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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 12 (April 1, 1929)

The Flying Scotsman

The Flying Scotsman.

One story the Old Lad likes to tell is that of Bushfire and the Flying Scotsman.

The Old Lad had a brother named Dougald, until a badly felled tree severed their relationship and converted Dougald from an entity to for about half a mile unless they were prepared to swim out for them when the tide rose.

Dougald owned a horse which he called Bushfire, because once he was induced to break into motion he was difficult to stop. Dougald objected on principle to pulling boats through mud. “A man's not a blanky ‘orse,” he was wont to remark. Out of these few words sprang his great idea—to utilise Bushfire in the interests of the conservation of human energy.

He constructed rope harness and hitched the snorting Bushfire to the boat. He mounted and gave the horse a smack on the rump. Bushfire a memory. Dougald was a man who believed that the human mind was created first and that the body grew on it afterwards, like a fungus. One department of his fancy factory was labelled, Development Of Devices for Conserving Physical Energy—Private. His sole objection to going to sleep was the energy entailed in waking up again, and if he could have devised a means of being married without expending the energy necessary to effect a wedding he would not have died a bachelor.

He lashed out with both hind feet and made for the distant bush.

He lashed out with both hind feet and made for the distant bush.

In the absence of roads most of the travelling in the Sounds was done by boat. The tide ran out so far that boatmen landing at low water were obliged to pull their crafts over the mud moved a few paces, snorted and looked back at the boat with a hint of indignation in his eye. Dougald kicked him in the ribs and roared “Gerrup!” Bushfire's earls lay back, he lashed out with both hind feet and made for the distant bush. The boat followed in a series of rabbit-like leaps. With the hollow thuds of the bounding boat pursuing him, Bushfire broke from a trot to a canter and from a canter into a wild gallop. Midway up the mud-flat the ship struck a rock and, with a splintering crash, the bottom dissolved partnership with the gunwales. Dougald shot a horrified glance to the rear, sawed at the reins and roared “Whoa!” but Bushfire was as easily stopped as a Garratt page 15 engine wearing wings. His heart was set on reaching the distant hills as soon as possible and a spot marked X on his mental map, about five miles inland, was his objective. The spectacle would have caused the Flying Dutchman to bury his head in the Zuyder Zee out of pure envy, had it been possible for him to witness this demonstration of boat flying. The remains of the boat frequently threatened to clamber up on Bushfire's rump, but he managed to keep one jump ahead of it.

When the outfit disappeared among the trees all that remained of the boat was the gunwale, which encouraged the illusion of a huge wooden horse-collar. The Old Lad had followed as closely as his sprinting powers permitted and finally assisted in extricating the pioneer of the flying-boat from the wreckage of his great conception, and in hunting the maddened Bushfire through seven miles of dense bush.

“An' that,” remarks the Old Lad, every time he completes the story, “is how my brother Dougald became known as the “Flying Scotsman.”