James Herriot - Vets Might Fly

"This is important. Got a brand new father 'ere.

Leave pass, railway warrant, pay, double quick!"

"Right, Flight. Very good, Flight." The typewriters began to tap.

The big man went over to a railway timetable on the wall.

"You haven't far to go, anyway. Let's see Darrow by, Darrow by... yes, there's a train out of here for York at three twenty." He looked at his watch.

"You ought to make that if you get your skates on."

A deepening sense of shame threatened to engulf me when he spoke again.

"Double back to your room and get packed. We'll have your documents ready."

I changed into my best blue, filled my kit bag and threw it over my shoulder, then hurried back to the orderly room.

The Flight Sergeant was waiting. He handed me a long envelope.

"It's all there, son, and you've got plenty of time." He looked me up and down, walked round me and straightened the white flash in my cap.

"Yes, very smart. We've got to have you loo kin' right for your missus, haven't we?" He gave me the Gary Cooper smile again. He was a handsome, kind-eyed man and I'd never noticed It.

He strolled with me along the corridor.

"This'll be your first 'un, of course?"

"Yes, Flight."

He nodded.

"Well, it's a great day for you. I've got three of 'em, me self.

Getting big now but I miss 'em like hell with this ruddy war. I really envy you, walking in that door tonight and seeing your son for the very first time,"

Guilt drove through me in a searing flood and as we halted at the top of the stairs I was convinced my shifty eyes and furtive glances would betray me. But he wasn't really loo king at me.

"You know, lad," he said softly, gazing somewhere over my head.

"This is the best time of your life coming up."

We weren't allowed to use the main stairways and as I clattered down the narrow stone service stairs I heard the big voice again.

"Give my regards to them both."

I had a wonderful time with Helen, walking for miles, discovering the delights f pram pushing, with little Jimmy miraculously improved in appearance.

Everything was so much better than if I had taken my leave at the official time and there is no doubt my plan was a success.

But I was unable to gloat about it The triumph was dimmed and to this day I have reservations about the whole thing Flight Sergeant Blacken spoiled it for me Chapter Fifteen "You must have to be a bit of an idiot to be a country vet' The young airman was laughing as he said it, but I felt there was some truth in his words. He had .

been telling me about his job in civil life and when I described my own working hours and conditions he had been incredulous..

There was one time I would have agreed with him wholeheartedly. It was nine o'clock on a filthy wet night and I was still at work. I gripped the steering wheel more tightly and shifted in my seat, groaning softly as my tired muscles complained.

Why had I entered this profession? I could have gone in for something easier and gentler like coal mining or lumber jacking. I had started feeling sorry for myself three hours ago, driving across Darrow by market place on the way to a calving. The shops were shut and even through the wintry drizzle there was a suggestion of repose, of work done, of firesides and books and drifting tobacco smoke. I had all those things, plus Helen, back there in our bed-sitter.

I think the iron really entered when I saw the carload of young people setting off from the front of the Drovers; three girls and three young fellows, all dressed up and laughing and obviously on their way to a dance or party. Everybody was set for comfort and a good time; everybody except Herriot, rattling towards the cold wet hills and the certain prospect of toil.

And the case th'hing to raise my spirits.^ skinny little heifer stretched on her side i-skle open-fronted shed littered with old tin cans, half bricks a'as difficult to see what I was stumbling over since the only oil lamp whose flame flickered and dipped in the .

~-C:s ed, easing out the calf inch by inch. It wasn't a \,but the heifer never rose to her feet and I spent ~, ~ ng among the bricks and tins, get ting up only sket while the rain hurled itself icily against back.

, ;~ frozen-faced with my skin chafing under ~, ~ 4:oup of strong men had been kicking me ~0 ~c, it of the evening I was almost drowninB \village of Cop ton. In the warm days of 'c'~\ys of a corner of Perthshire, with a hillside and a dark drift of trees ~ -~P~ 'e.

\ai -c,"-'cv \,h the rain sweeping across the ~vo ttr' ~ ~ for a faint glow right in the diminishing on the streaming roadw ~1 0 ~l ~0c; ~ ~ .~

.N ~,

.~ walk l, c .. ~c ~ As I le~a ~; ~ c whisky?" ~o ~ Oo "Whisky? No ~ ~ ~ "Well you've gone-~t something to eat." ' "No, no, no thanks, I've got I Stopped the car under the swinging sign of the Fox and Hounds and on an impulse opened the door. A beer would do me good.

A pleasant warmth met me as I went into the pub. There was no bar counter, only high-backed settles and oak tables arranged under the whitewashed walls of what was simply a converted farm kitchen. At one end a wood fire crackled in an old black cooking range and above it the tick of a wall clock sounded above the murmur of voices. It wasn't as lively as the modern places but it was peaceful.

"Now then, Mr Herriot, you've been work in'," my neighbour said as I sank into the settle.

"Yes, Ted, how did you know?"

The man glanced over my soiled mackintosh and the welling tons which I hadn't bothered to change on the farm.

"Well, that's not your Sunday suit, there's blood on your nose end and cow shit on your ear' Ted Dobson was a burly cowman in his thirties and his white teeth showed suddenly in a wide grin I smiled too and plied my handkerchief.

"It's funny how you always want to scratch your nose at times like that."

I looked around the room. There were about a dozen men drinking from pint glasses, some of them playing dominoes. They were all farm workers, the people I saw when I was called from my bed in the darkness before dawn; hunched figures they were then, shapeless in old greatcoats, cycling out to the farms, heads down against the wind and rain, accepting the facts of their hard existence.

I often thought at those times that this happened to me only occasionally, but they did it every morning.

And they did it for thirty shillings a week; just seeing them here made me feel a little ashamed.

Mr Waters, the landlord, whose name let him in for a certain amount of ribbing, filled my glass, holding his tall jug high to produce the professional froth.

"There yare, Mr Herriot, that'll be sixpence. Cheap at 'elf the price."

Every drop of beer was brought up in that jug from the wooden barrels in the cellar. It would have been totally impracticable in a busy establishment, but the Fox and Hounds was seldom bustling and Mr Waters would never get rich as a publican. But he had four cows in the little byre adjoining this room, fifty hens pecked around in his long back garden and he reared a few litters of pigs every year from his two sows.

"Thank you, Mr Waters." I took a deep pull at the glass. I had lost some sweat despite the cold and my thirst welcomed the flow of rich nutty ale. I had been in here a few times before and the faces were all familiar. Especially old Albert Close, a retired shepherd who sat in the same place every night at the end of the settle hard against the fire.

He sat as always, his hands and chin resting on the tall crook which he had carried through his working days, his eyes blank. Stretched half under the seat, half under the table lay his dog, Mick, old and retired like his master. The animal was clearly in the middle of a vivid dream; his paws pedalled the air spasmodically, his lips and ears twitched and now and then he emitted a stifled bark.