Complete New Tales of Para Handy (41 page)

Port Glasgow was in festive mood. Everywhere bunting was draped across the streets and flags and banners hung from windows. The sound of a distant brass band could be heard even above the din of the riveters' hammers and the screech of a passing tram.

Para Handy and Macphail made their way to the railway station where the Engineer established the time of the next train to Glasgow and bought a single ticket. With half-anhour to pass the pair went into the bar of the Station Hotel.

“The toon is fairly hotchin' today,” Macphail observed to the barman as he ordered two beers. “Whit's up? Is't a wedding?”

“Naw”, replied the barman, “it's jist pairt o' the celebrations for the
Comet
— the auld shup, ye ken, it is just exactly wan hundred years since she wis launched at Woods's yerd and the Cooncil is havin' all sorts of hootenannies to mark the occasion. This is party-time at the Port. I hear there's even to be a replica o' the shup herself arriving on the river tomorrow!”

“Well,” said Macphail as he boarded his train and leaned out of the carriage window to take farewell of Para Handy, “at least ye'll no' want for company or cheer by the look o' Port Glesga, but Ah'm vexed ye have to be watchman on your own shup!”

“No problem at aal,” said the Captain: “there iss plenty I can do to pass my time. She could be doing do with a lick or two of paint for a stert.”

And on his way back to the ship. after waving the Engineer's train out of the station, Para Handy called into a conveniently placed ship chandler's and bought a tin of black paint, a tin of white paint, and two brushes. That evening, after the dockyard squad had packed up for the day and gone home, he climbed onto the planked scaffolding surrounding the ship and began to apply a fresh coat of black paint to her bulwarks.

That job of refurbishment took longer than expected as it had to be abandoned during working hours, when the dockyard gang was busy about the puffer, and therefore it was the following evening before it was finished. At seven o'clock Para Handy put the paint and brush away and climbed the dock stairway, heading towards town for a deserved refreshment. At the top of the stairs he paused to look down on his handywork, admiring with some satisfaction the gleaming band of black which encircled the hull. Tomorrow he would use the white paint to restore the puffer's name at bow and stern, which had of necessity been overpainted as he applied the fresh coats of black and then — if there was time — he promised himself that he would give her just a touch of gold beading to set her off to perfection.

Half-an-hour in the Clune Bar was more than enough for the Captain. The saloon was crowded and noisy, and the talk was of nothing but the
Comet
celebrations, and the expected arrival of the replica, which was discussed at considerable length with excited anticipation.

As the Captain made his way back to the foreshore in the bright evening sunshine he was aware of greater-than-expected numbers on the street ahead of him, and of a constant stream of people hurrying past in the direction of the river.

There was an air of excitement about, and he caught frequent references to the
Comet
and cries of “She's here!” and “She's arrived!” and “Come on, let's have a look at her!”

He was quite astonished to find, as he came round the corner of the high brick wall surrounding the shipyard and within sight of the graving-dock in which the puffer was lying, to see a huge crowd lining it on all sides, men, women and children leaning over the parapet and pointing excitedly into the depths of the dock.

“My Chove,” he said to himself, “they must have put the
Comet
in beside the shup! I wonder chust what she looks like? Well, her crew will be company for me.” And he quickened his steps.

There were complaints as he pushed his way through the press of people but when he protested indignantly: “My shup iss in there, you must let me through!” a respectful hush fell on the assembled crowd and they drew back to leave a passage for him.

Para Handy reached the parapet and leaned over in anticipation, eager to see this fabled replica of the world's first succesful steamship.

There was nothing in the dry dock — nothing except the
Vital Spark
. Not of course that anyone else would have known that that was her name — not since her Captain had overpainted it with gleaming black.

Para Handy was dimly aware of the cries and questions from the crowds around him.

“My Lord, imagine anyone having the courage to sail in
that!
”

“Where's her nameboard?”

“They're probably fitting it in the morning.”

“She's even smaller than I would have believed!”

“Did you ever see anything like that in your life! It's come straight out of the Ark!”

Drawing himself up with dignity, Para Handy paused at the top of the stairway leading down to the dock-floor.

“Ye're a bunch of ignorant gowks,” he shouted, “that issna able to recognise wan o' the finest examples o' modern shup-building on the whole river! And when the
Vital Spark
celebrates
her
centenary, you'll no' need to build a replica to celebrate. She will still be aroond herself.”

And with his back ramrod-straight and his chest puffed out with determined pride, he made his way down the stairway and clambered aboard the smartest vessel in the coasting trade.

F
ACTNOTE

The incident in the Albert Harbour was suggested by the more serious accident which befell the three-man estuary puffer
Craigielea
in 1952. She was side-swiped in the hours of darkness by an incoming, heavily-laden coaster and was in fact sunk (though later refloated). Fortunately, her crew were all asleep at home in Greenock.

Henry Bell's
Comet
was the first succesful attempt to provide a regular passenger service by steamer in Europe and, like so many other great Scottish ‘firsts' it came about in spite of and not because of the attitudes of the Government and established commercial interests of the day. Bell had been an apprentice in a shipyard on the Forth, worked in a London engineering workshop, and studied both theory and practice when he tried, in the early years of the 19th century, to obtain government backing for experimental work to develop the application of practical steam-power to shipping.

The government was totally uninterested. Bell moved on to other things, and ten years later was owner of a large and prosperous hotel business in Helensburgh. The difficulties he experienced in finding comfortable and reliable transportation from Glasgow for his customers provided the incentive for a return to his earlier experimentation with steam. The result was the
Comet
. Bell designed not just her hull, but her engine as well. She was 50ft overall, with a 4 h.p. engine driving two tiny paddle wheels on either side of the hull and steering was by tiller.

This very first of the ‘Clyde Steamers' had a top speed of just 5 knots — reduced to almost nothing against wind or tide. She offered accommodation in two classes — ‘Best Cabin' at 4/- and Second at 3/-. These were astonishingly high fares at that time and there was indeed a small cabin for passengers paying the higher fare, shoe-horned in astern of the engines. The tiny vessel was built at the Port Glasgow yard of John Wood, and launched in July 1812. She gave eight years of generally reliable service before being stranded at Crinan in mid-winter 1820. Just what she was doing up there I do not know. The boat was broken up but her engine was rescued and today sits in the South Kensington Science Museum. Why
there
instead of Glasgow's superb Transport Museum I do not know either.

I have cheated shamelessly over the question of the replica for although one
was
built (by Lithgows Port Glasgow) for the 150th anniversary of 1962, the only manifestation of the little ship which was featured in the otherwise lavish and extensive centenary celebrations in 1912 was the ‘conversion' into the
Comet
of one of the town's electric trams, which ran as an illuminated replica.

35

High Teas on the High Seas

M
acphail squeezed into his place at the apex of the triangular table in the forepeak of the fo'c'sle and studied with quite unconcealed disgust the plate which had just been placed before him.

On it a couple of rashers of half-raw streaky bacon sat in a pool of fat next to three black, smoking objects which could with some difficulty be identified as sausages. At the side of the plate two eggs demonstrated their cook's ability to achieve what most would have deemed impossible: the yolks were startlingly hued in a bilious green and of the consistency of an india-rubber, while the whites were transparent, glutinous and virtually uncooked save for their ragged edges which were charred to an intense black.

With a heavy sigh, the Engineer slowly raised his face from its contemplation of this culinary feast and, with a shake of the head and a prolonged sigh, stared with narrowed and unfriendly eyes at its perpetrator.

The Mate — for he it was — shuffled uncomfortably and avoided the Engineer's steely stare.

“I'm sorry, Dan,” he said apologetically: “I chust havna got the knack of the stove yet, it's aalways either too hot or too cold wi' me: but I wull can only get better.”

“Which is mair than I can say is likely for ony of the rest of us,” said the Engineer unfeelingly. “Whaur the bleezes did
you
learn tae haundle a frying-pan? The try-hoose on a whaler?”

“Now, Dan,” said Para Handy in a placatory tone, “Poor Dougie iss makin' the best chob of it he canm in the conditions, for he signed on ass the Mate of the vessel remember, no' as its heid cook and bottle-washer. He iss chust ass much a victim of the circumstances ass we are.”

The circumstances, in a nutshell, were that the
Vital Spark
's cheerful resident
chef de cuisine
, Sunny Jim, had taken a few days leave of absence to attend a wedding in Kirkcudbright — “a notorious toon for jollification and high-jinks,” he had warned Para Handy: “no weddin' ever lasts less than three days there so Ah'm likely to be gone a week.” Para Handy's dismay at this pronouncement was only slightly mollified when Jim added that he had arranged, as replacement, that his cousin Colin Turner, the Tar (he of mixed memory for the crew of the puffer) would officiate as relief deckhand and cook during the week of his absence.

Given the Tar's past reputation, it was perhaps not altogether surprising (though nonetheless annoying) that, on the morning of the vessel's scheduled departure from Bowling, he simply failed to appear as promised.

“Whit else wud ye expect frae Colin Turner?” was Macphail's unsurprised comment: but the patient Captain gave the missing crewman the benefit of the doubt until early afternoon before he accepted that the Tar just was not going to turn up, and gave orders for the puffer to slip her moorings and set off for her destination which, on this occasion, was a forestry pier on the Sound of Mull.