Джеймс Хэрриот - All Creatures Great and Small

Siegfried took some empty cartons and bottles from his pockets and hurled them savagely into the wastepaper basket. He began to shout again.

“Do you know, for the past fortnight I’ve puzzled and worried and damn nearly dreamt about that cow. Now I’ve found the cause of the trouble, applied the most modern treatment and the animal has recovered. And what happens? Does the owner express his grateful thanks for my skill? Does he hell—the entire credit goes to the half point of epsom salts. What I did was a pure waste of time.”

He dealt the desk another sickening blow.

“But I frightened him, James,” he said, his eyes staring. “By God, I frightened him. When he made that crack about the salts, I yelled out ‘You bugger!’ and made a grab for him. I think I would have strangled him, but he shot into the house and stayed there. I didn’t see him again.”

Siegfried threw himself into a chair and began to churn his hair about. “Epsom salts!” he groaned. “Oh God, it makes you despair.”

I thought of telling him to relax and pointing out that it would all be the same in a hundred years, but my employer still had an empty serum bottle dangling from one hand. I discarded the idea.

Then there came the day when Siegfried decided to have my car rebored. It had been using a steady two pints of oil a day and he hadn’t thought this excessive, but when it got to half a gallon a day he felt something ought to be done. What probably decided him was a farmer on market day saying he always knew when the young vet was coming because he could see the cloud of blue smoke miles away.

When the tiny Austin came back from the garage, Siegfried fussed round it like an old hen. “Come over here, James,” he called. “I want to talk to you.”

I saw he was looking patient again and braced myself.

“James,” he said, pacing round the battered vehicle, whisking specks from the paintwork. “You see this car?”

I nodded.

“Well, it has been rebored, James, rebored at great expense, and that’s what I want to talk to you about. You now have in your possession what amounts to a new car.” With an effort he unfastened the catch and the bonnet creaked open in a shower of rust and dirt. He pointed down at the engine, black and oily, with unrelated pieces of flex and rubber tubing hanging around it like garlands. “You have a piece of fine mechanism here and I want you to treat it with respect. I’ve seen you belting along like a maniac and it won’t do. You’ve got to nurse this machine for the next two or three thousand miles; thirty miles an hour is quite fast enough. I think it’s a crime the way some people abuse a new engine—they should be locked up—so remember, lad, no flogging or I’ll be down on you.”

He closed the bonnet with care, gave the cracked windscreen a polish with the cuff of his coat and left.

These strong words made such an impression on me that I crawled round the visits all day almost at walking pace.

The same night, I was getting ready for bed when Siegfried came in. He had two farm lads with him and they both wore silly grins. A powerful smell of beer filled the room.

Siegfried spoke with dignity, slurring his words only slightly. “James, I met these gentlemen in the Black Bull this evening. We have had several excellent games of dominoes but unfortunately they have missed the last bus. Will you kindly bring the Austin round and I will run them home.”

I drove the car to the front of the house and the farm lads piled in, one in the front, the other in the back. I looked at Siegfried lowering himself unsteadily into the driving seat and decided to go along. I got into the back.

The two young men lived in a farm far up on the North Moors and, three miles out of the town, we left the main road and our headlights picked out a strip of track twisting along the dark hillside.

Siegfried was in a hurry. He kept his foot on the boards, the note of the engine rose to a tortured scream and the little car hurtled on into the blackness. Hanging on grimly, I leaned forward so that I could shout into my employer’s ear. “Remember this is the car which has just been rebored,” I bellowed above the din.

Siegfried looked round with an indulgent smile. “Yes, yes, I remember, James. What are you fussing about?” As he spoke, the car shot off the road and bounded over the grass at sixty miles an hour. We all bounced around like corks till he found his way back. Unperturbed, he carried on at the same speed. The silly grins had left the lads’ faces and they sat rigid in their seats. Nobody said anything.

The passengers were unloaded at a silent farmhouse and the return journey began. Since it was downhill all the way, Siegfried found he could go even faster. The car leaped and bumped over the uneven surface with its engine whining. We made several brief but tense visits to the surrounding moors, but we got home.

It was a month later that Siegfried had occasion to take his assistant to task once more. “James, my boy,” he said sorrowfully, “you are a grand chap, but by God, you’re hard on cars. Look at this Austin. Newly rebored a short time ago, in tip-top condition, and look at it now—drinking oil. I don’t know how you did it in the time. You’re a real terror.”

NINE

“FIRST, PLEASE,” I CALLED as I looked into the waiting-room. There was an old lady with a cat in a cardboard box, two small boys trying to keep hold of a rabbit, and somebody I didn’t recognise at first. Then I remembered—it was Soames.

When it was his turn, he came into the surgery but he was a vastly different character from the one I knew. He wore an ingratiating smile. His head bobbed up and down as he spoke. He radiated anxiety to please. And the most interesting thing was that his right eye was puffed and closed and surrounded by an extensive area of bluish-black flesh.

“I hope you don’t mind my coming to see you, Mr. Herriot,” he said. “The fact is I have resigned my position with his lordship and am looking for another post. I was wondering if you and Mr. Farnon would put in a word for me if you heard of anything.”

I was too astonished at the transformation to say much. I replied that we would do what we could and Soames thanked me effusively and bowed himself out.

I turned to Siegfried after he had gone. “Well, what do you make of that?”

“Oh, I know all about it.” Siegfried looked at me with a wry smile. “Remember I told you he was working one or two shady sidelines up there—selling a few bags of corn or a hundredweight of fertiliser here and there. It all mounted up. But it didn’t last; he got a bit careless and he was out on his ear before he knew what had happened.”

“And how about the lovely black eye?”

“Oh, he got that from Tommy. You must have seen Tommy when you were there. He’s the horseman.”

My mind went back to that uncomfortable night and to the quiet man holding the horse’s head. “I remember him—big fat chap.”

“Yes, he’s a big lad and I’d hate to have him punch me in the eye. Soames gave him a hell of a life and as soon as Tommy heard about the sacking he paid a visit just to settle the score.”

I was now comfortably settled into the way of life in Skeldale House. At first I wondered where Tristan fitted into the set up. Was he supposed to be seeing practice, having a holiday, working or what? But it soon became clear that he was a factotum who dispensed and delivered medicines, washed the cars, answered the phone and even, in an emergency, went to a case.

At least, that was how Siegfried saw him and he had a repertoire of tricks aimed at keeping him on his toes. Like returning unexpectedly or bursting into a room in the hope of catching him doing nothing. He never seemed to notice the obvious fact that the college vacation was over and Tristan should have been back there. I came to the conclusion over the next few months that Tristan must have had some flexible arrangement with the college authorities because, for a student, he seemed to spend a surprising amount of time at home.