The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna [22]
But the driver forced his vehicle ever deeper: the water rose to the engine top, the winch went under, and soon a wave was swilling over the hood. The machine went even deeper, the water swirled around the driver’s buttocks, and simultaneously the engine slurped water inside. It coughed to a banging halt. The bulldozer was marooned a hundred yards from the shore.
The people on the shore watched in horror. The driver now turned in his seat, slowly got to his feet, his trousers dripping, and then sat on the floor of the cab. He turned shoreward and after a pause shouted in a voice that carried: “Shut your mouths yet, have you?”
The women were whispering to each other: “Must be lack of sleep. It’s driven him over the edge.”
The firefighters let rip: “Damn you! You’ve ruined the soup!”
The man replied calmly: “Did get spilled, I guess.”
“Swim back now!” they shouted at him.
But he didn’t attempt it. Instead, he climbed onto the steel hood, the only part still above water. He leaned against the exhaust pipe, took off his boots, and poured water into the lake.
Someone who knew told the others he couldn’t swim.
There was no boat. They’d have to build a raft to get him off. The men with mechanical saws cursed: they were dead tired from their nights without sleep at the firebreak; now they were supposed to start making a raft to rescue a lunatic bulldozer driver sitting on his hood in the middle of a lake.
“Come on! What about a raft!” came a shout from the lake.
“Quit yelling. We will if we feel like it.”
The men conferred. One said that morning would be time enough. Sitting out there overnight would teach him a lesson.
They decided to make coffee before beginning work. When the driver saw no one was making a start, he went berserk: threats howled across the calm water. Finally, he yelled: “Just wait. The minute I’m back, you’ll get what’s coming to you.”
“Raving mad,” they decided.
He got more and more agitated, hammering the metal hood with his fists. The banging carried across the lake to the far shore and sent the waterbirds flocking into the air and sliding into the reeds.
All the same, the men gradually put together a sort of raft—they bound logs together with rope, hewed a pole—but then retired on the lakeside bank to think about sleep. No one was in the mood to set out and rescue a raving driver.
He was still howling from the hood of his bulldozer: “Just wait! First one I get hold of, I’ll flatten him out in the bog!”
They pondered what to do. Poling out, on a make-shift raft, to fetch a rather hefty near-homicidal maniac who’d gone several days without sleep, had no appeal for anyone. They’d fetch him off his machine in the morning, they decided; by then he might have calmed down a bit.
All night long, the driver stormed on the lake. He yelled and yelled, though no one answered, till his voice became a croak. He kicked the bulldozer’s headlights to smithereens. He twisted the exhaust pipe off and threw the heavy metal object at the shore, which fortunately it didn’t reach. Not till the early morning hours did he begin to tire; as dawn approached, he snatched a couple of hours’ sleep, belly-down on the hood.
At morning coffee time, people began stirring, and the sounds woke the man on the bulldozer. He began roaring again, slipped off his machine, and flopped into the water.
That brought things to life. The man was splashing around by his machine, yelling in terror. Sliding the raft into the water, Vatanen and another man started frantically poling it toward the bulldozer. The driver was making vain clutchings to climb onto his engine, but his hands slipped on the wet metal, and each time he fell back he went under and got more water in his lungs. His struggles became feebler and feebler, and finally he went completely under, floating facedown, only his spine poking up through his wet shirt.
Vatanen had managed to pole the raft to the precise spot; the two men hauled the driver aboard and turned his limp body on its side. Vatanen lifted the man’s waist, letting water and mud flow from his mouth.