Complete New Tales of Para Handy (70 page)

“Now admuttedly, Mr Munro, that is aal maybe no' chust as earth shattering as the events in Chapan that you were goin' on aboot earlier, but at least they are closer to home.

“And since it wass us comin' from the East that took the rise oot o' the Excisemen in the West, then maybe that wull give you some thoughts ass to how things wull turn oot for the Emperor and the Tsar at the end o' the day!”

F
ACTNOTE

There had not been any really significant large-scale naval encounters since the Battle of Trafalgar of 1805 until the 20th century was ushered in with the short-lived Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. The development of capital ships and their armament had been, largely, a matter of theory and the naval architect's drawing-board rather than close encounters by substantial naval forces in a war zone.

Though there were land battles in the war, notably in Manchuria and North Korea, it is remembered principally for the two naval encounters between the protagonists. In July 1904 the Russian Pacific Fleet put out from Vladivostok and was annihilated by the Japanese. Then in one of the most flambuoyantly tragi-comic episodes in the whole history of war, the Tsar dispatched the Russian
Baltic
fleet to the Pacific to avenge the destruction of their compatriots.

This voyage of more than half-way round the world by way of the Cape of Good Hope took many months but by May 1905 the Russians were in Japanese waters. The two fleets met on May 28th 1905 at Tsushima and the result was another catastrophe for the Russian navy. They deployed 37 ships against the Japanese: Togo's fleet sank 22 of them including six of the eight battleships, largely thanks to the superior speed and fire-power of his own capital ships. That was only surpassed when the first of the British
Dreadnought
class, then on the stocks at Portsmouth, started to enter service the following year.

There was only ever one distillery at Ardrishaig. Glendarroch was one of the first of the ‘modern' generation of distilleries created after the new Excise Act of 1823 set the industry on its organised, commercial, large-scale (and legal) journey.

P
ROUD
P
ARENT
— The moment I came across this wonderful photograph of proud mother and (presumably) pampered offspring in the MacGrory collection I knew I simply had to write a story involving a pram to give me an excuse to include the picture in the book! And now you are reading it. It is probably
not
the case that the child is just about to slide out of the base of the pram, but it certainly looks like it!

Glendarroch opened in 1831 and passed through several hands in the course of its long history. At its peak, the distillery had an output of 80,000 gallons a year but its last owners, the Glenfyne Distillery Co Ltd, finally shut it down in 1937 after more than a century of continuous production. Its buildings were put to a variety of uses in the decades thereafter, though they have now been completely demolished.

And yes, there was a stream: there were in fact
two
streams to serve the plant. One, the Ard Burn, provided the water for the distilling process: the other powered the water wheels.

This second stream, the Darroch, flowed down the glen from the distillery and passed under the Crinan Canal by way of a narrow culvert before finally debouching into Loch Gilp and so to Loch Fyne.

59

Sublime Tobacco

O
nce breakfast was finished, the Captain felt in his pocket for his pipe, then reached into his overhead locker and pulled out a yellow oilskin tobacco pouch. Opening it, Para Handy stared disbelievingly into its interior, sighed, and shook his head in resignation.

“My chove,” he said: “I chust do not know where the tobacco goes and that iss a fact. I could have sworn there wass a good two or three oonces left when I put her away last night, but now here she iss quite ass empty ass Old Mother Hubbard's Cupboard…” And he paused at this point to glance suspiciously across the table at the
Vital Spark
's Engineer, who was the only other smoker on the vessel.

“You needna look at me like that,” said that worthy, quite indignantly, pushing his empty breakfast plate away and picking up his mug of tea. “Ah widna use the rubbish that
you
smoke tae smoke a finnan haddie. Ah've mair respect for ma throat. You call that tobacco? Ye'd be as weel to stick your heid doon the lum o' the shup and tak' a few deep breaths. Ah'm sure that wid be better for ye.”

Para Handy ignored him.

“It's you that iss lucky you are not a smoker, Dougie,” he said to the Mate somewhat enviously. “You chust wudna believe the expense of it!”

“Oh yes I would,” said the Mate gloomily, with thoughts of the large family his wages had to support uppermost in his mind. “I most certainly would: it's only the cost that stops me, otherwise I'd be puffin' awa' wi' the rest of you. It wass only getting merried that went and put a stop to my smoking. When I wass younger I had a different kind of a pipe for every day of the week.”

“Smokin' wass cheaper then, though,” continued the Captain, as he salvaged the last few shreds of tobacco from his pouch, laid them carefully into the bowl of his pipe, and reached for a match. “Folk were more wulling to trate you, or to share if you were oot of the makin's yourself” — and here he paused to stare meaningfully at Macphail, who was re-filling his own pipe from a well-stocked pouch, but the Engineer paid no heed — “whereas nooadays it's such a price!

“If you're smokin' your own tobacco, aal you're thinkin' aboot iss the expense of it, and you put scarcely enough in your pipe to get it going. Whiles if you're in company where a baccy tin or a pooch iss passing roond, on the ither hand, and so you're smokin' someone else's, then your pipe iss rammed that tight it wullna draw!”

Sunny Jim, who preferred to spend what surplus he could glean from his wages on more rewarding indulgences such as favours or ice-cream sundaes for his girl-of-the-moment, chuckled quietly and observed: “Weel, you could save a lot o' money by buying your vestas from thon jenny-a'-thing shop at Blairmore where you got them at last week!”

The puffer had been bound for Ardentinny for oak-bark from the forestry plantations in Glenfinnart when, just as they were abreast of the pier at Blairmore, the Captain had realised that he was out of matches — and remembered also that there was no shop of any decription at Ardentinny.

It was the work of just a few minutes to put in to the pier and from there Sunny Jim had been dispatched to the general store to purchase a carton containing two dozen large boxes of matches. The transaction completed, the puffer continued on her way and three miles further on put inshore and beached as close to the road as she could, close beside Ardentinny's little church, and waited for the arrival of the first forestry dray with its load of oak-bark.

Captain and Engineer, in a rare moment of camaraderie, had sat themselves side-by-side on the main-hatch in the warm afternoon sun and filled their pipes.

Para Handy passed the newly-bought carton of vestas to Macphail, who took out one of the boxes, carefully extracted a match, and struck it on the side of the box. There was a slight crackle, a momentary spark, but nothing more. He tried again. And again. Exasparated, Macphail threw the dud match away and selected another. The same scenario was repeated. He tried a third. The same again. Cursing, he tried another box, and then another and another, but always with the same negative result.

Para Handy, who had been impatiently waiting to get his own pipe lit, could finally wait no longer and snatched the carton of boxes from the Engineer's hands. “You couldna light a fire wi' a can o' kerosene, Dan,” he complained testily: “see the metches here, you chust havna the knack for them at aal.”

But the Captain fared no better than the Engineer had done, and in disgust Macphail finally went aft to the engine-room and put a taper into the red-hot coals in the furnace, and from that the two men lit their pipes.

Para Handy studied the carton and its worthless boxes of vestas contemptuously.

“Jum!” he shouted.

Sunny Jim, who was down below peeling potatos, came scrambling up on deck a moment later.

“Jum,” said the Captain, “I want you to tak' this dam' carton o' vestas back to Cherlie Paterson's shop at Blairmore. Tell him they wullna strike at aal, I want either my money back or else a new carton wi' boxes in it that work.”

Jim's protests at being forced into a six-mile round trip over such a relative triviality were disregarded and the puffer's young hand soon found himself stepping out along the coast road with the worthless carton under his arm. His annoyance at being sent on such a trifling errand soon vanished, for it was a most beautiful afternoon, Loch Long was at its spectacular best, the birds were in full song and the wild flowers bordering the roadside were at their colourful zenith — and he was
not
having to trim oak-bark in a dusty, sweltering hold.

When Sunny Jim presented himself at the store in Blairmore and disclosed the nature of his errand, the proprietor was totally unimpressed.

“There's naething wrang wi' my vestas,” he said angrily, “You tell Peter Macfarlane that.”

“But they wullna
light
!” protested Jim.

“Willna light?” exploded Paterson. “See me wan o' they boxes and I'll show you whether they light or not,” and he grabbed the carton, took out a box, extracted a match and then, leaning forward slightly as he did so, struck it vigorously on the seat of his trousers.

The match immediately burst into flame.

“See whit I mean?” roared the proprietor.

“Ah see whit you mean,” replied Sunny Jim quietly, “but I dinna think either Para Handy or Dan Macphail ha'e ony intention of walking six miles from Ardentinny and back jist to strike a match on the seat of
your
breeks every time they want a smoke.”

He got his new carton.

The Captain laughed at the memory of that. “Aye, you did weel there, Jum: I wush I'd been wi' you for the sake of seeing the expression on Cherlie Paterson's face!

“And
you'd
have enjoyed seein' the expression on Dan's face yon time we bumped intae thon yat the
Blue Dragon
up at Eisdale. We bumped into her in more ways than wan, in fact, for we came into the wee harbour just efter derk, no' expecting ony ither boats to be there, and towing our own dinghy, for we had a deck cairgo of a flittin'. Here and did we no' clatter the yat wi' the dinghy ass we came in.

“The owner wass on deck in a flash, but when he saw there wass no damage done he couldna have been nicer aboot it, and invited us aal on board for a refreshment.”

The Engineer, who had been twisting uncomfortably in his seat, said firmly “Dinna you say anither word, Peter, that wis a lot o' years ago, and it's not a very interestin' baur onyway.”

“Oh, I'm no so sure aboot that,” replied the Captain. “We will let Jum be the judge!