Джеймс Хэрриот - The Lord God Made Them All

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.

“Yes, yes, I think so. But I do apologise for rushing out like that. It was really too bad of me to …”

Mr. Garrett laid his hand on my shoulder. “Say no more, Mr. Herriot, I have children of my own.” And then he spoke the words that have become engraven on my heart. “You need nerves of steel to be a parent.”

Later at tea I watched my son demolishing a poached egg on toast, then he started to slap plum jam on a slice of bread. Thank heaven he was no worse for his fall, but still I had to remonstrate with him.

“Look, young man,” I said. “That was a very naughty thing you did out there. I’ve told you again and again not to climb the wistaria.”

Jimmy bit into his bread and jam and regarded me impassively. I have a big streak of old hen in my nature and down through the years, even to this day, he and later my daughter, Rosie, have recognised this and developed a disconcerting habit of making irreverent clucking noises at my over-fussiness. At this moment I could see that whatever I was going to say he wasn’t going to take too seriously.

“If you’re going to behave like this,” I went on, “I’m not going to take you round the farms with me. I’ll just have to find another little boy to help me with my cases.”

His chewing slowed down, and I looked for some reaction in this morsel of humanity who was later to become a far better veterinary surgeon than I could ever be, in fact, to quote thirty years later a dry Scottish colleague who had been through college with me and didn’t mince words, “A helluva improvement on his old man.”

Jimmy dropped the bread on his plate. “Another little boy?” he enquired.

“That’s right. I can’t have naughty boys with me. I’ll have to find somebody else.”

Jimmy thought this over for a minute or so, then he shrugged and appeared to accept the situation philosophically. He started again on the bread and jam.

Then in a flash his sang froid evaporated. He stopped in mid-chew and looked up at me in wide-eyed alarm.

His voice came out in a high quaver. “Would he have my boots?”

Chapter

6

“BY GAW, IT’S DOCTOR Fu Manchu!”

The farmer dropped the buttered scone onto his plate and stared, horror-struck, through the kitchen window.

I was drinking a cup of tea with him and I almost choked in mid-sip as I followed his gaze.