Authors: Malcolm D Welshman
It was Beryl who first mentioned the Stockwells – Madge and Rosie Stockwell. Yorkshire lasses – sisters – who’d moved south some 30 years back. They owned a small farm – Hawkshill – tucked into the sides of the Downs between Ashton and Chawcombe.
‘A picturesque place, by all accounts,’ said Beryl, standing by the back door in a fug of cigarette smoke. ‘Bit of a time capsule … rare to find these days.’
I was told the Stockwells had a motley collection of sheep and 12 Jersey cows – remnants of more prosperous times when they managed a large flock and herd of both.
‘Never too sure how Eric came to be involved with them,’ Beryl went on. ‘Something to do with a ewe he found lying on her back when out walking one afternoon. The Stockwells saw him struggling with her. Never like to probe too much as you never know what you might turn up. Best to turn a blind eye to it all.’ That was easy for Beryl with hers, but God knows what she was bleating on about. I reckoned she’d been reading too many tales from the Australian Outback.
Anyway, it seemed an ‘association’ – as Beryl put it – between the Stockwells and Eric had been forged that day, and he’d been attending to their needs ever since, often slipping over there when it was quiet at the practice. She imparted that final piece of information with a look that suggested you couldn’t pull the wool over her eyes – or rather her one eye.
Still, shaggy dog stories or not, I wasn’t bothered. If it helped to keep me away from their animal work, then all to the good as far as I was concerned. In the first five months at Prospect House, that’s how it stayed. I had no involvement with the Stockwells … until one weekend in late November.
The call was from Lucy who was on telephone duty at the hospital that Saturday afternoon. The mere sound of her voice filled me with dread. Not at what was likely to be said – some road accident or whelping bitch – no – just the fact that it was Lucy.
We’d hit another sticky patch in our relationship – like the one a few months back. Lucy was going through one of her self-doubt periods again – not, I think, brought on by any problems in her working relationship with Mandy – that seemed to be fine. But to do with us – her and me. We’d had a couple of rows sparked off by something petty. Isn’t that always the case? Blame it on the pressure of work. We both got stretched at times, both got snappy … me so more than her. During our last row, I’d told her to clear out if she didn’t like it; move back to Prospect House. I think she would have if it hadn’t been for the animals. As it was, she volunteered to do more and more phone cover which meant staying overnight and weekends in the hospital flat. We were barely speaking except when duty called. Like this very minute.
‘There’s a cow down at Hawkshill Farm,’ she said bluntly.
Come on, Lucy, I thought, you can do better than this. Who are we talking about? As I asked the question, bells began to ring. Wasn’t it the Stockwell’s farm mentioned by Beryl? Yes, Lucy abruptly confirmed it.
A cow down, eh? Not very specific. Could be due to a number of things, such as … uhm … er … I glanced up at my bookshelf as I put down the phone having scribbled down Lucy’s terse directions of how to get there. My file on cattle medicine sat on the shelf unopened since I’d left college. No time now, Paul, for freshening your memory. You’ll just have to make do with what you can recollect. Cow down. Hmmm.
I started making a mental list of possibilities as I drove the short distance from Ashton before turning onto a narrow lane that meandered up the northern slopes of the Downs. ‘Second gate on the right … and be sure to close it after you,’ I’d been told. I found the gate easy enough; a five-bar, bleached wooden one that had seen better days. Its five bars were now four, and it was in danger of becoming a three-bar gate if the looseness of the bar I was now pushing to open it was anything to go by.
The gravel track ahead curved round the slope of the Downs and dipped out of sight. Ahead, tucked below the brow of the hill, I could see the upper third of a roof, the red tiles wet and glistening in the watery afternoon sun. Beyond stretched the weald, a patchwork of fields, hedgerows and woods, punctuated by the spire of Chawcombe church, the rectory just visible in the trees alongside. No doubt Liza was in there entertaining Reverend Charles at this very minute. The raucous scream of a passing gull reminded me just how painful that entertainment was likely to be.
Having secured the gate as best I could – it meant slipping a rusty chain over the gatepost as the gate had dropped and couldn’t be bolted – I drove down the track.
Hawkshill Farm unfolded before me. Beryl had been right; it was indeed a time capsule. Apart from a couple of telegraph poles crossing the fields up from the main road and the distant hum of traffic to remind you of the twenty-first century, you could have been stepping back 300 years. The front of the farm facing me was flint-walled, set between courses of red brick, with small-paned, white-framed windows in brick surrounds either side of a wide-panelled, oak door, weathered grey. The dark, twisted branches of some climber – possibly wisteria– hung over the door, its drooping tendrils swaying in the breeze. To each side of the door a wide flower border ran the length of the building. Though bare, it looked well tended – shrubs were pruned, stalks of dead herbaceous plants cut back, the ground freshly dug and dark with manure. No intrusive modern conservatory was stuck on the side; no TV aerial or satellite dish adorned the two red-brick chimney stacks at either end; nothing marred the sense of having slipped back in time.
As I drove into the brick-paved yard at the side, I half-expected to find a cart-horse peering from one of the stable doors and a hay wain over in the corner. Instead, a Land Rover was parked there, albeit an ancient, mud-splattered green one; and next to it, a bright yellow Smart car. But no sign of anyone. The only sound was the occasional lowing from the oak tithe barn which linked the stables to the house. All the buildings were clay-tiled and, though some tiles had slipped and many were covered in lichen, they, combined with the oak beams of the barn and the knapped flint of the stables, created a picture-postcard charm, the rustic qualities of which would have done justice to a Thomas Hardy novel –
Far from the Madding Crowd
perhaps? Any minute, Bathsheba could have walked out of that barn, striding gracefully across the yard to meet me, her golden hair tumbling round her shoulders.
Instead, a short, dumpy figure shuffled into view as I got out of the car. She had a round face with a tomato soup complexion and mousy brown hair in a pudding-basin cut.
‘Ah, thought I heard a car,’ she said slowly. ‘Told Rosie it could be vet.’ Another stocky figure, with similar rosy-red cheeks and same-styled hair, sidled up beside her. Like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, they stood identically dressed in baggy brown cords, shiny at the knees, and green, army-style pullovers pricked with straw. They made no attempt to move.
‘You were right, Madge,’ said the second figure. ‘It were vet.’ She turned and disappeared back in the barn.
I assumed the cow I’d come to see was in there. So donning wellingtons and grabbing my black bag, I hurried across, my mental list of diagnoses growing longer with each stride. I blamed that list for my lack of concentration as to where I was going. The cow pat, one of many in the yard, was avoidable, but I failed to see it. I put my foot squarely in it, slipped and just about managed to regain my balance before slithering to a halt in front of Madge Stockwell.
Her gnome-like face, with its hooked nose, remained impassive. ‘Doesn’t pay to be in a hurry,’ she said. ‘Nowt gained if vet breaks’s leg.’
Beryl had said this was typical of the Stockwells. I would always be referred to as ‘vet’, never ‘Mr Mitchell’. Just ‘vet’ – as if plucked reluctantly from the modern world. It was different, no doubt, for Eric, but then he had a way with them … or at least with their sheep, if Beryl was to be believed.
‘And you closed gate?’ Madge went on.
I nodded.
‘Needs to be kept closed. So nowt can get out.’
‘Yes … yes … now, this cow … ’ I said trying to inject a bit of urgency into the proceedings. Beryl had also primed me on this aspect of the Stockwells.
‘No use hurrying them,’ she’d said. ‘They live in a world of their own.’
‘Quick’ didn’t seem to exist in their vocabulary unless referring to the one in your nail bed. Everything had to be done at their pace, thank you very much.
Madge led the way – slowly – to where her sister was standing next to the collapsed Jersey.
‘She looks in a bad way,’ I said, rapidly stepping over the cow.
She was lying on her side, legs stretched out, her head back, lolling against the partition between her and the Jersey in the next stall.
‘Aye, she’s none too good,’ said Madge, grinding to a halt, her hands stuffed in her trousers. ‘Thought that when I first saw her lying there, didn’t I, Rosie?’
‘You did, Madge.’
‘How long’s she been like this?’ I asked.
Madge took a deep breath. ‘How long would you say, Rosie?’
‘Don’t know … you found her. What time was that?’
‘Don’t know. Haven’t got a watch on.’
‘Oh well, never mind,’ I seethed, edging round the incumbent cow. She was unconscious, her long, curling eyelashes firmly locked over her eyes.
‘Myrtle’s always been a problem cow,’ said Madge. ‘Haven’t I always said so, Rosie?’
‘You have, Madge. Always.’ Rosie shuffled up to her sister until they were almost shoulder to shoulder.
‘Mind you, she’s been a good milker,’ said Madge reflectively.
‘She has that,’ said Rosie.
‘Very good.’
‘Yes, very good.’
‘And still will be if we can save her. But we need to be quick about it. This is an emergency,’ I said, trying to instil some sense of how serious this all was. Here we had a cow that was blowing up before our eyes. Unable to belch and so release the gases building up inside, Myrtle’s stomach had started to inflate. Her sides were as taut as a drum, the hair on her hide sticking up in dull, brown tufts. She could die any moment.
‘Guess she’s blown,’ said Madge.
‘Guess you’re right,’ said Rosie.
‘Guess she is … yes, she is … YES – SHE – IS!’ I felt like hollering. Calamity Jane had nothing on these two. Whip crack away? You must be joking.
Both sisters continued to look as if the Deadwood Stage had passed them by years ago. Talk about slow coaches.
‘You’ll have to stick ’er,’ said Madge. ‘Like that sheep. Remember, Rosie?’
‘The one that Eric poked?’
‘The very one.’
‘He did a good job there.’
‘He did, Madge. A very good job.’
‘He’s good with sheep, is Eric.’
‘He does have a feel for them.’
‘He does … he does.’
‘Look, ladies,’ I intervened, not wishing to hear any more, ‘if we don’t do something right now we’ll lose her.’
‘If you’re thinking of propping her up, it won’t work,’ said Rosie. ‘We’ve already tried it.’
‘We have,’ said Madge. ‘It didn’t work.’
‘No it didn’t.’
‘Stick ’er, will you?’ they both chorused. Both sisters’ thick, bushy eyebrows seemed to take on a life of their own as they soared in query.
‘Look, I think it best if we try and get some calcium into her first,’ I said. From the state of Myrtle’s udder – huge, swollen, the teats engorged and sticking out – I’d realised that Myrtle was a heavy milker. This could well be hypocalcaemia – a lack of calcium. In which case …
‘We’ve got some somewhere, haven’t we, Madge?’ said Rosie.
‘Somewhere. Yes.’
‘Where’d do you reckon?’
‘Under the sink in the kitchen.’
‘Think so, Madge?’
‘I do.’
‘I’ll go and have a look then.’
‘No, no, don’t bother … I’ve got some in the car,’ I said in an agitated voice. If I waited for her I could be here until the cows came home – all 11 that would be left if Myrtle snuffed it.
‘Hurry, hurry … you youngsters these days are always in a hurry,’ murmured Rosie.
‘Always in a hurry,’ echoed Madge, as the two of them watched me shoot out of the barn and return minutes later with a couple of bottles of calcium solution under my arm.
I quickly broke the seal on one and connected the screw cap to a long length of rubber tubing. Clasping the end of the tubing to the side of the bottle to prevent any solution from running out, I stretched out my arm.
‘One of you hold this please.’
Neither Stockwell moved.
‘You then,’ I said to the nearest one, thrusting the bottle at Madge. ‘Quick now.’
‘Hurry, hurry … rush, rush,’ she said, shuffling forward to take the bottle.
Stamping down the sodden straw which Myrtle had churned up when she initially went down, I knelt by her outstretched head. Her neck was stiff and rigid. I’d taken a length of nylon cord out of my bag and now used this to form a noose round her, tightening it so that the jugular vein began to swell – a spongy tube that rolled and pitted beneath my fingers. Checking its position in the groove of Myrtle’s neck, pressing and re-pressing the vein with my fingers, I then pointed a large bore needle towards the cow’s head and jabbed it in. A thick jet of blood spurted out, flowed warm and sticky over my fingers, and coursed down Myrtle’s neck.