There were no tail wags from Jing today. He was crouched before the fire, gazing listlessly into the coals. The yellow in his eyes had deepened to a rich orange and his temperature still soared. I repeated the serum injection, but the big dog did not heed the entry of the needle. Before I left I ran my hand over the smooth white body and Skipper as ever kept burrowing in on his friend, but Jingo's thoughts were elsewhere, sunk in his inner misery.

I visited him daily and on the fourth day I found him stretched almost comatose on his side. The conjunctiva, sclera, and the mucous membranes of the mouth were a dirty chocolate colour.

"Is he suffering?" Jack Sanders asked.

I hesitated for a moment. "I honestly don't think he's in pain. Sickness, nausea, yes, but I'd say that's all."

"Well I'd like to keep on trying," he said. "I don't want to put him down even though you think it's hopeless. You do ... don't you?"

I made a non-committal gesture. I was watching Skipper who seemed bewildered. He had given up his worrying tactics and was sniffing round his friend in a puzzled manner. Only once did he pull very gently at the unresponsive ear.

I went through the motions with a feeling of helplessness and left with the unpleasant intuition that I would never see Jingo alive again.

And even though I was waiting for it, Jack Sanders' 'phone call next morning was a bad start to the day.

"Jing died during the night, Mr. Herriot. I thought I'd better let you know. You said you were coming back this morning." He was trying to be matter-of-fact "I'm sorry, Jack," I said. "I did rather expect ..."

''Yes, I know. And thank you for what you did."

It made it worse when people were nice at these times. The Sanderses were a childless couple and devoted to their animals. I knew how he was feeling.

I stood there with the receiver in my hand. "Anyway, Jack, you've still got Skipper." It sounded a bit lame, but it did help to have the comfort of one remaining dog, even though he was old.

"That's right," he replied. "We're very thankful for Skipper."

I went on with my work. Patients died sometimes and once it was over it was almost a relief, especially when I knew in Jingo's case that the end was inevitable.

But this thing wasn't over. Less than a week later Jack Sanders was on the 'phone again.

"It's Skipper," he said. "He seems to be going the same way as Jing."

A cold hand took hold of my stomach and twisted it.

"But ... but ... he can't be! I gave him the protective injection!"

"Well, I don't know, but he's hanging around miserably and hardly eats a thing. He seems to be going down fast."

I ran out and jumped into my car. And as I drove to the edge of the town where the Sanderses lived my heart thudded and panicky thoughts jostled around in my mind. How could he have got the infection? I had little faith in the serum as a cure but as a prevention I felt it was safe. I had even given him a second shot to make sure. The idea of these people losing both their dogs was bad enough but I couldn't bear the thought that the second one might be my fault.

The little corgi trailed unhappily across the carpet when he saw me and I lifted him quickly on to the kitchen table. I almost snatched at his eyelids in my anxiety but there was no sign of jaundice in the sclera nor in the mucous membranes of the mouth. The temperature was dead normal and I felt a wave of relief.

"He hasn't got leptospirosis, anyway," I said. Mrs. Sanders clasped her hands. "Oh thank God for that. We were sure it was the same thing. He looks so awful."

I examined the little animal meticulously and when I finished I put my stethoscope in my pocket. "Well, I can't find much wrong here. He's got a bit of a heart murmur but you've known about that for some time. He's old, after all."

"Do you think he could be fretting for Jing?" Jack Sanders asked.

"Yes, I do. They were such friends. He must feel lost."

"But he'll get over that won't he?"

"Oh of course he will. I'll leave some mild sedative tablets for him and I'm sure they'll help." I met Jack a few days later in the market place. "How is Skipper?" I asked.

He blew out his cheeks. "About the same. Maybe a bit worse. The trouble is he eats practically nothing-he's getting very thin."

I didn't see what else I could do but on the following day I looked in at the Sanderses' as I was passing.

I was shocked at the little corgi's appearance. Despite his age he had been so cocky and full of bounce, and when Jing was alive he had been indisputably the boss dog. But now he was utterly deflated. He looked at me with lack-lustre eyes as I came in, then crept stiffly to his basket where he curled himself as though wishing to shut out the world.

I examined him again. The heart murmur seemed a little more pronounced but there was nothing else except that he looked old and decrepit and done.

"You know, I'm beginning to wonder if he really is fretting," I said. "It could be just his age catching up on him. After all, he'll be twelve in the spring, won't he?"

Mrs. Sanders nodded. "That's right. Then you think ... this could be the end?"

"It's possible." I knew what she was thinking. A couple of weeks ago two healthy dogs rolling around and playing in this house and now there could soon be none.

"But isn't there anything else you can do?"

"Well I can give him a course of digitalis for his heart. And perhaps you would bring in a sample of his urine. I want to see how his kidneys are functioning."

I tested the urine. There was a little albumen, but no more than you would expect in a dog of his age. I ruled out nephritis as a cause.

As the days passed I tried other things; vitamins, iron tonics, organo-phosphates, but the little animal declined steadily. It was about a month after Jing's death that I was called to the house again.

Skipper was in his basket and when I called to him he slowly raised his head. His face was pinched and fleshless and the filmed eyes regarded me without recognition.

"Come on, lad," I said encouragingly. "Let's see you get out of there."

Jack Sanders shook his head. "It's no good, Mr. Herriot. He never leaves his basket now and when we lift him out he's almost too weak to walk. Another thing ... he makes a mess down here in the kitchen during the night. That's something he's never done."

It was like the tolling of a sad bell. Everything he said pointed to a dog in the last stages of senility. I tried to pick my words.

"I'm sorry, Jack, but it all sounds as if the old chap has come to the end of the road. I don't think fretting could possibly cause all this."

He didn't speak for a moment. He looked at his wife then down at the forlorn little creature. "Well of course this has been in the back of our minds. But we've kept hoping he would start to eat What ... what do you suggest?"

I could not bring myself to say the fateful words. "It seems to me that we can't stand by and let him suffer. He's just a little skeleton and I can't think he's getting any pleasure out of his life now."

"I see," he said. "And I agree. He lies there all day-he has no interest in anything." He paused and looked at his wife again. "I tell you what Mr. Herriot. Let us think it over till tomorrow. But you do think there's no hope?"

"Yes, Jack, I do. Old dogs often go this way at the end. Skipper has just cracked up ... he's finished, I'm afraid."

He drew a long breath. "Right, if you don't hear from me by eight o'clock tomorrow morning, please come and put him to sleep."

I had small hope of the call coming and it didn't. In those early days of our marriage Helen worked as a secretary for one of the local millers. We often started our day together by descending the long flights of stairs from our bed-sitter and I would see her out of the front door before getting ready for my round.

This morning she gave me her usual kiss before going out into the street but then she looked at me searchingly. "You've been quiet all through breakfast, Jim. What's the matter?"

"It's nothing, really. Just part of the job," I said. But when she kept her steady gaze on me I told her quickly about the Sanderses.

She touched my arm. "It's such a shame, Jim, but you can't let your sad cases depress you. You'd never survive."

"Aagh, I know that. But I'm a softy, that's my trouble. Sometimes I think I should never have been a vet."

"You're wrong there," she said. "I couldn't imagine you as anything else. You'll do what you have to do, and you'll do it the right way." She kissed me again, turned . and ran down the steps.

It was mid morning before I drew up outside the Sanderses' home. I opened the car boot and took out the syringe and the bottle of concentrated anaesthetic which would give the old dog a peaceful and painless end.

The first thing I saw when I went into the kitchen was a fat little white puppy waddling across the floor.

I looked down in astonishment "What's this ...?"

Mrs. Sanders gave me a strained smile. "Jack and I had a talk yesterday. We couldn't bear the idea of not having a dog at all, so we went round to Mrs. Palmer who bred Jing and found she had a litter for sale. It seemed like fate. We've called him Jingo, too."

"What a splendid idea!" I lifted the pup which squirmed in my hand, grunted in an obese manner and tried to lick my face. This, I felt would make my unpleasant task easier. "I think you've been very sensible."

I lifted the bottle of anaesthetic unobtrusively from my pocket and went over to the basket in the corner. Skipper was still curled in the unheeding ball of yesterday and the comforting thought came to me that all I was going to do was push him a little further along the journey he had already begun.

I pierced the rubber diaphragm on the bottle with my needle and was about to withdraw the barbiturate when I saw that Skipper had raised his head. Chin resting on the edge of the basket; he seemed to be watching the pup. Wearily his eyes followed the tiny creature as it made its way to a dish of milk and began to lap busily. And there was something in his intent expression which had not been there for a long time.

I stood very still as the corgi made a couple of attempts then heaved himself to a standing position. He almost fell out of the basket and staggered on shaking legs across the floor. When he came alongside the pup he remained there, swaying, for some time, a gaunt caricature of his former self; but as I watched in disbelief, he reached forward and seized the little white ear in his mouth.

Stoicism is not a characteristic of pups and Jingo the Second yelped shrilly as the teeth squeezed. Skipper, undeterred, continued to gnaw with rapt concentration.

I dropped bottle and syringe back in my pocket. "Bring him some food," I said quietly.

Mrs. Sanders hurried to the pantry and came back with a few pieces of meat on a saucer. Skipper continued his ear-nibbling for a few moments then sniffed the pup unhurriedly from end to end before turning to the saucer. He hardly had the strength to chew but he lifted a portion of meat and his jaws moved slowly.

"Good heavens!" Jack Sanders burst out. "That's the first thing he's eaten for days!"

His wife seized my arm. "What's happened, Mr. Herriot? We only got the puppy because we couldn't have a house without a dog."

"Well it looks to me as though you've got two again." I went over to the door and smiled back at the two people watching fascinated as the corgi swallowed then started determinedly on another piece of meat.

About eight months later, Jack Sanders came into the surgery and put Jingo Two on the table. He was growing into a fine animal with the wide chest and powerful legs of the breed. His good-natured face and whipping tail reminded me strongly of his predecessor.

"He's got a bit of eczema between his pads," Jack said, then he bent and lifted Skipper up.

At that moment I had no eyes for my patient. All my attention was on the corgi, plump and bright-eyed, nibbling at the big white dog's hind limbs with all his old bounce and vigour.

"Just look at that!" I murmured. "It's like turning the clock back."

Jack Sanders laughed. "Yes, isn't it. They're tremendous friends-just like before."

"Come here, Skipper." I grabbed the little corgi and looked him over. When I had finished I held him for a moment as he tried to wriggle his way back to his friend. "Do you know, I honestly think he'll go on for years yet."

"Really?" Jack Sanders looked at me with a mischievous light in his eyes. "But I seem to remember you saying quite a long time ago that his days were over-he was finished."

I held up a hand. "I know, I know. But sometimes it's lovely to be wrong."

CHAPTER 32.

"TO-DAY," SAID F. O. Woodham, "we're going to try a few new things. Spinning, side-slipping and how to come out of a stall." His voice was gentle, and before he pulled on his helmet he turned his dark, fine-featured face towards me and smiled. Walking over the grass I thought what a likeable chap he was. I could have made a friend of him.

But he was always like that on the ground. He was altogether different in the air.

Yet I could never understand it. Flying was no trouble at all, and as we spun and dropped and soared about the summer sky his instructions appeared simple and easy to carry out. But the rot, as always, began to set in very soon.

"Didn't I tell you opposite rudder and stick to sideslip?" he bawled over the intercom.

"Yes sir," was all I replied, instead of the more appropriate "That's just what I'm doing, you stupid bugger!" which I might have used in civil life.

The goggled eyes bulged in the mirror. "Well, why the bloody hell aren't you doing it?" His voice rose to a wild shriek.

"Sorry, sir."

"Well take her up. We'll try again. And for God's sake keep your wits about you!"

It was the same with the spins and stalls. I hadn't the slightest difficulty in pulling out of them but at times I thought my instructor was going out of his mind.

Berserk cries rang in my ears. "Full opposite rudder and centralise the stick! Centralise it! Can't you hear me? Oh God, God!"

And of course the panic gradually crept in and I began to crack. One moment I could see a railway station in front of me whirling around in crazy circles, then there was nothing but the empty heavens and within seconds fields and trees would start to rush at me. Everything kept changing bewilderingly except the enraged eyes in the mirror and the exasperated yells.

"Centralise it, you bloody fool! Keep your eyes on that cloud! Watch your artificial horizon! Don't you know what the altimeter's for? I told you to keep at 1,000 feet but it's like talking to a bloody wall!"

After a while a kind of numbness took over and the words rang meaninglessly in my head, one sentence seeming to contradict another. Desperately I tried to sort out the volleys of advice, but the whole thing began to slip from my grasp.

Back on the ground and still dizzy, not from the flight but from the bewildering cataract of words, it occurred to me that I had felt like this somewhere before. There was a familiar ring about this jumble in my brain. Then it came back to me. It was like being back at the Birtwhistles'.

The trouble with the Birtwhistles was that they all spoke at once. Mr. Birtwhistle invariably discussed his livestock, his wife concentrated on family matters and Len, their massive eighteen year old son, talked of nothing but football.

I was examining Nellie, the big white cow that always stood opposite the doorway in the grey stone byre. She had been lame for over a week and I didn't like the look of her.

"Lift her foot, will you, Len," I said. It was wonderful to have a muscular giant to hoist the hind limb instead of going through the tedious business of hauling it up with a rope over a beam.

With the cloven hoof cradled in the great hands I could see that my fears were realised. The space between the cleats was clear but there was a significant swelling around the interphalangeal joint.

I looked up from my stooping position. "Can you see that, Mr. Birtwhistle? The infection is spreading upwards."