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  “It’s because the loch iss so deep,” said Para Handy. “They iss going to use it for the diving trials of aal the new submarines built on the Clyde. Bulldog iss the first, but there will be plenty more.

  “They are putting something aboot it aal in the papers, which iss where the Captain hass gone tonight. There iss an Inveraray man who iss quite namely ass a writer, and who does some work for the Gleska Evening News. Captain Morris from the submarine hass gone to have an interview with him, which iss why he wass not able to choin us for a dram.”

  Just at that moment the street door opened and the submarine Captain walked in, flashing more gold braid than Inveraray had seen in many months.

  With him was a man of middle-height, aged about 40, with a high-domed forehead, a receding hairline, and a mild and kindly countenance.

  The submariner looked round the crowded, smokey room and caught sight of Para Handy.

  “Ah,” he said to his companion. “There he is, that’s the chap I was telling you about. I’m sure you’ll be able to get a lot of interesting material from talking to him. He certainly kept me well entertained. He’s a real character, and a bit of a teller of tall tales too, I would think!”

  And, taking the other man by the arm, he pushed his way through the crowd and, reaching the corner table, clapped Para Handy on the shoulder.

  “Captain, here’s somebody I’ve been telling all about you, and he’s very keen to meet you. I’m sure the pair of you will have a lot to talk about!

  “May I introduce Captain Peter MacFarlane — Mr Neil Munro!”

  FACTNOTE

  Certain minor liberties with chronology must be admitted to in this story. Firstly it is unlikely that a submarine of the size hinted at would have been around the Clyde in the years before the First World War; secondly it was not until after that war that submarines were given names. Previously they were identified simply by their Class Letter followed by a numeral.

  The Firth has, however, been closely associated with submarines for almost 100 years. Many were built in the Clyde yards such as Fairfield, Denny, Scott and Beardmore. The deep waters of the sheltered lochs — particularly the Gareloch, Loch Fyne and Loch Long — were ideal for diving trials and the testing of torpedos produced by the huge factory at Fort Matilda, Greenock, which Neil Munro referred to in the original Para Handy story ‘Confidence’.

  Much later, the Americans moved in to Holy Loch and for 30 years this was the European base for the US Nuclear Submarines which were such a crucial element of the NATO deterrent during the cold war. Now the Americans have gone, but Faslane on the Gareloch, and Coulport on Loch Long, serve the United Kingdom submarine fleet in a similar if lower-key capacity.

  The real liberty taken in this tale, of course, is to place Neil Munro himself in it — but the temptation was absolutely irresistible! He must have revisited many times the community which meant so much to him and made such a lasting impression on him and influenced everything he did.

  He was born and brought up in Inveraray and his first job was in the town, working in a lawyer’s office. At the age of 18 he left for Glasgow, to lay the foundation of his future career as a working journalist and a talented novelist seen by many critics at the time as the natural inheritor of the mantle of Robert Louis Stevenson.

  The chronicle of the gradual public indifference to his serious writing, and the rapid growth in their esteem and affection for works which he saw as slight and ephemeral, is well known. The tales of puffer skipper Para Handy, of waiter/beadle Erchie MacPherson and of commercial traveller Jimmy Swan, were all written for his regular columns in the Glasgow Evening News. And written anonymously for he did not wish to tarnish with trivia his reputation as a novelist of significance.

  The real strength of his short stories, and the reason for their undiminished popularity, is that as well as being both highly amusing and beautifully crafted, they bring to life the people, places and pleasures of a long-lost world.

  2

  The Marriage at Canna

  It was a Friday evening in July and the Vital Spark, on one of her rare sorties beyond the Firth, lay alongside the inner arm of a Skye pier which she was visiting for the first time.

  An atmosphere of lethargy appropriate to the hottest day of the summer was evident not just in the village but particularly on board the puffer. Macphail thumbed the pages of a new romance with little enthusiasm, his eyelids heavy and his head nodding with the effort of staying awake. Sunny Jim sprawled across the tarpaulin covering the hatchway of the hold, sound asleep and spasmodically producing a staccato series of loud snorts to Para Handy’s considerable annoyance.

  The only cloud on the crew’s horizon was that they had just returned from the local Inn and now faced a dry weekend, having spent their last coppers on a small canister of beer. With little prospect of more where that came from.

  It had been a bad week for the puffer. More accurately, it had been a very bad week for her owner — but a splendid one for the crew — and all because of a partly-deaf clerk in the main Post Office in Glasgow.

  The previous Monday, after shedding a cargo of coals at Crarae, Para Handy had gone ashore to telegraph the owner’s Broomielaw office for instructions. Two hours later the postmaster’s son appeared on the quayside with the reply. “My Chove,” said Para Handy as he perused the familiar yellow form,. “it’s foreign perts for us, boys.”

  What the telegram should have said was “Proceed Immediately To Ormidale To Load Pit Props”.

  What it actually said (thanks to the aforementioned clerk’s hearing difficulties) was “Proceed Immediately To Armadale…”

  Thus the Vital Spark lay at a Skye pier two days steaming from Loch Riddon on the Kyles where her cargo awaited. Her owner’s language on receipt of Para Handy’s telegram complaining that nobody at Armadale had ever heard of the puffer or her pit props is best left to the imagination.

  However, as a man of some resource (or more accurately a man unwilling to see the costs incurred in getting the puffer to Skye becoming a total loss) he had told the skipper to wait for further instructions and was now hunting the Highlands and Islands for a cargo she could profitably bring back to the Clyde, while the crew enjoyed an unexpected holiday.

  His most recent telegram had promised a decision about their next move on Monday morning, with money wired then too; but since that was a promise that neither the innkeeper nor the grocer at Armadale regarded as adequate collateral for ‘tick’, the crew faced a thirsty and hungry weekend.

  “There’s no food on board save yon barrel of salt herrin’ from Campbeltown,” Para Handy complained to the mate. “And nothin’ to quench the thirst it gi’es ye except tea. Tea!” And he gave a shudder of distaste.

  At that point came a discreet cough from the quayside and, turning, Para Handy was surprised to see a handful of men with the innkeeper at their head. “Captain,” said this worthy, “we hae some business tae propose. May we come aboard?”

  “Man, Dougie,” said Para Handy early next morning, “this iss the life, eh?” The Vital Spark was an hour out from Armadale heading west into the Cuillin Sound. The sun shone on a bright blue sea, the puffer’s deck was crowded with a throng of smartly dressed men, women and children — all in holiday mood.

  “This iss what she wass built for,” he enthused, beaming with pride. “The Vital Spark wass never meant to cairry coals an’ stane an’ sichlike ass if she wass a common gabbart. People iss oor merket — passengers! MacBrayne himsel’ would be prood to have her in his fleet if he could see her noo!”

  He leaned from the wheelhouse to gaze fondly at the colourful pageant below. A gaggle of children played a boisterous game of tag despite the protests of anxious mothers, and young couples promenaded arm-in-arm. A huddle of men in shiny blue and brown suits passed a bottle surreptitiously from hand-to-hand, with a wary eye on the hatch where their prim womenfolk sat silently knitting. Perched at the very point of the bows, Sunny Jim was obliging with a virtuoso performa
nce on the melodeon.

  The innkeeper’s ‘business proposition’ had been simple. There was a wedding on Canna, one of the small islands to the south of Skye, on Saturday: his own son was marrying one of the island girls. The Armadale men had never seen eye-to-eye with the men from Canna till now: here was a fine chance to heal old wounds.

  But the Mallaig fishing smack which had been booked to ferry the wedding party to and from Canna was late getting back from the herring-grounds thanks to the calm and windless weather. If the Vital Spark didn’t come to their aid there would be no wedding. Of course, there would be a generous whip-round for the crew and in the meantime drinks would be ‘on the house’ at the Armadale Inn.

  “If she chust had another lum sure you would tak’ her for the Grenadier,” enthused the captain. “I wish we’d room for wan of they Cherman Bands. At least we’ve got Jum’s melodeon — but I’m vexed we cannae gi’ e them a cup of tea.”

  “It’s no tea they’re wantin’,” cried a cheerless voice from the engine-room below. “When did ye ever see a Skye man wi’ a cup in his haunds? Ah’m tellin’ you Para Handy, ye’ll be gey sorry aboot this trup afore it’s over, wait and see, there’s troubles tae come.”

  “Chust keep stokin’, Macphail, and leave dealin’ wi’ passengers to them that ken what they’re at,” said the skipper with some exasperation. “You’re nothin’ but a right misery!”

  And indeed so it seemed. They tied up alongside Canna’s jetty just three hours out of Armadale after a crossing as calm as if they were sailing a millpond. The crew were invited to join the wedding party at the hall after the nuptials in the little church. There was an accordion band, and two pipers, pretty girls a-plenty, tables groaning with the weight of the food on them and a most astonishing quantity of whisky from the illicit stills for which the island was notorious.

  “Man, Jum,” said Para Handy as he reached out for another glass later that evening, “this Canna iss some place for high jinks!”

  Even the morose Macphail had come out of his shell and was in animated argument with the bride’s father — himself a retired engineer. Dougie had been coaxed onto the floor for a polka by the bolder of the two bridesmaids.

  The shattering of the idyll began a couple of hours before their planned departure for Armadale, when Para Handy stepped out for a breath of air. Behind him the jollification was ever more raucous and the first casualties of the bride’s father’s hospitality were to be seen, propped up in various stages of inebriation against the dyke which surrounded the hall.

  The first warning of impending doom came when the skipper felt a fresh westerly wind on his face and saw, looming over the horizon, a growing mantle of ominously dark cloud. He returned to the wedding-party to give Dougie the bad news and see if the Armadale folk could be persuaded to leave sooner than planned.

  It was too late.

  Afterwards nobody could say what had happened, nobody was aware of hearing the first harsh word or seeing the first blow, but when Para Handy got back to the hall battle had been joined with a will and now the bride’s and bridegroom’s friends and relations were trading insults and punches. The women and children of Canna fled to the adjacent church, those from Armadale headed for the jetty.

  Not even the puffer’s crew could escape involvement in that general melee.

  “You’re to blame, bringin’ godless Armadale men here at all!” cried the bride’s father to Macphail, loosing a haymaker which that worthy luckily side-stepped. Two sidesmen frogmarched Para Handy to the doorway and threw him out with threats of horrible vengeance if he ever returned. Sunny Jim ran for the boat as if the hounds of hell were at his heels, but the slower mate was caught by the brothers of the girl he had been dancing with and given a very undeserved black eye.

  From the comparative safety of the deck of the Vital Spark they eventually watched in disbelief as the Armadale men were forced to fight their way to the pier and back on board.

  “My Cot,” exclaimed the skipper, as the warps were loosed and the puffer moved out of the harbour. “Cross Canna off the charts boys. We never daur put in there again! Thank the Lord that’s over.”

  Something almost as bad was still to come, however. The calm water of their outward journey was now a sea of white horses and with a rising wind dead astern the puffer, riding light, was tossed hither and thither uncontrollably as a cork. In the late evening light the deck began to look like a battlefield, strewn with moaning, whey-faced bodies as the relentless pitching and tossing took its toll.

  “You and your bluidy passengers,” protested Macphail from the engine-room. “D’ye see the state of this boat! She’ll hae tae be hosed doon when we get tae port!”

  Armadale was a ghost town on Sunday, a dead, deserted community on which the combined effects of over-indulgence and mal-de-mer wreaked dreadful havoc. The crew of the Vital Spark passed most of the day in the fo’c’sle, snapping at each other, reading old newspapers, or indulging in desultory games of cribbage or whist.

  “I’m tellin’ you it’s me’ll be glad to see the back of this place the morn,” said the skipper. “Islands! I’ve had enough of them to last a lifetime. It’s the Clyde for me from now on.”

  Following an early night — there was nothing else to do — the crew were up sharp on Monday and waited with anxiety to hear from the owner.

  The telegram arrived just after nine and Para Handy eagerly tore open the flimsy envelope. His mouth dropped open in horror.

  “Have we no’ got a cargo, then?” asked Dougie anxiously.

  “Oh, he’s got us a cargo all right,” said the captain. “A cargo of sand. From Canna!”

  FACTNOTE

  Armadale remains the terminal for the southernmost ferry crossing to Skye, from Mallaig at the terminus of the famed West Highland Railway Line. Run by CalMac, the route offers a vehicle ferry in summer, with a smaller vessel providing a passenger-only service over the winter months.

  Of the four inhabited islands which lie between Skye and the Ardnamurchan peninsula, Canna is the most westerly. Rum, with its Victorian ‘castle’ of Kinloch, huge and mountainous and now run as nature reserve, is the best known. Smaller Eigg and tiny Muck lie south of Rum. Properly known collectively as ‘The Small Isles’ they are often (for obvious reasons!) irreverently referred to as ‘The Cocktail Isles.’

  Poetic licence has been taken in order to allow the wedding to be located on Canna. The island has the finest harbour of any of the Small Isles, and is a green and fertile spot, but even in Para Handy’s day the population was too small to sustain the sort of spree which the story suggests. Things would have been different just 50 years previously, when the island peaked at a population of almost 400. However within two generations that figure had plummeted to less than 100.

  Whether there were many illicit stills on Canna in years gone by, I do not know. But there were stills a-plenty throughout many parts of the Highlands well into the twentieth century and there may be a few in business yet! My first paid employment, in my student days in the late 1950s, was as a waiter in a (then) very well-reputed hotel in Wester Ross. The allocation of the weekly days-off for individual members of the dining-room staff hinged on the needs of the one permanent, year-round waiter — a local — to attend to the still which he ‘ran’ (if that’s the word!) in the hills above the village. By custom and usage, he always had first choice for his day off, so that the still was properly cared for as and when the need arose.

  Occasionally, too, puffers really did have the chance to carry large numbers of deck-passengers — though this was never in accordance with the rules or with the approval of the relevant authorities! At the time of the ‘strike’ against the resort of Millport on the island of Cumbrae by the Clyde steamer fleets in early July 1906, the puffers Craigielea and Elizabeth each carried about 100 residents and holidaymakers across to the island from Largs. The reasons for the boycott (reaction to demands for heftily-increased pier charges at Millport) are too complex to go into here
, but the whole story is well chronicled in Alan Paterson’s seminal Golden Years of the Clyde Steamers (David & Charles, 1979).

  3

  The Race for the Pier

  I was strolling along Princes Pier at Greenock, waiting for the arrival of the Dunoon steamer, when I noticed a familiar figure seated on a bollard, attempting to light a clay pipe with an expression of great concentration.

  “Home is the sailor, home from sea, eh, Captain? But where is the Vital Spark berthed today?” I asked, for there was indeed no sign of the puffer anywhere on the long frontage of the pier.

  “Well, she’s no chust exactly berthed,” said Para Handy. “She’s on Ross & Marshall’s slupway gettin’ her shaft replaced. We kind of blew the main bearin’ off Bute last week and had to get a tow home.”

  “Not by any chance from the King Edward?” I asked.

  The captain’s face reddened. “Aye, chust that,” he said, and resumed his efforts to get his pipe to light.

  “I should have guessed when I heard about it that it was likely to be the Vital Spark that was involved,” I said. “You’d better tell me exactly what happened, Captain. There’s some very strange stories going about Glasgow, and this could be your chance to put the record straight.”

  Para Handy sighed. “Aye, I heard it wass aal the talk o’ the steamie, as ye might say. But none o’ it wass by any streetch of the imagination the fault of the shup. If Dougie wass here he would tell ye himself.

  “This wass the way o’ it,” he said, returning the stubborn pipe to the pocket of his pea-jacket. “I’ll no’ devagate wan single iota from the facts and maybe ye’ll can pit it in the papers and clear the good name o’ the Vital Spark. I’m vexed that such a namely boat should be reduced to nothin’ but a laughin’ stock for the longshoremen. It wass no laughin’ matter for us at the time, I can tell ye.

  “We had been to Skipness wi’ a cargo of whunstone, and wass headed back to Bowling in ballast when chust off Garroch Head, at the sooth corner o’ Bute, there wass this most monstrous crunchin’ sound in the enchine-room and then chust silence, and we started to druft.