Complete New Tales of Para Handy (7 page)

“ ‘I dinna think ye've met Hamish, my youngest', says he by way o' introduction.

“The upshot of it wass that Hamish had been up in Glendaruel on a chob wi' the Forestry and had got back to Colintraive too late to catch the boat to Gleska wi' the rest o' them, and him a desperate keen supporter o' the Kyles Athletics team.

“I could see which way the wind was going to blow but I owed an obleegance to Ferguson for the time he'd subbed us till the wages cam' through from the owner so before I could say eechie or ochie aboot it, young Hamish was aboard the boat and we were to gi'e him passage up river when we left at dawn the Saturday mornin'. In truth it wass no great inconvenience, for we wass to unload oor cairgo at Govan on Monday mornin' and so we'd planned to berth the shup there for the weekend ass it wass.

“Noo ye'll mind that afore Macphail moved to Plantation he'd spent all his years in Govan so, though he'd never been to a fitba' game in his life, he coonted hissel' a supporter o' the Rangers. ‘Brutain's finest', he wud say when the papers showed them winnin' some new trophy or ither: ‘Rangers iss the boys!'

“So he didna' take too kindly to a Kyles supporter installed in the fo'c'sle, specially wan festooned in the favours o' the Kyles team, in a kind o' roarie yellow colour like the skin of a custard and wi' a stripe or two o' purple through it.

“Dougie wass ashore visitin' a cousin so Jum and me did oor best to keep the peace but Macphail was aye needlin', needlin' at the young fellow. It wass ‘At least you lot'll see fur wance whit way a real team plays fitba' tomorrow' — and — ‘See in yon strup o' yours, the Kyles boys'll look like naethin' so mich as a set o' kahouchy skuttles or a cageful o' canaries!' — and — ‘Whit nicht wull ye be haudin' the wake in Colintraive?'

“I tell you I wass that worried they wud come to blows then and there I took Hamish to wan side and made him promise to keep hiss hands in his pockets and off the enchineer. ‘Ye'll have to mind he's an older man and you wud lose face if you laid wan on him,' says I. ‘Michty,' says Hamish. ‘It's him that wud lose face — and a' the component pairts o' it — if I did.' But he promised me he'd swallow the insults ass if they wass water off a wally close and sit on his hands if needs be. ‘You have my word on it, Captain MacFarlane,' he says: ‘I swear I'll no' lay a finger on the auld fool.'

“To be on the safe side and to keep them apart I took Macphail up to the Inns and treated him oot of my ain pocket. When we got back aboard the young man wass sound asleep in the spare bunk and I thought that was that, for we had a very early start the next mornin', and Macphail wud be snug doon in his enchines wi' the latest novelle and oot o' herm's way.

“Everythin' went sweemingly on the Saturday, we made a quick passage up the river and put in to the basin at Govan at aboot two o'clock and set the young fellow ashore within an easy walk o' Ibrox Stadium.

“His faither had promised to send a telegraph to wan o' his Gleska cousins and get him to meet him at the quayside and sure enough there wass another yellow-and-purple bedecked figure waiting for him at the dock gates.

“ ‘Whateffer you do, dinna' staun' behind the Kyles goal' was Macphail's parting shot. ‘For there'll be that mony holes in the net in nae time that ye'll be sittin' targets like ducks in a shootin' gallery! Or canaries raither!'

“But chust two minutes later the young fellow wass back! Here and wass it no' an aal-ticket game! His cousin had chust the wan ticket so there wass nothin' for Hamish to do but drum hiss heels. ‘I've arranged for cousin Gordon to come back doon here to collect me wance the game's over,' he said, and him near to greetin' wi' the disappointment of it all. ‘I hope it's all right for me to wait on the boat till then?'

“Mercifully Macphail went aff to sulk among his enchines and the rest of us sat doon in the fo'c'sle and had a baur.

“Come five o'clock the young fellow went up on deck to look oot for his cousin comin' back. Dougie and me went up too, and began gettin' the shup ready for the unlading on Monday. Dougie started to loose the tarpaulins on the cargo hatch, and I freed the jib o' the derrick from its bracket at the fore end of the wheelhouse.

“Chust then Macphail came out on deck. ‘I thocht you'd have been ashore tae get your black armband and your weepers,' he cried to Hamish. ‘But at least I can gi'e ye plenty o' coaldust tae mak' yer ain!'

“I'll say this for the boy, he never stirred, chust drummed his fingers even-on on the jib-arm of the derrick.

“And then hiss cousin appeared at the gates, and walked up to the side of the quay. You chust needed to see the way that he walked to ken he certainly wassnae the bringer o' glad tidings frae Ibrox.

“Hamish looked up anxiously. ‘Whit wis the score, Gordon?'

“ ‘Seventeen-nil.'

“Hamish said nothin', chust kept drummin' his fingers even-on on the jib-arm, but there was a great guffaw from behind him where Macphail stood on the other side of the deck by the bulwarks at the after end of the hold. ‘Seventeen-nil!
Seventeen-nil
! Go on, Hamish — are you no' even goin' tae ask him —
who fur
?'

“It took just seconds. The young fellow spun round, seized hold of the jib-arm, and with a mighty shove swung it outwards and towards Macphail. It caught him chust at head-height, as you can see from the state of his eye: and knocked him overboard into the basin.

“ ‘I'm right sorry, Captain,' said the young fellow: ‘but a man can take only so mich: and I kept my promise. I didn't lay a finger on him.'

“Since Sunny Jum wass ashore gettin' the groceries, and I'm the only wan o' the rest of the crew that can swum, it was me that had to dive in and fish him oot. And ruined my best pea-jacket in the doin' o' it.

“Like I said at the beginning: you can neffer trust a man frae Colintraive.”

F
ACTNOTE

The quiet Kyles village of Colintraive has a number of particularly fine houses, many of which were originally built as summer homes by wealthy Glasgow merchants and professional men. The shortest ferry-crossing on the Clyde operates from here to Rhubodach on the island of Bute, less than five minutes away across the narrows.

The most unexpected teams can occasionally reach the later rounds of the Scottish Cup, and they can find themselves drawn to play established, senior clubs. This helps to give the Cup (at least from the point-of-view of the neutral bystander) a sometimes surreal serendipity.

In 1995, for example, a non-league Fife team called Burntisland Shipyard (named from the years long gone, when it was a ‘works' team in the days when Burntisland
had
a shipyard) reached the third round of the tournament. Sadly for those whose sympathies lie with the underdogs, that was the limit of their progress.

Inevitably some of these fairy-tale teams have gone down to crashing defeats. The most notorious score-line of all dates from 1885, when Arbroath (playing at home) beat Aberdeen Bon Accord by 36 goals to nil — which was equivalent to a goal being scored every two-and-a-half minutes of playing time. The
Guinness Book of Records
account of the event comments: ‘But for the lack of nets and the consequent waste of retrieval time the score must have been even higher.' Arbroath still play senior football today, though in one of the lower divisions.

Two years later the equivalent record for the English Cup was set by Preston North End with a 26 to nil victory over Hyde.

I hope that any supporters of Rangers who may read this story will excuse the placing of a totally fictional game at the very real Ibrox Stadium: I am sure they will, particularly when it involves such a convincing victory! And I doubt very much if there would have been any ‘all-ticket' games in Para Handy's day, but sometimes a little anachronism becomes a must in the telling of a tale!

It has also to be admitted that the Kyles area is better known for its Shinty traditions than for any pretensions to football. Shinty is perhaps best loosely categorised, for those unaware of its finer points or even of its existence, as a version of hockey which seems to have few rules and scant consideration for the safety of the protagonists. A game with a Physical Contact Quotient which makes almost any other team-game seem a pansy pursuit, and enjoying a strong loyal and local following in the Highlands (to which area it is largely confined), it has been described by uninitiated critics as legalised mayhem. To those brought up with, and devoted to, the traditions and the finer points of the game, such a comment is as a red rag to a bull. So I unreservedly withdraw it!

6

An Inland Voyage

O
n occasion, the
Vital Spark
left her familiar Clyde haunts for the sheltered waters of the Forth & Clyde Canal. Sometimes she was bound for the farther shores of the Firth of Forth to load barley for the distilleries back at Campbeltown. Sometimes she would pick up a cargo of timber from the seasoning basins at the port of Grangemouth. Sometimes her business was within the canal network itself, taking coals to the Carron foundries or uplifting pig-iron from Bonnybridge.

Whatever the reasons for her presence on the canal, Para Handy viewed such journeys with an unremitting and quite remorseless loathing.

The other members of the puffer's crew looked on these inland voyages as a welcome relief from the more demanding environment of the open waters of the Firth, and the associated problems of wind and tide. To chug effortlessly through the countryside along a smooth ribbon of never-ruffled water was sheer paradise compared with the purgatory of battering round Ardnamurchan in the teeth of a howling headwind and a steely, rolling swell.

For the skipper, though, the canal was hell: for here, in every town and village through which the little vessel passed, he was at the mercy of the unfeeling urchins who watched the approach and greeted the passage of the puffer with undisguised derision.

At least on the river and in the firth the sarcastic cries of “
Aquitania
ahoy!” from boys fishing from piers or hanging over the stern of the crack paddlers shooting past the lumbering puffer could be ignored. The puffer would eventually be out of earshot of the piers, and the paddlers would much sooner be just a dot on the distant horizon as they sped away, carrying his tormentors with them.

On the canal the taunts were ever-present. The
Vital Spark
was easily outpaced by the ragamuffins of Avondale or Twechar, who assembled on the banks in droves as she approached and then ran alongside her with their merciless, mocking cries as she wheezed her way towards the next set of locks. Her looks and her speed were compared unfavourably with the elegance and pace of renowned passenger-vessels like the
Faery Queen
or the
May Queen
and Para Handy could only escape the verbal onslaught by retiring to the wheelhouse, tightly shutting door and windows however hot the weather, and feigning a lofty disdain that he certainly did not feel.

“Man, Dougie,” he would protest, as he watched the gang race ahead and line up at the parapet of the next bridge the puffer must pass under, “ye wud think their faithers and mithers wud bring them up wi' some sense of the dignity o' the sea! They've no more respect for the
Vital Spark
than if she wass a common coal scow or a cattle barge!”

Thus a fine May morning found the captain in a foul mood as the puffer approached Camelon on the Forth and Clyde Canal, their destination the Rosebank Distillery on the outskirts of Falkirk with a cargo of the best Fife barley. Her progress through the locks at Grangemouth had involved running the usual gauntlet of taunt and insult and the skipper's patience was exhausted.

The
Vital Spark
nosed in to the quayside at the Rosebank basin where two horse-drawn drays stood waiting to start carting the sacks of grain to the adjacent distillery warehouse.