days. You might as well take it away while you’re here.”

  This was the kind of routine job that you didn’t usually do at nine o’clock at night, but I didn’t demur. It would save another visit.

  “Okay,” I said. “Will you bring me some fresh water, please?”

  It was then that I noticed the alarm flickering in Bernard’s eyes. I remembered that he couldn’t stand smells, and in the odoriferous trade of country vetting, removal of the bovine afterbirth is the smelliest. And he would have to hold the tail while I did it.

  When he came back with the steaming bucket he set it down and whipped out a large red-and-white spotted handkerchief from his pocket. Carefully he tied it round his face, knotting it tightly at the back of his neck, then he took up his place by the side of the cow.

  As I put my arm into the animal and looked at Bernard’s big eyes swimming above the mask I thought again how fitting was our nickname for him. It was Tristan who had first christened him the Cisco Kid because of his uncanny resemblance to the famous bandit. In all the unpleasant procedures that assailed Bernard’s nostrils—stinking carvings, autopsies, releasing the gas from tympanitic cows—the handkerchief came out, and, in fact, in every image I had of him he was wearing that mask.

  It seemed to give him a feeling of security, because he was able to make cheerful, if muffled, replies to my attempts at conversation, although occasionally he closed his eyes in a pained manner as though some alien whiff had got through to him.

  Fortunately it was an easy cleansing and it wasn’t long before Bernard was waving me goodbye as I drove away. In the darkness of the yard he still had the handkerchief round his face—the Cisco Kid to the life.

  I felt I had managed to put the police sergeant in the picture. However, he still wasn’t quite convinced.

  “But he still wouldn’t be wearing that mask when he came into Darrowby.”

  “Bernard would.”

  �
��You mean he just forgot to take it off?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, he’s a rum sort of feller.”

  I could understand his wonderment, but to me Bernard’s actions were quite in character. He’d had a traumatic evening with the lambing and the cleansing and it was totally understandable that he would jump on his bike and pedal into the town to seek solace in a parcel of fish and chips. I knew for a fact that they were his greatest pleasure. A little matter like removing the handkerchief would easily slip his mind.

  “Aye well,” the sergeant said. “I suppose I can take your word about him.”

  “Sergeant,” I said, “that man you have there is the most harmless character in north Yorkshire.”

  There was a pause. “Okay, then, we’d better get the handcuffs off him.”

  “What! You haven’t…”

  “No, no, heh-heh-heh! Just having a bit o’ fun with you, Mr. Herriot. You did it to me with your flippin’ Cisco Kid, so I’m giving it back to you.”

  “All right, fair enough.” I laughed in return. “Is Bernard very upset?”

  “Upset? Not him. Not a care in the world. His only worry is that the fish and chip shop might be closed.”

  “Oh, dear. And is it?”

  “No, I’ll be able to reassure him about that. They’re stayin’ open till eleven o’clock tonight.”

  “Good, good, so it’s a happy ending for Bernard.”

  “Guess so.” The sergeant laughed again as he put down the receiver.

  But it could have been so different. If the little farm had been on the phone, Miss Wain would have received that call. My mind reeled at the thought of her reaction when she learned that Bernard couldn’t even go out for fish and chips without landing in the hands of the police.

  I could imagine her exasperated cry. “Useless! Useless!”

  Chapter 37

  THERE ARE FEW SIGHTS more depressing than a litter of dying piglets.

  “Looks pretty hopeless, Mr. Bush,” I said as I leaned over the wall of the pen. “And what a pity, it’s a grand litter. Twelve of them, aren’t there?”

  The farmer grunted. “Aye, it allus happens like that.” He wasn’t a barrel of laughs at any time but now his long, hollow-cheeked face was set in gloom.

  I looked down at the little pink creatures huddled in a heap, liquid yellow faeces trickling down their tails. Neonatal scour. The acute diarrhoea that afflicts new-born piglets and is nearly always fatal unless treated quickly.

  “When did they start with this?” I asked.

  “Pretty near just after they were born. That were three days ago.”

  “Well, I wish I’d seen them a bit sooner. I might have been able to do something for them.”

  Mr. Bush shrugged. “I thought it was nowt—maybe t’milk was too rich for ’em.”

  I opened the door and went into the pen. As I examined the little pigs their mother grunted as if in invitation. She was stretched on her side, exposing the long double row of teats, but her family weren’t interested. As I lifted and laid the limp little bodies I felt sure they would never suckle again.

  However, I just couldn’t do nothing. “We’ll give it a go,” I said. “You never know, we might manage to save one or two.”

  The farmer didn’t say anything as I went out to the car. I couldn’t remember ever having seen him smile and his hunched shoulders and sombre features added to the general atmosphere of doom.

  For my part I was disappointed I hadn’t been called earlier because I had a new product with me that might have helped. It was a Neomycin mixture contained in a plastic bottle, which enabled the antibiotic to be squirted into the mouth. I’d had some good results with it in calves but hadn’t had the chance to try it on pigs, but as I handled the unresisting little creatures, giving each one a shot onto its tongue and laying it, apparently lifeless, back on the floor, I felt I was wasting my time.

  I supplemented the treatment with a small injection of a sulpha drug, and having satisfied my conscience with the feeling that I had done everything, I prepared to leave.

  I handed the Neomycin bottle to the farmer. “Here, if there’s any alive tomorrow, give them a squirt. Let me know if you manage to save any—it isn’t worth my paying another visit.”

  Mr. Bush nodded wordlessly and walked away.

  After three days I had heard nothing and presumed that my unhappy prognostications had been correct, but it was on my mind that I ought to have given the farmer some advice for the future. There were some preventive E. coli vaccines that could be given to the sow before farrowing, and he had a couple of other sows that ought to be protected.

  Since I happened to be passing right by Bush’s farm on my way home from another visit, I turned in at the gate. As I got out of the car the farmer was sweeping up in the corner of the yard. He didn’t look up and my spirits sank. At the same time I felt a little annoyed. It wasn’t my fault he had lost his litter. He didn’t have to ignore me—I had done my best.

  Since he still didn’t pay any attention I walked into the piggery and looked into the pen.

  At first I thought I was looking in the wrong place, but no, I recognised the sow—she had a little nick out of one ear. What my mind could hardly grasp was the sight of a pink jumble of little creatures fighting to get hold of the best teat. It was difficult to count them in the scramble, but finally they settled down to a rapt sucking, each contented with his lot. And there were twelve.

  I looked out of the doorway. “Hey, Mr. Bush, they’re all alive! Every one of them!”

  The farmer, trailing his brush, walked slowly across the yard, and together we looked down into the pen.

  I still couldn’t believe it. “Well, that’s marvellous. A miracle. I thought they’d all die—and there they are!”

  There was no joy in Mr. Bush’s face. “Aye,” he muttered, “but they’ve lost a bit o’ ground.”

  With Mr. Bush’s unimpressed line still groaning in my ear, I drove out to Lord Gresham’s farm.

  It was only when I was in the RAF with the SP’s bawling, “Hey, you, c’mere!” that I realised that the quiet respect I usually received as a veterinary surgeon on the Yorkshire farms was something I had taken for granted. Yet it was very special in my life. It was nothing to do with success or failure in my work—things sometimes went wrong and occasionally I was ticked off by my clients—but behind it all there was the feeling that I was a professional man doing my best for the animals, and I was esteemed accordingly.

  But I never got any more respect from Lord Gresham’s men than I did from Mr. Bush. Danny, Bert, Hughie and Joe regarded me with a total detachment I always found disquieting. It wasn’t that they disliked me or were rude in any way, it was the fact that no matter what I did they were totally unimpressed, not, seemingly, even interested.

  This was strange because, as every vet knows, there are some places where everything goes right and others where everything goes wrong and Lord Gresham’s place was one of the former. I always felt that my good fairy was watching over me there, because every single case had gone like a breeze and in fact I had pulled off a long succession of cures that warmed my heart.

  Today, after climbing out of my car and walking into the fold yard, I believed I would do it again. I looked at the cow standing alone and disconsolate in the deep straw. She was a pathetic sight with, it seemed, half her insides hanging out of her. Prolapsed uterus. It was a scene to wipe the smile from any veterinary surgeon’s face—a promise of hard labour with the animal’s life at stake. But with the passage of years this condition had lost a lot of its dread and, although I was naturally apprehensive, I had the feeling that with my new knowledge and equipment I could restore this poor cow to normal. But at the same time I knew I would get no credit for it, no respect. Not on this farm anyway.

  By bringing up a tractor and using the recently invented Bagshaw hoist clamped on the cow’s pelvis I raised the cow’s back end, so that I was working downhill, administered a spi
nal anaesthetic and replaced the uterus with none of the labour of past years.

  The cow walked away, good as new, and while I felt delighted at the magical return to normal, the men were completely unmoved and strolled off without a word. It was always like this here.

  Shortly after this I attended some sheep going round in circles with listeriosis. An injection of penicillin and they were right within a couple of days—quite a spectacular cure. Same reaction from the men. No interest. Not a scrap of respect.

  A week later, I was called to a cow with a twisted uterus. She was unable to calve and was lying straining, distressed, on the point of exhaustion. Without my help she would have had to be slaughtered, but by rolling her over several times I righted the twist and produced a beautiful live calf. As I looked wonderingly and with deep satisfaction at the result of my work, the men offered no comment but went phlegmatically about the business of clearing up after the operation. For the umpteenth time I wondered what I had to do to get through to them. I was putting on my jacket when an envelope fell out of my pocket. It was from Liverpool, from the football pools firm, and just for the sake of breaking the silence I said, “Ah, my winnings for this week.”

  The effect was electric and the previous apathy was replaced by acute interest. They studied the enclosed postal order, which was only for two pounds, with total absorption. “By gaw, look at that!” “We can’t do any good with them things!” “Fust time I’ve ever seen a winner!” The remarks flew thick and fast. Then Danny, the foreman, said, “De ye often win?”

  Carried away by the excitement and the unprecedented interest, I replied casually, “Oh, yes, regularly,” which was an exaggeration because I very rarely won, but the remark was received with open-mouthed fascination. For the first time ever I was the centre of concentrated attention.

  After a few moments, Danny cleared his throat. “Mr. Herriot, the lads and me do the three draws every week— we each put on a shillin’—and we’ve never ’ad a touch yet. Will you fill up our coupon for us?”