Siegfried's jaw clenched tight for a moment, then he motioned with his hand. "Please carry on, Mr. Billings. I want to see you feed them."

The nuts were always available for the little animals but we watched intently as the farmer poured the milk into the buckets and the calves started to drink. The poor man had obviously given up hope and I could tell by his apathetic manner that he hadn't much faith in this latest ploy.

Neither had I, but Siegfried prowled up and down like a caged panther as though willing something to happen. The calves raised white-slobbered muzzles enquiringly as he hung over them but they could offer no more explanation of the mystery than I could myself.

I looked across the long row of pens. There were still more than thirty calves left in the building and the terrible thought arose that the disease might spread through all of them. My mind was recoiling when Siegfried stabbed a finger at one of the buckets.

"What's that?" he snapped.

The farmer and I went over and gazed down at a circular black object about half an inch across floating on the surface of the milk.

"Bit o' muck got in somehow," Mr. Billings mumbled. "I'll 'ave it out." He put his hand into the bucket.

"No, let me!" Siegfried carefully lifted the thing, shook the milk from his fingers and studied it with interest.

This isn't muck," he murmured. "Look, it's concave-like a little cup." He rubbed a corner between thumb and forefinger. "I'll tell you what it is, it's a scab. Where the heck has it come from?"

He began to examine the neck and head of the calf, then became very still as he handled one of the little horn buds. "There's a raw surface here. You can see where the scab belongs." He placed the dark cup over the bud and it fitted perfectly.

The farmer shrugged. "Aye, well, I can understand that. I disbudded all the calves about a fortnight sin'."

"What did you use, Mr. Billings?" My colleague's voice was soft.

"Oh, some new stuff. Feller came round sellin' it. You just paint it on-it's a lot easier than t'awd caustic stick."

"Have you got the bottle?"

"Aye, it's in t'house. I'll get it"

When the farmer returned Siegfried read the label and handed the bottle to me.

"Butter of Antimony, Jim. Now we know."

"But ... what are you on about?" asked the farmer bewilderedly.

Siegfried looked at him sympathetically. "Antimony is a deadly poison, Mr. Billings. Oh, it'll burn your horn buds off, all right, but if it gets in among the food, that's it."

The farmer's eyes widened. "Yes, dang it and when they put their heads down to drink that's just when the scabs would fall off !"

"Exactly," Siegfried said. "Or they maybe knocked the horn buds on the sides of the bucket. Anyway, let's make sure the others are safe."

We went round all the calves, removing the lethal crusts and scrubbing the buds clean, and when we finally drove away we knew that the brief but painful episode of the Billings calves was over.

In the car, my colleague put his elbows on the wheel and drove with his chin cupped in his hands. He often did this when in contemplative mood and it never failed to unnerve me.

"James," he said, "I've never seen anything like that before. It really is one for the book."

His words were prophetic, for as I write about it now I realise that it has never been repeated in the thirty-five years that have passed since then.

At Skeldale House we parted to go our different ways. Tristan, no doubt anxious to redeem himself after the morning's explosive beginning, was plying mop and bucket and swabbing the passage with the zeal of one of Nelson's sailors.

But when Siegfried drove away, the activity stopped abruptly and as I was leaving with my pockets stuffed with the equipment for my round I glanced into the sitting room and saw the young man stretched in his favourite chair.

I went in and looked with some surprise at a pan of sausages balanced on the coals.

"What's this?" I asked.

Tristan lit a Woodbine, shook out his Daily Mirror and put his feet up. "Just prepared lunch, old lad."

"In here?"

"Yes, Jim, I've had enough of that hot stove-there's no comfort through there. And anyway, the kitchen's such a bloody long way away."

I gazed down at the reclining form. "No need to ask what's on the menu?"

"None at all, old son." Tristan looked up from his paper with a seraphic smile.

I was about to leave when a thought struck me. "Where are the potatoes?"

"In the fire."

"In the fire!"

"Yes, I just popped them in there to roast for a while. They're delicious that way."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely, Jim. I'll tell you-you'll fall in love with my cooking all over again."

I didn't get back till nearly one o'clock. Tristan was not in the sitting room but a haze of smoke hung on the air and a reek like a garden bonfire prickled in my nostrils.

I found the young man in the kitchen. His savoir faire had vanished and he was prodding desperately at a pile of coal black spheres.

I stared at him. "What are those?"

"The bloody potatoes, Jim! I fell asleep for a bit and this happened!"

He gingerly sawed through one of the objects. In the centre of the carbonaceous ball I could discern a small whitish marble which seemed to be all that remained of the original vegetable.

"Hell's bells, Triss! What are you going to do?"

He gave me a stricken glance. "Hack out the centres and mash 'em up together. It's all I CAN do."

This was something I couldn't bear to watch. I went upstairs, had a wash then took my place at the dining table. Siegfried was already seated and I could see that the little triumph of the morning had cheered him. He greeted me jovially.

"James, wasn't that the damndest thing at Ken Billings'? It's so satisfying to get it cleared up."

But his smile froze as Tristan appeared and set down the tureens before him. From one peeped the inevitable sausages and the other contained an amorphous dark grey mass liberally speckled with black foreign bodies of varying size.

"What in the name of God," he enquired with ominous quiet, "is this?"

His brother swallowed. "Sausage and mash," he said lightly.

Siegfried gave him a cold look. "I am referring to this." He poked warily at the dark mound.

"Well, er, it's the potatoes." Tristan cleared his throat. "Got a little burnt, I'm afraid."

My boss made no comment. With dangerous calm he spooned some of the material on to his plate, raised a forkful and began to chew slowly. Once or twice he winced as a particularly tough fragment of carbon cracked between his molars, then he closed his eyes and swallowed.

For a moment he was still, then he grasped his midriff with both hands, groaned and jumped to his feet.

"No, that's enough!" he cried. "I don't mind investigating poisonings on the farms but I object to being poisoned myself in my own home!" He strode away from the table and paused at the door. "I'm going over to the Drovers for lunch."

As he left another spasm seized him. He clutched his stomach again and looked back.

"Now I know just how those poor bloody calves felt!"

CHAPTER 7.

I SUPPOSE IT WAS a little thoughtless of me to allow my scalpel to flash and flicker quite so close to Rory O'Hagan's fly buttons.

The incident came back to me as I sat in my room in St John's Wood reading Black's Veterinary Dictionary. It was a bulky volume to carry around and my RAF friends used to rib me about my "vest pocket edition," but I had resolved to keep reading it in spare moments to remind me of my real life.

I had reached the letter "C" and as the word "Castration'' looked up at me from the page I was jerked back to Rory.

I was castrating pigs. There were several litters to do and I was in a hurry and failed to notice the Irish farm worker's mounting apprehension. His young boss was catching the little animals and handing them to Rory who held them upside down, gripped between his thighs with their legs apart, and as I quickly incised the scrotums and drew out the testicles my blade almost touched the rough material of his trouser crutch.

"For God's sake, have a care, Mr. Herriot!" he gasped at last.

I looked up from my work. "What's wrong, Rory?"

"Watch what you're doin' with that bloody knife! You're whippin' it round between me legs like a bloody Red Indian. You'll do me a mischief afore you've finished!"

"Aye, be careful, Mr. Herriot," the young farmer cried. "Don't geld Rory instead of the pig. His missus ud never forgive ye." He burst into a loud peal of laughter, the Irishman grinned sheepishly and I giggled.

That was my undoing because the momentary inattention sent the blade slicing across my left forefinger. The razor-sharp edge went deep and in an instant the entire neighborhood seemed flooded with my blood. I thought I would never stanch the flow. The red ooze continued, despite a long session of self-doctoring from the car boot, and when I finally drove away my finger was swathed in the biggest, clumsiest dressing I had ever seen. I had finally been forced to apply a large pad of cotton wool held in place with an enormous length of three-inch bandage.

It was dark when I left the farm. About five o'clock on a late December day, the light gone early and the stars beginning to show in a frosty sky. I drove slowly, the enormous finger jutting upwards from the wheel, pointing the way between the headlights like a guiding beacon. I was within half a mile of Darrowby with the lights of the little town beginning to wink between the bare roadside branches when a car approached, went past, then I heard a squeal of brakes as it stopped and began to double back.

It passed me again, drew into the side and I saw a frantically waving arm. I pulled up and a young man jumped from the driving seat and ran towards me.

He pushed his head in at the window. "Are you the vet?" His voice was breathless, panic-stricken.

"Yes, I am."

"Oh thank God! We're passing through on the way to Manchester and we've been to your surgery ... they said you were out this way ... described your car. Please help us!"

"What's the trouble?"

"It's our dog ... in the back of the car. He's got a ball stuck in his throat. I ... I think he might be dead."

I was out of my seat and running along the road before he had finished. It was a big white saloon and in the darkness of the back seat a wailing chorus issued from several little heads silhouetted against the glass.

I tore open the door and the wailing took on words.

"Oh Benny, Benny, Benny ...!"

I dimly discerned a large dog spread over the knees of four small children. "Oh Daddy, he's dead, he's dead!"

"Let's have him out," I gasped, and as the young man pulled on the forelegs I supported the body, which slid and toppled on to the tarmac with a horrible limpness.

I pawed at the hairy form. "I can't see a bloody thing! Help me pull him round."

We dragged the unresisting bulk into the headlights' glare and I could see it all. A huge, beautiful collie in his luxuriant prime, mouth gaping, tongue lolling, eyes staring lifelessly at nothing. He wasn't breathing.

The young father took one look then gripped his head with both hands. "Oh God, oh God ..." From within the car I heard the quiet sobbing of his wife and the piercing cries from the back. "Benny ... Benny ..."

I grabbed the man's shoulder and shouted at him. "What did you say about a ball?"

"It's in his throat ... I've had my fingers in his mouth for ages but I couldn't move it." The words came mumbling up from beneath the bent head.

I pushed my hand into the mouth and I could feel it all right. A sphere of hard solid rubber not much bigger than a golf ball and jammed like a cork in the pharynx, effectively blocking the trachea. I scrabbled feverishly at the wet smoothness but there was nothing to get hold of. It took me about three seconds to realise that no human agency would ever get the ball out that way and without thinking I withdrew my hands, braced both thumbs behind the angle of the lower jaw and pushed.

The ball shot forth, bounced on the frosty road and rolled sadly on to the grass verge. I touched the corneal surface of the eye. No reflex. I slumped to my knees, burdened by the hopeless regret that I hadn't had the chance to do this just a bit sooner. The only function I could perform now was to take the body back to Skeldale House for disposal. I couldn't allow the family to drive to Manchester with a dead dog. But I wished fervently that I had been able to do more, and as I passed my hand along the richly coloured coat over the ribs the vast bandaged finger stood out like a symbol of my helplessness.

It was when I was gazing dully at the finger, the heel of my hand resting in an intercostal space, that I felt the faintest flutter from below.

I jerked upright with a hoarse cry. "His heart's still beating! He's not gone yet!" I began to work on the dog with all I had. And out there in the darkness of that lonely country road it wasn't much. No stimulant injections, no oxygen cylinders or intratracheal tubes. But I depressed his chest with my palms every three seconds in the old-fashioned way, willing the dog to breathe as the eyes still stared at nothing. Every now and then I blew desperately down the throat or probed between the ribs for that almost imperceptible beat.

I don't know which I noticed first, the slight twitch of an eyelid or the small lift of the ribs which pulled the icy Yorkshire air into his lungs. Maybe they both happened at once but from that moment everything was dreamlike and wonderful. I lost count of time as I sat there while the breathing became deep and regular and the animal began to be aware of his surroundings; and by the time he started to look around him and twitch his tail tentatively I realised suddenly that I was stiff-jointed and almost frozen to the spot.

With some difficulty I got up and watched in disbelief as the collie staggered to his feet. The young father ushered him round to the back where he was received with screams of delight.

The man seemed stunned. Throughout the recovery he had kept muttering, "You just flicked that ball out ... just flicked it out Why didn't I think of that ...?" And when he turned to me before leaving he appeared to be still in a state of shock.

"I don't ... I don't know how to thank you," he said huskily. "It's a miracle." He leaned against the car for a second. "And now what is your fee? How much do I owe you?"

I rubbed my chin. I had used no drugs. The only expenditure had been time.

"Five bob," I said. "And never let him play with such a little ball again."