Death - Combine Harvester

Half a dozen pairs of eyes followed the Combination Harvester up the field, stared while it was turned around on the headland, watched it come back again.

It clicked past, reciprocating and oscillating.

At the bottom of the field it turned around neatly.

It whirred by again.

After a while one of the watchers said, gloomily, "It'll never catch on, you mark my words."

"Right enough. Who's going to want a gadget like that?" said another.

"Sure and it's only like a big clock. Can't do anything more than go up and down a field -"

"- very fast -"

"- cutting the corn like that and stripping the grain off -"

"It's done three rows already."

"Bugger me!"

"You can't hardly see the bits move! What do you think of that, Bill? Bill?"

They looked around.

He was halfway up his second row, but accelerating.

***

Miss Flitworth opened the door a fraction.

"Yes?" she said, suspiciously.

"It's Bill Door, Miss FIitworth. We've brought him home."

She opened the door wider.

"What happened to him?"

The two men shuffled in awkwardly, trying to support a figure a foot taller than they were. It raised its head and squinted muzzily at Miss Flitworth.

Duke Bottomley.

"He's a devil for working," said William.

"Don't know what come over him," said Spigot. 'You're getting your money's worth out of him all right, Miss Flitworth."

"It'll be the first time, then, in these parts," she said sourly.

"Up and down the field like a madman, trying to better that contraption of Ned Simnel's. Took four of us to do the binding. He nearly beat it, too."

***

Reaper Man p233-234