3. Care and Maintenance

“Operating the Tractor

TWICE DAILY BEFORE STARTING THE TRACTOR

In the morning and after dinner, the following operations must be carried out, with the engine stopped and the tractor standing level (full details of each of these operations will be found under its proper section):-

1. See that the radiator is full of soft clean water. Do not remove the pressure cap, if fitted, until the engine has cooled down.

2. See that the engine is filled to the F mark on the dipstick. If it is necessary to add oil, use a good grade of S.A.E. 30 viscosity in Winter and SAE 40 viscosity in Summer. See page 3 for oil to be used in climates having extremely hot or cold temperatures.”

INSTRUCTION MANUAL OF THE FORDSON MAJOR TRACTOR

When the war ended and the Americans left the island, Our Granny knew that our future prosperity depended on the health of The Tractor so she established the Guardians to care for it, under the command of her own son, Manaku Apu. Their organisation was modelled on that of the American Army and he was given the rank of Captain.

There is no record of what her original instructions to him were but the duties of the Guardians have always been a combination of the care and maintenance of The Tractor and its physical defence. The daily routine of the Guardian corps is a mixture of mechanical tasks, checking tyres, oil and water, recording hours used and ensuring that the cans of fuel taken to the fields are brightly polished. During the day they also clean and oil the armoury and they are, at least in theory, all experts in the use of the rifles.

Over the years, the balance between these various duties has varied. For many years, the need to defend The Tractor physically was not given much importance. Until the dispute with the Truth Foundation, most of the Guardians paid little attention to their military role and interest in the rifles tended to be limited to a few enthusiasts who used them to hunt wild pigs in the north island swamps.

Becoming a guardian with access to the best food, housing and women on the island has been an aspiration for young boys from the beginning. The tough time at the beginning of a Guardian career is well rewarded later when it is the turn of the senior members to send newcomers out into the forest to gather worms and crawl though swamps all night and then to carry tools and heavy burdens during the day. The hierarchy is strict and it takes many months before the junior guardian is allowed to approach The Tractor and many years before he is allowed to use even a screwdriver.

As you can imagine, this strictness internally is reflected externally by the attitude of the guardians to the rest of the population of the island. Litter is sternly disapproved of and Troopers (as the junior ranks are known) can sometimes be somewhat arbitrary in dealing with the general population.

Another side effect of this is that conservatism as well as conservation pervades the organisation and they are sometimes reluctant to take new approaches in dealing with problems. They are exceptionally good at the routine and regular tasks of maintenance, eagerly undertaking the daily tasks of oiling and greasing, polishing, fuelling and so on. In an unfamiliar situation, however, it sometimes takes time to resolve a new problem.

On one occasion, the Tractor was ill, coughing and spluttering, weakened to the point that it was almost unable to plough and even sometimes stopping altogether and unwilling to start. Langanipa, a young (at that time), and therefore junior, mechanic watched as the older men tried all the routines they knew. They added fuel, changed the oil, air filter and tyres, cleaned the spark plugs and warmed the carburettor with a blow lamp but to no avail.

While he helped the senior mechanics, carrying oil and materials as he was told, he noticed a discoloration in the fuel line. To him, it was clear that this was dirt and sediment that would interfere with the flow of fuel and he asked for permission to speak. This was denied. He tried to explain his thoughts but the older men refused to listen to him so that, after several days, he was completely frustrated.

That night, while the senior men were in a meeting reviewing procedures and conferring with the readers of the Books, he went out to the tractor and, without permission, disconnected and flushed out the fuel line. Just as he completed the reassembly, he was caught in the act and arrested.

The fact that the problems with The Tractor were solved and that it now operated perfectly made no difference. He was disciplined severely with a week on short rations and extra menial duties and not allowed to go near The Tractor again for many months. Even though, when he was subsequently returned to Tractor duties, he proved to be one of the most able of the mechanics, his lapse has never been forgiven him. Langanipa remains a junior mechanic. He is consulted when difficult problems arise, but credit for his solutions always seems to end elsewhere.

The Guardians have always had to keep a record of the hours worked by The Tractor for the purposes of scheduling maintenance operations. At the start this was a fairly simple process, involving noting each day whether The Tractor had been used in the morning and in the afternoon. Over time, however, the recording has become progressively more detailed so that a modern log entry will occupy more than a page for each work session, with the time work started and ended, details of the work done, classified by type of activity and an account of any incidents or significant occurrences. A complete record is kept of the weather and the names of any Guardians who operated, serviced or approached the machine.

Maintenance scheduling is carried out on a long and short term basis so that, in addition to the prescribed daily routines, at each prescribed interval of operating hours, The Tractor is taken out of service and the maintenance operations described in the operating manual are meticulously carried out. If an oil change is required, the precise quantity needed is issued from the stores and the amount is measured again before it is poured into the filler pipe.

Much of this rigour results from the personality of Manaku Apu and his relationship to Our Granny. He was a very precise and authoritative man who would brook no deviation from his orders. His word was law among the Guardians and his officers and subordinates behaved in the same way. People were prepared to accept this because the Guardians had a direct link to Our Granny.

It was made clear that, if anyone fell foul of the Guardians, the full weight of Her anger would descend on them. Not that it was ever necessary: the Guardians were quite capable of enforcement on their own. The Troopers experience a stern discipline in which deviation is severely punished and they are more than ready to share it with others who cross their paths.

In general, this is very positive as people know that they must behave themselves. A person in the village caught stealing a chicken, for example, knows exactly what to expect if they get caught. Very few chickens are stolen in our village.

Occasionally, of course, this can go too far and that is very unfortunate. Drinking too much corn liquor is one of the persistent problems in the village. Some of the men who used to spend their time hunting find themselves with more time on their hands now that fields have replaced so much of the forest and they have a particular tendency to this vice. One of them made the mistake while drunk of arguing with some passing Troopers and, to cut a long story short, he died later that night of a ruptured spleen.

His family were very upset, especially as he was a very skilled hunter and normally a very quiet and peaceful person. They complained to the Head Guardian (this was after the death of Manaku Apu but the ethos of the Guardians has not changed). They were told that his wound was essentially self inflicted and that, in any case, he could not be brought back to life.

The Guardians sometimes come over and try to visit the Book Room. Officially this has not been permitted since that time that two young Troopers disagreed over one of the American magazines and a picture of Mae West was destroyed in the resulting fracas. It is, however, quite difficult to refuse them entry if they do turn up and the process for complaining about anything they do is, as one would expect, very complex.

Usually they do not cause any trouble and since the magazines have been locked away so that no-one except the Head Reader would be able to give them access, even these unofficial visits have become less frequent. A negative aspect of this is that their attitude to the Books has, if that is possible become even more dismissive.

I once attended a meeting between the Head Reader and the Guardians to present the translation of a passage on crop rotation.

“So. You say that the Books speak of rotating corn, beans and clover.” The Troop Lieutenant leading the Guardian contingent said. “Do we know any of these alternative crops?”

“The point is a more general one, I think.” The Chief Reader replied cautiously.

“Generalities are not what we require.” The Lieutenant was unimpressed. “If you have something to tell us about what to plant, then say so. You always come up with obscure and useless irrelevancies when what we need are facts.”

“The point is,” the Chief Reader answered patiently, “That this particular Book relates to a state called the Midwest where the crops they mention would thrive. We need to understand what the equivalent crops are for our climate and our fields.”

“Well as long as you don’t understand that, I do not think you should disrupt our important work with irrelevant and pointless meetings.”

The meeting came to an unsatisfactory conclusion, without the planting tests the Readers had hoped for. Of course, as yields decreased, something eventually had to be done. Over a period of years, the necessary experiments were carried out on a small scale and a satisfactory rotation of ground nuts, corn and pineapples was arrived at. The relationship between the Guardians and the Readers, with their different objectives and points of view will never be entirely smooth but, sicne each depends so much on the other, I am sure that they will always find a way to get along.