Spontoon Island
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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
7 April, 1936 to 13 April, 1936

Monday 7 th April, 1936

Pouring with rain, worse luck; all of us were indoors more or less all day repairing fishing nets and the like. I took the chance while everyone was together to announce the news, paw in paw with Jirry – it was like stepping onto the stage at my first school play, but I managed to get through with it.

Mrs. Hoele’toemi was delighted, and almost hugged the wind out of me (one never forgets she was a dance champion). Helen sighed and rolled her eyes, but congratulated me. Molly was pretty much speechless, her ears right up in shock and her tail trembling.

I was not much surprised when after supper Helen motioned me over and suggested we go for a walk, our oiled fur, straw hats and grass capes doing rather better against the rain than our Songmark oilskins ever manage. It was getting dark but we only went about a hundred yards, to the edge of the taro patch where a small roofed shrine looks out protectively over the fields. The rain was hissing down in the jungle next to us, and I doubt anyone except one of the Wild Priests could have got near enough to hear us.

Helen can be really very blunt when she has to. She painted a rather less than rosy picture of exactly what our Tutors are going to say – it is one thing for Missy K to be permanently poised to take a year out, as she is engaged and was before she applied to Songmark. Her family are funding her regardless of which year she graduates, which might not be the case for me. We have all seen enough of what the third year at Songmark is like, to know it needs total fitness and complete concentration – the chances of anyone actually getting through it after a year away are not hopeful. Our Tutors do keep telling us they will fail anyone who does not totally deserve to pass, as Songmark’s reputation is everything to them.

Besides, she pointed out that even if by some miracle my family and our Tutors did clear it, I would be dropped down to live the final year with our current first-year class – the idea of sharing field trips and meals with Liberty Morgenstern and Brigit Mulvaney is enough to make anyone’s tail droop.  The Spontoonie saying “It takes more than one stick to make a fire” sprang to mind as I thought of exchanging Helen, Molly and Maria for that crowd – it would be like trying to light a fire with wet coral.

When she had run out of arguments, I agreed with everything she had said – but the situation is what it is, and wishing otherwise changes nothing. It is just as well I talked to Jirry first and announced the news to his family, as Helen’s rather ruthless suggestion had my ears and tail dropping flat as wilted flowers. It might have been a different matter had I the awful experiences Molly went through – but Phao was wonderful, and I hope to keep more than the memory.

Whatever happens, it is unlikely I will be hauled back to Barsetshire in disgrace, as without a passport I have no way of getting back there unless the Spontoonies deport me. Father can cut me off without a penny, but if he insists I return he knows that will mean to be arrested for espionage, something (my brother writes) he is sure I am innocent of. Besides, if I am cast off as a blot on the family name there will be no interest in bringing me back; better to leave me on Spontoon which is already as far as possible from folk back Home who would be doing the complaining.

Helen sighed, but then hugged me affectionately and commented there was plenty of room for another longhouse down the path from the one she is sharing with Marti. We picked Frangipani flowers for our head-fur from the edge of the jungle, and returned to the Hoele’toemi household as darkness fell. An excellent evening, with Saimmi returning from her duties and getting the news. She seems pleased as well – though I did ask her not to tell our Tutors, as I would be doing that myself (she did not deny our Tutors do seem to find out an awful lot about what we get up to on Spontoon.)


Wednesday 9th April, 1936

It has been a very fine trip so far, settling into life in Haio Beach. Weather permitting, in the mornings we help with the garden patch and getting the buildings ready for tourist season, and in the afternoon we have a pristine and tourist-free beach to swim and practice the surfing-boards.  I almost envy Helen having the whole holiday here while the rest of us sailing crew probably scrub decks, haul keels and splice mainbraces – but she might well be right, it could be the last Songmark trip I go on, and then I will be seeing a lot of South Island. Thank heavens I have my five-year Pilot’s license now, whatever else happens! There is always a big demand for pilots around here, even without full qualifications, and it is growing all the time. New airlines and routes are opening up all across the Pacific: by the time my first license expires in 1941, there could be direct routes through here from as far as Japan to America and Australia.

Although the tourists have not yet arrived, the film crews have; on Resort Bay one of the smaller hotels is booked almost solid with a production team who are setting up and casting local extras for “Daughters of the Snake Goddess”. Prudence and all her dorm are there, along with a lot of her friends from the swimming club and volleyball teams – Molly whispered something about the casting couch being busy but there seems no shortage of applicants. Those who do not get on film as extras will be carrying the cameras and the like, as the director has very specific staff requirements; Jirry is not going to get this job, but if she was interested his sister Moeli might.

From Resort Bay we could see a sight that we have only seen before on old photographs and paintings of the islands: a full three-masted sailing ship, anchored off Casino Island! This must be our ship, the Liki-Tiki, which we are due out on tomorrow. I was scratching my head-fur as I trained my binoculars on it; although I am no expert in tall ships, the masts and rigging did look very odd. Although the sails were furled, they hardly looked at all what I expected of a schooner, more like a pirate-ship of old.

We bumped into Ada Cronstein and Carmen at the Tiki Lounge on Resort Bay (North Fluke, as some old charts call it) and had a fine lunch as we are expecting to live on ship’s biscuit, salt pork and weevils from tomorrow. In Ada’s case it will be just the biscuit and weevils, of course. She says she is half regretting volunteering for the trip, as she has pictures on her wall of Morgaine Melson, the lady director who is auditioning for suitable talent.

I was surprised when I recognised the director, who I had been imagining as some big strapping bear or rhino in riding breeches: Miss Melson is actually a quite short and slender rabbit, who would be shorter than me not counting the ears. She really looks quite ordinary, but Ada whispers she changes gear entirely in the studio and is a veritable whirlwind of energy. I remember reading of one of her earlier triumphs in “Film Frolics”, a rather odd sequel to the Three Musketeers with a pair of heroines who would fit into Songmark quite well (Prudence’s dorm) had they been born four centuries later. They certainly spent enough time airborne considering ropes and chandeliers were the only means available!

There is a record number of my year staying over this holiday, more than half the class. Even folk who have always gone home before are staying, such as Adele Beasley. She had been asking me if she should volunteer for the sailing trip – happily I managed to talk her out of it. The idea of someone with her bad luck high in the rigging makes shivers go down my tail, and even below decks in the galley – sharp knives, open flames and pots of boiling liquid. It would be asking for trouble. Still, she says she wants a job, and on Spontoon we cannot just apply for anything advertised, only what our Tutors clear with the authorities. I hope she manages to keep busy and meet some interesting people, anyway.

Our own sailing trip should be a fine way to keep fit and healthy, with all the fresh air and exercise. We will not be away long enough to re-enact some of the classical traditions (scurvy etc) and in any case will not be at sea very long at a time according to our instructions. It is rather a wrench to pack my bags again, and settle in for one last evening with the Hoele’toemis. We had a large bowl of three-finger Poi shared amongst us on the table, the slightly fermented sort that always turned my stomach before. I know it tastes exactly the same, but it went down as if it was the finest dish from Bow Thai; Mrs. H commented she always had cravings for Nimitz Sea caviar when expecting. Of all the possible foods, it is rather ironic that I suddenly discover what Missy K sees in Poi; at least among my worries I have not picked up expensive
tastes.

Helen and Marti were busy and Molly was off meeting Beryl at Resort Bay, leaving me to help Mrs. H with the house. She is very supportive, and told me a lot about what to expect this year and how best to cope with it. She is well qualified that way; looking at her, one would never guess she had six grown children. I am keeping up with all the exercises she prescribed, and indeed have never felt fitter.

A fine evening as Jirry returned, and then I retired to the village women’s hut. It is basic but very comfortable, rather like a native version of our Songmark dorm – every necessity there, and not a useless piece of bric-a-brac to be seen (I am sure Hannah has already told her Father that sending salesmen here will be a dead loss.). Tomorrow – off for a life on the wave!


Thursday 10th April, 1936

It was quite a send-off the Hoele’toemis gave us, waving Molly and myself farewell from the shore of Resort Bay – Mrs H, Jirry and all his brothers and sisters, with Helen and Marti at his side and half a dozen cousins turned out to wave us off for the fortnight. One would think we were heading out to Easter Island on a log raft, some of us never to return.

I had already spent a few cowries and an hour after breakfast in the bathroom of one of the hotels with Molly – we helped each other remove the cured oil from our fur, and comb out the clan markings. I never like doing this, and since this past fortnight, walking around with Hoele’toemi markings has felt wonderfully reassuring. Helen has confided that she is looking forward to putting on hers one day as a permanent fixture.

Still, where we are going there are quite enough original Natives without needing us to make up the numbers. Molly has been doing some asking around and it seems an interesting setup we are joining. Our schedule has us heading out to Albert Island, which is an “Authentic” Polynesian island; the first one I will have seen since our Orpington trip. The difference is, it is much keener to stay unspoiled and not commercialise the way Orpington and Spontoon have. No grand Casinos and luxury hotels for us on Albert Island, as Molly commented rather sourly - I am surprised Beryl is going at all.

Our joining instructions were for noon at the offices of the Inter-Island Tours Company, the sort of vaguely universal name that Helen always associates with secret agents. But there was nothing secret about this place, as it was papered with large and glossy posters showing the delights of a wild tropical isle. Bits of Spontoon are certainly wild, but none of it is more than three miles from a village and less from a road, so there are limitations that Albert Island has not got. Albert Island is not huge though, being about the size of the Spontoon group with one solid main island twelve miles across and some outliers about the size of our Eastern Island.

Beryl and Madelene X were already there along with half a dozen assorted locals I recognise from our dance contests against the Meeting Island High School. Definitely they all looked fit and ready for adventure – from the talk, I gathered that they held several rounds of severe athletic competitions to decide who would fill their quota of places for this voyage. The Casino clock was striking twelve and I was starting to worry about Ada and Carmen, when they turned up looking definitely breathless and with their fur rather ruffled. Beryl whispered something about Melson Productions being infamous for their parties, and I suppose I am glad we will not have Ada complaining this trip that she missed out on absolutely everything.

Anyway, we had no more time to catch up on things – as twelve struck, the door opened for us to sign in and it was locked behind us a minute later. It seems Inter-Island “runs a tight ship” and anyone late gets left on the beach, so to speak! First we had a brief welcome from Mr. N’Kualita, a strikingly dressed jungle cat, clouded leopard I would have guessed. He explained that though the Liki-Tiki had several years of service already, this season the company was trying something rather different. The ship had been re-rigged with square sails, more like a Pirate galleon than the classic schooner rig she usually carried. We were to support a film crew on location, then if all went well we have a full test in open ocean, which sounds exciting with a sailing rig that has not been seen in these waters since before the resettlement of Spontoon. Even the actual Pirates who were reputed to land and swap water for treasure were of the Indian Ocean type, Sinbad rather than Blackbeard in style, and would have had lateen sails.

Madelene X muttered something about the ship looking as authentic as a chariot with aircraft rotary engines on the wheels – she may be able to spot the differences, but the average cinema-goer happily believes municipal swimming baths are Roman so long as the actors relax decadently on couches wearing enough laurel wreathes and togas.

Anyway, it was a very busy afternoon. We “signed aboard” with particulars of our nautical experience, our health certificates and our releases from Songmark. Happily, Passports are not required for this trip as we are listed as sailing crew. It surprised me to learn that as crew, we do not need them for shore leave – diplomatically sailors dock and undock too frequently for most countries to insist on checking them (though I am sure places such as Vostok go the extra mile.) By teatime we had all signed for a kitbag of authentic costume, a sturdy but rather basic set of sea shirt and sailor’s trousers, with old-fashioned “bell-bottoms”. The trousers are quite a sight – and our silhouettes will be very historical on the film, as I am sure nobody will ever be wearing trousers again with the ankles twice as wide as the knees! We have neckerchiefs, ditty-bags, those repair kits called “Sailors housewives” that caused much amusement to Ada and Carmen, and quite as much kit as an articled sailor would have carried.

Molly complains that boarding-axes and cutlasses are authentic, so she should have at least one of them. She has been reading up on naval history, and seems to have the idea we will be spending our time being filmed swinging on ropes holding on with one paw, a dagger in our teeth and a blunderbuss in the other paw. For a change it was Beryl who put her right, commenting anyone who falls into rigging with a dagger in their teeth is liable to cut their own snout off. If it comes down to being traditional, my Barsetshire accent is better for growling “A-harr me mateys!” in than Molly can manage. It somehow does not quite fit right with her dulcet Chicago tones.

We did discover why Inter-Island are happy to sign us on with so little sailing experience on large ships – and not (as Molly grumbles) just because we work cheaply. Having such an old rigging system means there is nobody with practical experience in using it, so hiring general yachting crew would be a waste; we are nearly as good at this job, and hopefully keen to learn.

Quite a thrill! There were twenty of us signed aboard from Casino Island, including some senior mariners who probably can use their general experience with ship repair, rationing our grog and serving out the lime-juice. We do actually have that, at least I saw some kegs being loaded aboard at the last minute – by the end of this trip Molly will have to stop calling me a “limey” as she will be one just the same. Better than a scurvy knave, however authentic that would be for a Pirate ship. It was a five minute pull in an authentic whaler to the ship, which was anchored in the deep-water channel between Casino and South Island: by all accounts nobody wanted to start experimenting with delicate docking manoeuvres as a first test of the new sailing qualities: it had been towed out to where we have plenty of sea-room to make mistakes without our first voyage being a full-speed ramming of the Rainbow Bridge.

As we climbed up a boarding net to the deck we were greeted by the Captain, a grizzled timber-wolf gentleman with a considerable mane of greying fur. He shook paws with all of us, then issued his first order – the senior hands to show us to our quarters, sling our hammocks and report back on deck in ten minutes. Of course, we jumped smartly to it, remembering just what had been in the releases we signed to get here – the Captain of a ship is the law onboard, and if he felt like being authentic as regards discipline, there is nothing we can do but go along with it.

I think it was about eight minutes later that the last of us lined up on deck, hoping we were neatly enough turned out – the senior hands had been whispering that the ship had been restored using classical materials, with “holystone” to scrub the decks and tarred oakum to plug the seams – it is awfully laborious, and the first one of us appearing with an unbuttoned shirt or talking unnecessarily on duty, would find out just how much work needed doing.

Amazingly, we all seemed to pass inspection. The Captain gruffly told us to carry on, and we were “told off” into our watches for the trip. Just my luck – I drew first watch, which meant delaying my appointment with my hastily slung hammock: Molly is on my watch but nobody else I know is.

It could have been worse – Beryl was drawn for the small hours, which the able-seamen tell us is called the dog-watch. I always thought that was because anyone working then would be dog-tired, but Beryl of course has her own ideas. Noting it is at least shorter than the others, she whispered that it was “cur-tailed”. I am sure there must be authentic Royal Navy punishments for jokes like that! *

*(Editor’s note: if it causes alarm or confusion, it seems Beryl can gratuitously tell the truth. This time, she is.)


Friday 11 th April, 1936

The last time I woke up at sea, it was on a smaller boat with rather more select company – indeed, I am hardly likely to forget it. It was a very different experience below decks on the Liki-Tiki, with the women’s quarters a swinging forest of hammocks like caterpillars and cocoons slung between trees. Even riding at anchor the ship is surprisingly loud, with creaking fittings, the slap of the waves heard through open hatches and the deck crew working just above us.

Although I have slept in hammocks before last year with the Noenoke clan, there at least we were a pace or so away from the open air. This time, Beryl’s shift was fast asleep still – as the ship’s bell rings, one has to ignore it and sleep, but wake up on time for your own watch regardless of whether it is day or night outside. Either way, disturbing a sleeping shipmate is considered extremely bad form, so we wriggled and ducked past the swinging hammocks on the way to the door. The film crew get the actual cabins with bunks, but then they are paying for it. Another difference with last year aboard the Noenoke fishing boats, was our wearing Native dress at the end and hardly considering modesty – a bath was the day’s first dive overboard, and with oiled fur one hardly notices the dampness. Here of course it was rather different: most of the senior crew are gentlemen, and the Meeting Island High School contingent is co-educational. Molly was grumbling about it being no time of day to be getting up, and asked loudly where the hot showers were. I had to remind her of a few uncomfortable (but authentic) truths: this is not a steam-ship with always-lit boilers, and the galleys will do well to provide us all with a mug of tea for breakfast, let alone hot showers.

Our “hot shower” was a gallon bucket of cold seawater apiece, a piece of salt-water soap (almost impossible to lather) and about a pint of lukewarm fresh rinsing water that smelt as if it had been in the ship’s tanks since its last re-fitting. I must say, the Inter-Island trading company are doing a wonderfully authentic job of re-creating the atmosphere onboard ship. Molly agrees, and says she never listened to her History teacher back in school – now at last she knows why so many crews mutinied, turned Pirate or “jumped ship” at the first moment. This is not quite the right attitude for Day One in clear sight of Casino Island, and turning Pirate is hardly going to make modern plumbing miraculously appear.

Anyway, we had little enough time to compare notes on the tepidness of our rinsing water, as ten minutes later the washroom was needed for the gentlemen. At least we get first go at it, though we will doubtless be second tomorrow and scrubbing it in the meantime. Our timetable is quite fierce, with one day for each watch to learn the ship and be able to recognise a fore “stun sail” if they are ordered to reef one. This sailing setup is a lot less mechanised than a final-generation schooner, and although it certainly uses plenty of blocks and pulleys, it needs a bigger crew hauling on it for the same effect. Thinking of bigger crews, I could wish I had Maria, Missy K and Irma Bundt hauling on my capstan rather than Molly and two rabbit brothers (wiry but small) from Main Island. Sometimes size does beat style.

Breakfast was both quite fine and rather a disappointment – I had been expecting hard-tack and salt beef, and gone to the dentists last week especially for a check-up anticipating a lot of tough diet. Instead, we were served rather nice oatmeal porridge with lashings of condensed milk, and fresh bread cakes from the galley. Delicious – though Madelene X turned her snout up at it. She would.

As the watches changed over, we were all gathered on deck to help onboard the film company we are taking out to the famous “Cannibal Isle” – its name an invention of the pulp comics, I am sure. The film crew is quite small, sixteen people and (to Molly’s disappointment) totally lacking in movie stars: they explained they want long-range sailing shots of the ship and landscape, and the actors will be doing their close-ups on a sound stage somewhere more comfortable.

Actually, the film crew (“X-Zan-Do Productions Inc” of Burbank) had not been aboard an hour when we discovered that strictly speaking the production team has fourteen workers and two spare wheels – the producer Mr. Stanton Sturdey the Second has brought his two pups aboard, more than half-grown but more than twice as loud to make up for it. He made clear that they are to be given every courtesy and anything else they want – one gets the impression they are not happy to be coming along on this trip, but their doting parent is determined to make it up to them at any cost to anyone else.

Anyway, they were loudly declaiming their disappointment that we were not in Native dress, which was the only reason they had “let pop drag them along” for this trip. I have heard the previous trips were made for tourists with the crew mostly in Native mode, with the passengers no doubt enjoying the scenery. It seemed a pity myself, if only to see how Madelene X would have taken the news about her costume – she would have been steaming enough to solve all Molly’s complaints about the plumbing.

We had no time to worry about them, as a whistle blast called us to our stations and we started hauling ropes in earnest. The wind was steady behind us, and as the anchor came up we raised the mainsail. Rather a smart acceleration I thought, but then the Liki-Tiki has a final-generation schooner hull and not the portly shape one associates with galleons. It is conspicuously lacking in cannons (much to Molly’s disappointment) and has a fairly flush main deck without the raised forecastles and poop-decks that folk defend tooth and claw in the swashbuckling films.

It looks so easy in the films, the Captain just shouts an order and the ship heels over onto a new tack. The films tend not to show all the sweat and blisters involved in getting that to happen! Our film crew are not interested in this part of it, so it seems that “Buccaneers of Bone Island” is not going to be a tale of honest seafaring folk demonstrating the purity of labour (as Liberty and Tatiana would both say, then squabble furiously about the interpretation.)

Ten minutes later we could relax for the minute with the sails all set and the Liki-Tiki heading steadily before the wind at about five knots. The Pacific is a much wider place at five knots afloat than at two hundred in the air – though of course here we are hardly likely to run out of fuel, and if the wind does die out it is just a matter of waiting for more.

I noticed a very striking aircraft taking off and going right over us barely two hundred feet above our crow’s nest, a Keystone-Loening K-85 with Chinese characters on the fuselage heading straight North-West. It reminded me of all the air adventures I might end up missing – but as one door shuts another opens, and I will definitely get to use my pilot’s license one way or another.

Beryl is such a joker sometimes; one can hardly help but laugh. She claims that was Wo Shin flying off with Adele Beasley, and she had persuaded Adele to try a job at her family’s Casino where she may make plenty of money and meet lots of interesting people. As if we would believe that one! The tale about the dates being imported from the International Date Line is easier to swallow. After all, just last month Adele had to report Shin for being caught with a bottle of whiskey in the dorm and I would scarcely think Shin would be doing her any favours.

I must say, it was a good thing we have kept ourselves ferociously fit this year, and all of the Songmark team are fairly bulging with good health. Hauling sails on a square-rigger is exceedingly hard work, as bad as fishing on the Noenoke clan’s boats last Easter, and by the end of the watch many of the other volunteers were complaining about aching muscles and sore paws. Had this been a film shot we would have been authentically bare-pawed on the deck, something I will have to practice. I mentioned it to Molly, who looked at me quite oddly and commented she was surprised I actually wanted to be bare-pawed as well as everything else.

The evening meal was slightly more “traditional” in Euro terms, a fish and potato Sea Pie with a jolly nice Plum Duff for dessert. I am not sure what Madelene X actually said about it, and from her expression I am not sure I really want it translated. I expect the salt beef and pickled cabbage is being saved up till we are on the open ocean and it is too late for us to jump ship. We have read a lot about the classical Salt Beef – its attractions must have improved like wine with keeping, as the Royal Navy issue was often of a classical vintage and older (and far tougher) than the crew that ate it. Given all that, it is surprising that the Natives who lived on tropical isles full of fresh food and surrounded by fish were the ones popular tales accuse of being cannibals, rather than the Navy.

Before turning in for our hammocks, I took a last breath of air and saw the figure of our Captain standing on the quarterdeck silhouetted against a rising moon. It is a pity the film crew still have their cameras packed away, it made quite a dramatic sight.

From what I gathered back on Casino Island, our skipper has been around these islands off and on since the start of the century, and even since retiring still takes on odd jobs if they promise to be interesting. Just think, he was here before the Gunboat Wars, even! It must have been a very different Spontoon in the days when it was Accounting Island rather than Casino, and when the islands were loud with plantation steam railways hauling plump pineapples rather than tour-boats hauling loud plump tourists.


Saturday 12th April, 1936

Out at sea at last! This morning we threaded our way through the channel North of Eastern Island, surprisingly without a local pilot on board – and more surprisingly, without getting stuck. Our Captain must know this route awfully well, considering the sand banks change after every big storm and charts five years old are worthless.

The only folk who were disappointed were the crew of that experimental tugboat, the one with the flat bottom and pair of giant aircraft engines on outriggers – they shadowed us a mile away till we were into the open ocean, before giving a derisory toot on their foghorn and heading back to Moon Island at about thirty knots. That tug can definitely move, when it is not hauling a cruise ship. I am sure they will get enough custom soon enough, what with the tourist season starting up next month.

A day of tacking and reaching followed, with us slowly zigzagging and beating our way around the Spontoon group heading roughly South-East. Every change of tack needed the sails adjusted; if we added up all the hauling we did in the day the mainsail would be cruising at about 3,000 feet by now. Once we were in open waters there was even more to be done, as the senior crew started asking us to raise other sails and measure how well the ship responded. I could hardly judge how well the Liki-Tiki works compared to its usual schooner rig, but it certainly seemed speedy enough.

It was quite a sight from the rigging as we worked on the topsails sixty feet above the deck, with everything looking very small below. Some things are less than authentic, such as the climbing belt and snap-hooks that we are secured with: in the authentic films one sees sailors walking out on the swaying yards like tight-rope walkers, but a traditional life at sea was noted for its dramatic casualty rate. Still, I can climb rigging as fast as any of the crew, and by the end of the day got into the crow’s nest. That is my idea of a view! It is also the only spot in the rigging where one does not have to concentrate on hanging on tight, and can relax a little to look around.

By sunset the only sight of Spontoon was the peak of Mount Kiribatori on the Northern horizon; my ears blushed at the memory of our climb to that peak. Had things turned out differently on that trip, there would already be a new kitten in the Hoele’toemi family, and it would not be half Siamese.

Although we have no tourists on this trip, the Sturdey Boys are just as bad as any – they are ingenious it is true, having been caught peeking into our bunkrooms at shift change with an inverted periscope; from the deck it looked as if they were simply looking overboard. Their father just laughed and commented “boys will be boys” – which will not be true much longer if they peek at some of the rougher ladies of this crew. I have worn Native costume in front of tourists before, but that was my choice to uncover, and felt perfectly wholesome. Since their father directed “The Case of the Deadly Credenza” Joe and Frank fancy themselves as Detectives and seem to think they have an automatic search warrant on everybody!


Sunday 13th April, 1936

Another full day at sea, with us all getting quite enough exercise to keep our Tutors very happy. It seems the run to Albert Island should be two days, but that is with an average fair wind. It feels as if we have tacked and beaten halfway across the Nimitz Sea to get half-way, which I suppose is a good test for the crew and the new sails. Fifty miles as the ruler on the chart would be just half an hour in even my little Sand Flea, but we are probably sailing over a hundred to get there with the wind as it is.

Unfortunately, film crews do not think in terms of “two days given a following wind”, as they are used to timetabled services and are a long way from their studio with the clock ticking and the wages bills mounting. Mr. Sturdey Senior is pacing the deck impatiently, while our Captain smokes a pipe as placidly as can be, and the Sturdey boys ask everyone “Are we nearly there yet?” about every half hour until the most placid of the crew start to think about keel-hauling and plank-walking. They spend the rest of the time setting “amusing” pranks and chewing gum. That is one bad habit Molly has dropped this year – and even she complains that with a whole ocean four strides away there is no excuse for them to tread it into the deck.

I don’t know what folk do in their home East Coast town of Coveport (not that far from New Haven, Ada tells me) but just because we are ultimately getting paid for their charter trip, does not make us their personal servants or worse. It is nearly as bad as what Jirry tells me of working with Little Shirley Shrine, who at least has the excuse of being famous in her own right and not inheriting influence.

The Meeting Island crew are a fine bunch though, and all of them have years of experience on small boats. Growing up on Spontoon looks a fine thing, what with trees to climb and the sea always in sight. It definitely builds independent and very competent crew, as our Captain never has to give an order twice around here – folk “jump to it” as smartly as any Naval cadets at Dartmouth. A tiring time of it indeed – we have no privacy on board, as even the “bedroom” is an open plan deck with one watch always fast asleep and another coming in to wake them. One cannot really sit and talk there, but there is a forecastle cabin (“Fo’csul head” to the old salts) where we can relax before heading to our hammocks. Considering there are at least twenty more crew than the ship normally carries, we are happy just to have that one luxury. It is a good thing we are only heading for Albert Island and not crossing the Pacific, as I can quite imagine problems with food and water for this number of us. Carmen is looking forward to sampling the ship’s supply of fresh weevils, which I suppose would be an exotic treat to an anteater like her.

Ada and Carmen are particularly looking forward to getting to our destination, as they are rather short of congenial company onboard. I suppose with Miss Morgaine Melson filming on Spontoon, all their friends are on South Island right now trying to catch the Director’s eye. Ada has seen the script, she tells me, and without being at all unsubtle Melson Productions takes a standard Adventure plotline and does with it what that squadron of Handley-Page 400 bombers did to Cologne railway station. The film poster might look quite conventional, as there is a dashing hero, a leading lady cast by Miss Melson (very) personally, and all the usual ingredients. The difference is that pious Missionaries actually do get eaten in this script, the hero spectacularly fails to carry out any rescues and the heroine and the exceedingly slinky villainess – well, one can imagine. As with many films made on Spontoon, there is a version that will pass the American “Hayes Office” censorship and a Pacific and European one that will not, and not just because of the costumes – I expect the European version is an awful lot longer and with plot twists that would send the Hayes Office up in smoke.

I suppose it makes a change, and keeps actors busy: although the plotline does call for a hero and his sidekick, they will not be coming back to star in any sequels. Some studios maintain a small stable of stars, but Melson productions seem to prefer a rapid turnover! Even the leading lady changes over every few films, which keeps Ada ever hopeful.

(Later) Land ho! The sun was setting when Albert Island appeared on the horizon. We were ordered to take in all sails and set the sea anchor a mile out, much to the disgust of the film crew. I heard our Captain telling them the reefs were treacherous, and not even the Natives dared them in the dark with their sailing canoes, let alone with a ship this size. Besides, there is little point in arriving in the middle of the night, as even if the producer loaded the cine cameras with that amazing new infrared film, so much technology would hardly suit a classical Pirate theme.


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