That evening Dr Taylor and Mr Blampied, the veterinary, arrived, and I reported that the tranquilizer had taken effect: Chumley was in a semi-doped condition, but even so, he would not let me examine his ear. So we repaired to his boudoir, outside of which I had rigged up some strong lights and a trestle-table on which to lay our patient. Dr Taylor poured ether onto a mask, and I opened Chumley’s bedroom door, leaned in, and placed the mask gently over his face. He made one or two half-hearted attempts to push it away with his hand, but the ether combined with the tranquilizer was too much for him, and he slipped into unconsciousness rapidly. As soon as he was completely under, we hauled him out of the cage and laid him on the trestle-table, still keeping the mask over his face. Then the experts went to work. First his ear was examined, and found to be perfectly healthy; just for good measure, we examined his other ear as well, and that, too, was all right. We then opened his mouth and carefully checked his teeth: they were an array of perfect, glistening white dentures without a speck of decay on any of them. We examined his cheeks, his jaw, and the whole of his head, and could not find a single thing wrong. We looked at his neck and shoulders, with the same result. As far as we could ascertain, there was nothing the matter with Chumley whatsoever, and yet something had been causing him considerable pain. Dr Taylor and Mr Blampied departed, much mystified, and I carried Chumley into the house, wrapped in a blanket, and put him on a camp-bed in front of the drawing-room fire. Then Jacquie brought more blankets, which we piled on top of him, and we sat down to wait for the anaesthetic to wear off.
Lying there, his eyes closed, breathing out ether fumes stertorously, he looked like a slightly satanic cherub who, tired out after a day’s mischief-making, was taking a well-earned rest. The amount of ether he was expelling from his lungs made the whole room reek, so that we were forced to open a window. It was about half an hour before he began to sigh deeply and twitch, as a preliminary to regaining consciousness, and I went over and sat by the bedside with a cup of water ready, since I knew from experience the dreadful thirst that assails one on coming out from under an anaesthetic. In a few minutes Chumley opened his eyes, and as soon as he saw me he gave a feeble hoot of greeting and held out his hand, in spite of the fact that he was still half asleep. I held up his head and put the cup to his lips and he sucked at the water greedily before the ether overcame him again and he sank back into sleep. I decided that an ordinary cup was too unwieldy to give him drinks, as a considerable quantity of liquid was spilled. I managed, by ringing up my friends, to procure an invalid’s cup, one of those articles that resemble deformed teapots, and the next time Chumley woke up this proved a great success, as he could suck water out of the spout without having to sit up.
Although he recognized us, he was still in a very drugged and stupid state, and so I decided that I would spend the night sleeping on the sofa near him, in case he awakened and wanted anything. Having given him another drink, I made up my bed on the sofa, turned out the light, and dozed off. About two o’clock in the morning I was awakened by a crash in the far corner of the room. I hastily put on the light to find that Chumley was awake and wandering round the room, like a drunken man, barging into all the furniture. As soon as the light came on and he saw me, he uttered a scream of joy, staggered across the room, and insisted on embracing and kissing me before gulping down a vast drink of water. I then helped him back on to his bed and covered him with his blankets, and he slept peacefully until daylight.
He spent the day lying quietly on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He ate a few grapes and drank great quantities of glucose and water, which was encouraging. The most encouraging thing, however, was that he no longer held the side of his face and did not appear to be suffering any pain. In some extraordinary way we seemed to have cured him without doing anything. When Dr Taylor telephoned later that day to find out how Chumley was faring I explained this to him, and he was as puzzled as I. Then, later on, he rang up to say that he had thought of a possible explanation: Chumley may have been suffering from a slipped disc. This could have caused intense pain in the nerves of jaw and ear, without there being anything external to show what caused it. When we had Chumley limp and relaxed under the anaesthetic we pulled his head around quite a lot during our examination, and probably pushed the disc back into place, without realizing it. Mr Blampied agreed with this diagnosis. We had no proof, of course, but certainly Chumley was completely cured, and there was no recurrence of the pain. He had naturally lost a lot of weight during his illness, and so for two or three weeks he was kept in a specially heated cage and fed on every delicacy. Within a very short time he had put on weight and was his old self, so that anyone who went near his cage was showered with handfuls of sawdust. This, I presume, was Chumley’s way of thanking us.
Sometimes animals injure themselves in the most ridiculous way imaginable. Hawks and pheasants, for example, are the most hysterical of birds. If anything unusual happens they get into a terrible state, fly straight up, like rockets, and crash into the roof of their cage, either breaking their necks or neatly scalping themselves. But there are other birds equally stupid. Take the case of Samuel.
Samuel is a South American seriema. Seriemas are not unlike African secretary birds. About the size of a half-grown turkey, they have long, strong legs, and a ridiculous little tuft of feathers perched on top of their beaks. In the wild state seriemas do not fly a great deal, spending most of their time striding about the grasslands in search of snakes, mice, frogs, and other delicacies. I had purchased Samuel from an Indian in northern Argentina, and as he had been hand reared he was, of course, perfectly (and sometimes embarrassingly) tame. When I finally shipped him back to Jersey with the rest of the animals, we took him out of his small travelling crate and released him in a nice, spacious aviary. Samuel was delighted, and to show us his gratitude the first thing he did was fly up onto the perch, fall off it, and break his left leg. There are times when animals do such idiotic things that you are left bereft of words.
Fortunately for Samuel, it was a nice clean break, halfway down what would be the shin in a human being. We made a good job of splinting it, covered the splint with plaster of Paris bandage, and, when it was dry, put him in a small cage so that he could not move around too much. The following day his foot was slightly swollen, so I gave him a penicillin injection—to which he took great exception—and his foot returned to normal size as a result. When we eventually took off the splint we found the bones had knitted perfectly, and today, as he strides importantly around his aviary, you have to look very closely to see which leg it was he broke. Knowing Samuel for the imbecile he is, I would not be surprised if he repeated the performance at some time in the future—probably on a day when I am up to my eyes in other work.
During the course of your Florence Nightingale work you become quite used to being bitten, scratched, kicked, and bruised by your patients, and on many occasions, having performed first aid on them, you have to perform it on yourself. Nor is it always the bigger creatures that are the most dangerous to deal with. A squirrel or a pouched rat can inflict almost as much damage as a flock of Bengal tigers when they put their minds to it. While anointing a fluffy, gooey-eyed bushbaby once for a slight skin infection on the tail, I was bitten so severely in the thumb it went septic, and I had to have it bandaged for ten days. The bushbaby was cured in forty-eight hours.
Human doctors are covered by the Hippocratic Oath. The wild animal doctor employs a variety of oaths, all rich and colourful, but they would, I feel, be frowned upon by the British Medical Council.
6
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
Dear Mr Durrell,