“So, instead o’ doin’ what he wass told like a sensible chap would have done, he shouted back ‘Chust you go ahead and fill her up wheneffer you’re ready!’
“ ‘Fill her up?’ said the foreman, quite flummoxed. ‘Are ye sure ye ken whit ye’re daeing?’
“Uncle Wulliam drew himself up to his full height and adjusted his peaked kep (he’d bought a white-topped wan ass soon ass the news of his promotion cam’ through) and replied sherply: ‘You concentrate on looking efter your horses, and allow me to know what iss best for the shup!’
“The foreman shrugged: it wassna his affair. For the next two hoors the Clyesdales and their cairts kept the barytes comin’ doon to the shup, and by that time the hold wass full quite to the brim.
“The foreman got Uncle Wulliam to sign a sort of a paper givin’ the tonnage she’d taken aboard, and off he and his men went.
“Chust as the loading sterted, the tide had turned and aal this time since then the flood had been coming in. The first inkling Uncle Wulliam had that something wassna right wass when he realised that the water wass creeping up the side o’ the shup and the shup wassna moving at aal, she was stuck fast on the bottom as she had been at the foot o’ the ebb. She wass that overweighted doon there wass no way at aal that she wass going to float!
“By the time the skipper and enchineer came back from the Inns the only parts of the shup that wass above watter was the mast, the wheelhoose, the ventilators and the funnel.
“It took them three days wi’ buckets and shovels at low tide to empty enough barytes oot o’ the hold for the shup to be able to refloat herself.”
“And Hay’s didna seck the man, not even efter that?” asked Para Handy in astonishment.
“Not them,” said the Mate. “I can only think they believed that secking him would bring ill-luck on the firm — or that greater responsubility would mebbe improve the man, for it wassna aal that long efter the Sannox uncident that they gave him a shup of his ain.
“He wass to tak’ her into Auchentarra on Loch Linnhe for a cairgo of granite from the wee quarry there.
“They cam’ in at the peak o’ high tide: the jetty was near awash wi’ it and they had to lie off for an hour for the ebb to tak’ some watter away and give them a chance to berth and make fast.
“Next morning they began to load up, but the quarry wass a good mile from the pier, and they had chust the wan cairt, wi’ chust wan horse, and it took a couple of days to get the chob done.
“They took the granite doon to Oban, unloaded it at a private wharf at the sooth end of the bay, then back again for anither load from Auchentarra aboot three days efterwards.
“Wance the shup wass full to the line again, Uncle Wulliam made his farewells wi’ the quarrymen, and cast off.
“This time they only got two hundred yerds oot towards the mooth of the bay when she grounded! What Uncle Wulliam had not realised wass that when they’d put in the previous week they’d come in on the spring tides, and the soundings he’d taken then on the way in, and back oot again, wassna the normal ones.
“There wass a sandbar across the mooth of the bay which neffer had more than 10ft of soundings at normal high watter. But at the springs, there wass well over 16ft of watter on it at high tide.
“When Uncle Wulliam lifted his first cairgo, he’d come in and gone oot on the springs, drawing 11ft aft when she wass loaded, but wi’ plenty mair than that under the keel he’d done so withoot ony bother.
“This time, though, he wass well and truly stuck. It would be two weeks before the tides wass near enough the springs to give the shup enough watter to refloat herself. Meantime they had the choice of either throwing the cairgo overboard to free the shup, or sitting it oot.
“Uncle Wulliam telegraphed to the Hays’ office in Kirkintilloch for instructions. Raither to his surprise, their reply was to tell him no’ to dump the cairgo, chust to bide where he was and wait for the springs.
“He wass surprised: I neffer wass,” the Mate concluded. “I think that Mr Hay realised it would be less dangerous for the company and its shups, no’ to mention the world at large, chust to leave Uncle Wulliam stuck on a sandbar somewhere in Lorne for a fortnight, raither than have him goin’ aboot loose.”
“Well, Peter,” observed the Engineer: “now ye’ll mebbe stop fretting aboot the Admirulity. At least they havna got Dougie’s Uncle Wulliam on their books. Jist as weel, or we’d be doon to wir last torpedo-boat-destroyer if his record in the merchant fleet wis onything to go by!
“Mebbe that wis why Hay never sacked him: perhaps the guvernment paid a subsidy to keep him oot of the Navy!”
FACTNOTE
There were three steamers named Inveraray Castle on the Clyde during the 19th century, and it is even thought that one of them was built as early as 1814, just two years after Bell’s pioneering Comet.
The third ship of the name is the best-known. She was built in 1839 and was in service for almost 60 years, during which period she was twice taken into dry-dock and lengthened — a not unusual practice at that time.
She is believed to have spent her entire career on the Glasgow to Inveraray run — out one day and back the next — and provided the sort of passenger (and light cargo) service to the smaller piers and remoter communities which was beneath the dignity (or beyond the capabilities, due to their sheer size) of the giants of the steamer fleets.
Most of the Clyde puffer fleet belonged to John Hay and Company of Kirkintilloch. That business was in operation for almost 100 years and over that period the firm owned more than 90 of the little boats. They built most of what they owned, too, at their Kirkintilloch yard. Ross and Marshall of Greenock were another significant owner, starting as shipowners later than Hay but remaining in the business longer. They too nearly celebrated their centenary.
UNLUCKY FOR SOME — Here is Naval Patrol Boat 13 well and truly aground somewhere around Kintyre in the first decade of this century. Built in 1907, powered by Parson turbines, these little craft — 185ft in length but with a beam of only 18ft — were capable of 26 knots. Number 13’s luck did not improve: she was lost in 1914 although not through enemy action, but collision with another naval vessel in the North Sea.
There was indeed a barytes mine in Glen Sannox and the ore was notoriously heavy for its bulk. Extraction of the mineral began in 1840 but at some point later in the Victorian era the whole operation was closed down by the then landowner (the Duke of Hamilton) on what seems to have been purely aesthetic or ecological grounds. A surprisingly late 20th century knee-jerk reaction to find a century earlier!
After the First World War the mine was opened once again. It had its own private jetty just outside Sannox village and, by then, a light railway to haul the ponderous raw material down to the waiting puffers. The mine closed for good shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War but it was during this period of its history that the ore really did ‘sink’ an unfortunate puffer and its unsuspecting or inexperienced skipper. Indeed, I am indebted to a reader of my first collection of Para Handy tales for relating to me his own recollections of just such an unexpected incident at the little Sannox pier!
Strangely, I cannot find the bay of Auchentarra, with its dangerous sandbar lurking to trap the unwary, in any maps that I have of the Loch Linnhe area.
43
A Boatman’s Holiday
I was standing on the pier at Rothesay passing the time of day with Para Handy, whose beloved vessel lay in the outer harbour waiting the arrival of the local contractor’s carts so that a cargo of road-chips could be unloaded.
It was early on a scorching August afternoon: the capital of Bute was already overwhelmed with visitors but their number was in process of being substantially augmented by the crowds who could be seen streaming ashore from the Iona, calling on her way to Tarbert and Ardrishaig, having left the Broomielaw at noon on the afternoon run which supplemented the Columba’s morning service on the route during the peak season.
“You woul
d wonder where they are aal going to stay,” remarked the Captain, watching as fathers struggled down the gangplank with the family’s tin trunks and hat boxes while elsewhere on the pier anxious mothers desperately waved a rolled-up umbrella (only the very foolish ever came to Bute without one) to try to catch the attention of an unengaged shore porter with an empty handcart who could wheel the luggage along the esplanade to their chosen hotel.
“There iss times when I think that the island will chust up and sink under the sheer weight o’ the numbers. If there iss ony hooseholds in the toon that iss not sleepin’ in their beck yerds whiles the hoose is earning coin from towerists packed in hauf-a-dozen to the room, then they must be gey few and far between.”
“What do you and Mrs Macfarlane do yourselves when it comes to holidays, Captain?” I enquired, curious: “presumably you have seen enough of the West Coast resorts all the other 50 weeks of the year, and choose something very different?”
“Mery and I very rarely go awa’ at aal,” Para Handy said. “I am no’ mich of a traiveller, other than at my work. And if I can get the twa weeks o’ the Fair off, then we ha’e Gleska almost to oorselves. Half the city hass gone doon the watter somewhere and the toon iss deserted.
“You have no idea how peaceful it iss in the Botanic Gairdens, or Gleska Green, or Kelvingrove, when there iss no crowds. And it iss the same wi’ the shops, and the tea-rooms, and the picture palaces and aal the rest. There iss no crowds to fight your way through, and the shopkeepers and the rest is most obleeging, they’re dam’ gled to see ony customers at aal when the maist of their regular tred iss spending their money on sticks o’ rock and Eyetalian ices somewhere aboot Innellan or Saltcoats.
“Certainly Gleska’s no’ a place you’d think to tak’ your holidays in ony ither time o’ the year but I assure you, in the second hauf of July, you could go a lot further and do a lot worse.”
“An interesting concept, Captain,” I said: “I confess I have never thought of it that way. In any case, I admit that I enjoy a change of scenery and surroundings, myself.”
“Oh, we are not total stay-at-homes,” said Para Handy. “We have been doon to England, we stayed at Bleckpool for a week wan year. It iss a strange toon, full o’ the English, and the maist of their hooses is built oot o’ brick wi’ nae harling, it looks like a hauf-feenished building-site.
“We went doon by train frae Gleska, and when we got there we took a horse-cab to the hoose we wass booked into, for it wass a fair step oot of the toon centre.
“Aal the way through the toon Mery kept pointin’ oot the number o’ temperance hooses to be seen, they wass clustered at every street corner. I’d noticed it myself, and I wass getting a bit anxious aboot it, I can tell you.
“But Mery wass delighted, and she remarked to the cabdriver that Bleckpool must be wan o’ the most abstentious holiday-resorts in the country, and the chentlemen that owned the temperance hotels deserved to be congratulated for their convictions.
“ ‘It’s not chust exactly what you’re thinking, Ma’am,’ said the cabbie: ‘though in one sense convictions is the right word to be using.
“ ‘You see, of aal the dry hooses you see, aboot hauf of them wants a licence but cannae get it frae the magustrates because o’ the reputation they have: and the other hauf used to have a licence — but lost it for the way they wass running the hooses, chust drinking shebeens they wass, wi’ constant fighting and noise and broken glesses and the polis aye being called by the neighbours, and clamjamfreys and shenanigans every night.’
“That raither changed Mery’s opeenion aboot Bleckpool and she wass gled to get oot of it efter the week — though I managed to find some cheery company roond aboot the pier. But wild horses woudna drag Mery beck!”
The Captain shrugged. “I must admut that I am not chust exectly comfortable staying in a hotel myself.
“Mony of the big wans are so highly-polished and stiff-necked that you are feart to sit on the chairs or waalk on the flairs in case there iss an extra cherge on the account, and the staff are aal so high-falutin’ that you are feart to ask them for onything and, when you do, their accents is that posh you could cut them wi’ a knife and you canna understand wan single word they are saying.
“And the smaal wans that I have been unlucky enough to stay in have usually been run by a man wi’ a problem wi’ drink and a wife that canna cook, so you get short-measure at the bar and short-shrift in the dining-room.
“The staff is either ower 80 and that wandered and trauchled that the guests think they should be serving them raither than the ither way roond: or else they’re laddies of aboot 12 years wi’ weel-scrubbed faces and a habit o’ picking their teeth wi’ a matchstick when they think nobody’s looking.
“I mind fine wan time a few years back, before the Vital Spark wass built, I wass working for a man that owned two or three boats that sailed oot o’ Girvan. And did wan o’ them no strand herself — or more accurately, did the man that wass supposed to be in cherge of her no’ strand her, and him doon below in the fo’c’sle with aal the rest o’ the shup’s company and enchoying a refreshment when she ran agroond — on a sand bar in the Soond o’ Raasay, on her way to Portree from Kyle.
“McTavish, him that owned the boat, secked the entire crew the meenit he got the report of it. I wass on my leave break at the time myself. This wass long afore I got merried, of course, and I wass chust perambulating aboot Gleska and having a gless noo and then in wan o’ the Hieland public hooses aboot the toon.
“McTavish caaled me back from my leave and sent me up wi’ an engineer and a hand to bring the shup back doon to Girvan. I can tell you, I was not at aal happy aboot the chob. We had to get her refloated first, she wass still on the sand: and then we had to hope the propellor wassna damaged: and aal the time we would be aware of the owner waatching efferything that wass going on, through his agent in Portree.
“If things didna work oot then heaven help us, for he wass a short-fused man withoot an ounce of Chrustian charity in him, and he’d secked mair men for less reason than a Tarbert trawlerman’s had sair heids on a Sabbath morning.
“We went up by train to Mallaig, and got there late afternoon. There wass only two boats a week to Portree, wan sailing the morn’s morning — which iss why he’d sent us up that day — wi’ the next no’ due till fower days later.
“Lord help us if we missed that boat! And she sailed at half-past five in the morning! There wass a kind of a night-clerk in the Hotel, a man of 75 if he wass a day, very shaky on his feet and as deaf as a post.
“We made sure we wass early to bed, I can tell you. We had a room on the furst floor o’ the Hotel wi’ three beds in it, at the head of the stairs from the main haall.
“While the other two went up to make their ablutions, I went in search of this night-clerk.
“I found him cleaning the boots o’ the commaircial chentlemen who wass the Hotel’s only ither patrons, in a basement room wi’ no light but wan solitary candle.
“ ‘We’ve to get the Skye steamer at half-past-five’, I bellowed in his ear, ‘and we daurna miss it! Ye’ll need to mind to gi’e us a caall at half-past-four. Room three at the heid of the stair.’
“ ‘Aal right,’ says he, ‘that’s no bother. Room three, heid of the stair, half-past-four for the half-past-five steamer — and ye dinna need to shout, I’m no deaf!’
“We found out later that, come the morning, he had forgotten which room wass to be knocked for the steamer, and he chust went to the tap o’ the hoose — room 33 — and worked his way doon. You can imachine the abuse he got alang the way!
“But it took him a long time to work his way doon for the ither chentlemen wass ill to rouse, them no’ expecting the caall in the furst place, and verra displeased indeed when they were given it.
“When he finally knocked on the door of room three it wass too late.
“I woke up wi’ this voice shouting through the keyhole: ‘Are you the chentlemen that wants the caall fo
r the early boat?’
“ ‘Yes,’ I yelled back. ‘Thanks! we’ll be down for our breakfast in a jiffy.’
“ ‘Och, ye needna fash yersel’s’, he shouts: ‘tak’ your time, you’ve plenty of it. It’s six o’clock and she’s well on her way to Kyle by noo. She left hauf an hoor ago. There wass no need to waken you at aal, I chust did it because you asked me to.’
“So,” concluded Para Handy, “that wass wan ‘holiday’ that cost me my chob, for MacTavish brought in a crew from Inverness and we were secked. I should chust have stayed in Gleska and taken my leave.”
With an imperious blast on her powerful steam whistle the Iona announced her intention of departing and the admiring flotilla of small yachts and rowing boats which had been gathered around her gleaming black hull like pilot fish round a whale scattered hastily as the steamer’s bow and stern ropes were cast loose from the pier bollards and the paddle-blades began to turn.
At that moment came an anguished feminine cry of “Wait, wait for us, please: please wait!”
Turning, the Captain and I saw a strange little cavalcade come hurrying from the esplanade, along the connecting roadway to the pierhead.
In the van was a woman of perhaps 40 years, gesticulating quite frantically with an umbrella. Hers were the shouts.
Behind her, making the best speed he could, was one of the town’s shore-porters with his barrow. On it lay the lady’s luggage — and one other accoutrement: the lady’s husband. Fast asleep and with a contented smile on his face, his rosy cheeks suggested how that contentment had been achieved, and why the couple were in grave danger of missing the steamer.
The Iona’s Captain, on the wing of the bridge, took the scene in at a glance — and gently nudged his vessel back towards the quay for the minute necessary for the lady and her luggage to be gallantly assisted aboard across the paddle-box by two of the ship’s crew: and for the husband to be less ceremoniously taken in a fireman’s lift and dropped onto a convenient bench.
Complete New Tales of Para Handy Page 32