Every Living Thing

by James Herriot

  “I’ll have to try something else, Molly,” I said. I had with me one of the new steroid drugs, dexamethasone, and I injected 1 c.c.

  “You must be sick of the sight of me, but I’ll call tomorrow morning to see if this new stuff has done any good.”

  Molly didn’t wait till the next day. Her cottage was only about a hundred yards from my house and she was on my doorstep the same afternoon.

  She was out of breath. “There’s a wonderful improvement, Mr. Herriot!” she gasped. “He’s like another dog. I wish you’d come and see ’im!”

  I was only too eager and almost trotted along the road. Robbie looked almost like the little dog I used to know so well. He was still stiff, but he could walk carefully over the kitchen floor and his tail gave a slow wag as he saw me. The trembling was gone and he had lost his terrified look.

  My relief was tremendous. “Has he eaten anything?”

  “Yes, he had his nose in his bowl about two hours after you left.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful.” I took the temperature and it was 102—on the way down at last. “I’ll still come tomorrow, because I think one more shot will put him absolutely right.”

  It did indeed, and a week later it was good to see the little animal leaping around in his garden, playing with a stick. He was full of life, back to normal, and though it niggled me that I still had no idea what had ailed him, I was able to file away the whole episode comfortably in my mind as just another happy ending.

  I was wrong. A month later, Molly arrived at my door, looking distressed. “He’s starting again, Mr. Herriot!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Same as before. Tremblin’ and can’t move!”

  Once again, an injection of the steroid brought a rapid recovery, but it wasn’t the end of the affair, it was only the beginning of a saga.

  Over the next two years I fought a long battle with the mysterious condition. Robbie would be a normal, healthy-looking animal for a few weeks, then the dreaded symptoms would suddenly reappear and Molly would rush along to my house, and when I opened the door she would be on the step, head on one side and an anxious half-smile on her face, saying, “SOS, Mr. Herriot, SOS.” Desperately worried though she was, she always tried to brighten the situation with a wry humour.

  Each time it happened, I dashed to the cottage with my steroids. Sometimes the symptoms were very severe, being accompanied by gasping respiration, and I felt that I was saving the dog’s life every time I treated him. I adopted various tactics along the way, the most successful being to supplement the injection with steroid tablets given regularly for a few days, then tailing off gradually before finally stopping. Then we would wait breathlessly until the next recurrence.

  Sometimes nothing happened for many weeks and we relaxed, thinking we had won and the whole thing could be forgotten like a bad dream. Then Molly would be back again at my door, head on one side. “SOS, Mr. Herriot, SOS.”

  It became part of our lives. Being a near neighbour I had always known Molly well, but now during those frantic visits she talked about her life as I cradled a cup of tea in the kitchen by the tiny window with its trailing ivy and the branches of the apple tree beyond.

  She had been in domestic service as a young girl and had lived in the cottage for over thirty years. She had been very ill some time ago and would have died but for a life-saving operation carried out in Brawton by the brilliant surgeon Sir Charles Armitage.

  Her face became radiant when she talked about Sir Charles. “Eee, he’s that clever and world famous, but he was so kind to me. I’m only a poor old body with no money, but I might ’ave been a queen. He couldn’t do enough for me.”

  There was another hero in her life, the actor John Wayne. Whenever one of his films came to the little cinema in Darrowby Molly would be there, and when she discovered that I too was a Wayne fan we had long discussions about his films. “Oh, he’s such a lovely man,” she would say, giggling at her own infatuation.

  It was a warm friendship, but hanging over it at all times was the spectre of Robbie’s recurring illness. I was at her cottage scores of times and of course I never charged her. She had only her old-age pension and previously I had made a nominal charge, but now even that went out of the window. Often she pleaded with me to accept something, but it was obviously unthinkable. In return she knitted little things for Helen and the children and gave us jars of her home-made tomato chutney.

  When I look back over the years, that part of my life shines like a vivid thread running through the busy routine of my veterinary practice. Robbie’s unique illness, Sir Charles Armitage, John Wayne and SOS.

  At all times I wondered at the little dog’s forgiving nature. Every time I met him I stuck a hypodermic needle into him. He must have felt like a pincushion, but when he had recovered he always wagged his tail furiously when he saw me and rushed up, planting his paws on my legs and looking up at me in delight.

  There came a time, however, when the attacks became more violent and more frequent. The little animal’s distress on those occasions was pitiful to see and though I always managed to pull him round, I was gradually having to face the grim fact that the battle was going to be a losing one.

  The climax came at three o’clock one morning. I heard the bell ringing, pulled on a dressing gown and went to the door. Molly was on the step again but this time she was unable to summon her half-humorous password of SOS.

  “Will you come, Mr. Herriot?” she gasped. “Robbie’s real bad.”

  I didn’t bother to dress, but grabbed my bag and hurried with her to the cottage. The little dog was in a terrible rigor, shaking, panting, hardly able to breathe. It was the worst attack yet.

  “Will you put him to sleep, please,” Molly said quietly.

  “You really want that?”

  “Aye, it’s the end of the road for ’im. I just know it. And I can’t stand any more of it, Mr. Herriot. I’ve not been too well myself, and it’s getting me down.”

  I knew she was right. As I injected the barbiturate into the vein and saw the little dog relax into his last repose, there was no doubt in my mind that I was doing the best thing in ending his suffering for ever.

  As before, there were no tears. Just a quiet “Oh, Robbie, Robbie,” as she patted the shaggy little body.

  I slumped into the kitchen chair where I had drunk so many cups of tea. Sitting there, in dressing gown and slippers, I could hardly believe that the long struggle had ended this way.

  “Molly,” I said after a minute. “I’d really like to get to the bottom of this.”

  She looked at me. “You mean a post-mortem?” She shook her head. “No, no, nothing like that.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything I could do or say. I went out, leaving the mystery behind me, and as I walked through the moonlit garden, sick with failure and frustration, I reflected that it was a mystery that would never be solved.

  I was soon swept along in the rush of my everyday work, but I found it difficult to put Robbie out of my mind. Inevitably, some vets’ patients die and with dogs, heartache is always round the corner; their lives are too short. I knew I would not survive if I suffered every time along with the bereaved owners, and I did my best to preserve a professional attitude. But it didn’t always work and it didn’t work with Robbie.

  The association had gone on too long and the memories of that little dog wouldn’t go away. And it made it worse that I had to pass Molly’s cottage every day of my life, seeing her white head bobbing about in her garden where she used to play with Robbie. She looked very alone.

  I had withheld my usual advice to “get another dog,” because the old lady’s health was obviously failing and I knew she could not bring herself to start all over again.

  Sadly, my fears were confirmed, and Molly died a few weeks after Robbie. That chapter was finally closed.

  It was late afternoon some time later that I came into the surgery and found Siegfried making up some medicine in the dispensary.
/>
  “Siegfried,” I said, “I’ve had a damned awful day.”

  He put down the bottle he had filled. “In what way, James?”

  “Well, every damn thing seems to have gone wrong. Every case I revisited had got worse—none had improved—and a few people more or less suggested that I was a bloody awful vet.”

  “Surely not. You’re imagining things.”

  “I don’t think so. It started first thing this morning when I was examining Mrs. Cowling’s dog. It was a rather obscure case and I tried to spell out the various possibilities to her. She gave me a frosty look and said, ‘Well, the long and short of it is that you simply have no idea what is wrong with the animal!’ ”

  “I shouldn’t worry about that, James. She probably didn’t mean anything.”

  “You didn’t see her face. But then I went out to see a ewe at George Grindley’s. It was a pregnancy toxaemia and I was taking its temperature when, out of the blue, George said, ‘You know, you’ve never cured a single animal on my place. I hope you’ll do better with this ’un.’”

  “But that’s not true, James, I know it’s not.”

  “Maybe so, but he said it.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “And after that I drove out to cleanse a cow at old Hawkin’s. I’d just got out of the car when he looked at me under his brows and grunted, ‘Oh, it’s you. My wife says it’s always fatal when Mr. Herriot comes.’ I must have looked a bit shattered because he patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘Mind you, she likes you as a man.’ ”

  “Oh dear. I’m sorry, James.”

  “Thank you, Siegfried, I won’t bore you any more, but it’s been like that all day, and then right in the middle of it I had to go through my own village and past poor old Molly Minican’s cottage. There was an auctioneer there, selling off her furniture and her bits and pieces. There were all sorts of things piled up in her garden and it hit me again that her dog had died without my having any idea what was wrong with him, though I treated him for two years. She knew I didn’t know and she must have thought I was a dead loss. I think that was the peak point of my hellish day.”

  Siegfried spread his hands. “Look, how many vets and doctors have lost patients without ever being sure of their diagnosis? You’re not the only one. Anyway, we all have days like today, James, when nothing goes right. Every vet runs up against them now and then. You’ll have a lot of good days to make up for it.”

  I nodded good-bye and set off for home. My partner was trying to be kind, but I still felt low when I got to Hannerly, and as I sat down at the tea-table, Helen gave me a questioning look.

  “What’s the matter, Jim? You’re very quiet.”

  “Sorry, Helen, I know I’m not a barrel of laughs tonight.” I poured out my story.

  “Oh, I thought it must be something to do with your work,” she said. “But what’s really getting you down is Molly Minican, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “That’s right. She was a bit special. Seeing all her things lying in her garden brought everything back to me, and I don’t like the thought that Molly died convinced I was a bit of a chump.”

  “But she was always nice to you, Jim.”

  “She was nice to everybody, me included. But I know that she must have felt that I had let her down. She’s gone now, but I have this rotten feeling that in her heart she had a poor opinion of me and that’s something I can never alter.”

  Helen gave me a quizzical smile. “I think I have something here that will make you feel better.” She left the room and I waited, mystified, till she came back with what looked like a framed picture under her arm.

  “Peggy Ford in the village was at Molly’s sale,” she said. “She handed this on to me because it was hanging in the old lady’s bedroom and she thought you’d be interested in it. Here, have a look.”

  It wasn’t a picture. It was a framed square of cardboard and across the top, in Molly’s spidery writing, I read: “My three favourite men.”

  Underneath, gummed to the cardboard, were three photographs in a row. There was Sir Charles Armitage, John Wayne…and me.

  Chapter 48

  IT WAS THE FIRST time I had ever seen a man coming out of a house and then removing bicycle clips from his trouser legs.

  I had been called to this cottage by a Mr. Colwell to attend his dog, and as I got out of the car I was surprised to see this man emerge, then, after looking back carefully, bend down to take off the clips. There was no sign of a bike anywhere.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but why the clips?”

  The man looked back again, grinned and spoke quietly. “Now then, Mr. Herriot, it’s you, is it. I’ve just been in to read t’gas meter and I’m takin’ precautions.”

  “Precautions?”

  “Aye, against the fleas.”

  “Fleas!”

  “Aye, that’s right. They’re canny folks, the Colwells, but the missus isn’t ower particular and there’s a lot of fleas in there.”

  I stared at him. “But… the clips…I still don’t see…”

  “Aye, well,” said the man, laughing. “They’re to stop the fleas goin’ up me legs inside me trousers.” He pocketed the clips and strode off round the corner to his next visit.

  I stood by my car, chuckling to myself. Fleas up his legs!

  I’d never heard anything so daft. I had known that gasman for years and he’d always seemed perfectly normal, but clearly he suffered from an obsession. Like some people washing their hands all the time. Probably he put the clips on at every house. I trotted to the corner and looked along the row of cottages but he had disappeared.

  It was incredible, the strange notions people got into their heads, but such whimsies had always fascinated me and a flea complex was something new. I just hoped the poor chap wasn’t unhappy with a delusion like this, but I had heard him whistling cheerfully as he rounded the corner so I supposed it didn’t bother him too much. I was still smiling as I walked back to my car and it was an expansive smile, because it was Thursday and this was my last visit before starting my half-day.

  Though veterinary surgery was my life and I wouldn’t have wanted to do anything else, the snag was that it never stopped—except on Thursday afternoons. On that special day I invariably felt light-hearted as soon as I awoke, knowing that by midday Helen and I would be off to Brawton, free as birds. A leisurely lunch at one of the town’s splendid cafes, then we would meet my pal Gordon Rae, the vet from Boroughbridge, and his wife, Jean, fellow escapees from the telephone and the wellington boots, and we would spend the day shopping, followed by tea and the cinema. It doesn’t sound like much, but to us it was a blessed relief.

  The evening would be different this time since Helen had been given tickets for a concert by the Halle Orchestra from the Miss Whitlings, pillars of the Darrowby Music Society. We would be returning home to change and then be making up a four with them for the concert. The conductor was my old hero, Sir John Barbirolli, and the programme was mouth-watering. Coriolanus, Elgar’s Violin Concerto and Brahms’s First Symphony. I took a long contented breath as I knocked on the Colwells’ door—in about an hour’s time we’d be off.

  It was opened by the man of the house; sixtyish, collarless and unshaven, but with a welcoming smile.

  “Come in, Mr. ’erriot,” he cried, waving a courtly arm. “I’m sorry we had to call you out, but we ’aven’t no transport and our awd dog needs attention.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Colwell. I understand he’s had a bump with a car?”

  “Aye, he ran out in front of the post office van this mornin’ and it sent him flyin’.” The smile vanished from his face and his eyes widened with anxiety. “We hope it’s nowt serious. Poor awd Roopy—we call ’im that because he’s got a funny bark.”

  The front door opened directly into the living room and the atmosphere was stuffier and more odoriferous than a cow byre. Dust lay thickly on the furniture and a colourful miscellany of newspapers, articles of clothing and food
scraps littered the table and floor. Mrs. Colwell was indeed not ower particular.

  The lady herself appeared from the kitchen and greeted me with the same affability as her husband, but her eyes were red and swollen with weeping.

  “Eee, Mr. Herriot,” she quavered, “we’re that worried about Roopy. He’s never ailed a thing all ’is life, but we’re frightened we might lose ’im now.”

  I looked at the dog stretched in a basket against the wall. He seemed to be a spaniel cross and he gazed at me with terrified eyes.

  “Did he manage to walk inside after the accident?” I asked.

  “Nay,” replied Mr. Colwell. “We had to carry ’im in.” He gulped. “We think he might have a broken back.”

  “Mmm.” I knelt by the basket and the Colwells knelt on either side of me. I pulled down Roopy’s lower eyelid and saw a pink conjunctiva.

  “He’s a good colour. No sign there of internal injury.” I felt my way over all four legs, ribs and pelvis and found no fractures.

  “Let’s see if you can stand, old boy,” I said.

  Gently I eased my hand underneath the dog’s body and very carefully started to lift. He responded with a yowling protest, which brought exclamations of anguish from his owners. “Aw, poor awd Roopy!” “Never mind, lad!” “Oh, he’s such a good boy!” as they patted and caressed him.

  I persevered and kept lifting until I had him standing shakily for a moment, then I let him down.

  “Well, it seems he’s got away with it,” I said. “He’s a bit bruised and you can see his pads are scuffed and sore, but I’m sure he’s not seriously injured.”

  Cries of joy went up from the Colwells and they redoubled their strokings and cooings while Roopy, his big spaniel eyes liquid and pathetic, gazed around him at each of us in turn. He was clearly milking the situation to its full.

  The three of us got to our feet and I reached for my bag. “I’m going to give him a couple of injections to relieve his discomfort and to help the sores on his pads.” I administered steroid and antibiotic and counted out some penicillin tablets. “He’s suffering from shock, too, but I think he’s making the most of it.” I laughed and patted the shaggy head. “You’re an old soldier, Roopy.”