Lord God Made Them All (2 page)

“Aye, you would, Mr. Herriot, you’re right. I’ve been daft, and I’ll see it doesn’t happen again.”

I felt really clever. I don’t often have moments of inspiration, but the conviction swelled in me that one of them had come to me today. I had finally got through to Mr. Ripley.

The feeling of exhilaration gave me added strength and I finished the job effortlessly. As I walked to the car I positively glowed, and my self-satisfaction deepened when the farmer bent to the window as I started the engine.

“Well, thank ye, Mr. Herriot,” he said. “You’ve taught me summat this mornin’. Next time ye come I’ll have a nice new gate for ye and I’ll never ask ye to nip big beasts like that again. Ah guarantee it.”

All that had happened a long time ago, before the R.A.F., and I was now in the process of reinserting myself into civilian life, tasting the old things I had almost forgotten. But at the moment when the phone rang I was tasting something very near to my heart—Helen’s cooking.

It was Sunday lunchtime, when the traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding were served. My wife had just dropped a slab of the pudding on my plate and was pouring gravy over it, a rich, brown flood with the soul of the meat in it and an aroma to dream of. I was starving, after a typical country vet’s Sunday morning of rushing round the farms and I was thinking, as I often did, that if I had some foreign gourmet to impress with the choicest sample of our British food, then this is what I would give him.

? great chunk of Yorkshire pud and gravy was the expedient of the thrifty farmers to fill their families’ stomachs before the real meal started—“Them as eats most puddin’ gets most meat,” was the wily encouragement—but it was heaven. And as I chewed my first forkful I was happy in the knowledge that when I had cleared my plate Helen would fill it again with the beef itself and with potatoes, peas and runner beans gathered from our garden that morning.

The shrilling phone cut cruelly into my reverie, but I told myself that nothing was going to spoil this meal. The most urgent job in veterinary practice could wait until I had finished.

But my hand shook as I lifted the receiver, and a mixture of anxiety and disbelief flowed through me as I heard the voice at the other end. It was Mr. Ripley. Oh please, no, not that long, long trek to Anson Hall on a Sunday.

The farmer’s voice thundered in my ear. He was one of the many who still thought you had to bawl lustily to cover the miles between.

“Is that vitnery?”

“Yes, Herriot speaking.”

“Oh, you’re back from t’war, then?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well, ah want ye out here right away. One of me cows is right bad.”

“What’s the trouble? Is it urgent?”

“Aye, it is! I think she’s maybe broke ’er leg!”

I held the ear piece away from me. Mr. Ripley had increased his volume, and my head was beginning to ring. “What makes you think that?” I asked, suddenly dry-mouthed.

“Well, she’s on three legs,” the farmer blasted back at me. “And t’other’s sort of hangin’, like.”

Oh God, that sounded horribly significant. I looked sadly across the room at my loaded plate. “All right, Mr. Ripley, I’ll be along.”

“You’ll come straight away, won’t ye? Right now?” The voice was an importunate roar.

“Yes, I’ll come straight away.” I put down the receiver, rubbed my ear and turned to my wife.

Helen looked up from the table with the stricken face of a woman who can visualise her Yorkshire pudding sagging into lifeless ruin. “Oh surely you don’t have to go this minute?”

“I’m sorry, Helen, this is one of those things I can’t leave.” I could picture only too easily the injured animal plunging around in her agony, perhaps compounding the fracture. “And the man sounds desperate. I’ve just got to go.”

My wife’s lips trembled. “All right, I’ll put it in the oven till you come back.”

As I left I saw her carrying the plate away. We both knew it was the end. No Yorkshire pud could survive a visit to Anson Hall.

I increased my speed as I drove through Darrowby. The cobbled market place, sleeping in the sunshine, breathed its Sunday peace and emptiness with all the inhabitants of the little town eating busily behind closed doors. Out in the country the dry stone walls flashed by as I kept my foot on the boards, and when I finally arrived at the beginning of the farm track I had a sense of shock.

It was the first time I had been there since I had left the service, and I suppose I had been expecting to find something different. But the old iron gate was just the same, except that it was even more rusty than before. With a growing feeling of doom I fought my way through the other gates, untying the strings and shouldering the top spars round till finally I came to number seven.

This last and most terrible of the gates was still there, and unchanged. It couldn’t be true, I told myself as I almost tiptoed towards it. All sorts of things had happened to me since I had last seen it. I had been away in a different world of marching and drilling and learning navigation and finally flying an aeroplane, while this rickety structure stood there unheeding.

I eyed it closely. The loose-nailed wobbly timbers were as before, as was the single string hinge—probably the same piece of string. It was unbelievable. And then I noticed something different. Mr. Ripley, apparently worried lest his livestock might rub against and damage the ancient bastion, had festooned the thing with barbed wire.

Maybe it had mellowed with time. It couldn’t be as vicious as before. Gingerly I loosened the bottom string on the right-hand side, then with infinite care I untied the bow at the top. I was just thinking that it was going to be easy when the binder twine fell away and the gate swung with all its old venom on the left-hand string.

It got me on the chest first, then whacked against my legs, and this time the steel barbs bit through my trousers. Frantically I tried to throw the thing away from me, but it pounded me high and low and when I leaned back to protect my chest, my legs slid from under me and I fell on my back. And as my shoulders hit the track, the gate, with a soft woody crunch, fell on top of me.

I had been nearly underneath this gate several times in the past and had got clear at the last moment, but this time it had really happened. I tried to wriggle out, but the barbed wire had my clothing in its iron grip. I was trapped.

I craned desperately over the timbers. The farm was only fifty yards away, but there was not a soul in sight. And that was a funny thing. Where was the anxious farmer? I had expected to find him pacing up and down the yard, wringing his hands, but the place seemed deserted.

I dallied with the idea of shouting for help, but that would have been just too absurd. There was nothing else for it. I seized the top rail in both hands and pushed upwards, trying to close my ears to the tearing sounds from my garments, then, very slowly, I eased my way to safety.

I left the gate lying where it was. Normally I meticulously close all gates behind me but there were no cattle in the fields and anyway, I had had enough of this one.

I rapped sharply at the farmhouse door and Mrs. Ripley answered.

“Now then, Mr. Herriot, it’s grand weather,” she said. Her carefree smile reminded me of her husband’s as she wiped at a dinner plate and adjusted the apron around her ample midriff.

“Yes … yes … it is. I’ve called to see your cow. Is your husband in?”

She shook her head. “Nay, ’e hasn’t got back from t’Fox and Hounds yet.”

“What!” I stared at her. “That’s the pub at Diverton, isn’t it? I thought he had an urgent case for me to see.”

“Aye, well, he had to go across there to ring ye up. We haven’t no telephone here, ye know.” Her smile widened.

“But—but that was nearly an hour since. He should have been back here long ago.”

“That’s right,” she said, nodding with perfect understanding. “But he’ll ’ave met some of his pals up there. They all get into t’Fox and Hounds on a Sunday mornin’.”

I churned my hair around. “Mrs. Ripley, I’ve left my meal lying on the table so that I could get here immediately!”

“Oh, we’ve ’ad ours,” she replied, as though the words would be a comfort to me. And she didn’t have to tell me. The rich scent drifting from the kitchen was unmistakably roast beef, and there was no doubt at all it would have been preceded by Yorkshire pudding.

I didn’t say anything for a few moments, then I took a deep breath. “Well, maybe I can see the cow. Where is she, please?”

Mrs. Ripley pointed to a box at the far end of the yard.

“She’s in there.” As I set off across the cobbles she called after me. “You can be lookin’ at her till ’e gets back. He won’t be many minutes.”

I flinched as though a lash had fallen across my shoulders. Those were dreadful words. “Not many minutes” was a common phrase in Yorkshire and could mean anything up to two hours.

I opened the half-door and looked into the box at the cow. She was very lame, but when I approached her she hopped around in the straw, dotting the injured limb on the ground.

Well, she hadn’t a broken leg. She couldn’t take her weight on it, but there was none of the typical dangling of the limb. I felt a surge of relief. In a big animal a fracture usually meant the humane killer because no number of plaster bandages could take the strain. The trouble seemed to be in her foot but I couldn’t catch her to find out. I’d have to wait for Mr. Ripley.

I went out into the afternoon sunshine and gazed over the gently rising fields to the church tower of Diverton pushing from the trees. There was no sign of the farmer and I walked wearily beyond the buildings onto the grass to await his coming.

I looked back at the house, and even through my exasperation I felt a sense of peace. Like many of the older farms, Anson Hall had once been a noble manor. Hundreds of years ago some person of title had built his dwelling in a beautiful place. The roof looked ready to fall in and one of the tall chimney stacks leaned drunkenly to one side, but the mullioned windows, the graceful arched doorway and the stately proportions of the building were a delight, with the pastures beyond stretching towards the green fells.

And that garden wall. In its former glory the sun-warmed stones would have enclosed a cropped lawn with bright flowers, but now there were only nettles. Those nettles fascinated me; a waist-high jungle filling every inch of space between wall and house. Farmers are notoriously bad gardeners but Mr. Ripley was in a class by himself.

My reverie was interrupted by a cry from the lady of the house. “He’s comin’, Mr. Herriot. I’ve just spotted ’im through the window.” She came round to the front and pointed towards Diverton.

Her husband was indeed on his way, a black dot moving unhurriedly down through the fields and we watched him together for about fifteen minutes until at last he squeezed himself through a gap in a wall and came up to us, the smoke from his pipe rising around his ears.

I went straight into the attack. “Mr. Ripley, I’ve been waiting a long time! You asked me to come straight away!”

“Aye, ah knaw, ah knaw, but I couldn’t very well ask to use t’phone without havin’ a pint, could I?” He put his head on one side and beamed at me, secure in his unanswerable logic.

I was about to speak when he went on. “And then Dick Henderson bought me one, so I had to buy ’im one back, and then I was just leavin’ when Bobby Talbot started on about them pigs he got from me last week.”

His wife chipped in with bright curiosity. “Eee, that Bobby Talbot! Was he there this mornin’, too? He’s never away from t’pub, that feller. I don’t know how his missus puts up with it.”

“Aye, Bobby was there, all right. He allus is.” Mr. Ripley smiled gently, knocked his pipe out against his heel and began to refill it. “And ah’ll tell you who else ah saw—Dan Thompson. Haven’t seen ’im since his operation. By gaw, it has fleeced him—he’s lost a bit o’ ground. Looks as though a few pints would do ’im good.”

“Dan, eh?” Mrs. Ripley said eagerly. “That’s good news, any road. From what I heard they thought he’d never come out of t’hospital.”

“Excuse me,” I broke in.

“Nay, nay, that was just talk,” Mr. Ripley continued. “It was nobbut a stone in t’kidney. Dan’ll be all right. He was tellin’ me …

I held up a hand. “Mr. Ripley, can I please see this cow? I haven’t had my lunch yet. My wife put it back in the oven when you phoned.”

“Oh, I ’ad mine afore I went up there.” He gave me a reassuring smile and his wife nodded and laughed to put my mind fully at rest.

“Well, that’s splendid,” I said frigidly. “I’m glad to hear that.” But I could see that they took me at my word. The sarcasm was lost on them.

In the loose box Mr. Ripley haltered the cow and I lifted the foot. Cradling it on my knee I scraped away the caked muck with a hoof knife and there, glinting dully as the sunshine slanted in at the door, was the cause of the trouble. I seized the metal stud with forceps, dragged it from the foot and held it up.

The farmer blinked at it for a few seconds, then his shoulders began to shake gently. “One of me own hobnails. Heh, heh, heh. Well, that’s a rum ’un. Ah must’ve knocked it out on t’cobbles; they’re right slippery over there. Once or twice I’ve nearly gone arse over tip. I was sayin’ to t’missus just t’other day …”

“I really must get on, Mr. Ripley,” I interposed. “Remember, I still haven’t had my lunch. I’ll just slip out to the car for an antitetanus injection for the cow.”

I gave her the shot, dropped the syringe into my pocket and was on my way across the yard when the farmer called after me.

“Have ye got your nippers with ye, Mr. Herriot?”

“Nippers …?” I halted and looked back at him. I couldn’t believe this. “Well, yes, I have, but surely you don’t want to start castrating calves now?”

The farmer flicked an ancient brass lighter and applied a long sheet of flame to the bowl of his pipe. “There’s nobbut one, Mr. Herriot. Won’t take a minute.”

Ah, well, I thought, as I opened the boot and fished out the Burdizzo from its resting place on my calving overall. It didn’t really matter now. My Yorkshire pudding was a write-off, a dried-up husk by now, and the beef and those gorgeous fresh vegetables would be almost cremated. All was lost, and nipping a calf wasn’t going to make any difference.