Pets in Prospect - Malcolm D. Welshman [105]
‘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.
‘You hit it then,’ commented Madge. ‘Vet hit it,’ she added over her shoulder to her sister.
‘Couldn’t miss it, vein that size,’ Rosie replied.
I quickly released the cord and the vein collapsed, the flow of blood dropping to a mere trickle. ‘Madge … please … ’ I clicked my fingers and flicked my wrist.
‘Rush, rush,’ she muttered, leaning over the cow to hand me the tubing and bottle.
‘No … no … just the tubing,’ I cried, pushing the bottle back into her hand.
‘See? That’s what comes of hurrying,’ she declared.
‘Now hold it up,’ I instructed.
‘Vet says to hold the bottle up,’ said Rosie.
‘I heard him, Rosie.’ Madge raised her arm with the slowness worthy of a tortoise on crutches.
Once some calcium solution had been allowed to sweep through the tubing, clearing any air bubbles, I connected the end to the needle and allowed the rest to drain into Myrtle. Throughout, she remained comatose, unaware of what was going on.
‘Calved recently, has she?’ I nodded at Myrtle’s huge udder.
‘Three days back, wasn’t it?’ said Madge, looking at her sister.
‘Wednesday,’ replied Rosie.
‘Well, it’s Saturday now.’
‘Yes.
‘Well, three days then.’
‘That’s what you said, Madge.’
‘I did.’ Madge turned to me. ‘It was three days ago … Wednesday.’
I felt like asking, ‘Are you sure now?’ but this was no time for irony. Whatever, I think I’d sussed the problem with Myrtle. Having produced a lot of milk in the last three days – since Wednesday to be precise – it had drained her calcium reserves and brought on the nervous symptoms and the dramatic collapse. This intravenous calcium I was giving should produce an equally dramatic reversal of those symptoms. If I had got it right, then Myrtle would be up on her feet in no time.
Myrtle’s front legs began to twitch. The lids on the one eye we could see slowly drew back with a flicker of the lashes, though the eyeball remained rolled down, only the white showing. It brought back memories of Beryl’s eye after she’d discovered the anaconda in the fridge. What a sight – or lack of it – that had been. When the bottle of calcium solution had emptied, I whipped out the needle.
‘Right, ladies, let’s give Myrtle a