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

"Nut Farm"

(Being the fifteenth adventure of Amelia Bourne-Phipps, who is doing her best to get some commercial flying experience before starting her final year at the Songmark Aeronautical Boarding School for Young Ladies, on Spontoon Island. The Albanian South Indies beckon!)


Thursday September 7th, 1936

This is my last night on Spontoon for awhile – tomorrow I take off as co-pilot and navigator on a strange colonisation mission – about the first time a colony has been established from the air. By all accounts King Zog has claimed more uninhabited atolls than he can find people to settle on (some of them are not only uninhabited but uninhabitable, one fears) and selling a 99-year lease to one of them to some American religious folk probably seemed a good idea at the time to all concerned.

This morning I met my flight crew, all familiar snouts, which is good as far as that goes.

But my ears and tail went right down when I saw who I will be sharing this trip with – Zara, who is a logical choice as liaison with the Zogist Empire, and Brigit Mulvaney, who is not.

I think we are going to have some trouble with Miss Mulvaney. If she had retractable claws hers would have popped out all the way when she saw me approaching, and I doubt that the Gaelic words she used were a traditional folk greeting, despite what she turned around and sweetly explained to Mr. Johnson our employer. Brigit is employed as supercargo, having (she says) experience in swiftly packing and unpacking cargoes. I doubt most of that was gained as part of any activities our Tutors would really approve of; rumour has it most of her family are currently behind bars for smuggling.

She should at least have plenty to keep her busy; just as we finished cordially shaking paws in front of Mr. Johnson a runner arrived to tell him the ship with his co-religionists had been spotted off Main Island. We carried on the handshake till she whimpered and called pax; even without using claws (which would be cheating) I have had the advantage of a year’s training over her and all this rock-climbing improves one’s grip strength wonderfully.

Zara is chief pilot, and she at least is in a good mood about landing this contract. It is the worst possible commercial deal for a skilled pilot; low pay and long trips, with very little help available if things go wrong and little chance of any entertainment or relaxation. Still, Zara wants to go where we are headed, and being the first ever Songmark girl to fail her final year (there are no re-sits or second chances for the finals) she is glad of the work at any price. Exactly how she failed I have no idea, and our Tutors have not even officially said she is the one. I may find out by the time I see Spontoon again.

She took me down to see our transport, and my tail sank; the basic aircraft is sound but it is hardly a China Clipper. I had never read of anybody putting a Handley-Page Clive transport aircraft on floats; evidently this is someone’s idea of a home conversion. The aircraft floats on water and flies well enough to get here from Rain Island (empty) but it was never designed for floats and how well it will handle full of cargo is anyone’s guess. Zara and I are suddenly in charge of passengers, and if anything happens to the aircraft it is our responsibility. I can quite understand why nobody else wanted to take this flight. A home conversion of a prototype is just asking for trouble.

The afternoon was taken up with swarming over the Clive, being somewhat reassured by its condition. The engines are in good condition and of a pattern I am quite familiar with, although the tool kit is rather sparse for this trip and we will be a long way from any spare parts or workshop facilities. (Fortunately the aircraft is in Imperial and not Metric sizes so I can bring my own kit to add to it tomorrow.) Sleeve-valve engines are reported to be hard to work on, but we have taken some test ones apart and reassembled to running order at Superior Engineering often enough that they should be no special challenge.

I had to warn Brigit that smuggling in any alcohol would be absolutely frowned on for this trip; there is hardly a bartender on Casino Island who will serve her, and where we are going to the Albanians are reputedly strictly “dry” as well. I relieved her of an empty container of “Windscreen de-icer” that she swore she was taking ashore to have washed and re-filled in accordance with flight regulations. Well I am sure she was; but as we will not need de-icer in the tropics, I doubt it was de-icing liquid she planned to fill it with. Tatiana has mentioned pilots in her homeland are issued with industrial spirit for the job, though how much ends up on the windscreen is anyone’s guess.

It was rather a sad return to South Island, like ending the holiday early. I do need the flight experience and could use the money, but another two weeks of “holiday” would probably not be spent idly sitting on the beach. We have not seen Mr. Sapohatan for awhile, and doubtless he will think of something for Helen to do, along with Maria and Molly if the job is suitable. There are jobs one needs a watchmaker’s screwdriver for and jobs that need a large hammer; Molly is definitely of the hammer persuasion.

Helen says the islands are starting to fill up with new Songmark girls already; at least she has seen Beryl in her full official blazer giving unofficial guided tours of the island to some fresh new faces. I doubt these tours are for free. There is the little issue of anyone who listens to Beryl taking half a term working out which bits of the information are actually true. By all accounts Beryl has a “special preview” of Things You Need To Know About Songmark that she is offering to lend for ten shells apiece (and to retrieve the day before term starts, “so the Tutors don’t find out about your head start.” Oh yes, and for good reason.)

Maria laid paws on a copy and has curiously mixed feelings about it, where I might have thought she would drop it off at Miss Devinski on sight. She has a good memory and recounted some of the actually useful facts as follows:
     Fact 14: You will never carry enough toilet paper, or manage to keep it dry. However hard you try.
     Fact 21: Every ”educational” trip is much tougher than the Tutors will tell you in the briefings.
         A: And it will hurt a LOT more.
         B: And you will carry far more than you ever wanted to.
         C: And there will be more and deeper mud/soft sand/snow than you expected.
     Fact 33: If you calculate your Songmark bills per term, compare it with a good full-board hotel and then complain about the difference in the food for the price, you will discover you have wasted your time.

All well and good, but she also includes a few little land-mines scattered around the text
such as:
     Fact 7: The native respectful greeting is “Watohi nandan bo hotopaca!” (If a girl says this in some of the waterfront dives she is suddenly liable to be very busy and very popular, though probably not in the way she expected. We had better warn people about this before they find out the hard way.)
     Fact 29: If a Native bows to you, it means he or she wants you to rub their head for good luck.
     Fact 32: The Spontoonie National Anthem is “Allthings Bright And Beautiful” (see back page for local lyrics), which first-years are obliged to sing before sitting down to eat. Practicing in groups beforehand is strongly recommended.

I expect Beryl is responsible for some of those small advertisements one sees in the back of newspapers offering miracle cures: generally saying “Are you Gullible? Send for our 30-day trial self-improvement course, just one penny for the first day, tuppence the second and so on!” * I know for a fact she has been selling people blocks of shares that are perfectly legal but mostly valuable as wallpaper – those Imperial Russian Railway Stocks might indeed be worth what she says they are, the day the Tsar gets back in power. Her motto is “you must speculate to accumulate” which is fair enough but other folk do the speculating while she does the accumulating. Good business practice, as she would say.

One final evening was spent comfortably dressed under the palm trees of the Hoele’toemi compound, sharing a Nootnops Blue with Helen, Molly, Maria, Saffina and the family. At least when we headed out to Cranium Island I was embarking with good company I could trust my life with, whatever the danger. This trip – well, I am feeling underpaid already.


* Editor’s note: at 240 pennies to the pound the last instalment alone of a 30-day course costs £2,223,962 one shilling and twopence, which was a lot of money in those days. One assumes all sales are final.


Friday September 9th, 1936

(Rough position: 700 miles SW of Big Island, Hawaii.)
Dear Diary – I am writing perched on two large sacks of rice which are about as much comfort as this aircraft has to offer. It was built as a military transport with no pretence at airline levels of comfort for passengers or crew; the seats are plain canvas strap type and my tail felt like it had a knot in it after the first two hours.

I arrived with my kitbag and flying suit first thing, to find the aircraft already full of passengers who had spent the night in the fuselage. I knew they had arrived yesterday, but anyone might expect folk to put up in a hotel overnight. Not so; high-season tariff hotel beds for 20 are quite out of the question given the budget of this exodus, and Mr. Johnson was unwilling to expose his family to the evils of Casino Island. I can well believe his assertion that his former homeland Utah will never have anything like a casino this century; living in a desert they are not going to get any tourist customers and with a population opposed to gambling and such levity there is no local market either. You would need air-conditioning in every building in town to attract tourists out into that sort of desert, and obviously that will never pay.

Anyway. it made Brigit’s job rather harder as she had to order everyone out and stand on the dockside while she worked out how to pack and balance the aircraft. This would be hard enough if we were familiar with the Clive (Clive-on-Sea as one of the dockside wits called our ship) but the best she could do was to look at how it sat in the water totally empty, then start loading on the centre of gravity and work outwards each way. To her credit, she did a decent job of it and by ten announced the passengers could start boarding, and we could file our flight plans with the tower.

Zara wanted a fully laden test flight around Main Island and back, to get the feel of the controls and try a landing where there are crash-boats and a repair facility in case the worst happens. But Mr. Johnson refused, tapping the contract we had signed and insisting she paid for the extra fuel herself for any such extravagance. My own ears drooped at that; instead the entire party had an impromptu prayer meeting on the dock before boarding, which is intended to have the same results more economically. Saimmi has told us about various spirits, but she has never suggested they are interchangeable with petroleum spirit when one is a hundred miles from land with a stiff head-wind.

To be honest, I would be happier with a plane full of Ioseph Starling’s henchmen if they were applying ruthless efficiency rather than faith to the planned route. Nobody ever found a trace of that Christian Scientist round-the-world flyer, the one who was last seen taking off last year shaking with malaria and with an engine that any Songmark First-year would have improved with an hour’s servicing, but I felt it quite the wrong time to remind folk of that. The Customer may be always right in a grocery store, but buying the wrong brand of cocoa rarely results in the customers perishing in the middle of the trackless Pacific and being eaten by sharks (except of course for my pal Mabel’s cousins, but that’s quite another story.)

Whatever Zara failed on in her Songmark course, it was not on the piloting exams: she got us on the step in half a mile and inside a mile the laden Clive was airborne, the floats sounding rather rough but doing their job quite well on the sheltered main island waters. It took a minute to get us properly trimmed, what with the unfamiliar controls and the cargo; having put floats on makes the rather brief official Pilot’s Notes hopelessly outdated in terms of handling. Zara swears she will fly the Clive as if it was an eggshell, and I heartily agree. Most of it has been quite routine, simply setting a course and sticking to it at two thousand feet keeping just under the cloud base. I have charge of the radio, and although the D/F loop is small it seems to work well enough. Keeping Radio LONO as our lifeline home, one does not feel quite so alone high above a blue but exceedingly wide and empty ocean. Fortunately our passengers cannot hear it, or they might complain about the local band doing their version of the “Beer Barrel Polka”, this being the “Pineapple Punch Hula”!


Saturday September 10th, 1936

(Rough position, 100 miles NE of French Sandwich Islands)
There is little time to write on this trip. I have doubled my commercial flying time already; in fact I did that yesterday, while Zara was relaxing in the co-pilot’s seat trying to hold a bearing on the last signals of Radio LONO. It was the last reminder of home, the strains of “Irene Adler’s Hula” just fighting through the static to get to us, like watching an old friend fading into the dark as one’s train pulls away from the station. When that finally faded over the horizon it was an hour before we picked up anything else, a station out of Brisingaland that was broadcasting in Icelandic. All very bardic indeed, but we would have quite liked a weather report we could understand.

Looking at our flight plan, it is more of a zigzag than I would have liked given the Clive only cruises at a hundred and twenty mph, and when fully laden has a rather unimpressive maximum range. One could do worse; on the original plan Mr. Johnson had simply taken a piece of string with the aircraft’s official range marked out on scale and played “join the dots” across the map with it. Zara had to pull out the Airline Union’s regulations about fuel safety margins and do some hard negotiations with him, which she won though not without its price. Parachutes are beastly uncomfortable things to sit on all day, but I had been quite used to having one before we unloaded them yesterday much to the shaking of snouts of the ground staff. To be honest, in this case I probably feel safer having that weight used for spare fuel; this trip is 99.9 percent over water and there is little future in parachuting into the middle of the Pacific.

Our first refuelling stop went well, and indeed gave everyone an hour to stretch their legs and smooth the kinks out of their tails. The passengers are a quiet bunch, all black-clad canines who are not complaining about the decidedly steerage-class accommodation. There are three large families, in terms of one Mr and three or four Mrs of the name, plus four single gentlemen. There are no children on this trip, as folk will be starting from scratch and things are sure to be rough at the outset (to put it mildly.)

At least it is rather better than we hear from some of the regular flight crews and stewardesses who have to cope with the Spontoon tourists at their worst and in cramped conditions. Mahanish’s bar has a laundry next door associated with it, and the arriving crews often dive through there removing evidence of drunken and/or airsick passengers from their uniforms. After folk are finished with that, the bar itself probably does a roaring trade in drinks and rented rooms. Flight crews have a certain notoriety, but having heard what they put up with for the working day it is quite understandable that they have a lot of steam to let off afterwards. In tourist season, that much steam could run the laundry.

Another thing we managed to get was about half a gallon of hot coffee for Zara and Brigit, and the same of tea for me. Our aircraft has a basic electrical heater that can warm a cupful, but in the supplies there is not a coffee bean or leaf of tea to be found. Getting up in the morning after a night in a canvas seat one needs all the help available, and we are all sorely feeling the lack. It is not improving Brigit’s temper, and I can feel my own tolerance level fading rapidly the longer I go without tea. There is some fine print in the contract about what we can and cannot bring aboard, but happily it does not mention what is already in our systems.

We managed to get a weather report at last, with strong Westerly crosswinds forecast all the way across the Equator. A big, slow floatplane like the Clive-on-Sea is absolutely the worst thing to have in a crosswind, and both Zara and I will be double-checking for drift every minute. If we just let the ship fly itself, the chances are we would end up on Walpurgisnacht Atoll and not the Albanian South Indies!

We have an existing name on the map for the atoll that is our target – though to be honest if we put our passengers down on the wrong one they would probably not notice; the maps are rather sketchy and one lot of coral sand looks much like another. Mr. Johnson tells us their homeland will be called New South Zion … at which there was rather a silence in the cockpit, until Zara pointed to the world map and suggested there was one of those already in Australia, with about a million times the land area and population (so far.)

Oh well. The Customer is always right, and it is not our problem. Our first-year friend Jane Ferris is from the environs of Boston, which is not the only one of that name in the world (the real one is still in Lincolnshire). I think it is rather a cheek though, like some new industrial city re-naming itself so they can legally put “Made in Sheffield” on their cutlery and cash in on someone else’s hard-earned reputation. *

*(Editor’s note: Amelia is not a brilliant seer, but in this case she got it spot-on. Possibly the steel manufacturers of Sheffield, Korea just wanted a more pronounceable trademark name. Or not.)


Sunday September 11th, 1936

(Position: Waohabono Island, French Macronesia.)
Total miles travelled and registered in log – nil. Total salary earned for flight – nil. Last night Mr. Johnson insisted we stretch our trip to the next fuelling stop, arriving with about ten minutes light left in a strange harbour with a laden aircraft. Zara and I did not like that one little bit, but we got the Clive down with only a few bounces. I am not sure just how strong these floats really are especially considering our heavy load of freight and passengers, and have no intention on putting them to any hard tests. Of course, being Sunday we are told we can do no flying, while our passengers improvise a prayer meeting on the beach.

Just to rub things in, we are only paid for flights … so basically we are losing money today, as well as losing weight sweltering in the full tropical sun. At least we are in the South Seas now, having passed the Equator yesterday afternoon and having about another day’s flying to go. Waohabono Island is a fly-speck on the map, whose only “attraction” is a coaling station that has recently expanded to include seaplane refuelling; there is nothing remotely resembling a runway here as it is about a thousand kilometres SE of nowhere. If the French got some official Mad Scientist of theirs to blow it off the map one day, nobody would know or care. In other words, not quite the place any of us would have chosen for our enforced “shore leave”! The inhabitants seem to be composed of officious and sorry-looking French officials who wish they were posted anywhere else, and Polynesian natives who heartily agree and would happily pay the postage. The natives wear rather ugly dungarees or plain calico frocks that look,like Missionary committees back in Paris who have never been out in this climate designed them. One can sometimes see what the Spontoonies object to about Euros.

The only good thing was, we had the morning off after checking over the Clive and putting canvas covers over the engines to keep out blown beach sand. The engines are in rather good shape considering, with no real signs of wear and with the exception of changing some worn spark plugs there has been little to do with them so far. I was eager to extend the paw of peace to Brigit Mulvaney and offered to call a truce, explaining that I knew it was not her fault that her nation had so disadvantaged its people by cutting themselves off from our Empire. Oddly enough, this did not go down too well with her and she growled that she could think of a hundred and one good uses for a dead cat, but none at all for a living one.

Zara rolled her eyes somewhat, and remarked she had been head of her own dorm for three years, and had had enough of patching up impossible teams. I wonder if that was her problem? I do recall rumours of some of her year having repeatedly fighting formal duels to first blood, but never heard any details.

Anyway, the offer had been made, and if Brigit turns it down that is her affair. We will have enough to do on this trip without fighting each other; should anything happen to me Brigit does not have her license yet so could not fly the Clive even if she wanted to. Ninety percent of our wages is payable on our return to the Spontoons, as there is a bank account here unlocked only with a code phrase Mr. Johnson will tell us when he agrees we have lived up to expectations (only natural caution; for all he knows he could have got the rest of Red Dorm for a crew who might think it a smart idea to dump him on the wrong atoll and fly off with the aircraft and trade goods laughing their snouts off.)

Being Sunday all the shops are shut, so we were living from the expedition’s precious supplies; corn bread and dried fruit with dried fish from Tillamook that the passengers must have picked up on the way. Not an appetising mixture but better than nothing; we found a beach where at least we could get out of our flight suits and get some sunshine and water on our fur. After two days mostly cooped up in the cockpit that was a great relief, and I imagined my friends on South Island right now having two more weeks of wearing oiled fur and not much else. I imagine I shall envy them a bit before I see them again!

A good swim put all of us in a rather better mood, and indeed the ocean is the only place to be in a sweltering day in the tropics (exotic jellyfish and stinging fish aside.) Poor Brigit! She had finished her swim and was heading up the beach when she gave a yelp and collapsed – there are no stinging sea urchins in the Spontoon waters but there seem to have no lack here, as she trod right on one!

It was fortunate I never go far without my first-aid kit; we have studied various tropical hazards in class and I have a sturdy pair of surgeon’s tweezers for this sort of occasion. Urchin stings are barbed and very nasty – while Brigit was cursing volubly in Gaelic I had the kit unsealed and ready for use.

We have heard in our courses all about difficult patients. Brigit spotted me unpacking various surgical instruments, gave a yelp and started hopping up the beach away from us. Zara intercepted her and asked just where she was going – Brigit swore she would not let me touch her with a bargepole, if I had been on all the medical courses in the world.

I must say, I would have had to pass Zara in her self-defence exams. She distracted Brigit by suddenly pointing my way then applied a version of the Roedean Nerve Pinch that had our red-furred Miss collapsing like so much red woollen carpet. I was over right away, and before Brigit fully came to I had extracted two long brittle quills intact and thoroughly washed out the wounds with strong tincture of iodine That is liable to sting rather, but it is better than having it go septic out here. In a perfect world Brigit would have realised the error of her ways, acknowledged that injuries in the tropics have to be treated promptly and thoroughly, and thanked us for our speedy work.

Of course, we do not quite live in a perfect world. I am sure Brigit’s threat to pull my claws out with my own pliers was said more in jest than serious intent. She limped off back towards our aircraft without a word of thanks, while Zara sighed and commented it was her old dorm all over again.

(Later) Having checked the aircraft over again and filtered the spare fuel we had purchased, there was time still for another relaxing swim. Being cramped up all day in a narrow pilot’s seat is no sort of healthy life, and having persuaded Mr. Johnson we were not engaging in Sabbath-breaking sports but healthy exercise, it is probably the only thing to do here on a Sunday. There is a café that Brigit was looking at longingly, but having no Francs with us that is all she can do. They do not, she reports moodily, accept Spontoonie Shells.

It was a most peculiar feeling, being so far out from Spontoon with nobody to talk to; Zara is quite down in the snout and in no mood to chat, and Brigit only snarls when I get within hearing range. Drying my fur out in the setting sun, I felt my brush touching the gold bead hidden in my tail-fur, and before I thought about it my tail had quite gone sideways in recollection. It would take scarcely two seconds’ delicate work with a pair of tin-snips to remove it, but otherwise I recalled Judy saying it was there as a permanent reminder. It might not be the only souvenir.

Dear Diary: I have been feeling most peculiar for the past few days, and hope it is just the lack of tea and the change of climate. If there was any poi included in the expedition’s stores I would sample some to see if it tastes appetising all of a sudden. Fortunately there was nobody around on that part of the beach to see me as I retired to think things over.

It would be nice to think that Lars was quite mistaken about Leon Allworthy, and that Miss Susan just sent that sack and bucket in spite when she found out. But I think I will just have to face facts, and if there is any saving grace it is only being able to blame the Krupmark Fragment for some of it. This hardly helps matters right now. It is rather different from back in Spring, where I was expecting a half-Siamese kitten that Jirry was perfectly happy to welcome to the family and invent a Siamese ancestor. There is no canine ancestry in the Hoele’toemi family, and I would not like to be the first one to contribute, especially having seen what the Allworthy family are like! The only truly mixed folk I have met are Kansas Smith and Liberty Morgenstern who are absolutely no advert for the idea, and Nuala Rachorska whose Father was a Pirate. At least that is the story, but somehow it does not smell quite convincing to me any more. Given what she chooses to do for a career, though she is a friend it hardly is a wonderful example. Saffina is perfectly nice but at least her parents are both feline. I am not sure about Miss Wildford, who does look rather odd but has not told us about her pedigree.

Well, by the time I get back to Spontoon I will know one way or another. I definitely wish I had that paper back I signed at Leon’s; like many other things that seemed like a good idea at the time.


Monday September 12th, 1936

(Position: Zmajevich Atoll, 12’ South, 170’ West.)
There at last! My Pilot’s log records identifying Zmajevich Atoll at 17:00 today, and putting down in the central lagoon at 17:10 after a precautionary flight over our landing run. Since taking over the area, the Zogist Empire has re-named all the islands in Albanian and perhaps Mr. Johnson’s re-re-naming is not such a bad thing. The touchdown was smooth (the water is totally clear with no unpleasant surprises such as coral bosses inside the lagoon) and soon the passengers were holding their first thanksgiving prayers on the shores of their promised land. I must say, I have seen islands with more promise. Most of the Kanim Islands are more habitable; there is a central strip of forest barely a hundred yards wide between the beaches, and what it is like in a typhoon I do not want to find out. A twenty-foot wave would go right over the lot. No fresh water springs and no high ground; no wonder the Polynesians never bothered to settle it.

The anchorage was good at least, and by sunset we had made camp at the edge of the forest. There are coconuts here and already in season, perhaps the one thing this island has to offer. The Johnson family, the Tames and the Grayes are now the founding families of New Elohim City, currently consisting of five large tents and some packing crates. New Amsterdam was once that size, they tell me, though in terms of potential it had rather more than a hundred yards of palms before the next beach. I have not heard what they paid King Zog for the lease, but I doubt he accepts any beads and trinkets these days.

Zara and I put our field craft exercises to good use and managed to get fresh water by sinking a bottomless barrel into the sand just below the tree line. Mr. Johnson was asking why we did not make the well deeper – on these islands the only fresh water is from rainfall, a thin layer “floating” on the salt groundwater, and if you dig deeper you mix the layers and it turns brackish. He nodded and took notes, admitting that deserts and desert islands are quite different propositions.

Apart from the expedition’s thirsts there are bundles of live saplings that need to be kept moist, cashews, macadamia and half a dozen other small bushes that are meant to be food and some day cash crops. They are a thorough and practical bunch I must confess; these islands hardly have a hundred acres of cultivatable land even if they cut down every existing tree (a very bad idea, and I was not afraid to tell my employers so) and they are not going to compete even with Spontoon on any sort of bulk crops. One ship a year of prime spices might make a profit, but one of commercial grade dates or oil palm will not. It is like Molly’s idea where she points out small and distinctive places are better off making distinctive products such as the Scottish singlemalt whiskies that could not be duplicated even in the next valley, or the little Caribbean isle of Tropico with its spiced rum. Her father had a special business deal with “El Presidente” as she has often wistfully told us.

By nightfall we retired to our aircraft, leaving the bulk supplies to be unpacked tomorrow. Brigit is behaving herself; possibly a year of having to work with Liberty and Tatiana might have rounded off some of her sharper edges. One can but hope. If you keep hitting a flint you only get fresh, sharp new edges.

Having brought our load of supplies all this way they are suddenly extremely precious to the colony until they can establish local food supplies, and the first meal was hardly a banquet. One thin sliver of corned beef on a pawfull of plain boiled rice, with a small square of military oat biscuit and tinned cream for dessert. At least that was one familiar product; Fenwick’s Original Lumpy Crème! It really took me back; the delicious product sometimes appeared back at St. Winifred’s on half-holidays and for the winning teams at sports days. I well recall being a Junior there and happily squabbling with my friends over the biggest and choicest lumps. It was much the best thing our cooks ever served and not only felines thought so; anything served straight from the tin needs real skill and determination from a cook to spoil, unlike fresh ingredients. The school chef’s favourite so-called “Fish Surprise” should more honestly have been called “Marine creature Astounded.”

Whatever one might say about English cuisine, one could do worse, as we found out when we hired that chef who had been dishonourably discharged from the French Army’s catering corps in 1917 just after the mutiny; possibly the high command were looking for contributing factors. I assume his never-to-be-forgotten “corned mutton coup de main” was an authentic French dish but it might harm international relations to enquire too deeply into the matter.

To sleep at last, carefully putting the customers between me and Brigit. She is limping still, but though apparently unarmed is still looking daggers at me.


Tuesday September 13th, 1936

Some things are not exactly in our contract, but it is always good to keep in well with one’s employers. We spent all morning unloading the Clive, carrying everything up to the highest part of the island where a sandbagged wall is the most solid structure available. I know there are islands as low as this that are inhabited, but they are a lot bigger and presumably the Polynesians knew enough about this one to decide not to settle here.

By lunchtime the unloading was done, and Zara was looking over the next part of our contract. Although the Zogist Empire is widely scattered, its capital New Tirana is not so far off; three hundred miles is near relative to most distances in this part of the world. The settlers are now landed with what Helen has called a “grub-stake” that will keep them alive awhile; there are a hundred and one things they need for a proper settlement that we are going to have to try and get locally. If one calls a six hundred mile round shopping trip local, that is.

A brief drama later when Brigit went for a swim in the lagoon. I had mentioned it might not be a good idea, but she turned her long snout up at the suggestion and dived straight in off the cockpit. The reef around this island is almost complete with very few gaps (possibly explaining why settling it from the sea would have been difficult) and at mid tide a lot of the reef is only just below water level. Of course, that squeezes the draining flow through the gaps available at a high rate of knots, and it was Brigit’s bad luck to strike out towards one of the outflows. In a minute she found she was in the grip of an eight knot current flushing her straight out into the Pacific!

Well, swimming after her with a rope was obviously an idea, but one had to catch up with her first. Fortunately the Clive has an automatic engine starter, one engine running the dynamo that starts the next, so it was a matter of twenty seconds before I had the engines turning over and had cast off. Zara and the Johnsons were on the beach but there was no time to enlist any of their help; we have seen what razor-sharp coral can do in our medical courses at Casino Island Hospital – and there is no hospital here.

The view forward and down is not brilliant from the Clive’s cockpit and with nobody to poke a snout out of the crew hatch as spotter, I had to trust my judgement of where Brigit would be by the time I got out there. Another ten seconds and I cut the engines, already dangerously close to the reef, and slid down out of the hatch to the float with rope in paw. Good luck was with me, and I had been hardly four yards out, Brigit’s snout appearing just under the idling prop. I cast her a line secured to the float strut, saw she had grabbed it then had to triple-time it back up into the cockpit and juice the throttles to move us clear before we all ended up on the reef. Getting wrecked out here would be very embarrassing.

By the time I got back to the beach the whole nation was lined up to watch us land; very likely the only time an entire country will turn out for me! Mr. Johnson clapped soberly while his wives helped pull a rather battered Brigit ashore (I might have opened up the throttles a bit wider than strictly necessary, but one needs safety margin with one’s only transport and people hang on to ropes going faster than that water-skiing for fun.)

Brigit’s expression was something to behold, she thanked me with gritted teeth in front of the customers but her every line was one of baffled (and rather damp) fury. I kept my own snout firmly shut and smiled politely – as Prudence says “It looks like a smile’d kill ’er”, then went back to work helping folk plant the seedlings under the shade of the palm trees. Hopefully the scent of wet dog is an effective fertiliser.

Zara has a lot to say to the Johnsons, Tames and Grayes about their farm project; these islands are fragile heaps of sand and the palms are the only thing stopping the whole place blowing away. If they have any plans of tilling broad acres of ploughed fields here they had better forget all about it. They do seem to be listening, but they are a polite bunch and are not inclined to argue with the hired help.

Tomorrow we are due to make the big supply trip, our employers presumably trusting us not to run off with the shopping money. We leave at dawn, hopefully managing to buy all they need and refuel with the cash available – if not, fuel has to come first. Zara is rather apprehensive about meeting her countryfolk en masse for the first time in three years. From what I have read, every Albanian mountain family is locked in complex death feuds with their near and distant neighbours, and most people have lists of others they may have never met but are honour bound to assassinate on sight. It must make village fetes and dinner-parties rather fraught. It is not only socially acceptable to kill someone in a family blood-feud but indeed socially imperative; to be a “Ghaksur” or “taker of blood” is the only way of restoring family honour. Hmm.

I was watching the sun go down over the Reef when one of the Mrs. Johnson’s politely asked if she could join me. She is a slender liver-furred Labrador lady only a few years older than me, and I was glad to have someone to talk to.

I must admit, I was rather curious about our employers and their rather non-standard families (which is one reason the American government have been giving them a rather hard time.) She introduced herself as Mary Johnson, and her fellow wives as Mehitabel, Ruth and Joan. It seems they were rather impressed by my rescuing Brigit today and flying on the way here, and they want to sound me out as to joining them permanently.

Well, I have had some interesting offers in my time. I know there is such a thing as “getting in on the ground floor” and I am unlikely to be offered another chance to be in the founding family of a whole nation – but I think my jaw dropped rather when she asked if she should put the notion to their husband.

I hated to disappoint her for such a friendly offer, but had to ask how well that many Mrs. Johnsons got along, and if they thought another one would really improve matters. She smiled and explained they followed the strict and clear path of their religion which explains their rights and duties perfectly, with no room for quarrelling. Whatever I might have been or done before was of no account at all, as they offered a clean new start for everyone willing to convert. Hmm. At Songmark they do teach you to look at both sides of a question. Should the worst come to the worst and both Songmark and the Hoele’toemis throw me out after my Krupmark misfortunes, it would be somewhere to go. Mr. Johnson is hardly likely to object to my being already … adapted to folk of his species, or to the prospect of future mixed kittens. If Mary’s offer that whatever one did before being baptised to their faith is of no significance, it should cover all eventualities no matter what Leon Allworthy does with that paper I signed. Still, Songmark training also tells you to work towards what you really want – and a life of tending nut seedlings as Mrs. Johnson #5 is not really what I was aiming for. I thanked her for her kind offer and said quite truthfully that I would think about it and let her know if ever I was interested. I think she picked up the unspoken bit about “but don’t hold your breath.”



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