Complete New Tales of Para Handy (61 page)

“There wass more, much more, in the same comradely vein for the two wass in their best insultin' trum what wi' the refreshments they had taken and the upshot of it aal wass that they agreed that, next mornin', the Engineer would tak' the wheel ass they left the Coal Pier at Dunoon, whiles Wullie would be doon below makin' sure the engines didna break.

“What had seemed a good idea at midnight wass very much less attractive at seven o'clock on a dark winter mornin' but the two o' them wass that thrawn neither would admit it, and Wullie went doon to the engine-room while Erchie sauntered into the deckhoose and grabbed the wheel and pretended to himself he'd been doin' it aal his naitural.

“The Mate, who'd been told to keep well clear and leave the two eejits to their ain devices, cast off the bow and stern ropes and she began to druft off the pier-head. Erchie rang doon for full-speed ahead and Wullie tried to mak' some sense of aal the levers and gauges in front of him.

“For a few minutes there wass no sound apart from a series of muffled curses from doon below, then there wass a grindin' and a crunchin' and the propellor began to turn. For a while both men thought efferything wass hunky-dory, till there wass a loud screech on the whustle to the engine-room and Erchie roared doon the voice-pipe ‘You auld goat! You've got her goin' astern instead of aheid!'

“Next thing came the crunchin' and the grindin' sounds aal over again, followed by silence and then mair cursin', lots mair cursin', wi' chust occasional bursts of the shaft turnin' for a meenit and then stoppin', and then turnin' again, till finally in a last flurry of un-Chrustian language Wullie admitted defeat and yelled up the voice-pipe for Erchie to get back doon below and sort things oot for he chust wassna able to cope wi' it at aal.

“There was a short silence, then Erchie called quietly doon the pipe ‘Weel, Ah dinna think there's mich point in me comin' back doon right noo, Wullie, for Ah'm pretty sure Ah've chust run her onto the Gantocks onyway.'

“And indeed he had, right at the top of the tide, and it wass a full twelve hoors before they wass able to float her off again!

“Naw,” concluded Para Handy firmly. “We're no sturrin' till we get an engineer.” And, in view of the evidence which he had just had put so graphically before him, the owner agreed with some alacrity that Para Handy should register the temporary vacancy with the employment exchange at the Clyde Docks Office as a matter of urgency.

The bemused Napier set foot on the puffer's deck with an air of reluctance and stared about him in disbelief, pulling off his jauntily-tilted blue peaked cap to scratch at his head with all the signs of an inner turmoil.

Para Handy led him to Macphail's dark subterranean domain. The East Coast man looked even more distraught as he cast his eyes over the cramped engine-room with its single bunker, its single furnace, single boiler, single-pistoned power unit and single propellor shaft: its ramshackle tangle of dank pipes stained here and there with rust and marked by dark streaks of oil: its basic controls and almost total absence of instrumentation of any description.

“There she is, then,” said Para Handy with some pride. “Iss she not the beauty?”

There was an awkward silence.

“Is this
it
, then?” Napier asked finally. “I mean, where's the rest of your crew for a start…”

“Oh,” said the Captain, “Jum wull be back at any meenit, he has chust gone ashore for some provisions ass I was determined to mak' a start ass soon ass you got here. We have lost two days already and our customer is becoming impatient at the delay, he has been sending telegraphs to the owner's office to say so.”

Napier looked no more at his ease. “So — er — this ‘Jum': is he my stoker, or my greaser, or my machine-man? And whichever he is, where are the other two? And how the blazes does your regular man find enough space for them all to carry out their duties in a cupboard like this?”

Para Handy stared at the relief engineer uncomprehendingly.

“Jum iss our deckhand and cook,” he said: “and a good cook he has become over the years, you will be well fed aboard the shup I can assure you! But Jum has no business effer to be in the enchine-room at aal: it iss your own responsibulity entirely and neither Jum nor nobody else wull interfere with that, I can promise you .”

Napier gaped on the Captain. “D'you mean to tell me you are sailing with jist one man in the engine-room? What happens when he's asleep in his bunk?”

“What do you mean ‘what happens'?” retorted the Captain. “What do you think happens? Nothing happens! When he's off-watch then efferybody's off-watch.”

Napier blanched. “When I saw the vessel, I had to admire your courage in undertaking the voyage and I was prepared at least to consider sailing with you for I've never been known to shrink from my duty. But with no proper crew — man, you're all mad! You will never, never make it to Canada in this tub!”

“
Canada
,” exclaimed Para Handy. “For peety's sake, who the duvvle said onythin' aboot Canada? What do you think this is — the Allan line? We're chust takin' some coals in to
Canna
. Does Dougie look the sort of a man who would risk the North Atlantic in anything smaaller than the
Olympic
? As for me, a Macfarlane neffer shurked, but there are lumits!”

The other looked mightily relieved. “Well,” he said, “I have been sent here under false pretences, for I'm a deep-sea man myself, waiting to take up the Chief's post on the new Ben Line ship that's fitting out at Fairfields right now, and when I asked at the Docks Office yesterday about the chance of a berth to fill in the time, they told me that you were looking for an engineer for a round-trip — to Canada!

“That clerk must have cloth ears! And I must say you gave me the devil of a fright! What's more, I take my hat off to your own engineer: I'm too spoiled by having a huge squad at my beck and call. I could no more run this engine-room on my own than I could navigate to Australia — your man's worth his weight in gold and I hope you realise it.”

Para Handy and Dougie were delighted, on their return to the boat thirty minutes later after they had treated Napier to a dram to compensate for the waste of his time, to discover that not only was Sunny Jim back — as expected — and frying sausages in the fo'c'sle, but Macphail himself was esconced among his engines and examining them anxiously to see if they had come to any harm during his absence.

“Dan!” cried the Captain, beaming with enthusiasm, “we are fair delighted to see you back! What happened to the appendix?”

“Appendix my eye,” replied the Engineer. “It wis naethin' but a bad spell o' indigestion and the Hospital wisnae weel pleased wi' ma ain Doctor for gettin' it wrang.

“Huv I missed much?”

“Nothing at aal, Dan,” said Para Handy. “Nothing at aal. There wass some talk of takin' her to Canada” — the Engineer paled — “but, och, it came to nothing, it wass chust a baur. Let us chust get some steam up, and we will tell you aal aboot it some other time.”

F
ACTNOTE

The Gantock Rocks lie about half-a-mile south-east of Dunoon Pier and must have claimed many maritime victims large and small over the centuries, particularly in poor visibility and rough seas. Although they are now well-lit, and in spite of all the modern aids to navigation, they still do — as was demonstrated by our last and much-loved paddler
Waverley
, which was stranded on the reef but fortunately with no casualties and no serious damage to her hull.

The largest ship ever to have been sunk by the Gantocks was the Swedish ore carrier
Akka
which went down in April 1956. Six of her crew were lost in the tragedy, which was apparently caused by steering-failure when she slowed down in order to pick up the river-pilot for her voyage upstream to Glasgow. The 5,500 ton ship, with an overall length of 440ft, struck the reef on her port side, ripping a huge hole in the hull, and remained afloat for only a matter of a few minutes.

The White Star liner
Olympic
was built in the Belfast yard of Harland and Wolff and handed over to her owners on May 31st 1911, the same day on which her sister
Titanic
was launched. An overall length of nearly 900ft ensured that these new ships far exceeded their German and Cunard rivals in size as well as in the opulence of their accommodations. They were designed to deliver profits as well as prestige, though, being powered by newly-developed engine systems which combined efficiency with economy, and capable of carrying 2,500 fare-paying passengers in three classes.

Hidden from these passengers were the echoing caverns of the engine room and, worst horror of all, the stokehold where (till the use of oil-fuel rendered their thankless, repetitive tasks redundant) armies of men laboured on the back-breaking work of coaling the furnaces for the 29 boilers which powered the ship.

Known in the shipboard slang of the period as the ‘Black Gang', most of the stokers employed on the British Transatlantic fleet were Liverpool Irish. Harsh conditions bred harsh men and stories of quarrels and sometimes lethal fights — usually among themselves, though occasionally with other members of the crew and even more rarely with particularly brutal Officers — are a part of the legend and lore of the age. However they invariably maintained good relations with the galley, which they provided with fuel and whose fires they helped maintain. In return, the cooks passed to the stokehold men what became known as the ‘Black Pan' — uneaten food left over from the sumptuous menus provided to First Class Passengers.

The ‘Black Pan' was at its bounteous best during spells of bad weather — the more prolonged, the better!

52

May the Best Man Win

P
ara Handy and Dougie were seated in Castle Gardens in Dunoon watching the world go by on the esplanade below them. It was the middle of July, the weather was set fine, and the town was packed with holidaymakers and day visitors. A quarter of a mile away at the Coal Pier a thin drizzle of smoke rose skywards from the black-topped red funnel of the
Vital Spark
, awaiting a consignment of logs to be carted down from Glen Masson.

There was a sudden buzz of interest on the thronged pavement and a scatter of applause, and a wedding-party came into sight and headed for the Argyll Hotel. Bride and groom occupied the first carriage-and-pair and in a second one, following closely behind, were bridesmaids, the best man, and the ushers.

“A wedding,” sighed Para Handy sentimentally. “I can neffer see wan but I think aboot my own.”

“And I neffer see wan but I try to forget aboot my own,” said the Mate gloomily.

“Neffer!” said Para Handy, “Lisa iss a fine, managing wumman if a bit headstrong chust now and then, and you have a family to be proud of. Brutain's hardy sons!”

“Aye,” replied the Mate, yet more gloomily still. “All twelve of them.”

Para Handy felt it was time to focus his companion's attention elsewhere.

“Hurricane Jeck wass best man at a weddin' in Oban a few years back,” he observed. “Man, they still taalk aboot it in the toon to this day!

“I wass ashore myself on leave at the time, and met Jeck hurryin' up Buchanan Street towards the railway station.

“ ‘The very man,' says Jeck. ‘I have time for chust the wan wee gless before my train leaves, and I need your advice, Peter.'

“Jeck had been asked earlier in the week by an old frien' of his from Barra if he wud be his best man, he wass being merrit next day in Oban on a Kilmore gyurl, and this wass Jeck heading for the train for the two of them wass to meet up in Oban that night, and stay over at the Crown Hotel before the wedding the following morning.

“ ‘What it is, Peter,' says Jeck, quite flustered, ‘iss that I havna a notion whit's expected of me. You know me, Peter, I've made dam' sure never to be tied doon, and the result iss that I have neffer effer been at
any
wedding in my naitural, neffer mind my own!