Friday 22nd March, 1936 Dear Diary: if you had asked any of us a year ago if we were ready to take the official exams and pass them, we would all have agreed – and almost all of us would have been sadly mistaken. There was no time or energy yesterday to record the grilling we went through: I was extremely glad that I took my books along with me this trip. Anyway, we were put through the mill in a very comprehensive fashion, starting with textbook exercises such as landing speeds, permissible loads and things that only need a good memory. The next step was to get us in a Link trainer and throw problems at us – some of which had no perfect solution. I was shivering with shock having crash-landed a theoretical aircraft full of passengers after the theoretical starboard engine seized up half a mile after takeoff. It came as a great relief to be told that was the best solution: trying to turn back to the runway at that speed and altitude would have almost certainly stalled and spun us into the ground. That sort of thing went on all day – but as soon as the sun set, we dived through the showers, changed into our formal costume and were allowed through the hallowed gates of the Officer’s Mess. As probationary pilots and guests we had to be on best behaviour, and I was amazed how well Beryl managed it. She can play the part of a keen yet demure mousie of good family, without even having her fur dyed; the kind that sweet old ladies show their jewels to, and never suspect when they go missing. It is somehow rather sinister to see Beryl being a polite and well-behaved girl making small-talk with the base commander’s wife and daughters. Today, we took our first practical examinations. These are not lessons, but strictly exams: it is taken as read one is an excellent pilot already, and the only question is, am I good enough for a company to entrust with its aircraft and the lives of the passengers. I sincerely hope Maria has kept quiet about her air adventures before she got to Songmark. Our teachers are mostly retired or part-time RAF officers, who are the cautious survivors of both the War and nearly twenty years of pioneering flying all over the place since then. It is hard to impress them with our good sense and reliability, but that is our target here. Still, after the tests we all gathered in the mess to watch the moon coming up over Mount Mikado, where one of the instructors jokingly commented on being impressed by us “three little maids from school”. Well – Songmark is a school of course, but only Beryl can be called little. As for being maids in the old sense of the word – none of us are, not even Prudence, given her friend Tahni’s “distinctive” physique. Still, we can all look respectable and pass as Officers and Ladies, though I wonder how long Beryl really can keep it up without “finding” the mess silverware in her suitcase. Saturday 23rd March, 1936 We made it! All three of us are looking at our results in glee and awe, having passed with distinction. The full certificates will be drawn up and posted to us, with our paw prints on them and our photographs fresh from developing. Fortunately they go on the paw prints Songmark sent, rather than passport numbers, or I would be in some trouble. I have my “B” Pilot license at last. Though I would have to be qualified “on type” on each aircraft before anyone would think of letting me fly commercially, I have the basic qualifications, signed and sealed in my own name. We celebrated with one of the few bottles of champagne to be found on the island (the test centre is run by pilots after all, even if they mostly fly desks these days) and relaxed in the sun for a few hours while our nerves calmed down. Beryl whispered her plans to celebrate properly back at Songmark next weekend, mostly involving a certain rat gentleman. Although I have a room booked in for tonight at Jury Point, I decided to head back to New Penzance and change my appearance – after all, as Amelia I am not supposed to be here and every minute is another risk now the exams are done. My flight suit I entrusted to Prudence to get back to Songmark, and I headed straight into town on an official transport – definitely, not on foot this time. I had thought it was a good idea to use the same hotel as before, the Grand Duke. First I found a public baths with a lockable grooming room and large mirrors giving all-round coverage, and used the last of the fur dye changing back to Siamese form. Making sure to drop the empty packages in a public rubbish bin, I registered again for a night as Kim-Anh Soosay, and relaxed on the balcony feeling very pleased with myself. I really should have allowed for Mr. Leamington’s persistence. Just before dinner there was a polite knock on the door and a native chambermaid handed me a large bouquet of flowers, with a card inviting me to dine. A shilling’s worth of intelligence data from the maid revealed that Lionel has been checking every hotel register in New Penzance every evening since I vanished – with a giggle, she added the information free that he was totally head-over-tail smitten by me. Oh my. There was nothing for it but to go downstairs and meet him – and I must say, he was impeccably brushed and turned out as if for inspection. He almost knocked the table over with the speed he stood up, and his tail was blurring like a propeller as it thrashed. Actually, it was very nice to see him – even though I knew I had to tell him farewell. Really, Lionel is a very presentable canine, and for once he was someone the folks back home could approve of – though some folk might think he was aiming rather high for a General’s daughter, his family is very well respected. It felt quite strange really, sharing dinner while he hung on my every word. I did ask if he had a sweetheart waiting for him at home – but apparently not. It seemed rather a pity. Actually, it was awfully hard to keep my tail from going sideways by the end of the evening. I kept wondering what the rest of his fur pattern looked like; very neatly brushed and absolutely clean for certain. Catching sight of us in the mirror, we made a very striking couple, both being two-tone in bold patterns. A lot of film stars and starlets have clear, distinctive two-tone patterns that look good on camera – if colour film ever gets cheap enough for general use they might regret it, like stars with stammers or strong accents did when “talkies” appeared.  The hotel had a small dance floor, and the rest of the evening passed very nicely with neither of us complaining it was only a gramophone rather than a live band. At the end, I had to say farewell, and lingeringly kissed him goodbye – the effect was quite electric, rather like those amazing matinee cartoons one sees. It was with rather a drooping tail that I returned to my room alone, threw myself under the mosquito netting and contemplated my ticket back – consoling myself with the thought that at least I had provided Lionel some interest in a rather dull posting. Even though he is a canine, his scent was very nice. As for his fur pattern, it is very distinctive indeed – not quite as much as our tutor Miss Wildford, but I think her parents must have been two different species, and nobody thinks any less of her for that. It is certainly something to think about. Sunday 24th March, 1936 Disaster! Everything started off so well. I was out of the hotel just after a good breakfast and down to the harbour in plenty of time, my ticket and my light valise all ready for the eleven o’clock Aero Frantique flight back North. I queued up with a dozen other travellers, watching the flying boat swoop in to take me home, when I presented my ticket and passport – only to be told my papers were “not in order”. It jolly well floored me. I tried to point out they were good enough to get me here, and tried to find out exactly what was wrong with them – but although he was unfailingly polite, debating with the bear on Customs duty was like arguing with a brick wall. My papers are Not In Order, and that is that. I was firmly escorted out of the building and left on the pavement, my tail dragging on the pavement and a hollow feeling in my stomach. Ten minutes later I heard the engines start up, and my stomach felt as if it was tying in knots as I watched my flight home leaving without me. Well, fortunately they teach you about this sort of thing at Songmark. I felt a plan coming together: first I headed over to the park to put my thoughts in order and take stock of what I have. Literally I have the clothes I stood up in, my overnight bag and a pocket full of shillings, plus four pounds sterling as emergency reserve sewn into the valise handle. Whatever else happens, one needs food – so I headed to the bazaar and haggled for fruit and roast fish, though I hardly felt like eating. The next step was to look for another way out: I checked in the Native section to see if there was any regular shipping heading to the French Sandwich Islands, but without success. It seems that although there are plenty of small craft plying the local islands like Gondoliers, there is nothing regularly making the three day sea crossing – and I would need ten times the money at hand to persuade any seaworthy enough boat to take me there specially. It had taken all day to ask through the bazaars, and by the time I had received my last disappointment the sun was getting awfully low. Though in Spontoon I could vanish into the jungle and put up a leaf hut, it was all civilised gardens and plantations here and I had no desire to add to my troubles by being arrested for vagrancy. There was little time to think of finding a cheaper hotel before dark, so I returned to the rather boastfully named Grand Duke and checked in for a third time. I can afford to stay here a week, with adequate meals from the bazaar – but that would be the end of the line. As it happened, I did not have much time to sit and plan, before there was a cautious knock on the door. I was not at all amazed to see Lionel there – but he was in a rather different mood to last night. His ears and tail were drooping to match my own, and his expression was definitely woebegone. He hesitantly asked if he might buy me dinner, and in the circumstances I scarcely could refuse to save my money. We had the table out on the balcony away from prying eyes, as it looked as if he was about to burst with news; he did so as soon as the waiter was back indoors. It is generally a bad sign when folk start off asking you to forgive them, before saying what they have done. Oh dear. Lionel started off making official enquiries about me when I arrived on the island, before he was hopelessly smitten by me as Kim-Anh. When I vanished completely for three days, his superiors asked him what he was spending all his time searching for, and he had to tell them. They were rather alarmed that someone already under observation could simply vanish into thin air (or alcohol fumes, had they but known) on their well-regulated island, and took the investigation out of Lionel’s paws. It looks as if they will not be happy until they find out just what I am here for, and have decided the best way is to keep me here until they do. I suppose from their point of view my behaviour does look rather suspicious. Talk about being sunk by one’s own torpedo! Lionel looked as if he wanted to dig a hole and pull it in after him – but he made a clean breast of it with me, and is eager to do what he can to make up. I suppose I should have been furious – but he was only doing his job to start off with, and I can hardly complain if he appreciates my carefully planned Siamese looks. If I had been surprised before, I was totally staggered when he went to one knee and begged me to stay, promising he would do his best by me. If “Euros” had the idea of being Tailfast, I think that is what he was proposing – and from his point of view it is the best he can offer me. Officers on Imperial service simply do not marry Natives (only Euros in the Spanish and the Portuguese empires do that) and no missionary or padre would ever consent to it, even if I wanted to. I had to turn him down of course – having other places to be and other folk waiting for me. Anyway, he would have an awful shock when my dyed fur grew out and he found out who he had really got. I can imagine Beryl laughing her snout off at that sort of trick, but it would be a terribly shabby thing to do to an honourable gentleman. Anyway – at least I know the problem now, which is always a help. And I have a willing ally, who is in a position of some importance here – sadly, not enough to dissuade his superiors. I thought (very briefly) of telling him the complete truth about who I am, but that could do a lot more harm than good; even if he believed me, I imagined what would happen if his superiors found my name on the list of Enemy Agents. As Tatiana translated the motto of the Cheka on Vostok, “The truth would devour you.” Still – there was no reason why I should not kiss him goodnight, and take a weight off his shoulders by forgiving him. In fact, we stayed outside till the hotel was ready to close for the night, forgetting my troubles for the evening. He dances well, and really does smell very pleasant. I retired to Room Fifteen alone again, and decided to sleep on it. Plan A and Plan B had failed, but there will be more tomorrow. As Miss Wildford points out, there are advantages in having a good education; when even Plan Z fails, a Songmark girl switches to the Greek or Russian alphabets and carries on! Tuesday 26 th March, 1936 Well, I am still stuck in New Penzance, while the days go by and my return ticket gets faded in the humidity. I took the chance to get to know the bazaar folk, some of whom speak Polynesian languages near enough to Spontoonie to get by in, when they do not want to speak English. I am sure in Vostok or similar places, the local Police would have lost patience by now and extracted the truth from me with customised kitchen utensils – happily, round here folk are rather more subtle. Still, I get the feeling that a lot of eyes are watching me, and noses following my trail as I explore the island looking for a way off. Lionel has dined and danced with me the past three nights and I get more than the occasional pang that I have to disappoint him. For a real Kim-Anh he would be quite a catch, just as in other places low-caste girls with nothing in life to look forward to “upgraded to first class” by marrying Euros and becoming socially higher than everyone who had been treating them like dirt. But there is nothing to be done except disappoint him – I have to get back to Songmark, and my fur dye will not hold up forever in this climate. Someone who has no need of cosmetics is Prad Phao, whom I met again at lunchtime. He politely asked if I had kept well, as I can imagine some of his other customers drinking that raw spirit regretted it. I expected him to try and sell me some more, but he seemed to be on lunch break as his tiffin carriers contained nothing stronger than vegetables stewed with Thai bonnet peppers. (On the other paw, there IS nothing stronger than Thai bonnet peppers.) As we sat in the park, he surprised me by pointing out various innocent looking figures, beggars and sales folk, as being watchers. Whether they were watching me or him I could hardly tell, except that either way it is hardly going to reassure the Authorities to see us together. One sees all sorts of things on these islands. The original plantations here were not copra but oil palms, and there is quite a lot of that still grown – the road past the Savoy hotel is usually full of what the locals fondly call “D’ Oily Cartes” in their accent. They are proud of their early traditions, claiming that it built the Gilberts up as a trading centre as if a Sorcerer had waved his wand over the territory – certainly, the wealth that generated must have greased a lot of palms. Wednesday 27th March, 1936 It is amazing how fast things change around here. As I write, I am out on the open ocean heading Northwards in a fishing boat – working my passage as cook in the galley true enough, but I would happily row in an ancient galley if it got me off Pinafore Island. Last night I had retired to bed, rather dispirited with having started on the second of my four gold sovereigns paying for another night at the Grand Duke. I was about to fall asleep when a handful of gravel hit the window outside – and I looked out to see a slim two-tone feline figure in the moonlight below. Of course I was cautious, sliding down the veranda to the ground with my ears and nose ready for trouble and a stocking full of beach sand at my belt; I am absolutely on my own here after all. Prad Phao whispered that he had spent the last two days making sure of me; anyone asking around for black-market ways out of a country may always turn out to be working for the Government. But he had asked on the grape vine, and it had bourn fruit – servants overhear things outside offices, and pass them on. There is a new police chief due to arrive on the flying boat Princess Ida tomorrow, and the customs police had planned to pull me in for questioning as proof of their zeal. He has his own reasons for needing to be elsewhere, which he assures me are nothing to do with selling extremely bad gin substitute in the bazaar. Sometimes one has to take things on trust; in three minutes I had collected my things and was quietly slipping through the shadows with him, our eyes at their night-widest and ears raised for the expected blast of a police whistle. It was nearly an hour through the plantations before we arrived at an old dock, obviously too small for any of the commercial phosphate or copra carriers. There was a two-masted sloop there, its name “Ruddigore” just visible in the moonlight, and we seemed to be expected. Even if I did urgently need to get off the island, there is such a thing of getting out of the frying pan and into the fire – so before setting paw onboard or emptying my sand sock, I asked Phao exactly what he was doing and where he was going. Vanishing into the night on a strange ship with nobody in the world knowing what happened to me, is potentially an exceedingly bad idea! To give him credit, Phao did take time to sit on the dock and explain for five minutes, even though the local police might have stepped out of the plantation at any second. As he explained before, his family has been in exile since the French took Indochina into their empire, and has been looking for support for his folk to throw off the “invaders”. Happily, he is not a Bolshevik, coming as he does from a noble family Unfortunately, he says, there is very little interest from the Natives over here liberating Natives in someone else’s Empire on the far shore of the Pacific. As for a general revolt against “oppressing powers”, the Bolsheviks have rather cornered the market in that line of work, and would not be interested in restoring his family to their pre-colonial status. From what I read in “International Geographic” about the great ruined naval city of Anchor What, the Khmer had their own empire once, with presumably their own unhappy Natives somewhere around. Well, it was good enough for me. I suppose if Barsetshire was ever oppressed by foreign powers, imposing rules made in Belgium or similar, I might be slinking around the woods of Luxembourg myself trying to contact locals in the same situation. Another five minutes had us all aboard and casting off from the jetty, heading out into the night. The sloop is a forty-footer, nothing one would like to sail into a typhoon with but good enough for the open ocean. Accommodation is in hammocks, something I am quite used to – I even have a small partitioned part of the hold to myself, while Phao and his three crew have the one real cabin. After all the excitement, I found myself falling asleep like flipping a light switch, regardless of my position. I have made my hammock, and must lie in it. (Later) A whole day at sea, heading straight on course Northwards. I was rather uneasy at first, but we are going where Phao promised we would, as near as the wind can take us. I volunteered to help out, running the galley and the like (not reading Thai script or numerals would make helping to navigate rather tricky) and things are working out rather well. I remembered what happened to poor Molly the last time she took an unscheduled passage back to Spontoon, stowing aboard that tramp steamer. One can be outwardly “reasonable” and exceedingly cruel at the same time, as that Captain was when Molly was found onboard at sea. She told Molly that it had been her choice to join the ship – and it would be her free choice to “work her passage” or get off and swim any time she wanted to. So Molly blames herself mostly, especially since our Tutors have always told us to avoid getting into that sort of situation in the first place. The rest of the crew are civet cats, and speak very poor English: they understand my French but understandably do not like to talk in it. I cook for them, work the bilge pump and do anything else to help out – as for working my passage, I am perfectly happy with this version of it. Phao is very much a gentleman, which seems to be much the same for a Khmer as any squire back home. And exceedingly handsome, besides. Thursday 28th March, 1936 A fine day on the open seas, hardly a sail or island spotted as we headed steadily North. Once the sails are set and the tiller locked, the boat almost sails itself, with one of the civets keeping an eye on the wind. I had plenty of time to talk with Phao, who sympathises with me as a fellow victim of Colonial Oppression. Well, I don’t know about that. I was entering the country on false papers after all; my real name officially listed in the same category as real Bolshevist Agents. Everyone knows about Macao as a place where false papers can be practically bought as easily as newspapers, and I hardly gave a good reason to be nosing around Pinafore Island. I think the most democratic governments imaginable would have reason to keep an eye on me, until they knew what I was up to. Still, I was hardly going to argue the point with Phao in the circumstances. The wind dropped away around noon, leaving us almost stranded on a calm and glassy ocean, no sign of land around us. The crew retired for a siesta, and I decided a swim would be very welcome. For half an hour it was very pleasant to keep pace with the ship’s slow progress, with the waters around me almost crystal clear so far from land. It was a very good thing the waters were so clear, and that I had dived to look underwater at the minute. Though without swimming goggles everything was blurred, I spotted three lean shapes coming straight at me, when I was fifty yards from the ship! I surfaced like a cork and yelled for help as I struck out for the ladder at top speed, realising things underwater are often closer than they look and a barracuda can swim much faster than I can. I was ten yards away when the first one brushed past me, giving me a glimpse of narrow jaws packed with teeth. They circled round and I was sure I was done for – when Phao dived in next to me, a long wavy-bladed Malay Kris in his paw. He was amazing in the water, and managed to slice into the first barracuda coming for me – filling the waters with fish blood, the other two turning on their comrade in a foaming frenzy while we lunged for the ladder and hauled ourselves up to safety on the deck while the rest of the shoal arrived and the water fairly boiled with thrashing fins. We collapsed, panting, our fur soaking the deck and the sounds of the feeding barracudas just two yards away over the side. Phao was bleeding slightly along his thigh where a barracuda’s teeth had raked him and I put my first-aid training to good use bandaging him. I started checking him over for any additional damage, and found my paw tracing the contours of his Siamese markings … the next thing I knew, my tail had gone sideways and the rest of me was being very grateful to be rescued. Dear Diary – just as our Tutors keep telling us hunger is the best appetiser, I had heard before of what surviving extreme danger can do. I had thought Phao was a perfect gentleman, and now I can be sure he is, in more ways than one. Either the crew were fast asleep still on siesta or they were suitably discreet – whichever, we had the deck to ourselves the rest of the afternoon. By the time the breeze sprung up again an hour before dusk, I fear we were more scratched by each other than the barracuda ever managed. A fine starry night followed, navigating by the pole star as we headed towards the French Sandwich Islands. Phao calculates it will be another thirty hours with the same winds, but one can never tell. As the famous song has it, it could be a “slow boat to China” – or possibly Indochina, though I am not going all the way. In some senses, at least. Friday 29th March, 1936 A fresh, breezy day for sailing – unfortunately not in quite the right direction so we spent most of the time tacking about, and Phao was hard at work on the extra navigation most of the day. Still, I greatly enjoyed the hard work on the boat and the time flew by all too soon as we headed in the general direction of the Spontoon islands. Thinking of the folk awaiting me on Spontoon, it came as rather a shock that the folk there who would most approve of Phao are Wo Shin’s dorm. Brigit, Tatiana and Liberty are raving anti-colonialists, and Shin hails from roughly his part of the world and might well list him as acceptable nobility. He may not be actually Chinese, but Indo-China is surely near enough. Tatiana had been enthusing last month about the wonders of Soviet Science, which (she says) proves Darwin wrong – they think a lot of a young agriculturalist Lysenko, who claims you can change bloodlines of plants and people by what you do to them in their career – so if you work hard at being a ballerina, your children will be inherently better ballerinas. Heavens save us from dialectic-compatible science! It disproves, she claims, the whole notion of inherited Nobility – though she was rather floored by Beryl’s response that any family who run a country for centuries must be therefore very good at it having acquired the right traits by experience. Tatiana loves to explain her politics as utterly logical, and hates being proved wrong. As Phao traced the lines of my dyed fur, my ears blushed at the thought – Tatiana would think it perfectly believable that imitating a Siamese would lead to kittens with acquired Siamese features. Well, there could be other reasons for that. We rather swept each other off our paws yesterday, and hardly thought about the consequences. It would be ironic indeed if after me practicing being a Eurasian, I end up carrying a real one. Technically, that would also be true if I joined the Hoele’toemi family who are classed as Polynesians despite other strains including Barsetshire, but Phao is the absolute genuine Siamese article. Siamese even sound different, regardless of what language they speak; although he put it very politely Phao did say it was a pity my English side had come out in my yowl. Still, by my calendar the risk is not too great and passing by the day especially as I am taking what Precautions I can. So the evening passed very pleasantly indeed. The wind picked up and changed to a more favourable quarter, and we fairly shot along under the starlight with the sail billowing out above us and the crew discreetly steering. Though it might be too chilly still to sleep under the stars in bare fur in the Spontoon group, here it seemed the perfect thing to do. Saturday 30th March, 1936 A day of departures! The wind came round in the night to get us within sight of land by dawn: it was an impressive sight to see the crumbling peaks of the Iles de Brioche looming up against the first light. We passed a very fine early morning until the sun came up, when we had to consider parting. I refrained from asking him where he was going next, for as they say in the films, “what you don’t know you can’t tell.” The good thing is, my ticket for the Shawnee Pacific Airpaths section of the trip back has survived intact, and is still valid. The bad thing is, folk might wonder how I got here – I have had enough trouble with Customs this trip without having the French end getting inquisitive. At least Customs only applies to folk who actually come in from the landward side – so we worked out a plan to avoid that. Phao has very sharp wits as well as a nice figure, and between us we work very well. The morning passed in avoiding other vessels while rounding the capes of Ile de Croissant, which on the map rather resembles a much bigger version of Moon Island. By mid-afternoon we were laying fishing nets to divert suspicion just quarter of a mile from the seaplane terminal – and then the time came to say goodbye to Phao. I must say, my “stage career” as Kim-Anh has its ups and downs. If I had my real name cleared and my British passport back, things would have been very different – I could have just relaxed as a tourist passenger on the way out to Pinafore Island, sweated a few days on the piloting exams then relaxed even more all the way home to Spontoon. On the other paw, I do get to meet some interesting people this way. Our Tutors do not seem to mind “adventures” as long as we conduct ourselves with style and skill, and I should be able to explain most parts of the trip when they ask why I am a week late returning. I hope that is the only thing that is late this month! There was time for a lingering farewell, then with my papers and respectable clothes folded into a waterproof can I slipped into the sea on the far side of the boat and struck out for land. There were other swimmers in the water, folk diving for pearls and dropped tools from the seaplanes, so I managed to get within fifty yards of the customs fence without any trouble. The water was warm and I could have swam in it all morning, if not for the rather clumsy can floating on a tether behind me. I had to wait half an hour before a seaplane taxied into the dock, grabbed a float and hung on as it pulled me into the secure area, keeping my snout low and trying not to choke on the spray the props were throwing back at me. While the engines were still running and covering me with their noise, I swam under the jetty to the other side and swarmed up a drainpipe onto the roof, remembering Beryl’s successful hideout on Eastern Island. Throwing myself flat I was invisible from below or in fact anywhere except the distant peaks of Cap Galette some five miles away. After all the excitement, I had two hours of waiting in the sweltering sun. Quite sweltering in fact, and although my fur dried off in half an hour, after that I was regretting it as my last drink of water had been aboard the Ruddigore. I passed the time grooming, and smoothing out my respectable suit which happily had kept dry with my papers in the can. At last I heard aero engines, and my heart leaped at the sight of Spontoon registration on the Short Cockle as it roared by overhead and made a smooth touchdown in the bay. As I had agreed with Phao, timing was everything. I waited till the passengers were boarding from the Customs house, slid quietly down the drainpipe and joined the end of the queue as if I had come in from the French land side at the last minute. The beauty of it is that the ticket office is inside the Customs perimeter – so the air crew just punched my ticket and never even asked for my passport at all! It was a wonderful feeling to sit back in a wicker seat and hear the engines start up, the Cockle leaving the bay right on time and swinging North, home to Spontoon. Half an hour later I was looking down on the last sight of French territory, trying not to gulp my second iced Nootnops Red as I felt my frazzled nerves slowly relax. Though I could not see it, I knew the Ruddigore must be down there with Phao and his crew – it was with rather a pang that I realised we would probably never meet again, Spontoon being conspicuously short of oppressed Natives to liberate. (Later) Thirteen hours is an awfully long time to sit in an airline seat, however glad one is to be onboard! Apart from about six trips to the smallest cabin (having shamelessly overindulged on the free supply of Nootnops Red) I was chafing with inaction by the time South Island appeared on the horizon, Mount Tomboabo rising as a welcome sight in the last rays of sunset. I braced for another ordeal at Customs, but hardly broke stride as they waved me through; entertainers from Macao must be a commoner sight at this time of year than I had supposed. So, after everything I returned home to Eastern Island. But of course I was there as Kim-Anh, and hardly liked to stroll into Songmark as a Siamese – which meant another hour getting to Main Island, managing to buy a litre of industrial spirit before the public baths closed and watching as Kim-Anh vanishes down the plughole. It seems a shame to see her go – but I think I will meet her in the mirror again. As it was, I was a week late getting back – and I will have a lot of explaining to do to our Tutors! (Which she did. As described in the next part, “Easter Eggs.”) next |