All Creatures Great and Small (34 page)

Outside the room, Tristan rubbed his hands delightedly. “What a break, Jim! A chance in a lifetime! You know I never thought I’d get behind the wheel of that Rover in a hundred years.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Just shows you—everything happens for the best.”

Five minutes later he was backing carefully out of the yard and into the lane and once on the Sorton road I saw he was beginning to enjoy himself. For two miles the way ahead stretched straight and clear except for a milk lorry approaching in the far distance; a perfect place to see what the Rover could do. He nestled down in the rich leather upholstery and pressed his foot hard on the accelerator.

We were doing an effortless eighty when I saw a car beginning to overtake the milk lorry; it was an ancient, square-topped, high-built vehicle like a biscuit tin on wheels and it had no business trying to overtake anything. I waited for it to pull back but it still came on. And the lorry, perhaps with a sporting driver, seemed to be spurting to make a race of it.

With increasing alarm I saw the two vehicles abreast and bearing down on us only a few hundred yards away and not a foot of space on either side of them. Of course the old car would pull in behind the lorry—it had to, there was no other way—but it was taking a long time about it. Tristan jammed on his brakes. If the lorry did the same, the other car would just be able to dodge between. But within seconds I realised nothing like that was going to happen and as they thundered towards us I resigned myself with dumb horror to a head-on collision.

Just before I closed my eyes I had a fleeting glimpse of a large, alarmed face behind the wheel of the old car, then something hit the left side of the Rover with a rending crash.

When I opened my eyes we were stationary. There was just Tristan and myself staring straight ahead at the road, empty and quiet, curving ahead of us into the peaceful green of the hills.

I sat motionless, listening to my thumping heart then I looked over my shoulder and saw the lorry disappearing at high speed round a distant bend; in passing I studied Tristan’s face with interest—I had never seen a completely green face before.

After quite a long time, feeling a draught from the left, I looked carefully round in that direction. There were no doors on that side—one was lying by the roadside a few yards back and the other hung from a single broken hinge; as I watched, this one too, clattered on to the tarmac with a note of flat finality. Slowly, as in a dream, I got out and surveyed the damage; the left side of the Rover was a desert of twisted metal where the old car, diving for the verge at the last split second, had ploughed its way.

Tristan had flopped down on the grass, his face blank. A nasty scratch on the paintwork might have sent him into a panic but this wholesale destruction seemed to have numbed his senses. But this state didn’t last long; he began to blink, then his eyes narrowed and he felt for his Woodbines. His agile mind was back at work and it wasn’t difficult to read his thoughts. What was he going to do now?

It seemed to me after a short appraisal of the situation that he had three possible courses of action. First, and most attractive, he could get out of Darrowby permanently—emigrate if necessary. Second, he could go straight to the railway station and board a train for Brawton where he could live quietly with his mother till this had blown over. Third, and it didn’t bear thinking about, he could go back to Skeldale House and tell Siegfried he had smashed up his new Rover.

As I weighed up the possibilities I spotted the old car which had hit us; it was lying upside down in a ditch about fifty yards down the road. Hurrying towards it, I could hear a loud cackling coming from the interior and I remembered it was market day and many of the farmers would be bringing in crates of hens and maybe twenty or thirty dozen eggs to sell. We peered in through a window and Tristan gasped. A fat man, obviously unhurt, was lying in a great pool of smashed eggs. His face wore a wide, reassuring smile—in fact, his whole expression was ingratiating as far as it could be seen through the mask of egg which covered his features. The rest of the interior was filled with frantic hens which had escaped from their crates in the crash and were hunting for a way out.

The fat man, smiling up happily from his bed of eggs, was shouting something, but it was difficult to hear him above the wild cackling. I managed to pick up odd phrases: “Very sorry indeed—entirely my fault—I’ll make good the damage.” The words floated up cheerfully while the hens scampered across the man’s beaming face and yolks coursed sluggishly down his clothes.

With an effort, Tristan managed to wrench open a door and was driven back immediately by a rush of hens. Some of them galloped off in various directions till they were lost to sight, while their less adventurous companions began to peck about philosophically by the roadside.

“Are you all right?” Tristan shouted.

“Yes, yes, young man. I’m not hurt. Please don’t worry about me.” The fat man struggled vainly to rise from the squelching mass. “Ee, I am sorry about this, but I’ll see you right, you can be sure.”

He held up a dripping hand and we helped him out on to the road. Despite his saturated clothes and the pieces of shell sticking to his hair and moustache he hadn’t lost his poise. In fact he radiated confidence, the same confidence, I thought, which made him think his old car could overtake that speeding lorry.

He laid a hand on Tristan’s shoulder. “There’s a simple explanation, you know. The sun got in my eyes.”

It was twelve noon and the fat man had been driving due north, but there didn’t seem much point in arguing.

We lifted the shattered doors from the road, put them inside the Rover, drove to Sorton, treated the milk fever cow and returned to Darrowby. Tristan gave me a single despairing look then squared his shoulders and marched straight to his brother’s room. I followed close on his heels.

Siegfried was worse. His face was red with fever and his eyes burned deeply in their sockets. He didn’t move when Tristan walked over to the foot of the bed.

“Well, how did you get on?” The whisper was barely audible.

“Oh fine, the cow was on her feet when we left. But there’s just one thing—I had a bit of a bump with the car.”

Siegfried had been wheezing stertorously and staring at the ceiling but the breathing stopped as if it had been switched off. There was an eerie silence then from the completely motionless figure two strangled words escaped. “What happened?”

“Wasn’t my fault. Chap tried to overtake a lorry and didn’t make it. Caught one side of the Rover.”

Again the silence and again the whisper.

“Much damage?”

“Front and rear wings pretty well mangled, I’m afraid—and both doors torn off the left side.”

As if operated by a powerful spring, Siegfried came bolt upright in the bed. It was startingly like a corpse coming to life and the effect was heightened by the coils of Thermogene which had burst loose and trailed in shroud-like garlands from the haggard head. The mouth opened wide in a completely soundless scream.

“You bloody fool! You’re sacked!”

He crashed back on to the pillow as though the mechanism had gone into reverse and lay very still. We watched him for a few moments in some anxiety, but when we heard the breathing restart we tiptoed from the room.

On the landing Tristan blew out his cheeks and drew a Woodbine from its packet. “A tricky little situation, Jim, but you know what I always say.” He struck a match and pulled the smoke down blissfully. “Things usually turn out better than you expect.”

FORTY

A
LOT OF THE
Dales farms were anonymous and it was a help to find this one so plainly identified. “Heston Grange” it said on the gate in bold black capitals.

I got out of the car and undid the latch. It was a good gate, too, and swung easily on its hinges instead of having to be dragged round with a shoulder under the top spar. The farmhouse lay below me, massive, grey-stoned, with a pair of bow windows which some prosperous Victorian had added to the original structure.

It stood on a flat, green neck of land in a loop of the river and the lushness of the grass and the quiet fertility of the surrounding fields contrasted sharply with the stark hills behind. Towering oaks and beeches sheltered the house and a thick pine wood covered the lower slopes of the fell.

I walked round the buildings shouting as I always did, because some people considered it a subtle insult to go to the house and ask if the farmer was in. Good farmers are indoors only at meal times. But my shouts drew no reply, so I went over and knocked at the door set deep among the weathered stones.

A voice answered “Come in,” and I opened the door into a huge, stone-flagged kitchen with hams and sides of bacon hanging from hooks in the ceiling. A dark girl in a check blouse and green linen slacks was kneading dough in a bowl. She looked up and smiled.

“Sorry I couldn’t let you in. I’ve got my hands full.” She held up her arms, floury-white to the elbow.

“That’s all right. My name is Herriot. I’ve come to see a calf. It’s lame, I understand.”

“Yes, we think he’s broken his leg. Probably got his foot in a hole when he was running about. If you don’t mind waiting a minute, I’ll come with you. My father and the men are in the fields. I’m Helen Alderson, by the way.”

She washed and dried her arms and pulled on a pair of short Wellingtons. “Take over this bread will you, Meg,” she said to an old woman who came through from an inner room. “I have to show Mr. Herriot the calf.”

Outside, she turned to me and laughed. “We’ve got a bit of a walk, I’m afraid. He’s in one of the top buildings. Look, you can just see it up there.” She pointed to a squat, stone barn, high on the fell-side. I knew all about these top buildings; they were scattered all over the high country and I got a lot of healthy exercise going round them. They were used for storing hay and other things and as shelters for the animals on the hill pastures.

I looked at the girl for a few seconds. “Oh, that’s all right, I don’t mind. I don’t mind in the least.”

We went over the field to a narrow bridge spanning the river, and, following her across, I was struck by a thought; this new fashion of women wearing slacks might be a bit revolutionary but there was a lot to be said for it. The path led upward through the pine wood and here the sunshine was broken up into islands of brightness among the dark trunks, the sound of the river grew faint and we walked softly on a thick carpet of pine needles. It was cool in the wood and silent except when a bird call echoed through the trees.

Ten minutes of hard walking brought us out again into the hot sun on the open moor and the path curved steeper still round a series of rocky outcrops. I was beginning to puff, but the girl kept up a brisk pace, swinging along with easy strides. I was glad when we reached the level ground on the top and the barn came in sight again.

When I opened the half door I could hardly see my patient in the dark interior which was heavy with the fragrance of hay piled nearly to the roof. He looked very small and sorry for himself with his dangling foreleg which trailed uselessly along the strawed floor as he tried to walk.

“Will you hold his head while I examine him, please?” I said.

The girl caught the calf expertly, one hand under its chin, the other holding an ear. As I felt my way over the leg the little creature stood trembling, his face a picture of woe.

“Well, your diagnosis was correct. Clean fracture of the radius and ulna, but there’s very little displacement so it should do well with a plaster on it.” I opened my bag, took out some plaster bandages then filled a bucket with water from a nearby spring. I soaked one of the bandages and applied it to the leg, following it with a second and a third till the limb was encased in a rapidly hardening white sheath from elbow to foot.

“We’ll just wait a couple of minutes till it hardens, then we can let him go.” I kept tapping the plaster till I was satisfied it was set like stone. “All right,” I said finally. “He can go now.”

The girl released the head and the little animal trotted away. “Look,” she cried. “He’s putting his weight on it already! And doesn’t he look a lot happier!” I smiled. I felt I had really done something. The calf felt no pain now that the broken ends of the bone were immobilised; and the fear which always demoralises a hurt animal had magically vanished.

“Yes,” I said. “He certainly has perked up quickly.” My words were almost drowned by a tremendous bellow and the patch of blue above the half door was suddenly obscured by a large shaggy head. Two great liquid eyes stared down anxiously at the little calf and it answered with a high-pitched bawl. Soon a deafening duet was in progress.

“That’s his mother,” the girl shouted above the din. “Poor old thing, she’s been hanging about here all morning wondering what we’ve done with her calf. She hates being separated from him.”

I straightened up and drew the bolt on the door. “Well she can come in now.”

The big cow almost knocked me down as she rushed past me. Then she started a careful, sniffing inspection of her calf, pushing him around with her muzzle and making muffled lowing noises deep in her throat.

The little creature submitted happily to all the fuss and when it was over and his mother was finally satisfied, he limped round to her udder and began to suck heartily.

“Soon got his appetite back,” I said and we both laughed.

I threw the empty tins into my bag and closed it. “He’ll have to keep the plaster on for a month, so if you’ll give me a ring then I’ll come back and take it off. Just keep an eye on him and make sure his leg doesn’t get sore round the top of the bandage.”

As we left the barn the sunshine and the sweet warm air met us like a high wave. I turned and looked across the valley to the soaring green heights, smooth, enormous, hazy in the noon heat. Beneath my feet the grassy slopes fell away steeply to where the river glimmered among the trees.

“It’s wonderful up here,” I said. “Just look at that gorge over there. And that great hill—I suppose you could call it a mountain.” I pointed at a giant which heaved its heather-mottled shoulders high above the others.