Lord God Made Them All (17 page)

I groped my way into the darkness behind a row of wagons, and I was studying the dim silhouette of the fence when suddenly an enormous dog shot out at me from the gloom. It was of an Alsatian type, and it came at me with a terrifying baying sound. I caught a glimpse of a snarling mouth and white teeth, but I didn’t wait to make a closer examination. I took off at great speed, but after a few yards I tripped over a railway line and fell flat on my face.

At that moment I was sure it was all over with me. I am not going to suggest that my past life flashed before my eyes, but in that second or two I did have a vivid impression of the incongruity of my situation. I, James Herriot, Yorkshire Dales veterinary surgeon and dog lover, meeting my end by being torn to pieces by a dog behind a railway wagon on a dark night in Russia.

I was waiting for the first crunch when I heard the animal twang to a stop at the end of its chain, and as I looked back, I could see it fighting to get at me, the great teeth, gleaming in the floodlights, about six inches from my leg.

I scrabbled along on my stomach to where the captain was waiting. That usually calm man was visibly shaken, and he helped me up, gripped my arm and hurried me along the road we had first taken.

As I struggled to regain my breath, I felt I had learned my first lesson. Do not go nosing about in dark places in Russia. Keep to the proper path.

When we came to the gate house, I had to smile to myself. My nerves were still vibrating after my encounter with that creature back there, but when I saw the groups of soldiers around the brightly lit room and more soldiers behind a sliding window carrying out an interminable, hard-eyed scrutiny of our passports and ourselves, the absurdity of my idea of a shortcut was forced on me. Before passing through, I took a last glance at the long stretch of quayside behind us, and I wondered how many more four-legged killers were lurking in the shadows under the fence.

Once in the street, we asked a young fellow in the inevitable light cloth cap about Interklub, and he politely marched us to the door before shaking hands and leaving us.

Inside we found a very comfortable, even mildly luxurious club. Russian time is two hours ahead of ours so most of the activities had ceased for the night, but nevertheless the little man in charge was effusive in his welcome.

The captain spoke to him in German and told him who we were, and he kept bowing and smiling as though we were his long-lost brothers.

He insisted on taking us on a tour of the establishment and ushered us into each room with a deferential, “Please, please”— a common and much-used word among the people I have met here.

There were a little cinema, dance hall, bar, and a billiard room where some young German sailors were knocking balls about. We saw several cosy lounges, in one of which a large radio was giving a commentary of Tottenham Hotspur in the European Cup.

Our guide led us into a library and reading room where there were newspapers in all languages, and I hastened to the English section, hoping to catch up with some of the latest news. However, I found only a pile of the
Daily Worker,
and the most recent was a fortnight old. I was moodily reading about the long-past England v. Wales football match when the little man bustled up, all smiles, and began to load me with a huge quantity of books and pamphlets, all in English.

These books were all beautifully produced, and one of them,
Khrushchev in the U.S.A.,
would be very expensive to buy in England. I was also presented with a roll of cine film of the same visit and a little badge which I must keep for Rosie.

We left on a wave of cordiality, and as I came out into the night and looked at the gaunt tenements nearby, it struck me how sharply they contrasted with that club.

Tonight, as I complete my journal, two thoughts are uppermost in my mind. First, my bed will keep still for a change, and second, it has been an eventful day.

“T
HIS IS
A
MBER,” SISTER
Rose said. “The one I wanted you to examine.”

I looked at the pale, almost honey-coloured shading of the hair on the dog’s ears and flanks. “I can see why you’ve given her that name. I bet she’d really glow in the sunshine.”

The nurse laughed. “Yes, funnily enough it was sunny when I first saw her, and the name just jumped into my mind.” She gave me a sideways glance. “I’m good at names, as you know.”

“Oh yes, without a doubt,” I said, smiling. It was a little joke between us. Sister Rose had to be good at christening the endless stream of unwanted animals passing through the little dog sanctuary that lay behind her house and which she ran and maintained by organising small shows and jumble sales, and by spending her own money.

And she didn’t only give her money, she gave her precious time, because as a nursing sister she led a full life of service to the human race. I often asked myself how she found the time to fight for the animals, too. It was a mystery to me, but I admired her.

“Where did this one come from?” I asked.

Sister Rose shrugged. “Oh, found wandering in the streets of Hebbleton. Nobody knows her, and there have been no enquiries to the police. Obviously abandoned.”

I felt the old tightening of anger in my throat. “How could they do this to such a beautiful dog? Just turn it away to fend for itself.”

“Oh, people like that have some astonishing reasons. In this case I think it’s because Amber has a little skin disease. Perhaps it frightened them.”

“They could at least have taken her to a vet,” I grunted as I opened the door of the pen.

I noticed some bare patches around the toes, and as I knelt and examined the feet, Amber nuzzled my cheek and wagged her tail. I looked up at her, at the flopping ears, the pronounced jowls and the trusting eyes that had been betrayed.

“It’s a hound’s face,” I said. “But how. about the rest of her? What breed would you call her?”

Sister Rose laughed. “Oh, she’s a puzzle. I get a lot of practice at guessing, but this one beats me. I wondered if a fox hound had got astray and mated with something like a Labrador or Dalmatian, but I don’t know.”

I didn’t know, either. The body, dappled with patches of brown, black and white, was the wrong shape for a hound. She had very large feet, a long thin tail in constant motion and everywhere on her coat the delicate sheen of gold.

“Well,” I said. “Whatever she is, she’s a bonny one, and good-natured, too.”

“Oh, yes, she’s a darling. We’ll have no difficulty in finding a home for her. She’s the perfect pet. How old do you think she is?”

I smiled. “You can never tell for sure, but she’s got a juvenile look about her.” I opened the mouth and looked at the rows of untainted teeth. “I’d say nine or ten months. She’s just a big pup.”

“That’s what I thought. She’ll be really large when she reaches full size.”

As if to prove the sister’s words, the young bitch reared up and planted her forefeet on my chest. I looked again at the laughing mouth and those eyes. “Amber,” I said. “I really like you.”

“Oh, I’m so glad,” Sister Rose said. “We must get this skin trouble cleared up as quickly as possible, and then I can start finding her a home. It’s just a bit of eczema, isn’t it?”

“Probably … probably … I see there’s some bareness around the eyes and cheeks, too.” Skin diseases in dogs, as in humans, are tricky things, often baffling in origin and difficult to cure. I fingered the hairless areas. I didn’t like the combination of feet and face, but the skin was dry and sound. Maybe it was nothing much. I banished to the back of my mind a spectre that appeared for a brief instant. I didn’t want to think of that, and I had no intention of worrying Sister Rose. She had enough on her mind.

“Yes, probably eczema,” I said briskly. “Rub this ointment well into the parts, night and morning.” I handed over the box of zinc oxide and lanolin. A bit old-fashioned, maybe, but it had served me well for a few years and ought to do the trick, in combination with the nurse’s good feeding.

When two weeks passed without news of Amber, I was relieved. I was happy, too, at the thought that she would now be in a good home among people who appreciated her.

I was brought back to reality with a bump when Sister Rose phoned one morning.

“Mr. Herriot, those bare patches aren’t any better. In fact, they’re spreading.”

“Spreading? Where?”

“Up her legs and on the face.”

The spectre leaped up, mouthing and gesticulating. Oh, not that, please. “I’ll come right out, Sister,” I said, and on my way to the car I picked up the microscope.

Amber greeted me as she had before, with dancing eyes and lashing tail, but I felt sick when I saw the ragged denudation of the face and the naked skin staring at me on the legs.

I got hold of the young animal and held her close, sniffing at the hairless areas.

Sister Rose looked at me in surprise. “What are you doing?”

‘Trying to detect a mousy smell.”

“Mousy smell? And is it there?”

“Yes.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Mange.”

“Oh, dear.” The nurse put a hand to her mouth. “That’s rather nasty, isn’t it.” Then she put her shoulders back in a characteristic gesture. “Well, I’ve had experience of mange before, and I can tackle it. I’ve always been able to clear it up with sulphur baths, but there’s such a danger of infection to the other dogs. It really is a worry.”

I put Amber down and stood up, feeling suddenly weary. “Yes, but you’re thinking of sarcoptic mange, Sister. I’m afraid this is something rather worse.”

“Worse? In what way?”

“Well, the whole look of the thing suggests demodectic mange.”

She nodded. “I’ve heard of that—and it’s more serious?”

“Yes … .” I might as well bite the bullet. “Very often incurable.”

“Goodness me, I had no idea. She wasn’t scratching much, so I didn’t worry.”

“Yes, that’s just it,” I said wryly. “Dogs scratch almost nonstop with sarcoptic mange and we can cure it, but they often show only mild discomfort with demodectic, which usually defeats us.”

The spectre was very large in my mind now, and I use the word literally because this skin disease had haunted me ever since I had qualified. I had seen many fine dogs put to sleep after the most prolonged attempts to treat them.

I lifted the microscope from the back of the car. “Anyway, I may be jumping the gun. I hope I am. This is the only way to find out.”

There was a patch on Amber’s left foreleg which I squeezed and scraped with a scalpel blade. I deposited the debris and serum on a glass slide, added a few drops of potassium hydroxide and put a cover-slip on top.

Sister Rose gave me a cup of coffee while I waited, then I rigged up the microscope in the light from the kitchen window and looked down the eyepiece. And there it was. My stomach tightened as I saw what I didn’t want to see—the dread mite, demodex canis; the head, the thorax with its eight stumpy legs and the long, cigar-shaped body. And there wasn’t just one. The whole microscopic field was teeming with them.

“Ah, well, that’s it, Sister,” I said. “There’s no doubt about it. I’m very sorry.”

The corners of her mouth drooped. “But … isn’t there anything we can do?”

“Oh, yes, we can try. And we’re going to try like anything because I’ve taken a fancy to Amber. Don’t worry too much. I’ve cured a few demodex cases in my time, always by using the same stuff.” I went to the car and fished around in the boot. “Here it is—Odylen.” I held up the can in front of her. “I’ll show you how to apply it.”

It was difficult to rub the lotion into the affected patches as Amber wagged and licked, but I finished at last.

“Now do that every day,” I said, “and let me know in about a week. Sometimes that Odylen really does work.”

Sister Rose stuck out her jaw with the determination that had saved so many animals. “I assure you I’ll do it most carefully. I’m sure we can succeed. It doesn’t look so bad.”

I didn’t say anything, and she went on. “But how about my other dogs? Won’t they become infected?”

I shook my head. “Another odd thing about demodex. It very rarely spreads to another animal. It is nothing like as contagious as the sarcops, so you have very little cause for worry in that way.”

“That’s something, anyway. But how on earth does a dog get the disease in the first place?”

“Mysterious again,” I said. “The veterinary profession is pretty well convinced that all dogs have a certain number of demodex mites in their skins, but why they should cause mange in some and not in others has never been explained. Heredity has got something to do with it because it sometimes occurs in several dogs in the same litter. But it’s a baffling business.”

I left Sister Rose with her can of Odylen. Maybe this would be one of the exceptions to my experiences with this condition. I had to hope so.

I heard from the nurse within a week. She had been applying the Odylen religiously but the disease was spreading further up the legs.

I hurried out there, and my fears were confirmed when I saw Amber’s face. It was disfigured by the increasing hairlessness, and when I thought of the beauty that had captivated me on my first visit, the sight was like a blow. Her tail-wagging cheerfulness was undiminished, and that seemed to make the whole thing worse.

I had to try something else, and in view of the fact that a secondary subcutaneous invasion of staphylococci was an impediment to recovery, I gave the dog an injection of staph toxoid. I also started her on a course of Fowler’s solution of arsenic, which at that time was popular in the treatment of skin conditions.

When ten days passed I had begun to hope, and it was a bitter disappointment when Sister Rose telephoned just after breakfast.

Her voice trembled as she spoke. “Mr. Herriot, she really is deteriorating all the time. Nothing seems to do any good. I’m beginning to think that …”

I cut her off in mid-sentence. “All right, I’ll be out there within an hour. Don’t give up hope yet. These cases sometimes take months to recover.”

I knew as I drove to the sanctuary that my words were only meant to comfort. They had no real substance. But I had tried to say something helpful because there was nothing Sister Rose hated more than putting a dog to sleep. Of all the hundreds of animals that had passed through her hands, I could remember only a handful that had defeated her. Very old dogs, in a hopeless plight with chronic kidney or heart conditions, or young ones with distemper. With all the others she had battled until they were fit to go to their new homes. And it wasn’t only Sister Rose—I myself recoiled from the idea of doing such a thing to Amber. Something about that dog had taken hold of me.