Complete New Tales of Para Handy (49 page)

“Hurricane Jeck hisself wass aalways gettin' into trouble wi' the Church for wan reason or the ither…”

“Ah'm no' surprised in the very least aboot that,” interrupted Macphail caustically: “that man has the happy knack o' gettin' into trouble wi' onything that lives or breathes. Dear God, he wud pick a fight wi' a dry-stane dyke if ye were tae gi'e him the opportunity!”

The Captain paid no attention.

“There wass one time,” he continued. “that Jeck was asked by wan o' his kizzins, whose wife had chust had a new bairn, if he'd be the Godfather to it” — there was an explosive spluttering as the Engineer nearly choked himself on a mouthful of beer — “and of course Jeck said yes, he'd be delighted. You know yourselves that he iss the kind of a man that would neffer willingly refuse onything to onybody, for he has aalways been the perfect chentleman.

“The chrustening wass to be at St John's in Dunoon, a fine kirk and congregation and a most handsome building. The trouble came from the fact that the wean wass to be laaunched, as you might say, ass a pert o' the evening service and no' the morning wan ass usual, because Jeck's kizzin and his wife couldna get doon to the town wi' the bairn till the afternoon, what wi' them aal livin' away oot in the muddle o' nowhere on a wee ferm that they tenanted from wan o' the MacArthurs up at the head o' Loch Striven.

“ ‘Don't you worry about a thing, Jamie,' said Jeck to his kizzin. ‘Rely upon it that I will be there for you, and in the very best of trum! For to be sure, us Maclachlans must stick together in the hour of need! We aalways have and we aalways wull! I wull come over to Dunoon on wan o' the efternoon boats and meet you outside the Kirk at six o'clock.' He wass lodging in Gourock chust then, and had a kind of a chob loading coals onto Mr MacBrayne's shups at the Cardwell Bay bunkering pier, for he wass doon on his luck at the time.

“Well, Jeck wass early to his bed on the Saturday, and without even a single dram in him, for he wass taking the duties of the next day seriously to heart: so much so that when he woke on the Sabbath he decided that he would come over to Dunoon early to be sure of being there on time, for he wass that determined not to let his kizzin doon.

“At eleven of the clock next morning he presented himself on the pier to tak' the first shup he could get with the idea of a meat dinner at the Argyll Hotel and then a quiet stroll on the sea-front till time for the service, and what shup wass it but the
Dunoon Castle
herself, the most notorious of aal the ‘Sunday Boats', on an excursion from Broomielaw to Rothesay?

“Jeck neffer paid heed, it wass chust a twenty meenit crossing and it was neither eechie nor ochie to him whit shup it was, so he boarded her without realising it.

“The bar had been open since the moment the shup had cast off from the Broomielaw but even that wouldna have mattered as Jeck wassna thinkin' aboot drink at aal that morning” — once again the Engineer seemed to encounter problems getting breath, and once again the Captain paid no attention — “but the very first person he clapped eyes on when he got aboard her wass his old shupmate Donald Baird, who'd been his Furst Mate on the clupper
Port Jackson
. The two of them hadna seen each other for near on five years.

“Donald had been two hours on the vessel, and the most of them spent in the Refreshment Saloon, so he wass feelin' no pain at aal. And he wouldna tak'
no
for an answer, neither.

“ ‘To bleezes, Jeck,' said he with some conviction, when Jeck told him where he wass bound for and why, and chust why he wouldna tak' a dram in the by-going either: ‘you have aal the day to get through before tonight's chrustening, and I am sure that nobody wull force you to tak' a refreshment if you are set against it. Stay on board chust for the baur! We have a lot of catchin' up to do, and since the shup wull get back to Dunoon from Rothesay at five o'clock that gives you plenty of time for you to present yourself at the Kirk.'

“Jeck aalways finds it very difficult to refuse that kind of an invitation, ass bein' a true chentleman iss aal a part of his upbringing and his cheneral agreeableness. He would neffer wullingly hurt a fly, neffer mind the feelings of his fellow human beings! So while the shup crossed over to Dunoon he stood at the rail with Donald and exchanged the news of the last five years. But then ass soon ass the vessel was away from Dunoon and past the Gantocks on course for Innellan and Rothesay, did he not allow himself to be inveigled doon to the Refreshment Saloon ‘for chust the wan wee gless of ale for the sake of the heat that's in the day' ass Donald put it: and though Jeck had little enough coin with him, for he wass doon on hiss luck yet again poor duvvle, ass I have told you already, Donald had chust been paid off efter a seven month trup to the Far East wi' mair money than he knew what do do with, and he simply wouldna let Jeck refuse his hospitality for aal his protests.

“The outcome wass inevitable. By the time the
Dunoon Castle
got back to Dunoon at five o'clock Jeck wass in chust ass good trum as Donald. The dufference, of course, wass that Jeck — being a perfect chentleman in efferything he did — could carry his dram and it wass only when you were really up close that you became aware that the man was not totally in control of himself but was operating by unstinct raither than logic, and that ass a result onything might happen — and probably would.

“There wass aalways a most stumulating atmosphere of complete uncertainty aboot, wheneffer Jeck was in good trum!

“Jeck and Donald had a tearful farewell, and Jeck headed off to St John's Kirk. He had a half hour to wait before the kizzin arrived, so he sat on the wall in Hanover Street and took a few good deep breaths of the Cowal air, and sooked on a wheen of candy-striped baalls he'd had the sense to buy from a sweetie barrow on the esplanade.

“By the time the chrustening perty arrived, and they wass aal ushered into the vestry o' the Kirk, Jeck
looked
the pert right enough: but there wass still enough drams coursin' through hiss veins to float a toy yat, and his view of the proceedings wass hazy to say the least. But, ass you know, wi' aal the cheneral agility he had, only Jeck himself would have known it.

“The only wan o' the perty that jaloused that maybe efferything wass no' chust what it seemed wass the Meenister himself. But he said nothin', until they wass in the Kirk and when, half way through the chrustening, Jeck was handed the wean by the mither and telt to tak' it up to the Meenister so that it could get the watter splashed over it.

“At that point the Meenister got his furst real whuff o' Jeck's breath — and in spite o' the candy-striped baalls he'd been sookin' ye wouldna have needed to be a bloodhound to realise that there wass that much spurits to it that you could have set it alight if you'd had a match — and asked him in a piercing whisper that could be heard aal roond the Kirk: ‘Are you sure you're fit enough to hold that child?'

“ ‘Fit enough to haud it?' cried Jeck loudly, and he grupped the bairn in both airms and held it ass high over his head ass he could stretch and waved it aboot from side to side, ‘fit enough to
haud
it? Man, I'm fit enough that if you chust gi'e me the chance I'll tak' it ootside right noo and throw it over the roof of the Kirk, steeple and aal!'

“Jeck's Glenstriven kizzin has neffer spoken to him since, and the St John's Meenister iss now aawful wary of ony chrustenings which involve sailors or their femilies: so mebbe the men of the cloth should be ass superstitious noo aboot the fushermen o' Crarae as the fushermen used to be aboot the Church!”

The pierhead now being clear of crowds, and the steamer having departed for her ultimate outward destination — Inveraray, by way of Furnace — the three shipmates left the Inns and headed back towards the
Vital Spark
.

“If we get away within the half-hour,” said Para Handy, pulling his watch out of his trouser pocket, “we can be in Rothesay by eight o'clock and ready to load the Marquess of Bute's potatos first thing tomorrow.”

There was a sudden, protesting croak from the Mate.

“Peter,” said he, agonised: “look who's talkin' to Jum at the shup! It's the Reverend McNeil, our Parish Meenister.”

Both Dougie and his Captain (with their wives) were members of the same congregation in Glasgow. The difference between their membership of it, however, was that though the Minister did not approve of the Captain's predilection for a dram, he was aware of it — and prepared to tolerate it. The Mate, on the other hand, had for many years now successfully pretended to both his wife and his Minister that he was of a Rechabitic and therefore strictly teetotal persuasion.

“He must have been wi' the excursion perty and recognised the vessel when they came ashore,” Dougie continued. “I canna let him find me like this, he'll smell the drink on me and it's no chust that he'll put a bleck mark on me for it wi' the Kirk Session, he'll tell the mussis and my life wull not be worth living, I can assure you.

“I'm awa' to hide. Tell him I'm not on the shup this trup, tell him onything you like.”

“Shame on you Dougie,” said the Captain, “I thought you told us back there in the Inns that no Meenister would effer keep you from boarding
your
shup? You cannot surely have forgotten that aalready?

“Forbye, he hass seen us!”

And with a cheery wave, he strolled down the quayside to shake the Minister by the hand.

F
ACTNOTE

In earlier generations superstition was rife in every fishing community from Cornwall to Shetland and took some quite bizarre forms. For some, it was unlucky to mention pigs (or pork, which must have somewhat restricted the choice of victuals on offer at mealtimes) and other animals which must never be talked of at sea included ferrets and rabbits.

Whistling on the quayside when the wind was from the east was another taboo in some ports, while refusal to sail on a Friday was more widespread. Sticking a knife into the mast (for wind) was a good-luck omen for some, a bad-luck certainty for others.

Almost universal were the superstitions associated with the clergy of all denominations. To meet a minister or priest on the road to the harbour was bad enough, to have one come aboard the boat for any reason was a portent of certain disaster.

‘Sunday Boats' became a notorious feature on the Firth during the last decades of the 19th century. The Licensing Acts then in force forbade the sale of alcohol on the Sabbath save only to so-called ‘Bona Fide Travellers' or to Hotel residents. But a number of enterprising (or to put it rather more accurately, avaricious) Glasgow publicans spotted that the restrictions of these Acts did not apply to ships: and realised that there were enough thirsty Glaswegians to make an investment in a battered old paddle-steamer a most rewarding speculation.

Their resulting Sunday fleets consisted of boats which had no pretensions to be family cruising vessels — or indeed cruising vessels in
any
sense. They were floating shebeens but (and here was the ace card) they were
legal
shebeens, and earned huge profits for their owners. Andrew McQueen summed up the whole sorry state-of-affairs very accurately in his
Clyde Steamers of the Last Fifty Years
, published in 1924:

‘Travellers by these boats were almost entirely drouths out to secure the alcoholic refreshment denied to them ashore. The boats were simply floating pubs, and their routes and destinations were matters of little moment. It is probable that, when they arrived home, a large proportion of the passengers had no very definite idea as to where they had been.'

From the excesses of the ‘Sunday Boats' (and the
Dunoon Castle
was the most ill-reputed of them all) came the development of the temperance steamers: and the amendments to the Licensing Acts in the late 1880s which banned sales of alcohol on Sundays aboard any vessel returning to her port of departure on the same day, and effectively closed down the Sabbath breakers.

42

That Sinking Feeling

P
ara Handy laid down the previous day's edition of the
Glasgow Evening News
(the most up-to-date account of the world and its ways presently available in the Harbour Inn at Ardrossan) with a snort of disdain.

“I chust cannot think what the Navy iss coming to, I said it to Dan a meenit ago” he confided to Dougie. Macphail was standing up at the bar talking to one of the engineers off the
Glen Sannox
, which had just completed her last run from Brodick. “What sort o' men are they employin' ass captains or helmsmen nooadays? Here iss another Naval shup agroond on the Lady Rock in the Firth of Lorne.

“Where the bleezes iss the Admirulity recruitin' these days? At the weans' boating pond at Kelvingrove? That makes three of His Majesty's Shups grounded on the Lady Rock skerry this year alone, and we're no' into October yet. It's not even ass if the rock wassna well enough lit, you ken that it is fine enough yourself, Dougie: you've seen it often: mony's the seck of winter coals we've humphed ashore there.

“At this rate poor King Edward'll be runnin' oot o' shups to send up there — or onywhere else.”

“It's probably the same shup aal the time, Peter,” observed the Mate. “or mebbe the same skipper. For there iss some shups, and some men, that chust seem to have a jinx on them.

“Did I neffer tell you aboot the mustress's Uncle Wulliam? He's retired noo, but he wass a deckhand, then a mate, and finally a skipper on wan or ither o' the Hays' boats aal his working life and given what befell him it's a miracle the owners kept him on for mair than a month. It wass wan disaster efter anither!

“At least when he didna have the command, he couldna really do aal that mich damage and it tended to be sma' beer.