All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot Page B

“Come over here, James,” he called. “I want to talk to you.”
    I saw he was looking patient again and braced myself.
    “James,” he said, pacing round the battered vehicle, whisking specks from the paintwork. “You see this car?”
    I nodded.
    “Well, it has been rebored, James, rebored at great expense, and that’s what I want to talk to you about. You now have in your possession what amounts to a new car.” With an effort he unfastened the catch and the bonnet creaked open in a shower of rust and dirt. He pointed down at the engine, black and oily, with unrelated pieces of flex and rubber tubing hanging around it like garlands. “You have a piece of fine mechanism here and I want you to treat it with respect. I’ve seen you belting along like a maniac and it won’t do. You’ve got to nurse this machine for the next two or three thousand miles; thirty miles an hour is quite fast enough. I think it’s a crime the way some people abuse a new engine—they should be locked up—so remember, lad, no flogging or I’ll be down on you.”
    He closed the bonnet with care, gave the cracked windscreen a polish with the cuff of his coat and left.
    These strong words made such an impression on me that I crawled round the visits all day almost at walking pace.
    The same night, I was getting ready for bed when Siegfried came in. He had two farm lads with him and they both wore silly grins. A powerful smell of beer filled the room.
    Siegfried spoke with dignity, slurring his words only slightly. “James, I met these gentlemen in the Black Bull this evening. We have had several excellent games of dominoes but unfortunately they have missed the last bus. Will you kindly bring the Austin round and I will run them home.”
    I drove the car to the front of the house and the farm lads piled in, one in the front, the other in the back. I looked at Siegfried lowering himself unsteadily into the driving seat and decided to go along. I got into the back.
    The two young men lived in a farm far up on the North Moors and, three miles out of the town, we left the main road and our headlights picked out a strip of track twisting along the dark hillside.
    Siegfried was in a hurry. He kept his foot on the boards, the note of the engine rose to a tortured scream and the little car hurtled on into the blackness. Hanging on grimly, I leaned forward so that I could shout into my employer’s ear. “Remember this is the car which has just been rebored,” I bellowed above the din.
    Siegfried looked round with an indulgent smile. “Yes, yes, I remember, James. What are you fussing about?” As he spoke, the car shot off the road and bounded over the grass at sixty miles an hour. We all bounced around like corks till he found his way back. Unperturbed, he carried on at the same speed. The silly grins had left the lads’ faces and they sat rigid in their seats. Nobody said anything.
    The passengers were unloaded at a silent farmhouse and the return journey began. Since it was downhill all the way, Siegfried found he could go even faster. The car leaped and bumped over the uneven surface with its engine whining. We made several brief but tense visits to the surrounding moors, but we got home.
    It was a month later that Siegfried had occasion to take his assistant to task once more. “James, my boy,” he said sorrowfully, “you are a grand chap, but by God, you’re hard on cars. Look at this Austin. Newly rebored a short time ago, in tip-top condition, and look at it now—drinking oil. I don’t know how you did it in the time. You’re a real terror.”

NINE
    “F IRST, PLEASE,” I CALLED as I looked into the waiting-room. There was an old lady with a cat in a cardboard box, two small boys trying to keep hold of a rabbit, and somebody I didn’t recognise at first. Then I remembered—it was Soames.
    When it was his turn, he came into the surgery but he was a vastly different character from the one I knew. He wore an ingratiating smile.