A busy week! Today we managed to spare an hour to look through the Songmark collection of field trip reports, some of them dating back to the first years. I will try to ask Conchita before she goes, as to what happened on the trip with the Tanoahos in our first Easter holiday.

Unfortunately our Tutors seem to be very unwilling to let Songmark girls go to Cranium Island on regular trips; there was only one other expedition and that was Spring 1932 involving the original class. It was rather a shock to look at the signatures on the reports and spot the name Letitia Fosbury-Smythe, whose name is well known to Interpol these days. She had such neat writing, hardly what one would expect from a nascent Pirate. From reading her public file I had rather a shock, she went to a respectable public school not far from me, the famous Irvine Towers! How on earth someone can go from a healthy life of sports and good comradeship to what she does, I cannot imagine. Letitia’s report has a rough sketch map and some markings on a high-altitude photograph showing their route. The island is heavily forested with steep volcanic cones and several craters, with high cliffs and caves everywhere (lava tubes, I should have thought.) She mentions seeing odd lights and hearing mechanical noises in the distance, but they did not go far into the interior. The geology of the island is in two main parts, one a fresh-looking volcanic zone and the other an ancient, rounded and worn landscape that "had the appearance of being thrust up from endless aeons beneath the concealing waters still capped with brooding ruins of cyclopean masonry" as one lurid part of the report has it. The area between the two different parts is where the Tanoahos found all that uranium ore, and possibly we can use our geology training to spot something more valuable.

One of the first-years was very helpful, a mixed-breed canine called Jane Ferry who is always to be found haunting Songmark’s small but rather specialised library and knows exactly where everything is indexed. Very few of us are the bookish type, this place being what it is, but Jane’s family made all their money in publishing. She hails from Arkham, New England, but boasts her family’s presses fill the news-stands with the widest range of literature imaginable. When they have exhausted all the imaginable stories, she says they conduct interviews with folk normally confined to rubber-walled rooms and work up some unimaginable ones.

I remember last year Ethyl and Methyl arguing about pulp magazines such as "Weird Tails" but it seems there are hundreds of titles and every publishing house tries to find new untapped audiences. Her own family produce some surprising pulps, not only believable ones such as "Two-Fisted Hotel Detective Action" but "Exciting Delivery-Boy Mysteries", "Spicy Stenography Tales" and "All-Action Book-keepers Go West." They certainly seem to fly off the shelves by her account, and one can imagine the curious picking up a copy of "Plumbing Romance" just to see how they fill the issues. All these are of course weekly, and every copy sold of "Lift-Boy True Confessions" helps pay Jane’s Songmark bills.

With Cranium Island in mind, I asked if they produced anything on the lines of "Mad Scientist Sorority Girls" which could help us get a feel for the idea. Her ears went right up in delight, and though she had to disappoint me this month she thanked me for the idea and promised to write home about it in her next letter. One imagines in a few weeks the pool of impoverished writers living in rooming-house attics across America will be putting pen to paper on the project. Jane tells me that although her family does not print the official "Weird Tails" there is such a demand for strange and outré stories now that they are talking with their lawyers about printing a rival collection titled "At Least 30 % Weirder Tails."

Thinking of newspapers, it was fascinating to lay out the two versions of today’s "Daily Elele" and compare the differences. In the English version, this Father Dominicus is sent out by the Vatican to help the faithful keep in touch and promote international understanding. This is probably true from his point of view, but the Spontoonie version is rather blunter. Father Dominicus happily accepts the offer of a new and larger building plot offered by the Althing on Casino Island, but maintains that a Church is a Church forever unless de-consecrated, something he stoutly forbids on the old South Island building. Even if the wooden one burned down, the site remains a place of worship until formally "written-off." I think this tale will keep the local newspapers busy for awhile.

Beryl dropped in and suggested Maria think of some good slogans for the struggle to keep the Chapel of the Sacred Heart on South Island; considering Il Puce seems to govern by slogans and posters it is surprising she has not thought of it earlier. Beryl suggested "South Island – don’t be Heart-less" which I could see Maria mulling over trying to work out the trap in it. Anything Beryl hands you free normally has strings attached, and occasionally electric wires.

On the same lines, the Spontoonie edition has a festival announced this weekend for dedicating that big Tiki statue we worked on at the tip of Main Island, Mr. Tikitavi’s portrayal of "Tonnobe’wai’hapa" tilting her great bowl out to the North-West to watch the aircraft pass over her. After our hard work on the concreting, it would be quite something to see!

Unfortunately we already have our exam timetable for this month, and are starting cramming for it. Having our dance classes on Saturday and our religious instruction taking up Sunday rather eats into what free time we have, in terms of doing our homework. As Miss Devinski says, we are still quite capable of failing our exams, though nobody hopes to find that out the hard way.
 

Friday 3rd July, 1936

Quite a day for aircraft-spotting, with the main German team arriving and setting up their racing aircraft. They seem to be taking a leaf out of our book, not building a dedicated racing machine but putting a prototype fighter on floats. This is the first time we have seen the Messerschmitt 109, and indeed it was only announced last year. It does look a most determined fighter, though the land version is said to be awfully unforgiving to land with its narrow undercarriage and rather poor view from the cockpit. Floatplanes are certainly the way to go, unless one happens to be in the middle of Europe.

The Italians are not to be out-done, they have brought a new version of their hydrofoil Pegni seaplane, the one that sits so low in the water it looks as if it has sunk! In fact they have a tender with a flag saying in Italian something like "Do not rescue, this is how I’m meant to look." Or so Maria translates it. They will have to get an English version of that printed, as the tender was frantically waving off that big twin-engined rescue boat that came roaring across the main lagoon at thirty knots, and might have actually swamped what it thought needed saving.

By the published schedule, the British team is already on the way, hurrah! The Americans certainly are; they are staging via Hawaii, and most of the other national teams are due in the next two weeks. South Island is certainly filling up with interesting people, and from what our third-years report Mahanish’s is doing a roaring trade and is taking on twice the staff. What with tourist season already at its height, there are some unfamiliar faces in Native costume – beaks rather, as some inhabitants of Orpington Island have come over to work in the busy period. I looked around but did not recognise any of the ducks we met from our trip over there.

Our dear Tutors are sometimes merciful; the senior class has the whole weekend off. After their exploits in Alaska and all the writing-up, they certainly deserve a break. Of course, this may be about the last chance they will get to have fun in the islands, as they are in their final month as Songmark students. It hardly seems a year since we waved farewell to Erica, Daphne and Noota; in a year’s time Red Dorm and the rest will be celebrating waving goodbye to us! Quite a chilling prospect in a way. Maria at least will be leaving us, unless her Uncle suddenly comes up with radical changes in his plans.

Although all the teams bring their own mechanics they can hardly bring complete workshops with them and all the Eastern Island facilities are pressed into service. It is a poor prospect for regular customers wanting anything done at Superior Engineering, who are rushed off their paws with high prestige jobs for our guests and will be till the end of August. I suppose one advantage of Spontoon not fielding its own national team is it is trusted to be impartial; nobody is expecting any of our mechanics to drop a pinch of iron filings in their white metal engine bearings on the orders of the Althing. Whether other teams might bribe them to do so is another matter, but I am sure it all adds to the excitement.

Susan de Ruiz is decidedly in the dumps, with the news from Spain of Reds and anarchists taking over about half the country. Of course this means there will be no Spanish entry at the races this year; any high-performance aircraft will be rather too busy at the front. Considering it is a Civil War, there would be a dispute over which "government" would send the team, and I am sure if more than one side did they would immediately open a Pacific Front on discovering the enemy over here. Not something I think the Tourist Board would appreciate.

(Later) It is a good test of character, I suppose, to have to stick around all evening on gate duty while the entire third year head out in their party dresses towards Mahanish’s for the evening and probably longer. Molly was on with me, looking suitably ferocious. It is a rather silly idea, her standing guard with saw-backed bayonet fixed to my T-Gew rifle; Miss Devinski raised an eyebrow when she saw it, but I promised her I was carrying all the rounds and had not let Molly load it. After having such a wrinkled snout about our "adventures" with the Moro pirates she seems to have relaxed slightly about us, providing we stay together. As she said, she trusts Molly to hit a target but trusts me to decide what the target should be. Anyway, Molly looks suitably ferocious with six and a half feet of rifle topped with an excessive quantity of cold steel; definitely the most carefree or drunken tourists needs no further warning about "No trespassing."

I suppose that being half of a trusted team is better than nothing – certainly nobody trusts Beryl with a burned-out match. Although she certainly learns, I fear it is just a matter of her learning more rather than learning better. Beryl claims that contrary to popular opinion she does know right from wrong; just that other people have a different view of which way round it goes. Just like the tourist we saw crashing a rented car last week, having seen so few other vehicles on Eastern Island he had not noticed we drive on the left here, being an ex-British governed island an awfully long way from Europe. Some folk had better stick with self-drive rickshaws, they are less of a menace.
 

Saturday 4th July, 1936

Helen and Maria had two things to celebrate today, one of them being the arrival of the American Schneider Trophy team. They arrived in quite a formation, six shiny new DC-3 transports full of their staff and the dismantled aircraft they wasted no time in bundling off to the hangars under watchful guard. Although the police normally discourage folk from going around armed (much to Molly’s disgust) they make an exception for serving officers’ sidearms, though they have to register and fire a testing round at the Customs range to give them a ballistics "fingerprint" in case they are used in any crimes.

The Italians and Germans have their racing aircraft already assembled and as soon as the Americans were landed they took off for an impromptu display. Well, most of them did: the Pegni made a great start, rising up on its hydrofoils driven by its propeller; unfortunately the tricky bit comes when the pilot has to declutch the water drive and start the airscrew while travelling at high speed. As I consoled Maria, he has six weeks to practice it, and they surely have plenty of pare airscrews with them. In the meantime it looks very impressive as a hydrofoil.

The Olympics newsreels are still coming in on every flight from Europe, five days by the fastest route (Germany to Norway and Spitzbergen by the fast new Heinkel 111 mail planes, then Caproni Ca60 over the pole to Alaska and various seaplane routes from there.) Local presses are busy with printing posters from contact sheets, and the Spontoon bronze medallist Knut Erikssen is a familiar sight on many a school and public building display board as an inspiration. Beryl says he would be a lot more inspiring if the Olympics were done in absolutely authentic Classical style, where the competitors were entirely bare furred. Mr. Erikssen is a very handsome and athletic young otter, to be sure. It is a pity that in the original games ladies were forbidden to watch, but I am sure the newsreels would have got out somehow.

It is surprising how much of a classical education Saint T’s seems to provide, in a rather lop-sided way. Our ex-schoolgirl is well versed in many of the surprising things the ancients got up to, and I recall being told the Saint T’s games mistress was advertising for instructors in original Olympic sports that have yet to be revived. "Pankration" is one of them, which by Beryl’s fond recollections is more like no-holds-barred street fighting with the classical rawhide equivalent of brass knuckles. Given the rather martial tone of the Berlin games, it is surprising they were left out.

The original games also had an "Armour Race" where warriors sprinted across a rough course dressed in full fighting equipment; I suppose these days so many millions of people are doing much the same that it is rather redundant to have it as an Olympic event. Still, it would be nice for the first three in the team to win medals rather than the last three to get shouted at by their Sergeants.

Apart from our dance classes, we had to knuckle down all the rest of the day and get to work revising for next week’s tests. A splendid summer’s day with the Schneider Trophy aircraft wheeling above us, and we had to lock ourselves away in the classrooms and do trigonometry till our whiskers drooped. I must say, Helen has taken to even the dullest work with a most encouragingly grim determination this past year. Not even our Tutors claim we have to enjoy this side of the course (except for Susan de Ruiz, who doodles equations and finds some of them funny) but it all needs doing. Sometimes I envy Susan, who thinks in Math the way I think in English, rather than having to work at it as a foreign language. It is quite impressive the way she can sit down in a crowded room for an hour and run "Monte Carlo simulations" in her head; I remember someone asked if they would be useful at the Casino but apparently it is quite different. Susan explained once, but most folk who tried to understand it mentally seized up like an engine whose oil is full of sand.

Molly was determined to have some fireworks today, and shows us what she has been using in her engineering classes on a Friday. Cutting large timbers is difficult without powerful saws or a lot of effort, but modern chemistry has provided some alarmingly effective solutions. She asked permission of our Tutors to demonstrate in the middle of the compound after dusk, and achieved her lifetime ambition of setting things on fire in Songmark and getting away with it. The timbers were rotten with termites, but she demonstrated a harmless-looking silvery jelly that burned through them in minutes, being a jelled form of high octane petrol delicately blended with fine aluminium dust. She says in her homeland their Constitution says the citizens have as much right to bear arms as the Government; this might have been well enough when folk had swords and muskets but nowadays folk have flame-throwers and mustard gas as well. Their President, Mr. Huey Long, is doing nothing to discourage the trend.

Bonfires are meant to be cheerful occasions, and she certainly seemed to enjoy it. I must have a word about her laugh when she sets things on fire; some people might find it just a little disturbing. One wonders if Mabel’s finishing school advises on the correct elocution in those circumstances?
 

Sunday 5th July, 1936

Just when everyone is eagerly scanning the skies for aircraft, we had something else dropping in just before dawn. Last year the Japanese showered these islands with balloons carrying samples of preserved fruits, but half of them fell in the lagoons. This year they seem to have sent just twenty large ones, and all but two landed on Main Island! It is quite a feat, as they are said to reach forty thousand feet where weather balloons are suddenly picked up and grabbed by extreme winds hardly detectable from the ground. The Daily Elele is running a light-hearted contest for people to phone in and say exactly where they touched down, so they can plot it on a map.

Although Japan is not competing this year in the Schneider Trophy, it is a nice touch to have their aircraft industry drop their calling cards on us like this. Four days of solo flight through the stratosphere with only automatic instruments is rather a feat – and their timing is good, with all the aviation journalists arriving and keen to write up the story. Having the balloons land at dawn even cuts down the hazards with them flying into the air traffic routes (powered aircraft give way to gliders, gliders to airships, airships to balloons.) Still, they have demonstrated they can land a whole swarm of load-carrying balloons almost right on target in good conditions; it may be cheaper than manned aircraft one day as there is no airport required. Apart from picking the containers off the ground it would be quite a secure means of travel, as at forty thousand feet one could float them right across Ioseph Starling’s Russia and be far above any practicable fighter or air pirate. At night nobody would even know they were on the way.

As usual, I headed out with Saffina and Helen to South Island for our religious instruction. We are definitely concentrating on what one might call spiritual self-defence; the impression one gets is the area around the "fragments" is rather like a spiritual chemical spill, and we are learning to put on our respirators and anti-gas capes. Saffina warns us that actually dealing with the fragments themselves is liable to be miles beyond us, and quite possibly beyond her as well. But it has to be done, unless there was a way of permanently taking it out of the Nimitz Sea area. A nice idea, but who would want a thing like that? Whatever it turns out to be.

We had rather a surprise in that the next stop was Crater Lake, where someone had carried a light canoe up from the river (boats are not allowed on the lake normally.) The four of us had charts of the lake, and Saimmi put us to a surprising test – without discussing it with each other, to try and feel just where the thing lies. We quartered that lake quite thoroughly, sometimes stopping to close our eyes as if it was a spiritualist séance – and over in one corner I had the most peculiar sensation. It was decidedly "spooky" indeed – rather like the unclean sensation when one’s fur is completely clogged with mud. On comparing notes, we all agreed that was the spot, something that Saimmi confirmed.

Looking down over the side, the waters are very clear but plunge right down out of sight. Crater Lake is like a lift shaft, with almost vertical walls that go all the way and almost nothing in terms of beaches on three sides. One gets the impression that whatever was thrown down there was meant to stay there permanently.

Our tails were drooping as we had to decline Saimmi’s offer of an evening meal with the family; we had to get back and busy with the textbooks for next week. I had a rather bleak vision of our empty places at the Hoele’toemi table, with Marti and Jirry having expected us. Definitely, a Songmark career is not all solo flights in the sunshine.

(Later) It appears that an excellent meal is not all I missed; Miss Devinski called me in and asked me if I know a retired Major Hawkins, who was asking after me by name at the gate. I cannot recall him as one of Father’s friends, but no doubt I have been introduced to dozens over the years who vanished off the map. I could well believe meeting him when I was a kitten; our family moved around so much.

Actually it was a great relief I was not being called to the carpet about Molly’s latest fashion accessory. She has managed to "acquire" an inert training rifle grenade, and half an hour in the workshops made an adapter for my T-Gew rifle. Having her on gate duty certainly puts over the right impression, I would have thought – and to my surprise our Tutors have not really complained about it. Molly’s only complaint is she cannot fit both that and the bayonet.
 

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