Spontoon Island
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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
5 November, 1935 to 12 November, 1935

Monday November 6th, 1935
 
                Another pouring wet day and a soaking water-taxi ride over to Casino Island with Ada, Li Han and Jasbir. We have an awful lot of prep to hand in for our Advanced Field Medicine course – though Songmark has trained us hard in first aid, the Nursing course at the hospital is three years of hard work and we have a lot to cover. Our Monday course is something in between.
 
                Looking through the course mimeographs, at least it makes things very plain that we are only expected to handle emergencies, not set ourselves up in medical practise.  Reading through all the accounts of expeditions, it is alarming to think that on some of them we would already be the most qualified medics for several days’ travel in all directions – an incentive to study extra hard!
 
                Though there were no severe accidents rushed in today, there was a surprise for us. After scrubbing up, we were invited into the Maternity ward, where one of the native girls from Main Island was already going into labour.
 
                Oh my. That was – educational. We were reassured by Doctor Monotega that this was an easy birth with no complications – and indeed, two hours later there was a tired but smiling bear girl and freshly washed newborn cub enjoying its first feed.  Books and diagrams hardly hint at the… details, though. If that was a relatively fast and relatively painless delivery, I hope never to see a difficult one.
 
                Ada Cronstein had no problems with the very nasty accident case two weeks ago
(that patient survived but will be in plaster for months) but turned rather pale round the nose and hurried out to be violently ill. Rather extreme, but at least in her case she is never likely to be in
the position herself
.
                Jasbir is quite surprised at all the fuss, commenting that back home in Utterly Pradesh
the women sometimes work in the fields till they feel they need to lie down, call their friends around to help and then simply take the rest of the day off to celebrate. She is eldest of eight, and remembers helping her Mother with her youngest four siblings, even though she is a Maharani.
 
                Our afternoon seemed rather dull after that, working through logistics problems back at Songmark. I confess my mind was not really on the details of supplying twenty theoretical but hungry miners five days from a railhead – in fact, Miss Devinski commented rather sourly that she hoped the customers liked oatmeal, as by the end of the month that was all my schedule had left on their menu. Still, it could have been Poi.
                
Tuesday November 7th, 1935
 
Back in the air at last, after four days of gusting winds and ten tenths cloud over the islands. The Osprey is now loaded with sandbags to its maximum rated takeoff weight, and we are becoming familiar with how it handles. Maria did complain that we could be taking up paying passengers rather than unappreciative sandbags – luckily Helen and I shushed her before our Tutor heard. For one thing, none of us are legal commercial pilots yet – and for another, there is always the possibility of an accident. Our Tutors may sometimes seem to look on the gloomy side, but I have seen too many sensational headlines in aeronautical journals to imagine them risking the general public with us.
 
                In Madelene X’s latest “Revue D’aeronautique Francaise” there is the plans for the airliner of the future, designed with safety in mind. The passenger seats are all equipped with automatic parachutes – in the event of total mid-air catastrophe such as collisions, a compressed-air system blows open the cabin roof and shoots the passengers clear – one can see the idea is not designed for trans-Pacific crossings. I can see a few more problems with it – indeed, Beryl very craftily altered the illustration to include a passenger running down the aisle after his empty seat departing without him. She is a jolly fine artist, and has a wonderful writing hand, always borrowing exam certificates and legal documents to use their calligraphy as an example.
 
                Although our Seniors were booked to fly today, they are still resting, except to eagerly get through four large meals a day. Still, their loss is our gain, and the Osprey has hardly stopped moving since Monday. Next week we are starting night flying, but not in our new flying boat despite various protests. I have to admit; in a Tiger Moth the only place one would want to land at night is the runway, whereas if one avoids the islands and reefs the Osprey is much safer.  Compared with Spontoon’s one runway, the Pacific Ocean is a lot easier to find in the dark
 
                In the afternoon we headed out to Casino Island Hospital where a visiting Australian doctor was lecturing on unpleasant insects to avoid being bitten by – it appears his home University of Wallamaloo is world-famous for studying all sorts of venomous things. He looked feline by the ears and whiskers, but there was something definitely odd about him, almost Opossum-like, certainly no cat type I have ever seen before. *
 
                On the way back, a shocking thing – I spotted Nuala by the docks, wearing a most respectable slacks suit and waving at me. I hurried over, keen to explain things – but she rather beat me to it. Pressing her snout close to my ear, she whispered that a lot of powerful people had been trying to stop her helping me – but they had been too late by about ten minutes. She slipped something in my pocket, gave me a heartfelt hug and hurried away, looking rather worriedly around the place.
 
                Oh dear. I remembered Nuala mentioning part of her job was to bank the proceeds of Entertainers for them. She has evidently gone to an awful lot of trouble and possibly put herself in danger for me, being both my friend and evidently high up in something like an Entertainers Union
. 
                I took one look at what was in my pocket and walked back to the water taxi, feeling rather numb. Running after her and telling her why this was a really, really bad thing to happen to me, hardly seemed appropriate – but I was at my wit’s end to decide what was. Setting a match to it would be an awful insult to Nuala, who went to such trouble with the best of intentions – but keeping it would certainly be worse, these things get found. I had read cautionary tales of folk losing their Reputations, and imagined it would feel like walking around without one’s clothes. I have certainly worn rather scanty Native dress and got used to it – hopefully I can get used to doing without a Reputation too. I just hope nobody has a newspaper column announcing my license as they do military promotions in the London Gazette.
 
                (Memo to myself – find Nuala and get her to accept it back along with my explanation. Possibly she can shed some light on things, if she did the paperwork.)
 
* Editor’s note: in plain text is scribbled in the Diary margin – “Spotted Quoll! Yes he was! And I didn’t know till months later, and never met another!”
 
Wednesday November 8th, 1935
 
A letter from Father, hurrah – he is heading back home, having made Antarctica a most unwelcome place for any invaders. The postcard from Adelaide Land is rather jolly, a Winter sports scene with the stamp displaying the French Antarctic Territories heraldry of “Penguin Rampant, field blanche”. He writes that my Christmas present is on its way surface freight: Paris to Spontoon through the Suez Canal. I can hardly believe it – an actual Mignet-built Flying Flea kit, made from proper aircraft grade materials and not the nearest pieces of canvas and plywood that came to hand. This New Year should be a happy one all round – if we can just solve Molly’s financial woes.
 
                We had Miss Cardroy taking us for Air Navigation class, who is the one of our full tutors we see least of. She noted that Songmark would be reaching its 5th anniversary as an officially recognised school next Spring, and told us to think of some relevant ways to celebrate it. I think she has public displays in mind, rather than Beryl’s idea of forming a Drinking team for next year’s Olympic Games.
 
                From what various folk have told us, Songmark had a rather odd foundation – we all scattered out after class at full speed to gather information. Maria had the bright idea of asking permission to head out to Casino Island and consult the back issues of the newspapers – she came back with her notebook full of some interesting stories indeed.
 
                Our Tutors have not actually mentioned how Songmark was founded – we discover now that they had all been working as pilots and general partners in Song Airways. The major scandal was when the majority shareholder, a Mr. Abner Washenback the Third, decided to dissolve the company by the simple means of loading all its liquid assets into his aircraft and heading out over the horizon. One can quite imagine our Tutors getting together and swearing they would found a school for severely practical young ladies who would never be taken in like that. Hmm. Thinking about it, I can see why Miss Devinski was even more annoyed with me After I explained I had no idea how my current … licensing issues came about. I can imagine Beryl brazening it out with our Tutor, even knowing she had no intention of taking a part-time job.

                Really, it is not unlike the first time I saw Liberty Morgenstern get “squashed” in her first week – she calls everyone a Fascist who disagrees with her. When she got around to Maria, Maria coolly pulled out her Party card, pointed to it with pride and simply said “Yes?” Confused collapse of Red party, sadly not for long. It is very hard to insult someone unless you agree on what you find insulting.
 
                It was fascinating today, passing the classroom where they were discussing how to organise their year. We second-years voted for a democracy, as they did in the end – but the Staff gave everyone the chance to demonstrate how they run government back home. Saffina showed how the village elders hash out a problem between them based on seniority (and cattle owned). Jenny Allis from Rain Island followed with a demonstration of how Anarchists handle debates (very messy!), and amongst other more conventional voting systems, Liberty showed how to decide by trading denunciations and counter-denunciations until there was only one Party member left in good standing. Tatiana was asked to demonstrate but declined, saying it was unrealistic without a knout involved.
 
Thursday November 9th, 1935
 
A fine day for Molly, as we head over to Moon Island – our regular rifle-range session was followed by watching some more major artillery in action. Although the areas are fenced off, we were allowed in to look at the anti-aircraft guns as they went through their twice-yearly manoeuvres. Definitely a sight to see! All private and commercial aircraft were grounded, except for one brave pilot who flew an old Fnord Trimotor pulling a fabric flag on the end of two hundred yards of cable. One assumes that a three-engined aircraft is a safety feature, as keen but unskilled defenders are liable to take some chunks off the aircraft as well as the target.
 
                We were allowed to help, carrying ammunition – a task that is allocated vaguely to “citizens” in the plan, so previous experience is not required. Very strenuous! The ammunition magazine is almost at the base of the hill, and we had five sites to be supplied. The plan started off easily, with a motor van moving the crates – but ten minutes later it was labelled as a casualty, and we had to use hand-carts. It took about sixty people to supply the five guns, and every now  and then a Referee would point at a bunch of us and declare us “hors de combat” as well.
 
                By the end of the morning there were only twenty of us left with three carts, feeding two surviving emplacements. Songmark girls, S.I.T.H.S. students and Althing Gate (The Meeting Island High School) students comprised most of the survivors – by good or bad luck I was amongst the last ones on my feet, though to tell the truth I could barely stand. Molly bagged a job as assistant loader to replace a “casualty” and all day her eyes were shining as she recounted her experiences on the 3.7 inch AA cannon. One feels that mere “Tommy-guns” will rather pale after this. Helen joked that Molly already had her birthday presents for this year, and we are not buying her one for Christmas.
 
                When the final whistle blew and we joined the rest of the defenders, the Naval Base very decently opened its mess hall for a free feed for all of us. Actual roast meat and plenty of it, a rare treat indeed – it seems the Rain Island Naval Syndicate are mostly supplied from the mainland and not restricted to local produce. I have said some hard things before now about a Syndicate being no way to run a military force, but have to admit they have got the catering very  well done.

                As they often do, our Tutors managed to get someone else to provide lunch for us. Watching Missy K eat is like watching a steam-shovel at work – I  would hate to pay our food bills, myself.  But then – though I have managed to teach Helen and Molly some better table manners, I have to admit we each get through in a day what back home I would have thought ample for two or three; four thousand calories, according to the  ready reckoner in my logistics book. Unlike diet books back home, our manuals are geared towards feeding working parties and troops, and give hints of how to add extra calories to a diet rather than reducing them.
 
                The gunnery results were not posted in public, but from what I overheard as well as witnessed myself, the Rain Island professionals were rather unhappy about how well they did against low-flying aircraft. The big AA guns are just too big to swing fast enough to track someone skimming in over the palm trees, and I would not be amazed to see some light ack-ack appearing on top of buildings next time folk try this.
 
                Still – it was rather chastening to look at the figures and spot more than half of the guns and defenders were written off as casualties in a single morning – not an encouraging prospect, but probably a realistic one. After all, anyone making a serious attack here will hardly come over in twos and threes, unless one means two or three aircraft carrier’s worth. 
                As if we had forgotten it, the morning’s work rather reminds us how seriously the locals take all this. Having seen the American fleet cruising past at short notice and the Russian air force buzzing the islands with their latest and greatest, it is easy enough to see why they get worried. Irma Bundt was another of the “survivors” and has been telling us of how Switzerland is organised – though it has a lot more money to spend and mountains to tunnel into, they are just as surrounded and try just as hard. The trick, Irma tells us, is to make sure everyone knows just how expensive invading would be.
 
                (Later) The newspapers are full of the trial of the counterfeiting gang in the main Rain Island court, with photographs and everything. It looks as if the police at both ends made a pretty clean sweep, and have seized about twelve million Shells’ worth in various currencies. Molly complains that there must have been some regular money grabbed too, and we deserve a cut of it – the police get paid regardless, unlike us. She hints that she would happily take the good fakes, her family still having connections who know how to handle it.
 
                I have been following the trial avidly, and happily note my name does not appear in it – neither do the three rabbit girls (I doubt any of them actually has Natasha written on her birth certificate.) There is a very striking portrait of Mr. Greene (real name Susus Subiabatim) who is described as a “criminal playboy” with the pictures taken of his yacht being impounded and cases full of printing plates being displayed by grinning constables.  Molly claims the only people who are hurt by counterfeiting are bankers who can well afford it, but I remember Jirry’s father telling me the trouble the whole islands would be in if nobody could trust their own wallets here.
 
                Dear Diary: I have been trying to shake off the unasked-for daydream of what might have happened to me had Helen and the rest got lost, and how that would have changed things. It is an awful thought; I very well might have passed a second night there and enjoyed it as much as the first. Mr. Greene may be a criminal, but he was very polite to me, appeared most … impressive, and I am hardly likely to meet another of his breed socially. Worse – I imagined having the chance to call the police afterwards, and being unable to bring myself to do it. The idea of the constables bursting in hour later to find the gang safely vanished but me contentedly chatting and grooming with the Natashas while one of them fastens on me a pretty yellow head-fur ribbon to match theirs, is one I am doing my very best to squash.
 
                I definitely have my limitations when it comes to some of this Secret Agent business – but there is one limitation I want to keep. No matter what the legal rights and wrongs, handing over someone to the police after happily… enjoying their company that way, would be something I doubt I would ever really get over. It is bad enough being responsible for having Natasha and Natasha and Natasha thrown off the island – and an awful irony that if they had the license I have but desperately want to be rid of, they might have been allowed to stay.
 
                Beryl is livid at the newspaper reports, and spends her spare time practising throwing those sharpened croquet hoops at various targets – a healthy way of relieving nervous tension, I should think. Molly asked her if her shares in the company had gone down, and Beryl fumed that they had gone through the floor. Very odd, we are not scheduled to do advanced finances till next term, where we learn how one can entirely lose ones shirt on bad investments. I’m not  sure what company Beryl has invested in, but she seems to be already learning the hard way.
 
                Still, at least Beryl has more than one way of earning a quick shell – “someone” with a very similar art style anonymously posted sketches of the morning’s action on the notice board, showing a fiendishly grinning Molly tying a bayonet to the end of her AA gun, “against parachutists.” As a parody it fell rather flat – at least, I saw Molly looking at the sketch with a smile and a calculating air. I must ask Beryl not to give her Ideas like that; she is bad enough as  is!
 
Saturday November 11th, 1935
 
A change to our dance lessons today: instead of our public Intermediate classes, our dance instructor Mrs. Ponole took us across to the Western end of Casino Island, where one of the natives-only groups was meeting while their usual venue on Meeting Island was redecorated. Quite a different crowd entirely, being mostly composed of Polynesian types, including one of the Noenoke cousins I had met at Easter.
 
                Happily, we seem to be quite well-known to various people through our dance successes – at least, I hope that is where they know me from, rather than our less public adventures. Maria was at a disadvantage as they only spoke Spontoonie, which she is rather behind in. Helen and myself are pretty much fluent by now, as being effectively part of the Hoele’toemi family is a great help – the family generally speak English to tourists, but Spontoonie the rest of the time.
 
                Mrs. Ponole interpreted some of the hula dances we watched, which were quite fascinating – we watched the Tourist and Bottle, the Wolf Shadow, the Flat Nine, the Squirrel and the Apex. It is certainly a complication, telling a story at the same time as staying in rhythm – back at St. Winifred’s we worked hard at dance lessons but never needed to mix it with narration!

                The only non-Spontoonie dancing was a very smooth mink girl who we were introduced to as Hetty Jackson, a name we have seen in the dance championships. She is Head Girl of the Casino Island Cooperative High School, a place we have had little contact with – like us, she might not have been brought up in local dance tradition, but has worked awfully hard to catch up.
 
                I suppose Songmark is too small a school to have a Head Girl for each year – which is a pity. It is a splendid rank to have, one that everyone can to aspire to. I have often tried to inspire Molly with the example of St. Winifred’s top girl, Masie Royce-Derwent, a calm and devoted grey-eyed canine at whose frank gaze any fib would curl up and perish. Alas, Molly says she “sounds like a fink” and quotes Beryl’s account of the top of the pile at Saint T’s, the daughter of a famous Chinese criminal genius, who is escorted to school at the start of each term by her Father’s loyal band of Burmese dacoits. Reformed dacoits, one hopes.
 
                Anyway, Miss Jackson is a stirring example, proving one does not have to have Polynesian blood to master even the advanced hulas (though it certainly seems to help.) We spent a very educational and strenuous afternoon at the dance school, and were invited to see them when they get back to their usual venue at Meeting Island. Certainly an invitation we accepted.
 
                (Later) I have an invite to see Countess Rachorska, for Monday night! I have been trying to find Nuala without success, and wrote to her mother – hopefully we can sort things out. I have always laughed at the phrase of a stolen banknote or document “burning a hole in someone’s pocket” but now I know exactly how it feels.
                
Sunday November 12th, 1935
 
Clear, bright weather between the rain showers, as we head out to Church and more of Reverend Bingham’s inspiring sermons. Envy was in the firing line today, though some of the parishioners seem to be taking it rather the wrong way – the two spinster cats who sit behind me were saying they would do anything to be able to write sermons like that.
 
                One hopes our dear Reverend will get back to his original line of parables when he has run out of deadly sins – or possibly he will detour onto Minor sins, and by Spring we will be exhorted not to squeeze the toothpaste from the middle of the tube.
 
                Far more interesting was the follow-up with Saimmi afterwards. She tells us we have covered the basics of the local faiths well enough to be shown some more interesting things. Considering what we have already seen at the Solstice festivals, and the Natives of No Island coming to join worship, this rather floored me. She has mentioned the Wild Priests before, and I presume we have seen them presiding at the festivals – they are strange and elusive figures, and  even the locals on Main Island can never be sure just where and when they will turn up.
 
                Not surprisingly, she did not have one of them at hand for us to interview, but she did tell us various interesting tales of their powers and exploits – most of which I took with a grain of salt, never having seen any actual Magic working (except for Archbishop Crowley that one time at Candlemas, and that could have been mass hypnotism except for the photos.)
 
                We have certainly heard in Japanese history of the “Kami Kasi” or Divine Wind that blew up from nowhere and wrecked an invasion fleet; that one is claimed by the locals (and Rumiko in our first year) to have been summoned on demand by their priests. The Spontoon Wild Priests are said to have similar powers over the elements, not that Spontoon has any shortage of typhoons anyway.
 
                Some fascinating stories indeed, but I will have to see something highly convincing before I credit them for being anything else. It does all fit in, though, and could explain a lot that we have definitely witnessed. Helen asked if it had any connection with the real reason Crater Lake is held sacred, and Saimmi indicated that it did.
 
                Back to Songmark, unfortunately on the same water-taxi as Beryl and Molly. Even in Prohibition days Maria’s sort of church was permitted to carry on dispensing wine for the ceremonies – but at the Temple Of Continual Reward it seems folk prefer gin. Beryl is a very devout member of the congregation.

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