“If I wass you, I would chust get oot of here fast afore you’re booked yoursel’ ass an accessible after the fact, or whateffer the expression iss.”
The next three days — the worst three days of his life, Para Handy maintains, and he will expound upon them at great length to anybody prepared to listen — have passed into the legend and lore of longshore gossip on the Clyde.
No port or harbour on the river would allow the puffer to enter or moor, far less unload a cargo which was becoming more and more restive and (it has to be said) foetid as well. Para Handy even made a bold effort to attract the attention of the press and through them, perhaps, the sympathy of the public by trying to take his floating zoo right upriver to the Broomielaw, but he was frustrated by two of the Clyde Port Authority’s launches which forced him to turn back at Renfrew Ferry.
The one concession that was made by Authority was made not to the crew of the Vital Spark or the farmer’s men but to her live cargo: feedstuff and water for the animals was delivered daily by another puffer especially chartered for the occasion by one of the animal charities. The human beings on board were reduced to a diet of salt herring and potatos.
Relief came on the fourth day when the results of all the tests undertaken at the suspect farm on Cumbrae were completed — with negative results. A collective sigh of relief went up along the river and not just from the Clyde coast’s farmers: there were some mightily relieved sailors as well, when the good news was finally communicated to the Vital Spark by one of the Greenock Pilot Cutters.
“You are more than welcome to land your cargo anywhere you like now, Captain,” said her skipper: “and I would imagine that somewhere with a public house close at hand would be your first choice, after all that’s happened?” And with a laugh he turned back to his own bridge and gave the order which sent the cutter swiftly on her way, throwing up an impressive foaming wake as she did so.
It was with great deliberation, but great satisfaction as well, that Para Handy, ignoring the protests of MacMillan’s men and insisting on his right as master of the vessel to make all the decisions appertaining to her safety and convenience, reached that decision — and landed the animals back at Millport.
“Well, now MacMillan can stert aal over again,” he observed to Dougie, “if onybody’ll deal wi’ him. Which I doot. He’s pit his foot in his mooth chust the wan time too many, I’m thinking.”
FACTNOTE
Dan Macphail’s unkind references to his Captain’s earlier misfortunes need no explanation for those who are familiar with Neil Munro’s original tales. The watery fate of the unfortunate cockatoo is a classic.
The two Cumbraes lie just off the Ayrshire coast between Largs and Hunterston. Little Cumbrae has been uninhabited in historic times except by the keepers of its lighthouse, but Great Cumbrae was a popular holiday destination for many years and still attracts a loyal following. Millport, the capital, was served by two steamer piers but this did not save the resort from the so-called ‘Siege of Millport’ in July 1906 when the steamer companies refused to pay increased pier dues to the Town Council and withdrew all services.
Everything from puffers and motor launches to rowing boats and yachts was dragooned into service to convey holidaymakers (and business travellers) in and out of the island, for the effects of a protracted shut-out would be an economic disaster for the island. In July the resident population was swelled five-fold with the arrival of the Trades Fair visitors.
After some behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing a compromise was reached and normal service resumed within the week. One has the feeling that the shipping companies themselves could not have afforded a protracted strike since not only would their steamers be losing revenue, thanks to the loss of all passenger traffic, so also would the railways which owned the steamers and which themselves normally carried the crowds from Glasgow down to the Ayrshire piers — at a considerable profit.
In the years before the Erskine Bridge and the Clyde Tunnel and the Motorway across the Clyde there were many ferry services for vehicles and passengers from the upper reaches of the river down as far as Erskine. Here and at Renfrew there were two chain-ferries, which pulled themselves undramatically but quite efficiently to and fro across the river by steam-powered pawls clanking their way along a fixed chain.
Both these vessels came in on concrete slips at either bank so the state of the tide was of no concern to them. Further up the river, where ferries operated to stone quays, significant tidal implications stimulated the development of the ingenious ‘elevating ferries’ of Finnieston, Whiteinch and Govan. Their carrying-decks were not attached to the hull which provided the flotation — they were in fact platforms suspended from three perpendicular girders to each side, port and starboard, raised or lowered by steam-winches according to the state of the tide, and so could always be docked at the same level as the quays.
57
Follow My Leader
The Vital Spark had just threaded her way through the narrows of the Kyles, en route to Tarbert with a load of salt for the curing stations, when the staccato beat of paddle-wheels echoed across the water astern of the puffer. Para Handy, at the wheel, turned to identify the approaching vessel.
A few minutes later, as the Captain feigned indifference under the pretence of studying the shoreline of the island of Bute to port, a smart twofunnelled paddler in the livery of Mr David MacBrayne swept past perilously close on the puffer’s starboard beam at full stretch, with an imperious and quite unnecessarily prolonged blast on her whistle, and then sped off towards Tighnabruaich pier, laying out as she did so a phosphorescent twin-track, turbulent wake in which gleaming ribbon the hapless Vital Spark lurched and dipped with the awkward ungainliness of a floating bathtub.
Sunny Jim, who had been down in the fo’c’sle frying up sausages for the crew’s dinner, came scrambling up on deck to find out what was responsible for sending half the contents of the pan skittering across the stove.
“Ye clown,” he shouted after the vanishing paddler: “that’s the maist o’ wir denner on the deck! So mich for conseederation and the rule o’ the road!”
“Neffer heed him Jum,” said the Captain, “it iss not worth your while getting aal hot and bothered. Yon’s Sandy McIver and his precious Grenadier, behavin’ ass if he owns the river, but I can assure you there wass a time when he wass chust ass angry wi’ the Vital Spark ass you are wi’ him noo. And he’s neffer forgotten nor forgiven either, in spite of what it says in the Good Book, which iss why he dam’ near runs us doon every time he sees the shup.
“Dan or Dougie will tell you aal aboot it.”
But Macphail was busy in the engines and Dougie, off watch, was catnapping in the fo’c’sle so with a little persuasion, once he had his pipe going to his satisfaction, Para Handy told the tale.
“It aal happened twelve years ago chust a matter of a few weeks after the shup had been launched, and we were on the very first trup wi’ her ootside Ardlamont Point. We’d had a few teething problems. The cargo hatch wass letting in watter at the fore end and we’d had to have some of the deck planks caulked, the steam-winch wass the very duvvle to get sterted, the shaft wass leakin’ oil and the biler wass apt to prime. But over the piece we got aal this set to rights.
“Worst of aal, though, wass that after less than a week the steam whustle broke doon and the same day that happened, while we wass laid up wan night in Bowling Harbour, somebody stole the stern lamp on us while we wass ashore takin’ a refreshment.
“Well, I wassna goin’ to risk the vessel in the river without the lamp. We do chust occasionally meet up wi’ a shup wi’ a better turn o’ speed than the Vital Spark, Jum, and because of that it iss chust a sensible precaution to be showing a light astern at night. And it would have been madness to sail without a steam whustle, for how would we let a slower shup know we wass preparin’ to pass her” — here Para Handy totally ignored the exaggerated snort of derision emanating from the engine-room at his feet — “or cope
wi’ fog on the Firth?
“Ass luck would have it, there wass an old steamer in the basin at Bowling, waiting’ her turn to go into McCulloch’s boneyerd to be broken up for scrap. Sorley McCulloch owed me a few favours for aal the bags of coal he had from me over the years for what the owner doesna see willna hurt him, and I am a great believer in havin’ frien’s in effery port in the river, for you never ken when you might need them: so Sorley didna tak’ mich persuasion to let me have the stern lamp and the steam whustle off the old shup.
“The lamp wass fine, a wheen bigger than we really needed, and set on a higher sternpost than wir ain, but she gave oot a most spendid illumination and there wass no chance of us bein’ run doon in the derk if any shup comin’ up astern of us should happen to have the pace to overtake the vessel.
“It was the steam whustle that wass the real cracker! Aal solid brass you could see your face in wance the boy had her polished to rights. It wass designed for a shup many times bigger than the Vital Spark and when you gi’ed her a blaw, for a stert you dam’ near drained oot aal the steam from Macphail’s biler tubes and you sure as bleezes put the fear o’ daith in whateffer shup you wass passin’, or the harbour-master and the longshoremen at whateffer pier it wass that you wass comin’ into. We soonded like the Campania.
“I tell you we had some high-jinks the next week or two! When Dougie was at the helm, he chust couldna resist blawin’ the whustle at any excuse at aal and Dan got real vexed wi’ him. It wassna chust playin’ havoc wi’ his steam pressure, it wass fair dingin’ his hearin’ wi’ the noise o’ the blasts. Worse, since he neffer knew from wan moment tae the next chust when Dougie would take it into his heid to let her go, and since he was aye hunkered doon wi’ his nose buried in wan o’ his penny novelles, he lost coont o’ the number o’ times that he got sich a fleg when the whustle went aff that he jumped up and banged his heid on the deck beams in the enchine-room.
“If Dougie was here he would tell you himself…
“It wass two weeks efter the new lamp and whustle wass put on the vessel that they really proved their value, but that wass also the occasion when we fell foul o’ McIver in the Grenadier.
“We wass on the same trup we are today — from the Broomielaw to Tarbert wi’ a load o’ salt. The dufference wass that, wance we had discharged the cargo, we wass to go up to Lochgilphead for a ferm flittin’ that wass to be took over to Otter Ferry on the other side o’ Loch Fyne.
“You ken yoursel’ what Loch Gilp is like, chust a great spread o’ mudflats at onythin’ less than half-tide, the toon itself standin’ at the heid o’ the shallowest stretch o’ watter on the river, worse even than the Holy Loch. Of course, that’s why Mr MacBrayne’s terminal is at Ardrishaig three miles sooth, for there’s no right pier at Lochgilphead. A steamer couldna come near it even at high watter. There iss chust a jetty for the likes o’ the local fishin’ smacks and even the Vital Spark couldna get alongside it. We would have to beach offshore at half-tide and the flittin’ would be brought alongside on cairts.
“Well, we lay overnight at Tarbert after we’d unloaded the salt, and went ashore to peruse the neebourhood, ass you might say. But we were back on board early. Hurricane Jeck was no’ wi’ us, ye’ll understand. There wass chust me and Dan and Dougie and a young laddie caaled Campbell, the sowl, and him from Fort Wulliam tae. He couldna help that either, the puir duvvle, but they’re awful Hielan’ roon’ aboot Fort Wulliam.
“The thing wass we had to be up sherp in the mornin’ to take on some coal for oor ain bunkers — the owner had some sort of an arranchement wi’ wan o’ the Tarbert merchants. What herm the owner had ever done him I dinna ken, but it really didna bear thinkin’ aboot when you saw the quality and quantity o’ stanes we wass takin’ on. We wanted to be away by eleven at the latest if we were to get to Loch Gilp at the right time o’ the tide ready to pick up the flittin’.
“Ass it wass it wass half past eleven afore we nosed oot o’ the harbour. The Inveraray Company’s Lord of the Isles wis chust on the point o’ pullin’ awa’ from the main steamer pier, efter loadin’ up an excursion party for Ardrishaig and Inveraray, and it wouldna be long before the MacBrayne steamer frae Gleska was due to arrive on passage to Ardrishaig. Indeed ass we headed north we saw the Grenadier comin’ thunderin’ up the Loch from the sooth, wi’ McIver standin’ oot on the wing o’ the brudge and tryin’ to look important. The man neffer had the presence for it, but then when you had wance seen Hurricane Jeck tak’ a shup into a pier, onythin’ else wass chust a let-doon.
“Though it wass a bright sunny day when we set off, within chust ten minutes we had run into a dark fog-bank that wass that thick, you could have cut it up intae blocks wi’ a knife and sold it as briquettes.
“I tell you it wass me wass relieved we had the new sternlight for I knew fine the Lord of the Isles wass in our wake, and I didna fancy suddenly findin’ her chust a few feet aff oor rudder and lookin’ for a right-o’-passage. Dougie lit the lamp and raised it ass high ass he could up the sternpost, I put the laddie up into the bows wi’ a bell tae ring to let us ken if he saw or heard onythin’ ahead, and we picked oor way up the loch.
“Sure enough, in due course we heard the whoop o’ a steamer’s whustle dead astern and efter a few meenits we could chust mak’ oot the foremast lights and the navigation lights of a shup. It wass the Lord of the Isles sure enough. I gave a quick blast on oor ain whustle effery noo and then to mak’ sure she knew we wass there, but wi’ the illumination o’ the new stern lamp there wass no doubt she had seen us. She held her position for a half-an-hour and then we saw her lights swing off to port, and she picked her way in to Ardrishaig pier a mile or so away.
“Ten minutes later, and there came a whustle blast immediately astern again, a kind o’ a signal maybe — two shorts, a long and two shorts again.
“ ‘I canna think who this is,’ said I to Dougie, ‘but we’d best let him ken we’re here.’ And I blasted oot the same tattoo on our own new whustle.
“The unseen shup gave the signal back, so we replied again. He whustled. We whustled. I tell you there wass some din on the Loch that mornin’, Macphail put his heid oot o’ his cubby and said a few un-Chrustian things, but if this unknown shup wass that close astern o’ us — despite the bright lamp that he could surely see — then I certainly wass not goin’ to risk the vessel by keepin’ quiet.
“Occasionally we could mak’ oot the masthead light of whatever shup it was that wass followin’ us, and at times even the loom o’ her bows when the fog lifted for a moment.
“ ‘I dinna like this at aal, Dougie,’ I said. ‘She’s too close for my likin’.
“ ‘Neffer mind Peter,’ says he. ‘We are certainly well into Loch Gilp by now and if we chust swing to starboard and anchor, then she can go where she wants, and we can bide our time till the fog lifts.’
“I put the wheel hard to starboard with a final, long blast on the big whustle, shouted on Dan to stop the enchines, and sent Dougie for’ard to let go the anchor.
“And three things happened aal at wance.
“First, we ran oot of the fog-bank ass suddenly ass we had run into it, and there were the white hooses of Lochgilphead chust a mile ahead.
“Next, from our port quarter came a desperate, furious clang on an enchine-room telegraph ringin’ and ringin’ ass if somebody’s life depended on it.
“Last, from the same direction there wass a most awful grinding sound like steel on stone, and the ear-spluttin’ crash of falling objects, breaking glass, and smashing crockery, splintering wud and so on, that seemed to go on and on for effer. When it did stop, their wass such a racket of cries and shouts and screams — and curses too — that you would swear that the day of chudgement had come to Loch Fyneside.
“When I turned to see what the commotion wass, here wass the bow half — no more — of a big shup pokin’ oot o’ the fog. She had run herself fast aground on the Loch Gilp shallows and I could mak’ oot her name quite pla
in. It wass the Grenadier.
“Dougie and me unshipped the punt, and rowed over to see if we could help. But the paddler wass fast aground on an ebbing tide and she’d be where she was for seven or eight hoors till the sea came back.
“McIver was leaning over the brudge-wing chust beside himself and bleck in the face wi’ rage.
“ ‘Macfarlane,’ he bellowed wance he recognised us. ‘Where the bleezes did you get thon lamp, and thon dam’ whustle? Are ye oot o’ yer mind completely pittin’ gear like that in a steam gabbart?
“ ‘Ah wis followin’ ye because Ah thocht ye wis the Lord of the Isles and I thocht ye wis pickin’ intae Ardrishaig. No’ intae this — this — this sump,’ he howled as he saw the Loch Gilp mudflats, which were quickly dryin’ oot as the tide went doon.
“The owner heard aal aboot it and made me get rid o’ the bonny new lamp and the braw big whustle. But I’d had good value oot o’ them. There’s no’ another skipper on the Clyde can boast o’ havin’ personally grounded wan o’ Mr MacBrayne’s most treasured possessions — when he wassna even on board of her!
“In aal fairness Jum, I dinna grudge poor McIver a few sausages cowped on our deck. I cowped mair than that on his!”
FACTNOTE
Lochgilphead indeed never did have a steamer pier, for the head of the shallow loch was quite inaccessible to vessels of any size. The town was served by Ardrishaig, whose commodious pier also marked the staging post for passengers proceeding on to Oban and the Western Highlands by way of the Crinan Canal, this being the eastern point of entry to that waterway.
MacBrayne’s Grenadier was a handsome, clipper-bowed paddler launched in 1885. For most of the year she was based at Oban but she became a regular replacement for the Columba on the Glasgow to Ardrishaig service during the off-peak months. Her end was dramatic and tragic — destroyed by fire at Oban pier in 1927 in one of the very few incidents involving Clyde or West Highland steamers which resulted in loss of life, in this case her Captain and two of her crew. As far as I know Grenadier was never aground, but her predecessor Mountaineer stranded in fog on rocks lying off Lismore near the entrance to the Sound of Mull and, though passengers and crew were taken off without any problems, she became a total loss.
Complete New Tales of Para Handy Page 43