Complete New Tales of Para Handy Page 3

  “Macphail came burstin’ out o’ his cubby like a thing possessed and it iss chust typical o’ the man that he tried to blame me for the breakdoon.

  “ ‘Ah’ve telt ye for years,’ he shouted, ‘Years! And ye’ve never paid a blind bit o’ heed tae me, naw, nor spent a penny on the engines and noo ye see the result! Ah’ve worked ma fingers tae the bone tae keep yon antiquated tangle o’ scrap-iron turnin’ ower, wi’ nae thanks for it. But this time yer chickens is come hame tae roost for she’s feenished, feenished. Yon’s the shaft gone and since it cam’ oot o’ Noey’s Erk in the first place ye’ll no’ find a machine shop tae fix it. It’s the breakers’ yerd for the shup, and the scrap heap for us!’

  “ ‘My Chove, Macphail,’ says I, quite dignified, ‘that’s quite a speech for you: but maybe you’ll stert thinkin’ about what we can do to stop her goin’ ashore, and leave the highsterix till we’ve more time for them.’

  “And sure enough, what wi’ the southerly wind and the floodin’ tide we wass setting quite fast onto the Head, her bein’ light, and things wass lookin’ pretty bleak.

  “Macphail retired below to nurse his feelin’s — there wassn’t a lot he could do to nurse the enchines — and Dougie and Jum got the lashin’s off the punt so that we would be ready for the worst if it came to it. I wass near greetin’ mysel’, I’ll admit it. This looked like a terrible end for the smertest boat on the Firth, and her wi’ a brand new gold bead on her paid for out o’ my own pocket chust last week.

  “Suddenly there was a roarin’ noise astern like aal the steam whustles on the Clyde goin’ off at the wan time, and when we aal recovered oor composure and turned to look, what wass it but the King Edward, inward-bound from Campbeltown, and closin’ doon on us like a bat out o’ hell.

  “ ‘Puffer ahoy!’ came a megaphone from a young officer on the brudge, a real toff by the sound o’ him, ‘are you in some sort o’ trouble?’

  “The upshot o’ it all wass that in chust a matter of three or fower meenits the Edward had thrown us a line and sterted to pull us safely awa’ from the Head.

  “ ‘We’ll give you a tow into Kilchattan Bay,’ called the toff on the brudge, ‘We’re putting in there to pick up an excursion party but we can’t take you any further up the Firth because we’ll have to slow right down to tow you safely, and we can’t afford that sort of delay in arriving at Gourock.’

  “And off we went at a very douce eight knots or so which to the folk on the steamer must have seemed ass if they wass standing still.

  “Well, it’s me wass the mighty relieved man I can tell you, for though the owner wouldna be right pleased at havin’ to pay for a tug to come doon and fetch us up the river, at least it wass better than the shup broken to bits on Garroch Head: and he’d have to do somethin’ aboot the enchines at last.

  “So I wass even beginnin’ to think the breakdoon might be a blessing in disguise, when we heard another great blatterin’ o’ whustle blasts astern. Comin’ up on us very fast indeed wass the King Edward’s great rival, the Duchess of Fife, on her way hame from Brodick, the beat o’ her paddles like chungle drums and the crowds linin’ her rails to cheer as she swept past the turbine steamer ass if she had been lyin’ at anchor.

  “The paddler’s Captain wass out on the wing o’ the brudge and he doffed his kep and bowed very courteous-like to Captain Wulliamson in the wheelhouse of the Edward as he went by, but when he put it back on he waved very mockin’, and blasted oot a sarcastic toot-toot-toot on the steam whustle.

  “Even from the deck o’ the Vital Spark two chains astern, you could hear the murmur of anger goin’ up from the truppers on the King Edward, and I saw Captain Wulliamson come runnin’ oot to the enchine-room telegraph on the starboard wing: it wass plain he wassna in good trum at aal. Next thing I could hear the shrill bell of it clanging furiously ass he rang loud and long down to the boys in the enchine-room.

  “Ass you know the Edward hass three propellers aal druven by this new-fangled turbine enchine, and she hass aal the go of a greyhound. Wulliamson had called for emergency full speed ahead and she near enough lifted her bows out of the watter as she took off after the paddler.

  “The trouble wass, of course, that she near pulled the bows of the puffer under the watter ass soon ass the tow rope tightened — which it did so fast I feared it wud snap: and I could wish it had, for I thocht every last wan o’ the next fufteen minutes wud be my next. If Dougie wass here he would tell you himself.”

  I nodded: “The laws of physics, Captain,” I said. “If I remember aright, any smaller vessel towed at speed by a significantly larger one is liable to be dragged under by the downward distortion of its normal centre of static gravity caused by the stress momentum associated with any uncompensated horizontal acceleration …”

  I am glad to say that the Captain looked unimpressed by this explanation.

  “Whateffer you say yourself,” he said at length. “But we were near sinking and the bows wass gettin’ lower and lower in the watter as the King Edward went even faster. Things wass lookin’ black for the shup! Wulliamson had completely forgot we wass there at aal, and we had nothin’ which we could cut the steel hawser he wass towin’ us wi’ and no’ way o’ sluppin’ it.”

  “So Captain Williamson just couldn’t resist the challenge to the turbine’s reputation?” I asked.

  “It wassn’t chust that,” said Para Handy. “He knew fine that the Duchess of Fife was making for Kilchattan Bay chust like himself, and if she got there first she’d lift Wulliamson’s excursion perty, and leave the Edward sadly oot o’ pocket. So they were both hell bent on gettin’ the first berth at the pier, and each had a man on the brudge keepin’ a close lookout on the pierhead semaphore boards to see which o’ the two the piermaster wass givin’ the right o’ way to — the Duchess of Fife in the offshore poseetion, or King Edward inshore of her.

  “Wan o’ these days there’ll be a colleeshun, the way they boats iss aye racing to the piers. But aal I wass worried about wass what wass likely to happen to the Vital Spark, and I had chust wan way of remindin’ Williamson that we wass there, so I hauled doon on the steam-whustle and held it wide open. But we wass chust like the banshee howlin’ in the wilderness, as it says in the Scruptures, for Wulliamson neffer heard a thing but kept the steamer flat out for the pier, an’ by now the sea wass running green over our bows.

  “It wass the piermaster at Kilchattan Bay who saved us, for ass the two steamers rounded the point and lined up for the pier he must have realised that there wass effery likelihood of a real smesh, and so he closed up both their semaphores and brought in the old Texa instead as she came limpin’ in from Glasgow on her cargo run to Loch Fyne.

  “Mercifully Wulliamson’s eyes were better than hiss ears and he bided by the piermaster’s instruction. It’s us were the happy men when we saw the way come off her, and our own bow liftin’ above the watter again ass the tow-line slacked off. But it wass a near thing.

  “Ass it wass, both steamers were late on their run home for by the time the Texa had finished unloading they were sadly behind their schedules, and I’m told both Captains got a reprimand from the owners efter passengers had complained aboot the delay — and the piermaster had protested aboot the race.

  “But — for all the pierhead gossip I hear aboot — it wass not the blame off the Vital Spark. How could it be?”

  I shook my head sadly.

  “You’ve obviously not heard the full version of the story as it reached Glasgow, Captain,” I said. “The Kilchattan piermaster’s report didn’t blame just the two steamers.

  “He said he had been confronted with three vessels racing for the pier.”

  I took a crumpled copy of the previous day’s Glasgow News from my pocket, found the report I was looking for, and read aloud: “The Kilchattan piermaster reported to the Clyde Port Authority that he had denied access to the pier to the packet steamers Duchess of Fife and King Edward. Though they were racing each other for the first be
rthing opportunity, this was standard practice and not in itself his reason for turning them away.

  “His fear was that the presence of a third vessel could have had serious consequences and indeed threatened the safety of all involved. ‘The two steamers were neck and neck at about 20 knots,’ he told our reporter this afternoon. ‘Though it is hard to believe, there was a Clyde steam-lighter immediately astern of the King Edward which, with her whistle blowing a demand to be given right of way, was clearly attempting to overtake both passenger ships at once. In the circumstances the only course of action open to me was to close the pier to all three.’ ”

  I am sorry to say that Para Handy has made no effort to deny this report but, rather, has enjoyed the kudos of the qualities which certain credulous individuals now ascribe to the puffer.

  My duty, I feel, is to set the record straight.

  FACTNOTE

  There was intense competition on the Firth at the turn of the century, the heyday of the paddlers and the first of the new generation of screw steamers on the Clyde: and of course these years were the zenith of the puffers too. Keen races for first berthing opportunities at the piers between passenger vessels operated by rival owners were commonplace — and notorious.

  For the steamers, the prize was not simply the prestige of superiority in speed: it was commercial success. The faster ships attracted the greater attention and publicity and thus by reputation the greater — and more loyal — following. Of more immediate concern to the captains was that, if two steamers were closing down on a pier crowded with trippers awaiting the chance to return to Gourock or Glasgow after an excursion for the day ‘doon the watter’, fortune favoured the first arrival, which would scoop up the potential passengers and leave her unsuccessful rival with an empty pierhead.

  A trial of speed in open water was one thing: but a high-speed convergence in the narrow confines of some isolated pier was very different and there were regular (though thankfully almost always minor) collisions: there were also frequent near-misses or, to describe them with rather more accuracy, near-hits! One collision, documented in the pages of the Glasgow Herald, did actually take place off the Garroch Head, in 1877, between the Guinevere and the Glen Rosa, when they side-swiped one another with consequent damage to their paddle-boxes.

  The advent of the turbines inevitably sharpened the rivalries as the hitherto unchallenged crack paddlers found themselves under threat from the new upstarts.

  Probably the greatest duel of all, however, was played out on an almost daily basis between the established paddle-powered speedsters Lord of the Isles and Columba. They both ran daily services from Glasgow to Bute and on through the Kyles: the Columba to Tarbert and Ardrishaig, her rival continuing north to Inveraray.

  Their schedules usually found them leaving Rothesay on the outward passage at exactly the same time, and from there it was a race to reach the Kyles piers (the first of these being Colintraive) ahead of the opposition. The passengers invariably took up an extremely partisan stance but, as the contemporary newspaper accounts testify, they were as ready to heap abuse on a losing Captain as they were to cheer a winner’s triumph.

  TURBINE ELEGANCE — King Edward was launched from Denny Brothers’ Dumbarton Yard in 1901 — the world’s first turbine-powered merchant vessel — and ran the daily service from Greenock Princes Pier to Campbeltown and return. Capable of over 20 knots, she is seen here edging into the Kintyre capital’s pier with a ‘standing room only’ crowd on board. Note the vessels on the stocks of the shipyard in the background.

  4

  Trouble for the Tar

  From the deck of the Vital Spark the crew watched with interest as a large gaff-rigged ketch, having successfully and skilfully negotiated the deceptively narrow opening into the inner harbour at Rothesay, nosed in to the stone quayside, one of her hands standing in the bow pulpit making ready to throw a line ashore. In the capacious cockpit immediately astern of her substantial main cabin stood three elegantly turned-out men with a fourth, presumably the owner, at the wheel.

  “A chentleman’s life,” said Para Handy, “There iss no better way to see the world than in a yat! They’ll no’ have problems wi’ harbour-masters or ship’s captains. Welcome whereffer they care to go, and steam aalways gives way to sail!”

  Dan Macphail, with a watchful eye on the derrick as he swung another swaying bundle of fencing-stobs outboard to the waiting cart on the quayside, nodded agreement. “Aye, they huv it easy compared wi’ the likes of us. The workers is aye the worst aff in this world, it’s the gentry that comes oot best. Ah wudna say no to a poseetion on a yat!”

  “Me too,” cried Sunny Jim from the depths of the hold. “Just imagine no’ havin’ tae work wi’ a cargo of coals ever again! A life of ease!”

  “Mind you,” said Para Handy, “even the lads on the yats have problems sometimes. Take your predecessor Jum, your kizzin Colin Turner the Tar, for instance. Crewin’ on a yat nearly cost him his merriage…”

  “Tell us the baur,” said Jim, peering over the coaming of the hatchway. On the quayside the now fully-loaded horse-and-cart was heading for the town, and since there was as yet no sign of the second cart returning, a few minutes of rest and relaxation were in prospect.

  Para Handy scratched his ear reflectively. “Well, it wass like this…

  “Ass you aal know, the Tar got merrit on wan Lucy McCallum, a Campbeltown gyurl, and left the shup soon efter the weddin’. He took a chob in a distillery in the toon ass a cooperage hand and he learnt his tred and for three years efferything went fine for the young couple. They rented a single-end chust off Main Street and Lucy had two weans, a boy and a gyurl. Mercifully it seemed they wud tak’ efter her rather than their faither in character ass well ass in looks, for he wass idle, the Tar, idle — and blate wi’ it.

  “But it wassna his fault he lost his chob at the distillery, for it wass at a time o’ sleck orders in the spurits tred and the man that owned it chust shut it doon — not for good, but for a few months till there wass demand for spurits again, and he paid off all the hands and told them to come back in 10 weeks.

  “Lucy wass fair dementit when the Tar gave her the news, but she couldna blame the boy, though it wass goin’ to be very hard to get ony ither work, for there were fower other distilleries layin’ men off at the time and there were chust no chobs to be had in the toon.

  “Her mither wass a widow-woman but she helped the young couple ass much ass she could, and it wass she who heard that there wass to be a new boat-yerd opened up at Inveraray by a kizzin o’ her late husband, and she wrote and asked if he could find a chob for the Tar, chust for a few months till the distillery opened up again.

  “And he wrote back and said yes, if the Tar got himself there within the week he’d tak’ him on in the framin’-shed.

  “ ‘But hoo am Ah tae get up tae Inveraray,’ asked the Tar when she gave him the news. ‘Me wi’ no wages comin’ in?’

  “She had even sorted that oot for him. ‘Wan o’ the English chentlemen that comes up for the shootin’s in September bought a yat last year and it’s been lyin’ at Machrihanish effer since then,’ she said, ‘Noo he’s wantin’ it taken to Tarbert to wait for him comin’ up there next month.’

  “Wan o’ the Campbeltown fishin’ skippers wass pickin’ the yat up the next mornin’ and sailin’ it up to Tarbert while hiss own skiff wass on the Campbeltown slup for her annual overhaul, and he’d agreed wi’ her that the Tar could crew for him. And of course wance he wass in Tarbert it would be easy to tak’ the two hoor trup on to Inveraray on the Lord of the Isles any day of the week.

  “There wassna mich the Tar could do to get oot of that, so next mornin’ he wass up sharp and steppin’ oot the six miles ower to Machrihanish wi’ his tin box on his shoulders.

  “Vickery, the skipper, wass there before him and within the hour they were off. The Tar wass a bit worried when he saw who the skipper wass, for Vickery was weel-kent for his fondness for the high jinks, but he w
ass a successful fisherman and a good seaman. The yat wass called Midge but in spite of that she wass a smert boat wi’ a midships cabin wi’ a couple of berths and a wee punt in tow.

  “They made good time round the Mull of Kintyre and chust aboot two-o-clock they had Davaar Island dead ahead, and then the mooth o’ Campbeltown loch openin’ up to port.

  “Vickery looked at his watch. ‘We’ve made good time, Colin,’ he says to the Tar. ‘What d’ye say we chust look in to the toon for an hour and I’ll see how they’re gettin’ on wi’ the repairs on the skiff?’

  “There wassna anything the Tar could say, he wassna skipper, so they tacked up the loch and moored the Midge in the harbour and rowed ashore in the punt. Ass fate would have it they met a brither o’ Vickery’s who’d chust got hame from Gleska that very mornin’ on the King Edward efter a year at sea, and before the Tar kent what was what, they wass aal ensconced in the nearest Inn at a table by the window — ‘So I can chust keep wan eye on the yat’, said Vickery — and the drams kept comin’ ass soon ass aal the brither’s friends foond oot he was back in toon and came in for a yarn.

  “Five in the afternoon came and Vickery gave the Tar the keys to his hoose and sent him to fetch a gallon jar so they could tak’ some refreshments back on board wi’ them. And the first person he met ass he wass comin’ back along the street wi’ the jar wass his mither-in-law! ‘What are you doin’ still here, Colin,’ she cried briskly, ‘when you should be well on your way up Kilbrannan Sound — and whaur are ye goin’ wi’ that jar?’

  “The Tar tried to explain in a way that wouldna incriminate him but she gave him a sharp look and reminded him that the chob at Inveraray wouldna wait for effer. ‘Get you to Tarbert, Colin Turner’ she said. ‘Or you’ll answer to me for it!’