BACK PAGES: Two ducks, nine ducklings and a waterhen trapped in a near empty canal lock at Dublins Lesson Street bridge plus a know-all and some brave firemen provided Donal Dorcey with this "Irishman's Diary" and an appropriate Sunday morning lesson, writes JOE JOYCE
The looming black walls of a canal lock are an insuperable obstacle to a duck, with no space for a take-off run. So there the 11 of them stayed, swimming in panicky circles, their feathers steadily becoming more sodden.
Then the know-all appeared. The duck-feeding woman shouted at him to call the fire brigade.
He told her it was not a fire brigade job and that his friends the dog-walkers had already gone to the Garda station to get the lock-keepers alerted. She snorted at the prospect of rousing a lock-keeper on a Sunday morning.
The know-all went to the lower gate, released the catches and dropped the paddles which were enabling the water to escape. “It’ll soon fill up now”, he told the duck-feeding woman.
“There’s no water coming in”, she wailed. He pointed to the trickle over the top of the upper gate. “That’ll fill it fast enough”, he insisted. “You’ll have to open the paddles in that gate”, she told him.
“You need a spanner for that.”
“You can do it with your bare hands. I’ve seen a man do it for me.”
“It’s impossible, theyre far too heavy. I’ve sailed all the canals in Ireland. I know it can’t be done without a spanner. I’ll come back later to check and I’ll bring a spanner.”
The fire brigade arrived. At the sight of the red tender, the sleepy Sunday-morning strollers realised there was an emergency. Within an instant a crowd had gathered, cheering the duck-feeding woman and the ducklings. Every Dubliner knows how to operate lock gates. Everyone had advice for the firemen.
They were nothing if not well-equipped. They produced a lock gate key so big that two strong men staggered under its weight. With it they raised the paddles of the lower gate again, allowing all the water the know-all had hoarded to escape downstream. Then they heaved open the gates and shooed the ducks towards the opening under the bridge.
But the ducks, for reasons they kept to themselves, wouldn’t budge. The firemen heaved the lower gates closed again and dropped the paddles.
The duck-feeding woman saw him first. The know-all had reappeared, complete with little spanner.
“Open the paddles”, she shouted at him. “Open them all.”
He wound up one paddle a little and a torrent of water spewed in, as if from a high pressure hose. The ducks fled to the far end of the lock. The waterhen hurled itself into the flood, disappeared, resurfaced, shook itself and tried to climb the moss on the wall.
“Close it”, she yelled, “You’ll drown them all.” He waited.
The firemen brought their giant’s spanner to the upper gate and started to follow his example in winding up a paddle. He told them to stop, or the flood would drown the ducks. Because he had a middle-class accent and a Volvo to carry his spanner in, they obeyed him.
As the duck rose, they realised how big a crowd they had attracted. They moved to the centre, out of harm’s way. The firemen started to move the crowd back, to clear an escape route. But again the ducks had other ideas.
They hurled themselves against the current. The first family reached the upper gate. The mother stepped on to the timbers and paddled over the top. The ducklings followed. Half of them were swept back by the current, turned around, tried again, and succeeded.
The waterhen followed, then the second family, and they swam happily upstream towards their homes in the reed beds – and their real enemy, the rat.
Led by the duck-feeding woman, the crowd gathered round the firemen to congratulate them on their heroism. It’s not every sleepy Sunday morning that they avert 11 drownings. No one gave the know-all a second look. He pocketed his little spanner and walked away. No one loves a know-all.
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