Just as we had got used to chasing folk through jungles,  we receive our “marching-orders” to go elsewhere! As Helen points out resignedly, I volunteered our services without adding anything about “unless uncomfortable or inconvenient.” Still, it was hardly anywhere of great danger or intrigue – merely back across to Meeting Island, to talk about the next job someone has dreamed up for us.

            Helen is suspicious as ever, and is wondering why we were training Guides in such an energetic way when all the ones we have seen on Casino and South island have been guiding generally rather hot and flabby tourists from one beach to the next. As I pointed out, Guides have to be fit – they may need to drag one of their less attentive customers out of mud-holes or run to fetch urgent medical aid if their client insists on trying to climb Mount Tomboabo in the noonday sun.

            Besides,  Jirry has explained to us that being a Guide is not usually a life-long career – most stick to it for a year or two before their native supply of patience with the customers wears out. So the large numbers we are training is not a huge expansion in the workforce at all, but merely keeping up with natural turnover.

            It was a strange experience to return to the Hospital on Meeting Island – we had been told where to go, and whom to ask for. The front desk was quite crowded, with several Euro customers there – but we had been told to ask in Spontoonie for “Old Mrs. Povic with the bad hip” which I think is a password rather than a real patient. At any rate, we were escorted without another word through the buried passageway into the courtyard where the scarred survivors of the Gunboat Wars rest away from the gaze of the outside world.

            Although it was the second time we had met Jirry’s Aunt Millini, the sight of her half-burned face still raised the fur on the backs of our necks. She greeted us quite courteously, and as she motioned us to sit down, mentioned that she had been hearing a lot about us recently. Seeing that we were not shown the door immediately, I hope our character reports are good ones.

            Anyway – she noted ironically that as we had shown an interest in certain local engineering projects, we might be interested in taking a look at something similar on Casino Island. Visions of concealed bunker complexes under the Casino flashed through my head, but the reality proved rather different.

            I remembered hearing of Dr. Maranowski (formerly of Ulm, which does not seem to want him back) and his methane digester project – it seems the pilot plant is already well under construction on the Northern coast of Casino Island. But it was news to me that another eccentric German scientist had turned up with a promising alternative solution to the same problem. Professor Kurt Von Mecklenburg Und Soweiter has plans and funding for something that looks like a blast furnace, but is really an industrial scale compost bin. He claims he can solve the waste problem and generate enough energy to light up half Casino island for free – plus, there is the little issue of the pilot plant being built at his own expense and not the Althing’s.

            Helen protested that we are hardly engineers – or anyway, if we are engineers it is of the Aeronautical and not the Sanitary type. Aunt Millini nodded calmly, and explained that was not the point – it is the people and not the mechanisms we are going to be investigating. One wonders if there is a local Mad Scientist’s Union, which needs to vet them? There certainly seem to be “Unions” for everything else around here.

            It is quite a shock to us, that we are being trusted with such an important mission! Our character reports really must be convincing. Or as Helen grumbled on the water-taxi back – if you want to keep a troublesome trooper busy, you give him latrine duty, which is one step (or at least a flush) away from our current project.

            I wonder if we will get any official Documentation to help us – recalling the last time I did some impromptu investigation, I was in the cells of the Casino Island Constabulary some six hours later. We studied the French Revolution back in St. Winifred’s, where all the hard work was done by masked figures waving blank declarations saying “whatever he has done, it is for the good of the State.” – or as in that wonderful new game Monopoly, a “get out of jail free” card.

            Helen doubts this severely, assuring me that if anything goes wrong we will be absolutely on our own. You can hardly imagine a Government saying that sort of thing to their Agents – it sounds as likely as an Agent checking into a hotel and loudly announcing himself by his real name.

July 31st, 1935

Another fine day of hide and seek, this time on the far side of South Island, the Eastern slopes of Mount Tomboabo. I assume we will get our orders soon enough for the other project. This time we had a quite senior group of Guides, who proved hard indeed to spot. I only found one of them by scent; he was quite invisible two yards away but really should avoid having pickled fish for breakfast. (A piece of advice he heartily thanked me for. It is nice to be appreciated.)

            Having spotted an unnaturally taut liana, which proved to be linked to a bent branch and net, I took the chance to ask the Guide leader where he had received his training in nets and snares. He explained he had been educated on one of the other island groups at a very practical Mission school run by monks. Possibly they were Trappists.

            On the way back we stopped off at Haio Beach, where a boat load of tourists was noisily partying with their gramophone turned up to full volume. One of them, a porcine “gentleman” in a loud shirt and deafening shorts, caught sight of us and was immediately over with his camera. Before I could object he had fired off about half a dozen shots of me – I would normally have covered up when Euro tourists are around, but had no time to think of it.

            I could see Helen sizing him up for a ju-jitsu throw and some of the less sporting moves Beryl has been teaching us (there really IS a “Cheltenham Death Grip”!). Happily for the Tourist Board, some of the other Guides took the situation in hand and firmly steered him off towards the beach, ignoring the fist full of dollars he was offering me. One supposes the locals get used to it, even from tourists who keep coming back for more. Which he certainly had – I remember hearing about last year’s local fashion for selling obnoxious visitors shirts and hats inscribed with Spontoonie language sayings the wearers never had truthfully translated – and it was some satisfaction that he was walking around the islands wearing a bright and cheerful hat declaring “I AM A MONG.”

            After getting sunburned at the start of the week, Helen and I had used the sun-screen dye on ourselves – leaving me looking very much like one of Moeli’s sisters, I should think. At any rate, I am glad I look very different from my normal “Euro” look, if some stranger is going to be putting me in his photo wallet.

            Actually, the leader of the Guides rejoined us a few minutes later and announced that a tourist had suffered a mishap with his film. He had been photographed sitting with one of the girls on each side when the Guide taking the picture “accidentally” opened the camera back. Much discomfort of stout party, as they say in plays, who went off snorting about ignorant Natives who don’t know one end of a camera from another.

            Being Tailfast with Jirry does not of course mean I cannot hug someone in gratitude, and indeed I did so most energetically. Today has been a definite lesson in Custom: sometimes the locals earn their tourist income the hard way.

     One wonders if in all the cowboy films, all the traditionally impassive Red Indians are really watching the Euros in much the same way, and are just trying very hard to keep a straight face? In Soppy Forsythe’s old dictionary the section on their languages has the phrase “Kemo’sabe” translated as something to do with the tail end of a riding animal, and I seem to remember hearing it used most inappropriately in some cowboy film matinee.

1st August, 1935

Off to Casino Island! Rather a wrench for us, washing out the oil and combing out the patterns from our fur in preparation to put our respectable clothes back on. Although of course it is easily replaced, I really disliked rubbing in the special soap and wiping off the “Tailfast” symbol above my heart. It is the only one Helen and I do not share, the others being “Unmarried” and “New Arrival”. I doubt anyone actually uses the ones Moeli playfully inscribed on us when we first tried the style – “Available” and “Not Fussy”.

            The trip was uneventful, and started with another meeting with the Friends Of German Opera – where Professor Kurt Von Mecklenburg Und Soweiter was expounding his artistic views against an orchestral leader fresh from the Winter Gardens of Neue Suden Thule. By all accounts our other interviewee Dr. Isaac Maranowski does NOT attend this society, having some petty political prejudice against it.

            A fascinating gentleman indeed, Professor Kurt – a silvery wolf, a head taller than Helen, and apart from wearing round wire-framed glasses, he looks far more of a sportsman than an academic. He has a most powerful handshake – quite unconsciously so I am sure – and speaks excellent English. (Better than my Father’s cockney chauffeur Crumley, by a mile.)

            Professor Kurt pressed on me a useful little gardening manual, which presented with almost frightening keenness the various schemes of making the deserts bloom, wastes saved etc by a liberal use of his “Bio-Reaktor” and its products. I had been presented to him as a local researcher and journalist – which is true enough as far as it goes, as we will certainly be investigating and writing up our articles – though probably we will never knowingly meet the ones who read them.

            Our task might be much easier than we had feared – Professor Kurt admits freely why he is here – first to test his Bio-Reaktor under tropical conditions, and secondly to professionally tweak the tail-feathers of his arch-rival. So much for our clever plans to worm the truth out of him!

2nd August, 1935

Something more of a challenge today – our interview with Doctor Maranowski (formerly of Ulm) did not go quite as smoothly. We found him busy on a building site, not far from Student’s Bay on the Northern shore of Casino Island. The two salvaged boilers that had been repaired and modified by Superior Engineering were already in place, and we spotted the Doctor on top of one, waving his wings expressively and shouting irritably at some of the local workmen. (Helen explained some of the words; “Meshuggah” is not really as rude as it sounds.) The Doctor is a raven person, black-costumed and with a definitely impressive beak.

            As intrepid journalists we should have probably have strode right up with notebooks ready – but the chances of getting booted right off the boiler looked rather high. We waited to collar him when he came down, but he was in no mood to expound on his projects, irritably waving us towards Meeting Island where the Althing have posted detailed technical plans already.

            I tried my best, though it rather backfired – trying to get him to open up to us, I mentioned that we had already interviewed Professor Kurt yesterday and that he had been very helpful. This was on reflection the wrong tack to take. I can confirm to the Althing that there is a definite rivalry between their two candidates, and that Doctor Maranowski is not at all happy to discuss it. (Which is rather like saying a tonne of dynamite makes a bright flash and a loud bang – perfectly true, but it hardly captures the extent of it.)

            Still, we managed to interview the workmen, who confirm that he seems to know what he is about – the first digester is almost ready for testing with a lorry-load of assorted wastes (superannuated palm-leaf roofing and assorted vegetable wastes from the hotel kitchens.) By all accounts the process gets more efficient as the quantities increase – looking at the loading schedule, the pilot plant alone is set to swallow five tonnes a day.

            This is just about what Professor Kurt reckoned for his own project – and one of the Engineers tells us he estimates there is not enough fuel on Casino Island for the pair of them. This project is looking more interesting all the time.

3rd August, 1935

A sad parting this morning – Jirry is off for 2 weeks with a film crew! Helen has taken over the small longhouse, as she says she could use some privacy, and a few days of her waking up without having been used as a couch for two or three kittens would be welcome.

            Quite a wrench really, cleaning up the house alone as I made it ready for Helen after a most memorable evening. Certainly things are very different from back Home – I was forwarded a letter c/o Songmark yesterday from my school chum Mabel, who was presented at Court at the start of the social season. She writes that she is off to a finishing school on Switzerland in September, where she hopes to acquire any social graces she may be lacking.

            Had I been a little less passionate about aviation I might have joined her (though no doubt sneaking out of deportment lessons to watch the gliders soaring off the high alpine meadows) and possibly starting to think about who in the social whirl I might one day become engaged to. Respectable tea-dances in Zermatt and Basle are a very fine thing in their way – but last night we watched a hula dance on the beach under the full moon before retiring to our decidedly cosy palm-thatched hut. The décor and the company might not be what one expects at a finishing school – but I wouldn’t swap it for every five-star hotel in Switzerland.

            I doubt Mabel would really understand, without having been here – she is certainly climbing high in accepted social circles, and if I baldly described my current state she would probably bottle out her tail in horror and contact the nearest Colonial authorities to try and have me “rescued”. Quite the last thing I am in need of.

            We are back “on the case” as they say in Molly’s issues of True Crimes Illustrated, working on our pair of expatriate inventors. One hardly supposes the Althing sets people to watch every prominent arrival, but if they are advancing them funds such as for Dr. Maranowski they might quite rightly want to keep an eye on him. Having us watch his rival as well is only fair.

4th August, 1935

Off to Casino Island again in our keen Reporter’s guise. I had suggested making ourselves some “Press” hatband badges, but Helen firmly dissuaded me. The prospect of being swooped on by genuine local Press (some of whom know us already) demanding to know what we are doing and by whose authority, would be embarrassing.

            We had agreed to meet with Professor Kurt at Lingenthal’s, a popular Euro restaurant we had heard of from our friend Erica (now back home in Berlin working as a Party organiser – booking bands and caterers I expect). One consolation of our new job is that we can, at last, explore Casino Island without worrying about being back before our Passes expire.

            Being rather early, we stopped outside the Casino gardens to listen to a fine native band, the Syncopated Seventeen according to the billboard outside. There was a cheerful hail from the terrace above us – and a familiar figure was waving down at us.

            According to the whispered tales that went round at St. Winifred’s, left to her own devices in “bad company” Beryl would have been fleeced out of her allowance (and probably her virtue) inside a week, and be reduced to begging sanctuary at a mission for the unfortunate, inside two. This has failed to happen. She invited us up for a coffee (despite having something elaborate with ice-cubes, fruit and a cocktail parasol for herself) and brought us up to date. It is just as well Molly is not here, she would have turned as green with envy as Helen does on half an hour over choppy seas.

            Beryl had somewhat deceived our Tutors (she claims) by saying she was leaving Spontoon for the holidays – but she returned the next day, moving into the small hotel she has mentioned on the North side of the island. She has been at the Casino every night, refining her “system” – and though not a complete success, she has ended up in credit by “a pile of shells”. She looks very different these days, in a new cocktail dress with professionally groomed fur – and mentioned this was her breakfast, as she regularly stays up till the Casino closes.

            I am sure no good will come of this, though I have to confess she seems to be doing well enough so far. She says she has found a useful place to put her ill-gotten gains, as her friend’s father, Mr. Van Hoogstraaten Senior, is opening up a bank specifically for wealthy exiles and their exiled wealth. She says the local tax laws in Spontoon are rather generous, not being written to consider anyone who might have more than a mattress-full of money to invest.

            I tried to dissuade her, pointing out nobody is ever going to trust a bank on the far side of the world to look after their investments – and apart from a few traders, pilots and such who pass through the island, nobody is going to come all this way just to cash a cheque. What people want is a nice trustworthy stone-built  establishment on their own High Street, not some mysterious place a thousand miles offshore –I’m sure that will never catch on.

            Leaving her, we found Lingenthal’s Continental Restaurant some two hundred yards round the corner, and Professor Kurt sitting outside on the terrace surrounded by books and papers. We sat down on the far side of the hedge to observe him, fortunately downwind. Since we spent last week chasing the Guides, we have been more conscious than ever as to how useful a canine’s nose may be. In ten minutes he had done nothing suspicious except work on his notebooks, formulae and quite a few sketches as far as we could tell: the only suspect thing we noticed was him ordering a particularly sumptuous cream and chocolate cake with his coffee, that is surely illegal in nations of extreme puritanical traditions.

            At the appointed time we strolled round the corner, to be greeted most cheerfully, and had a “working lunch” as he expounded his plans to us. Helen was somewhat put off her food I fear by his vivid descriptions of the waste problems he is here to solve – certainly, unless something is done fairly soon, Casino Island at least may be a victim of its own success. As good journalists, we had to be exceedingly interested for an hour in the quantities and types of wastes a single Hotel could output in the course of a day in high Tourist season. “High” has been a good description of the scent of some beaches on occasions where wind and tide have concentrated rather than dispersed the problem.

            I did ask how he was going to extract power from his contraption – Doctor Maranowski’s project makes cooking gas, but at first sight Professor Kurt’s only makes compost. He smiled, a cheerful but alarming Wolven smile, and tapped a piece of paper that seemed to have a diagram of an electric refrigerator on it. Not that I would recognise one usually, but it had appeared in cut-away diagram form in last month’s “Unpopular Mechanics.”

            Now I can understand why the Althing wanted us to look hard at this project! His explanation made sense in a frightening sort of way – as the “Bio-Reaktor” would not run hot enough to boil water, it had to boil something more volatile for the turbine to generate power. I had to admit that ether should work, but its vapour is rather more explosive than petrol fumes, and even his pilot model uses an awful lot of it. Just as Doctor Maranowski’s methane plant redistributed itself over Ulm, one pressure-pipe leak and a spark could do much the same to Professor Kurt’s invention. I saw Helen’s tail fluff out in alarm: she has often described her Father’s oilfield fire fighting career, and hinted that hot vapour leaks were the most feared hazard in the whole risky business. Having ether would be ten times worse, it being of course the original anaesthetic gas – a deep breath of it and one might not even get the chance to run away.

            One gets the impression that scientists who settle on remote islands on the far side of the world from home, have to do so for a definite reason. Having either contraption within burst radius of the expensive hotels and tourists might not be a particularly good idea – but it is Casino Island that has the problem, unless the Althing want to invest in miles of expensive undersea pipeline.

            On the way back we stopped in Market Square, attracted by a crowd of locals attentively listening to a pair of speakers haranguing each other. One of them we had seen before – the fundamentalist, hellfire Unitarian, who was snout-to-snout with a similarly fundamentalist, hellfire Atheist missionary. An interesting theological debate, to be sure. The Atheist’s approach was that unlike his opponent, no Deity had power to decide his fate – at which the Unitarian was promising that all the Deities his religion incorporates, would have fun for Eternity passing him around between them like a piñata.

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