The farmer sniffed. ‘Very well, then. On ye go.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, smiling, ‘but it’s quite a big job and I can’t do it by myself. In fact, you and I can’t do it. We’ll need some help.’

  ‘Help? I haven’t got no ’elp. Josh is right over on the far field.’

  ‘Well, I’m really sorry about that, but you’ll have to get him back. And I hate to say it, but we’ll also need one of your neighbours to lend a hand. And he’d better be a big strong chap, too.’

  ‘Bloody ’ell!’ Seb stared at me. ‘What’s all this for?’

  ‘I know it seems a big fuss to you, but although she’s only a young beast, she’s big and strong and in order to get the joint back in place we have to overcome the muscular resistance. It needs a right good pull, I can tell you. I’ve done a lot of these jobs and I know.’

  He nodded. ‘Ah well, I’ll go and see if Charlie Lawson can come over. You’ll wait ’ere, then?’

  ‘No, I’ll have to go back to the surgery for the chloroform muzzle.’

  ‘Chloroform! What the ’ell next?’

  ‘I told you about the muscular resistance. We need to put her to sleep to overcome that.’

  ‘Now, look ’ere, Mr Herriot.’ The farmer lifted a portentous forefinger. ‘Are ye sure we have to go through all this carry-on? Don’t ye think we could just rub summat on? A bit of embrocation, maybe?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Seb, it’s all necessary.’

  He turned and strode out of the cow house, muttering, while I hurried across to my car.

  On the journey to Darrowby and back, two thoughts were uppermost in my mind. This was one of the tricky jobs in veterinary practice but, when successful, it was spectacular. A hopelessly lame animal would rise and walk away, good as new. And I did feel I badly needed something to resuscitate my reputation on this farm.

  When I returned with the muzzle, Josh and Charlie Lawson were waiting in the yard with Seb. ‘Now, Mr Herriot,’ ‘Now then, Mr Herriot,’ but they looked at me sceptically, and I could tell that the other brother had been voicing his doubts.

  ‘It’s good of you gentlemen to rally round,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I hope you’re all feeling strong. It’s a tough job, this.’ Charlie Lawson grinned and rubbed his hands. ‘Aye, we’ll do our best.’

  ‘OK, now.’ I looked down at the heifer. ‘We’d better move her nearer the door. You’ll get a stronger pull that way. Then we’ll get the chloroform muzzle on and rope the leg. You’ll haul away while I put pressure on the joint. But first let’s roll her over.’

  As the farmers pushed against the animal’s side, I tried to tuck the lame leg underneath her. As she rolled over there was a loud click, and after a rapid look around her she rose to her feet and walked out through the door.

  The four of us watched her as she ambled across the yard and through a gate into the field. She was perfectly sound. Not the slightest trace of lameness.

  ‘Well, I’ve never seen that happen before,’ I gasped. ‘The rolling movement and the pressure on the joint must have clicked it back. Would you believe it!’

  The three farmers gave me a level stare. It was clear that they didn’t believe it.

  Retreating to my car, I heard Seb confiding to the other two. ‘Might as well have rubbed summat on it.’ And as I drove away past the heifer grazing contentedly on the green hillside, Siegfried’s words at the beginning of our partnership came back to me. ‘Our profession offers unparalleled opportunities for making a chump of yourself.’

  How true that was. How true it would always be. But why, why, why did it have to happen this time at the Hardwicks’?

  Chapter 7

  CATTLE

  They didn’t say anything about this in the books, I thought, as the snow blew in through the gaping doorway and settled on my naked back.

  I lay face down on the cobbled floor in a pool of nameless muck, my arm deep inside the straining cow, my feet scrabbling for a toehold between the stones. I was stripped to the waist and the snow mingled with the dirt and the dried blood on my body. I could see nothing outside the circle of flickering light thrown by the smoky oil lamp which the farmer held over me.

  No, there wasn’t a word in the books about searching for your ropes and instruments in the shadows; about trying to keep clean in a half-bucket of tepid water; about the cobbles digging into your chest. Nor about the slow numbing of the arms, the creeping paralysis of the muscles as the fingers tried to work against the cow’s powerful expulsive efforts.

  There was no mention anywhere of the gradual exhaustion, the feeling of futility and the little far-off voice of panic.

  If Only They Could Talk begins with a gruelling calving, James having crawled out of his bed at 2 a.m. before heading across a snowy moorland, only to spend the next few hours with his arm inside a straining cow. This was the reality of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire where cattle-farming predominated, and the likes of James Herriot were frequently called out to attend to calvings and the host of complications that can ensue when a cow gives birth. Stripped to the waist in a cold cow byre, veterinary surgeons had to work hard to find feet, bring heads round and do all they could to deliver a healthy calf.

  James and Siegfried are called in all year round to attend to cattle, and a veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire relies upon its regular income – one of the reasons why Alf Wight had a great affection for the bovine race in general. Some cattle were raised for beef but vets saw more of the dairy cows which needed to calve at least once a year so they could continue to produce milk.

  Prior to arriving in Yorkshire, Alf had had some practical experience of working with cows, having spent his university vacations in Dumfries in the south-west of Scotland. There, he looked after Galloway cattle and on one occasion was given the opportunity to remove the afterbirth from a cow chained up in a rickety old henhouse. When he gently tugged at the hanging mass, the cow bellowed, broke through its chain, smashed through the window, taking one side of the henhouse with her, with the remainder collapsing on top of the men standing there. They all survived intact although the incident at least prepared Alf for the physical rigours of bovine care in later years.

  Returning to If Only They Could Talk and James, still with his arm in the cow, must summon every ounce of strength he has to deliver the calf, while the dour farmers look on, more concerned about the welfare of their prized cow than that of the young veterinary surgeon.

  My mind went back to that picture in the obstetrics book. A cow standing in the middle of a gleaming floor while a sleek veterinary surgeon in a spotless parturition overall inserted his arm to a polite distance. He was relaxed and smiling, the farmer and his helpers were smiling, even the cow was smiling. There was no dirt or blood or sweat anywhere.

  That man in the picture had just finished an excellent lunch and had moved next door to do a bit of calving just for the sheer pleasure of it, as a kind of dessert. He hadn’t crawled shivering from his bed at two o’clock in the morning and bumped over twelve miles of frozen snow, staring sleepily ahead till the lonely farm showed in the headlights. He hadn’t climbed half a mile of white fell-side to the doorless barn where his patient lay.

  I tried to wriggle my way an extra inch inside the cow. The calf’s head was back and I was painfully pushing a thin, looped rope towards its lower jaw with my fingertips. All the time my arm was being squeezed between the calf and the bony pelvis. With every straining effort from the cow the pressure became almost unbearable, then she would relax and I would push the rope another inch. I wondered how long I would be able to keep this up. If I didn’t snare that jaw soon I would never get the calf away. I groaned, set my teeth and reached forward again.

  Another little flurry of snow blew in and I could almost hear the flakes sizzling on my sweating back. There was sweat on my forehead too, and it trickled into my eyes as I pushed.

  There is always a time at a bad calving when you begin to wonder if you will ever win the battle. I had reached this stage.

  Little speeches began to flit through my brain. ‘Perhaps it would be better to slaughter this cow. Her pelvis is so small and narrow that I can’t see a calf coming through,’ or ‘She’s a good fat animal and really of the beef type, so don’t you think it would pay you better to get the butcher?’ or perhaps ‘This is a very bad presentation. In a roomy cow it would be simple enough to bring the head round but in this case it is just about impossible.’

  Of course, I could have delivered the calf by embryotomy – by passing a wire over the neck and sawing off the head. So many of these occasions ended with the floor strewn with heads, legs, heaps of intestines. There were thick textbooks devoted to the countless ways you could cut up a calf.

  But none of it was any good here, because this calf was alive. At my furthest stretch I had got my finger as far as the commissure of the mouth and had been startled by a twitch of the little creature’s tongue. It was unexpected because calves in this position are usually dead, asphyxiated by the acute flexion of the neck and the pressure of the dam’s powerful contractions. But this one had a spark of life in it and if it came out it would have to be in one piece.

  I went over to my bucket of water, cold now and bloody, and silently soaped my arms. Then I lay down again, feeling the cobbles harder than ever against my chest. I worked my toes between the stones, shook the sweat from my eyes and for the hundredth time thrust an arm that felt like spaghetti into the cow; alongside the little dry legs of the calf, like sandpaper tearing against my flesh, then to the bend in the neck and so to the ear and then, agonizingly, along the side of the face towards the lower jaw which had become my major goal in life.

  It was incredible that I had been doing this for nearly two hours; fighting as my strength ebbed to push a little noose round that jaw. I had tried everything else – repelling a leg, gentle traction with a blunt hook in the eye socket, but I was back to the noose.

  James must struggle on with the calving in the presence of the farmer Mr Dinsdale, ‘a long, sad, silent man of few words’ along with his equally silent son, both of them watch the vet’s efforts with deepening gloom. Worst of all, however, is the presence of ‘Uncle’, Mr Dinsdale’s brother, a farmer who keeps up a non-stop stream of comments, while eulogizing about his wonderful vet Mr Broomfield. As Uncle blethers on about Mr Broomfield’s Herculean strength, James, now exhausted, considers tipping the bucket of water over Uncle’s head, then running down the hill and driving away ‘from Yorkshire, from Uncle, from the Dinsdales, from this cow’.

  Instead, I clenched my teeth, braced my legs and pushed with everything I had; and with a sensation of disbelief I felt my noose slide over the sharp little incisor teeth and into the calf’s mouth. Gingerly, muttering a prayer, I pulled on the thin rope with my left hand and felt the slipknot tighten. I had hold of that lower jaw.

  At last I could start doing something. ‘Now hold this rope, Mr Dinsdale, and just keep a gentle tension on it. I’m going to repel the calf and if you pull steadily at the same time, the head ought to come round.’

  ‘What if the rope comes off?’ asked Uncle hopefully.

  I didn’t answer. I put my hand in against the calf’s shoulder and began to push against the cow’s contractions. I felt the small body moving away from me. ‘Now a steady pull, Mr Dinsdale, without jerking.’ And to myself, ‘Oh God, don’t let it slip off.’

  The head was coming round. I could feel the neck straightening against my arm, then the ear touched my elbow. I let go the shoulder and grabbed the little muzzle. Keeping the teeth away from the vaginal wall with my hand, I guided the head till it was resting where it should be, on the fore limbs.

  Quickly I extended the noose till it reached behind the ears. ‘Now pull on the head as she strains.’

  ‘Nay, you should pull on the legs now,’ cried Uncle.

  ‘Pull on the bloody head rope, I tell you!’ I bellowed at the top of my voice and felt immediately better as Uncle retired, offended, to his bale.

  With traction the head was brought out and the rest of the body followed easily. The little animal lay motionless on the cobbles, eyes glassy and unseeing, tongue blue and grossly swollen.

  ‘It’ll be dead. Bound to be,’ grunted Uncle, returning to the attack.

  I cleared the mucus from the mouth, blew hard down the throat and began artificial respiration. After a few pressures on the ribs, the calf gave a gasp and the eyelids flickered. Then it started to inhale and one leg jerked.

  Uncle begrudgingly accepts that the calf is alive – ‘I’d have thowt it’d sure to be dead after you’d messed about all that time.’ James positions the calf by its mother who licks it methodically and within a minute it is trying to sit up. James grins at what always feels like a miracle of life, although he is exhausted, with every muscle aching and his mouth parched from thirst.

  A long, sad figure hovered near. ‘How about a drink?’ asked Mr Dinsdale.

  I could feel my grimy face cracking into an incredulous smile. A vision of hot tea well laced with whisky swam before me. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Dinsdale, I’d love a drink. It’s been a hard two hours.’

  ‘Nay,’ said Mr Dinsdale looking at me steadily, ‘I meant for the cow.’

  Calving a cow often made for a dramatic event, especially in the pre-war days when caesareans were not generally an option for veterinary surgeons. In essence, the calf needed to come out the way nature intended, and if there were complications, the fate of the calf and its mother – not to mention the reputation of the vet – could hang in the balance. James is more than aware of this when in It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet he attends to the calving of the Aldersons’ pet Jersey cow Candy. Not only does James want to make a good impression on Mr Alderson, as these were early days and he was his prospective father-in-law, but James also knows just how special a cow this is to the family.

  She was the house cow, a pretty little Jersey and Mr Alderson’s particular pet. She was the sole member of her breed in the herd but whereas the milk from the shorthorns went into the churns to be collected by the big dairy, Candy’s rich yellow offering found its way onto the family porridge every morning or appeared heaped up on trifles and fruit pies or was made into butter, a golden creamy butter to make you dream.

  James examines Candy, hoping the problem is something simple. It’s not a good sign, however, when he hears Candy has been labouring for hours, with nothing to show for it. He feels inside but can only find an empty vagina and a small, ridged opening, beyond which he can feel the feet and head of a calf.

  My spirits plummeted. Torsion of the uterus. There was going to be no easy victory for me here.

  I sat back on my heels and turned to the farmer. ‘She’s got a twisted calf bed. There’s a live calf in there all right, but there’s no way out for it – I can barely get my hand through.’

  ‘Aye, I thought it was something peculiar.’ Mr Alderson rubbed his chin and looked at me doubtfully. ‘What can we do about it, then?’

  ‘We’ll have to try to correct the twist by rolling the cow over while I keep hold of the calf. It’s a good job there’s plenty of us here.’

  ‘And that’ll put everything right, will it?’

  I swallowed. I didn’t like these jobs. Sometimes rolling worked and sometimes it didn’t and in those days we hadn’t quite got round to performing caesareans on cows. If I was unsuccessful I had the prospect of telling Mr Alderson to send Candy to the butcher. I banished the thought quickly.

  With two men holding the front and hind legs and Mr Alderson holding Candy’s head, James pushes his hand inside, grab’s the calf’s foot and they roll the cow onto her side. After James’s arm is almost crushed, they roll her back on the other side, James lying face down and holding grimly on. Nothing happens and they try once more and then, finally, everything magically unravels. Candy gives a determined push and out pops the calf, wet and wriggling. As Alf writes, ‘After every delivery there is a feeling of relief but in this case it was overwhelming.’ With Candy the cow saved, James decides this is a good moment to approach Mr Alderson about his intended proposal to his daughter.

  Such life-or-death events – with all the emotions that go with them – are commonplace for veterinary surgeons, as it was for Alf in practice. Sometimes there was simply no viable way to extract a live calf and it was the job of the vet always to make firm and sometimes difficult decisions quickly. Jim remembers his father telling him about a time when his old college friend Eddie Straiton came to work at the Thirsk practice and they were called to a calving. They both came to the decision that attempting to extract a large calf out of the cow in question would likely kill the mother. They advised the farmer that the best option was to slaughter the cow so he at least would receive a good price for her carcass. Another man who had been observing the proceedings, however, suggested he ‘’ave a go’. He then inserted his arm into the cow’s vagina and, using a knife, produced the decomposing calf bit by bit. Alf and Eddie, now utterly dejected, left feeling that they had failed, their reputation and careers in tatters. Their decision, however, would be vindicated when they later discovered the cow died almost instantly afterwards and that the farmer in question had wished he’d listened to the two young veterinary surgeons.

  By the time of The Lord God Made Them All, set in the years just after the war, caesareans are beginning to be done on cows or at least taught to students in veterinary colleges. In fact, veterinary medicine and procedures had advanced considerably since Alf had been at college and he knew that some of the students who worked at the practice had a little more knowledge about the latest methods. The assistant Norman Beaumont who features in The Lord God Made Them All suggests they do a caesarean on a small cow named Bella who is unable to give birth to her large calf. James agrees this would be a good case for the new procedure but needs Norman to guide him through it.