Complete New Tales of Para Handy (31 page)

Dan Macphail's question was answered half-an-hour later when the object of their criticism sashayed by on the quayside with his topcoat hanging on one arm and a tall red-haired girl in a blue silk gown hanging on the other, an opened floral-patterned parasol twirling across her left shoulder.

“What ho, shipmates!” called the errant deck-hand, making the introductions to his latest conquest with some bravura. “Why dinna ye come oot for a stroll instead o' hunkerin' doon there on the deck as if ye wis naethin' but the maritime equivilunt o' they Chelsea Pensioners! It's a richt bonny evenin' for a perambulation and me an' Liza is jist gettin' up an appetite for a McCallum at the Shore Cafe afore we look in on the Hielan' Night at the Quay Hotel, for it would be a shame if I kept the belle-of-the-ball away from the ball!”

“Chust so, Jum, a bonny gyurl and no mistake! Complements of the evenin' to you, Miss Liza” said Para Handy gallantly, “but I doot oor perambulatin' days iss done, ass you say. Unless it wass perhaps to look for a bite to eat,” he added pointedly.

“Aye, weel,” said Jim, reddening slightly. “There's a grand selection of restrongs in Millport for ye to choose from. The pick o' the Clyde!”

And with that he touched the tip of his cap with a cheery grin and swung away from the quayside and headed back towards the esplanade.

“That boy needs took doon a peg or two,” grumbled the engineer as soon as the pair were out of earshot.

“What I canna understand,” said Dougie, “iss how Jum thinks he can keep stringin' aal these lassies along. I mean, it would be bad enough if he wass chust takin' them oot and then forgettin' aal aboot them: but here he iss sendin' them aal cairds and letters frae every corner o' the Clyde, ass if he wass the faithful swain and they wass the only girl in the world for him! It's no' fair on them, it's chust no' right. He collects them chust the same ass if they wass cigarette cards.”

“Aye, sure enough,” agreed the Captain. “He hass no respect for the gyurls at aal, and that iss aal wrong. Jum iss not a chentleman when it comes to hiss dealin's with the lasses.”

“Indeed no,” affirmed Macphail, “and he needs to be taught a lesson, so he does.”

“Aye, Dan: maybe so. And maybe I can see chust how it might be done.”

Three days later the puffer was moored at the Coal Pier in Dunoon. Arriving late the previous evening, she had discharged her cargo in the morning and the crew now had the prospect of a pleasantly lazy afternoon. She was due to take a flitting back over to Millport the following day — Saturday — but for the meantime there was nothing to be done. Para Handy's hints about freshening up the paintwork had fallen on deaf ears.

“Can ye no' leave a man in peace instead o' breakin' yer neck tryin' tae find him some work tae do?” Macphail protested, and the normally placid mate was equally adamant that he wanted nothing to do with any painting projects. Sunny Jim was already busy at the pump with soap and flannel, and did not even deign to reply.

Somewhat to their surprise, the skipper did not press the point and 10 minutes later, not long after Sunny Jim had left the puffer with a hunter's gleam in his eye, Para Handy himself went ashore.

“I chust have a little business to see to,” he said, “and I'll be back in aboot an hoor.” And he set off in the direction of the steamer pier, where the
Queen Alexandra
was just berthing.

He returned to the puffer in under the hour with a strangely smug look on his face.

As the puffer approached the north end of Cumbrae the following afternoon, her hold chock-full of all the higgledy-piggledy merchandise of a household flitting, Para Handy scrutinised the Ayrshire coast and consulted his watch. Then, to that worthy's total astonishment (for normally he was the butt of constant complaints about inadequacies of his engines) he asked the engineer to slow down.

The
Vital Spark
continued slowly down the eastern shore of the island. Across the sound Para Handy watched as the paddler
Galatea
, on her way from Greenock and Wemyss Bay, called in at Largs and then headed on towards Fairlie.

At the same leisurely pace the puffer steamed on, eventually arriving at the entrance to Millport bay just as the
Galatea
was berthing at the steamer pier, where she would lie over for a couple of hours before retracing her route back to Greenock.

“Jum,” called the Captain, “go doon and put the kettle on, like a good laad, and we'll aal have a cuppa before we stert gettin' this flittin' unloaded.”

Sunny Jim, who had been busy writing a series of ‘wish you were here' cards of Dunoon to his coterie of lady-friends, put his pencil and his correspondence in his pocket and disappeared down the fore-hatch to the fo'c'sle.

“Now, Dougie,” said Para Handy, “away you and see that you keep the laad below deck till I give you a couple of toots on the whustle: then bring him up.”

“What are you up to, Peter?” asked the mystified mate.

“You'll see soon enough,” said the Captain enigmatically. “But if my plan hass worked oot then I think we'll see a change in the way Jum treats the gyurls from noo on.”

As the
Vital Spark
edged in towards her berth at the cargo quay four conspicuous and attractive figures standing there watched the progress of the puffer with interest, and eyed each other suspiciously at the same time.

Dan Macphail scrambled up from the engine-room, in response to Para Handy's call, to throw a heaving-line to one of the pier staff and caught sight of the waiting group as he did so.

“Here!” he turned to Para Handy in astonishment. “Is that no' some o' Jum's conquests lined up up there?”

“Chust so,” said the skipper. “That's Liza from Millport, and Ellen from Fairlie, and Bella from Largs, and Jean from Wemyss Bay.

“I thought mebbe Jum would forget to let them aal know he wass comin' back to Millport this efternoon. Ass I've a friend who's assistant purser on the
Queen Alexandra
, when I saw her lyin' at Dunoon yesterday efternoon afore she left for Wemyss Bay and aal points sooth, I went and asked a wee favour from him by way o' deliverin' some correspondence for me. I took the liberty of sendin' the gyurls a caird each on Jum's behalf, askin' them if they wud like to meet him here at fower o'clock today for a wee daunder, and their teas and mebbe a McCallum, before the
Galatea
took them back hame at six.

“It'll mebbe be a bit o' an upset for the lasses, but they'll soon get over it and it's better that they should see Jum for what he iss, raither than let him break their hearts. And it's no' his heart they'll want to break when they realise what's what.

“I doot he'll learn to treat a gyurl wi' a bit mair respect from noo on.”

And, with a cheery wave to the colourful bevy of beauties on the quayside, Para Handy reached for the lanyard and gave a couple of short blasts on the puffer's steam whistle.

He watched with some satisfaction, and a considerable sense of anticipation, as the fore-hatch swung open and an unsuspecting Sunny Jim climbed up onto the fore-deck.

F
ACTNOTE

Though the island of Cumbrae, with its capital Millport, was never able to rival the premier Clyde resort destinations such as Dunoon or Rothesay, or the more distant and much larger Isle of Arran, it enjoyed a remarkably loyal and strong following among Clyde trippers and holidaymakers and indeed does so to this day. Excursions to the Millport ‘illuminations', the only such attraction on the Firth, remain a popular September destination for
Waverley
, last surviving paddler on the river.

Millport was just not big enough to compete on equal terms with the largest resorts. The island's total population at the turn of the century was less than 2000. With an area of just five square miles and an unspectacular topography (its highest hill less than 500ft in height) it was dwarfed by Arran, with 30 times the area and mountains rising to over 2800 feet. Yet the tenacity and determination of the islanders, and their easy proximity to the Ayrshire coast a couple of miles to the east, have made it a prized destination for its
aficionados
who — quite rightly! — will not hear a word against it.

The town enjoyed the unique distinction of having two piers to serve it — the Old Pier and the Keppel Pier — and a complex and competitive steamer service to no fewer than three mainland railway towns, namely Wemyss Bay, Largs and Fairlie. For many years too there was a direct steamer service into the centre of Glasgow.

The
Galatea
was built as the new ‘flagship' for the Caledonian Steam Packet Company fleet by Caird's of Greenock in 1890 and though she was a most handsome, two-funnelled paddler with a reasonable turn of speed at just over 17 knots, her owners were never satisfied about either her performance or her appeal. Her time on the Clyde was as a result relatively brief and she was sold to Italian owners just 14 years later.

The
Queen Alexandra
, launched in 1902, had an even shorter career on the Firth. Badly damaged by fire at Greenock in 1912 she was repaired — but then sold to owners in Vancouver, which she reached by sailing round Cape Horn because, of course, the Panama Canal was still under construction! She was replaced by a new vessel of the same name which distinguished herself by ramming and sinking a submarine in the Channel in World War I and later by emerging from a refit in 1935 as MacBrayne's three funnelled
St Columba
.

A ‘McCallum' was a popular West of Scotland courting delicacy for many decades and consisted of a sundae-glass of vanilla ice-cream smothered in raspberry syrup. Just who invented it, and who gave it the name, and why, can still be the subject of debate among enthusiasts!

T
HE
H
IGHLAND
G
ATEWAY
— Only Rothesay pier was ever as busy as Dunoon. The Cowal pier is seen here at the height of its dominance as the ‘Gateway to the Highlands' as well as an important destination in its own right. Here the paths of the North British steamers from their Craigendoran base criss-crossed (among others) those of the Caledonian Railway Company and MacBrayne, from Gourock, and of Captain Buchanan, from Glasgow. In this photograph, Eagle III to the left and, ahead of her, the first Lord of the Isles.

27

Going off the Rails

O
nce her cargo of pit-props had been unloaded at Ardrossan harbour, the Captain of the
Vital Spark
went off as usual to the Post Office to wire back to the Glasgow office for news about their next assignment. The crew relaxed on deck in the early May sunshine, the mate perusing a copy of the previous week's People's Friend, Macphail poring over a new novelle.

Sunny Jim sat idly on the hatch coaming with a piece of tarry string with which he played cat's cradle while humming a tuneless, wordless song to the eventual, inevitable irritation of the other two.