Complete New Tales of Para Handy (44 page)

Para Handy and Macphail were seated on the main hatch in a most companionable silence, replete with fried sausages and potatos and in lazy contemplation of the tranquil canal. To their right hand the silver ribbon of its waters curved out of sight along a gentle bend towards Kirkintilloch with, on the nearer bank, the towpath: and on the farther, a long phalanx of mature trees at their freshest springtime green.

The Captain stretched luxuriously and reached into the flap of his trouser pocket for his oilskin tobacco pouch and his safety matches.

“I tell you, Dan, on a day like this I think that there iss a lot to be said for a landlocked life. There iss not the lochs and the bens, to be sure, and the view iss not what it iss when you are comin' doon Loch Fyne, but then neither iss the weather either. A peaceful existence!”

The Engineer nodded.

“True enough, Peter,” he said. “But wud ye no' get awfu' bored wi' it, aye jist the same places and the same faces year in and year oot, the same cairgos and the same carnaptious duvvles to deal wi' at the locks? At least we get some sort of deeversity on the ruver, and a lot o' different harbour-masters yellin' at us for no good reason, no' the identical yins a' the time.”

“You are probably right,” conceded Para Handy. “And for sure neither iss there the same opportunity for cheneral high-jinks or entertainment to be had. I mean to say, chust look at Dougie and Jum!”

The Mate, ever the optimist whether confronted with the lively tidal waters off the pier at Brodick or, as here, with the dark depths of a sluggish canal, could be seen a couple of hundred yards away seated on the bank with his legs dangling over its edge. In his hands was the
Vital Spark
's acknowledgement of the tenets of Izaac Walton — a ten-foot bamboo pole: from its tip there dangled a length of tarry twine terminating in a rusting hook baited with a worm whose luck had run out when Dougie had spotted it, sunning itself on the grassy bank, at precisely the right time for him — but very much the wrong time for it.

Sunny Jim was more strenuously employed on the broad swathe of grass beside the imposing but at present unopened Craigmarloch Refreshment Rooms, widely patronised in summer by excursionists and day-trippers on the canal. He was playing kick-about with a handful of local youths with a battered football which had been spied floating, forgotten and abandoned in one of the locks at Kirkintilloch on their passage through them that morning: and commandeered enthusiastically by their young deck-hand.

The Captain viewed with mixed emotions the prowess demonstrated by his young shipmate as he showed quite remarkable skill with an impressive display of the traditional game of ‘keepie-uppie' with boot and knee which had the Craigmarloch youths staring open-mouthed in amazement.

“Nimble enough wi' his feet, right enough,” he said. “But for why? What good does it do the laad? It is chust the same as chumpin' through girrs, that iss aal it iss, fine enough for a penny street-show but I am sure and you could neffer be making a livin' from it.

“And as for Dougie…! Has he effer, I ask you, caught a fush in his naitural? I am telling you, Dan, if we had to depend on Dougie Campbell's skills for the proveeshuns on the vessel then we would aal surely sterve.”

“Hairmless enough, Peter,” replied the Engineer, on whom the peace and beauty of his surroundings had wrought an unexpected and most unusual air of goodwill. “For surely you need to enjoy some divershun in this world, as weel as work? Life iss no jist aboot the daily grind, as it says in the Scruptures, there has tae be a chance for .” But he surreptitiously and shamefacedly hid the copy of his newest penny novelette under a fold of hatch tarpaulin as he spoke.

Para Handy snorted. “That's ass may be,” said he: “but the day that Dougie brings us in any sort of catch, or the day that we get ony good out of Jum's fancy tricks wi' a footbaal, iss the day I'll take and treat you aal in the nearest Inns at my expense!”

“Weel,” said Macphail darkly, “Ah heard you say that, Peter, so be sure Ah'll keep you to it.”

“Chance would be a fine thing,” said the Captain, undismayed and unperturbed, and set about filling his pipe.

A few minutes later the two men stretched out across the main hatch and dozed fitfully in the warm sunshine.

Time passed.

On the towpath Dougie fished — but caught nothing. On the grassy bank the football hopefuls set up goals marked by folded jackets and played five-a-side and, when an ill-judged shot sent the ball spinning into the canal, pushed its perpetrator into the water (despite his protests) to retrieve it.

Time passed.

At three o'clock the peace was shattered. A horse-drawn wagon came clattering down the narrow, winding road from Kilsyth and pulled into the forecourt of the Refreshment Rooms. Three young women in the black dresses and white pinafores of waitresses or parlour-maids jumped from the bench behind the driver's raised seat and moved towards the building: two men began to unload boxes and crates from the dray.

The driver, a smartly-dressed individual in a brass-button navy blazer and with a jaunty straw boater, took one glance at the panorama of angler, footballers and puffer and came rushing over to the quayside against which the
Vital Spark
was lying.

“Get this eyesore out of here this minute!” he yelled with such ferocity that Para Handy was wide awake in a moment. “Are you crazy? In thirty minutes the
Gipsy Queen
will be here with the first excursion party of the year from Glasgow, and I've got little enough time to get their teas ready as it is. This is a berth for the gentry and their ladies, not a dumping-ground for a filthy coal-boat. Get it shifted this very minute!

“And you lot,” he added, rounding on the footballers without pausing to draw breath, “away to Hampden Park if football's all your brains can cope with. Don't waste my time with it here!”

“And you,” turning to Dougie — for he was obviously determined to leave nobody out, “have you got a fishing licence?”

Para Handy got to his feet and drew himself up with dignity. “I am sure and there iss no need to take that attitude,” he said, “for we have effery right to be here same ass you. But ass it happens we were chust on the point of leaving anyway so I will not put you to any further trouble…”

“Why wass he tellin' you to go to Hampden Perk?” the Captain enquired of Sunny Jim shortly afterwards as the
Vital Spark
negotiated one of the locks between Castlecary and Bonnybridge.

“Jist bein' clever by his way o' it,” said Jim. “It's the Cup Final today. Wush I
could
have been there, Raith Rovers and the Bairns.”

“Bairns?” asked Para Handy in a puzzled tone. “Whit the bleezes iss the Bairns?”

“Falkirk, of course,” said Jim. “They cry them that frae the toon's slogan: ‘Better meddle wi' the de'il than wi' the bairns o' Falkirk.' A spunky team.”

“Falkirk!” shouted a contemptuous voice from the depths of the engine-room. “They couldna play cat's-cradle, never mind fitba'. The Rovers wull eat them alive.”

Before Jim could take up the challenge, Para Handy remembered something more important than an argument about football.

“We've nothin' for oor teas,” he cried, “what wi' Dougie's usual success wi' the fushing, and the shops'll be shut by the time we get to Rosebank. Wheneffer we get to Bonnybridge Jum will have to make a wee excursion to get some bacon and eggs from the grocer's.”

Nobody paid too much attention, when they moored by the towpath at the village, to an abandoned, empty charabanc slewed across the road at the Wellstood Foundry, its front wheels splayed out like the flippers of a seal. It was obvious that the axle had broken and the vehicle was hopelessly immovable.

“Poor duvvles,” said the Captain. “And a Sunday School trup or the like by the look of it — see the bunting and the flegs on her! I chust hope that they dinna have much further to go.”

He had the answer to both those questions a few minutes later when Jim returned (with Dougie, who had chummed him on it) from his shopping excursion — with a bizarre following.

Behind them came some 15 or so young men, smartly turned out in matching blazers and grey trousers, each carrying brown canvas holdalls. At the van of this party were half-a-dozen older and distinguished-looking gentlemen, one carrying with exagerrated care a large silver cup, its handles pennanted with navy-blue and white ribbons.

A large crowd — half the population of Bonnybridge, by the look and sound of them — followed this group, whooping, cheering and cavorting exuberantly.

Both Jim and the Mate were grinning with delight as they came up beside the puffer. The frock-coated gentleman carrying the silver trophy held up his hand to the cheering crowds behind him. Their noise died away and he turned towards the vessel.

“Captain,” he said to Para Handy. “I would deem it the most enormous favour, since I understand that you are headed for the Rosebank Distillery, if you could give my fellow-directors and our boys passage. Our charabanc, as you can see, has met with an accident, and I do not want to disappoint the crowds waiting us in the town, nor the horse-carriages awaiting our arrival at the road-end to drive our boys into their home-town in their hour of triumph.”

Para Handy was non-plussed. “What boys? What hour of triumph?”

“Why,” said the gentleman: “here is the Falkirk football team and here we are on our way home with the Scottish Cup. You surely will not deny the boys their glory? Nor yours, either, for I am sure that your kindness will be well rewarded…”

The puffer's passage those last four miles to Rosebank on the western outskirts of the team's home town remains among the very happiest moments of Para Handy's maritime life. On either bank, cheering crowds raced along beside them: the team stood on the main-hatch, the silver cup held aloft in pride. At masthead and from the stern jackstaff flags and bunting, recovered from the charabanc, fluttered proudly in the evening sunlight.

At the Rosebank basin the waiting crowd had to be numbered in thousands and the rapturous reception for the team and its directors split the heavens. But all good things must come to an end, and within minutes the triumphant ‘Bairns' had climbed aboard the brightly-decked open coaches which awaited them, and driven off towards the town centre and a gala civic banquet.

Heroes of the moment in their own more modest way the crew were hailed ashore, taken to the Rosebank Inn, and enthusiastically ‘treated' by a large party of Falkirk supporters.

“Let this show you,” said Dougie to Para Handy goodnaturedly, “that I can fetch home mair than fush — and that Jum's football skills are not aal in vain, for it wass he that recognised the team at the roadside at Bonnybridge.”

“And don't forget,” chipped in the Engineer, “that means
you're
due to treat us now as weel — for I telt ye I wuddna forget whit ye said on the canal! Mine's a dram!”

F
ACTNOTE

The earliest passenger traffic on the Forth and Clyde Canal was not leisure travel, but workaday journeys or, at least, travel with a purpose. And since the boat service offered was not only faster but also much more comfortable than the coach-and-horses which were the only alternatives in the canal's early years, it prospered and grew. In time, though, the convenience and comfort of the water-borne transport was overtaken in every respect by the development of firstly the rail network and then the motor-car and charabanc.

By the early 1900s the canal boat companies almost exclusively provided pleasure cruises in purpose-built vessels which ran afternoon, evening or full-day excursions from Port Dundas in the centre of Glasgow. The
Gipsy Queen
was almost the last and probably the most capacious and luxurious of them all. Although restricted in size (like the working puffers) to an overall length of under 70' by the dimensions of the locks she had to navigate, she had three decks, the lowest (fully enclosed) having a tea-room capable of seating 60: and a lounge as well.