Complete New Tales of Para Handy (28 page)

An hour later the crew were sat round a table in the bar of the Hunter's Quay Hotel. On it, as well as four dram glasses and four beer glasses (all appropriately filled), were two golden sovereigns, glinting in the light of the tilleylamps.

“My Chove,” said the Captain. “Now there wass a true chentleman and no mistake.

“But what for did he want all those photies? Yon man wass snap snap-snappin' awa' for the best part of an hoor aal over the shup. Wheelhoose, hold, enchine-room, the fo'c'sle — above aal, the fo'c'sle. You would think we wass savidges on a sooth sea island rather than chust some o' Brutain's hardy sons gaun' aboot their daily business…

“And ass for the questions thon white haired mannie asked? Whit a cheek! And in any case, whit's an anthro…anthripolijist when it's at hame? Whit did the Earl mean when he said tae him that there wass mair to wonder at on yer ain front doorstep than there wass in the farthest outposts o' cuvileesation? And why did Brassey keep sayin' — the impertinunce o' it — that the shup was chust junk in British watters and shud be preserved for posterity or folk wudna believe it?”

“Not ‘chust junk', Peter, ‘chust
like
a junk', whateffer he meant by that,” said Dougie.

“Onyway,” said Macphail. “They wis real toffs richt enough. Twa whole sov'rins for wir trouble!”

“Aye,” agreed Para Handy. “But best of aal wass the expression on McCutcheon's face when Brassey shook hands with us aal — but ignored him!

“Some things are chust beyond price!”

F
ACTNOTE

Today there are few vessels in private ownership capable of worldwide deep-water cruising. Most large yachts are based in the Mediterranean, Caribbean or, rather more exotically, such fashionable Pacific islands as New Caledonia or Hawaii. But there they seem to stay, doing little more time at sea than some occasional island-hopping, as often as not used more as holiday homes and entertainment venues than as ships.

By contrast, the years at the turn of this century were the zenith of the great privately-owned ocean-going yachts, whose owners used them for ambitious voyages of many months duration to remote and inaccessible destinations as well as to the more expected or established ports-of-call worldwide. Very often places on them were available to zoologists and those of other scientific disciplines who must otherwise have had scant chance of visiting the distant islands which were their common goal.

Largest of them all was the Earl of Crawford's towering 245ft
Valhalla
, the only ship-rigged yacht in the world. Brassey's
Sunbeam
, though, was certainly the best known. For almost 40 years she spent much of her time at sea traversing the oceans of the world on an extraordinary series of voyages chronicled in her owner's book
Sunbeam RYS
, first published in 1917. His wife, who accompanied him on most of his travels, wrote her own account of them in
The Voyage of the Sunbeam
. in most years the yacht did indeed spend some time in Scottish waters either at the beginning or end of a longer voyage, or as a destination in itself.

Sunbeam
was launched at Seacombe in Cheshire in 1875. She was 170ft overall and with all sail set carried 16,000 square yards of canvas! Lairds of Liverpool installed a 70hp auxiliary steam engine for which her bunkers carried 80 tons of coal.

The human history of the remote destinations he visited and the way of life of the (then) virtually unknown peoples and tribes he met, were a constant fascination to Brassey and his book gives many valuable accounts of strange societies, unfamiliar communities and unexpected life-styles.

The imposing clubhouse for the Royal Clyde Yacht Club was built above the bay at Hunter's Quay in 1888, a splendid psuedo-Tudor construction totally out of character for its location. With half-timbered gables and balconies, stone tower and parapet, it is about as ‘un-Scottish' as it could be yet sits magnificently in its prominent location.

Today it enjoys new life as the popular Royal Marine Hotel and is thus a social as well as an architectural landmark in the Cowal community.

S
UNBEAM
, RYS — By an astonishing coincidence, the MacGrory collection contains this photo of Brassey's
Sunbeam
in Campbeltown Bay. Initially filed as a Naval archive (for obvious reasons) this is beyond doubt that remarkable ocean-traveller, as a comparison with a plate in the Earl's own book confirms. The crew of the launch are not in naval uniform but the yacht's own issue, and were this a naval scene the launch would be flying an ensign. The
Sunbeam
was in Scottish waters 10 times between 1897 and 1909.

24

Flags of Convenience

I
t was one of the puffer's periodic visits to Bridge Wharf in the centre of the city of Glasgow, and an urchin appeared at the quayside with a letter in his hand, the envelope carefully addressed to ‘The Captain, Steam Lighter
Vital Spark
, Glasgow' on one of the new typing machines which were sweeping all before them in the city offices.

“My Chove,” said Para Handy, perusing the contents with an increasingly puzzled expression, “whit a fine kettle of fush!”

“What is it, Peter,” asked the Mate anxiously. “Is it from the owner? He surely hassna been and sold the boat over oor heads?”

“Sold the boat!” came a splutter from the engine-room, where Dan Macphail was busy with oil-can and wrench trying to make good a leaking joint in the shaft-casing. “Of course he's no' sold the boat: he couldnae gi'e it awa' as a prize for a Good Templar's raffle!”

“Pay no attention to him, Dougie: he's been in a paddy ever since John Hay's
Spartan
overtook us at Bowling this mornin' chust after he'd been blawin' aboot the difference he'd made to our speed since he'd cleaned oot the tubes o' the biler.

“No, the letter iss not from the owner, though he iss the cause of it, it's from the Board of Tred. They are holdin' some sort of classes aboot — how do they cry it?” He opened the letter up again, “ ‘signalling procedures'. The owner hass volunteered me to go to them. The Board iss sayin' that the coastal tred iss no keepin' up wi' new methods and there have been too many accidents caused by poor signals at sea, or by shups that dinna understand them at aal.

“The upshot of it aal iss that he iss buying a complete set of signal flags for the
Vital Spark
, and I have to learn how to use them, and then they say I must teach you laads the whole whigmaleerie ass weel!”

“It iss a liberty!” exclaimed the Mate. “The
Vital Spark
hass never been in any trouble! You've aalways had a grand voice for bellowin' wi', Peter, and that's all the signals we've needed aal oor years at sea.”

Liberty or not the owner's instructions had to be complied with and Para Handy duly presented himself the following morning at the Glasgow offices of the Maritime branch of the Board of Trade, unaccustomedly scrubbed and shaved, and kitted out in his one good pea-jacket.

“I don't like it, boys,” he said as he left the puffer. “But I will not let the vessel down. A MacFarlane will neffer disgrace himself or tak' the easy way oot when it comes to representing the reputation and the good name of his shup!”

The class itself was held in an empty bay of a warehouse at the Stobcross Quay on the north bank of the river — a dusty, drab, dreich and draughty venue where were assembled some two dozen unhappy seamen, almost all skippers of steam lighters and quite without exception as resentful as Para Handy about the liberty taken in inflicting the classes upon them. Their tempers were not improved when they discovered that they would be introduced to the new mysteries, not by some veteran old salt, but by a fresh-faced youth in a grey suit and a white shirt with an Eton collar and a flower in his button-hole.

There were few of his fellow-sufferers with whom Para Handy was not well-acquainted. One however — the skipper of Hay's puffer
Spartan
whom the
Vital Spark
had by coincidence encountered on her way up river the previous day — was a particular bete-noire of the usually placid Captain.

“The side of the man!” complained Para Handy to his crew when he returned to the puffer for his dinner at the end of the morning session. “Aye noddin' and makin' oot he knows it aal already, and then runnin' errands for the young whipper-snapper that's takin' the cless when he needs new flags or whateffer.

“I always thought John Hay made a big mistake when he put Alec Bain in cherge o' the
Spartan
and my Chove now I know I wass right!”

“But whit aboot the class, Captain?” asked Sunny Jim. “Whit d'ye huv tae do?”

“You may well ask, Jum. Jumpin' through girrs! They have wan flag for each letter o' the elphabet but of course if you wass to use them to spell oot ony messages it wud take foreffer, so they have devised a sort of a code. You put chust two of the flags up the halyard at wance and effery pair means a different message to aal the ither pairs, and you find oot whit it is by lookin' it up in this list.” At that point the Captain pulled a closely-printed sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and waved it in the air. “It's aal so unnecessary! We have managed chust fine for years withoot ony o' this rubbish!”

Sunny Jim still looked mystified.

“Let me try to explain the way of it, Jum,” continued Para Handy. “If we were runnin' oot of coal, for example, what would we do aboot it at present?”

“It all depends on the cargo we're cairryin' at the time,” said Jim, puzzled but trying to be helpful. “Ah mean, if it's coals we're cairryin' then ye jist send me tae the hold wi' a few sacks tae fill, for neither the merchant nor the owner'll ever fin' oot aboot it an'…”

“No, no Jum,” said the Captain hastily, “that's not what I mean at aal. What do we do if we're gettin' short and we're at sea and we're not cairryin' coals…?”

“Weel, then ye'd jist bellow on the next puffer we meet and get the len' o' a bag or twa that wud see us safe to the nearest harbour,” said Jim.

Para Handy beamed. “Precisely, Jim,” he said. “But these dam' Board o' Trade regulations want us to put up flags for aal the world to see.” He consulted the printed sheet: “The two flags you wud need fur that situation are the G and the Y — and they mean
Can you spare me coal?”

“Whit genius thocht yon up!” snorted Macphail. “I can jist see Williamson stoppin' the
King Edward
in her tracks tae gi'e me a few shuvvles of the best Ayrshire nutty slack somewhere between Lochranza and Campbeltown, in the middle of the Gleska Trades weekend!”

“Chust so, Dan,” said Para Handy. “But —” burrowing once again into the mysteries of the leaflet, “— we could maybe try flyin' the R and the H —
Can you supply me with anyone to take charge as engineer?
It wud make a pleasant change to have wan! Or maybe we wud put up the B with the J which accordin' to the list wud mean:
Engine broken down, I am disabled.
Not too unlikely for the
Vital Spark
on the days you're in bad trum, eh Dan?”