All Creatures Great and Small (36 page)

“How are you today, sorr?” he asked.

“Very well, thank you, Mr. Hugill,” I replied.

“Good!” said William fervently, and the other brothers all repeated “Good, good, good,” with deep satisfaction.

William took a deep breath. “And how is Mr. Farnon?”

“Oh, he’s very fit, thanks.”

“Good!” Then the rapid fire of the responses from behind him: “Good, good, good.”

William hadn’t finished yet. He cleared his throat. “And how is young Mr. Farnon?”

“In really top form.”

“Good!” But this time William allowed himself a gentle smile and from behind him came a few dignified ho-ho’s. Walter closed his eyes and his great shoulders shook silently. They all knew Tristan.

William stepped back into line, his appointed task done and we all went into the byre. I braced myself as I looked at the long row of backs, the tails swishing at the flies. There was some work ahead here.

“Sorry I’m so late,” I said, as I drew the tuberculin into the syringe. “I was held up at the last place. It’s difficult to forecast how long these tests will take.”

All four brothers replied eagerly. “Aye, you’re right, sorr. It’s difficult. It IS difficult. You’re right, you’re right, it’s difficult.” They went on till they had thrashed the last ounce out of the statement.

I finished filling the syringe, got out my scissors and began to push my way between the first two cows. It was a tight squeeze and I puffed slightly in the stifling atmosphere.

“It’s a bit warm in here,” I said.

Again the volley of agreement. “You’re right, sorr. Aye, it’s warm. It IS warm. You’re right. It’s warm. It’s warm. Aye, you’re right.” This was all delivered with immense conviction and vigorous nodding of heads as though I had made some incredible discovery; and as I looked at the grave, intent faces still pondering over my brilliant remark, I could feel my tensions beginning to dissolve. I was lucky to work here. Where else but in the high country of Yorkshire would I meet people like these?

I pushed along the cow and got hold of its ear, but Walter stopped me with a gentle cough.

“Nay, Mr. Herriot, you won’t have to look in the ears. I have all t’numbers wrote down.”

“Oh, that’s fine. It’ll save us a lot of time.” I had always found scratching the wax away to find ear tattoos an overrated pastime. And it was good to hear that the Hugills were attending to the clerical side; there was a section in the Ministry form which said: “Are the herd records in good order?” I always wrote “Yes,” keeping my fingers crossed as I thought of the scrawled figures on the backs of old bills, milk recording sheets, anything.

“Aye,” said Walter. “I have ’em all set down proper in a book.”

“Great! Can you go and get it, then?”

“No need, sorr, I have it ’ere.” Walter was the boss, there was no doubt about it. They all seemed to live in perfect harmony but when the chips were down Walter took over automatically. He was the organiser, the acknowledged brains of the outfit. The battered trilby which he always wore in contrast with the others’ caps gave him an extra air of authority.

Everybody watched respectfully as he slowly and deliberately extracted a spectacle case from an inside pocket. He opened it and took out an old pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, blowing away fragments of the hay and corn chaff with which the interior of the case was thickly powdered. There was a quiet dignity and importance in the way he unhurriedly threaded the side pieces over his ears and stood grimacing slightly to work everything into place. Then he put his hand into his waistcoat pocket.

When he took it out he was holding some object but it was difficult to identify, being almost obscured by his enormous thumb. Then I saw that it was a tiny, black-covered miniature diary about two inches square—the sort of novelty people give each other at Christmas.

“Is that the herd record?” I asked.

“Yes, this is it. It’s all set down in here.” Walter daintily flicked over the pages with a horny forefinger and squinted through his spectacles. “Now that fust cow—she’s number eighty-fower.”

“Splendid!” I said. “I’ll just check this one and then we can go by the book.” I peered into the ear. “That’s funny, I make it twenty-six.”

The brothers had a look. “You’re right, sorr, you’re right. It IS twenty-six.”

Walter pursed his lips. “Why, that’s Bluebell’s calf isn’t it?”

“Nay,” said Fenwick, “she’s out of awd Buttercup.”

“Can’t be,” mumbled Thomas. “Awd Buttercup was sold to Tim Jefferson afore this ’un was born. This is Brenda’s calf.”

William shook his head. “Ah’m sure we got her as a heifer at Bob Ashby’s sale.”

“All right,” I said, holding up a hand. “We’ll put in twenty-six.” I had to cut in. It was in no way an argument, just a leisurely discussion but it looked as if it could go on for some time. I wrote the number in my notebook and injected the cow. “Now how about this next one?”

“Well ah DO know that ’un,” said Walter confidently, stabbing at an entry in the diary. “Can’t make no mistake, she’s number five.”

I looked in the ear. “Says a hundred and thirty seven here.”

It started again. “She was bought in, wasn’t she?” “Nay, nay, she’s out of awd Dribbler.” “Don’t think so—Dribbler had nowt but bulls …”

I raised my hand again. “You know, I really think it might be quicker to look in all the ears. Time’s getting on.”

“Aye, you’re right, sorr, it IS getting on.” Walter returned the herd record to his waistcoat pocket philosophically and we started the laborious business of clipping, measuring and injecting every animal, plus rubbing the inside of the ears with a cloth soaked in spirit to identify the numbers which had often faded to a few unrelated dots. Occasionally Walter referred to his tiny book. “Ah, that’s right, ninety-two. I thowt so. It’s all set down here.”

Fighting with the loose animals in the boxes round the fold yard was like having a dirty Turkish bath while wearing oilskins. The brothers caught the big beasts effortlessly and even the strongest bullock grew quickly discouraged when it tried to struggle against those mighty arms. But I noticed one strange phenomenon: the men’s fingers were so thick and huge that they often slipped out of the animals’ noses through sheer immobility.

It took an awful long time but we finally got through. The last little calf had a space clipped in his shaggy neck and bawled heartily as he felt the needle, then I was out in the sweet air throwing my coat in the car boot. I looked at my watch—three o’clock. I was nearly two hours behind my schedule now and already I was hot and weary, with skinned toes on my right foot where a cow had trodden and a bruised left instep caused by the sudden descent of Fenwick’s size thirteen hobnails during a particularly violent mélée. As I closed the boot and limped round to the car door I began to wonder a little about this easy Ministry work.

Walter loomed over me and inclined his head graciously. “Come in and sit down and have a drink o’ tea.”

“It’s very kind of you and I wish I could, Mr. Hugill. But I’ve got a long string of inspections waiting and I don’t know when I’ll get round them. I’ve fixed up far too many and I completely underestimated the time needed for your test. I really am an absolute fool.”

And the brothers intoned sincerely. “Aye, you’re right, sorr, you’re right, you’re right.”

Well, there was no more testing today, but ten inspections still to do and I should have been at the first one two hours ago. I roared off, feeling that little ball tightening in my stomach as it always did when I was fighting the clock. Gripping the wheel with one hand and exploring my lunch packet with the other, I pulled out a piece of Mrs. Hall’s ham and egg pie and began to gnaw at it as I went along.

But I had gone only a short way when reason asserted itself. This was no good. It was an excellent pie and I might as well enjoy it. I pulled off the unfenced road on to the grass, switched off the engine and opened the windows wide. The farm back there was like an island of activity in the quiet landscape and now that I was away from the noise and the stuffiness of the buildings the silence and the emptiness enveloped me like a soothing blanket. I leaned my head against the back of the seat and looked out at the checkered greens of the little fields along the flanks of the hills; thrusting upwards between their walls till they gave way to the jutting rocks and the harsh brown of the heather which flooded the wild country above.

I felt better when I drove away and didn’t particularly mind when the farmer at the first inspection greeted me with a scowl.”

“This isn’t one o’clock, Maister!” he snapped. “My cows have been in all afternoon and look at the bloody mess they’ve made. Ah’ll never get the place clean again!”

I had to agree with him when I saw the muck piled up behind the cows; it was one of the snags about housing animals in grass time. And the farmer’s expression grew blacker as most of them cocked their tails as though in welcome and added further layers to the heaps.

“I won’t keep you much longer,” I said briskly, and began to work my way down the row. Before the tuberculin testing scheme came into being, these clinical examinations were the only means of detecting tuberculous cows and I moved from animal to animal palpating the udders for any unusual induration. The routine examinations were known jocularly in the profession as “bag-snatching” or “cow-punching” and it was a job that soon got tedious.

I found the only way to stop myself going nearly mad with boredom was to keep reminding myself what I was there for. So when I came to a gaunt red cow with a pendulous udder I straightened up and turned to the farmer.

“I’m going to take a milk sample from this one. She’s a bit hard in that left hind quarter.”

The farmer sniffed. “Please yourself. There’s nowt wrong with her but I suppose it’ll make a job for somebody.”

Squirting milk from the quarter into a two ounce bottle, I thought about Siegfried’s veterinary friend who always took a pint sample from the healthiest udder he could find to go with his lunchtime sandwiches.

I labelled the bottle and put it into the car. We had a little electric centrifuge at Skeldale House and tonight I would spin this milk and examine the sediment on a slide after staining by Ziehl-Neelsen. Probably I would find nothing but at times there was the strange excitement of peering down the microscope at a clump of bright red, iridescent T.B. bacilli. When that happened the cow was immediately slaughtered and there was always the thought that I might have lifted the death sentence from some child—the meningitis, the spinal and lung infections which were so common in those days.

Returning to the byre I finished the inspection by examining the wall in front of each cow.

The farmer watched me dourly. “What you on with now?”

“Well, if a cow has a cough you can often find some spit on the wall.” I had, in truth, found more tuberculous cows this way than any other—by scraping a little sputum on to a glass slide and then staining it as for the milk.

The modern young vet just about never sees a T.B. cow, thank heavens, but “screws” were all too common thirty years ago. There were very few in the high Pennines but in the low country on the plain you found them; the cows that “weren’t doing right,” the ones with the soft, careful cough and slightly accelerated breathing. Often they were good milkers and ate well, but they were killers and I was learning to spot them. And there were the others, the big, fat, sleek animals which could still be riddled with the disease. They were killers of a more insidious kind and nobody could pick them out. It took the tuberculin test to do that.

At the next four places I visited, the farmers had got tired of waiting for me and had turned their cows out. They had all to be brought in from the field and they came slowly and reluctantly; there was nothing like the rodeo I had had with Mr. Kay’s heifers but a lot more time was lost. The animals kept trying to turn back to the field while I sped around their flanks like a demented sheep dog; and as I panted to and fro each farmer told me the same thing—that cows only liked to come in at milking time.

Milking time did eventually come and I caught three of my herds while they were being milked, but it was after six when I came tired and hungry to my second last inspection. A hush hung over the place and after shouting my way round the buildings without finding anybody I walked over to the house.

“Is your husband in, Mrs. Bell?” I asked.

“No, he’s had to go into t’village to get the horse shod but he won’t be long before he’s back. He’s left cows in for you,” the farmer’s wife replied.

That was fine. I’d soon get through this lot. I almost ran into the byre and started the old routine, feeling sick to death of the sight and smell of cows and fed up with pawing at their udders. I was working along almost automatically when I came to a thin, rangy cow with a narrow red and white face; she could be a crossed Shorthorn-Ayrshire. I had barely touched her udder when she lashed out with the speed of light and caught me just above the kneecap.

I hopped round the byre on one leg, groaning and swearing in my agony. It was some time before I was able to limp back to have another try and this time I scratched her back and cush-cushed her in a wheedling tone before sliding my hand gingerly between her legs. The same thing happened again only this time the sharp-edged cloven foot smacked slightly higher up my leg.

Crashing back against the wall, I huddled there, almost weeping with pain and rage. After a few minutes I reached a decision. To hell with her. If she didn’t want to be examined she could take her luck. I had had enough for one day—I was in no mood for heroics.

Ignoring her, I proceeded down the byre till I had inspected the others. But I had to pass her on my way back and paused to have another look; and whether it was sheer stubbornness or whether I imagined she was laughing at me, I don’t know, but I decided to have just one more go. Maybe she didn’t like me coming from behind. Perhaps if I worked from the side she wouldn’t mind so much.

Carefully I squeezed my way between her and her neighbour, gasping as the craggy pelvic bones dug into my ribs. Once in the space beyond, I thought, I would be free to to do my job; and that was my big mistake. Because as soon as I had got there the cow went to work on me in earnest. Switching her back end round quickly to cut off my way of escape, she began to kick me systematically from head to foot. She kicked forward, reaching at times high on my chest as I strained back against the wall.