Spontoon Island
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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
25 May, 1936 to 29 May, 1936


Monday 25th May, 1936

A fine day, after the rain! We were joined again in our usual self-defence classes by Mr. Toshiro Finkelstein, that rather odd half Japanese gentleman who is the inventor of "Jude-Jitsu". Beryl was very pleased, as she often gets bored at the simple defensive holds and blocks we are taught. Indeed, this sport is decidedly more … decisive, and half the moves are ones one would definitely not practice at full strength on a friend. He specialises in what they call "Atemi" or going for vulnerable nerve spots, with less caution than the books elsewhere suggest. As our regular instructors point out, one can do severe damage without the trouble of learning judo. Still, as our Tutors point out, we are only liable to need these skills when the opponent is not using competition rules, so they limit their disapproval to making very sure we only use them in genuine defence. It is also a case of using scarce resources as our instructor Finkelstein-sama is leaving this summer to open his own "dojo" on the Japanese mainland. From the commercial atlas I can see Nagasaki is a thriving port with all sorts of international links, and I am sure he will end up with a very bright future there.

Like many of these oriental skills, his style depends far more on speed and agility rather than strength and size, which is probably why Beryl is such a fan. The best of us is Li Han, who has had years of training in something similar – though she is a smaller feline than I am, she can beat me two falls out of three and is an absolute terror on the mats. Which is odd as she is so polite most of the time; as Molly enthuses, with this kind of oriental discipline one can "leave a passer-by looking like a road accident and STILL be into peace and tranquillity". Certainly she managed to flatten Irma Bundt very convincingly, and there is nothing wrong with Irma’s style. Another familiar face we saw on the way back near Pirate’s Cove was our commander of the Easter holidays, Captain Gary, heading towards the dock leading a small cart pulled by two stalwart locals, loaded with supplies. I noticed along with the cases of beans and meat hash, one trial tin of Molly’s own recipe, the "Fish Log" or whatever folk will decide to call it, which has financially saved her bacon. He congratulated us on our recovery and thanked us for the crew’s hard work, and the present we had contributed to in appreciation (we were guided by Molly, who chose for him a Caribbean spiced rum, "El Presidente" brand from the little republic of Tropico.) I had to agree that the waters were getting definitely crowded around Spontoon this time of year, and can quite understand him vanishing for awhile to somewhere quieter. Although I am far from a polished sailor myself, still, even I wince at the sight of some of the tourist sailing yachts veering and lurching around the bay on an afternoon’s hire. The hospital does a busy trade in patching up heads and snouts that got in the way of an unexpectedly swinging boom and the boat hiring firms have to put a lot of shells aside to cope with repairing almost wartime levels of damage. Molly is full of bright ideas these days – having spotted her own product on the cart, she mentioned her next idea as a canned "cheeseburger", a dish of doubtful pedigree that the Captain had commented missing afloat. Heaven alone knows why; I have smelled them being sold to tourists from the Americas – give me Popatohi any day. I think I will be on a diet the week she invites volunteers for testing that one.

Tuesday 26th May, 1936

Definitely it is that time of year again, as the first posters are going up about this year’s Schneider Trophy. Of course the final "Speed week" is not till August, but some of the teams arrive months early to fine-tune their machines and learn the course. I should think that explains an awful lot about these islands having far more advanced facilities than anyone would expect: Not just Superior Engineering but many of the smaller concerns are tasked with working on absolutely world-class aircraft. One gets the impression that local mechanics are less than fussy about patent rights, and any outstanding new features may not stay secret for long. Possibly the "Sea Flea" has a rather mixed ancestry, despite performing like a true thoroughbred. Having the wind tunnel in operation will be a big boost to the races, as teams can test variations without having to send back to their home factories to do the work. This is just as well, since it must have taken a lot of money to construct, and whatever folk used it for on those dark winter nights will probably not raise a profit in commercial terms. I am sure having Schneider races here is a big boost to disguising whatever folk do when no Euros are watching; otherwise it would not take a particularly bright spy to wonder what a tourist island chain is doing with a tunnel where the instruments go to five hundred miles an hour.

Our third-year chum Zara surfaced briefly from her revision to tell us she hopes to stay on to see the races – it will be the first time Albania has competed, and naturally she wants to cheer her home team. She wistfully mentions there might be royal patronage – although her King Zog might not come out this far, his fashionable younger sisters (surprisingly, they are semi-officially known as the "Zogettes") * may stop in on the way to visiting their colonies of the Albanian South Indies. It is amazing how the right statistics can be made to look impressive – as Zara boasts, the Zogist Empire now is actually bigger than Europe – pity it consists only of several score coral atolls with a population about the same as Casino Island, minus all the attractions. Well – in just a year we will be in her shoes, preparing for the final tests and then to say farewell. At least, Maria will be saying farewell – Helen is staying if she can, and as for Molly and myself – we have a year to see what develops. Being at Songmark is starting to feel like an ocean liner cruise (Molly says more like a Roman galley "cruise" with us doing the rowing) with competent officers and crew steering us safely. One day – they will get us to where we paid to go, and leave us on the shore.

Some third-years are going to be landing on a rather less relaxing shore than others. Carmen is heading back to help her family in Spain as soon as she graduates: the Spanish are having some turbulent times right now with various Reds and Anarchists. No doubt it will all blow over by the time she gets there; I hope she is not too disappointed at missing the fun. She says she wants to make a name for herself but hopefully not one too similar to some of her revered ancestors; Spanish hidalgo families are very proud of their history, even if it does include famous names such as ‘Pedro The Cruel’ and ‘Francesca, Butcher of La Paz’. Mind you, with her high social standards she would feel far worse if her ancestress actually was a market butcher rather than the red-clawed scourge of heathens and heretics.

It looks as if Europe is getting to be a decidedly stressful place this year – Maria blames the League of Nations, but then she tends to do that for most things. I am not sure if Spontoon is in the League, even included under Rain Island’s membership. One hears of them operating sinister black airships and flying boats – at least if one reads pulp comics. I rather doubt it myself – they have no military muscle to enforce anything, and about the worse they can do to an erring member is to throw them out, after which the exiles can carry on without having to listen to the complaints. I wish Maria would have some words with her Uncle about his ideas for Ethiopia, where he is being rather unsporting with the Natives. Surely Italy has enough sand and sun of its own in North Africa without wanting to annexe more? Plus they will have to clean the mustard-gas off the scenery before any tourists are likely to visit
.
* (Editor’s note: it’s a fact. King Zog and the "Zogettes" were a real royal family, not a band.)

Wednesday 27 th May, 1936

It was too good to last: the first-years are back, looking rather windblown but very pleased with themselves after their adventures in the Kanim Islands. Everyone has survived fairly intact, though there are a few bandages to be seen – although from the enthusiasm with which they dived at the very ordinary evening meal, they have not exactly managed to stuff themselves with local produce. Twelve days of drinking brackish water and eating whatever shellfish they managed to outwit, definitely generates an appetite.

Poor Hannah – at least when my class did that trip last year there was plenty of vegetable food to be found on Gunboat Island – but although there was quite a harvest of clams and other shellfish on the smaller Kanim Islands, that is one class of food she is simply not allowed to eat. When Saffina managed to spear a conger eel Hannah had to refuse it, pointing out it does not have scales, and even fish have to have both fins and scales to be good enough for her. It is not as if she even wanted to eat the scales.

Ada is very sympathetic, and confided that although strictly speaking she was allowed to eat them rather than starve to death, a training exercise does not count as a good enough excuse, in that nobody is liable to perish of hunger in twelve days. One never sees missionaries of her religion, and round here I can understand why.

It was quite something to see folk turning in all the equipment they had signed for – or desperately trying to explain what happened to it. In all the adventure yarns, folk get by with whatever they have in their pockets, and though the Songmark costume has generous pockets we try to be rather better prepared. These days we definitely laugh at some of the stories, with square-jawed heroes setting out to cross continents carrying only a gun and a change of underwear (and in some of them, when the ammunition is used up they become far more dangerous to meet.) Madelene X complained to out Tutors that they were getting soft, allowing the first-years all this equipment when we only had aircraft survival kits last year. Miss Wildford smiled sweetly and pointed out that we only had seven nights out and not twelve, on an island with plenty of fresh water and edible plants growing wild (unlike the Kanim atolls). She also assigned Madelene an extra two nights of gate duty starting immediately, just to reassure her how soft they really are. Of course, we are back on gate duty tonight, and just my luck to have Madelene X as partner. She is in a worse temper than usual, her nose covered in calamine lotion after getting sunburn there: it is a very pink nose and her fine muzzle fur lets a lot of sunlight through. I recommended the much-advertised local patent medicine "Snouto for immediate snout relief" but having a blistered nose never stops her turning it up at local produce. We often wonder just why she chose to come here in the first place; although she will no doubt graduate very comfortably in terms of marks, the only things she has approved of yet she could have stayed home to enjoy. Every time we point out a feature of local life, she can find a reason why it is inferior or simply wrong and should be done away with.

Although I hate to be uncharitable, I can see what Prad Phao meant when he complained about his colonial "oppressors" in French Indo-China. Madelene does boast that all the colonies in her empire are represented in the Paris parliament with equally valuable places as any mainland "department" – which is nice but in practice means they get outvoted on everything. Saffina’s homeland of Ubangi-Chari is nearly the size of France but has just one seat in Paris, the same as little mountain "departments" thirty miles across and mostly inhabited by mountain goats and glaciers.

I hope Phao is doing well – I will never look at a Siamese again in quite the same way, especially not a kitten. Things could have turned out better or worse than they did, I suppose – had I not gone to sea but stayed on South Island with Helen, I would still be enjoying poi and looking forward to a kitten for Christmas, almost certainly at the at the cost of my Songmark career. On the other paw, something unfortunate might have happened anyway, after I had already been expelled here and disowned at home – talk about paying for one’s cake and not eating it! Things could certainly have been worse.

One good thing about having to stay up late on gate duty is we have a chance to listen to the short-wave broadcasts from home. What with the clocks being on Summer Time back in England, we are an hour later here than usual – so the lunchtime news only gets here at one in the morning Spontoon time. Things do go on without me – strikes, floods and the cricket rained off except when the Australians beat us (Australian Rules cricket is certainly an exciting variant, but can put pounds on one’s life insurance premium and years off one’s life expectancy). It is rather alarming that it seems so distant now – the first year I was here, I eagerly scanned every airmailed newspaper down to the advertisements and listened to every BBC announcement Mr. Joyce made. Madelene, not surprisingly, is still doing much the same. She pooh-poohs our worries about Europe, pointing out France is invulnerably shielding the rest of Europe with its Maginot Line that can withstand anything. Perfectly logical in its way – as the Great War was won with trenches, start off with the ultimate in prepared trench systems and one gains years’ worth of advantages. It is certainly impressive, and it covers every metre save where the terrain is so rough any invading army will have to lob its tanks over the mountains with catapults to get them across. As she says, a whole General Staff can’t be wrong.

Thursday 28th May, 1936

It is surprising what one’s friends come up with – Jasbir Sind has always been keen on dancing at the Coconut Grove, but our Tutors have officially always told her no. No surprises there. I hardly expected Jasbir to be the one to get a whole bundle of identification papers for herself in a different name, right down to birth certificate and the like! These are not from Macao either – it makes my own "second face" look rather flimsy with having just a passport. I am definitely NOT going to carry that "hunting license" around with me, although it is in Kim-Anh’s name. I need no identification on Spontoon, and the license would be pure trouble to any authorities elsewhere, as well as being awfully embarrassing even if it does refer to a certain half-Siamese whom I have sometimes seen in the mirror.

Of course, Jasbir is a wealthy and determined girl, and that can get an awful lot done. She has friends in the Coconut Grove, and it seems that show business often needs to make quiet arrangements to travel – "the show must go on" as they say, and they have friends who have friends with printing presses and a selection of blank papers that Beryl would kill for. Since Molly found some honest income of her own, my own allowance has been available to spend on other things. The trouble is, in my situation that could stop any time – though if it does, having some convincing travel documents might be a good investment. I will definitely talk this one over with Molly and Helen. Maria is justifiably proud of who she is, and even now is not greatly into subtlety. A bull in a china shop is proverbially a bad employee, whether female or otherwise. Actually, now would be a good time for getting anything we need to do past our tutors, who are concentrating on getting the third-years ready for their final tests. What with that and the first-years at their maximum potential for trouble (having learned a lot of skills but not how to behave with them) we are as free of pressures as we have ever been, or expect to be at Songmark. One advantage is that we spend a lot of time out of the classrooms and in the air: my little Sand Flea is in the air every day, and we are all getting in useful hours of flying time for our logbooks. All except Irma Bundt and Missy K, who have grave difficulty in fitting into the cockpit; the difference between them is that Irma sorely regrets it. The memory of watching my poor Sand Flea take over half of the Eastern Island runway to get off the ground carrying Irma on her first attempt is one that still makes my fur rise, as it hopped and bounced with the end of the strip looming up seconds away from a crash. I am sure the only thing that let it leave the ground was losing the few pounds of fuel used along the runway!

Although she fits the cockpit perfectly well, one could almost hear Madelene X grinding her teeth before deigning to fly it – Flying Fleas being a French idea, she would never live it down if she refused to champion it at least in theory.

I must say, Adele Beasley is an absolute genius in the air; she rather reminds one of a seabird in flight – but is equally clumsy on the ground. She is awfully distracted for some reason these days, but in that dorm there is nobody to confide in. Oddly enough, although she does talk a lot with Wo Shin, I would hardly say they are friends, the way Saffina is with us. The third-years are heading out themselves next week, for what looks like the severest test yet; part of it involves a week on a completely deserted coral atoll in the Hundred Keys group, with almost no water or equipment. I remember last year hearing from the Noenokes about life on a raft, with the only water being rain or what one can "extract" from caught fish. One certainly hopes they are good at fishing by now.

Friday 29th May, 1936

A day of celebration indeed – 5 years ago Songmark opened its doors to the first classes! We had hoped for some sort of celebration, or at least the afternoon off – but our Tutors are as brisk and keen as ever. They do not talk much about the early years, and indeed one gets the impression they made mistakes they learned from. In fact, Mrs. Hoele’toemi has mentioned the school was planned to set up the Autumn before, but ran into financial difficulties. I recall that one of the early backers took off with the funds, literally, and was never seen again.

This might explain why the term started at such an odd time of year. A lot of students come here in rushed circumstances, and it is the lucky few who plan it to finish their regular education to fit with what follows. I would have had a last term at St. Winifred’s had I not had that unfortunate crash-landing, and Beryl would be graduating from Saint T’s this year if not for her misfortune of being found innocent of a criminal record.

Beryl says that Songmark is viewed as something like a more respectable asylum, where incurable members of the family are packed off to where they will not scandalise the neighbours. Just the sort of thing Beryl would say. And then again, it might have a grain of truth in it – if not for Songmark I might be trying to pester my way into the Air Force by now, having had differences with a Finishing School or two.


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