Tuesday 26th November, 1936 Yesterday was quite a red-letter day for my dorm – our Tutors have picked the teams to compete against the Ave Argentum tomorrow, and apart from Adele (who was what Helen calls “a shoo-in”) they have chosen Maria – and me! Miss Devinski pulled us all in and gave us the news; she noted that we would be given every fair advantage. That is, as much final practice on the Tiger Moths as we wanted, excused heavy duties and night guard shifts, and even sleeping indoors if we wanted until the competition is over. We very happily took the light duties and the flying practice complete with “flight breakfasts”, but I decided to stay outdoors and with some grumbling Maria agreed. We are sleeping perfectly well in the open air now, and it would feel wrong to have clean sheets and (admittedly rather hard) indoor beds while Helen and Molly were still sleeping on tarmac or concrete. I am glad Maria agreed; she certainly likes her comforts but has learned to live without them. Anyway, we will do our share of guarding the aircraft through the night; now if ever is when any sabotage would be expected. Maria was musing that although our rivals are not likely to personally creep into the hangars with a monkey-wrench, someone may pass the word in a receptive ear. If caught, she says the saboteur would be found to have personally placed large bets against us, giving a clear motive and keeping our rivals’ reputations unblemished. The world is certainly full of devious people – that being so, it is always good to have some of them on your side. Although we usually get twelve hours a week flying time in our log books, we have done as much in the past two days as we get the final polish on our act. Adele will lead the formation, and I am more than happy to follow her. Molly suggested we gain a surprise advantage and run the Tiger Moths on ten percent nitro-methanol; she was roundly howled down by everyone else. The day of an important competition is not the time to start radical experiments. I am certainly enjoying the preparations, as although it is awfully hard work this is just the kind of thing I imagined when first starting Songmark. I even get three days on the full flight breakfast; ham, sausage and eggs with white bread toast and butter. Much better than breadfruit mash, good though that is. No doubt Miss Devinski will make us sweat it all out again in some hideous chore if we let Songmark down. Wednesday 27th November, 1936 Quite a day for our scrap books – and quite a “scrap” it was, as the Royal Flying Corps would have called it. Up at the regular time, in to Songmark to shower and dine well. Though Maria and Adele are not carnivores by ancestry they tucked into the flight breakfast very happily; it certainly helps curing the sensation of butterflies in the stomach. I had not met the Schneider Trophy committee before, having missed Speed Week the last two years adventuring in Krupmark. It was a peculiar feeling to realise I never will see it again as a Songmark student. They were all eager to view an off-season competition, and we met them all and our rivals on the airstrip as the airfield mechanics checked our aircraft thoroughly. Maria had warned that a good ploy for the Ave Argentum would be to sabotage one of their own aircraft, secure in the knowledge that independent judges would spot it; a drop of acid on the control wires is said to be the done thing and is difficult to spot. Anyway, we all passed muster and were given a pep talk by the head of the Spontoon Islands Racing Association (SIRA) who organise the races. There has been a lot of interest in this competition, more so than just a friendly wager as we have in our dance contests against the S.I.T.H.S. Apart from that, it will be rather a change for the committee to judge aerobatics. Schneider Trophy aircraft are not known for their manoeuvrability and do not take kindly to being made to try; as witness that Gee Bee racer the ground crew have nicknamed “The Spinning Incinerator”. With an engine that size and a minimal airframe, it is only too eager to swap ends in flight. Once in the cockpits we stopped thinking about anything but our routine, concentrating on following Adele through the skies. I was hardly taking notes at the time, so I will have to paste in Missy Aha’s article and let that speak for itself: Aces Medium High! Today the skies above Eastern Island echoed to six medium-performance aircraft being pushed to their limits as a team of our well-known Songmark Aeronautical Boarding School faced off against the new Casino Island based “Ave Argentum”, competing for aerial supremacy over Spontoon skies. The teams looked well matched; the familiar Tiger Moths against the ex-military Potez designs that the books say can beat them by thirty miles an hour. The two flight leaders, Adele Beasley for Songmark and Beatrice Esparanza for Argentum, certainly had a fight on their paws. Significantly, nobody was talking at all about the two schools’ very different approaches. First off, Argentum took the lead with a formation loop right off the runway! All the commentators say you should never DO that; the SIRA team were applauding but looked horrified. The display almost ended very rapidly as the Potez aircraft skimmed about a yard above the runway on the bottom leg. Songmark took off in a more textbook-approved style, then dipped over the Eastern end of the runway and performed a “3-way burst” with absolute precision. Argentum responded with a synchronised outside loop that had the watching pilots (and the wing roots, mechanics assured me) groaning in sympathy and straight into a line-abreast Immelman turn, a very tight formation just over the Radio LONO mast. Songmark rejoined then split three ways, executing ten precise snap rolls then re-joined with split-second timing to fly almost wing to wing before Beasley led them into a spiral dive and they split again heading out exactly South, East and West (North would have gone straight into LONO hill.) Her wing-mates Inconnutia and Bourne-Phipps are not strangers to these pages, but though they are usually found in the hula dancing pages they seem just as adept in a flight suit as a grass skirt! Ten minutes of absolutely riveting flying finished with Argentum coming in level over the runway at almost full speed before suddenly dropping their flaps and dive brakes, “throwing out the anchor” in a very dramatic way! The tyres were smoking as they hit the runway two thirds down its length in what looked like a perfect combat landing. But it wasn’t! The pilots around me were saying the Argentum is more used to grass fields in Spain which have a lot more rolling friction than the smooth pavement on Spontoon, and although her team-mates pulled up with smoking brakes within a plane length of the end of the strip, Miss Esparanza ran off the end! Nobody hurt but one wooden propeller that was scattered over the beach; one watching Argentum scholar behind me muttered that Miss Esparanza would spend the rest of the day on all fours having to pick up every splinter – with her teeth. Just to add insult to injury, the Songmark team landed with wingtips almost touching by a paw’s breadth, in a formation abreast that you’d need a theodolite to spot any bend in. The judges took about one minute to make their minds up. Though it is more involved than their usual checking the stop-watch, with the dangerous start and landing mishap they had little to argue over. Songmark are declared a clear winner! I have to confess I did not see the opposition’s landing, being too busy lining up properly for our own. That went without a hitch, and by the time we had switched off and taken our helmets off the judges had made their decision – by the Songmark cheers I did not have to wait for the newspaper to tell me who won. Very gratifying. Typically, Miss Devinski just came over and gave us a brief nod. But from her, that is worth more than some folks’ ticker-tape parades. It was a definite relief; I found I was shaking by the time I got out of the cockpit. Adele fell over the landing chocks again. It was not her fault, a well-wisher had run up with them and dropped them in just the wrong place while he asked for her autograph. Definitely her curse is still following her, and looking vengeful after her success in the air. It will be harder for Miss Devinski to fail us after this, but Songmark tutors are famous for successfully doing very hard things. Winners or not, we had to spend the next half hour in our maintenance overalls putting the aircraft away and checking the bracing for any signs of excess strain. Maria had some rigging to do before we could hand the Tiger Moths over to the second-years. Miss Devinski did relent enough to excuse us our daily poi for supper; instead we were given half an hour to wash and prepare then the whole year was cleared for an evening at Mahanish’s – “legally, this time” as she put it. We did not really expect our occasional “diversions” off sentry duty would go unnoticed, though nobody has mentioned them before. Then, the theme of Songmark is that one can do anything as long as you work hard enough for it. I remember in our first year our tutors showed us that tunnel through the fence the departed Senior year dug. I rather get the impression they knew about it while it was in use – and had anything been bungled they would have been down on the third-years with a vengeance. This may be why they put up with Beryl. She does what she does, rather well. Nobody has exactly thrown up their paws in horror remembering that dorm of our first ever graduates, who became Air Pirates. One almost gets the impression the Tutors would be much happier if we became successful smugglers rather than failed airline pilots. Certainly, to the victor the spoils. That is, we are hardly “spoiled” much on this course, and with the fees Songmark charge it always comes as a shock to first years seeing the menu. Tonight things were different, with Songmark footing the bill. Emperor prawns Phall, lovely stuff! I thought so at least, though Maria commented that strength of curry would bleach my fur white. She conceded it must be very healthy, as any germs would stand a better chance in boiling nitric acid. I am certainly grateful that I was acclimatised to it back in Saint Winifred’s; eating a Phall strength curry needs breathing control much like some of the self-defence techniques (and Maria says it would be a decent self-defence in its own right; all one needs to do is breathe in an assailant’s face afterwards.) Friday 29th November, 1936 The fruits of success never last long at Songmark; we are back with everyone else on night shifts and no more “flight breakfasts” till next time. After all, we are trained at aerobatics and from our Tutors’ point of view winning was just what we should have done; around here one gets no medals for just meeting expectations. Miss Esperanza really did have to search the area on all fours and pick up every splinter of the broken prop with her teeth. What our Tutors would have done with us had we lost, is something one could lose sleep speculating about. Maria is very happy that she can write off to her Uncle with success to report; not that one failure would have her reassigned to running supply flights to contested Ethiopian dirt strips forever. If she fails to graduate from Songmark (not that it seems likely, unlike Adele or me) things would be very different. It was interesting to overhear Beryl and Adele at luncheon; though they spoke very quietly they underestimated feline hearing. Then, mice and rabbits both have such good ears they tend to underestimate others. Rather alarming – I know Adele was on Krupmark Island over Summer, but I did not know Beryl was familiar with its unsavoury denizens. Beryl was saying something about Adele having made a useful contact that could be invaluable even if she is thrown out. Beryl’s idea was to have Adele sent over there in certain circumstances, then Beryl puts together a rescue after awhile and they split the money between them. Fortunately Adele’s curse does no damage to her wits, as she was having none of it. Anybody relying on Beryl to rescue them and expecting Beryl to hand over money afterwards, is comprehensively doomed. Having finished our course of hypnosis proofing, it would be too much to expect that we have the time off as leisure. It seems very long ago and a cosy memory that we would finish our evening meal and retire to our (fairly) well heated dorm and leaf through the aeronautical magazines and the Daily Elele, with (fairly) warm beds to retire to while the rain hammered down outside rather than dripping down our necks in a leaky bivouac. We need our sleep now, having spent last night on gate guard. This time I was on with Susan de Ruiz, who had a good deal to add about Adele’s curse from a mathematical standpoint. It must be very strange to be Susan and eagerly look forward to the latest mathematics journals as Molly used to with Film Frolics. Interestingly, she says she has been given some local challenges by the S.I.T.H.S for the use of their advanced classes. She does not know exactly what the project they want it for consists of, but it involves some very tricky dynamics and calculus that she can do in her head like other people can hum a tune. It is not every girl who does quadratic equations for fun. Hmm. I have never heard of the Spontoonies being into research for the sake of it. I think it is more than steam-engine science. Saturday 30th November, 1936 Our last Saturday on Spontoon for awhile! We have read up the reports from the previous third-years Aleutian trip, and determined to enjoy ourselves while we can. The fact that our Tutors have spent so long “hardening us off” outdoors first must mean something, and a very uncomfortable something we expect it to be. Fortunately all our outdoor equipment is already in good order; this weekend the third-year rooms reeked of neat’s-foot oil and dubbin as other dorms embarked on a final frenzy of waterproofing and reinforcing. We are apparently as waterproofed, and hypnosis proofed too, as we are liable to get. Molly was speculating a supply of “hundred percent proof” would be useful to lay in stock, but the chances of smuggling it onto the aircraft are slim. On Monday we assemble all our kit, weigh it and it all goes into the aircraft hold – where our Tutors have ample time to sniff out any contraband on the long flight. Miss Devinski may be a yellow Labrador but it is commonly believed she must have bloodhound ancestry somewhere along the line. Anyway, Jasbir’s dorm joined us on Casino Island for a fine morning of dance and socialising with our friendly rivals. This time round, half a dozen ducks turned up en masse. There are of course the usual mix of avians around, but this flock were definitely birds of a feather, namely Orpington Duck-cult members. None of us have forgotten our trip to Orpington, and our tangle with them there! Evidently they had heard second-paw about “some Euros doing the Orpington sacred dances” and had come along to see if the horrid rumour was true. Actually, I think we gave them quite a shock. Three shocks in fact; one of them recognised us from our performance at the festival where we allied ourselves to Namoeta and her Chicken-Spirit friends against them, plus we have the dance down as accurately as they could wish, and we have our “license”, in terms of our Chicken-Spirit talismans! Had they been crested birds, they would have been more visibly crestfallen. I have to admit, I admire their bravery. Even when they saw we were Songmark third-years and outnumbered them, they were evidently intending to try and throw us out if we had made a mess of the sacred Orpington dances. Although our Tutors would have much to say about gratuitous and excessive use of the self-defence skills they taught us, the Duck-Cult has a certain reputation around Spontoon and I think we could have ruffled a lot of their feathers before that disturbed Miss Devinski too much. Happily the occasion did not arise. I could see Helen improvising with doing some of the dance moves with hand and foot claws unsheathed, and both Maria and Irma Bundt though vegetarian by species could account for a good deal of pressed duck. One thing about our hectic schedule; just having a few hours away from it is such bliss! I think we are getting that look around the eyes that rather frightens some first-years (and members of the public.) Being able to relax at The Missing Coconut with a hot coconut punch after our dance and shower was heavenly; all the more so as we expect the next weeks to be hellish. Literally so, Maria says; she has read Dante and says there is more frozen than incendiary inferno (although as she also says there is an endless supply of each, it is hard to think where she gets the figures from.) Back to a distinctly chilly airstrip, where our class of Young Ladies (patent. Pending) is laired like a pack of wild animals, facing outwards around our aircraft with patrols always restlessly moving around. Some folk pooh-poohed the idea at first, but stopped when Molly’s suggestion sunk in, “what if we were on Krupmark?” Maria’s military training manuals have a lot to say about this kind of thing. Sunday December 1st, 1936 December already! Although it might be frosty in Barsetshire by now, it feels quite chilly enough as we squirmed out of our sleeping bags on the hard airfield and exercised or danced the warmth and flexibility back into our limbs. Certainly, our breath was hanging in clouds before the sun came up and we trooped out for a very welcome hot shower and hot breakfast back at Songmark. As before, Adele vanished to Main Island with Eva (Eva being a first-year would not get a pass to go on her own) to have her curse looked at and spiritually poked and prodded. Although most Euros would not take such things seriously, Eva does so. She may not be a fennec fox but whenever local religions are discussed she is certainly all ears. That legend of the world’s primal religion having a shrine somewhere in the Nimitz Sea almost had her drooling on the floor; at home she is a junior member of something she calls the Tooler society * who love quaint folklore like that. On South Island we met Gha’ta again who taught us much that now makes perfect sense. But we had to have seen the Cranium Island fragment first, and the carvings hidden under sand in “The Tub” on Casino Island that were hastily chiselled in the final hours. Definitely we were glad Eva was well out of hearing range! The prospect of her trotting home to her Uncle (and her beloved Chancellor) one day and explaining exactly what was done and how, is enough to make anyone’s tail shudder. We would be quite safe with (say) Liberty Morgenstern finding out, as her Government pours scorn on “peasant superstition”. As Maria says, what you don’t know about can bite you where you’re not looking. Having troops pouring across a frontier is something armies understand and can try to tackle – but triggering something like the Event of five hundred years ago deep in a rival’s territory would be the ultimate in “unconventional warfare” – you might not understand it as an attack, let alone prove who was behind it. It is a jolly good thing Eva is obsessed instead with antiques such as the Horn of Heimdal that the Vanierge keep. An exhausting trip, though not in the way our trots through the sand dune with pack exhaust us. We were very glad to get back to the Hoele’toemi household as ever and hear some good news – Jirry and his father are back this week! Of course we will miss them, but that is par for the course. A third-year Songmark girl is like a cross-channel swimmer; keeping one’s head above water is the main priority, and any fun along the way is a definite lucky bonus. In three weeks time Helen and me will stand on Sacred Island with Marti and Jirry, winding rings of our partners’ tail fur for the priestess to bless – hopefully Saimmi. Whatever happens in the next three weeks, there is that to look forward to. Short of our aircraft crashing, us getting avalanched etcetera, Albert Island invading and similar unlikely emergencies, we will be there and Tailfast. I expect Prudence and Tahni will too, but I would have quite spoiled Helen’s good mood by reminding her. Mrs. Hoele’toemi says she has been to Meeting Island and spoken to the good Judge Poynter, who seems very eager to take on my case. I still wear that gold loop around my tail-root, and there is no denying that I was on Krupmark and the events that happened there. Mrs. H tells me the best bet is to prove the will that made me Lady Allworthy is invalid under British law – it seemed cast-iron enough to me, but that is how lawyers get wealthy. Just my luck that I am heading out tomorrow! On our return, we had a surprise. Miss Blande intercepted us at the airfield and announced we had our dorms ready and waiting for us, and one night of nine hours unbroken sleep if we wanted it. Cheers all round! Of course, the more cynical or experienced in the class had their ears starting to droop about five seconds later. When the Tutors give us a light, digestible luncheon one just knows there is a marathon run or a swimming epic about to be sprung upon us that afternoon. Giving us a long, comfortable final night before the trip is equally significant – we will probably eat a hearty breakfast tomorrow, too. An hour later we were showered and just about to head downstairs to eat when we discovered there was one of those other little surprises our dear Tutors love – a snap kit inspection! One has just enough warning to stand by the bed looking innocent, and not a second to hide anything. Which is the idea. Miss Devinski is now exceedingly unhappy with us. Finding that souvenir Lars shed this Autumn rolled up in Molly’s sleeping bag made her quite irritated. She would have been far happier to discover Molly had taken up a hobby of collecting fully armed pet land-mines. But that was nothing to her reaction when she found the other one similarly hidden in my bivouac bag. She just looked at me for half a minute, snarled “Well, Miss Allworthy, you do live up to your name.” turned on her heel and stalked away. Helen did not even get searched.  Oh dear. It would be less uncomfortable if she had just shouted at me – but then, as Father says, Sergeant-Majors who shout all the time find out their troops acquire an immunity to it. Having her find out about Leon Allworthy was bad enough, but he was at least far away on Krupmark. There is an instant and irrevocable Standing Order about Lars that would have anyone kicked out of Songmark for letting him on the grounds, and for a minute I thought Miss Devinski was about to extend that to include his antlers. I had no intention of bringing mine into Songmark, but with the rapid changes of plan tonight I had no time to make any other arrangements. Well, they say “the condemned fur ate a hearty breakfast” indeed, and perhaps tomorrow we will find out. It would be adding injury to insult if they served us Poi out of spite; we seem to be condemned enough as it is, anyway! Hopefully by the time we get back from the Aleutians, Miss Devinski’s temper will have cooled off. I am sure everything else that goes on the trip will. (And it did. As recounted in “Gone with the Wind-chill.”) next *Editor’s note: Amelia presumably didn’t know that’s how you pronounce “Thule.” Despite having an Antarctic colony named after it, “Thule” does NOT rhyme with “cool.” |