Complete New Tales of Para Handy (46 page)

“Nobody had thought to warn Jeck that the Sabbath run wass the occasion for the Captain to make his weekly inspection of the shup, and that no corner or compartment wass effer likely to be overlooked. Indeed, Jeck found oot later that the Captain had even been in under the tarpaulin o' the stern lifeboat and the only reason the still had survived wass that the Captain had neffer seen wan in hiss life, wouldna have recognised wan if it wass comin' doon Renfield Street on a Number Three caur, and thought that Jeck's Golden Goose wass some new piece of equipment for purifying watter that the lifeboat suppliers had installed during the annual overhaul o' the boat.

“But he had no difficulty in recognising wan o' his own crew wi' a gless in his hand, and a stack of bottles at his feet, and they didna even wait till
Ivanhoe
got back to Gleska, Jeck wass thrown aff at the next stop, Kilcreggan, and since the shup refused him passage on the return leg he wass stuck till next day with only the clothes he stood up in. Mercifully, the local polis wass a kind of a second cousin, and Jeck got the use of wan o' the cells for the night.”

“What did Ah tell ye,” Macphail shouted from the engine-room at this point. “Justice at last! The man's nothing but a natural jailburd! He shouldna even be allowed oot loose.”

“You're just jealous, Macphail,” said Para Handy wearily, “and not chust of Jeck's popularity, but because you're no' on the
Ivanhoe
and nobody effer wants to look at
your
engines!”

F
ACTNOTE

Bootleg liquor didn't start with Prohibition in America: indeed it could well have been earlier Scottish immigrants who brought the traditions of illicit stills to the Land of the Free! From the 18th century onwards there was a constant running battle across Scotland between the government enforcers on the one hand and the do-it-yourself distillers on the other.

Nor (to scotch another myth, and I apologise for the verb) were illicit stills confined to rural locations. There was probably as much home-made whisky circulating in Glasgow as in the rest of the country put together at the height of the traffic.

The other side of the coin were the temperance movements which crop up elsewhere in these tales.
Ivanhoe
, the Clyde's first and only teetotal steamer, was however the product of a response to general public demand rather than the direct result of temperance campaigning. The plain fact was that by the late 1870s more and more families and excursion parties were being dissuaded from traditional Clyde cruising because of the anti-social behaviour of a small minority of travellers, and the mismanagement of a handful of steamers, which became floating shebeens of the worst sort, and whose reputation undeservedly sullied that of other operators as well and got the whole Clyde steamer industry what we would call ‘a bad press'.

The
Ivanhoe
was a most handsome ship, and a resounding success in her early years: as the drink problem elsewhere was better managed, and a degree of discipline was restored across the fleets, demand for a strictly teetotal ship fell away and in 1897 she was purchased from her original owners and operators the Frith of Clyde Steam Packet Company by the Caledonian SPC for the sum of £9,000, and sailed fully licensed from then on.

Incidentally, I have taken at least one liberty with the facts in presenting this story. The
Ivanhoe
never sailed down river on Sundays during her temperance years. There was something of a moratorium on Sunday sailings from about 1880 to 1895 as a direct result of the horrific problems of the Sabbath-breaking booze-boats (there is no other word which can satisfactorily describe them) of the 1870s.

The sight, sound and smell of the magnificent engines which drove the blades was
the
great spectacle, and memory, of a day spent on the paddle-steamers. And since the real bars aboard were usually on the same deck level as the observation areas at which the public in general (and small boys in particular) could spend hours gawping at such raw power in action, the adult male's euphemism for a trip to the bar was ‘let's go and look at the engines, shall we?' And, on the
Waverley
, it still is today!

C
OASTAL
C
OMMERCE
— I have been unsuccessful in tracing the history or ownership of the
Planet Mercury
but she is seen here, riding very light indeed, at an unidentified pier. She is very typical of the small ‘three-island' coastal steamers of the early years of the century, so called from the raised fore, main and poop decks rising like islands above the well-decks fore and aft. She was certainly large enough to carry Para Handy's copper pot-still!

39

Many Happy Returns

I
was striding purposefully along Sauchiehall Street towards Charing Cross railway station, intent on catching the earliest possible train home to Helensburgh, but my progress was slower than I could have wished, for the pavements were thronged with shoppers — and sight-seers — on this, the first Monday of the traditional Glasgow Trades Fortnight.

As I dodged round yet another family group rooted like a rock in the surging flow of pedestrian traffic, quite transfixed by one of the stunning window-displays in Messrs Treron's elegant emporium, there was a touch on my shoulder and, turning, I was surprised to see the mate of the
Vital Spark
behind me, with a large brown paper parcel tucked under one arm.

“How are you yourself, then, Mr Munro?” asked Dougie. “You seem in a terrible hurry, to be sure. Wull ye no' tak' time to come up to Spiers' Wharf and see the Captain, for we iss there chust waiting for a cairgo o' cement which shows no sign at aal of arrivin' and he would be very pleased to see you.”

I explained that, much though I would have liked to take him up on the invitation, I must decline. I was in a hurry to get home early, I added, as today was my birthday and my family, I knew, had a surprise waiting for me and it would not be wise for me to delay the meal which my wife would have lovingly prepared.

“Your birthday, indeed,” said Dougie. “Well, I wush you many happy returns — on behalf of us aal on the shup. I chust hope you have a mair propeeshus day than poor Para Handy had a few years back on a sumilar occasion.”

And, as we proceeded together along the street, he unfolded an extraordinary tale.

It had happened many years previously, when the
Vital Spark
was less than a year old, and Para Handy and his crew were relative strangers who were just beginning to get to know each other.

It was long before Sunny Jim had joined the ship. His cousin Colin Turner, the Tar, fulfilled the functions of deck-hand and chef de cuisine on board. It was so long ago that Macphail was still in a state of honeymooner's euphoria with his engines — a state which did not prevail for very much longer. It was long before Para Handy's marriage and Dougie himself, still a young man, had only three children (as against the current count of eleven) and — though they had crewed a sailing-gabbart together on several occasions — had yet to acquire that intimate knowledge of his Captain's character and situation which comes with familiarity.

One April afternoon the puffer was lying alongside the cargo jetty at Tarbert on Loch Fyne. Her cargo of coal had just been discharged but there was no sign of the load of pit-props from the local sawmill which she had been contracted to convey to Ayr for inland despatch to the coalmines around Darvel. Dougie and Macphail were seated in companionable silence on the main hatch: the Tar was wiping off the coaldust besmirching the wheelhouse windows. Para Handy had retired to the fo'c'sle.

It was from that confined space that there now suddenly issued a deep groan followed by a long, protracted sigh.

Alarmed, Dougie rose from the hatch and peered down the open companionway into the crew's cramped quarters.

All he could see of the Captain was the top of his head. Para Handy was standing at the foot of the ladder, holding in his right hand the ship's solitary mirror (which was badly stained and cracked, and which normally hung on a nail on the end of the engineer's bunk) and studying his face in it, his left hand scratching at his stubbly chin. Dougie stared in some surprise, for the mirror was normally used by the Captain but once a week, on the occasion of his customary Sabbath shave, and at no other time.

Again Para Handy groaned, and shook his head at its grubby reflection.

“Man, man,” the Captain muttered half under his breath, so that the Mate had to strain to catch the words. “Man, man. Tomorrow iss the bleck day indeed. Bleck, bleck. Today chust a young man at the height o' his prime, but tomorrow is the watter-shed for it iss not chust anither ordinary birthday, but the big wan. The big zero. The big ‘O'. And efter that old age, and nothin' to look forward to but totterin' doon the hill to the grave.”

And he put the mirror down with another heartrending sigh and vanished out of Dougie's line of sight in the direction of his own bunk. Moments later, the Mate heard the creak of wood as Para Handy climbed into it and lay down.

Dougie walked back to the main-hatch, where Macphail had now been joined by the Tar.

“Boys,” said Dougie. “We must do somethin' to cheer the Captain up. Tomorrow iss his birthday, and no' chust a usual one. This is what Para Handy has caaled the ‘Big Zero' and it iss getting him doon. Poor duvvle, I had neffer realised it, but this means that he must be fufty tomorrow!”

“Fufty!” exclaimed the Tar. “
Fufty
! I find that very hard to believe, Dougie.”

“Me too,” said the Mate, “for he iss the sort of man that seems neffer to change in the very slightest way from wan year's end to the beginnin' o' the next, chust the same aal the time.”

“Ah'll no' disagree wi' that,” said Macphail sharply. “He's aye struck me as a cantankerous auld fool, a dangerous combination of a man, ignorant and thrawn all at the same time.”

Dougie paid no attention.

“We must gi'e him a perty tomorrow,” he said, “and let him see that this birthday of his is nothing special and most certainly nothing to be depressed aboot — that it iss no different to any other except that it's an even happier one for him. Otherwise he'll be in a bleck mood for weeks, and we do not want that to happen, laads, do we?”

And with the unhappy memory of some of their Captain's previous tirravees all too fresh in their minds (such as the never-to-be-forgotten occasion when he announced that he was giving up drink and indeed did — for all of three days which felt, to his crew, more like three months) his shipmates nodded in agreement.

For the next few hours there was feverish but guarded activity in and around the
Vital Spark
.

A whip-round of the available resources of the crew produced the princely sum of two shillings and fourpence, but the Tar then pointed out that a figure as well-known in Tarbert as Para Handy was could surely expect some interest in (and pecuniary contributions to) such a landmark birthday as what everyone, in deference perhaps to the implications of the actual figure, now referred to simply as ‘The Big Zero'. Only the Tar periodically shook his head in disbelief (which Dougie found quite touching and indicative of an admiration of his Captain and his apparent youthfulness which he had simply not realised the young man so strongly felt) and muttered “Fufty!
Fufty!
It fair makes you think!”