Spontoon Island
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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
  4 December, 1936 to 9 December, 1936



Wednesday 4th December, 1936

A chilly start! Last night we found shelter in the lee of a twenty foot crag, and were even grateful for a foot of overhang. Not much of a roof, and indeed we were very glad there was no heavy rain. Sleeping out in our clothes just will not do; today we set to and started building.

    I have seen pictures of turf huts, but they must have been built somewhere with more agreeable materials. The soil here is full of rocks, making it hard to dig, and the peat turfs fall to pieces when one tries to stack them. Our first night’s crag was turned down as a spot from a house; it is too far from the beach and that is our only supply of driftwood. On the other paw, getting too near the sea would be even worse when the real storms sweep in, as I expect they will soon and often enough.

    Molly was keen on building an igloo, and indeed the books recommend it. Unfortunately that needs the right kind of compact snow, which we cannot find! It is all either dry spindrift blowing around the rocks or heavy porridge lying above the swamps, neither of which are much good for putting a roof over our heads.

    It is definitely a test of our training. We could wander round the islands for days trying to find a perfect site, but as they say “the best is the enemy of the good” and we needed to get into some sort of shelter soonest. A seven-foot rock overlooking a narrow inlet provided one wall for us, and there were enough weathered boulders around to get some foundations laid before lunchtime. Nothing too big; there is very little sound driftwood to support the tarpaulin we have for the roof, and indeed a small structure will be easier to heat. Maria and Helen built while Molly and me scoured the coast for driftwood or anything else, having a thin time of it. There are a few shellfish on the rocks and we can see great drifts of kelp washed ashore further down the coast, but neither have much energy in them. Eating kelp might be like eating celery; one expends more calories chewing and digesting than it actually provides!
 
    As to driftwood, we had to look jolly hard to find enough. I suppose the nearest actual forests must be either Siberia or Alaska, at any rate nowhere near here. Any currents coming from the North will not be bringing any timber, or anything except icebergs with them. There were some big logs washed up by storms high above the tide line, but they were soaked and so rotten they were half-way to being peat, and not much use for building either. Although some parts of Scotland and Ireland use peat for all their cooking and heating, it has to be dried out first – not something so easily done around here.

    A definitely cheerless place, not that we expected much else. The frame packs came in handy for carrying back what firewood we could find. Food is less of a priority for today, as until our shelter is finished we will be in far greater risk of freezing than starving. My paws have been numb since we got here, and the drafty warehouse at Dutch Harbour is starting to feel like Shepherd’s Hotel already.
 
    With driftwood we could at last get a fire going, a great comfort. Molly’s supply of Extreme Danger matches came in handy; they are something more like small flares than matches in the usual sense.  Actually we only had the walls shoulder-high by sundown but that was enough to shield it from the wind.  With my aluminium kettle steaming away over the coals we soon had the first hot drinks in nearly two days, a great morale boost of instant chocolate from our small supply. Just having an open fire-pit is not good enough, and I am going to try to build a stove with the materials available. We have clay and fire, and I recall enough of my pottery from school handicraft lessons to make a start.

    A more comfortable night than before, but with only a tarpaulin over our heads that is relative. With the reflector fire, at least we could re-warm our paws enough to get the circulation back, which hurts.  Spontoonie style oiled fur might have been a good idea after all.


Thursday December 5th, 1936

Another hard and chilly day. I recall our Domestic Science lessons back at St. Winifred’s, where we learned the skills needed to be a home-maker. Today has been home-making of a more basic sort, and although somewhat primitive we now have one to be fairly happy with. That is, it is big enough for us all to stand up in, lie down in out of the wind and the rain mostly goes outside the walls rather than inside. There is no window and the door is tarpaulin lashed to the door frame, but millions of furs around the world live in little better. By cutting the tough heather-like plants that grow on the ridges between the swamps, we have made a sort of raised bed on a two foot shelf of rubble; it is not exactly a feather-bed but water falling on it drains away and at least we are not lying in pools any more. Plus cold air sinks – not that there is much hot air in the hut to lose, with all the chinks in the wall still to plug and the wind screaming through them.

    While Helen and Maria went off to scour for driftwood (we have decided that out here, nobody goes anywhere alone – not even when answering the calls of nature) Molly and I worked on plugging the gaps in the wall with moss and smaller stones.  Mud would last until the next rainstorm; if  it was a purely snowy landscape things might be easier. A wall of snow should at least keep the wind out better, and we have heard good things of snow caves.

    Around lunchtime Helen and Maria came scrambling in laden with wood, and panting for us to seal the door and lash down the roof. We did so just in time – as we saw on Vostok last year, the storms have a standing start from breeze to full gale in about a minute flat. It was lucky that the exposed side was the solid natural rock face, as the storm absolutely screamed around us and our best efforts at building suddenly seemed awfully flimsy, with the tarpaulin above us flapping and thundering despite being lashed and weighted down. It is a good thing we were not depending on tents, as they would probably be at ten thousand feet half-way across Alaska by now.
 
    Having had an anxious hour worrying about the roof staying on, we managed to relax a little and take stock of our supplies and such. We have twelve days scheduled here, and the food will not last. At least, not more than one meal a day apiece, and in this climate that will not do. Plus, there is no guarantee that Captain Anuninjac can get to us on time – in these waters he could be days late and think it only par for the course.

    Still, for tonight we are well-fed and the roof seems to be holding up. The nights are awfully long and our supply of kerosene for the lamp definitely limited, so once we are sealed in for the night there is little to do but talk and try not to worry about our predicament. Nobody applies to Songmark expecting a fun time on the Casino Island beaches, and if they do I doubt our Tutors would do more than chuckle before giving the waste paper bin a snack.

    Helen at least has quite a bit to look forward to: this month she and Marti will be Tailfast again and no doubt they will be spending the Christmas holidays in the Hoele’toemi compound guest hut. This time next year she should be the newest (if she beats me to it) Mrs. Hoele’toemi and settling into wedded life. Alternatively she may be busy establishing her Adventuring career, with South Island as a home base to return to between trips. Spontoon is a fine base for such, but as we have often been told by our Tutors, not everyone can set up office on Casino Island.

    I suppose it is only like Father’s career; he was posted around all parts of the Empire at generally short notice. He built roads up by the Khyber Pass, flood defences near the Mekong river in Burma, and fortifications everywhere. Of course, that did mean my brother and I spent most of our early years at boarding school – but most parents who can afford it do that anyway regardless of whether they are at home or abroad.
 
    Helen has never quite appreciated that tradition; her Father took her everywhere since she was a most tender cub, even to rough oilfield boom towns and prospector’s camps. She has often said no parent ought to pack their children off to boarding school, and indeed she got more of a Family life than I managed despite having only one parent. Mind you, she did get rather pensive when I asked if she planned on copying her Father and heading out Adventuring in a few years with a cub or two in tow to Krupmark or Cranium Island and points further afield. Adventuresses are meant to go and find treasures, not to risk losing them.

    The only cub I recall seeing on Krupmark Island was definitely an orphan child of her neighbourhood – a curly red-furred girl with eyes that looked as if they had cataracts, being blank and milky – but apparently she could somehow see perfectly well and seemed quite unnervingly cheerful. She had a pet that was rather hard to describe, called “Rocky” or similar – it was something I only caught a few glimpses of and I did not like the look of at all, reminding me too much of that shadow which follows Kansas Smith’s servant Half Ration. When I asked Lars at the time he whispered that this small orphan Anneka lives up near the church on the hill above Fort Bob, and the less anyone has to do with her the better for them.

    Maria says she will have to take at least one return trip to Italy, to check in with her Uncle and probably argue with him about her career. A roving reporter is not the best paid of professions to rely on, if she gets cut off without a lira. Still, with Songmark training none of us are too likely to want for funds. She has speculated that her Uncle might find her more useful abroad than in Italy; she is rather out of touch with the inner workings of her homeland these days and says that in politics an up-to-the-minute firm grasp of who is doing what and why, is crucial. Having spent three years understanding this side of the world she would be rather wasted back in Europe.

    It seemed a million miles away, discussing such things in the chilly darkness while pressed together for warmth in a crude stone shelter, and indeed Italy is just about on the opposite side of the globe. But there was little enough to find comfort in with discussing our immediate surroundings – we do not need to dwell on the poor supply of lamp oil and firewood, and any first-year could tell at a glance that our collection of pemmican, chocolate and tinned oatcakes (the standard Arctic ration) will not hold out for the whole trip even if we are picked up exactly on schedule.
 
    At least we are keeping cheerful so far; Maria mused that the wind screeching and howling through the stones rather reminded her of some popular Futurist music from her homeland, which makes a start at being bold and ground-breaking by being played on bold and radical instruments, pieces of industrial pipework and such. The Germans have a similar idea, with their electrical Theremins and trautoniums replacing what they see as symbols of corrupt and decadent musical culture. Jazz or “slanted music” as Eva calls it, is utterly beyond the pale these days unlike the decadent days of the Weimaraner Republic (says Eva.) Only music of proper boldness and purity is played on Berlin Radio these days. Two whole years now since we saw V-Gerat play on Casino Island!

    Maria keeps up with what artistic news she can, and says the avant-garde styles continue to flourish in her homeland. Of course, not everyone likes it – there was a suspicion that the latest exhibition of Dadaist Art had been vandalised, but being Dadaist it was really impossible to be sure. I have seen Italian newsreels of unwanted munitions arranged artistically before demolition being touted as a “self-deconstructing artwork” – indeed, the only art exhibition I ever saw Molly enthuse over.


Friday December 6th, 1936

Almost a unique day in our Songmark careers – a day we stayed indoors and scarcely ventured out all day. The storm was absolutely savage and screamed non-stop, spindrift piling up in eddies behind our crag to at least fill some of the chinks in the wall with snow. As the day went on the snow level began to rise; looking out on one of our hasty and necessary trips outside we could see the sea was a flat sheet of foam with the waves almost hidden. Searching for driftwood would just have to wait; getting anywhere near the shore would be awfully dangerous and anything washed ashore would be covered in snow in minutes anyway.

    I hope the other dorms are all right. Of course we have trained and equipped for this, but seasoned explorers perish too when the conditions pile up against them or their luck runs out. It is best not to think too much about what could happen to poor Adele Beasley out here. Molly has muttered darkly about how Prudence and co. will be staying warm and occupied.

    Although our hollow is relatively sheltered, we had little chance to improve our hut as all the stone around was either buried in snow or frozen solid to the swamp. Even the snow itself was no use, dry powder that will not stick together enough to make a decent snowball, let alone an igloo. I have not been in snow for nearly three years apart from a few flakes on Vostok, and I thought I had missed it. But willingly heading out through paw-deep drifts for a snowball fight at Saint Winifred’s with a roaring fire (well, at least a warmish radiator) to return to is rather different from this.
 
    Despite everything, we needed to keep exercising somehow just to keep warm. There is little enough room in the hut, but we took turns to do sit-ups and press-ups and kept tolerably warm. What fuel we have is reserved for the evening when it really gets colder and we need the light as well as heat.
 
    Even those exercises Mrs. Hoele’toemi taught us can be pressed into service, needing no room to practice. They are most healthy, and all the Spontoonie girls are taught them. I recall Mrs. Oelabe our Matron referring to the locals as typically having “a pelvic floor you could bounce a cannonball off” and indeed hula dancing is not the only way they get that way.  For once, Maria was not threatening to dump a bucket of water over us – if we had that much unfrozen it would be far too precious to waste.

    One thing I managed today was to complete the stove. A “coil-pot” construction may be made in almost any shape, and if it has a few cracks after drying out it will still be better than the open hearth we have been smoking ourselves out with. Next project, a clay chimney!


Sunday December 8th, 1936

Dear diary – the storm is over! After three days at full throttle the winds slackened to be no more than a gale, the sort where folk usually start worrying about slates coming off the roof and branches falling on the greenhouse. Compared to the days before, it felt like a flat calm.

    We have made use of the time; I have built with Maria’s help a pottery stove, rather a crude affair but at least it now has a chimney and gives a lot more heat from the fuel and less smoke. The fire keeps in half the night, and if we had more fuel I think it would keep alive till breakfast and save having to be re-lit. Matches are in limited supply like everything else.

    Another idea is a sort of ladder of stone shelves or racks built out from the wall near the door. There is peat around if nothing else – stacking it up out of the rain and getting some heat from the stove just might dry it enough to burn in a few days; at least we will make the experiment. Even if it is only ready on our final day, that will be worth having – by that time we might have picked the beaches clean of driftwood. This is not a large island, and most of the shore is totally inaccessible cliffs rather than handy beaches. There is not a path, trail or cairn anywhere on this island that we can see; getting from A to B is neither quick nor easy with many bog-holes with overhanging edges mostly hidden by the snow.
 
    (Later) Our luck has changed! On the windward side of the island there is a narrow cove that faces North, and we had almost given up on exploring for driftwood. But Molly noticed a flock of seabirds circling there, and twenty minutes of slogging across the swamp showed us why. The arctic terns and skuas were feasting on a drift of washed-up fish, some of which had been flipped clear ashore by the waves and were already frozen solid. We decided that the seabirds had already had their share and mostly drove them off, filling our packs with the frozen fish and basically grabbing everything else in sight. They say half a loaf is better than none, and the same definitely goes for half a fresh Pacific Saury. Our food having a few beak-shaped bite-marks taken out of it will not discourage us.

    As soon as we got back to the hut we changed shifts – Helen and Maria grabbed their packs and headed out to pick up anything left; we set to work preparing the first fresh meal in quite awhile. Plain fish grilled on skewers of driftwood over the coals has rarely smelled or tasted so good. Nothing goes to waste; even the fish guts we have frozen outside in the snow for fishing bait should we get the chance, or until we get really hungry.

    Quite a celebration! When Maria and Helen got back they reported the birds had got most of the remainder, but still retrieved a dozen whole fish and a few pounds of fragments plus a bundle of driftwood. The fragments would not keep so they went to make a second course; fish stew thickened with biscuit. With a tot of Molly’s precious brandy apiece, by far the best meal we have had since Songmark – and actually better than most there especially at weekends. Not that we would complain if a twenty pound catering tin of Poi washed ashore, right now.

    Now we have a fire going, we can get out of the suits enough to groom a bit. Having damp, salt-soaked matted fur is awfully demoralising and uncomfortable as well as poor insulation. We still had the salt in our fur from our swim ashore, as the stream water is far too chilly to bathe in. Still, it is a relief to get sealed up again afterwards; one feels a little like a deep-sea diver surrounded by extremely hostile elements. At least there is plenty of air, in fact too much so – I would be happy if it slowed down somewhat.

(Later)
A day of surprises – it looks as if we are not utterly alone out here after all. The weather is freezing cold, ten degrees of frost – but the morning was as clear as we have seen, so we took another stroll up to the hilltop. The hut is not bad, but being about the size of the average garden shed to hold us and our equipment, we are glad to be out of it for awhile.
 
    Helen was looking out towards the nearest island when she saw what she thought was a school of dolphins or seals near its shore; they were vanishing underwater and returning. She passed me the telescope, asking me if I thought they might be like Moeli’s Husband -  the Natives of No Island might well have a colony around here, as they need no houses and  normally there is nobody around to see them. But I watched some of them wading through the surf and walking ashore, and though I could not make out any other details they were certainly walking.

    When Molly and Maria had taken a look, as if on cue another belt of snow swept in from the North and we had to hurry back to the hut before the “white-out” hit us. Ten minutes after we were indoors, the world outside was as white as a whitewashed window, and with about the visible range. Molly had tales to tell of being caught out in Chicago winter storms like that – it is like being inside a ping-pong ball, with the ground and sky blending into each other indistinguishably. So indistinguishably that furs have been known to walk off cliffs and onto thin ice simply unable to tell ground from sky.

Anyway, we had enough to do in the afternoon with sacking piles of wet peat like soggy loaves on shelves, hoping they are ready to burn before we are ready to leave or run out of driftwood completely. For a change I dipped into our emergency kit’s supply of curry powder to enliven the meal – we will need it if everything else except the fish-guts runs out. Still, a spiced stew of fresh fish with pounded kelp and a sprinkling of biscuit on top is a better meal than we might be eating later on. Definitely hunger is the best sauce – Molly and Maria are doing their best to eat the kelp raw, but claim it is like chewing through sea-boot leather, though they might be able to digest it given time. Helen and me hardly have the digestions to even try.

By my best reckoning, the fish has brought us about three full days of food. We will certainly scour the beaches for more, but hardly hope to find a bounty like that again. The chances are just as good (or bad) that the next three-day storm will hit the day we are due to be picked up, when we have finished our last bar of pemmican and are looking forward to ship’s biscuit and naval grog.


Monday, December 9th, 1936

Disaster! Everything they told us about these islands is looking painfully true.  We had a fine enough morning with just a few snow flurries, then the wind died away and it was almost pleasant in a Christmas-card sort of way. Helen and I were out collecting driftwood and seaweed on the Eastern coast, when we saw what looked like another white-out  snow storm coming – but from the South, not a direction we have had weather from before. We hurried back – and in a minute we dropped our loads and dived for shelter behind a boulder, as the weather went from calm to about ninety knots! We know just what ninety knots feels like, from three years of open cockpits in the Tiger Moths.
 
    Helen yelled that it felt like a tornado coming – and just then a “wirraway”, the local version -- hit us. In the open we would have been picked up and thrown bodily across the island; it was deafeningly loud and we were pelted with stinging ice chips and gravel for a minute as it went over us. We stayed in shelter for another five minutes before poking our snouts out and taking a look at what was left outside. The snow had been sculpted as if by a plough, with a sharp-edged cut through the drifts – and it became obvious why the only trees we have seen here are Arctic willows about a yard wide and an inch high, hugging the ground.

    We had an awful shock when we got to the hut – it was no longer there. There was only a pile of stones, with Molly and Maria sorting through the snow and rubble. As one reads about tornados, it had almost exploded the building and taken everything portable with it. The tarpaulins that we had depended on for the roof and door were somewhere over the Bering Strait, and our fairly cosy shelter gone with them.

    The one bright side was that nobody was more than bruised; the walls had fallen outwards and the inside filled with snow in an instant, covering the fire and stopping it spreading. Molly says she had thought a shell had hit the place – and indeed it looked like that.

    Our first job was to salvage everything we could; some of the contents were strewed around the island downwind. My kettle I retrieved, dented but still watertight. The frozen fish in the snow outside we recovered, but without the tarpaulins we had little chance of rebuilding the hut.

    As soon as we had gathered up what we had, we had to decide what to do for the night. It was much colder than our first nights in the open, and snowy rather than sleeting.  The best bet seemed to be to rebuild the walls as best we could, at least getting us some shelter from the winds. Going elsewhere would only mean having to pick up and carry our supplies, and indeed we had seen nowhere more promising on the island.
   

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