PART 3

Deidre followed him, and by the time they both entered the small kitchen Tristan was finally sitting up, but he held his head within his hands where he sat groggily upon the cold, hard floor, breathing deeply as though he was trying to maintain some control over his own self. He hadn't even bothered to replace his displaced trouser leg, and the clots of blood were still evident just above his right ankle.

He looked up as they both entered.

"My dear brother!" Siegfried exclaimed as he observed the state of his younger sibling. "Are you alright?" He asked, leaning down in front of him to take a closer look.

He frowned as his eyes carefully scanned his brother's face and he too acknowledged the paler of his complexion, and the sorry look upon his face. He took in the floppy fringe of hair which was now plastered to his forehead with a fresh sheen of sticky sweat and the way he still held his head in his hands, almost as though it was too much of an effort or that it hurt him too much to keep it upright. Tristan instinctively tried to get to his feet, but yelped out in pain as his trouser leg caressed his torn flesh. He looked up in alarm at Siegfried, and the big brother who had loved him and looked out for him since the day he was born recognised immediate fear upon his little brother's face as he shook his head in confirmation that he was not.

He really was feeling far from well, he had started to feel a little warmer thanks to Deidre's attentive care, but as the evening had worn on the chill had begun to return to his bones, his head was now throbbing just behind his temples, his chest too continued to ache, and the room was still spinning slightly, only adding to his ill ease.

To Siegfried he seemed a little confused and disorientated as he closed his eyes against the piercing light of the room, and because the continued spinning within his head was beginning to make him feel even more nauseous. He feared that he wasn't going to be able to hold on to his stomach contents much longer.

When he opened them again he had the same pathetic and dejected look upon his face which Siegfried had so often seen so many times before back when he had been a child - throughout all the times his little brother had been ill, those nights he'd sat up with him half the night when he'd been throwing up in to the toilet bowl, his stomach wracked with the tell-tale cramps of a sickness bug, and even that time he'd fallen out of the old blossom tree which had used to grow in the back garden of the small cottage which their granny had once occupied, sustaining a severely sprained ankle. Siegfried had been supposed to have been watching him, but had become distracted by his school work. He could still remember the guilt his younger self had felt as he had done his best to comfort his inconsolable brother, whilst trying to strap up his swollen ankle. Tristan had cried that the bandage was too tight, but this has proven to be the first time that Siegfried had felt genuinely grateful for his vetenary training - that he at least had known how best to treat his brother's wounds, and provide him with some temporary relief from the pain.

It had been just the same when Tristan himself had been revising for his own vetenary exams, and had failed them for the third time. Siegfried had known then that his brother had been struggling - the first time it had happened he'd been able to convince himself that it was down his sheer lack of commitment to his studies, and the overindulgent nature of his social life. Even the second time round he'd put it down to him having not learnt from his experience the first time around. But when he'd failed again for a third time Siegfried had finally realised that it was because his brother was struggling to retain the information he'd learnt long enough to commit it down to paper, and yet he'd known, quite helplessly, that there had been nothing he'd been able to do. This was as much the reason for his frequent outbursts of frustration at his brother throughout this time, for although he knew that he couldn't entirely blame his brother for his continued failings, he couldn't help but feel as though if he'd spent more time focusing on his studies and a little less tending to the demands of his busy social life he might make things a little easier on himself. He need not have worried however - Tristan had come through in the end - and Siegfried couldn't have been more proud.

He remembered the afternoon he'd spent with Tristan the day that war had been declared - only weeks before news had arrived that he'd finally passed his vetinary exams. He recalled sitting on the edge of the stone bridge overlooking the little river they'd both walked to in a bid to delay hearing the inevitable for as long as they possibly could. Looking up at his little brother it had hit Siegfried that afternoon just how scared of war he really was - not necessarily for himself, although the subject of his own mortality had never been too far from his thoughts - but he'd realised that this was one evil he couldn't protect Tristan from. Men who had no further knowledge of his little brother than a name on a piece of paper would call him up and tell him that he had to fight. They would not care if he lived or died, and although he could not bring himself to say it Siegfried knew that if he'd lost Tristan he would have been losing the most important person in his life.

Just like being a parent there were no books to teach one how to be a good older brother - especially to a boy who had no father figure left to guide him through the difficult and frequently awkward pitfalls of youth. Everything he had ever done for the child had been based solely upon his own instincts, and the hope that his over-riding desire to do well by his brother would prevent him from making too many mistakes.

Siegfried had been a big brother for most of his life - his methods of moulding Tristan into the fine and upstanding young man he'd always believed he had the potential to be may have at times appeared a little harsh - but he didn't really know how to be anything other, and Tristan had never coped very well with being unwell.

They were in their own way the perfect match for each other, as though God himself had united two souls through blood, realising that they complimented each other as a hand fits a glove. Growing up Siegfried had always felt proud of the fact that he'd been needed, and Tristan had always somehow seemed to require so much looking after. No matter how hard he tried to show his older brother that he could stand on his own two feet and cope alone in the big wide world he always seemed to end up limping home with his tail between his legs in the end. It was one of the reasons why he came down so heavily upon him when he did. All he wanted was to see his little brother succeed, so that he too could hold his head up high and know what it was like to feel a genuine sense of self achievement - but sometimes it seemed as though, through no fault of his own, Tristan was destined to make a mess of everything he tried to accomplish alone. He blundered through life as he had blundered through his youth, never seeming to take too much very seriously and frequently suffering the consequences as a result.

"Sorry Siegfried." He sighed.

"It's alright little brother." Siegfried soothed, taking a moment to examine him carefully from a distance at first, and concerned by his distinctly sluggish gaze. "Shhh, it's alright." He urged again when Tristan's head flopped sideways, and he let out another very weak moan. "Let's get you cleaned up and then see about making you a bit more comfortable, shall we?"

He got down on his knees in front of Tristan, stroking his damp fringe away from his face, and with his own steady and unusually gentle fingers began to prise the younger man's hands away from where they had moved from his head and were now lightly clasped around his leg. Siegfried knew that that would do no good - if it had have still been bleeding the pressure may have helped to stem and slow up the flow - but then if it had have still been bleeding after all this time he couldn't have failed to have noticed it sooner... could he? Then again Tristan had been doing such a good job of hiding his distress all evening that he couldn't be sure.

Tristan resisted at first, the mistrust upon his young face evident as it became apparent just what a state he was in, both physically, but also psychologically, and just how much he feared anything which might run the risk of making the pain any worse. Siegfried had no way of knowing just how much his little brother was hurting, and that was perhaps the hardest thing of all, because how could you possibly put a measure on somebody else's pain?

"Let me take a look... that's it." Siegfried coaxed, doing his best to comfort him as Tristan instinctively reached out a shaky hand to stop him. He prised his brother's trouser leg away from the wound gently, but still Tristan began to whimper and flinched away and grimaced at the searing pain this caused him as layers of sticky, oozing and encrusted blood, which had over a course of hours dried against his torn skin like thick glue, were stripped from the inflamed flesh beneath. Siegfried briefly stopped what he was doing for a moment to give him a chance to compose himself and recover - not wanting to force him into anything before he felt suitably strong enough to cope with it. The dog had quite evidently made quite a mess of his leg.

"Shhh, shhh, take it easy." He whispered, patting his brother on the back. "I promise you Tristan, this will only take a moment."

After a while the younger Farnham finally began to relax a little in Siegfried's arms and entrust himself to his brother's instruction and care, and Siegfried was finally able to resume the slow and steady process. "There's a good fellow... I'm only going to take a look." He assured him, as bit by bit he managed to prise Tristan's trouser leg away from the sticky mass of wounded flesh beneath.

Deidre marvelled at Siegfried's tenderness towards his younger brother. So frequently did he dress him down and tell him off in front of them all that it was quite nice to see just how much he really cared, and how gentle he could be. When he'd finally managed to separate the layer of fabric from the wound, with a careful finger he gently lifted the leg of Tristan's pyjama trousers and reclined his head sideways to take a closer look.

His frown deepened when he saw the extent of his brother's injuries. He had seen many a dog bite in his time - mostly in sheep and other smaller livestock such as chicken's and other poultry. Their instinct was to kill by taking hold of their prey and quite literally shaking the life out of them, it was messy and brutal, and even a dog of a normally quite placid disposition could inflict a nasty bite if provoked or it perceived itself to be threatened. Luckily Tristan's trousers had protected him from the brunt of Timmy's attack, but inevitably the dog had still made quite a mess of the lower half of his brother's leg. The pale flesh was mottled by significant areas of black and purple bruising, Timmy's teeth had gouged a long graze along his calf, just above his ankle, like a huge tyre track, and there were some areas of torn and jagged tissue where his larger canine teeth had actually managed to puncture the flesh.

"Yes, that looks nasty." He acknowledged thoughtfully.

"Deidre," He beckoned her over quietly as he got back on his feet and placed a reassuring hand upon Tristan's shoulder. He felt his brother quiver beneath his gentle touch. "I'd like you to do something for me." He asked, his tone remaining calm but his expression dictating a suitable degree of urgency as was befitting of the situation. He turned his face away from Tristan so that only she could see. "I'd like you to nip next door to Doctor Alanson and tell him to come as soon as possible. Tell him it's an emergency." He advised her.

She nodded.

"Oh and Deidre," He called after her as she turned leave, "when you've done that could you bring me a dressing and a bottle of anti-septic from the consulting room?" He asked her.

"Oh no Siegfried..." Tristan protested, the thought of even so much as a drop of antiseptic going anywhere near the wound making him feel positively sick. Siegfried calmly squeezed his brother's shoulder, upon which his hand was still resting lightly.

Tristan realised that some pain was going to be inevitable. A local anaesthetic was the only way of guaranteeing that he would not feel anything, and he knew that most, if not all of the anaesthetics they kept would not be suitable. He was aware that some of them could even prove fatal if used incorrectly - Siegfried would not risk his brother's life by using even a tiny amount, no matter how much pain he was in.

"Of course Siegfried." She nodded, and hurried from the room.

When she'd gone Siegfried turned his attentions back to his brother. He knelt down beside him again, and seeing the slight rosy hue to his otherwise pale cheeks he put a hand to his warm forehead, nodding with raised eyebrows as his suspicions of a fever were confirmed.

"How are you feeling?" He asked.

"Not good Siegfried." Tristan shook his head miserably. "I don't seem to know whether I'm hot or cold at the moment, I've got the most horrendous headache, and if I'm honest I feel as sick as a dog who's just eaten an entire tin of old Mrs Hall's fruit cake!"

Siegfried nodded, taking a moment to ponder over his brother's ominous list of symptoms. He certainly looked far from well, and although he hadn't said anything about chest pain he was faintly worried about the slight wheeze he could hear on his brother's breath. Siegfried knew that this did not necessarily indicate the beginnings of an infection, or anything else quite so serious - it could just as easily have been an effect of the cold air on his lungs which was making his breathing sound wet - but he couldn't help his concern none the less.

"Yes..." He considered. "Well, that's probably all to be expected. You've almost certainly got the beginnings of a mild chill." He theorised. "When Deidre gets back I'll take your temperature, and we'll have to keep a close eye on you for the next few days to make sure you don't develop pneumonia. Your leg is also very likely to get infected, if it is not already so... you really should have sought medical advice as soon as you got back to the village you know..."

His brow knitted together in a frown as he then lifted his brother's trouser leg once more, and carefully rolled the fabric up to just below his right knee to allow the light of the room to afford him a better look, and to prevent any further direct contact of the fabric with the wound.

"Tristan we've been sitting here for over an hour. Why didn't you say something?" He asked.

"I did!" Tristan exclaimed.

"Tristan you made out it was only a scratch." Siegfried exhaled an incredulous breath. "I mean, surely even you could see that you weren't going to be able to keep this to yourself?"

"I thought I might be able to tend to it." Tristan sighed. "It hurt like hell, but it didn't look so bad when it first happened."

"Honestly Tristan!" Siegfried exclaimed.

Looking down at his own leg again now in the bright iridescent glow of the kitchen - which afforded them both a much better view of the mangled lower limb - Tristan realised that Siegfried was indeed right to be incredulous. The risk of infection would have been just too great if he had have left the leg untreated, even with knowing which anti-biotics they kept in the surgery would have been safe for him to take - and he would still have had to explain away the missing medication to his brother. But he felt the need to justify his lack of judgement, if only so he himself didn't have to feel quite so foolish.

"To be honest I don't know what I was thinking." He confessed, feeling increasingly uncomfortable and making no effort to try and conceal it now that he didn't have to hide the pain anymore. The pain licked at his leg like spiteful tendrils set free from a flame, and as he looked closer he noticed that his ankle had now also started to swell, and had developed something akin to a strangely blue hew. He took his thigh and ankle between his thumb of one hand and the heal of the other and felt the warm area of flesh around the bite mark beneath his fingers, diagnostic of an inflammation and suggestive of the early stages of infection. The injury may have only been a few hours old, but without treatment in that time it had already began to show signs of just how serious it had the potential to become if he had have left it to fester, and how quickly things could turn with animal bites.

The bacteria in the animal's saliva was what made them potentially nasty. Not only did they carry with them the usual risk of all the common array of normal infections associated with an untreated flesh wound, but the warm, moist, and unsanitary conditions of the animals mouth provided the perfect breeding ground for all manner of quite serious diseases and micro-organisms - some of them such as rabies, tetanus, and other bacteria could leas to blood poisoning and prove potentially fatal.

"The real pain didn't start setting in until my ankle started giving out, and by then I'd been wandering the moor for hours." He explained. "I was frozen and exhausted Siegfried, and when I finally did make it back to civilisation Deidre was so concerned and Callum was so angry with me... It wasn't my intention to ruin their evening! I didn't even know they were going to be there!" He insisted.

Siegfried believed him, but as much as he felt sorry for Deidre and Callum they were not very high on his list of priorities at the moment. He marvelled at how foolish his brother had been, wondering what could have possibly prompted him to come to such a ridiculous decision, and to take such a shocking risk with his own health. He was however also surprised by the strength of character he'd displayed in keeping what had happened to himself for so long, which couldn't have been easy given the amount of pain he would have been in, and putting on such an impressive display of normality - so much so that not even Siegfried had noticed that there was anything seriously amiss.

The frustration, born out of his concern, was still bubbling away within him just beneath the surface however, and now that the initial shock of what had happened had started to wear off he was struggling to keep the angry edge out of his tone. But then all he had to do was to look up at his younger brother, take note of his sad and pain filled eyes, his face a picture of absolute abject misery, and he softened. He rested a reassuring hand against his elbow, keeping it there comfortingly for a couple of seconds, before withdrawing it and returning to his gentle inspection of the leg.

"Whatever I do I always seem to end up messing things up..." Tristan sighed, clearly feeling very sorry for himself. "The one thing I am reasonably good at is covering up my mistakes."

He gasped and flinched away as Siegfried's fingers lightly brushed against the surface of a particularly delicate area of the wound. His brother looked up at him with this and as their gaze met the young man noticed that Siegfried's eyes were not just taking in every small detail of the mass of mangled flesh, but were also accessing him for any other sign of illness.

"Sorry." Siegfried apologised softly, moving his hands away but leaning in a little further to better access the damage.

After a moment he asked;

"What were you doing in the Drovers anyway? I would have thought after the day you've had a drink would be the last thing on your mind."

"Well... I was looking for you actually Siegfried..." Tristan explained. "Or James..." He elaborated in response to his brothers questioning gaze. "Somebody to bring me home.

Joe Hepton offered to drop me back at Scaldale, but it was so out of his way that I didn't like to put him to the trouble." He continued to explain. "He dropped me off in the village, but then I realised that without the car there was no quick way of me getting home. I couldn't face the walk so I hoped that I might find someone in the Drovers who would take me the rest of the way."

Siegfried thought about what his brother must have been through throughout all those hours he'd spent stranded up on Daroby Moor, alone, and realised that he couldn't possibly imagine what it must have been like for him. He was already running a fever, but even so he was nowhere near as sick as he would have been by now if old Joe Hepton hadn't come along and found him when he had. Nobody would have missed him until at least dinner time, and it had been another couple of hours after Deidre had taken Tristan home when he and James had finally arrived at the Drovers for a well-earned drink on their way home from work.

By the time any of them would have realised that he was missing they wouldn't even have had the first idea where to begin to look. It would probably have taken them several hours to even think to search the moors, and several more to find him in the dark - that's if they'd have found him at all.

Callum had still been seething of course, and had consumed quite a skinful of alcohol in the hours since which he'd been left alone to brood, and ponder over his own hurt pride. The alcohol had only fuelled his temper, and so whilst James had decided to stay behind to try and calm him down and prise him away from the alluring comforts of drink, as soon as they'd been able to get enough sense out of him to find out what had happened Siegfried's only priority had been to make sure that his younger brother was alright.

"And you came across Deidre and Callum?" He asked.

Tristan nodded.

"By good fortune for me." He sighed. "Not so much for them it seems."

"Callum will come round." Siegfried explained, reaching out and patting him on the knee reassuringly. "He's not one to bare a grudge. He's just frustrated. He and Deidre haven't exactly had the chance to spend a lot of time together since she arrived. Between you and me I don't think things have turned out quite the way he'd hoped."

It was at this precise moment that the two men heard the front door bang again however and after a minute or so Deidre returned, prompting Siegfried to immediately drop the subject - but the expression upon her face seemed to indicate that she suspected that they'd both been talking about her - or more specifically her and Callum - anyway.

The older Farnham brother looked up at the young woman, who still appeared a little distraught, but the tears had now been wiped from her face, and her expression of dejected misery had been replaced by one of concern for Tristan, and just a bear hint of her forced cheer. She placed the glass bottle of antiseptic and a role of gauze which she'd collected from the consulting room down upon the table in front of her, and leant down in front of Siegfried and Tristan.

"I called around at Doctor Alanson's." She explained. "His wife says he'll come as quickly as he can, but he's not at home at the moment I'm afraid. He's out on a call, and with the weather like it currently is she says it'll probably be another couple of hours at least."

Siegfried sighed. The snow was now coming down thick and fast outside - Deidre herself was already covered in a thick dusting of the frozen marshmallow, which was beginning to dissolve across her shoulders and melt into her hairline - and he knew from personal experience that whatever the estimated waiting time was for a home visit given by doctors and vets in this part of the world, it was customary to add at least another couple of hours on to that at this time of the year. Tristan wasn't going to be able to wait that long in his current condition - at the very least he would need something for the pain long before then, and a course of strong anti-biotics, anti-inflamatories, and a tetanus booster to stop the infection from getting any worse. Time was of the essence when dealing with infection, whether it was in an animal or a human, especially when there was an open wound involved – a lifetime working with livestock and farm animals had taught Siegfried that much.

"Well then little brother, let's get you up off this floor shall we and onto the sofa in the living room... Deidre can you help me?" He asked.

"Of course." She nodded.

"I'd rather go to bed Siegfried." Tristan groaned as his brother wrapped one strong arm around his waist, and Deidre took him by his other arm.

"Not until I've had the chance to take a better look at that leg." Siegfried shook his head, putting a gentle hand to his brother's warm forehead again and frowning as he felt the heat of his skin beneath his cool palm. "That bite needs cleaning and dressing at the very least, at worst you might need stitches, but I'm a little concerned about that fever of yours, it may be nothing, but it could be a sign that the infection has already started spreading to the blood."

Tristan cried out as together they hauled him to his feet, allowing Siegfried to take the bulk of his weight as he found himself unable to put his right foot to the ground without it causing bolts of lightening like pain to travel up the full length of his leg.

"There we go." Siegfried coaxed as he helped to steady him. "Now take it easy, there's a good fellow. How're you feeling?"

"A little dizzy." Tristan confessed. "My legs still feel a little unsteady Siegfried... I don't rightly know if I can make it..."

"Nonsense my boy." He assured him. "I've got you, and we're not going far. You'll be much more comfortable on the sofa. Just take it easy, slow and steady. There's no rush. We'll take things one step at a time."

"I'll get the doors for you." Deidre offered, hurrying ahead of them both.

"There's a good girl." Siegfried smiled.