Every Living Thing Part 5

"NOT TO PUT TOO fine a point on it, Herriot, I think you are dishonest."

"What!" I had been called a few things in my time, but never that and it hit me hard, especially coming from a tall, patrician veterinary surgeon, looking down his nose at me. "What the devil do you mean? How can you possibly say that?"

Hugo Mottram's imperious blue eyes regarded me with distaste. "I say it only because I am forced to no other conclusion. I consider unethical behaviour to be a type of dishonesty and you have certainly been guilty of that. Also, your attempts to justify your actions seem to me to be sheer prevarication."

This was really nice, I thought, particularly here in Brawton where I was trying to enjoy my precious half-day. I had been browsing happily in Smith's bookshop, and spotted Mottram walking along by the shelves, and in fact had been regarding him with some envy, wis.h.i.+ng that I looked a bit like him. He was the perfect picture of my idea of a country vet; check cap, immaculate hacking jacket, knee breeches, stockings and brogues together with a commanding presence and hawk-like, handsome features. He was in his fifties, but as he paced among the books, head high, chin jutting, he had the look of a fit young man.

I took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly. "Mr. Mottram, what you have just said is insulting, and I think you should apologise. Surely you realise that neither my partner nor I have any designs on your clients-it was just an unfortunate combination of events. There was nothing else we could have done in the circ.u.mstances and if only you would just think about it..."

The tall man stuck out his chin even more. "I have thought about it and I mean what I say. I have no desire to waste any more time in discussing this matter, and my hope is that I shall have no further contact with you in the future."

He turned quickly and strode from the shop, leaving me fuming. I stood there, staring at my boots. Helen would be joining me any minute now-she had been having her hair done-and then our happy programme would start: shopping, tea, then the cinema and a late meal with a lot of good conversation, all with my pal, Gordon Rae, the vet from Boroughbridge, and his wife, Jean. It was a simple sequence, but a blessed escape from the hard work and we looked forward to it all week. And now it was in ruins, shattered.

This thing with Mottram had started a few weeks previously. I was examining a spaniel with a skin eruption in our surgery when the lady owner suddenly said, "Mr. Mottram of Scanton has been treating this dog for some time. Says it's eczema, but it's not improving and I think it must be something else. I want a second opinion."

I looked at the lady. "I wish you'd mentioned that at the beginning. Really, I should have asked Mr. Mottram's permission before I looked at your dog."

"Oh, I didn't know that."

"Well, yes, that's how it is, and I'm afraid I'll have to speak to him before I do any more."

I excused myself and went through to the telephone in the office.

"Mottram here." The voice was as I remembered. Deep, a.s.sured, cool. As a neighbouring veterinary surgeon I had met him a few times and found I couldn't get very near him. His aristocratic haughtiness was, to me, decidedly off-putting. But I had to try to be friendly.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, this is Herriot, Darrowby. How are you?"

"I am quite well, Herriot. I trust you are the same." d.a.m.n, he still sounded patronising.

"Well now, I have one of your clients, a Mrs. Hickson, here with her dog-I see it has a skin condition. She's asking for a second opinion."

The voice became suddenly glacial. "You've seen the animal? I think you might have consulted me first."

"I'm sorry. I didn't get the chance. Mrs. Hickson didn't tell me till I had the dog on the table. I do apologise, and I wonder if I might have your permission to carry on."

There was a long pause, then again the icy tones. "Well, I suppose if you must, you must." The phone went down with a bonk.

My face was hot with embarra.s.sment. What was the matter with the chap? This sort of thing happened all the time in veterinary practice. I'd had to approach other neighbouring pract.i.tioners and sometimes they'd had to approach me. The response on both sides had always been, "Oh, yes, of course, carry on by all means. I'd be glad to know what you think." And followed by a description of the treatment to date.

None of that with Mottram, and I wasn't going to phone him again. I'd have to find out the past treatment from the owner if I could.

I told Siegfried later.

"Snooty b.u.g.g.e.r," he grunted. "Remember when I asked him to dinner a long time ago? He said that he felt that vets should have an honourable a.s.sociation with their neighbours in opposition, but he didn't believe in their socialising with each other."

"Yes, I do remember."

"Okay, I respect his views, but there's no need for this stupid touchiness."

A couple of weeks later I had a feeling of impending doom when I was feeling my way over the hind leg of a lame dog and the owner, a nice old man, chirped up, "Oh, by the way, I should have told you. Mr. Mottram over at Scanton has been treating him, but I can see no improvement at all and I'd like your opinion."

My toes began to curl, but there was nothing else for it. I rang up our neighbour again.

"Mottram here." That same discouraging voice.

I told him what had happened, and asked his permission.

Again that long pause, then a disdainful, "So you're at it again?"

"At it...? What do you mean? I'm not at anything, I'm merely asking your permission to do as your client has requested."

"Oh, do what you d.a.m.n well like." And I heard the familiar thud of the phone at the other end.

I began to sense the eerie workings of fate when Siegfried came in a few days later, looking thoughtful.

"You won't believe this, James. I was called to one of Mottram's clients this morning. Bollands by name, and he was in a state. He had a horse with a broken leg and couldn't get hold of Mottram. Phoned me in desperation. I rang the Scanton practice but he was on his rounds and I had to dash out to Bollands's place. It was a ghastly thing-a horrible compound fracture with the poor creature in agony. No possibility of treatment. There was simply nothing for it but to shoot the poor thing immediately. I couldn't let him suffer. But it would be Mottram-I've tried to contact him again now, but he's still not around."

I had to help Siegfried to clean out a dog's cankered ears and we were clearing up when, to our complete astonishment, Mottram appeared in the doorway of the operating room. He was immaculate as usual, clearly in a rage, but in cold control of himself.

"Ah, you're both here." That superior voice again. "It's just as well, because what I have to say applies to both of you. This latest escapade at Bollands's is really too much, Farnon. I can only conclude that you are conducting a campaign to steal my clients."

Siegfried flushed. "Now look here, Mottram, that is ridiculous. We have absolutely no desire to poach your clients. As to Bollands's horse, I tried in vain to get in touch with you, but-"

Mottram held up a hand. "I don't want to hear any more. You can say what you like, but I believe in honourable relations. Now that this has happened I am glad I stuck to my principles about that 'out to dinner together' nonsense." He nodded down to each of us from his great height and left.

Siegfried turned to me ruefully. "Well, that's finally torn it. I want to be friends with all my neighbours but we're finished there."

As I stood in the bookshop in Brawton, recalling the sequence of events, I felt that I hadn't needed this final onslaught from Mottram. Standing there among the wreckage of my half-day, looking at his retreating back, I knew that he had washed his hands of me.

Like my partner, I was unhappy about it, but I put it out of my mind until my bedside phone rang at 1:00 A.M. about a month later. I reached out a sleepy arm.

The voice at the other end was agitated. "This is Lumsden, Scanton. Mr. Mottram's a.s.sistant. I'm treating his horse with a bad colic, but I'm beat with it. I need help."

Suddenly I was wide awake. "Where's Mottram?"

"He's on holiday in the north of Scotland." The young man's voice began to quaver. "Oh, this would happen when he's away. He adores this horse-it's his favourite, he rides it every day. But I've tried everything and it looks like it's dying. I don't know how I'm going to face him when he gets back." There was a pause. "Actually, I was hoping to speak to Mr. Farnon. He's good with horses, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is," I said. In the darkness, I rested the receiver on my chest and looked at the ceiling as Helen stirred uneasily at my side. Then I spoke again. "Look, Lumsden, I'll have a word with my partner. It's his night off, but I'll see what he says. Anyway, I promise you one of us at least will be out to give you a hand."

I cut short his thanks and dialled Siegfried's number. I told him the story and could sense him snapping awake at the other end. "Oh, my G.o.d! Mottram!"

"Yes. What d'you think?"

I listened to a long sigh, then, "I've got to go, James."

"I'll come with you."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Of course. It's my night on, anyway, and I might be able to help."

On the way to Scanton we didn't say much, but Siegfried voiced our thoughts. "You know, this is uncanny. It sounds as though we're on a hiding to nothing here and Mottram is going to love us even more when he finds we've been in at the death of his beloved horse. Colics are nasty things at any time, always dangerous, even the straightforward ones, and I'd like to bet that this one will have some complications."

The house was just outside Scanton and our headlights picked out an avenue of chestnut trees leading to an impressive bulk with a fine pillared doorway. We drove round the back and found Lumsden waving us with his torch into a cobbled courtyard. As we drew up he turned and ran quickly into a lighted loose box in the corner of the yard. When we followed him we could see the reason for his haste. And it was a frightening sight. My stomach lurched and I heard a soft "Oh, dear G.o.d!" from Siegfried. A big chestnut horse, head hanging, staring-eyed and lathered in sweat, was stumbling round the box, buckling at the knees, doing his best to throw himself down and roll, which, as any vet knows, can cause torsion of the bowel and inevitable death. The young man was hanging on desperately to the halter shank and urging the animal to keep walking round the box.

Lumsden looked about sixteen, but as a qualified veterinarian he had to be nearly ten years older than that. He was slightly built and his naturally boyish face was pale and exhausted.

"Very good of you to come," he gasped. "I hate to get you out of bed, but I've been fighting on with this job all day yesterday and all day today, and I'm getting nowhere. The horse is worse if anything and I'm about knackered."

"That's quite all right, old chap," Siegfried said soothingly. "James will hold the horse for a minute while you tell me what you've done."

"Well, I've been giving Istin as a laxative, chloral hydrate, to relieve the pain. Largactil, and a few small shots of arecoline, but I'm frightened to give any more arecoline because there's a h.e.l.l of an impaction in there and I don't want to rupture the bowel. If only he'd pa.s.s a bit of muck, but there's been nothing through him for over forty-eight hours."

"Never mind, my boy, you've done nothing wrong, so don't worry about that." Siegfried slipped a hand behind the animal's elbow and felt the pulse. Then as the horse staggered around he reflected the eyelid and examined the conjunctiva. He looked at it thoughtfully before taking the temperature.

"Yes...yes..." he murmured without changing expression, then he turned to the young man. "Would you slip into the house now and get us a bucket of hot water, soap and a towel. I want to do a rectal."

As Lumsden hurried out, Siegfried swung round. "By G.o.d, I don't like this, James. Lousy, weak pulse-can hardly detect it-brick-red conjunctiva and temperature one hundred three. I don't want to put the wind up this young chap, but I think we're on a loser here." His eyes widened. "And Mottram again! Is there such a thing as a jinx?"

I didn't say anything as I hung on to the struggling animal. A weak pulse is a particularly ominous finding in a horse and the other things pointed to a complicating bowel inflammation.

When the young man came back, Siegfried rolled up a sleeve and pushed his arm deep into the r.e.c.t.u.m. "Yes...yes...bad impaction, as you say." He whistled softly for a few moments. "Well, first, we've got to relieve his pain."

He injected the sedative into the jugular vein, speaking gently to the horse all the time, "That'll make you feel better, old lad. Poor old chap," and followed this with a long saline infusion intravenously to combat the shock, and antibiotic for the enteritis. "Now we'll get a gallon of liquid paraffin into him to try to lubricate that lot in there." Quickly he pushed a stomach tube up the nostril and into the stomach and held it there as I pumped in the oil.

"Next, a muscular relaxant." Again he gave an intravenous injection.

By the time he had cleaned and rolled up the stomach tube the horse looked a lot happier. Colic is a frightful agony and I always felt that horses seemed to suffer pain more deeply than any other animal, a suffering at times almost unbearable to watch. It was a relief to see the big animal calming down, stopping his repeated attempts to collapse, clearly finding a blessed release.

"Well," said Siegfried quietly. "Now we wait."

Lumsden looked at him questioningly. "Are you sure? I feel very guilty about you losing your sleep. It's after two o'clock-maybe I could manage now."

My partner gave him a wan smile. "With respect, laddie, it's going to need a combined operation. That horse is only doped for now, and I don't have to tell you that he is in very serious condition. If we can't get his bowels moving I'm afraid he'll die. He's going to need more of everything, including the stomach tube. We'll all see it through, one way or another."

The young man sat down on a pile of hay and gazed dully at his boots. "Oh, G.o.d, I hope it's not the other. Mr. Mottram's last words to me were, 'Now you'll look after Match.' ?

"Match?"

"Match Box. That's the horse's name. My boss is devoted to him."

"I'm sorry," Siegfried said. "You're in an awkward position. I shouldn't think Mottram would be the easiest man to explain things to."

Lumsden ran his hands through his hair. "No...no..." He looked up at us. "Mind you, he's not a bad bloke. He's always treated me right. It's just his personality...When he gives me one of his looks I feel about six inches high."

"I know the feeling," I said.

Siegfried gazed at the young man for a moment. "What's your name? What does your mother call you?"

"Harry."

"Well, Harry. You're probably right. And I like your loyalty. Maybe it's just his way, but James and I both seem to have caught him at the wrong time. Anyway, can you fetch us a pot of coffee? It could be a long night."

It was indeed a long night. We took turns at walking the horse when he showed signs of going down. Siegfried repeated his injections, varying the treatment between sedatives and muscular relaxants with another cautious shot of arecoline, and at five o'clock he used the stomach tube again to give magnesium sulphate. And all the time as we dosed and yawned, slumped on the hay, we looked for a genuine easing of the pain, a raising of the animal's depression and most of all for a movement of the bowels.

For my part as I watched Match Box's lolling head and trailing steps my dominating worry was the knowledge that horses die so easily. Cattle and most other species could survive things so much better, and the old saying among the farmers mat " 'Osses don't stand much" was so true. As the night wore on and my metabolism slowed down, my spirits drooped with it. At any moment I expected the horse to halt in his painful circling of the box, pitch forward onto his side and groan his last few breaths away. Then we would drive miserably back to Darrowby.

Over the half-door of the box I could see the gradual disappearance of the stars and a lightening of the eastern sky. At around six o'clock, as the birds began to sing in the chestnut trees and the grey light of dawn crept into the box, Siegfried stood up and stretched.

"The big world has started to turn again out there, chaps, so what are we going to do? We've got to see to both our practices so who's going to stay with Match Box? We can't leave him."

We were looking at each other, bleary-eyed, when the horse suddenly c.o.c.ked his tail and deposited a small heap of steaming faeces on the floor.

"Oh, what a lovely sight!" cried Siegfried as our weary faces broke into smiles of relief. "That makes me feel a lot better, but we mustn't get too c.o.c.ky yet. He's still got a touch of enteritis, so I'll give him another shot of antibiotic before we go. Harry, I think it's safe to leave him now, so we'll be on our way, but don't hesitate to ring us if he doesn't go on right."

Out in the yard we shook hands. The young man was blinking with tiredness but he looked happy. "I don't know what to say," he mumbled. "I'm so grateful to both of you. You've got me out of a terrible fix and I can't thank you enough."

"Not at all, my boy," Siegfried sang out. "Only too glad to be able to help. Get in touch with us any time-but not about colicky horses for the next day or two, if you don't mind."

We all laughed and waved as Siegfried started the engine and drove out of the yard.

There was no word from Lumsden until the following day when I answered the phone. "Match Box is absolutely fine. Bowels normal, nibbling hay, just great," he said. "Thanks-thanks again!"

Three weeks pa.s.sed and in the rush of work the Scanton episode began to recede into all the other memories, but one morning Siegfried looked up from his perusal of the day-book.

"You know, James, I do think Mottram might have made some acknowledgement of our bit of a.s.sistance with his horse. I'm not looking for fulsome thanks, but I think he might have said something."

With an irritable gesture, he scribbled something in the book. "I expect the toffee-nosed b.u.g.g.e.r can't unbend even as far as that."

"Oh, I don't know, Siegfried. Maybe he's still on holiday. We don't know that."

"Hmm." My partner looked at me doubtfully. "Possibly. Could be I'm doing him an injustice, but anyway, we've got the satisfaction of helping to pull that grand horse round." His face softened. "Lovely sort."

Next day I came in from my morning round and found my partner bending over an open crate, from whose depths a row of gold-topped bottles protruded.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Champagne. A dozen." He pulled out a bottle and looked at the label. "Bollinger, no less!"

"Gosh, where's that come from?"

"No idea. Delivered this morning while we were out, and there's no message inside. But don't worry, it's for us, all right. Look. Messrs. Farnon and Herriot, Skeldale House."

"Wonderful. I wonder..."

As I spoke, there was a knock on the office door and Mottram walked in.