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sieur's wild horses. Instantly intrigued, I explained that I thought the only region with wild
horses was the Camargue.
“Ah, hah !” monsieur cried triumphantly, clearly understanding what I meant. “Then
you must meet my wild horses!”
Without waiting for a response, he fired up the car again and roared off across the
muddy grass towards a large copse.
It was easily visible, even to a newcomer. The bog had standing water in it and was
dead ahead. He launched the car headlong into it, came to a shuddering halt and the engine
abruptly stalled. Looking momentarily confused, his solution (as with every other technic-
al difficulty in this horrific four-wheel drive experience) was to re-start the engine, engage
first gear and slam on the accelerator.
Absolutely no forward progress was made at all, but we did start sinking at an alarm-
ing rate. The tyres just spun round and in no time at all the car was up its wheel arches in
mud. Monsieur doggedly continued, repeating the same fruitless technique and finally fell
silent in his endeavours.
“Can't you do something?” I yelled to Jack, above the whine of the engine.
I turned to Nicole, abandoning all thoughts of preserving Anglo/French relations, and
rapidly explained that as Jack was actually an expert 4x4 driver, he could get us out.
“Stop right now!” she told monsieur .
I'm not sure exactly what was said next, but the upshot was that monsieur abruptly
took his foot off the accelerator, stalled the engine again (his version of the more conven-
tional 'switch off' routine) and glared challengingly at Jack.
Changing seating was always going to be difficult because he had now dug a hole so
deep that it was impossible to open the car doors. They managed to climb over each other
and Jack, politely handing the cushion over to the now sulky monsieur , started the vehicle
and fiddled with some knobs and levers.
When I later asked what their function was, it turned out that they controlled the four-
wheel drive transfer gearbox and the centre differential lock. Silly of me not to have known,
really!
Jack started rocking the car backwards and forwards by alternately engaging forward
and reverse gears. Monsieur , noticing that Jack was not operating the engine at the neces-
sary 5 million revs per minute, took on a smug look, clearly relishing the prospect of his
rival's failure. However, after a short period of patient forward and backward movement,
Jack finally got it out of the swamp and drove to a nice, flat, dryish area.
Back at the wheel and somewhat mollified after his emasculating experience, mon-
sieur was bent on regaining his street-credibility with a further demonstration of his unique
driving skills. But there were simply none to be found. Determined to show us his sodding
horses he lurched forward and within about twenty metres we were stuck in another bog.
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