Extracts
from a diary:
STORM
BIRDS
by Simon Barber
Amelia, Lady Allworthy (neé Amelia Bourne-Phipps) & her
friends
(educated adventuresses all, and warrior priestesses, some)
encounter the world after Songmark Academy
-- beginning July 1937.
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Storm Birds
by Simon Barber Being the twenty-seventh part of the adventures of Lady Amelia
Allworthy
(neé Bourne-Phipps) having completed her Songmark training. She’s off to see the world now – hopefully it won’t see her first… July 20th, 1937 Dear Diary – it does feel strange putting the Spontoon and Nimitz Sea air navigation chart away knowing we shall not be needing it in the foreseeable future – the navigation board of the Cant is packed with detailed charts showing the way to Rain Island, and basic planning ones all the way across Canada. We said farewell to Spontoon at dawn; the Hoele’toemi family were all up to wave us farewell. It was less cinematic than one sees on the newsreels, which generally have the village performing a hula of parting, leaving their guests bedecked in flower leis. On Spontoon they generally save that for the paying tourists, and anyway the leis would hardly go well with our flying kit. By seven we were checking the aircraft then there was one final ceremony to perform. It would be asking the most awful luck to sail off in a ship that had never been christened, and as the Cant floats on water it is technically a ship. Smashing a sturdy bottle over any part of the lightweight airframe would also have been a bad move – so instead I “sacrificed” with a libation of Nootnops Blue poured over the front propeller boss. A Spontoonie drink indeed for a Spontoon-registered aircraft; we added our prayers that it should find its way home for another such drink one day. If anyone can bless it with it luck in its flight two Spontoonie Priestesses should be able to manage it between them, even if we are only Warrior Priestesses rather than the better qualified all-rounders who might be better at blessing than blasting. I christened the Cant 506 “Storm Bird” – I was thinking of the stormy petrel that wings its way around the oceans, and indeed we plan to see most of the world before we return to Spontoon. At least Helen and I plan on returning; Maria and Miss Cabot may have other paths to follow. At least – we are on our way. Takeoff was at eight sharp; this time of year the central waters are as full of seaplane traffic as they get and we had to wait until the “China Clipper” touched down from Hawaii before the tower would clear us. But we were off a minute later, the fuel-heavy Storm Bird making a slow but steady climb out over Main Island before we turned East towards Tillamook. I have ten hours logged flight in the Cant already, Helen having nine, Miss Cabot six and Maria four. It is little enough considering the trip we are making, but I flew to the Albanian South Indies with still less training “on type”. And that was with a whole aircraft full of fairly helpless passengers. As we banked and looked out seeing Eastern Island to starboard below us, I think all of us had a lump in our throats as mentally we waved farewell to Songmark and three very eventful years. Still, it is people that make a place. The only dorm of our year still there now is Prudence’s, and they have good reasons to stay. Three of them married already! I only heard about Carmen just yesterday; it was a pity we could not get to her wedding. It is rather ironic that of all the girls one might have expected to lead unconventional lives, they are the ones who are getting legally wed. Even poor Ada has been Tailfast. The first two hours were over familiar waters; I piloted while Helen navigated and Miss Cabot and Maria monitored the engines. Having three engines to look after is a novel experience for us. We have to mostly rely on the instruments on two of them, as having the third nose-mounted just in front of us definitely drowns out any tell-tale noise or vibration from the two in the wings. We make a steady hundred and twenty knots on our most economical cruise speed, doing our best to run the fuel settings as lean as we can without misfiring. It was a very fine day to leave, only delayed by a headwind at altitude slowing us by eight or ten knots as if the islands did not want to lose us. It was not looking so bright by ten, when I handed over control to Helen. Having dual controls side by side makes changing over simplicity itself; in the Sea Osprey we had to gain a safe altitude, lock the controls then rapidly scramble out over the back of the pilot’s seat (the Songmark plane has the original military specification seat armour plate still installed, for some reason.) One forgets sometimes that Spontoon is not all that far South; unlike Vostok or Tillamook it lies in a warm current keeping it much balmier than it would be. By half past ten we were climbing to ten thousand feet to get above the clouds, and the air was decidedly bumpy. If we had been the China Clipper with stewardesses serving drinks on board, they would not be pushing the drinks trolley down the aisle! By eleven the weather was looking rather nasty, with ten-tenths cloud and great updrafts and downdrafts. On the sailing chart this is where the warm Spontoon current collides with the Arctic waters that curve around Tillamook, and “breeds weather” as the old sailors put it. Helen was holding the stick as level as she could, but to judge from the altimeter (and the feeling in our stomachs) we were climbing and plummeting three or four hundred feet at a time. It is odd indeed how Helen is violently ill almost as a reflex action when stepping aboard any boat, but has no trouble at all being thrown around in the air! We certainly were thrown about; everyone strapped in tight and tried to secure any loose objects. When one sees a stray chart cover hitting the cabin ceiling, one knows it is real turbulence! Had we not been securely fastened we would have joined it and come down afterwards with rather more of a bump. The dual control on the Cant has an option I was wondering about; apart from either/or selecting control, there is a setting for pilot and co-pilot to share the stick. This would generally cause much confusion. Maria managed to get into the co-pilots seat without being thrown onto the roof, and helped Helen stay in control. After two bumpy hours even the strongest pilot gets fatigued, and the Cant is a heavy aircraft. Soon we had flown through the storm front to see the forested mountains of Tillamook glistening rain-wet in the distance. It was a fine Summer day down there, although the deeper valleys were still wreathed in the more typical dense fog. One can see why Spontoon not Tillamook prides itself for sunbathing beaches. It is at least nicer weather than we had here this February on the way to and from Macao, where we only saw the tops of the mountains about twice. That was still a fine trip, and despite the fog I have good memories of our camping out in the great conifer woods with a cheerful reflector fire keeping the dampness at bay. I was navigating on the final approach, keeping a steady back bearing on Spontoon. Radio LONO was fading away behind us especially in such bad atmospherics. The last song of Spontoon I could make out was the classic “Irene Adler’s Hula”, which we have often danced to on our Saturday classes. Then it was time to turn the directional aerials and tune into Pamalootha City Radio; as one door closes another opens, as they say. Despite all the clouds and winds we were not more than ten miles off course by the time we reached the coast at 13:40 local time (12:40 by a Casino Island clock; we have already crossed a time zone since leaving Spontoon – and are due to cross many more.) Maria took full control of the stick and half an hour later we were on the step outside Pamalootha City, our first stop. There is no urgency on this trip, and indeed five hours flying with the unhelpful headwind brought us eight hundred and twenty miles as I reckon it. Not bad for a first day, in an aircraft we are not quite familiar with. What with all the turbulence nobody had felt much like lunch, but as soon as we taxied up to the seaplane slips that was our first priority. Our Spontoonie registration helped us with the port officials; they just asked us if we were carrying any trade goods and waved us on through. I imagine had we gone West through Vostok we would have a different reception. Despite being the third biggest settlement in the islands, Pamalootha City really looks like a slightly cleaned-up logging town. There is hardly a building in the place more than four storeys tall, and the main material is cedar. If this was a drier climate they would have a lot to worry about in terms of fires. Still, there are medieval city centres in Germany and places that have stood these six hundred years and more, and have not gone up in a bonfire yet. Just inland from the docks there were streets of fairly respectable-looking taverns and restaurants, and having breakfasted before six we were definitely in the market for lunch without dipping into the iron rations on the aircraft. It is fifteen degrees cooler than Casino Island, and off on the horizon we could see the storm front we had outraced catching up on us. Helen liked the look and chalkboard menu of “The Laughing Lamprey” whose title board was in four languages including two of the Amerindian tongues. One can generally recognise them by the same inscription being about three times longer than other tongues. From past experience I think they literally translated as something like “The fish of deep waters without jaws but possessing expression humorous without regard to difficulty thereof”. It is perhaps just as well Helen’s countryfurs did not choose to standardise on a “local” language back in 1776, all things considered. I once saw someone try to translate a limerick into Chippewa, and it filled the whole page. I must say, Helen picked a winner. The food on Tillamook is quite different than Spontoonie cuisine, and in many respects more “Euro” though on this trip we should stop using that word in quite the way the Spontoonies do. I went for the pork and beans, as did Helen – an excellent choice and quite as solid as we could have wished. Maria and Miss Cabot reacquainted themselves with the traditional local dish of “3 Sisters” consisting of a bed of thick maize meal porridge with red bean and pumpkin stew. We had changed most of our currency but Maria still had a roll of Spontoonie Shells that the marmot proprietor accepted without demur. Looking at the furs on the street, it is fascinating in terms of the species mix in this part of the world. Leaving aside the “Euro” arrivals (in its proper sense) the locals are split mostly between various rodent types – marmots, beavers, pikas and suchlike – and a major population of waterfowl. There are more ducks and geese than I have seen since our Orpington Island trip, who presumably do not mind the weather. Bears, moose, elk and musk-oxen natives are types we expect to see more on the mainland. Luncheon done, we had time for an hour of sight-seeing before the rain hit; after we outran it the first time the storm front did its best to get us again! In three minutes the streets were swimming with water, but the steep-roofed buildings and sturdy natives shrugged it off without seeming to notice. We were happy to watch from the shelter of the combined town hall and museum, which had a fascinating section on local traditions. The competitive totem-pole carving championships must be quite a sight to see! The cinemas were not showing any matinee, but the evening’s entertainment was rather interesting – as Helen said, not something we would expect to see in Peoria. “Tropical Bloom” is a film Prudence has often lovingly described that her heroine and sometime employer Miss Margot Melson made a couple of years ago. Apparently she was so incensed by all her films being banned in her homeland under the unfairly restrictive Hays code she decided to do one that deliberately portrayed every single thing they objected to, yet did it in such a way that it made a perfectly inoffensive film * and had many reasonable furs pouring ridicule on the Hays Office. From what I hear she succeeded. Miss Cabot seemed mildly interested in seeing it, whereas Molly would have run a mile. Back to the seaplane slips and busy with refuelling the Storm Bird and checking over the engines, after our lunch break gave them time enough to cool. It is quite a lot of work, three nine-cylinder Alfa-Romeo engines totalling twenty-seven spark plugs to inspect, plus everything else. Still – at seven hundred and fifty horsepower apiece we get a lot of engine to play with. Any one cylinder probably puts out more power than my dear Sand Flea ever had. Although we only have the official manuals and a basic copy of the logbook, Maria had insisted last week on seeing the personal logs of Captain Madaffari and his crew who flew it out to Spontoon. Naturally, if they had needed to put in for repairs half a dozen times that would be something we need to know. Superior Engineering had looked the aircraft over as thoroughly as only they know how (not cheap!) and it does look a very sound model. The engines are rather old-fashioned and could never take variable pitch props or a supercharger, but conservative and proven is better than experimental when one is five hundred miles from land over the Pacific. A busy afternoon indeed, but we were all done by five and rested. The Storm Bird has that large bed and even a shower built into it on Leon Allworthy’s specification (and I expect that is one of the things that caused the order to be delayed, being hardly standard equipment) that could accommodate any two of us with comfort or three at a pinch – and after three years of Songmark beds none of us will complain about sleeping in the pilot’s seat. No doubt we will need to make full use of that later on, but here in Pamalootha City there is no need. Maria pointed out that someone should look after the aircraft overnight and we drew straws. Having suggested it, she took it good-naturedly when the unlucky one was her. We compromised in that a single guard on the ship is not enough; it only puts them in harms way without properly defending the aircraft. I volunteered to keep her company. One Warrior Priestess in each party should be quite enough to deal with most hazards. A fine evening, indeed – the Pole Tree Hotel turned out to be clean and economical, and hardly five minutes from the seaplane slips. A room for Helen and Miss Cabot was easily arranged, Tillamook not appearing to have any tourist rush even in July. It took the last Spontoonie shells Maria had with her, but then this is probably the last place on our trip we can spend them. Maria having paid had first go at the bath, as she will not get a chance later on. I felt somewhat guilty about using the hotel facilities without being a paid-up guest, but Helen and Maria were rather dismissive of the idea and I followed Maria’s example. One of the few things I missed at the Hoele’toemi household is a decent bathtub, but a Euro style bath and a gas geyser to heat it hardly goes with the traditional thatched décor. Actually, while we changed shifts in the bathroom I took the opportunity to check she was healing well without any infection – as her brand is on her rump she can hardly see it without a mirror. She says it still smarts but is no real trouble; the past two nights she has been sleeping on her back for the first time since we rescued her from the secret cellar under the Italian Embassy. She says Italian doctors are rather good these days, and she has heard of good results with skin grafts – although that is liable to be awfully painful with the grafted area and the spot of skin it came off as well, she is very willing to get rid of that souvenir when she gets to her homeland next month. I did point out that she was going to have twice the pain all over again just when the original injury had healed, but she insists it will be worth whatever it takes. It might not have been the best moment, but at the mention of souvenirs I produced the non-anthrop cow-bell we had found her dressed in (or possibly adorned with, it being hardly clothing) when we rescued her. I had put it away in my luggage and mostly forgotten about it. I reminded her that whatever Mr. Pettachi might have done, it had been more or less what Maria had (or should have) expected and that she had gone along with it. It is not as if she had been kidnapped off the street, after all; she chose to step into the trap. One way or another he must have thought a lot of her to go to all that expense and trouble; to judge by the evidence the whole project was specifically for Maria Inconnutia and not for just anybody he could trap in it. Otherwise we would have done rather more to him than we did. Maria’s eyes gleamed dangerously and her ears went right down – but she took my point. She snatched the cow-bell from me – I had not suggested she wear it, though it is a nicely made piece of traditional country blacksmith work and has a melodious chime. She growled that she would find a suitable resting-place for it somewhere, but the deep blue sea is too good for it and she has not seen any dung-hills in the streets of Pamalootha City. I could see she was in no mood to be even-pawed about this. Honestly – I had tried to persuade her out of it beforehand, and if she disliked the experience it is hardly surprising and actually just as well. It would have been even more unfortunate otherwise. But Maria hates to be wrong even more than most furs, and being disappointed as well as her other indignities is rather a lot to take in at once. The first night in a foreign port of a round-the-world trip is no time to start an argument, and when she started on her opinion of my keeping all my own “souvenirs” I did my best to wave it aside. Keeping my current status and all that goes with it is the best idea I can come up with on getting rid of the Allworthy title – for that I am quite willing to keep my Songmark graduation certificate “on ice” till I can resolve it. I dislike the idea of slavery as much as any other fur, but it is legal in Kuo Han – and I would no more like to break a local law there than I would have bought a bottle of wine in the USA when Prohibition was on. Whatever one thinks of the local laws, a good fur obeys them. Of course we technically speaking stole the Pennington girls, but that is quite another matter. Maria subsided somewhat, and having dressed appropriately we are off to rejoin Helen and Miss Cabot for a fine evening out. A nice place when one can see it through the fog, is Tillamook! *Editor’s note: “Tropical Bloom”, dir. M. Melson 1935, filmed on location in Vanierge. If any prints were sent to the Hays Office, it would have been in an effort to wipe out that august institution in a collective apoplexy attack. Miss Melson skilfully assembled the film not only breaking every taboo in the Motion Picture Production Code but doing so seamlessly introducing into the plot not just everything banned but in the exact sequence the Code listed them! The more offensive acts the Code banned for good reason (brutal murders, cruelty to cubs etc) were done by the villain, off-camera. July 21st, 1937 Farewell to Tillamook! Last night was a definitely fine evening, first meeting with Helen and Miss Cabot at their hotel. Though we hardly painted the town red (it is reddish cedar coloured already) it was pleasant to have a meal and a glass of wine without thinking of having to be up at three on Songmark gate guard. That is one side of Songmark I will not miss a bit. It is rather like being a monk always having to be up for their devotions of Matins at four, rain or shine. We got back to the Storm Bird for an early night; the built-in bed is jolly comfortable and with the gentle rocking in the harbour I was asleep in no time. It is just as well Helen did not draw the short straw; she has grave problems sleeping on boats no matter how luxurious, and was far happier with a first-floor hotel room looking down on the streets of Pamalootha City. I was up at dawn, and as ever the first job is to get Maria up! It is harder to tip her out of bed when the bed is secured to the floor. Actually the bed itself can be secured; there are various sturdy metal rings around it that could be used to lash down any fragile cargo with the mattress acting as a shock absorber. At least I hope that was Lord Leon’s idea. Still, the scent of hot coffee generally gets Maria stirring – as was my refusal to provide her breakfast in bed. The Storm Bird has a very neat little folding “galley” with a spirit stove like those found in small boats, even if one needs to use the shower for washing-up. The shower tank is five gallons of drinking water, which adds to the weight but if we use it as an emergency water reserve and only shower when we can be sure to replace it, we should be doing well. By seven Helen and Miss Cabot were back aboard, looking well refreshed and ready to go. As soon as we had cleared it with the harbourmaster we were taxiing out into the open water, which was decidedly choppy. I managed to get on the step and airborne before Helen lost her breakfast, though it was a close thing. Tillamook consists of three biggish main islands and quite a lot of minor ones; for the first hour we were passing one pine and cedar-covered island after another, keeping our altitude a comfortable five thousand feet; high enough to give us a good view to navigate and give us gliding range to find open water, while still being under the cloud level. Our chart has quite a few alternate destinations available in case of emergency, with everything from real airports with repair facilities marked to sheltered inlets where we could put down and fix minor problems such as a blocked fuel line with the tools onboard. The Storm Bird certainly has range when carrying just us and our luggage; eleven hundred miles with all the overload tanks full – and given the choice we will certainly keep them topped-up. It is the first time in three years I have seen the Nootka Sea, having sailed across it to Spontoon from Rain Island through Hawaii. I might have flown back then rather than taking the slower tourist boat, but looking back on it I think Father wanted to give me one last holiday. We can all vouch for the fact that Songmark has little enough of that. Still, I headed out three years ago very much alone and feeling rather exiled despite loving the idea of Songmark – had I waited to finish up at Saint Winifred’s I would have been in the next year’s intake. Instead of three years with Helen, Molly and Maria I can imagine our Tutors amusing themselves with making me the fourth member of Red Dorm! So it was just as well, all things considered. Four hours over the Nootka Sea was easy enough navigation in clear weather, but in front of us we could see a line of solid cloud where the coast had to be. This is what we expected; the prevailing winds pile up the clouds over the coastal Cascade ranges and give Rain Island its name. With Miss Cabot at the stick the rest of us looked at the chart and decided to follow the usual route into Sealth City; the distinctive Lapahada Island twenty miles offshore was just in the clear and gave us our last navigational ”fix”. Then we throttled back to eighty knots, dropped to a thousand feet where we could just see the water below, and started to feel our way in. Visibility in the fjord was about a mile at best, but from the shipping traffic below we could tell we were heading up the right channel. Steep pine-clad slopes rose up on our port side, and Miss Cabot was straining her eyes looking out for anything unexpected looming out of the fog. Even nowadays, it is not unknown on this coast for seaplanes to have to put down in the fog and taxi the last few miles. Another bonus for seaplanes! The Storm Bird actually has a foghorn, though looking at the size of some of the bulk timber carriers I think we would be the ones to dodge if anything sounded right ahead. As it happened we were in luck and the visibility increased to a good two miles as we rounded the bend in the fjord to see the buildings of Sealth City looming up out of the fog. They have a radio navigation system but it is little use on the final approach; heading in on a straight radio beam is fine over open ocean but not when one is dodging tree-clad hillsides. They have rather more workable navigation lights of an odd reddish colour pointing the way to the seaplane slips – I recognised these as the brand new “Sodium lights” from their descriptions in the aeronautical journals. They certainly put these in since my last visit. Rain Island is (just) in the same time zone as Tillamook, and just to be different they declare it an hour ahead of the Western provinces of Canada. Considering they are technically anarchists they seem rather well-organised. Then, even Rosa Marquetta the utterly uncompromising Bakuninite Anarchist submits to the Songmark regulations. She will be a second-year in September, and I pity the incoming junior year. True, in supervising our first junior year’s workshop lessons we had them running around in quest of Long Stands, bottles of Firing Solution and left-handed screwdrivers, but that is traditional. By two o’clock local time we were pulling up at a seaplane slip having followed a brightly lit guide boat in from the main seaplane way. With weather the way it commonly is around here, they need the combination of plenty of open water and practiced local guides who know every buoy and marker even if the visibility suddenly drops to a hundred yards as indeed it did. The “crash-boat” crew were totally swathed in oilskins quite hiding their sex and species – and this is July. Helen says she is missing Spontoon already, and was not encouraged by Miss Cabot pointing out it will get a lot colder before we are over the Rockies. Maria was rather chaffing her that she has been getting “thin blood” in the luxurious climate of Spontoon (not that Maria called it that at three o’clock on a December morning when she had to get up for gate guard in the pouring rain) and indeed apart from our Aleutian, Vostok and Tillamook trips Helen has stayed in a warm climate since arriving from Texas, which itself is reputed to be warm in Summer. Helen has very little “padding” left and apart from Miss Cabot she is the thinnest of us – in fact Mrs. H was saying she is really far too thin for a Spontoonie bride. She actually looks jolly impressive in the fur, our training and adventures having turned everything to lithe muscle; hardly an ounce of fat on her. While Maria was doing most of the diplomatic and background searches for us on Kuo Han last month Helen was using her Songmark and Warrior Priestess training to the full. Anyway, we can hardly be surprised that Rain Island lives up to its name. We put our oilskins on before opening the cabin hatch and inflating the dinghy, or we would have been soaked to the fur in a minute. Having a compressed air tank onboard saves a lot of pumping, and is a marvellous idea for seaplanes with inflatable boats as part of their equipment. When we got ashore the Customs “Union” was somewhat more thorough than their counterparts on Tillamook, not amazingly since we could have been on Mildendo or Krupmark two days ago and the Storm Bird can carry quite a lot of cargo. Although we were passed through Customs quickly enough, Rain Island is one place where they seem to have definitely heard of the Allworthy name. The official was definitely sneering about “we don’t cotton to furs with high-falutin’ titles in this neck of the woods” which if Lord Leon was a typical peer, I would sympathise with. He added that I had better watch my step or the Citizens’ committees would know what to do with the likes of me. One would think we were in New Haven. My Father always told me never to argue with drunks, lunatics or Policemen, and I suppose Customs officials fit into the latter category. Anyway, I had my passport as Amelia Allworthy stamped as officially entering Rain Island – I did not mention my still-valid passports as Amelia Bourne-Phipps or Kim-Anh Soosay that were concealed aboard the Storm Bird. Police and Customs furs tend to ask awkward questions about such things. Once through the Customs shed Sealth City looked like many other bustling industrial cities, with crowded streets heavy with traffic. Big diesel timber wagons made up quite a lot of the traffic heading down to the wharves; there were few private cars on the street but many tram-cars packed with damp workers. A lot of the signs are for “Timber Union 304”, “Rail Union 47” and the like; even one of the Naval vessels we had passed on the way in had been titled “Naval Union 650”. It is something we have seen in Spontoon but carried rather to extremes. Democracy is all very well, but a ship ought to have one captain and not a chairman who needs to call a vote in the midst of action. * Most of our currency we had changed into “Yankee dollars” and some shops and restaurants had signs claiming they accepted them. Somehow the phrase “with reluctance” seemed to be implied. Helen muttered that we were in for an expensive meal if we used them, and seeing the tight smile on the muzzle of the skunk proprietor as he caught her accent, I could quite believe it. Actually the meal was jolly good, a salmon and shellfish stew that is the speciality of the coast, served with piles of potatoes. This is one Lady Allworthy who is not going to insist on caviar, quails in aspic and “salad Russe” for her meals. Breakfast in Tillamook, late luncheon in Rain Island – in theory, we could be well over the border into Canada for suppertime. Definitely the world is a smaller place at a hundred and sixty knots than the sixteen of a cruise ship. I did not tip the waiter, quoting Liberty Morgenstern (there is a first time for everything) that tipping is bourgeoisie and offensive to the workers. Anarcho-syndicalists cannot have it both ways; if folk look down on titles and still expect to be treated like some loyal retainer in Berkley Square they are in for a disappointment. Besides, looking at the price he charged us compared with the local Rain Island menu, we were charged an exchange rate I would have been less surprised at on Krupmark. From what we have heard on Spontoon they have their own opinion of their neighbours, both American and Canadian. Back to the seaplane slips to arrange refuelling; we had used scarcely half our fuel but Songmark has drummed a lot of practical habits into us. Never pass by the chance to fill one’s fuel tank – ditto water bottles, stored food supplies or medical kit having used any of it. Helen has safely padded in her innermost pocket the main fuse for the nose engine (it can be easily reached from within the cockpit if one knows where to look, the electrical cabling being glanded through the firewall with good asbestos seals) and that is as good as an ignition key should any Rain Islander decide “all property is theft” and try to find a better nest for the Storm Bird. Refuelling and maintenance done, by tea-time again we found ourselves in a strange city to explore and in no great urgency. Even the rain had stopped, though the clouds still hung heavy on the hills and we could see barely two miles down the fjord. Though since my first year in Songmark I have rarely been homesick for England, the view was rather familiar. Other nations are well off for solar energy, but as in Rain Island, England would rejoice if some inventor found a means of exploiting the power potential in our huge local supplies of greyness. A hotel was easily found, and this time I got the bedroom along with Miss Cabot while Helen drew the short straw and looked after the Storm Bird along with Maria. The hotel proprietor was a rather greasy elk, and as we left I could hear him in the back room discussing with his staff possible comic tales starting “An English aristo, a “damnyank”, an Italian and a Spontoonie walk into a bar…” I would have been intrigued myself to hear what they came up with as a punchline. Apart from this time Helen and Maria getting first use of the shower, one of the advantages of a hotel room for some of the party is we all get to dry out clothes and such. As our dear Tutors impressed on us early and often, any fool can be uncomfortable, and most of them are. It would not do to arrive in Boston wearing mildewed outfits, or in England for that matter. From what I hear, since Archbishop Crowley began to guide the Church he has insisted on word-for-word literal compliance with much of the Old Testament that as he says “corrupt so-called ‘modern theologians’ have scorned”, and in the book of Leviticus there are certainly stern things preached about mildew. Anyway, in fresh outfits we had a jolly fine meal in a restaurant down the street, mostly full of lumberjacks in town to collect their months’ wages from what we could overhear. They had been spending a lot of it shopping at boutiques one hardly expects to find in the backwoods; their clothing choices looked a little odd and somewhat impractical for working in but certainly lumberjacks are all right. A dessert of fresh buttered scones is something I have missed, it not being on Songmark’s menu or at the Hoele’toemi household either. Helen and Maria left to look after the Storm Bird at eight and I went back to the hotel with Miss Cabot for an early night and a good look at the charts heading East. Our room was up on the first floor – given a choice we have been taught to avoid the ground floor (too easy for other furs to get into) and the top floors unless there is a way up onto the roof (too hard for us to get out of in emergency.) As soon as we got into the corridor within sight of our Room 14, Miss Cabot signalled for quiet and caution – I could see the strip of brown paper we had put at the top of the door when leaving was gone. It might just have been the maid cleaning the rooms, but unless Rain Island has strange anarchist cleaning principles, that would have been more usual around lunchtime when any previous guests had just checked out. One can certainly be too cautious, but some mistakes one can only make once. Dropping to the floor I noticed the hall carpet had not been swept in some time, making the idea of conscientious maids working late less likely – and from the scent, there was someone standing very near the door. While Miss Cabot unlocked the door and opened it with a hard shove, I went in at a low roll and as I heard the door hit someone standing right behind it I uncoiled back to slam the door slamming them against the wall – the lights in the room were out and the curtains drawn despite the dull weather, which definitely ruled out our “guest” being room service. Miss Cabot swung in past me and broke left, away from being silhouetted in the doorway – and was immediately facing a second intruder. I jerked the door back, keeping low and saw a stocky canine just starting to react; evidently we had been the ones meant to be surprised. His ankles were within reach so I grabbed those and heaved, pulling him off his paws in a “timber topple” that had his head colliding with the sturdy marble wash-stand with a most gratifying thump. A knife hit the ground along with its owner, and I booted that out of reach into the empty corridor. Turning to see how Miss Cabot was faring, I saw she faced a large mustelid, possibly a marten or a polecat - actually she was not quite facing him as he was currently forced to his knees with Miss Cabot twisting his right arm behind his back. Unfortunately he was left-pawed or ambidextrous – as his left dived under his jacket and pulled out a revolver. On the far side of the room he was too far away for me to reach before he could bring the barrel round to point at Miss Cabot, who he was hardly going to miss at that range. Physically I could not touch him in time – but Saimmi did not train us to be Warrior Priestesses for nothing. Some things I might have done more subtly but as our Jude-Jitsu instructor Mr. Toshiro Finkelstein told us “a delicate nerve hold may often be the most elegant approach – but sometimes it’s handier to hit them with a brick.” I summoned everything I had and did the equivalent of hitting his spirit with an extremely large brick. It certainly left him in no condition to point his pistol anywhere. Half an hour later we were doing our best to explain matters to the local police. Miss Cabot had identified the mongrel canine as one of the furs who was hauling baggage in the Customs shed – which explains how he knew there was a Lady Allworthy arriving in town, if not where I was staying. The room’s drawers were obviously ransacked and a few pocketable items such as my good brass compass were found in the canine’s pocket, which rather defused matters with the police (he was coming round as the officer arrived) and the police seemed fairly happy to have a clear case. Except for the other robber, the polecat who was gibbering in a corner with his paw over his eyes. I only learned later that his other arm was broken in two places; Miss Cabot had no reason to hold back when she saw him reaching for his gun although that might not have stopped him in time. From what he was occasionally shrieking, the Police decided to call a shaman (they are listed in the telephone books here!) and then things got complex. The shaman known as Tall Pines certainly lived up to his name, being a full-grown moose who has to turn his head sideways to get his antlers through most doorways – certainly Nature intended his family for the wide open spaces. He made a fairly thorough examination of the polecat, and from a bag he carried round his neck he threw a few pebbles on the threadbare carpet reading them as if they were dice. I am not quite sure how that system works, but he turned to me as if he was following a radio compass bearing. Of all the troubles we had been prepared for, getting into a knock-down argument with the local religious leaders was not one of them. Tall Pines seems to be able to spot the equivalent of my size seven hob-nailed boot print on the robber’s spirit, and was somewhat shocked – a rare emotion for a shaman, by repute. In the Orient furs meditate on the idea of the sound of one paw clapping; in Vostok they do say the perfect future society is symbolised as a boot coming down on a miscreant’s face, forever. I explained that I am a Spontoonie Warrior Priestess – Tall Pines had certainly heard of the ancient Spontoon traditions but not that they had been revived, and he did not look at all happy to hear it. Considering Helen and me are the first in several centuries to graduate, it is hardly surprising nobody knew. I pointed out that shamans are not slow to use their powers against ne’er-do-wells when justified, and cited the Alaskan who had inaccurately cursed Adele Beasley for her parents’ tomb-robbing and had presumably done as much to furs who did deserve it. With that curse of misfortune, if she ever had arranged a date in Istanbul he would be waiting for her in vain in Constantinople – but something more rapid and drastic was needed tonight against an armed robber’s quick-draw reflexes. One could almost see Tall Pines’ mental gears grinding – the Police Officer confirmed from the evidence that things seemed to have happened just as our statements had said, and he recognised the polecat who has served months in a lumber work-camp before for cat-burglary. One assumes the lumber camps the Rain Islanders seem to favour for minor criminals are not as well-supplied with buttered scones and elegant lingerie for their convict workers as the elegant lumberjacks we saw lunching in Sealth City. Thinking of curses, although the police-fur agreed with our story he suddenly remembered where he had heard the name Lady Allworthy before – evidently they read the International Police Gazette here as well. I admitted the title was currently in rather bad odour but the Lady Allworthy he had heard such things about was Susan, not me – and of a different species, which hopefully clinched things. His ears went down somewhat and after five minutes on the telephone to his station while furs presumably looked up the records, he conceded that argument. It is just as well Miss Cabot is using her passport in that name; if they are as well-informed about the Procyk as the Allworthy family criminal histories I can imagine there would be real alarm bells ringing. Had he known that between us two we have five passports it would have been another mark against us. A police wagon and two secure stretchers took our burglars away, though not before we heard the words familiar from many a crime matinee – “don’t leave town.” Definitely our ears drooped. We were expecting to be over the Rockies by this time tomorrow. Tall Pines seemed in no hurry to leave, and from his attitude one would think we had defended ourselves with mustard gas – effective enough as a weapon but definitely disapproved of worldwide except by Maria’s Uncle. If I had used a physical brick there would presumably have been no problem, but Warrior Priestesses seem to be a new and disturbing idea around here. I suppose it would have been the same if he was a doctor and I had used my Webley .455 and one of those mercury-cored “hunting rounds”; regardless of what the patient has done the doctor is obliged to try and piece him together again and is not likely to feel charitable to the one responsible for the mess. Indeed, as soon as the police-furs had left he rather bluntly told us he could tell we had done a lot of this sort of thing before, and got away with it unpunished so far. Also that in Rain Island the sworn testimony of a shaman is very definitely valid in their courts of law. When one comes to think of it, between us Molly (Miss Procyk has the same memories) and me have wreaked a fair amount of mayhem. We did not plan on getting into highly lethal battle with Moro Pirates or Kuo Han dark priestesses, but things rather turned out that way. If Tall Pines had seen Molly Procyk running wild with that flamethrower on Kuo Han (technically a thermite-thrower) I expect it might have disturbed him somewhat. Or seen how I defended Judge Poynter from the three assassins, for that matter. Possibly that sort of experience has left its spiritual scent on us that a shaman can detect – as far as I can tell my conscience is clear, but anyone who had just detected our experiences might not have been able to read that part of the story. I did not tell him that had I hit as hard as I might have done, the robber would be answering for his misdeeds not in a local court but on the Spirit Plane. At length Tall Pines left us, promising we would hear from him and his colleagues tomorrow. I talked it over with Miss Cabot and we decided not to try and give folk the slip and get the Storm Bird away at dawn. True, once we vanished on a compass-course into the clouds there would be scant chance of standing patrols of the Air Syndicate ever finding us and once in Canada, Rain Island would hardly want to pursue us over Commonwealth territory. Still, I might want to return this way someday and indeed we are in no desperate hurry. I will do my best to clear the Allworthy name as long as I have it, and evading the Police is not a good way to start. An early night, having checked the doors were securely bolted. This hotel has no house detective, and indeed I would not be amazed if the proprietor or one of his staff had passed the word of where we are. A wealthy English noble would be regarded as a totally “legitimate target” by some of the Rain Islanders from what we have seen so far, especially one with the Allworthy reputation – Rain Island being founded by somewhat anarchistic furs with no respect for traditional ranks. Though they have been shown as the loyal defenders of the Spontoon Independencies, the ones we met there were conscientious military types who were on their best behaviour representing their country in an ally’s territory. What the average “Union fur” here is like seems to be rather different, and anyway ill-gotten gold is proverbially right to acquire from its current unworthy, let alone Allworthy owner. I recall Eva Schiller in one of her Geopolitical moods asking why the British Empire had never attempted to regain the Rain Island territory, which certainly has timber resources and good harbours if little else. I pointed out that we are not short of territory, and put more value on loyal subjects than acquiring yet more acres of pine forest and these ones full of rebels who would need to be expensively policed forever. I think Canada was glad to see the backs of most of the Rain Islanders’ parents. Eva took the point and reminisced that in Medieval times they had a tradition of a “Ship of fools” that was loaded with all the half-witted furs from a kingdom and set adrift to end up as somebody else’s problem. She agreed that nobody ever thought of going after them for the sake of getting the ship back. *Editor’s note: Amelia is perhaps being a little unfair here. The Rain Island military may initially elect their officers as “Syndics” but once in the job and on a mission they can give orders as decisively as any other officer without worrying about their poll leads. Leadership in Spanish Civil War anarchist units was quite another story … next |