Джеймс Хэрриот - The Lord God Made Them All

I could see what he meant. Myrtle’s beagle eyes were pools of emotion, and it was easy to read melting reproach in their depths.

With a feeling of futility I examined her. I knew what I would find—nothing. But when I tried to explain to the little man that his pet was normal, he wouldn’t have it.

“Oh, you’ll give her one of them wonderful tablets,” he pleaded. “It cured her last time.”

I felt I had to pacify him, so Myrtle received another installment of vitamins.

Humphrey was immensely relieved and weaved his way to the drawing room and the whisky bottle.

“I need a little pick-me-up after that shock,” he said. “You’ll ’ave one, too, won’t you, Jim, lad?”

This pantomime was enacted frequently over the next few months, always after race meetings and always between midnight and 1 A.M. I had ample opportunity to analyse the situation, and I came to a fairly obvious conclusion.

Most of the time Humphrey was a normal conscientious pet owner, but after a large intake of alcohol his affectionate feelings degenerated into glutinous sentimentality and guilt. I invariably went out when he called me because I knew that he would be deeply distressed if I refused. I was treating Humphrey, not Myrtle.

It amused me that not once did he accept my protestations that my visit was unnecessary. Each time he was sure that my magic tablets had saved his dog’s life.

Mind you, I did not discount the possibility that Myrtle was deliberately working on him with those eyes. The canine mind is quite capable of disapproval. I took my own dog almost everywhere with me, but if I left him at home to take Helen to the cinema he would lie under our bed, sulking, and, when he emerged, would studiously ignore us for an hour or two.

I quailed when Humphrey told me he had decided to have Myrtle mated because I knew that the ensuing pregnancy would be laden with harassment for me.

That was how it turned out. The little man flew into a series of alcoholic panics, all of them unfounded, and he discovered imaginary symptoms in Myrtle at regular intervals throughout the nine weeks.

I was vastly relieved when she gave birth to five healthy pups. Now, I thought, I would get some peace. The fact was that I was just about tired of Humphrey’s nocturnal nonsense. I have always made a point of never refusing to turn out at night, but Humphrey had stretched this principle to breaking point. One of these times he would have to be told.

The crunch came when the pups were a few weeks old. I had had a terrible day, starting with a prolapsed uterus in a cow at 5 A.M. and progressing through hours of road slogging, missed meals and a late-night wrestle with ministry forms, some of which I suspected I had filled up wrongly.

My clerical incompetence has always infuriated me and when I crawled, dog-tired, into bed, my mind was still buzzing with frustration. I lay for a long time, trying to put those forms away from me, and it was well after midnight when I fell asleep.

I have always had a silly fancy that our practice knew when I desperately wanted a full night’s sleep. It knew and gleefully stepped in. When the phone exploded in my ear, I wasn’t really surprised.

As I stretched a weary hand to the receiver, the luminous dial of the alarm clock read 1:15 A.M.

“Hello,” I grunted.

“Oooh … oooh … oooh!” The reply was only too familiar.

I clenched my teeth. This was just what I needed. “Humphrey! What is it this time?”

“Oh, Jim, Myrtle’s really dyin’, I know she is. Come quick, lad, come quick!”

“Dying?” I took a couple of rasping breaths. “How do you make that out?”

“Well … she’s stretched out on ’er side, tremblin’.”

“Anything else?”

“Aye, t’missus said Myrtle’s been lookin’ worried and walkin’ stiff when she let her out in the garden this afternoon. I’m not long back from Redcar, ye see.”

“So you’ve been to the races, eh?”

“That’s right … neglectin’ me dog. I’m a scamp, nothin’ but a scamp.”

I closed my eyes in the darkness. There was no end to Humphrey’s imaginary symptoms. Trembling, this time, looking worried, walking stiff. We’d had panting and twitching and head nodding and ear shaking—what would it be next?

But enough was enough. “Look, Humphrey,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with your dog. I’ve told you again and again …”

“Oh, Jim, lad, don’t be long. Oooh-hooo!”

“I’m not coming, Humphrey.”

“Nay, nay, don’t say that! She’s goin’ fast, I tell ye!”

“I really mean it. It’s just wasting my time and your money, so go to bed. Myrtle will be fine.”

As I lay quivering between the sheets, I realised that refusing to go out was an exhausting business. There was no doubt in my mind that it would have taken less out of me to get up and attend another charade at Cedar House than to say no for the first time in my life. But this couldn’t go on. I had to make a stand.

I was still tormented by remorse when I fell into an uneasy slumber, and it is a good thing that the subconscious mind works on during sleep because with the alarm clock reading 2:30 A.M. I came suddenly wide awake.

“My God!” I cried, staring at the dark ceiling. “Myrtle’s got eclampsia!”

I scrambled from the bed and began to throw on my clothes. I must have made some commotion because I heard Helen’s sleepy voice.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Humphrey Cobb!” I gasped, tying a shoe lace.

“Humphrey … but you said there was never any hurry …”

“There is this time. His dog’s dying.” I glared again at the clock. “In fact, she could be dead now.” I lifted my tie, then hurled it back on the chair. “Damn it! I don’t need that!” I fled from the room.

Down the long garden and into the car with my brain spelling out the concise case history which Humphrey had given me. Small bitch nursing five puppies, signs of anxiety and stiff gait this afternoon, and now prostrate and trembling. Classical puerperal eclampsia. Rapidly fatal without treatment. And it was nearly an hour and a half since he had phoned. I couldn’t bear to think about it.

Humphrey was still up. He had obviously been consoling himself with the bottle because he could barely stand.

“You’ve come, Jim, lad,” he mumbled, blinking at me.

“Yes, how is she?”

“Just t’same …”

Clutching my calcium and my intravenous syringe, I rushed past him into the kitchen.

Myrtle’s sleek body was extended in a tetanic spasm. She was gasping for breath, quivering violently, and bubbles of saliva dripped from her mouth. Those eyes had lost their softness and were fixed in a frantic stare. She looked terrible, but she was alive … she was alive.

I lifted the squealing pups onto a rug nearby and quickly clipped and swabbed the area over the radial vein. I inserted the needle into the blood vessel and began to depress the plunger with infinite care and very slowly. Calcium was the cure for this condition but a quick blast would surely kill the patient.

I took several minutes to empty the syringe, then sat back on my heels and watched. Some of these cases needed narcotics as well as calcium, and I had nembutal and morphine ready to hand. But as the time passed, Myrtle’s breathing slowed down and the rigid muscles began to relax. When she started to swallow her saliva and look round at me, I knew she would live.

I was waiting for the last tremors to disappear from her limbs when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Humphrey was standing there with the whisky bottle in his hand.

“You’ll ’ave one, won’t you, Jim?”

I didn’t need much persuading. The knowledge that I had almost been responsible for Myrtle’s death had thrown me into a mild degree of shock.