Herriot - If Only They Could Talk: the classic memoirs of a 1930s vet

T O

D ONALD AND B RIAN S INCLAIR

Still my friends

T HEY DIDNT say anything about this in the books, I thought, as the snow blew in through the gaping doorway and settled on my naked back.

I lay face down on the cobbled floor in a pool of nameless muck, my arm deep inside the straining cow, my feet scrabbling for a toe hold between the stones. I was stripped to the waist and the snow mingled with the dirt and the dried blood on my body. I could see nothing outside the circle of flickering light thrown by the smoky oil lamp which the farmer held over me.

No, there wasnt a word in the books about searching for your ropes and instruments in the shadows; about trying to keep clean in a half bucket of tepid water; about the cobbles digging into your chest. Nor about the slow numbing of the arms, the creeping paralysis of the muscles as the fingers tried to work against the cows powerful expulsive efforts.

There was no mention anywhere of the gradual exhaustion, the feeling of futility and the little far-off voice of panic.

My mind went back to that picture in the obstetrics book. A cow standing in the middle of a gleaming floor while a sleek veterinary surgeon in a spotless parturition overall inserted his arm to a polite distance. He was relaxed and smiling, the farmer and his helpers were smiling, even the cow was smiling. There was no dirt or blood or sweat anywhere.

That man in the picture had just finished an excellent lunch and had moved next door to do a bit of calving just for the sheer pleasure of it, as a kind of dessert. He hadnt crawled shivering from his bed at two oclock in the morning and bumped over twelve miles of frozen snow, staring sleepily ahead till the lonely farm showed in the headlights. He hadnt climbed half a mile of white fell-side to the doorless barn where his patient lay.

I tried to wriggle my way an extra inch inside the cow. The calfs head was back and I was painfully pushing a thin, looped rope towards its lower jaw with my fingertips. All the time my arm was being squeezed between the calf and the bony pelvis. With every straining effort from the cow the pressure became almost unbearable, then she would relax and I would push the rope another inch. I wondered how long I would be able to keep this up. If I didnt snare that jaw soon I would never get the calf away. I groaned, set my teeth and reached forward again.

Another little flurry of snow blew in and I could almost hear the flakes sizzling on my sweating back. There was sweat on my forehead too, and it trickled into my eyes as I pushed.

There is always a time at a bad calving when you begin to wonder if you will ever win the battle. I had reached this stage.

Little speeches began to flit through my brain. Perhaps it would be better to slaughter this cow. Her pelvis is so small and narrow that I cant see a calf coming through, or Shes a good fat animal and really of the beef type, so dont you think it would pay you better to get the butcher? or perhaps This is a very bad presentation. In a roomy cow it would be simple enough to bring the head round but in this case it is just about impossible.

Of course, I could have delivered the calf by embryotomy by passing a wire over the neck and sawing off the head. So many of these occasions ended with the floor strewn with heads, legs, heaps of intestines. There were thick textbooks devoted to the countless ways you could cut up a calf.

But none of it was any good here, because this calf was alive. At my furthest stretch I had got my finger as far as the commissure of the mouth and had been startled by a twitch of the little creatures tongue. It was unexpected because calves in this position are usually dead, asphyxiated by the acute flexion of the neck and the pressure of the dams powerful contractions. But this one had a spark of life in it and if it came out it would have to be in one piece.

I went over to my bucket of water, cold now and bloody, and silently soaped my arms. Then I lay down again, feeling the cobbles harder than ever against my chest. I worked my toes between the stones, shook the sweat from my eyes and for the hundredth time thrust an arm that felt like spaghetti into the cow; alongside the little dry legs of the calf, like sandpaper tearing against my flesh, then to the bend in the neck and so to the ear and then, agonizingly, along the side of the face towards the lower jaw which had become my major goal in life.

It was incredible that I had been doing this for nearly two hours; fighting as my strength ebbed to push a little noose round that jaw. I had tried everything else repelling a leg, gentle traction with a blunt hook in the eye socket, but I was back to the noose.

It had been a miserable session all through. The farmer, Mr Dinsdale, was a long, sad, silent man of few words who always seemed to be expecting the worst to happen. He had a long, sad, silent son with him and the two of them had watched my efforts with deepening gloom.

But worst of all had been Uncle. When I had first entered the hillside barn I had been surprised to see a little bright-eyed old man in a pork-pie hat settling down comfortably on a bale of straw. He was filling his pipe and clearly looking forward to the entertainment.

Now then, young man, he cried in the nasal twang of the West Riding. Im Mr Dinsdales brother. I farm over in Listondale.

I put down my equipment and nodded. How do you do? My name is Herriot.

The old man looked me over, piercingly. My vet is Mr Broomfield. Expect youll have heard of him everybody knows him, I reckon. Wonderful man, Mr Broomfield, especially at calving. Do you know, Ive never seen im beat yet.

I managed a wan smile. Any other time I would have been delighted to hear how good my colleague was, but somehow not now, not now. In fact, the words set a mournful little bell tolling inside me.

No, Im afraid I dont know Mr Broomfield, I said, taking off my jacket and, more reluctantly, peeling my shirt over my head. But I havent been around these parts very long.

Uncle was aghast. You dont know him! Well, youre the only one as doesnt. They think the world of him in Listondale, I can tell you. He lapsed into a shocked silence and applied a match to his pipe. Then he shot a glance at my goose-pimpled torso. Strips like a boxer does Mr Broomfield. Never seen such muscles on a man.

A wave of weakness coursed sluggishly over me. I felt suddenly leaden-footed and inadequate. As I began to lay out my ropes and instruments on a clean towel the old man spoke again.

And how long have you been qualified, may I ask?

Oh, about seven months.

Seven months! Uncle smiled indulgently, tamped down his tobacco and blew out a cloud of rank, blue smoke. Well, theres nowt like a bit of experience, I always says. Mr Broomfields been doing my work now for over ten years and he really knows what hes about. No, you can ave your book learning. Give me experience every time.

I tipped some antiseptic into the bucket and lathered my arms carefully. I knelt behind the cow.

Mr Broomfield always puts some special lubricating oils on his arms first, Uncle said, pulling contentedly on his pipe. He says you get infection of the womb if you just use soap and water.

I made my first exploration. It was the burdened moment all vets go through when they first put their hand into a cow. Within seconds I would know whether I would be putting on my jacket in fifteen minutes or whether I had hours of hard labour ahead of me.

I was going to be unlucky this time; it was a nasty presentation. Head back and no room at all; more like being inside an undeveloped heifer than a second calfer. And she was bone dry the waters must have come away from her hours ago. She had been running out on the high fields and had started to calve a week before her time; that was why they had had to bring her into this half-ruined barn. Anyway, it would be a long time before I saw my bed again.