All Creatures Great and Small (53 page)

Siegfried reached to the back of the cupboard and pulled out a long flat box. He blew the dust from the leather covering and gingerly unfastened the clasp. Inside, a fleam, glittering on its bed of frayed velvet, lay by the side of a round, polished blood stick.

I looked at my employer in astonishment. “You’re going to bleed him, then?”

“Yes, my boy, I’m going to take you back to the Middle Ages.” He looked at my startled face and put a hand on my arm. “But don’t start beating me over the head with all the scientific arguments against blood-letting. I’ve no strong views either way.”

“But have you ever done it? I’ve never seen you use this outfit.”

“I’ve done it. And I’ve seen some funny things after it, too.” Siegfried turned away as if he wanted no more discussion. He cleaned the fleam thoroughly and dropped it into the steriliser. His face was expressionless as he stood listening to the hiss of the boiling water.

The gipsies were again hunched over the fire when we got there and Mr. Myatt, sensing that reinforcements had arrived, scrambled to his feet and shuffled forward, holding out another ten shilling note.

Siegfried waved it away. “Let’s see how we get on, Mr. Myatt,” he grunted. He strode across the grass to where the pony still trembled in his agonised crouch. There was no improvement; in fact the eyes stared more wildly and I could hear little groans as the piebald carefully eased himself from foot to foot.

Siegfried spoke softly without looking at me, “Poor beggar. You weren’t exaggerating, James. Bring that box from the car, will you?”

When I came back he was tying a choke rope round the base of the pony’s neck. “Pull it up tight,” he said. As the jugular rose up tense and turgid in its furrow he quickly clipped and disinfected a small area and inserted a plaque of local anaesthetic. Finally he opened the old leather-covered box and extracted the fleam, wrapped in sterile lint.

Everything seemed to start happening then. Siegfried placed the little blade of the fleam against the bulging vein and without hesitation gave it a confident smack with the stick. Immediately an alarming cascade of blood spouted from the hole and began to form a dark lake on the grass. Mr. Myatt gasped and the little girls set up a sudden chatter. I could understand how they felt. In fact I was wondering how long the pony could stand this tremendous outflow without dropping down.

It didn’t seem to be coming out fast enough for Siegfried, however, because he produced another stick from his pocket, thrust it into the pony’s mouth and began to work the jaws. And as the animal champed, the blood gushed more fiercely.

When at least a gallon had come away Siegfried seemed satisfied. “Slacken the rope, James,” he cried, then rapidly closed the wound on the neck with a pin suture. Next he trotted over the grass and looked over a gate in the roadside wall. “Thought so,” he shouted. “There’s a little beck in that field. We’ve got to get him over to it. Come on, lend a hand everybody!”

He was clearly enjoying himself and his presence was having its usual effect. The Myatts were spurred suddenly into action and began to run around aimlessly, bumping into each other. I was gripped by a sudden tension and preparedness and even the pony seemed to be taking an interest in his surroundings for the first time.

All five of the gipsies pulled at the halter, Siegfried and I looped our arms behind the pony’s thighs, everybody gave encouraging shouts and at last he began to move forward. It was a painful process but he kept going—through the gate and across the field to where the shallow stream wandered among its rushes. There were no banks to speak of and it was easy to push him out into the middle. As he stood there with the icy water rippling round his inflamed hooves I fancied I could read in his eyes a faint dawning of an idea that things were looking up at last.

“Now he must stand in there for an hour,” Siegfried said. “And then you’ll have to make him walk round the field. Then another hour in the beck. As he gets better you can give him more and more exercise but he must come back to the beck. There’s a lot of work for somebody here, so who’s going to do it?”

The three little girls came shyly round him and looked up, wide-eyed, into his face. Siegfried laughed. “You three want the job, do you? Right, I’ll tell you just what to do.”

He pulled out the bag of peppermint drops which was an ever-present among his widely-varied pocket luggage and I settled myself for a long wait. I had seen him in action with the children on the farms and when that bag of sweets came out, everything stopped. It was the one time Siegfried was never in a hurry.

The little girls each solemnly took a sweet, then Siegfried squatted on his heels and began to address them like a professor with his class. They soon began to thaw and put a word in for themselves. The smallest launched into a barely intelligible account of the remarkable things the pony had done when he was a foal and Siegfried listened intently, nodding his head gravely now and then. There was all the time in the world.

His words obviously went home because, over the next few days whenever I passed the gipsy camp I could see the three wild little figures either grouped around the pony in the beck or dragging him round the field on a long halter shank. I didn’t need to butt in—I could see he was improving all the time.

It was about a week later that I saw the Myatts on their way out of Darrowby, the red caravan rocking across the market place with Mr. Myatt up front wearing a black velvet cap, his wife by his side. Tethered to various parts of the caravan the family of horses clopped along and right at the rear was the piebald, a bit stiff perhaps, but going very well. He’d be all right.

The little girls were looking out of the back door and as they spotted me I waved. They looked back at me unsmilingly until they had almost turned the corner into Hallgate then one of them shyly lifted her hand. The others followed suit and my last sight was of them waving eagerly back.

I strolled into the Drovers and took a thoughtful half pint into a corner. Siegfried had done the trick there all right but I was wondering what to make of it because in veterinary practice it is difficult to draw definite conclusions even after spectacular results. Was it my imagination or did that pony seem to feel relief almost immediately after the blood-letting? Would we ever have got him moving without it? Was it really the right thing in these cases to bash a hole in the jugular and release about a bucketful of the precious fluid? I still don’t have the answers because I never dared try it for myself.

“C
OULD
M
R.
H
ERRIOT SEE
my dog, please?”

Familiar enough words coming from the waiting-room but it was the voice that brought me to a slithering halt just beyond the door.

It couldn’t be, no of course it couldn’t, but it sounded just like Helen. I tiptoed back and applied my eye without hesitation to the crack in the door. Tristan was standing there looking down at somebody just beyond my range of vision. All I could see was a hand resting on the head of a patient sheep dog, the hem of a tweed skirt and two silk stockinged legs.

They were nice legs—not skinny—and could easily belong to a big girl like Helen. My cogitations were cut short as a head bent over to speak to the dog and I had a close up in profile of the small straight nose and the dark hair falling across the milky smoothness of the cheek.

I was still peering, bemused, when Tristan shot out of the room and collided with me. Stifling an oath, he grabbed my arm and hauled me along the passage into the dispensary. He shut the door and spoke in a hoarse whisper.

“It’s her! The Alderson woman! And she wants to see you! Not Siegfried, not me, but you, Mr. Herriot himself!”

He looked at me wide-eyed for a few moments then, as I stood hesitating he opened the door and tried to propel me into the passage.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” he hissed.

“Well, it’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it? After that dance, I mean. Last time she saw me I was a lovely sight—so pie-eyed I couldn’t even speak”

Tristan struck his forehead with his hand. “God help us! You worry about details, don’t you? She’s asked to see you—what more do you want? Go on, get in there!”

I was shuffling off irresolutely when he raised a hand. “Just a minute. Stay right there.” He trotted off and returned in a few seconds holding out a white lab coat.

“Just back from the laundry,” he said as he began to work my arms into the starched sleeves. “You’ll look marvellous in this, Jim—the immaculate young surgeon.”

I stood unresisting as he buttoned me into the garment but struck away his hand when he started to straighten my tie. As I left him he gave me a final encouraging wave before heading for the back stairs.

I didn’t give myself any more time to think but marched straight into the waiting-room. Helen looked up and smiled. And it was just the same smile. Nothing behind it. Just the same friendly, steady-eyed smile as when I first met her.

We faced each other in silence for some moments then when I didn’t say anything she looked down at the dog.

“It’s Dan in trouble this time,” she said. “He’s our sheep dog but we’re so fond of him that he’s more like one of the family.”

The dog wagged his tail furiously at the sound of his name but yelped as he came towards me. I bent down and patted his head. “I see he’s holding up a hind leg.”

“Yes, he jumped over a wall this morning and he’s been like that ever since. I think it’s something quite bad—he can’t put any weight on the leg.”

“Right, bring him through to the other room and I’ll have a look at him. But take him on in front of me, will you, and I’ll be able to watch how he walks.”

I held the door open and she went through ahead of me with the dog.

Watching how Helen walked distracted me over the first few yards, but it was a long passage and by the time we had reached the second bend I had managed to drag my attention back to my patient.

And glory be, it was a dislocated hip. It had to be with that shortening of the limb and the way he carried it underneath his body with the paw just brushing the ground.

My feelings were mixed. This was a major injury but on the other hand the chances were I could put it right quickly and look good in the process. Because I had found, in my brief experience, that one of the most spectacular procedures in practice was the reduction of a dislocated hip. Maybe I had been lucky, but with the few I had seen I had been able to convert an alarmingly lame animal into a completely sound one as though by magic.

In the operating room I hoisted Dan on to the table. He stood without moving as I examined the hip. There was no doubt about it at all—the head of the femur was displaced upwards and backwards, plainly palpable under my thumb.

The dog looked round only once—when I made a gentle attempt to flex the limb—but turned away immediately and stared resolutely ahead. His mouth hung open a little as he panted nervously but like a lot of the placid animals which arrived on our surgery table he seemed to have resigned himself to his fate. I had the strong impression that I could have started to cut his head off and he wouldn’t have made much fuss.

“Nice, good-natured dog,” I said. “And a bonny one, too.”

Helen patted the handsome head with the broad blaze of white down the face; the tail waved slowly from side to side.

“Yes,” she said. “He’s just as much a family pet as a working dog. I do hope he hasn’t hurt himself too badly.”

“Well, he has a dislocated hip. It’s a nasty thing but with a bit of luck I ought to be able to put it back.”

“What happens if it won’t go back?”

“He’d have to form a false joint up there. He’d be very lame for several weeks and probably always have a slightly short leg.”

“Oh dear, I wouldn’t like that,” Helen said. “Do you think he’ll be all right?”

I looked at the docile animal still gazing steadfastly to his front. “I think he’s got a good chance, mainly because you haven’t hung about for days before bringing him in. The sooner these things are tackled the better.”

“Oh good. When will you be able to start on him?”

“Right now.” I went over to the door. “I’ll just give Tristan a shout. This is a two man job.”

“Couldn’t I help?” Helen said. “I’d very much like to if you wouldn’t mind.”

I looked at her doubtfully. “Well I don’t know. You mightn’t like playing tug of war with Dan in the middle. He’ll be anaesthetised of course but there’s usually a lot of pulling.”

Helen laughed. “Oh, I’m quite strong. And not a bit squeamish. I’m used to animals, you know, and I like working with them.”

“Right,” I said. “Slip on this spare coat and we’ll begin.”

The dog didn’t flinch as I pushed the needle into his vein and as the Nembutal flowed in, his head began to slump against Helen’s arm and his supporting paw to slide along the smooth top of the table. Soon he was stretched unconscious on his side.

I held the needle in the vein as I looked down at the sleeping animal. “I might have to give him a bit more. They have to be pretty deep to overcome the muscular resistance.”

Another cc. and Dan was as limp as any rag doll. I took hold of the affected leg and spoke across the table. “I want you to link your hands underneath his thigh and try to hold him there when I pull. O.K.? Here we go, then.”

It takes a surprising amount of force to pull the head of a displaced femur over the rim of the acetabulum. I kept up a steady traction with my right hand, pressing on the head of the femur at the same time with my left Helen did her part efficiently, leaning back against the pull, her lips pushed forward in a little pout of concentration.

I suppose there must be a foolproof way of doing this job—a method which works the very first time—but I have never been able to find it. Success has always come to me only after a fairly long period of trial and error and it was the same today. I tried all sorts of angles, rotations and twists on the flaccid limb, trying not to think of how it would look if this just happened to be the one I couldn’t put back. I was wondering what Helen, still hanging on determinedly to her end, must be thinking of this wrestling match when I heard the muffled click. It was a sweet and welcome sound.