Complete New Tales of Para Handy (35 page)

Para Handy rose from the pierside bollard from which he had been watching the world go by and stretched luxuriously.

“Boys,” he said. “let us chust warp her up to the railway yerd chetty, and get this fluttin' aboard: and then we can go…”

“Excuse me,” came a quiet voice from behind the Captain, “but I wonder if I could ask a favour of you ?”

As the puffer eased alongside the liner, edging in towards the floating pontoon at the foot of the companionway stairs which soared, seemingly into space, towards the entry port umpteen decks above them, the
Lusitania's
hull was like a wall of sheer black cliff, dwarfing them into total insignificance.

Their passenger smiled his thanks.

“The least I can do,” he said, “is invite you to have a quick look through the ship before she sails. If you'd like to.”

An authoritative nod sent two seamen scurrying from their posts on the floating jetty at the ship's side to take up watch on the puffer's deck and secure her safely, bow and stern. With the First Officer of the
Lusitania
— for it was he — leading the way, the crew of the
Vital Spark
, moving as if in a dream, began to climb the companionway towards the upper decks of the liner.

“I can't thank you enough,” said the First Officer to Para Handy as they stepped through the portway and into the First Class Reception Foyer. “Most embarrassing if I'd been stranded on the pier at Greenock! They knew I was due off that train and there should have been a launch to meet me.

“There should be a lot of people in a great deal of trouble…

“But it has been such a pleasure for me to meet you gentlemen and be reminded of my own beginnings as a hand on the old Hay's puffer
Inca
all those years ago…”

Even Para Handy was — almost — speechless, as wonder after wonder unfolded in front of their eyes.

The First Class Smoking Room, panelled in walnut with an open fireplace and an ivory ceiling: the First Class Lounge with its intricate carving and stained-glass domed roof: the Foyer, magnificent in wrought iron and with the gates of the first electric lift ever installed on a ship at sea: staterooms with marble baths en suite, carpets into which the feet sank at each step: works of art crowding every wall, carvings and statuary featuring on stairways and in corridors.

And, towards the stern of the great ship, spacious Third Class accommodation for the emigrant traffic which made the facility offered on board the poor
Vital Spark
seem like the very worst deprivation on the most notorious slaver in maritime history.

“Dinna you daur touch a thing,” Para Handy commanded Sunny Jim in a piercing stage whisper, “for I'm sure I dinna ken when you last washed your haun's. At least we got rid o' Macphail!”

Indeed the Engineer, in a paradise all his own, was on a tour of the ship's pioneering high-pressure turbines and her 25 boilers, courtesy of the Fourth Engineer, commandeered for such duty by their considerate host.

“I wish I could thank you properly,” said that gentleman 20 minutes later as he ushered the crew back towards the waiting puffer: and reached instinctively for his notecase.

Para Handy was affronted.

“No, Cot bless you sir, no! Don't you even be thinking of such a thing. But there iss chust the wan wee favour, if you could see your way to obleege us with it, that wud mean more than we could effer say.”

Which is why, if you should find yourself aboard the
Vital Spark
at the right time of the day: if the crew have taken kindly to you: if the prognostications are right: and if the Captain is in good trim: if all of these imponderables have fallen into place then you might, just might, be offered a mug of tea in the fo'c'sle of the finest vessel in the coasting trade.

Tea prepared in a very, very special tea-pot to be found on no other puffer, or indeed other vessel of any description, on the Firth.

A tea-pot, polished to blinding brilliance and handled with due ceremony and respect, bearing a proud legend:
RMS Lusitania.

F
ACTNOTE

In the early years of the twentieth century supremacy on the lucrative and prestigious North Atlantic passenger services lay with the two German companies Norddeutscher Lloyd and HamburgAmerika (Hapag).

Ships like the
Kaiser Willhelm der Grosse
, the
Kronprinzessen Cecilie
and the
Deutschland
provided standards of luxury and levels of comfort and service hitherto undreamt-of, and helped the German shipping companies to capture more than half of the Transatlantic passenger business.

Cunard replied with two stunning sister ships (built with the help of government loans and subsidies), one —
Lusitania
— from John Brown of Clydebank: the second —
Mauretania
— from Swan Hunter on the Tyne.

With a length of 762ft and a beam of 88ft these vessels were the largest ships yet built.
Lusitania
was ready for launching three months before her sister. Her launch weight of more than 20,000 tons represented the greatest mass which man had ever tried to move. She came down the Clydebank yard's slip on June 7th 1906 and sailed from Southampton on her maiden voyage 15 months later — recapturing the Blue Riband from the Germans in the process.

Lusitania,
as everyone knows too well, was treacherously and tragically torpedoed off the Irish coast by a German U-Boat in 1915 with appalling loss of civilian life.
Mauretania
survived the war and stayed in service (ending her days as a precursor of today's Caribbean cruise liners) before finally going to the breaker's yard in 1935.

Because of her short life-span and tragic end,
Lusitania
has tended to be overshadowed by her sister ship in the litany and legend of the North Atlantic. In fact she started as the more famous of the two ships — really by virtue of being the first into service. The Americans in particular adored the
Lusitania
and though
Mauretania
has been called, with some justification, the most famous and best-loved ship of all time, it has to be remembered that this was only because of the sad and early end of the Clyde-built vessel.

Had she survived, the two ships would undoubtedly have shared the honour, the esteem and the affection which they both — equally — deserved.

T
HE
F
ASTEST
W
AY TO
C
ROSS
— Blue Riband holder
Lusitania
at speed was an impressive sight as the largest ship in the world thrust her 31,000 gross tonnes through the seas as fast as a family car. As well as a quicker crossing, she also brought to the passage standards of comfort and cosseting beyond the most sanguine expectations of her 2000 passengers as she wrested transatlantic supremacy back from the German fleets.

30

The Downfall of Hurricane Jack

I had always been intrigued by the chequered career of Para Handy's oldest and dearest friend, Hurricane Jack, who had for long been on a seemingly irreversible downward spiral from the heights of his time as the revered Captain of a record-breaking wool-clipper, then a temporary officer with MacBrayne's, and by way of the skipper's berth on the
Vital Spark
in her early days on the Firth, to his present state-of-affairs as occasional odd-job man on any vessel prepared to give him a part-time berth.

Para Handy would occasionally make some oblique reference to Hurricane Jack's departure from the puffer, usually in terms of ‘Jeck's doonfall' but all my efforts to elicit more information about the circumstances of it were to no avail, and led merely to a swift change of subject.

Then one morning, as I was changing steamers at Rothesay on my way from Helensburgh to Inveraray, I came across the
Vital Spark
in a corner of the inner harbour with her skipper seated on an upturned fishing box on deck, and studying a copy of the
Glasgow Herald
. The intermittent sound of heavy hammering and the occasional muffled curses which came from the engine-room were evidence that Dan Macphail was struggling as usual with more running repairs to that temperamental piece of machinery, but of the Mate and Sunny Jim there was no sign.

I coughed politely from the edge of the quay and the Captain. looked up from his paper.

“Why, it's yourself then,” he said. “What a surprise to see you in Rothesay: what brings you to Bute at this time o' year?”

I explained that I was merely killing an hour till the arrival of the
Lord of the Isles
from Glasgow on her way to Inveraray where I was to spend a few days with old family friends.

“The
Lord of the Isles
, eh? Well, now there iss something of a coincidence,” said Para Handy. “for here I am chust readin' in the paper aboot that very boat, where I see tell that she is changin' owners, and thinkin' back to the time when it wass her that wass lergely to blame for the circumstances that led to poor Hurricane Jeck losin' his berth on the
Vital Spark
.”

“You know I've always wanted to know more about that sorry event, Captain,” I prompted hopefully.

“Well,” he said hesitantly: “I suppose there would be no much herm in tellin' you aboot it after aal these years for it wass a long time ago.”

I scrambled down the iron ladder bolted into the quay wall and jumped onto the deck of the puffer and sat down on the coaming beside him before before he had time to change his mind. “Go on, Captain,” I said encouragingly: “I'm listening.”

“Ass you probably have realised,” he began, “Jeck wassna the kind of a man that wud suffer fools gledly, so at times he could occasionally be chust a little bit impatient … ”

“Impatient!” came a protesting voice from the engine-room. “He wisnae impatient at all! He wis the maist argimentative and pugnacious man on the Firth, and wis never happier than when he had his dander up and wis thrang pittin' the frighteners on some puir innocent body that jist had the sheer misfortune tae be passin'! His temper wis aye on a hair-trigger, he wis the sort of chap that if ye gi'ed him hauf a chance he could start a fight in an empty room!”