Spontoon Island
home - contact - credits - new - links - history - maps - art - story

Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
13 November, 1935 to 20 November, 1935

Monday November 13th, 1935
 
A busy day, flying our Tiger Moths in formation half the morning, and then putting them through basic aerobatics until lunchtime. Certainly the best weather for weeks – November is decidedly damp here, but the rain-washed air was totally clear – we could see all the Kanim Islands and right out to Gunboat Atoll from altitude, something quite impossible from any of the Main Island peaks. It must be nearly a hundred miles, after all.
 
                Despite putting on a faultless performance in the air, poor Adele Beasley is in with our Matron again; she was hardly on the ground a minute before the rest of us got to practice our first-aid skills (she fell over a set of landing chocks, right onto her snout, on the concrete runway. Ouch and double ouch.) Very odd – give her anything aeronautical to do and I would want her on my team without question – otherwise she is hardly safe with a burned-out match. Helen says she fears Adele will walk in the way of someone’s propeller one of these days – I think that is too aeronautical, but that could be said of the landing chocks too.
 
                Still – I would trade a bruised snout and black eye for the accident that happened after lunch. We four were on our own looking through a local dance magazine with pictures of the winning free-style dances on Meeting Island last month – there was a picture of Lars caught in the middle of a very strenuous move, his rather scanty Native costume flying; I rather doubt that it would be printed in the papers back home. Molly sighed wistfully, commenting on his various fine points – and his fine points, as in antlers. She closed her eyes, commenting they were just right to grab hold of – and without thinking what I was saying, I heartily agreed with her.
 
                Oh dear. I never did get around to finding the right time to tell Molly about Krupmark Island. Today was not the right day either, and that was definitely not how I had planned to break it to her. Helen’s tail fluffed out in alarm and she exited stage left, dragging a surprised Maria with her, possibly to break the news in a more subtle way than I had managed.
 
                Things became a little heated, as they said of the first day of the Somme offensive in 1916.
 
                (Later) After a rather stressful and argumentative afternoon, I happily retreated from Songmark to Casino Island, with staff permission. I had thought of asking Helen to come for company, but we have a tough-looking navigational examination first thing tomorrow and I hated to drag her away from her studies.
 
                It felt rather odd being all alone, heading out in the dark towards Casino Island. The bars and cafes were lit up, the ones that are open this time of year – in the cool dampness they did look rather inviting. But I had a Countess expecting me, certainly the highest social ranking resident of the whole Spontoon island group, and I definitely was not going to be late. Indeed, I confess I was in such a hurry that I was a whisker away from being run down by a lorry pulling out of one of the warehouses – my ears were pressed right down for the rest of the walk as I thought of that. Many folk worry about always having on a clean set of under-clothes in case they are knocked down and sent to hospital – in my case, I imagined being taken in unconscious and identified by that license in my passport pocket. I could hardly leave it behind; Molly knows all the hiding-places and might do something in the heat of the moment she would always regret.
 
                Aloha Avenue looked very respectable as I passed the Golden Crab restaurant with an unexpected glow, recalling my last visit. Countess Rachorska’s house at the far end was warmly lit, and the Countess herself was there to receive me, wearing naturally one of her own creations, a very stylish evening dress in taupe satin that could have come straight off the daily Air France flight from Paris. (Odd how Madelene X always mispronounces it as “Paree”, one would think she knew her own capital.)
 
                An interesting evening and not one I quite expected. The Countess had another guest, a very nice feline by the name of Lily, who I have seen before at Mahanish’s, generally in admiring company. The Countess passed on Nuala’s apologies for her absence, and with one ear dipped asked me directly just what I had been getting into, that had caused her daughter to take a sudden holiday at this time of year.
 
                This is really not my day. Even if the Countess is Russian, with that social rank I could hardly conceal or deny her a direct answer. But I did first ask her what Nuala’s usual job was – and hardly knew whether to be relieved or shocked when her mother calmly confirmed exactly what it was, adding some details which I learned to my disadvantage.
 
                Without mentioning Lars or Mr. Sapohatan by name, I told them exactly what had happened, and what everyone else seemed to assume had happened. After that, pulling out the embarrassing card and handing it over seemed less of an ordeal than I had feared. Lily laughed good-naturedly and pointed out it was invalid still, with various signatures and essential medical stamps missing – my tail fluffed like a flue brush and I nearly choked on my Darjeeling as she pulled out another one from her own bag to show the difference.
 
                Things are never what they seem. Living on Spontoon the “government” is a rather more shadowy business without imposing public ministries, mostly run by “meta-committees” that handle their own areas. Just because we never hear about their internal wrangling, hardly means it never happens – Nuala was something like a Secretary of Trade, suddenly being privately approached by a General and ordered to cancel a deal. Naturally she resented anyone interfering in her own business, so rushed things through instead – with the resulting situation resembling the Trade Ministry suddenly being ringed by its own government’s troops. An awful tangle, both sides working at cross purposes after having promised to help with the very best of intentions.
 
                Lily chatted quite unconcernedly about the problem, pointing out she is a taxpayer and a respectable citizen here, and is no more ashamed about her … documentation than any doctor or dentist is of her diploma, guaranteeing health and quality. She admits it could be a source of embarrassment to me, but Nuala legally has to return the money to return the license – and as it was paid for anonymously, that could be difficult.
 
                I left with my head somewhat spinning, though at least minus one incriminating document which the Countess promised to keep in her safe. Nuala is such a nice girl, as is Lily – I can’t possibly see how they could do a thing like that. Nuala is in line to be the next Countess Rachorska, someone for folk to look up to and emulate. (I don’t want to think about that too much. Dear Diary, goodnight!)
  
Wednesday November 15th, 1935
 
A stressful two days in class and outside it – Helen has been trying to defuse things with Molly by explaining about the effects of catnip, something deer are not affected by. Molly retorted that I had none with me the day she returned to Songmark – crossing half the globe as a refugee and stowaway to find me in Lars’ embrace. Which is true, and awfully bad luck considering all the weeks we had been waiting and hoping for her to return – that she had to come round the corner that very minute.
 
                Anyway, we were prepared for night flying, with the cooperation of the airfield staff who have set out numbers of emergency “gooseneck” landing flares, scenting the airfield with the perfume of burning paraffin. Everyone first did a takeoff and landing in the dusk, then a full circuit and landing in full darkness. “Only owls and damn fools fly at night” is the usual pilot’s phrase, and it is certainly unnerving enough. One loses the horizon on a misty night like tonight, and without stars it would be far too easy to get completely turned around without the radio compass and the artificial horizon.  We have heard so many horror tales of pilots at night losing all track of their orientation and only finding out when they come out below a cloud layer almost heading straight down or flying on their sides. With luck one has enough airspace to pull out in time.
 
                One full circuit in the pitch darkness is quite enough to start with, and even landing proved very tricky with distance and speed looking very different at night. Poor Susan de Ruiz misjudged her “flare” and came down so hard she burst a tyre and popped two bracing wires – there’s a girl who’ll be seeing a the repair sheds tomorrow! All in all a heavy strain on the system.
 
     When we had finished, Beryl offered us a sip from her hip flask – which I certainly declined, knowing her tastes in both drinks and practical jokes. Maria tried some and her ears and tail locked rigid for an instant – she tells me Beryl is drinking “Vin Mariani”, a chemically … fortified Italian brew not unlike Nootnops Blue but with a wine base and a rather more active ingredient. She also notes it is banned in most of Europe, which hardly surprises me. Beryl claims it is perfect for a really rousing pick-me-up, but I think I will stay well clear – in the past year I seem to have acquired enough new interests, and that is an expensive one I can do without.
 
     Maria was certainly enjoying herself when we returned, breaking up another row with Liberty Morgenstern and Rumiko, our sole Japanese student. I can quite see Liberty has a problem with Rumiko’s Shinto shrine in her dorm with portraits of her Emperor – Liberty being politically sworn to the bloody overthrow of all such proper forms of Government. Surprisingly, it seems that Rumiko is not in fact a member of any ancient Martial Arts tradition, nor is she trained from birth in subtle and devastating forms of deception and combat wholly inexplicable to Western minds. Perhaps her family sent her out for that very reason, as the black sheep of the family. If half the films and pulp tales of the Far East are correct, she must really be the odd one out.
 
     One hardly envies our Tutors trying to put compatible dorms together – I assume they have character references of new students, but they hardly tell the most important things. Just a year ago I was surprised to see Ada Cronstein and Irma Bundt trading places – Ada is very definitely suited to Prudence’s dorm, which our Tutors wasted no time in spotting. In the case of Liberty and Tatiana, I would on paper have put them in together and we would probably have seen pistols at dawn (or at least crowbars) by now; nobody else cares about the details of Tatiana being an Otzovist and Liberty being a Trotskyite, but they seem to care about little else.
 
     Helen comments that we are probably sent the more extreme examples of each political “faith” here – by all accounts it is very hard to escape Ioseph Starling’s grasp. The only folk semi-officially sent out to preach, are ones who are not likely to drop their principles and vanish over the horizon at the first sight of a grass skirt. Tatiana certainly fits that description.
    
Thursday 17th November, 1935
 
Quite a chase today – we were just heading in after lunch for another logistics test when Miss Cardroy came in and announced Brigit Mulvaney had gone “absent without leave” and certainly without a pass. Hurray! Rapid cancellation of logistics test and out hunting, our very first real tracking mission. She had half an hour head start and a generous allowance, so she might have jumped onto a water taxi heading anywhere
 
                We have taken care to be good customers and chat to the Eastern Islands water-taxi folk whenever possible – so while the other dorms were poking around Mahanish’s and asking the ticket office at the Marine Air Terminal, we were heading out to ask our acquaintances if a certain fiery-haired and fiery-tempered young Miss had passed that way. It took a lot of cross-checking and calling out to passing boats, but we found her trail, heading towards Casino Island not twenty minutes earlier. Some day, two-way radios will be cheap and waterproof enough to help in this sort of thing.
 
                A brief dilemma – whether to go for the credits of going after her ourselves, or the credits of getting the rest of the year to work as a team with us? Molly had the clever notion of telephoning our tutors to report before stepping onto a water-taxi ourselves; that way we score both ways, and if the other dorms never bother to check base it is hardly our fault.
 
                The good news was that Brigit seemed to be in her Songmark uniform still, and with her fur colour should stand out like a sprained tail. Had she planned things properly instead of just flying off the handle, she would have had at least a native straw rain-hat handy to hide her distinctive ears and head-fur from a distance. The bad news was she was twenty minutes ahead of us, and could be anywhere on Casino Island (or if really smart, have changed water-taxis and be half way across the central waters in any direction.)
 
                Helen pointed out the first-years have had very little time on Casino Island, and none of it unsupervised – in tourist season they might be drawn to the southern esplanade with its horde of hot-dog and coconut-floss vendors selling dishes not on the Songmark menu. As we headed into Pirate’s Cove, we tried to put ourselves in her shorts (though not the way Ada might want to) and see what would be the obvious attractions for her.
 
                Most of the entertainments section around the Casino and the big hotels is closed up for the season; we passed the covered-over Crazy Golf course, noticing next Season a Criminally Insane Croquet Lawn was setting up as a rival. The bar and restaurant of the Manston and the Marleybone are open for business, but I doubt Brigit in her Songmark blazer would get served there. On the other hand, she had the cheek to try it – as I found out from Joe the bartender, who had thrown her out of the Marleybone not ten minutes earlier. At last, the trail was getting warmer!
 
                I teamed with Helen and took the back street behind the Manston, as Molly and Maria took the front and we started to search. Half an hour later Helen pointed ahead – just in front of Mama Malarkey’s general store there was a red-furred figure emerging, still blatantly wearing her Songmark blazer. Talk about letting the side down! She could have at least turned it inside-out, the lining is far less conspicuous.
 
                Of course, Miss Mulvaney is here to learn some lessons, and I hope she learned several today. We “dry-gulched” her to use Helen’s phrase, jumping her from the cover of an alleyway she should have been watching, and demonstrating the “Wasi-kodo” judo hold dear Mrs. Fairburn- Sykes taught us last year. We needed it too – she was in no mood to admit her mistakes and come along quietly, but a double hammerlock and tail hitch demonstrated the error of her ways.
 
                Another half hour had us dropping her back at Songmark to Miss Cardroy’s tender care, where the huge chunk of marks her dorm is sure to be fined will probably drop Brigit in the popularity stakes. Next time, she should put in some planning, and get the rest of the dorm helping if only to act as distractions. Anyone can break the rules and get caught – nowhere in the Songmark prospectus does it exactly say it teaches you to get away with it, but after more than a year I think I can claim that is the foundation of everything else in the course.
 
                I certainly hope that the third-years are never sent out after us that way, it would surely mean we had awfully bungled one of our “raids” – and to be caught and frog-marched back to Songmark would be a far greater humiliation than just losing the points. The only time we have called our seniors out was that occasion when Molly was kidnapped last year, and then I managed to find her myself. I am having trouble thinking just what did happen back then;  although I know Lars explained it perfectly convincingly I cannot bring to mind exactly what he told me. Very peculiar, and unlike Beryl I cannot blame the local pink gin.
 
                On our return, Molly and I had typed postcards awaiting us, without a return address. This looks like another mission from Mr. Sapohatan for us, though the cards are not quite the same (possibly he has a new secretary.) We are requested to attend Maxine’s, a salon on Casino Island on Wednesday evening for some course or other. Thrilling! Although Songmark teaches us most things, possibly there are things we will be asked to do that we need special training for. At any rate, we are bursting to see what we get.
 
                Helen seems a touch irritated that she is not invited, considering Mr. Sapohatan has trusted her as much as myself, and has avoided giving Molly anything important. I can quite understand that – after all, there is a limited demand for Molly’s favourite occupation, someone having burned down the Reichstag building already.
 
Saturday 19th November, 1935
                
                An alarming day in the calendar – we have one month left to find the remainder of Molly’s fees, or it will be a very un-Merry Christmas, especially for her. Still two hundred and fifty shells to go, and our resources are mostly used up already. Beryl has offered to get us a bank loan, but we have seen the interest rates charged by Mr. Van Hoogstraaten’s Spontoon International Bank for unsecured loans. Helen says they hire the sort of debt collectors who always collect, though sometimes in instalments of ears and tails.
 
                Still, it was a very bright day and we headed out to dance class – not to our usual one but to Meeting Island, where the invitation-only one is organised by Mrs. Ponole. A very fine and strenuous day, and a rare chance to look around the government buildings afterwards.
 
                The Spontoonies really have a fascinating double culture; weekends in tourist season Mrs. Ponole is shaking her skirt down on South Island, but this time of year she is a bureaucrat at the Interior Ministry in their Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths. (Molly wondered if that means everyone who is born, married or dies on the island has to go there and fill in the forms immediately.) One would hardly expect it to turn a profit, but it does so by her account – there are ways of making money from printing blank paper without copying banknotes. I have heard from Jirry about various lady tourists who enjoyed themselves so thoroughly here that a month after getting home they feel it important to send for a back-dated local marriage license – actual husband and citizenship rights decidedly not included.
 
                Maria is always fascinated by the way folk in this part of the world effectively generate revenue from nothing; just by existing as an independent state they have all sorts of concessions and franchises available to use. Even their post office gets into the act, with three issues of bright commemorative stamps a year to delight collectors around the world – I can hardly see any country keeping that up for long before they flood the market, but they are doing rather well so far. This must be what we heard of as “invisible earnings”, though not the sort that Mr. Brown and Mr. Greene were making.
 
                We returned via Casino Island, where we sadly passed by a Popatohi stall that was making the whole street fragrant with fish and garlic. A good meal here is only fifty cowries, but between us that’s two whole shells lost from Molly’s Songmark fund. Back to window-shopping! And when we returned to Songmark, there were no surprises as to the menu. As they might say in a crossword puzzle: three letters, begins with P, derived from a vegetable found underground that would be happier for everyone if it stayed there.
 
                Beryl was in fairly high spirits at least, having returned from a day of seeing the sights with her friend Mr. Piet Van Hoogstraaten Junior. She is singing a ditty she claims to have heard in a low tavern (full of mice like her rather than giraffes, one assumes) on the northern side of Casino Island, that hardly inspires confidence in the Island’s newest power plants:
 
                “Two Bio-Reactors, standing in a row
                Both are belching vapour and are certainties to blow
                The pipes they are all leaking and the safety valves nailed down
                All nailed and welded down!
 
                Lordy, Lordy, let us scram,
                Lordy, Lordy, let us scram,
                Lordy, Lordy, let us scram,
                And nail our hatches down!”
 
One hopes it is just idle tavern chatter, not a sign that folk there know something we don’t. Professor Kurt is a very gentlemanly wolf, and sure to lose in the exchange – even if it is his rival’s plant that blows first, we have plotted in class the likely blast danger zones and they definitely overlap. Whichever one blows first will at least have the consolation of taking its rival with it, along with the rest of the neighbourhood!
 
Sunday 20th November, 1935
 
A disappointing trip to Casino Island, Reverend Bingham has started on the Virtues, which seem far less photogenic somehow than the deadly sins. But things perked up considerably when we met Saffina and Saimmi, to head out direct to Main Island, arriving at Lukapa Village. She took us up into the jungle on the lowest slopes of Mount Kiribatori, where there is a fascinating Tiki statue looking out over the main waters. By the workmanship I guessed correctly that it was one of the rare original pieces of art left by the first settlers: that statue had stared out all alone for centuries over an empty Spontoon group, with only the Natives of No Island to wave to it from the deep waters a mile away.
 
                Still, the Tiki seems to be getting its share of worship these days, to judge from the offerings and traces of other ritual that Saimmi has been teaching us to recognise. We did not exactly howl shocking obeisance to it as the Natives of Goatswood do back home to what they find in their woods, but I think we made a good impression. After all, if it is anything like back home, statues of such things are not always guaranteed to stay as statues.
 
                It was a fascinating afternoon, sitting on the ridge rising out of the jungle and hearing Saimmi tell us tales of the island. Somehow it makes everything far more convincing, sitting with the actual statues involved, having just performed the full ritual exactly as the first settlers had done (Saimmi says the Natives Of No Island kept the memory alive of how it was achieved, even though for various reasons they were not equipped to perform it themselves.)
 
                Saimmi then lowered her voice, not that there was anyone to overhear, and told us something we have been wondering for the past year – the reason no coconuts grow on Spontoon. We had always assumed some change in climate had caused the islands to be abandoned, or a nearby volcano choked the place in ash as keeps happening in this part of the world. But the full story was very different indeed, and one that Saimmi had to induct us this far into the local religion before telling us. I hardly knew whether to be shocked or horrified first, and even Helen’s ears and whiskers were sticking up in alarm as we heard about the Great Ritual and the awful Mistake that was made. I had wondered why coconuts grow freely on Orpington Island, within sight of Spontoon on a clear day; climate could hardly be very different over such a slight distance.
 
                I can see now why the islands had to be abandoned; and why despite being a prime piece of territory, no Polynesian natives could return until a significant fraction of the of the Precession of the Equinox. It seems so simple, to hear how Saimmi describes it, but no archaeologist could ever have guessed the truth from the evidence of what was abandoned. She also hints that a lot of the critical evidence was left on an island that is hardly ever there, but this is harder to believe.
 
                On the way back through Lukapa village we spotted Mrs. Voboele our ex-Tutor with her new husband, shopping in the market (which unlike Casino Island’s shops, opens Sundays.) I must say, she looks very well in a Native sarong, and positively glowing with health. Helen whispered she seems to have wasted no time, and speculates if we saw her longhouse it would also be in the process of expanding.
 
                (Later) Beryl is trying to interest the others in our year in buying shares in unheard-of companies, with the specious argument that some of them will grow huge over time, and anyone who “gets in at the ground floor” on them will be very well-off. She keeps using the simile of acorns growing into mighty oaks – which is true enough for a few of them but most acorns end up as squirrel snacks. I overheard her with Jasbir trying to peddle shares in some unknown American typewriter company (HAL or something like it) that also make counting machines for their national census.  Happily I managed to dissuade Jasbir, pointing out the world is full of typewriters already, and as for census counting – it is hardly sound business to make equipment that gets only used every five years! There are a few blessings with my dorm now being famously low on cash; at least Beryl has stopped trying to sell us “sure-fire deals.”

next