James Herriot (40 page)

The thing that made us notice the dog was that he was sitting up begging in front of the biscuit stall.

“Look at that little chap,” Siegfried said. “I wonder where he’s sprung from.”

As he spoke, the stallholder threw a biscuit which the dog devoured eagerly but when the man came round and stretched out a hand the little animal trotted away.

He stopped, however, at another stall which sold produce; eggs, cheese, butter, cakes and scones. Without hesitation he sat up again in the begging position, rock steady, paws dangling, head pointing expectantly.

I nudged Siegfried. “There he goes again.”

My colleague nodded. “Yes, he’s an engaging little thing, isn’t he? What breed would you call him?”

“A cross, I’d say. He’s like a little brown sheepdog, but there’s a touch of something else—maybe terrier.”

It wasn’t long before he was munching a bun, and this time we walked over to him. And as we drew near I spoke gently.

“Here, boy,” I said, squatting down a yard away. “Come on, let’s have a look at you.”

He faced me and for a moment two friendly brown eyes gazed at me from a singularly attractive little face. The fringed tail waved in response to my words but as I inched nearer he turned and ambled unhurriedly among the market day crowd till he was lost to sight. I didn’t want to make a thing out of the encounter because I could never quite divine Siegfried’s attitude to the small animals. He was eminently wrapped up in his horse work and often seemed amused at the way I rushed around after dogs and cats.

At that time, in fact, Siegfried was strongly opposed to the whole idea of keeping animals as pets. He was quite vociferous on the subject—said it was utterly foolish—despite the fact that five assorted dogs travelled everywhere with him in his car. Now, thirty-five years later, he is just as strongly
in favour
of keeping pets, though he now carries only one dog in his car. So, as I say, it was difficult to assess his reactions in this field and I refrained from following the little animal.

I was standing there when a young policeman came up to me.

“I’ve been watching that little dog begging among the stalls all morning,” he said. “But like you, I haven’t been able to get near him.”

“Yes, it’s strange. He’s obviously friendly, yet he’s afraid. I wonder who owns him.”

“I reckon he’s a stray, Mr. Herriot. I’m interested in dogs myself and I fancy I know just about all of them around here. But this ’un’s a stranger to me.”

I nodded. “I bet you’re right. So anything could have happened to him. He could have been ill-treated by somebody and run away, or he could have been dumped from a car.”

“Yes,” he replied. There’s some lovely people around. It beats me how anybody can leave a helpless animal to fend for itself like that. I’ve had a few goes at catching him myself but it’s no good.”

The memory stayed with me for the rest of the day and even when I lay in bed that night I was unable to dispel the disturbing image of the little brown creature wandering in a strange world, sitting up asking for help in the only way he knew.

I was still a bachelor at that time and on the Friday night of the same week Siegfried and I were arraying ourselves in evening dress in preparation for the Hunt Ball at East Hirdsley, about ten miles away.

It was a tortuous business because those were the days of starched shirt fronts and stiff high collars and I kept hearing explosions of colourful language from Siegfried’s room as he wrestled with his studs.

I was in an even worse plight because I had outgrown my suit and even when I had managed to secure the strangling collar I had to fight my way into the dinner jacket which nipped me cruelly under the arms. I had just managed to don the complete outfit and was trying out a few careful breaths when the ’phone rang.

It was the same young policeman I had been speaking to earlier in the week.

“We’ve got that dog round here, Mr. Herriot. You know—the one that was begging in the market place.”

“Oh yes? Somebody’s managed to catch him, then?’

There was a pause. “No, not really. One of our men found him lying by the roadside about a mile out of town and brought him in. He’s been in an accident.”

I told Siegfried. He looked at his watch. “Always happens, doesn’t it, James. Just when we’re ready to go out. It’s nine o’clock now and we should be on our way.” He thought for a moment. “Anyway, slip round there and have a look and I’ll wait for you. It would be better if we could go to this affair together.”

As I drove round to the Police Station I hoped fervently that there wouldn’t be much to do. This Hunt Ball meant a lot to my boss because it would be a gathering of the horse-loving fraternity of the district and he would have a wonderful time just chatting and drinking with so many kindred spirits even though he hardly danced at all. Also, he maintained, it was good for business to meet the clients socially.

The kennels were at the bottom of a yard behind the Station and the policeman led me down and opened one of the doors. The little dog was lying very still under the single electric bulb and when I bent and stroked the brown coat his tail stirred briefly among the straw of his bed.

“He can still manage a wag, anyway,” I said.

The policeman nodded. “Aye, there’s no doubt he’s a good-natured little thing.”

I tried to examine him as much as possible without touching. I didn’t want to hurt him and there was no saying what the extent of his injuries might be. But even at a glance certain things were obvious; he had multiple lacerations, one hind leg was crooked in the unmistakable posture of a fracture and there was blood on his lips.

This could be from damaged teeth and I gently raised the head with a view to looking into his mouth. He was lying on his right side and as the head came round it was as though somebody had struck me in the face.

The right eye had been violently dislodged from its socket and it sprouted like some hideous growth from above the cheek bone, a great glistening orb with the eyelids tucked behind the white expanse of sclera.

I seemed to squat there for a long time, stunned by the obscenity, and as the seconds dragged by I looked into the little dog’s face and he looked back at me—trustingly from one soft brown eye, glaring meaninglessly from the grotesque ball on the other side.

The policeman’s voice broke my thoughts. “He’s a mess, isn’t he?”

“Yes … yes … must have been struck by some vehicle—maybe dragged along by the look of all those wounds.”

“What d’you think, Mr. Herriot?”

I knew what he meant. It was the sensible thing to ease this lost unwanted creature from the world. He was grievously hurt and he didn’t seem to belong to anybody. A quick overdose of anaesthetic—his troubles would be over and I’d be on my way to the dance.

But the policeman didn’t say anything of the sort. Maybe, like me, he was looking into the soft depths of that one trusting eye.

I stood up quickly. “Can I use your ’phone?”

At the other end of the line Siegfried’s voice crackled with impatience. “Hell, James, it’s half past nine! If we’re going to this thing we’ve got to go now or we might as well not bother. A stray dog, badly injured. It doesn’t sound such a great problem.”

“I know, Siegfried. I’m sorry to hold you up but I can’t make up my mind. I wish you’d come round and tell me what you think.”

There was a silence then a long sigh. “All right, James. See you in five minutes.”

He created a slight stir as he entered the Station. Even in his casual working clothes Siegfried aways managed to look distinguished, but as he swept into the Station newly bathed and shaved, a camel coat thrown over the sparkling white shirt and black tie, there was something ducal about him.

He drew respectful glances from the men sitting around, then my young policeman stepped forward.

“This way, sir,” he said, and we went back to the kennels.

Siegfried was silent as he crouched over the dog, looking him over as I had done without touching him. Then he carefully raised the head and the monstrous eye glared.

“My God!” he said softly, and at the sound of his voice the long fringed tail moved along the ground.

For a few seconds he stayed very still looking fixedly at the dog’s face while in the silence, the whisking tail rustled the straw.

Then he straightened up. “Let’s get him round there,” he murmured.

In the surgery we anaesthetised the little animal and as he lay unconscious on the table we were able to examine him thoroughly. After a few minutes Siegfried stuffed his stethoscope into the pocket of his white coat and leaned both hands on the table.

“Luxated eyeball, fractured femur, umpteen deep lacerations, broken claws. There’s enough here to keep us going till midnight, James.”

I didn’t say anything.

My boss pulled the knot from his black tie and undid the front stud. He peeled off the stiff collar and hung it on the cross bar of the surgery lamp.

“By God, that’s better,” he muttered, and began to lay out suture materials.

I looked at him across the table. “How about the Hunt Ball?”

“Oh bugger the Hunt Ball,” Siegfried said. “Let’s get busy.”

We were busy, too, for a long time. I hung up my collar next to my colleague’s and we began on the eye. I know we both felt the same—we wanted to get rid of that horror before we did anything else.

I lubricated the great ball and pulled the eyelids apart while Siegfried gently maneuvered it back into the orbital cavity. I sighed as everything slid out of sight, leaving only the cornea visible.

Siegfried chuckled with satisfaction. “Looks like an eye again, doesn’t it” He seized an ophthalmoscope and peered into the depths.

“And there’s no major damage—could be as good as new again. But we’ll just stitch the lids together to protect it for a few days.”

The broken ends of the fractured tibia were badly displaced and we had a struggle to bring them into apposition before applying the plaster of paris. But at last we finished and started on the long job of stitching the many cuts and lacerations.

We worked separately for this, and for a long time it was quiet in the operating room except for the snip of scissors as we clipped the brown hair away from the wounds. I knew and Siegfried knew that we were almost certainly working without payment, but the most disturbing thought was that after all our efforts we may still have to put him down. He was still in the care of the police and if nobody claimed him within ten days it meant euthanasia. And if his late owners were really interested in his fate, why hadn’t they tried to contact the police before now …?

By the time we had completed our work and washed the instruments it was after midnight. Siegfried dropped the last suture needle into its tray and looked at the sleeping animal.

“I think he’s beginning to come round,” he said. “Let’s take him through to the fire and we can have a drink while he recovers.”

We stretchered the dog through to the sitting room on a blanket and laid him on the rug before the brightly burning coals. My colleague reached a long arm up to the glass-fronted cabinet above the mantelpiece and pulled down the whisky bottle and two glasses. Drinks in hand, collarless, still in shirt sleeves, with our starched white fronts and braided evening trousers to remind us of the lost dance we lay back in our chairs on either side of the fireplace and between us our patient stretched peacefully.

He was a happier sight now. One eye was closed by the protecting stitches and his hind leg projected stiffly in its white cast, but he was tidy, cleaned up, cared for. He looked as though he belonged to somebody—but then there was a great big doubt about that.

It was nearly one o’clock in the morning and we were getting well down the bottle when the shaggy brown head began to move.

Siegfried leaned forward and touched one of the ears and immediately the tail flapped against the rug and a pink tongue lazily licked his fingers.

“What an absolutely grand little dog,” he murmured, but his voice had a distant quality. I knew he was worried too.

I took the stitches out of the eyelids in two days and was delighted to find a normal eye underneath.

The young policeman was as pleased as I was. “Look at that!” he exclaimed. “You’d never know anything had happened there.”

“Yes, it’s done wonderfully well. All the swelling and inflammation has gone.” I hesitated for a moment. “Has anybody enquired about him?”

He shook his head. “Nothing yet But there’s another eight days to go and we’re taking good care of him here.”

I visited the Police Station several times and the little animal greeted me with undisguised joy, all his fear gone, standing upright against my legs on his plastered limb, his tail swishing.

But all the time my sense of foreboding increased, and on the tenth day I made my way almost with dread to the police kennels. I had heard nothing. My course of action seemed inevitable. Putting down old or hopelessly ill dogs was often an act of mercy but when it was a young healthy dog it was terrible. I hated it, but it was one of the things veterinary surgeons had to do.

The young policeman was standing in the doorway.

“Still no news?” I asked, and he shook his head.

I went past him into the kennel and the shaggy little creature stood up against my legs as before, laughing into my face, mouth open, eyes shining.

I turned away quickly. I’d have to do this right now or I’d never do it.

“Mr. Herriot.” The policeman put his hand on my arm. “I think I’ll take him.”

“You?” I stared at him.

“Aye, that’s right. We get a lot o’ stray dogs in here and though I feel sorry for them you can’t give them all a home, can you?”

“No, you can’t,” I said. “I have the same problem.”

He nodded slowly. “But somehow this ’un’s different and it seems to me he’s just come at the right time. I have two little girls and they’ve been at me for a bit to get ’em a dog. This little bloke looks just right for the job.”

Warm relief began to ebb through me. “I couldn’t agree more. He’s the soul of good nature. I bet he’d be wonderful with children.”