Vet in a Spin Page 4

which ~ me and left a deep conviction in my mind. Deborah was a little

  smash right, and she looked nice, but no . . . no . . . never.

  Tristan had more co than I had. .

  Mr Mount turned away abruptly.

  "This 'oss is in the stable," he grunt In those late thirties the

  tractor had driven a lot of the draught horses the land but most of the

  farmers kept a few around, perhaps because they al ways worked horses

  and it was part of their way of life and maybe b' of the sheer proud

  beauty of animals like the one which stood before me It was a

  magnificent Shire gelding, stan ding all of eighteen hands. He a

  picture of massively muscled power but when his master spoke, the

  white-blazed face which turned to us was utterly docile. i The farmer

  slapped him on the rump.

  "He's a good sort is Bobby and I a bit about 'im. What ah noticed

  first was a st range smell about his hind and then ah had a look for me

  self. I've never seen owt like it."

  I bent and seized a handful of the long feathered hair behind the h

  pastern. Bobby did not resist as I lifted the huge spatulate foot and

  rested my knee. It seemed to occupy most of my lap but it was not the

  size ~ astonished me. Mr Mount had never seen owt like it and neither

  had I. The was a ragged, sodden mass with a stinking exudation oozing

  from the und horn, but what really bewildered me was the series of

  growths sprouting every crevice.

  They were like nightmare toadstools long papillae with horny caps

  growing' from the diseased surface. I had read about them in the

  books; they were ergots, but I had never imagined them in such

  profusion. My thoughts rat I moved behind the horse and lifted the

  other foot. It was just the same.

  as bad.

  I had been qualified only a few months and was still trying to gain the

  confidence of the Darrow by farmers. This was just the sort of thing I

  want.

  "What is it?" Mr Mount asked, and again I felt that un winking gaze

  pi.

  me.

  I straightened up and rubbed my hands.

  "It's canker, but a very bad a knew all about the the ory of the thing,

  in fact I was bursting with the or r~ it into practice with this animal

  was a bit different.

  N~,are you going to cure it?" Mr Mount had an uncomfortable habit of

  get ting right to the heart of things.

  see, all that loose horn and those growths will have to be cut

  N`surface dressed with caustic," I replied, and it sounded easy say~,

  Tristan.

  Woodbine w'.~ "Yeas, yeas, goo.

  ~ter on its own, then?" .

  ~it the sole will disintegrate and the pedal bone will.

  Nxarge will work up under the wall of the hoof and~

  NN

  vet zn a apin ~he farmer nodded.

  "So he'd never walk again, and that would be the end of Bobby "I'm

  afraid so."

  ~Right. then." Mr Mount threw up his head with a decisive gesture.

  "When are you going to do it."

  It was a nasty question, because I was preoccupied at that moment not

  so much with when I would do it but how I would do it.

  ~Well now, let's see," I said huskily.

  "Would it be . . ." The farmer broke in.

  We're busy hay-ma kin' all this week, and you'll be wan tin' some men

  to help out How about Monday next week?"

  Y A wave of relief surged through me. Thank heavens he hadn't said

  tomorrow.

  I had a bit of time to think now.

  "Very well, Mr Mount. That suits me fine. Don't feed him on the

  Sunday because he'll have to have an anaesthetic."

  Driving from the farm, a sense of doom oppressed me. Was I going to

  ruin that beautiful animal in my ignorance? Canker of the foot was

  unpleasant at any time and was not uncommon in the days of the draught

  horse, but this was something away out of the ordinary. No doubt many.

  of my contemporaries have seen feet like Bobby's, but to the modern

  young veterinary surgeon it must be like a page from an ancient manual

  of farriery.

  As is my wont when I have a worrying case I started mulling it over

  right away. As I drove, I rehearsed various procedures. Would that

  enormous horse go down with a chloroform muzzle? Or would I have to

  collect all Mr Mount's men and rope him and pull him down? But it

  would be like trying to pull down St Paul's Cathedral. And then how

  long would it take me to hack away all that horn all those dreadful

  vegetations?

  Within ten minutes my palms were sweating and I was tempted to throw

  the whole lot over to Siegfried. But I was restrained by the knowledge

  that I had to establish myself not only with the farmers but with my

  new boss. He wasn't going to think much of an assistant who couldn't

  handle a thing on his own.

  I did what I usually did when I was worried; drove off the unfenced

  road, got out of the car and followed a track across the moor. The

  track wound beneath the brow of the fell which overlooked the Mount

  farm and when I had left the road far behind I flopped on the grass and

  looked down on the sunlit valley floor a thousand feet below.

  In most places you could hear something the call of a bird, a car in

  the distance but here there was a silence which was absolute, except

  when the wind sighed over the hill top, rustling the bracken around

  me.

  The farm lay in one of the soft places in a harsh countryside; lush

  flat fields where cattle grazed in comfort and the cut hay lay in long

  even swathes.

  It was a placid scene, but it was up here in the airy heights that you

  found true serenity Peace dwelt here in the high moorland, stealing

  across the empty miles, breathing from the silence and the tufted grass

  and the black, peaty earth.

  The heady fragrance of the hay rose in the warm summer air and as al

  ways I felt my troubles dissolving. Even now, after all the years, I

  still count myself lucky that I can so often find tranquillity of mind

  in the high places.

  As I rose to go I was filled with a calm resolve. I would do the job

  somehow.

  SUrely I could manage the thing without troubling Siegfried.

  In any case Siegfried had other things on his mind when I met him over

  the lunch table.

  j-I looked in at Granville Bennett's surgery at Hartington this

  morning," he said, helping himself to some new potatoes which had been

  picked that morning L from the garden.

  "And I must say I was very impressed with his waiting room.

  often a lot of farmers in there." He poured gravy on to a corner of his

  I "Tristan, I'll give you the job. Slip round to Gar low's and order a

  few silly things to be delivered every week, will you?"

  "Okay," his student brother replied.

  "I'll do it this afternoon."

  "Splendid." Siegfried chewed happily.

  "We must keep progressing in ~ way. Do have some more of these

  potatoes, James, they really are very good Tristan went into action

  right away and within two days the table and shelf in our waiting room

  carried a tasteful selection of periodicals. The Illustrated
London

  News, Farmer's Weekly, The Farmer and Stock breeder, Punch. B usual he

  had to embroider the situation.

  "Look at this, Jim," he whispered one afternoon, guiding me through the

  "I've been having a little harmless sport."

  "What do you mean?" I looked around me uncomprehendingly. ~ Tristan

  said nothing, but pointed to one of the shelves. There, among innocent

  journals was a German naturist magazine displaying asta frontispiece of

  full frontal nudity. Even in these permissive days it would caused a

  raised eyebrow but in rural Yorkshire in the thirties it was

  cataclysmic.

  "Where the devil did you get this?" I gasped, leafing through it

  hurried was just the same inside.

  "And what's the idea, anyway?"

  Tristan repressed a giggle.

  "A fellow at college gave it to me. And it's r a lark to sneak in

  quietly and find some solid citizen having a peek when thinks nobody's

  loo king. I've had some very successful incursions. My best so far

  have been a town councillor, a Justice of the Peace and a lay

  preacher.

  I shook my head.

  "I think you're sticking you neck out.- What if Siegfried' comes across

  it?"

  "No fear of that," he said.

  "He rarely comes in here and he's al ways i much of a hurry. Anyway,

  it's well out of the way."

  I shrugged. Tristan had been blessed with an agile intelligence which

  I e' but so much of it was misapplied. However, at the moment I hadn't

  time for tricks. My mind was feverishly preoccupied.

  Mentally I had cast that horse by innumerable methods and operated c

  feet a thousand times by night and day. In daylight, riding round in

  the ~ wasn't so bad, but the operations I carried out in bed were truly

  bizarre. A time I had the feeling that something was wrong, that there

  was some fatal in the picture of myself carving away those hideous

  growths in one s Finally I buried my pride.

  "Siegfried," I said, one afternoon when the practice was slack.

  "I have r."

  a weird horse case."

  My boss's eyes glinted and the mouth beneath the small sandy moustache

  crooked into a smile. The word 'horse' usually had this effect.

  "Really, James? Tell me."

  I told him.

  ~s . . . yes . . ." he murmured.

  "Maybe we'd better have a look together Mount Farm was deserted when we

  arrived. Everybody was i working frantically while the sunshine

  lasted.

  i~
  NJed the way to the stable.

  say>~ Tristan.

  Woodbine Wl.4 "Yeas, yeas, goo.

  ~ , ~d a hind foot and whistled softly. Then he moved roura ~r one.

  For a full minute he gazed down at the obscene 5~attered stinking horn.

  When he stood up he looked before he spoke.

  "And you were just going to pop this fellow on to the grass and do the

  job?" : N~s the idea."

  V t:' TTI t1 oyln /19 A Strange smile spread over my employer's face.

  It held something of wonder, Sympathy, amusement and a tinge of

  admiration. Finally he laughed and shook his" Ah, the innocence of

  youth," he murmured.

  ~what do you mean?" After all, I was only six years younger than

  Siegfried.

  He came over and patted my shoulder.

  "I'm not mocking you, James. This is the worst case of canker I've

  ever seen and I've seen a few."

  "You mean I couldn't do it at one go?"

  that's exactly what I mean. There's six weeks' work here James."

  "Six weeks . . . ?" ~ "Yes and there'll be three men involved. We'll

  have to get this horse into one of the loose boxes at Skeldale House

  and then the two of us plus a blacksmith will have a go at him. After

  that his feet will have to be dressed every day in the stocks."

  "I see."

  "Yes, yes." Siegfried was warming to his subject.

  "We'll use the strongest caustic nitric acid and he'll be shod with

  special shoes with a metal plate to exert pressure on the sole." He

  stopped, probably because I was beginning to look bewildered, then he

  continued in a gentler tone.

  "Believe me, James, all this is necessary. The alternative is to shoot

  a fine horse, because he can't go on much longer than this."

  I looked at Bobby, at the white face again turned towards us. The

  thought of a bullet entering that noble head was unbearable.

  "All right, whatever you say, Siegfried," I mumbled, and just then Mr

  Mount's vast bulk darkened the entrance to the stable.

  "Ah, good afternoon to you, Mr Mount," my boss said.

  "I hope you're get ting a good crop of hay."

  "Aye, thank ye, Mr Far non. We're doing very nicely. We've been lucky

  with the weather." The big man looked curiously from one of us to the

  other, and Siegfried went on quickly.

  "Mr Herriot asked me to come and look at your horse. He's been

  thinking the matter over and has decided that it would be better to

  hospitalise him at our place for a few weeks. I must say I agree with

  him. It's a very bad case and the chances of a permanent cure would be

  increased."

  Bless you, Siegfried, I thought. I had expected to emerge from this

  meet ing as the number one chump, but all was suddenly well. I

  congratulated myself, not for the first time, on having an employer who

  never let me down.

  Mr Mount took off his hat and drew a forearm across his sweating

  brow.

  "Aye well, if that's what you think, both of ye, we'd better do it. Ah

  want the best for Bobby. He's a favourite o' mine."

  "Yes, he's a grand sort, Mr Mount." Siegfried went round the big

  animal patting and stroking him, then as we walked back to the car he

  kept up an effortless conversation with the farmer. I had al ways

  found it difficult to speak to this formidable man, but in my

  colleague's presence he became quite chatty.

  In fact there were one or two occasions when he almost smiled Bobby

  came into the yard at Skeldale House the following day and when I saw

  the amount of sheer hard labour which the operation entailed I realised

  the utter impossibility of a single man doing it at one go.

  Pat Jenner the blacksmith with his full tool kit was pressed into

  service and between us, taking it in turns, we removed all the

  vegetations and diseased tissue leaving only healthy horn. Siegfried

  applied the acid to cauterise the area, then Packed the sole with

  twists of tow which were held in place by the metal plate Pat had made

  to fit under the shoe. This pressure from the tow was essential /14

  vel zn a op~n After a week I was doing the daily dressings myself. This

  was when I be to appreciate the value of the stocks with their massive

  timbers sunk deep j the cobbles of the yard. It made every thing so

  much easier when I was able lead Bobby into the stocks, pull up a foot

  and make it fast in any position wished.

  Some days Pat Jenner came in to check on the shoes and he and I were b,

  in the yard when I heard the familiar rattle of my little Austin in the

  back la The big double doors were open and I looked up as the car

>   turned in and d' alongside us. Pat looked too, and his eyes popped.

  "Bloody 'ell!" he exclaimed, and I couldn't blame him, because the car

  had driver. At least it looked that way since there was nobody in the

  seat as it sw' in from the lane.

  A driverless car in motion is quite a sight, and Pat gaped open mouthed

  for a few seconds. Then just as I was about to explain, Tristan shot

  up from floor with a piercing cry.

  "Hi there!" he shrieked.

  Pat dropped his hammer and backed away.

  "God 'elp us!" he breathed.

  I was unaffected by the performance because it was old stuff to me.

  Whenever .

  I was in the yard and a call came in, Tristan would drive my car round

  from the front street and this happened so many times that inevitably

  he grew bored and tried to find a less orthodox method.

  After a bit of practice he mastered the driverless technique. He

  crouched the floor with a foot on the accelerator and one hand on the

  wheel and nearly; frightened the life out of me the first time he did

  it. But I was used to it n' and blase. ~ ~~~~ ~ ~~ ~ ~~ Within a few

  days I was able to observe another of Tristan's little jokes.

  I turned the corner of the passage at Skeldale House I found him

  lurking by waiting room door which was slightly ajar.

  "I think I've got a victim in there," he whispered.

  "Let's see what happens He gently pushed the door and tiptoed inside.

  As I peeped through the crack I could see that he had indeed scored a

  success.

  A man was stan ding there with his back to him and he was poring over

  nudist magazine with the greatest absorption. As he slowly turned the

  pages enthralment showed in the way he frequently moved the pictures

  towards light from the French window, inclining his, head this way and

  that to take in' all the angles. He looked as though he would have

  been happy to spend all there but when he heard Tristan's exquisitely

  timed cough he dropped magazine as though it was white hot, snatched

  hurriedly at the Farmer's Weekly.

  and swung round. .i That was when Tristan's victory went flat. It was

  Mr Mount.

  The huge farmer loomed over him for a few seconds and the deep bass

  rumble came from between clenched teeth.

  "It's you, is it?" He glanced quickly from the young man to the

  embarrassing' magazine and back again and the eyes in the craggy face

  narrowed dangerously "Yes . . . yes . . . yes, Mr Mount," Tristan

  replied unsteadily.

  "And how you, Mr Mount?"

  "Ah'm aw right?"

  "Good . . . good . . . splendid." Tristan backed away a few steps.

  "And ho' Deborah ?"

  The eyes beneath the sprouting bristles drew in further.

  "She's aw right."

  There was a silence which lingered interminably and I felt for my young

  friend. It was not a merry meet ing.

  At last he managed to work up a sickly smile.

  "Ah well, yes, er . . . and can we do for you, Mr Mount?"

  "Ah ve come to see me 'oss."

  ~Yes, indeed, of course, certainly. I believe Mr Herriot is just

  outside the room."

  I led the big man down the long garden into the yard. His encounter

  with Tristan had clearly failed to improve his opinion of the young man

  and he glowered as I opened the loose box.

  But his expression softened when he saw Bobby eating hay contentedly.

  He went in and patted the arching neck.

  "How's he goin' on, then?"

  "Oh, very well." I lifted a hind foot and showed him the metal

  plate.

  "I can take this ~ for you if you like."

  "Nay, nay ah don't want to disturb the job. As long as all's well,