Lord God Made Them All (6 page)

The moon had come out, casting a cold white brilliance on the water of the river estuary. Far on the starboard side, a long row of lights glimmers—probably Grimsby. On the port side, about three hundred yards away, a ship sped silently through the night, keeping pace exactly with us. I watched her for a long time, but her position never varied and she was still there when I came down.

My cabin is now a place of shakes and shudders, of indefinable bumps, rattles and groans. As I write, I know for sure that we are now well out to sea because I am very aware of the rolling of the ship.

I have had an experimental lie in my bunk, and this is where the rolling is most noticeable. From side to side it goes, side to side, over and over again. At one time there was some talk of Helen coming with me on this trip, and I smile to myself at the thought. This wouldn’t suit her at all—she soon becomes queasy sitting in the back of a car. But to me the gentle motion is like the rocking of a cradle. I know I shall sleep well.

“H
ELLO!
H
ELLO!”
I
BELLOWED.

“Hello! Hello!” little Jimmy piped just behind me.

I turned and looked at my son. He was four years old now and had been coming on my rounds with me for over a year. It was clear that he considered himself a veteran of the farmyards, an old hand versed in all aspects of agricultural lore.

This shouting was a common habit of mine. When a vet arrived on a farm, it was often surprisingly difficult to find the farmer. He might be a dot on a tractor half a mile across the fields; on rare occasions he might be in the house, but I always hoped to find him among the buildings, and I relied on a few brisk shouts to locate him.

Certain farms in our practice were for no apparent reason distinctive in that you could never find anybody around. The house door would be locked, and we would scour the barns, cow-houses and fold yards while our cries echoed back at us from the unheeding walls. Siegfried and I used to call them the “no-finding” places and they were responsible for a lot of wasted time.

Jimmy had caught on to the problem quite early, and there was no doubt he enjoyed the opportunity to exercise his lungs a bit. I watched him now as he strutted importantly over the cobbles, giving tongue every few seconds. He was also making an unnecessary amount of noise by clattering on the rough stones with his new boots.

Those boots were his pride, the final recognition of his status as veterinary assistant. When I first began to take him round with me, his initial reaction was the simple joy of a child at being able to see animals of all kinds, particularly the young ones—the lambs, foals, piglets, calves—and the thrill of discovery when he came upon a huddle of kittens in the straw or found a bitch with pups in a loose box.

Before long, however, he began to enlarge his horizons. He wanted to get into the action. The contents of my car boot were soon as familiar to him as his toy box at home, and he delighted in handing out the tins of stomach powder, the electuaries and red blisters, the white lotion and the still-revered long cartons of Universal Cattle Medicine. Finally he began to forestall me by rushing back to the car for the calcium and flutter valve as soon as he saw a recumbent cow. He had become a diagnostician as well.

I think the thing he enjoyed most was accompanying me on an evening call, if Helen would allow him to postpone his bedtime. He was in heaven driving into the country in the darkness, training my torch on a cow’s teat while I stitched it.

The farmers were kind, as they always are with young people. Even the most uncommunicative would grunt, “Ah see you’ve got t’apprentice with ye,” as we got out of the car.

But those farmers had something Jimmy coveted: their big hob-nailed boots. He had a great admiration for farmers in general; strong hardy men who spent their lives in the open and who pushed fearlessly among plunging packs of cattle and slapped the rumps of massive cart horses. I could see he was deeply impressed as he watched them—quite often small and stringy—mounting granary steps with twelve or sixteen stone stacks on their shoulders, or hanging on effortlessly to the noses of huge bullocks, their boots slithering over the floor, a laconic cigarette hanging from their lips.

It was those boots that got under Jimmy’s skin most of all. Sturdy and unyielding, they seemed to symbolise for him the character of the men who wore them.

Matters came to a head one day when we were conversing in the car. Or, rather, my son was doing the conversing in the form of a barrage of questions which I did my best to fend off while trying to think about my cases. These questions went on pretty well nonstop every day, and they followed a well-tried formula.

“What is the fastest train—the Blue Peter or the Flying Scotsman?”

“Well now … I really don’t know. I should say the Blue Peter.”

Then, getting into deeper water, “Is a giant train faster than a phantom racing car?”

“That’s a difficult one. Let’s see, now … maybe the phantom racer.”

Jimmy changed his tack suddenly. “That was a big man at the last farm wasn’t he?”

“He certainly was.”

“Was he bigger than Mr. Robinson?”

We were launching into his favourite “big man” game, and I knew how it would end, but I played my part. “Oh yes, he was.”

“Was he bigger than Mr. Leeming?”

“Certainly.”

“Was he bigger than Mr. Kirkley?”

“Without a doubt.”

Jimmy gave me a sidelong glance, and I knew he was about to play his two trump cards. “Was he bigger than the gas man?”

The towering gentleman who came to read the gas meters at Skeldale House had always fascinated my son, and I had to think very carefully about my reply.

“Well, you know, I really think he was.”

“Ah, but …” The corner of Jimmy’s mouth twitched up craftily. “Was he bigger than Mr. Thackray?”

That was the killer punch. Nobody was bigger than Mr. Thackray, who looked down on the other inhabitants of Darrowby from six feet seven inches.

I shrugged my shoulders in defeat. “No, I have to admit it. He wasn’t as big as Mr. Thackray.”

Jimmy smiled and nodded, well satisfied, then he began to hum a little tune, drumming his fingers on the dashboard at the same time. Soon I could see he was having trouble. He couldn’t remember how it went. Patience was not his strong point, and as he tried and stopped again and again, it was plain that he was rapidly becoming exasperated.

Finally, as we drove down a steep hill into a village and another abortive session of tum-te-tum-te-tum came to an abrupt halt, he rounded on me aggressively.

“You know,” he exploded, “I’m getting just about fed up of this!”

“I’m sorry to hear that, old lad.” I thought for a moment “I think it’s
Lilliburlero
you’re trying to get.” I gave a swift rendering.

“Yes, that’s it!” He slapped his knee and bawled out the melody at the top of his voice several times in triumph. This put him in such high good humour that he broached something that must have been on his mind for some time.

“Daddy,” he said. “Can I have some boots?”

“Boots? But you’ve got some already, haven’t you?” I pointed down at the little Wellingtons in which Helen always rigged him before he set out for the farms.

He gazed at his feet sadly before replying. “Yes, I know, but I want proper boots like the farmers.”

This was a facer. I didn’t know what to say. “But, Jim, little boys like you don’t have boots like that. Maybe when you’re bigger …”

“Oh, I want them now,” he moaned in anguished tones. “I want proper boots.”

At first I thought it was a passing whim, but he kept up his campaign for several days, reinforcing it with disgusted looks as Helen drew on the Wellingtons each morning and a listless slouching to convey the message that his footwear was entirely unsuitable for a man like him.

Finally Helen and I talked it over one night after he had gone to bed.

“They surely don’t have farm boots his size, do they?” I asked.

Helen shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but I’ll look around in any case.”

And it seemed that Jimmy wasn’t the only little boy to have this idea because within a week my wife returned, flushed with success and bearing the smallest pair of farm boots I had ever seen.

I couldn’t help laughing. They were so tiny, yet so perfect—thick hob-nailed soles, chunky uppers and a long row of lace-holes with metal loops at the top.

Jimmy didn’t laugh when he saw them. He handled them almost with awe and once he had got them on, his demeanour changed. He was naturally square-set and jaunty, but to see him striding round a farmyard in corduroy leggings and those boots you would think he owned the place. He clumped and stamped, held himself very upright and his cries of “Hello! Hello!” took on a new authority.

He was never what I would call naughty—certainly never destructive or cruel—but he had that bit of devil which I suppose all boys need to have. He liked to assert himself, and, perhaps unconsciously, he liked to tease me. If I said, “Don’t touch that,” he would keep clear of the object in question but later would give it the merest brush with his finger, which could not be construed as disobedience but nevertheless served to establish his influence in the household.

Also, he was not above taking advantage of me in awkward situations. There was one afternoon when Mr. Garrett brought his sheepdog in. The animal was very lame and as I hoisted him onto the table in the consulting room, a small head appeared for a moment at the window that overlooked the sunlit garden.

I didn’t mind that. Jimmy often watched me dealing with our small animal patients, and I half expected him to come into the room for a closer look.

It is often difficult to locate the source of a dog’s lameness, but in this case I found it immediately. When I gently squeezed the outside pad on his left foot he winced, and a tiny bead of serum appeared on the black surface.

“He’s got something in there, Mr. Garrett,” I said. “Probably a thorn. I’ll have to give him a shot of local anaesthetic and open up his pad.”

It was when I was filling the syringe that a knee came into view at the corner of the window. I felt a pang of annoyance. Jimmy surely couldn’t be climbing up the wistaria. It was dangerous, and I had expressly forbidden it. The branches of the beautiful creeper curled all over the back of the house, and though they were as thick as a man’s leg near ground level, they became quite slender as they made their way up past the bathroom window to the tiles of the roof.

No, I decided that I was mistaken and began to infiltrate the pad. These modern anaesthetics worked very quickly and within a minute or two I could squeeze the area quite hard without causing pain.

I reached for the scalpel. “Hold his leg up and keep it as steady as you can,” I said.

Mr. Garrett nodded and pursed his lips. He was a serious-faced man at any time and obviously deeply concerned about his dog. His eyes narrowed in apprehension as I poised my knife over the telltale drop of moisture.

For me it was an absorbing moment. If I could find and remove this foreign body, the dog would be instantly rid of his pain. I had dealt with many of these cases in the past, and they were so easy, so satisfying.

With the point of my blade I made a careful nick in the tough tissue of the pad, and at that moment a shadow crossed the window. I glanced up. It was Jimmy, all right, this time at the other side, just his head grinning through the glass from halfway up.

The little blighter
was
on the wistaria, but there was nothing I could do about it then, except to give him a quick glare. I cut a little deeper and squeezed, but still nothing showed in the wound. I didn’t want to make a big hole, but it was clear that I had to make a cruciate incision to see further down. I was drawing the scalpel across at right angles to my first cut when, from the corner of my eye, I spotted two feet dangling just below the top of the window. I tried to concentrate on my job but the feet swung and kicked repeatedly, obviously for my benefit. At last they disappeared, which could only mean that their owner was ascending to the dangerous regions. I dug down a little deeper and swabbed with cotton wool.

Ah yes, I could see something now, but it was very deep, probably the tip of a thorn which had broken off well below the surface. I felt the thrill of the hunter as I reached for forceps, and just then the head showed itself again, upside down this time.

My God, he was hanging by his feet from the branches, and the face was positively leering. In deference to my client, I had been trying to ignore the by-play from outside, but this was too much. I leaped at the glass and shook my fist violently. My fury must have startled the performer, because the face vanished instantly and I could hear faint sounds of feet scrambling upwards.

That was not much comfort, either. Those top branches might not support a boy’s weight. I forced myself back to my task.

“Sorry, Mr. Garrett,” I said. “Will you hold the leg up again, please?”

He replied with a thin smile, and I pushed my forceps into the depths. They grated on something hard. I gripped, pulled gently and—oh, lovely, lovely—out came the pointed, glistening head of a thorn. I had done it.

It was one of the tiny triumphs that lighten vets’ lives and I was beaming at my client and patting his dog’s head when I heard the crack from above. It was followed by a long howl of terror, then a small form hurtled past the window and thudded with horrid force into the garden.

I threw down the forceps and shot out of the room, along the passage and through the side door into the garden. Jimmy was already sitting up among the wallflowers, and I was too relieved to be angry.

“Have you hurt yourself?” I gasped, and he shook his head.

I lifted him to his feet and he seemed to be able to stand all right. I felt him over carefully. There appeared to be no damage.

I led him back into the house. “Go along and see Mummy,” I said and returned to the consulting room.

I must have been deathly pale when I entered because Mr. Garrett looked startled. “Is he all right?” he asked.