Free A Drake at the Door by Derek Tangye Page B

prove irresistible. I was at a beginning that had no banners to welcome me. I had no feeling of faith, as I watched, that what I was doing, what I was prepared to gamble, what indeed were my secret hopes . . . that any of these things were justified. I was being driven by a force that did not belong to me, which I distrusted, yet obeyed.
    I watched the crawler fail, and had this stupid, maddening premonition that it was the symbol of my own failure. I was trying to be too big, entering a realm in which my nature did not belong; as if I were thrusting myself on a social scene which did not intend to receive me. I was taking on the outward appearance of a go-getter without possessing the inward equipment, the standard of ruthlessness, the lack of sentiment, the greed masquerading in the guise of efficiency. I was trying to play a role for which I had no heart and to adopt characteristics which I had escaped to Minack to avoid. I felt frightened of myself on that unfriendly November afternoon. Yet I had to make a decision.
    I bought the second tractor; and Geoffrey was as pleased as I was doubtful. It was an odd-looking machine, the diesel engine was behind the driving seat and the instruments were placed in the centre between the four wheels. These instruments, the plough, for instance, were controlled by hydraulic lifts with levers fixed to the steering-wheel column for the use of the driver. Thus, if you were ploughing, you unhitched a lever and the plough dropped to the ground and off it went turning its furrow as soon as you put the tractor in gear. Then you pulled the lever in the opposite direction and up came the plough clear of the ground. This system had for us great advantages. The driver could watch the plough at work below him, and so had an admirable chance to nose the plough without mishap over the numerous rocks which hid just beneath the surface of the soil. But there were rocks above the ground, and the steepness of the meadows; and from the beginning I was scared by the devil-may-care attitude that Geoffrey adopted to these hazards.
    ‘For heaven’s sake, Jeannie,’ I would shout, ‘look at Geoffrey!’ And Geoffrey would be careering over one of the larger meadows as if the tractor were a racing car.
    Indeed from the beginning Geoffrey behaved to the tractor as if it were his own. He was for ever polishing, oiling, greasing, testing the tyres, and taking it out of the shelter where it was kept on any pretext he could devise. It was his toy, and I was not allowed to interfere.
    ‘What are you doing this morning, Geoffrey?’
    ‘Ploughing the sol meadow.’
    I was stimulated to find him so keen. I was also apprehensive.
    ‘Be careful.’
    I was apprehensive not only because he drove the tractor fast, but also because he seemed to have no fear in its handling. He would, for instance, be ready to plough a steep meadow
uphill;
and the engine being at the rear, the tractor was then poised to turn turtle. I used often to help balance the tractor on these occasions by sitting above the front wheels, thus countering the weight of the engine. But if I were not there Geoffrey would still pursue his self-appointed task; and then I would catch him by surprise, the noise of the engine hiding my arrival, and I would find him reaching the top of a meadow, clutching the steering wheel, and the front wheels of the tractor an inch or so free of the ground they were travelling over. Daylight between wheels and soil. Plough still in its furrow. A sight which suggested that at any instant there could be a tragedy.
    ‘Geoffrey!’ I would shout above the rumble of the diesel, ‘don’t you realise the risk you’re taking?’
    He did not want to realise. He was having fun out of the challenge he was creating; he was covering with a tractor the same kind of ground which he used to dig with a shovel, so had he not got something to prove? He was securing a victory over tradition. He would have something to boast about.
    ‘You