(Being the continuing diary of Amelia Bourne-Phipps, hurriedly sent off to the Songmark Aeronautical Boarding School For Young Ladies after crashing her 8th home-built aircraft on her Father’s prized glasshouses. This instalment of the diary bears the heading – “copied out later from waterproof field notes”. As ever, the original is written in the never-popular Lexarc shorthand system, as invented by one of Amelia’s public school teachers and taught by very few others.)

April 11th, 1935

Dear Diary – hurrah for a life on the wave! Yesterday we finished term, and waved our dear friend Maria farewell, as our little band scatters homewards across the planet on every available flying-boat.  Only a dozen of us are staying on the islands over Easter, and eight of those are heading out prospecting tomorrow to distant Cranium Island.  The one dorm of Songmark that is not being taken apart for cleaning, is busy with everyone packing and re-packing Adventuring equipment. Sadly, only second and third-years are being taken for this trip, which would have left Molly, Helen, Soppy Forsythe and myself in something of a pickle as our normal Holiday venue is closed. Happily, we have managed to get berths on the local fishing fleet, which should keep us out of trouble, although it might get a little dull at times.

            This morning, our tutor Miss Devinski called the four of us over to give us our marching orders.  Three weeks at sea helping with the local fishing fleet should at least give us plenty of practice with the local language.  “Soppy” has managed to find a second-hand Pacific Nations grammar and phrase book, covering the Chinook, Spontoonian and Tillamookian languages.  By the end of the trip, we should be quite proficient in native tongues.

            Anyway – tomorrow we are expected on the dockside of Beresby, one of the Scandinavian fishing villages on the North coast of Main Island. Water taxis have been booked, and we are warned to be up and packed by eight.  Molly complains that we should be on holiday timetables now – but our Tutor was having none of it. (Although one would not wish to pry, I did notice on Miss Devinski’s desk a receipt for a suite booked for two at the Marylebone Hotel for tomorrow night.  Possibly she is having relatives over to stay.)

            One good thing is we four have the afternoon off – we will need little packing, as we are warned that it will be strictly hammocks and kit-bags this holiday. Poor Molly is most upset, as she always travels with about a dozen cases, even after some of the more aggressive contents have been seized by Customs. I fear she may need some acclimatisation to our new roving life – not having had the advantages of a proper boarding-school Education. Dear old St.Winifreds, what a place that was! By ancient tradition, the first-years arrived at the school with all their possessions in tea-chests after carrying them the six miles through Grimpound Mire from the nearest railway halt.  As our school motto proclaims, “What does not kill us, makes us stronger”, and indeed we had not suffered an arriving-day fatality for several years. But I digress.

            Having a few blessed hours free, I voted for a stroll down to the Eastern Islands docks, to plane-spot.  Helen and Molly agreed, on condition we slipped away before Soppy found out – after all, we may be in her company non-stop all holiday, and one can have too much even of a good thing.

            Quite a sight! As we arrived, we noticed a Lockheed Lamprey making a rather rough touchdown on the seaplane way. Last night on Radio LONO, we had heard that a film company would be arriving for location shoots, and this proved to be them. Molly is quite a movie fanatic, and has “Film Frolics” airmailed to her every month – she claims to have met several of the famous names at parties catered for by her family’s wines and spirits company. (She is quite a critic too, and just last week was roundly denouncing “G-man Hero” as being not only unrealistic but also extremely prejudiced.)

            Alas, we are out on the boats tomorrow, and will be missing all the lights, cameras and action.  Such is life!

April 12th, 1935

(Written in, I fear, a most unsteady hand, courtesy of a swaying hammock in a rough sea.)

             Our first day at sea! Everything began much as our other term-time trips: down to a water-taxi with borrowed naval kitbags slung over our shoulders, and across to the uninspiringly named Main Village, Main Island.  It turned out to be market-day, and the place was quite packed.  One of the reasons for the bustle could be seen in the distance: the first real cruise-ship of the year steaming down the strait between Eastern and Main island crowded no doubt with loud-voiced and loud-shirted tourists. I noticed a few last billboards being taken down, mostly those advertising radios and other modern items – and a final batch of “ancient” stone sculptures fresh from the workshops ready to be scattered artfully around the coastline.

            Molly suggested we stop for a Nootnops Blue, as there is no guessing on how well supplied the boats will be. But regrettably I had to support Soppy and squash that idea – first impressions are important, and Molly will be hard enough at the best of times to pass as a sober, hard-working asset to a working ship’s crew.  Helen is being particularly quiet – or as she puts it, “jus’ rememberin’ feelin’ OK”, as she is not looking forward to our little boating excursion.

            I had equipped myself with a map of the islands – one of our own, drawn up in January from aerial photographs, showing the true locations of all the roads and villages. Very odd, that the published land maps are so far out, despite the coastal navigation charts being spot-on.

I spotted the correct road to Beresby and not the one marked on the Tourist map, and we headed out over the main ridge.  It was scarcely a mile over the top, with small farms mixed with bamboo groves – quite scenic, indeed. We noticed a small monument in a clearing just off the road, with a neatly raked crushed coral track leading to it, and decided to investigate – it proved to be a memorial to a Gunboat Wars battle. The plaque has two inscriptions, one in English and one in Spontoonie, which seem to say entirely different things – at least, the native one is four times the size. Interestingly, the inscription is also set on the side facing away from the main road: like many things, this seems to be calculated to avoid disturbing casual tourists. (And from what Jirry has told me, a lot of them are incredibly casual, and look on the islands as nothing more than a collection of bars, sea views and beaches built specially for them.)

            “Soppy” declared she was worn out already, and indeed her kitbag is twice the weight of any of ours. But we outvoted her and pressed on towards the village, a collection of roofs already visible through the trees.  As soon as we started off, the rain came down again – and we discover just why she has such a large pack. She has a complete set of deep-sea winter weight oilskins, bright yellow in colour, complete even to tail covers. Being a squirrel, she has a lot of tail to cover. Helen and Molly are following my policy of a waterproof hat and straw cape, which is not nearly as uncomfortable and dries out much quicker.

            In another ten minutes we were in the middle of Beresby – about two hundred houses, a harbour and jetty, two shops and very little else. Having seen Polynesian, Chinese and Red Indian type settlements around Main Island, this was something else entirely.  Stone walls and steep roofs seemed decidedly designed to shed snow, some of the roofs sweeping almost down to the ground. One of the larger buildings could be identified from several hundred yards downwind – a most appetising aroma of cooking fish, clearly the cannery which will be taking our catches this trip, assuming we catch anything.  (I recall the last time my brother cast in our park lake, he landed an old Wellington boot and a quantity of barbed wire.)

            According to our marching orders, we were to meet the boats by the docks at midday, and arrived indeed with time to spare. Sure enough, there was a little flotilla of six boats and a larger steam vessel, heading in towards us. We seem to definitely be expected, as one boat headed straight towards us, and its crew fairly bounced up the ladder to greet us.

            As we found out, the bigger ship is the depot where they deliver their catches to be packed in ice, letting the fishing boats range far out among the smaller islands.  We were introduced to Captain Sigmarsen, an avian gentleman who is in theory in charge of the whole enterprise – though from what I gathered, he spends half his time hunting down his wandering boats before the ice melts.  Quite an urgent task in the height of Summer, one would expect.

            Our accommodation proved to be extremely basic, merely consisting of a matting “cabin” arched over the fore end of one of the boats.  The boats all hold six crew in rather cramped conditions, with just enough room for hammocks to be stowed above the piles of netting laid out on the deck. Soppy was quite aghast at the sight – although I did remind her that as a Quaker she should be the one promoting the simple life, she seemed not to appreciate it.  Still – nobody had exactly mentioned the word “holiday” to describe this trip, so it is rather late to complain.

            Indeed, after scarcely an hour of frantic activity as the main ship was unloaded and its cargo hurried off to the cannery, the little fleet turned right around and set sail – time and tide waiting for nobody, one assumes. So here we are, moored off the North coast with two dozen Natives around us. Quite cosy, really – though Helen had some worries at first, she seems to have dismissed them from her mind. Or at least she has other things to do now, having been leaning over the side being unwell since we left harbour. 

April 13th, 1935

Hard at work! We Songmark students were divided up amongst the boats, as presumably one “passenger” apiece is quite enough for a working boat to handle.  The boats have a regular jib sail, something I have fortunately used before when sailing on the Norfolk Broads *. (Molly says she knew some broads from Norfolk who worked at her Father’s establishment, but I doubt we are talking about the same thing.)

            We spent most of the morning sailing Northwards till Main Island was just a distant blur on the horizon, before casting our nets. Quite a feat of navigation without charts or anything – as our target is an underwater reef, quite invisible to the surface and scarcely half a mile long.  I had a good long talk with Pateeta, the eldest of the Noenoke girls, who speaks the best English of her family.  She tells me they can be out for weeks at this time of year, picking up water and supplies at sea when they pass the catch up to the Ice Maiden, our support ship. It sounds a somewhat bleak existence, but no doubt folk here are used to making their own amusements.

            (Later).  Despite looking decidedly rounded, the Noenoke family must be as hard as ball-bearings under all that fur – I thought I was in fair training, but by the end of the day hauling nets had me aching in places I was unaware I possessed!  Supper was naturally fish, and very fine too – each boat has a tiny clay-lined hearth, with a kennel-like metal cover keeping the wind and sea spray off.  The whole fleet gathered and lashed together into a sort of floating village while we ate and compared bruises. Poor Molly is nursing a sore head courtesy of an unexpected gust and a swinging jib, but at least now knows the Spontoonian for “Duck!”

*Editor’s note: the Norfolk Broads are a set of semi-natural inland waterways in the East of England, favoured with the leisure boating set.  Being actually rather narrow and twisting rather than Broad, they should make a good giant slalom venue for anyone into Extreme sports involving seaplane landings.

April 15th, 1935

Dear Diary – it has been 2 days of solid work, sailing from first light to dusk, hauling nets and packing baskets of wriggling fish.  I have stayed with the Noenokes, who are a playful bunch, always joking in the Spontoonie language. I have been making notes and trying out my basic phrases – indeed, I am trying not to speak English at all this trip. The local dialect is tricky, but not as bad as Tillamook, which according to Soppy’s book has thirty different prefixes!    * Possibly they have wholly separate forms for events that happen on a Tuesday, or going downhill.

            Pateeta and Paloma have been telling me about their ancestry; they are proud to be “genuine” Pacific Islanders, their grandparents having sailed over from the Marquesas group. An interesting island chain by all accounts; having no protective coral reefs, the seas have removed all the flat parts and left the mountains rising straight up. It must be vexing trying to garden, vines and climbing beans excepted – though Pateeta tells me one of her other cousins returned to the ancestral island peak and is now the proud owner of the world’s first par One Thousand golf course.

            The two gentlemen, Tihan and Ropapi Noenoke, are really quite a treat to watch in action – one would think they had been born in the water, to watch them. The first thing they do when arriving at a fishing ground is slip over the side and simply take a look for any shoals in the area – the reef is eight fathoms down, but Tihan was down to the sea bed, gathered some shellfish for a snack and returned to point the way to the shoal in under a minute.

            (Later).  It seems I have the best of the Native teams to work with – most of the other fishermen are of the reptilian persuasion, and according to Molly, not much fun.  “Soppy” is constantly glowering about her fur being soaked despite the oilskins: she will insist on wearing them in all conditions, and is rapidly becoming a steamed squirrel as the weather gets warmer. Helen has decided to take to native dress as soon as possible – alas, there is nothing available to make a costume from out here except seaweed. That experiment was not a great success, and the smell of rotting kelp took all day to wash off.

            The Noenokes are certainly the most “Native” Natives we have met – Tihan tells me they rarely even go to Casino Island, being nothing there that they actually want to see. Soppy was quite scandalised to hear that their home islands have no Euro churches at all, having thrown out the missionaries fifty years ago. It seems that the Marquesas were amongst the last islands to contact Euro culture, and had only the Indigenous priests and Primitive Methodists.

            Pateeta was showing us how to adjust our hammocks so they do not let us down unexpectedly in the night. The hammocks are slung from notched poles secured to the rails on each side of the boat, and are really quite comfortable once one learns the correct approach to getting in.  Being much taller than the Noenokes, we sling our hammocks much further up the poles – a top-notch performance! The first time round, I got mine rather skewed, with the foot end much higher than the head. This caused a surprising amount of merriment amongst the Noenokes,  though I can hardly see why. Paloma asked if I was planning on meeting someone special on shore leave – most odd.

*Editor’s note. Soppy’s book is correct about the 30 prefixes in Tillamook - at least, the Guinness Book of Records agrees.

April 17th, 1935

An interesting encounter – while fishing off the North Coast, we spotted a large yacht, drifting in the current.  Our fleet headed that direction as the currents were taking it towards the rocks a few miles away, and we hoped to be able to help if they had broken down and needed a tow. As it turned out, we met most of the film crew we had seen arriving last week – camera teams, cast and all! Their producer tells us they are looking for a suitable little cove for the smuggling scene – and after our fishermen conferred, they directed them to one on the Western edge.  It seems there are only two deep-water landings on the Northern coast, and they are both too built-up to suit.

            If Molly spent as much time working on her aeronautics as she does in memorising faces and screenplays in “Film Frolics”, she would definitely be top in our class. But it paid off today, as she could tell us the producer is the famous Cecil “Beady” Mill, and the leading star is the all-action heartthrob “Rocky” Rhodes. Molly was quite surprised we failed to recognise them, as Mr. Rhodes can usually be spotted by his trademark red beret, which relates to his politics.  Helen commented that she had appreciated the costume, which included breeches so tight that she could tell his religion too. (I must ask Helen what she means, but on past experience I will probably regret it.)

            Still, we could indeed have done worse, as the cameraman, a local Spontoonie, told our fishing friends that an even bigger film team had just arrived to film the all-singing and dancing puppy prodigy, Little Shirley Shrine.  Helen turned pale at the prospect, claiming she has a Doctor’s Certificate excusing her from exposure to anything excessively twee, and she is feeling nauseous enough at sea without having to watch Little Shirley as well.

            Soppy is at least keeping busy and out of our way, as she has taken up bird spotting. She is always to be found with a powerful set of binoculars in hand in her leisure moments, scanning the cliffs and waters for exotic wildfowl. Of course, last holiday it was botanising, and indeed we found her poking around in all parts of South Island, notebook and collecting trowel in paw.  She should certainly have quite a collection of sightings by the time we finish up, as she seems to spend half her time noting down things, even when I can hardly see a bird in the sky. Those must be good binoculars.

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