I’d heard that description of Calum a thousand times from the farmers around Darrowby and now it seemed to be more strikingly proven than ever. I looked up Papua New Guinea in the public library and read that it wasn’t till 1930 that the first white man had made contact with the million inhabitants of the unexplored highlands where Calum had gone. It was a whole intact civilisation that had had no contact with the outside world.
I looked at pictures of fierce-looking, almost naked men with slivers of bone transfixing their nostrils and brandishing bows and arrows as they glared into the camera. These frightening people would be his neighbours and there was nothing surer than he would love them all and especially those wide-eyed little black children.
The letters started to arrive from Mendi in the southern highlands. Calum, as expected, was utterly entranced by it all. The agriculture was Stone Age in character with pigs the only livestock, most of the settlements unchanged from when the first whites discovered them, and the primitive farmers, though a bit careless about keeping appointments when he tried to teach them animal husbandry, were charming chaps. Dierdre and he were already firm friends with all of them.
As the months and years passed he was clearly absorbed in the development and improvement of the country. I learned how he introduced cattle, sheep and poultry into the local agriculture, educated the farmers and immersed himself with all his energy in the life there.
In 1988 one of his daughters, Sarah, wrote to me. She said, “Dad still amazes me with his knowledge of the local vegetation and wildlife and on his station farm he has 11 Border collies, 2 pig dogs (Labrador crosses), 2 water buffalo, 5 horses, many cattle, sheep, goats, an assortment of chickens, ducks, guinea fowl and a huge flock of homing pigeons.”
As I put down her letter I thought of Calum’s little menagerie at Skeldale House. It had been only a rehearsal for this. The vet wi’ t’badger would be happy now.
Chapter 52
MONTHS PASSED WITHOUT ANY thawing of relations between me and the cats and I noticed with growing apprehension that Olly’s long coat was reverting to its previous disreputable state. The familiar knots and tangles were reappearing and within a year it was as bad as ever. It became more obvious every day that I had to do something about it. But could I trick him again? I had to try.
I made the same preparations, with Helen placing the Nembutal-laden food on the wall, but this time Olly sniffed, licked, then walked away. We tried at his next mealtime but he examined the food with deep suspicion and turned away from it. It was very clear that he sensed there was something afoot.
Hovering in my usual position at the kitchen window, I turned to my wife. “Helen, I’m going to have to try to catch him.”
“Catch him? With your net, do you mean?”
“No, no. That was all right when he was a kitten. I’d never get near him now.”
“How, then?”
I looked out at the scruffy black creature on the wall. “Well, maybe I can hide behind you when you feed him and grab him and bung him into the cage. I could take him down to the surgery then, give him a general anaesthetic and make a proper job of him.”
“Grab him? And then fasten him in the cage?” Helen said incredulously. “It sounds impossible to me.”
“Yes, I know, but I’ve grabbed a few cats in my time and I can move fast. If only I can keep hidden. We’ll try tomorrow.”
My wife looked at me, wide-eyed. I could see that she had little faith.
Next morning she placed some delicious fresh chopped raw haddock on the wall. It was the cats’ favourite. They were not particularly partial to cooked fish but this was irresistible. The open cage lay beneath the wall, hidden from sight. The cats stalked along the wall, Ginny sleek and shining, Olly a pathetic sight with his ravelled hair and ugly appendages dangling from his neck and body. Helen made her usual fuss of the two of them, then, as they descended happily on the food, she returned to the kitchen where I was lurking.
“Right, now,” I said. “I want you to walk out very slowly again and I am going to be tucked in behind you. When you go up to Olly he’ll be concentrating on the fish and maybe won’t notice me.”
Helen made no reply as I pressed myself into her back in close contact from head to toe.
“Okay, off we go.” I nudged her left leg with mine and we shuffled off through the door, moving as one.
“This is ridiculous,” Helen wailed. “It’s like a music hall act.”
Nuzzling the back of her neck, I hissed into her ear, “Quiet, just keep going.”
As we advanced on the wall, double-bodied, Helen reached out and stroked Olly’s head, but he was too busy with the haddock to look up. He was there, chest high, within a couple of feet of me. I’d never have a better chance. Shooting my hand round Helen, I seized him by the scruff of his neck, held him, a flurry of flailing black limbs, for a couple of seconds, then pushed him into the cage. As I crashed the lid down, a desperate paw appeared at one end but I thrust it back and slotted home the steel rod. There was no escape now.
I lifted the cage onto the wall with Olly and me at eye level and I flinched as I met his accusing stare through the bars. “Oh, no, not again! I don’t believe this!” it said. “Is there no end to your treachery?”
In truth, I felt pretty bad. The poor cat, terrified as he was by my assault, had not tried to scratch or bite. It was like the other times—his only thought was to get away. I couldn’t blame him for thinking the worst of me.
However, I told myself, the end result was going to be a fine handsome animal again. “You won’t know yourself, old chap,” I said to the petrified little creature, crouched in his cage in the car seat by my side as we drove to the surgery. “I’m going to fix you up properly, this time. You’re going to look great and feel great.”
Siegfried had offered to help me, and when we got him on the table, a trembling Olly submitted to being handled and to the intravenous anaesthetic. As he lay sleeping peacefully I started on the awful tangled fur with a fierce pleasure, snipping and trimming and then going over him with the electric clippers followed by a long combing till the last tiny knot was removed. I had given him only a makeshift hair-do before, but this was the full treatment.
Siegfried laughed when I held him up after I had finished. “Looks ready to win any cat show,” he said.
I thought of his words next morning when the cats came on the wall for their breakfast. Ginny was always beautiful, but she hardly outshone her brother as he strutted along, his smooth, lustrous fur gleaming in the sunshine.
Helen was enchanted at his appearance and kept running her hand along his back as though she couldn’t believe the transformation. I, of course, was in my usual position, peeking furtively from the window. It was going to be a long time before I even dared to show myself to Olly.
It very soon became clear that my stock had fallen to new depths, because I had only to step out of the back-door to send him scurrying away into the fields. The situation became so bad that I began to brood about it.
“Helen,” I said one morning. “This thing with Olly is getting on my nerves. I wish there was something I could do about it.”
“There is, Jim,” she said. “You’ll really have to get to know him. And he’ll have to get to know you.”
I gave her a glum look. “I’m afraid if you asked him, he’d tell you that he knows me only too well.”
“Oh, I know, but when you think about it, over all the years that we’ve had these cats, they’ve hardly seen anything of you, except in an emergency. I’ve been the one to feed them, talk to them, pet them day in, day out. They know me and trust me.”
“That’s right, but I haven’t had the time.”
“Of course you haven’t. Your life is one long rush. You’re no sooner in the house than you’re out again.”
I nodded thoughtfully. She was so right. Over the years I had been attached to those cats, enjoyed the sight of them trotting down the slope for their food, playing in the long grass in the field,
being fondled by Helen, but I was a comparative stranger to them. I felt a pang at the realisation that all that time had flashed past so quickly.
“Well, maybe it’s too late. Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes,” she said. “You have to start feeding them. You’ll just have to make the time to do it. Oh, I know you can’t do it always, but if there’s the slightest chance, you’ll have to get out there with their food.”
“So you think it’s just a case of cupboard love with them?”
“Absolutely not. I’m sure you’ve seen me with them often enough. They won’t look at their food until I’ve made a fuss of them for quite a long time. It’s the attention and friendship they want most.”
“But I haven’t a hope. They hate the sight of me.”
“You’ll just have to persevere. It took me a long time to get their trust. Especially with Ginny. She’s always been the more timid one. Even now if I move my hand too quickly she’s off. Despite all that’s happened I think Olly might be your best hope—there’s a big well of friendliness in that cat.”
“Right,” I said. “Give me that food and milk. I’ll start now.”
That was the beginning of one of the little sagas in my life. At every opportunity I was the one who called them down, placed the food on the wall-top and stood there waiting. At first I waited in vain. I could see the two of them watching me from the log shed—the black-and-white face and the yellow, gold and white one observing me from the straw beds—but for a long time they would never venture down until I had retreated into the house. Because of my irregular life it was difficult to keep the new system going and sometimes when I had an early morning call they didn’t get their breakfast on time, but it was on one of those occasions when breakfast was over an hour late that their hunger overcame their fear and they came down cautiously while I stood stock-still by the wall. They ate quickly with nervous glances at me, then scurried away. I smiled in satisfaction. It was the first breakthrough.
After that there was a long period when I just stood there as they ate and they became used to me as part of the scenery. Then I tried a careful extension of a hand. They backed away at that, but as the days passed I could see that my hand was becoming less and less of a threat and my hopes rose steadily. As Helen had prophesied, Ginny was the one who shied far away from me at the slightest movement, whereas Olly, after retreating, began to look at me with an appraising eye as though he might possibly be willing to forget the past and revise his opinion of me. With infinite patience, day by day, I managed to get my hand nearer and nearer to him and it was a memorable occasion when he at last stood still and allowed me to touch his cheek with a forefinger. As I gently stroked the fur he regarded me with unmistakeably friendly eyes before skipping away.
“Helen!” I said, looking round at the kitchen window. “I’ve made it! We’re going to be friends at last. It’s a matter of time now till I’m stroking him as you do.” I was filled with an irrational pleasure and fulfilment. It did seem a foolish reaction in a man who was dealing every day with animals of all kinds, but I was looking forward to years of friendship with that particular cat.
I was wrong. At that moment I could not know that Olly would be dead within forty-eight hours.
It was the following morning when Helen called to me from the back garden. She sounded distraught. “Jim, come quickly! It’s Olly!”
I rushed out to where she was standing near the top of the slope near the log shed. Ginny was there, but all I could see of Olly was a dark smudge on the grass.
Helen gripped my arm as I bent over him. “What’s happened to him?”
He was motionless, his legs extended stiffly, his back arched in a dreadful opisthotonos, his eyes staring.
“I…I’m afraid he’s gone. It looks like strychnine poisoning.” But as I spoke he moved slightly.
“Wait a minute!” I said. “He’s still alive, but only just.” I saw that the rigor had relaxed and I was able to flex his legs and lift him without any recurrence. “This isn’t strychnine. It’s like it, but it isn’t. It’s something cerebral, maybe a stroke.”
Dry-mouthed, I carried him down to the house where he lay still, breathing almost imperceptibly.
Helen spoke through her tears. “What can you do?”
“Get him to the surgery right away. We’ll do everything we can.” I kissed her wet cheek and ran out to the car.
Siegfried and I sedated him, because he had begun to make paddling movements with his limbs, then we injected him with steroids and antibiotics and put him on an intravenous drip. I looked at him as he lay in the big recovery cage, his paws twitching feebly. “Nothing more we can do, is there?”
Siegfried shook his head and shrugged. He agreed with me about the diagnosis—stroke, seizure, cerebral haemorrhage, call it what you like, but certainly the brain. I could see that he had the same feeling of hopelessness as I had.
We attended him all that day and, during the afternoon, I thought for a brief period that he was improving, but by evening he was comatose again and he died during the night.
I brought him home and as I lifted him from the car his smooth, tangle-free fur was like a mockery now that his life was ended. I buried him just behind the log shed a few feet from the straw bed where he had slept for all the years.
Vets are no different from other people when they lose a pet and Helen and I were miserable. We hoped that the passage of time would dull our unhappiness, but we had another poignant factor to deal with. What about Ginny?
Those two cats had become a single entity in our lives and we never thought of one without the other. It was clear that to Ginny the world was incomplete without Olly. For several days she ate nothing. We called her repeatedly but she advanced only a few yards from the log house, looking around her in a puzzled way before turning to her bed. For all of those years, she had never trotted down that slope on her own, and over the next few weeks her bewilderment as she gazed about her continually, seeking and searching for her companion, was one of the most distressing things we had ever had to witness.
We fed her in her bed for several days and eventually managed to coax her onto the wall, but she could scarcely put her head down to the food without peering this way and that, still waiting for Olly to come and share it.
“She’s so lonely,” Helen said. “We’ll have to try to make a bigger fuss of her than ever now. I’ll spend more time outside talking with her, but if only we could get her inside with us. That would be the answer, but I know it can never happen.”
I looked at the little creature, wondering if I’d ever get used to seeing only one cat on that wall, but Ginny sitting by the fireside or on Helen’s knee was an impossible dream. “Yes, you’re right, but maybe I can do something. I’d just managed to make friends with Olly—I’m going to start on Ginny now.”
I knew I was taking on a long and maybe hopeless challenge because she had always been the more timid of the two, but I pursued my purpose with resolution. At mealtimes and whenever I had the opportunity, I presented myself outside the kitchen door, coaxing and wheedling, beckoning with my hand, but for a long time, though she accepted the food from me, she would not let me near her. Then, maybe she needed companionship so desperately that she felt she might even resort to me, because the day came when she did not back away but allowed me to touch her cheek with my finger as I had done with Olly.
After that, progress was slow but steady. From touching I moved week by week to stroking her cheek, then to gently rubbing her ears until finally I could run my hand the length of her body and tickle the root of her tail. From then on, undreamed-of familiarities gradually unfolded until she would not look at her food till she had paced up and down the wall-top again and again, arching herself in delight against my hand and brushing my shoulders with her body. Among these daily courtesies one of her favourite ploys was to press her nose against mine and stand there for several minutes looking into my eyes.
It was one morning several
months later while Ginny and I were in this posture—she on the wall, touching noses with me, gazing into my eyes, drinking me in as though she thought I was rather wonderful and couldn’t quite get enough of me—when I heard a sound from behind me.
“I was just watching the veterinary surgeon at work,” Helen said softly.
“Happy work, too,” I said, not moving from my position, looking deeply into the green eyes, alight with friendship, fixed on mine from a few inches away. “I’ll have you know that this is one of my greatest triumphs.”
A Biography of James Herriot
James Herriot (1916–1995) was the pen name of James Alfred “Alf” Wight, an English veterinarian whose tales of veterinary practice and country life have delighted generations. Many of Herriot’s works were bestsellers and have been adapted for film and television. His stories rely on numerous autobiographical elements taken from his life in northern England’s Yorkshire County, and they depict a simple, rustic world deeply in touch with the cycles of nature.
Wight was born on October 3, 1916, in Sunderland, in the northeast corner of England. Shortly after his birth, his parents moved to Glasgow, Scotland, where his father worked as a shipbuilder and as a pianist in a local cinema. His mother was a seamstress and professional singer. At age twelve, Wight adopted his first pet, an Irish setter named Don. The bond he formed with his dog led to his interest in veterinary medicine.
Wight graduated from the Glasgow Veterinary College in 1939 at the age of twenty-three. After working briefly in Sunderland, the town where he was born, he moved to the town of Thisk in Yorkshire County, England, where he settled down. In Yorkshire, he met Joan Danbury, whom he married in 1941. The couple had two children. Son James Alexander, born 1943, would go on to become a vet and partner in his father’s practice, and daughter Rosemary, born 1947, became a family physician.
Though he’d always had literary ambitions, Wight got a late start as a professional writer. Starting a family, serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, and then establishing his own busy veterinary practice all delayed his literary debut. In 1966 at the age of fifty, he finally began writing regularly with the encouragement of his wife. After trying his hand unsuccessfully in areas such as sportswriting, Wight found modest success with the publication of If Only They Could Talk in 1970 and It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet in 1972. He adopted the pen name James Herriot because self-promotion for doctors and veterinarians was frowned upon in England at that time. In the United States, his first two books were combined by his New York publisher and released as All Creatures Great and Small (1972), the volume that would make the name James Herriot famous. Within a couple of years, All Creatures Great and Small had been adapted as a successful film starring Simon Ward and Anthony Hopkins and as a long-running BBC program.
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