"All right." I followed him through the gate. It was another little annoyance when the farmer didn't have the cow inside for me but again I felt that if David wanted to be a vet he ought to know that a lot of our work was carried out in the open, often in the cold and rain.

Even now on this July morning a cool breeze whipped round my chest and back as I pulled off my shirt. It was never very warm in the high country of the Dales but I felt at home here. With the cow standing patiently as the farmer held her halter, the bucket perched among the tufts of wiry grass, and only a few stunted wind-bent trees breaking the harsh sweep of green, it seemed that at last this boy was seeing me in my proper place.

I soaped my arms to the shoulder. "Hold the tail, will you, David. This is where I find out what kind of job it's going to be."

As I slipped my hand into the cow it struck me that it would be no bad thing if it was a hard calving. If the lad saw me losing a bit of sweat it would give him a truer picture of the life in front of him.

"Sometimes these jobs take an hour or more," I said. "But you have the reward of delivering a new living creature. Seeing a calf wriggling on the ground at the end of it is the biggest thrill in practice."

I reached forward, my mind alive with the possibilities. Posterior? Head back? Breech? But as I groped through the open cervix into the uterus I felt a growing astonishment. There was nothing there.

I withdrew my arm and leaned for a moment on the hairy rump. The day's events were taking on a dreamlike quality. Then I looked up at the farmer.

"There's no calf in this cow, Mr. Rogers."

"Eh?"

"She's empty. She's calved already."

The farmer gazed around him, scanning the acres of bare grass. "Well where the hangment is the thing? This cow was messin' about last night and I thought she'd calve, but there was nowt to find this mornin'."

His attention was caught by a cry from the right.

"Hey, Willie! Just a minute, Willie!" It was Bob Sellars from the next farm. He was leaning over the drystone wall about twenty yards away.

"What's matter, Bob?"

"Ah thowt ah'd better tell ye. Ah saw that cow bidin' her calf this mornin'."

"Hidin' ...? What are ye on about?"

"Ah'm not jokin' nor jestin', Willie. She hid it in yon gutter over there and every time t'calf tried to get out she pushed it back in again."

"But ... nay, nay, I can't 'ave that. I've never heard of such a thing. Have you, Mr. Herriot?"

I shook my head, but the whole thing seemed to fit in with the air of fantasy which had begun to pervade the day's work.

Bob Sellars began to climb over the wall. "Awright if ye won't believe me I'll show ye."

He led the way to the far end of the field where a dry ditch ran along the base of the wall. "There 'e is!" he said triumphantly.

And there indeed he was. A tiny red and white calf half concealed by the long herbage. He was curled comfortably in his grassy bed, his nose resting on his fore legs.

When the little creature saw his mother he staggered to his feet and clambered shakily up the side of the ditch, but no sooner had he gained the level of the field than the big cow, released now from her halter, lowered her head and gently nudged him back in again.

Bob waved his arm. "There y'are, she's hiding it isn't she?"

Mr. Rogers said nothing and I merely shrugged my shoulders, but twice more the calf managed to scramble from the ditch and twice more his mother returned him firmly with her head.

"Well it teks a bit o' believin'," the farmer murmured, half to himself. "She's had five calves afore this and we've taken 'em straight away from 'er as we allus do. Maybe she wants to keep this 'un for 'erself? I dunno ... I dunno ..." His voice trailed away.

Later, as we rattled down the stony track, David turned to me. "Do you think that cow really hid her calf ... so that she could keep it for herself?"

I stared helplessly through the glass of the windscreen. "Well, anybody would tell you it's impossible, but you saw what happened. I'm like Mr. Rogers, I just don't know." I paused as the car dipped into a deep rut and sent us bobbing about. "But you see some funny things at our job."

The schoolboy nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, it seems to me that yours is a funny life altogether."

CHAPTER 40.

THE DOCTOR PUT DOWN the folder containing my case history and gave me a friendly smile across the desk.

"I'm sorry, Herriot, but you've got to have an operation."

His words, though gentle, were like a slap in the face. After flying school we had been posted to Heaton Park, Manchester, and I heard within two days that I had been graded pilot. Everything seemed at last to be going smoothly.

"An operation ... are you sure?"

"Absolutely, I'm afraid," he said, and he looked like a man who knew his business. He was a Wing Commander, almost certainly a specialist in civil life, and I had been sent to him after a medical inspection by one of the regular doctors.

"This old scar they mention in your documents," he went on. "You've already had surgery there, haven't you?"

"Yes, a few years ago."

"Well, I'm afraid the thing is opening up again and needs attention."

I seemed to have run out of words and could think of only one.

"When?"

"Immediately. Within a few days, anyway."

I stared at him. "But my flight's going overseas at the end of the week."

"Ah well, that's a pity." He spread his hands and smiled again. "But they'll be going without you. You will be in hospital."

I had a sudden feeling of loss, of something coming to an end, and it lingered after I had left the Wing Commander's office. I realised painfully that the fifty men with whom I had sweated my way through all those new experiences had become my friends. The first breaking-in at St. John's Wood in London, the hard training at Scarborough ITW, the "toughening course" in Shropshire and the final flying instruction at Winckfield; it had bound us together and I had come to think of myself not as an individual but as part of a group. My mind could hardly accept the fact that I was going to be on my own.

The others were sorry, too, my own particular chums looking almost bereaved, but they were all too busy to pay me much attention. They were being pushed around all over the place, getting briefed and kitted out for their posting and it was a hectic time for the whole flight-except me. I sat on my bed in the Nissen hut while the excitement billowed around me.

I thought my departure would go unnoticed but when I got my summons and prepared to leave I found, tucked in the webbing of my pack, an envelope filled with the precious coupons with which we drew our ration of cigarettes in those days. It seemed that nearly everybody had chipped in and the final gesture squeezed at my throat as I made my lonely way from the camp.

The hospital was at Creden Hill, near Hereford, and I suppose it is one of the consolations of service life that you can't feel lonely for very long. The beds in the long ward were filled with people like myself who had been torn from their comrades and were eager to be friendly.

In the few days before my operation we came to know each other pretty well. The young man in the bed on my left spent his time writing excruciating poetry to his girl friend and insisted on reading it out to me, stanza by stanza. The lad on the right seemed a pensive type. Everybody addressed him as "Sammy" but he replied only in grunts.

When he found out I was a vet he leaned from the sheets and beckoned to me.

"I get fed up wi' them blokes callin' me Sammy," he muttered in a ripe Birmingham accent. "Because me name's not Sammy, it's Desmond."

"Really? Why do they do it, then?"

He leaned out further. "That's what I want to talk to you about. You bein' a vet-you'll know about these things. It's because of what's wrong with me-why I'm in 'ere."

"Well, why are you here? What's your trouble?"

He looked around him then spoke in a confidential whisper. "I gotta big ball."

"A what?"

"A big ball. One of me balls is a right whopper."

"Ah, I see, but I still don't understand ..."

"Well, it's like this," he said. "All the fellers in the ward keep sayin' the doctor's goin' to cut it off-then I'd be like Sammy Hall."

I nodded in comprehension. Memories from my college days filtered back. It had been a popular ditty at the parties. "My name is Sammy Hall and I've only got one ball ..."

"Oh, nonsense, they're pulling your leg," I said. "An enlarged testicle can be all sorts of things. Can you remember what the doctor called it?"

He screwed up his face. "It was a funny name. Like vorry or varry something."

"Do you mean varicocele?"

"That's it!" He threw up an arm. "That's the word!"

"Well, you can stop worrying," I said. "It's quite a simple little operation. Trifling, in fact."

"You mean they won't cut me ball off?"

"Definitely not. Just remove a few surplus blood vessels, that's all. No trouble."

He fell back on the pillow and gazed ecstatically at the ceiling. "Thanks, mate," he breathed. "You've done me a world o' good. I'm gettin' done tomorrow and I've been dreadin' it."

He was like a different person all that day, laughing and joking with everybody, and next morning when the nurse came to give him his pre-med injection he turned to me with a last appeal in his eyes.

"You wouldn't kid me, mate, would you? They're not goin' to ...?"

I held up a hand. "I assure you, Sammy-er-Desmond, you've nothing to worry about. I give you my word."

Again the beatific smile crept over his face and it stayed there until the "blood wagon," the operating room trolley pushed by a male orderly, came to collect him.

The blood wagon was very busy each morning and it was customary to raise a cheer as each man was wheeled out. Most of the victims responded with a sleepy wave before the swing doors closed behind them, but when I saw Desmond grinning cheerfully and giving the thumbs-up sign I felt I had really done something.

Next morning it was my turn. I had my injection at around eight o'clock and by the time the trolley appeared I was pleasantly woozy. They removed my pyjamas and arrayed me in a sort of nightgown with laces at the neck and pulled thick woollen socks over my feet. As the orderly wheeled me away the inmates of the ward broke into a ragged chorus of encouragement and I managed the ritual flourish of an arm as I left.

It was a cheerless journey along white-tiled corridors until the trolley pushed its way into the anaesthetics room. As I entered, the doors at the far end parted as a doctor came towards me bearing a loaded syringe. I had a chilling glimpse of the operating theatre beyond, with the lights beating on the long table and the masked surgeons waiting.

The doctor pushed up my sleeve and swabbed my forearm with surgical spirit. I decided I had seen enough and closed my eyes, but an exclamation from above made me open them.

"Good God, it's Jim Herriot!"

I looked up at the man with the syringe. It was Teddy McQueen. He had been in my class at school and I hadn't seen him since the day I left.

My throat was dry after the injection but I felt I had to say something.

"Hello, Teddy,'' I croaked.

His eyes were wide. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"What the hell do you think?" I rasped crossly. "I'm going in there for an operation."

"Oh, I know that-I'm the anaesthetist here-but I remember you telling me at school that you were going to be a vet."

"That's right I am a vet."

"You are?" His face was a picture of amazement. "But what the devil is a vet doing in the RAF?"

It was a good question. "Nothing very much, Teddy," I replied.

He began to laugh. Obviously he found the whole situation intriguing.

"Well, Jim, I can't get over this!" He leaned over me and giggled uncontrollably. "Imagine our meeting here after all these years. I think it's an absolute hoot!" His whole body began to shake and he had to dab away the tears from his eyes.

Lying there on the blood wagon in my nightie and woolly socks I didn't find it all that funny, and my numbed brain was searching for a withering riposte when a voice barked from the theatre.

"What's keeping you, McQueen? We can't wait all morning!"

Teddy stopped laughing. "Sorry, Jim old chum," he said. "But your presence is requested within." He pushed the needle into my vein and my last memory as I drifted away was of his lingering amused smile.

I spent three weeks at Creden Hill and towards the end of that time those of us who were almost fully recovered were allowed out to visit the nearby town of Hereford. This was embarrassing because we were all clad in the regulation suit of hospital blue with white shirt and red tie and it was obvious from the respectful glances we received that people thought we had been wounded in action.

When a veteran of the first war came up to me and asked, "Where did you get your packet, mate?" I stopped going altogether.

I left the RAF hospital with a feeling of gratitude-particularly towards the hard-working, cheerful nurses. They gave us many a tongue lashing for chattering after lights out, for smoking under the blankets, for messing up our beds, but all the time I marvelled at their dedication.

I used to lie there and wonder what it was in a girl's character that made her go in for the arduous life of nursing. A concern for people's welfare? A natural caring instinct? Whatever it was, I am sure a person is born with it.

This trait is part of the personalities of some animals and it was exemplified in Eric Abbot's sheepdog, Judy.

I first met Judy when I was treating Eric's bullock for wooden tongue. The bullock was only a young one and the farmer admitted ruefully that he had neglected it because it was almost a walking skeleton.