Spontoon Island
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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
28 November, 1935 to 4 December, 1935

Monday 28th November, 1935
 
Just two weeks to go before Molly’s deadline is up! We have scraped together every cowry we can, but the prospects look bleak for our chum. Whatever happens, she is determined not to be returned to her native shores and the waiting G-men: she says she would rather make for Krupmark Island and try to live on her wits there. (Causing Beryl, who overheard, to acidly point out you can’t open shop if you haven’t got the stock.)
 
                Beryl would have been severely pummelled for that, but as it happens she is doing us a favour this morning, arranging for a self-defence demonstration from the martial arts master we have heard of, Mr. Toshiro Finkelstein. He picked Beryl to spar with, and gave us a Jude-Jitsu demonstration that was really rather impressive – I can see why the more traditional Oriental masters threw him out, there is very little harmonious flow involved and a great deal of going straight for the vulnerable bits.
 
                Ada had a long chat with Mr. Finkelstein during one of the rest breaks; it seems he is not quite world famous yet, but well known in the Yiddish-speaking quarter (more like 1/237th, actually) of Yokohama. He is a rather striking looking gentleman, a mix of jackal and some species with a racoon-like face mask; a Tanuki, Maria says, as she has met one who is the Japanese Ambassador to her Uncle’s court.
 
                Our Tutors seemed less concerned than I had thought, that we were being taught “low blows and dirty tricks” as Molly accurately described them – I suppose because they know there are unfriendly folk out there who will not hesitate to use them without warning, and we have to be prepared. I can certainly see why Beryl is pleased at having him for a tutor; it fits her style to a “T”.
 
                Thinking about Saint T’s, just last week Beryl was recounting how another of her old classmates won the Jemima Pennington-forbs trophy for the season’s dirtiest Rugby tackle – I don’t see that the move she mentioned was anatomically possible, and if it was I’m sure the victim would never be the same girl again. Even Mr. Finkelstein’s rather brutal style hasn’t got That one.
 
                Beryl has had more letters from Home today, where one of her friends is in the running to get the prestigious and lucrative post of official School Bully, their previous one having been lured away to Roedean by a hefty transfer fee. She is quite nostalgic about the place, considering she has never seen the new Saint T’s building, which is by the coast this time. They have not just one heated seawater swimming pool but two identical ones – paid for courtesy of their new Head Girl, a Mademoiselle Manchu, who keeps her collection of poisonous tropical marine life in one or the other. By Beryl’s account, it provides the raw material for many a robust practical joke.
 
                I suppose there are advantages in having a Head Girl like that – from a very respected and ancient Oriental line, by all accounts. When I arrived at Songmark I had never heard of Stonefish, Pacific Viper Conches or Lion’s Mane Jellyfish. Anyone who lives to graduate from Beryl’s old school will already know exactly what to avoid.
                
Wednesday 30th November, 1935
 
A dry, windy day for the time of year, which we took advantage of first thing to work on the final doping of my Flying Flea. All the airframe is assembled now and we have the engine running on the bench at Superior Engineering – part of the certification is for it to run supervised non-stop for six hours without significant leaks, overheating or power loss.
 
                We are trying our level best to get Sand Flea 1 (as I hope to christen it) flying and certified by the end of term – one of the mechanics at the airport was a fitter in the Great War and says we should manage it, as his old team could have uncrated a Sopwith Puppy one morning and have it flying on the next dawn patrol. In fact, we are pencilled in for certification next week – I just hope nothing goes wrong. Cracking a piston or breaking a valve would be awful, with no time to order any spares or indeed cash left to buy them.
 
                Still, we could leave Helen and Maria pulling through control cables with a light conscience, as Molly and I were off on official business: over to Madame Maxine’s on Casino Island for a full evening. It really is a well thought-out regime there: first we swap our street clothing for a plain cotton sarong, and a steam bath erases all scents of our daily lives. The staff is quiet and efficient, relaxing us with a massage as good as any Paris salon could offer (not that I’ve ever been to one, of course.)  We were learning along with four Native girls, who want to work in the hotels around here – it is an interesting contrast, that Helen and I learn hula dancing and the local religion, while some Native girls want the Euro brand of polish. In the tourist season, evidently that is where the money is.
 
                It is all perfectly respectable, and sounds very like Mabel’s Swiss courses, with lessons in poise and grooming – if this was ten years ago Molly might have made a film starlet, but the arrival of the Talkies was unkind to many a hopeful girl with a broad Chicago or Brooklyn accent.  I think she will just have to depend on her visual and scent charms.
 
                We finished with being squeezed into fashion shoes the like of which I happily threw away on Krupmark Island – and certainly there is a technique to walking in them, which really has to be taught. Half an hour is quite sufficient for one session, my paws were quite sore – Madame Maxine tells us it is possible to get entirely used to the idea, which I suppose I will have to believe despite everything. Molly seems quite keen on the idea – but she is always keen to go up in the world, and five inches is a start. Half an hour a week is no sort of training, so she asked for (and received) the loan of a pair to practice with, and I went along with the idea.
 
                On the way out, we were shown what must be the “exquisite transformations” mentioned last week. Changing clothes, we saw a very strikingly patterned feline lady, who assured us that earlier in the evening she was a drab sand colour. She showed us an earlier portrait to prove it, and indeed she looks exceedingly exotic now. It seems that Madame Maxine has full-body dyeing vats and a range of every colour in both wash-out and permanent formulae (permanent until the new fur grows out, of course.)  I remember Molly dyeing herself last year with permanganate of potash for a disguise at the “V-Gerat” concert – a rather crude effort, though the best we could do at the time.
 
                I can quite see why we are here on Official business, as a few cosmetic changes before a mission could make us more useful to Mr. Sapohatan. Helen had been worrying about our “little jobs” for him becoming widely known, with villainous folk finding out just who we are and where we live. Some disguises should help us stay useful longer – and Helen has also been worrying about what happens when we reach the end of our usefulness, with all the secrets we have discovered about the islands making us a liability and no longer an asset.
 
                Molly rather beat me to it, asking rather eagerly if our course included anything of the sort (she worries about G-men watching for her next month) and indeed we were told there was a quite extensive treatment booked in for us should we wish, all paid for. This should be interesting! Although even Casino Island does not yet have an exclusive department store, Madame Maxine’s is an exclusive deportment salon, and given our account there is already paid for we are quite keen to try its wares.
 
Friday December 2nd, 1935
 
A fine day for me – yesterday I received a card from Superior Engineering announcing my engine had passed its bench certification with flying colours, and was all ready for collection. So after my “Marine and aero engine repair and maintenance” course there I wheeled an engine trolley over to pick it up, with Saffina helping as Maria and the rest of my heftier friends were elsewhere in classes of their own.
 
                An unexpected encounter – though I was commenting earlier how few lionesses there are around here, I came back with my Test Certificate to find two. Saffina was talking with that other we have seen who has or flies in that garishly painted old Junkers 13 (Helen has opined that if they took the paint away they’d find it was the only thing holding the aircraft together.) By her amazed expression and twitching nose, I doubt she had seen anyone quite like Saffina
before – tabby lionesses are certainly unusual.
 
                It was a fascinating discussion, given that I could not understand any of it – they started some Native language full of clicks and gulping sounds that I have never heard before, then switched to very slow French - both of them looking rather puzzled. This went on for about ten minutes before I tapped Saffina and had to tell her folk were waiting for us at the airfield.
 
                The other lioness looked at us amazed when Saffina agreed in English – and waved us farewell, adding  that her own Boss was waiting for her at the slipway. She hurried out, leaving Saffina looking at her retreating form with an astounded expression.
 
                As we wheeled the trolley back with its precious metallic cargo, I pieced the story together – the two African lionesses had recognised each other’s origins and started chatting in Swahili, which is not a local language in Ubangi-Chari but one spoken as a “trade tongue” which Saffina knows a little of. Saffina tried to get some points across and failed, so switched to French, which she does speak as a native – but the newcomer, Andrace by name, speaks it as badly as Saffina speaks Swahili. The fact that most folk around here can speak English, somehow never occurred to either of them.
 
                Anyway, from what Saffina did piece together, Andrace is here with her business partner looking for lucrative flying contracts – like half the other seaplane owners in the islands. She had been fuming that Superior Engineering had taken two whole weeks to get around to patching holes in their aircraft – a casualty of them only being able to afford “back burner” service and the Rain Island Naval Syndicate had a squadron of Ospreys booked in for major overhaul ahead of them. There was also something about an autogyro being full of eels – at least Saffina thinks that was what Andrace said, but admits it sounds unlikely. Her own native language is unrelated to any of the primal Indo-Coptic branch, and is spoken entirely from the tonsils.
 
                I think I have met her business partner, at least there was someone else complaining about the repair schedule of that distinctive aircraft last week while I was in the engine class next door. I recognised the same Scottish Highland accent as my dear St. Winifred’s school chum Morag, whose people have a fine old castle in Glen Brittle, under the shadow of Ben Dhuctaille.
 
                (Later) Molly and I spent a precarious half an hour in one of the deserted classrooms after dinner, practicing walking in the fashion shoes as we do every evening given opportunity. I would happily “chuck the whole business” as Beryl would say, but of course we are doing this on Official instructions, and so it must be all right. Besides, apart from increasing our height it is the very last sort of fashion anyone would expect an utterly practical Songmark girl to be seen in – so it is a doubly effective disguise. Anyway, both my daily sandals and my steel toecapped Adventuring high boots look very silly with the dress I acquired back on Krupmark. (Memo to myself – must write and thank Mrs. Critchley for the dress, if the post actually delivers to Krupmark. Perhaps she will let us work for her one holiday, in her Church Mission? We’d work free for a worthy cause, and probably present to our Tutors a holiday report quite unlike anyone else’s.)
 
Saturday December 3rd, 1935
 
A raw sort of day for Spontoon, in other words an average May day back Home. We went out to Meeting Island to compete against one of the Main Village teams – they were polished professionals who perform for the tourists in the season, and they beat us 59-41 on points. But we made them dance awfully hard for their triumph, and at last Molly and Maria seem to have given up on their “Winning is Everything” theme. One day we might well beat a team like that, but if we flounce off in disgust with raised tails at them every time we lose, I doubt they will want to invite us again to get the chance.
 
                Maria received a telegram in code from Italy, which she set aside till we returned. After half an hour’s mysterious work locked in the bathroom she came out smiling and waving the decrypt – she will not be returning to Italy this holiday, her Uncle has agreed she can head out to Vostok on a fact-finding mission! It makes sense, Vostok being on good terms with Il Puce’s government, and Maria being already much nearer than anyone else he might send.
 
                There is even better news, in that Maria had requested four tickets and her Uncle has agreed to pay for them, presumably thinking a diplomat has more status with an entourage. Wonderful news – at last the whole team of us get to travel together. At least, assuming Molly can stay and not get shipped out on her return ticket, a prospect that is looming in front of her most discouragingly.
 
                Never one to let grass grow under her feet, Maria was straight out again to Casino Island window-shopping for clothing and equipment she might need – her Uncle’s telegram promised there would be funds wired to her for the trip, just as well as her allowance has been eaten by Molly’s term fees (we have promised that if we still come up short on that and our Tutors give the thumbs-down, we will help Molly escape the clutches of the G-men.)
 
                Well! That should be something to look forward to, certainly. I thought so, at least, though Helen’s tail and ears were definitely drooping. She pointed out that she has plans to become Tailfast to Marti at the Solstice festival, something they are not too likely to have on Vostok where the religion is Eastern Orthodox – and probably as extremely Orthodox as Vostok is extremely Eastern. Definitely a problem – and it is not a ceremony one can do by correspondence.
 
                It looks as if we shall have to wait and see how this turns out: Maria is definitely going, with or without us – I’d love to join her, we have heard so much about Vostok, a staunch bastion defending against Bolshevism.  Various folk have complained the government is somewhat Extreme, but it is up against a particularly extreme threat both externally and gnawing within. Every refugee who escaped the Revolution and the Terror that followed has plenty of reasons to be extra vigilant, and their Government simply reflects that.
 
                (Besides, they are ruled over by a Grand Duchess, and have the only proper Court around here. I doubt I am ever likely to be presented at Court at home, so this is as good at it gets socially speaking.)
 
Sunday December 4th, 1935
 
Up early in the dark to the hangars, a busy morning finishing off Sand Flea 1, only leaving when the final coat of varnish was drying on the instrument panel. So busy that I had to miss Church – the first time I have done so in term time, but to be honest the sermons have been a little dull of late. I did get out after lunch with Helen and Saffina to meet Saimmi, who gave us something of an “exam” on what we had learned. She led us one at a time into the jungle to a small shrine, and had us demonstrate what to do to tend it and the rituals to employ.
 
                We must have got it right, for after Saffina completed her test, we noticed there was someone else standing next to us. How he got there is more than I can say – we are all quite well trained in spotting people moving stealthily, but in this case – we turned, and there he was. Dressed in a straw rain hat and a bark cape, it was hard to say if he was young or old; his fur was intricately combed in some patterns I had never seen outside the carvings hidden under the walkways of Casino Island. He carried a tall staff of some dark wood, also intricately carved – and somehow I knew that we were looking at one of the Wild Priests.
 
                It was rather hard to look at him, you might say – even now I can hardly recall what species he was, and not because he was any obvious mixture. One had the impression of a solid mirage, as if the figure in front of us was only a shadow of something far more real and powerful somewhere else. I do remember what he said, though I cannot recall if he had any sort of accent, or even if he was speaking Spontoonie or English!
 
                We all paid our respects as we had been taught, and he gave us a benediction in the local style. Helen and myself were known to him, he noted, and he had been following our progress with interest. He nodded to Helen and gave his approval at what she planned to do – I assume he means her plans to become Tailfast. To me he nodded somewhat sadly, and mentioned something about being cut adrift from home and needing to put out new roots. I’m not sure what he meant by that, to be honest, but it sounded fairly hopeful. I didn’t quite catch what he said to Saffina, but her eyes went very wide.
 
                When we turned to look again, he was gone – having vanished on an open stretch of hock-high grass some twenty yards from the nearest cover. That’s quite a trick, one that Songmark don’t teach even the third-years, I’m sure. The local religion seems to be a decidedly practical one, and I am starting to believe even the more extreme legends Saimmi has been teaching us.
 
                Feeling rather subdued, we returned to Eastern Island and had a quick inspection of Sand Flea 1. Everything seemed to be ready to roll, but with only half an hour of daylight remaining we had to content ourselves with starting the engine in the hangar with the wheels securely chocked. It caught first time, such a sweet thunder – and at long last, I was sitting at the controls of a Flea, watching the top wing pivot smoothly and the rudder twist at my command. I really hated to shut the engine down, but we have a lot of class work to get through for tomorrow, and Songmark life is not all dance contests and aerobatic thrills.
 
                On the way back we changed water taxis at Casino Island and shared one back with Prudence, who was wearing a definitely “floating-on-air” expression, her tail wagging enough to add a knot to our water speed. She announced happily that she was staying on over the holidays, especially for one special day.
 
                Helen looked at her with her own ears right down, and whispered that Prudence could not possibly be getting Tailfast – but she certainly seems devoted to Tahni, and Spontoon is a rather socially relaxed place that way. Though Helen is unprejudiced about most things, she really does not like the idea of our classmate’s tastes at ALL – even considering that Tahni is a Hyena and probably quite as fine a Gentleman in some departments as any others who might be getting Tailfast at the festival. I did ask Prudence if she knew about the local religion – she nodded happily, letting slip she has been taking instruction for the past six months.
 
                Prudence is full of surprises – of course, there are other priestesses than Saimmi giving instruction, and she is always over on Main Island on her Sundays, out of our view. But it is the first time I had heard of her taking up any sort of religion. I suppose a conventional religion might have unkind things to say about her – if she followed Maria’s creed, I expect there would be some interesting Confessions every Sunday. Maria is very devout, and comes of a distinguished ecclesiastical line on her Mother’s side; an ancestor of hers in the Renaissance being one of the original Papal Bulls.
 
                Thinking of Maria, she is planning her outfit for the Vostok trip; of course she can hardly represent her Uncle at the Vostok court clad in an oily flying jacket or indeed our Songmark costume. Happily she is being wired a separate clothing allowance, but the rest of us will have to do the best we can. She is determined to lose some weight, but has left it rather too late to make much difference without extreme measures – and anyone starving themselves in term time would probably fail to get up the rock faces or run out of steam half way through the swimming exercises. Ada Cronstein has recommended some wonderful slimming pills, which have worked wonders by all accounts – all natural ingredients and locally made. Ada’s parents are doctors, so they must be all right.
 
                (Later) I rather wonder what the Wild Priest meant by my being “cut adrift from home” – certainly I am a long way from Barsetshire, but plan on returning perhaps next Easter and taking Helen along if we can raise the funds required. I am sure the priest knows a lot he is not passing on (that being a priest’s job) but what is it they know about me? Then – providing a generous ration of mysteries is part of their job description too.

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