Джеймс Хэрриот - Every Living Thing

As I said, I seemed to spend half my life on the road through Welsby, and I dropped into the Lord Nelson several times over the next few months. As always, I spotted Bob’s flat cap perched incongruously among the modish jackets and dresses, but one night as I peered through the crush I noticed something different.

I pushed my way to the corner of the bar. “Hello, Bob. I see you haven’t got Meg with you.”

He glanced down to the space under his stool, then took a sip at his glass before looking at me with a doleful expression. “Nay…nay…” he murmured. “Couldn’t bring ’er.”

“Why not?”

He didn’t reply for a few moments and when he spoke his voice was husky, almost inaudible. “She’s got cancer.”

“What!”

“Cancer. Meg’s got cancer.”

“How do you know?”

“There’s a big growth on ’er. It’s been comin’ on for a bit.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You’d ’ave put her down. Ah don’t want her put down yet.”

“But…but…you’re jumping to conclusions, Bob. All growths aren’t cancerous.”

“This ’un must be. It’s a bloody great thing as big as a cricket ball.”

“And where is it?”

“Underneath ’er belly. Hangin’ right down nearly to t’ground. It’s awful.” He rubbed his eyes as though to blot out the memory. His face was a mask of misery.

I grasped his arm. “Now, look, Bob, this sounds to me like a simple mammary tumour.”

“A what?”

“A growth on the bitch’s udder. These things are very common and they’re very often benign and quite harmless.”

“Oh, not this ’un,” he quavered. “It’s a bloody big…” He demonstrated with his hands.

“Size doesn’t matter. Come on, Bob, we’ll go along to your house and have a look at it.”

“Nay…nay… ah know what you’ll do.” His eyes took on a hunted expression.

“I’ll not do anything, I promise you.” I looked at my watch. “It’s nearly closing time. Let’s go.”

He gave me a final despairing look, then got off his stool and made his careful way to the door.

Outside I watched the usual ceremony with the bike, but this time, at the third attempt at mounting, man and bike crashed to the ground. A bad sign. And on the interminable journey to the cottage Bob went down several times and as I looked at him, sprawled face-down on top of his machine, I realised that the heart had gone out of him.

At the cottage, Bob’s brother, Adam, looked up from his work on a hooked rug. Neither of the men had married and, though entirely different personalities, lived together in complete harmony. I hastened to Meg’s basket and gently rolled the old bitch onto her side. It was indeed a huge tumour, but it was rock hard, confined to the skin and not adherent to the mammary tissue.

“Look, Bob,” I said. “I can get my fingers right behind it. I’m sure I can take it off with every chance of complete recovery.”

He dropped into a chair and as Meg ambled across to greet him he slowly stroked her ears. There was something pathetic about the waving tail, the open, panting mouth and the monstrous growth dangling almost to the floor.

There was no reply, and Adam broke in. “You can see what ’e’s like, Mr. Herriot. I’ve been telling ’im for weeks to come to you but he takes no notice. I’ve lost patience with him.”

“How about it, Bob?” I said. “Will you bring her to the surgery as soon as possible? The quicker it’s done the better. You can’t let her go on like this.”

He went on with his stroking for some time, then nodded his head. “All right.”

“When?”

“Ah’ll let ye know.”

Adam came in again. “You see. He won’t say, because I can tell you now that ’e never will bring her in to you. He’s made up ’is mind that Meg’s going to die.”

“That’s daft, Bob,” I said. “I tell you I’m pretty sure I can put her right. Will I take her away with me now? How about that?”

Still looking down, he shook his head vigorously. I decided on shock tactics.

“Well, let me do the operation now.”

He shot me a startled glance. “What…right here?”

“Why not? It’s not as big a job as you think. It doesn’t involve any vital organs, and I always carry an operating kit in my car.”

“Good idea!” burst out Adam. “It’s the only way we’ll get it done!”

“Just one thing,” I said. “When did she last eat?”

“She had a few biscuits this morning,” Adam replied. “But that’s all. Bob always gives her her main meal last thing at night.”

“Fine, fine. She’ll be just right for the anaesthetic.”

Bob seemed stupefied and he didn’t say a word or make a move as Adam and I began to bustle about with our preparations. I had always been interested in the relationship between these two middle-aged brothers. They were opposites. Adam had never had an alcoholic drink in his life but seemed totally uncritical of Bob’s beer-orientated life-style, and when Bob was at the Lord Nelson Adam was usually attending night classes at the village school, rug-making being his latest interest. Adam wasn’t a farm worker; he was employed by the big dairy that collected the milk from the Dales farms. He was small and slightly built, finicky and fussy in his manner, unlike his burly, stolid brother.

After I had boiled the instruments we got Meg on the table and a quick injection of intravenous barbiturate sent the old bitch into deep anaesthesia. I made her fast on her back with bandages to the table legs and then all three of us scrubbed up at the kitchen sink. Bob, still wearing his cap, displayed a growing lack of enthusiasm, and when I handed the brothers an artery forceps apiece and poised my scalpel he closed his eyes tightly.

My system with these tumours was to cut out an ellipse on the skin, then proceed by blunt dissection with my fingers. It looked a bit crude, but greatly reduced the amount of haemorrhage. I had made my first incision and had started to peel back the skin, and it was just at the moment when I had taken the forceps from the brothers and was clamping a couple of spurting vessels that Bob opened his eyes. He gave a hollow groan and tottered to an old horsehair sofa, where he slumped and buried his head in his hands. His frail brother, however, was made of sterner stuff, and though he lost a little colour he set his lips firmly and gripped both the forceps on the vessels with a steady hand as I tied them off.

Once started, I went about my job with gusto, working my way with my fingers round the spherical growth, pushing back the adhering fascia from the skin. Some of these things almost shelled out, and though this one wasn’t quite as easy as that, I was doing fine. Soon I had the whole tumour in my hand except for a mass right at the bottom and I knew from experience that there would be a big vessel down there. “Get ready with your forceps, Adam,” I said, tearing carefully at the tissue, but almost as I spoke a crimson jet fountained up into his face.

Bob chose this moment to uncover his eyes and after one appalled glance at his brother’s blood-spattered spectacles he gave a strangled grunt, lifted his legs and flopped onto his back on the sofa, pulling his cap over his eyes with a limp hand.

“Well done, Adam,” I said to the little man as he stood resolutely at his post, the forceps clamped on that final vessel while I ligated it and removed the tumour. “We’re about finished now. Just a few stitches to put in.” I inserted a row of nylon sutures and stood back, well satisfied.

“The old girl looks a lot better without that horrible thing,” I said and swept my hand across the unsullied abdomen. Unfortunately my fingers struck the tumour, which was lying on the table, and it fell to the floor with a bump and rolled towards the sofa.