Spontoon Island
home - contact - credits - new - links - history - maps - art - story

Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
18 December, 1936 to 20 December, 1936

18th December:

It serves us right for volunteering – although less physical than Songmark, our training at the Great Stone Glen is just as hard a task, and no holiday. We waved farewell to Molly and Maria, and with Saffina took a water-taxi out to the Southernmost village of Main Island. The Great Stone Glen is near the main waterfall of the island, but set aside out of the tourist path. In fact the path to get there zig-zags off in an unlikely direction from the main trail, and turns sharply back on course when it is out of sight from below; even if you knew the place existed from an aerial photo, finding it on the ground would be hard. We have been here before but came in from off the mountain, not from below. At the time nobody was there.

    The glen itself is a peaceful spot with a fine view out across the plantations, and on a really clear day from up there one can just make out Albert Island. It is about five hundred feet up, though the same block of island sweeps up to Mount Kiribatori, nearly two miles higher. There is a great stone in the middle of a pleasant open grassy patch (hence the name) and we noticed a small hut like a miniature longhouse tucked away in the shelter of a bamboo grove.

    The three of us arrived to find the place apparently deserted, though there is apparently a waiting area. It seemed a good time and place to get started with our exercises, so we sat and went through the one Clear-Skies Yakan used over on the North Coast when she looked for the curse attached to Adele Beasley. It is quite like taking an infra-red photograph in that one sees things one would never ordinarily spot; the difference being one sees it all right away and no pricey special film is needed.

    As usual, we all spent several minutes trying it then compared notes; no two people ever see exactly the same thing, and Saffina has had years of doing something fairly similar back in Africa. She has quite a broad perspective of such things; her Mother being brought up a Missionary’s daughter and converting to become a Mambo in the Voudon religion, about the equivalent of a lady vicar.

    The spot is definitely powerful; we could have guessed that much but it is something to actually trace its boundaries as we did at Songmark. The two sites are actually quite similar, in the way two modern monoplane fighters from different companies are similar in look despite having no single components in common. There is the actual Great Stone; we could have guessed that too from a tourist postcard (if there were any of here, which I doubt) but it is another to actually sense what is there.

    We could certainly see a strong local presence, not quite the same as Songmark but of that same age. It was very different indeed from what is under Sacred Lake, the same way a line of harvesters with scythes working across a hayfield is different from a skirmish line advancing with bayonets. Both are moving forward in formation with steel-tipped tools, but for a very different purpose.

    For awhile we talked it over, then relaxed and recommenced the rituals. So it was that we spotted the Priestess; Saffina first then Helen, then I felt the presence of a definite power before she walked around the bamboo grove and bowed to us.
 
    I had not met Priestess Oharu since that time on South Island I told her about my friend Angelica’s problem with bananas. Actually she was not a full Priestess then, Saimmi tells me, though she became one soon after. She rather vanished from my view since she handed over responsibility for Angelica to the local Honoured Mother in Angelica’s village; Ada Cronstein keeps me informed about what Angelica was doing.
 
    I was surprised that Helen knew her, but Helen explained they had both been helping Mrs. Hoele’toemi care for me and Molly when we were struck down with the Marsh Typhus we caught on Albert Island. Apparently Helen helped “behind the lines” away from us highly infectious patients, but Priestess Oharu and Mrs. H did everything necessary to care for us. Helen never mentioned this before.

    I bowed as deeply as I could, thanking her – I remember very little about it but from what I heard Molly and me were barely alive, and any amount of care might have made the difference that pulled us through. Somehow I had remembered her, at least when I met Oharu for what I believed was the first time, she already seemed familiar. She has been to Songmark on at least two occasions I know about, and it is reassuring that both Saimmi and our Tutors approve of this trip. Maria told us quite a bit about her, and indeed she has suffered a lot of awful punishment as we can see from her neck, her voice and other places. Maria has seen her back, and says it is not a sight for the squeamish. They used to say at Saint Winifred’s “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”, but I for one can happily manage without that sort of strengthening.

    Anyway, the first morning was spent in our demonstrating what we know already, what with Saimmi and Gha’ta having trained us. Oharu took notes at the rate of a court stenographer and asked us a lot of questions. I had handled the Cranium Island fragment, which is like the Krupmark and the Crater Lake pieces as far as a torch battery is like mains electricity and a lightning bolt respectively.

    After our experiences in the Aleutians it was a comfortable and fairly trivial thing to camp out in a meadow off the side of the Glen. Helen and I had brought our bivouac shelters, and Saffina borrowed the one Adele Beasley made (she may well be having a rough time on Krupmark, but I doubt wind and rain are her main problems.)

    Training was quite similar to the same with Saimmi and Gha’ta, except that this seems to be going both ways. That is, Oharu constantly checked how well things were working and made notes in a book. Saimmi has told us she is working on a definitive work that will put the Polynesian religion we are learning into a coherent whole, for the first time since the Great Ritual went so horribly wrong. Possibly they did not have a coherently written equivalent even then, just a body of Priests (far more than today) and Priestesses each having learned in the traditional way. The trouble with that is that it is impossible to exactly know what someone else is thinking or what they will do next; handling something as complex and crucial as the Great Ritual really needed as much planning as designing an aircraft engine. Perhaps that could explain a few things.

    As with our Warrior Priestess training, a lot of what we learned was defensive rituals. We put them to the test; maybe what appeared really were illusions but they were convincing enough. Rather like a ship’s captain spotting a wake of bubbles heading in on a collision course; there just might be other things it could be rather than a torpedo, but one hardly likes to let it hit and find out.

    Oharu had quite a lot to ask us, as well as teach. She seems to know a fair amount about Songmark, but there is a lot of day-to-day stuff that she is interested in. We complained slightly about the diet, but she seemed to think it quite luxurious, having fish nearly every day and meat about once a week. Of course, we three are all felines, but she asked what Molly and Maria eat. She seemed quite shocked when she heard they join us and eat all the meat and fish available; evidently in Japan herbivores by birth are usually herbivores for life. I suppose when the main diet is millet or rice, raising fawns to have expensive tastes would be frowned on. By reputation red meat breeds ferocity; although we have little enough of it at Songmark, anyone watching Molly having fun with her sword bayonet and a plaited straw dummy might guess she had not been dining on green salad. Actually they would usually be wrong, if our regular side dish of stewed taro leaves count as salad.

    One thing we have here in common with Songmark is our timetable recognises we cannot digest endless lessons without a break; even at Songmark they tend to intersperse classroom work with workshop experiences, flying and sports. Having put some hours working with us on the rituals, Oharu excused herself for other essential duties and invited us to explore the area until she returned for Sunset Song.  We are not expected to spend all our time learning rituals. For two hours a day we have time to exercise, stretch our legs and “find our centre.”

    Helen and Saffina explored with me; the longhouse we first saw was that of Oharu’s three students, the ones who put the curse on Angelica. We have heard a lot about that, and indeed they are pointed out as Awful Warnings about what happens when people have more talent than training. Some of the blame might be on the Priestesses who refused to train them, Saffina thinks. Then again, talent is Talent, and sadly is not connected with wisdom or good intentions. Imagine if Red Dorm had those sorts of abilities! It would be no favour to the world to train them up to use their abilities, knowing what they would probably do with them.

    The second hut was quite a way around the corner, Oharu’s own that she had offered to us while we are here. It is a rather distinctive structure being raised off the ground as if the area was expected to flood. We spent awhile looking around convincing ourselves that this was not going to happen; Helen has told us of the dangers of camping in “Arroyos” that very rapidly become flash flood channels. The Glen is certainly an ancient watercourse, but looking at the grass and such there has been no real flow through here for years. A small waterfall at the top vanishes into cracks and fissures, the sound of water echoing up from deep in the mountainside.

    We had a debate over whether to use the hut; it is rather small for the three of us, though luxurious compared to the cramped cargo hold of the Lockheed Lamprey. Plus we are not likely to wake up in the night with a ski-tip or snowshoe tail having somehow migrated to poke us in the kidneys. I did worry about whether Oharu would be insulted about our refusing her hospitality – especially as we have all the necessary bivouacking kit with us. We have several days of basic provisions as well; we hardly like to impose ourselves on such a small community. Foraging for food is a full-time job, and we are busy learning here.

    In the end we decided to bivouac at the end of the valley, not far from the students’ hut. We have not met them yet; they are evidently tending shrines and such elsewhere. Lighting a fire is not something we want to do in such a place – but we have a half dozen of Molly’s “Fireless Food” (Pats. Pending) to test out. They look rather like a small square can with a strip of tin foil taped over to make a weak spot one punches through (with a twig or knife, NOT one’s finger, there should be warnings about that) and spoons in the water to start the reaction. Quicklime may be less dangerous than burning fuel, but I have forebodings about one of these bursting inside a cramped tent some dark and windy night. At least with stove fuel one can see where the hazard is.


19th December:

A damp start! Our bivouac shelters are perfectly comfy once one is properly in them, but getting in and out in pouring rain is jolly difficult without getting the sleeping bag and such soaked. One learns to get out rather like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon, having the top oilskins out first and emerging into them, then quickly sealing up the bivouac bag as the leggings and boots go on.  One of these days someone will invent a waterproof  garment that really IS waterproof.

We have now met Oharu’s students who arrived late last night; the badger twins are old enough to come to Songmark in a couple of years (should they want to apply) and the fox is a year or so older. I confess my nose wrinkled rather when I first met them; if not for them, Angelica would probably be safe at home by now rather than stuck on Main Island. Mind you, that would mean she would be up to her ears again in bananas and associated merchandise, which she utterly hates – and Ada would be sorry. But I am sure these three have had the error of their ways pointed out to them by now. Maybe even twice.

    The badger girls are interesting, Nuimba and Ote’he. They share our fur markings of trainee priestess, though they are Natives and do not wear the “arrived” mark we have. Though they are not identical twins their natural fur is extremely similar, or would be apart from the styling. Nuimba wears the similar style that Ada and her friends in the formation swimming team use, which does not denote sporting prowess. Well, not for anything there is currently an Olympic event for, much to Ada’s regret. She could win medals, I am sure.

    Rather oddly, Helen whispered that when she woke up in need of a convenient bush in the night, from the sound of it all three of Oharu’s students were decidedly – occupied, one way or another. By her fur markings, Nuimba would hardly be expected to have an interest. One hates to ask, but it is very curious. Angelica told me something about those three; they had trained each other in the local religion and have grown up together. Possibly Nuimba is less particular in the case of her fox friend. I have no taste for sour poi myself, but if it is that or go without entirely I can talk myself into it, pretending it is something more to my liking.

More hard work today, although we are very used to that idea. Oharu quizzed me about the Cranium Island fragment, as Saimmi and me are the only ones she can ask who have handled it. The trouble is, there are not really words to describe how it felt and how it reacted to what I could do against it.

    As Oharu obviously needed to know, I consented to having her “look inside” me – according to Helen I was out for half an hour, while she explored what I truly remembered of it. She had some interesting questions after that – she asked about Professor Schiller and especially those three young wolves who travelled with him, Gunter, Uwe and Ulric as I recall. Evidently she spotted something there I had “Seen but not Observed” as Sherlock Hound used to say. I recall them being very quiet, intense types who worked as a team just as well as any Songmark third-year dorm, with hardly a sound or gesture needed as everyone knows their place in the action. They were jolly athletic too, the way they got over that volcano crater and back.

    From what Oharu told us, the Cranium Island fragment had been by far the least of the three, as witness the fact it could be taken furthest in a sailing canoe with most of the crew having to “contain” it rather than sail or row the vessel. The Krupmark fragment is slightly bigger and will be a lot more active, and as for what is under Sacred Lake – dealing with that right now would be like trying to put out one of Mr. Wells’ Radium bombs in “The World Set Free”* with a fire hose. They give out Victoria Crosses for equivalent bravery, but most of those are posthumous.
 
    The unfortunate thing is that having one stone calls to another, and another beyond it. Oharu says the main fragment is so deep down that a Priestess who gets it secured to be hauled up would give her life to do so. In Native pearl-diving mode maybe, but I cannot see why a proper deep-sea diving outfit could not be used. There may be some sort of curse involved affecting machinery the same way as Angelica’s aircraft – but I hardly see how, considering the artefact has been down there five hundred years. If it is not buried under yards of sediment it will be surprising. That might be a blessing if it ever becomes essential that the main fragment must not fall into the wrong paws. I did not like to ask what the spirits of the lake would feel about someone dynamiting in a few hundred tons of rock off the cliffs to make sure what is down there stays there.

    Anyway, we had arranged to meet Molly and Maria down on the beach at luncheon, or rather at the native village there. They are handling one side of the Krupmark trip, being physical “security” while we are preparing against the kinds of things that bullets will not affect. It is forty minutes fast going down the trail, but the last bit through the plantations is easy going and we are keeping as fit as we can. The village is rather basic, having no shops or restaurants, being a long way off the tourist routes. Its only “facilities” are the bus stop and the Police Station (actually just the constable’s house, but it has a telephone) which doubles as the Post Office. Anything else one gets from “The Truck”, a lorry that grinds through once a day, turning round here at the end of the road before heading back to Main Village.
 
    While we have been training up on the mountainside, our friends have been having an equally busy time. Maria says they have all the equipment ready; we shall start from the South tip of Main Island along with Oharu and have just one night to get everything done. We should even have some diversions – Maria has contacted Adele who says she has approval from her local friend to cause some well-targeted mayhem. It seems the time is right to get away with it; Molly rather wistfully added that Krupmark Island is going through one of its periodic upheavals and no matter what happens there are too many suspects to easily pin the blame on. The one good thing about Krupmark is that there are no innocent bystanders; everyone is probably extremely guilty of several crimes. Helen muttered that a 1918 Cologne-scale bombing raid would improve the average honesty of Nimitz Sea area furs no end.

    I have no idea what Adele is getting into, but it hardly sounds like a safe way to spend a holiday. Neither is ours, I must admit. At least our raid should be as Molly describes a bank robbery – “straight in, do the business, straight out.” We are being taken there and back by the pilot Nikki (I forget her other name) that tough Fillypine mare who is often to be found at the Double Lotus. Molly dipped her ears at hearing that; the last time she was taken anywhere by a Captain of that persuasion was by Captain Granite more than a year ago, not that she will ever forget it. I recall that Prudence and Ada earned a flight in Nikki’s seaplane – they came back with their logbooks duly filled but claiming the experience was not worth the price of the flight.
 
    Luncheon was at one of the houses we had stopped at on our way up Mount Kiribatori a month ago; although one could hardly describe it as a restaurant, like many farmhouses in England a weary traveller can be sure of a hearty meal in the family kitchen for a very reasonable price. Molly’s fireless cookers are very good for warming a can of stew, but she will have to put in more work before she can deliver crisp roasted fish with that system! The lady of the house was very happy to cook for us for a cowry apiece, she being a spotted jungle cat looking rather like an Albert Islander. A lot of the Polynesians have that fur pattern; an old insult from Plantation days was “Spotto” which probably referred to such fur rather than being a Spontoonie as such. Jungle cats tend to have spotted fur unlike Euros; I have seen Mixtecan felines of jaguar ancestry with almost square spots. Considering some Euros these days who come to work here as exotic dancers and such have fur-dye applied to look like that, the insult will probably die out in this generation.

    By tradition the very earliest Spontoonies were lizard folk like the pretty statue of the great green water-lizard in Main Village, so in that case the fur pattern hardly seems relevant. This must be about as far North as a lizard cares to live all year round; I hardly saw any in Vostok and none at all in the Aleutians. Angelica has described one of her former employers in the Pearl trade as being a snake lady, a very rare species indeed. I have only seen them in books, never in the fur (so to speak. Should I say “full scale”?)

    So: everything is arranged for the solstice. As we climbed back up towards the Great Stone Glen, I could not help my ears drooping at the view of Sacred Island in the distance, where I was going to be Tailfast. I know Helen is thinking much the same, as she muttered about even Prudence and Tahni being there, but not us. Still, we not only volunteered for this but annoyed Saimmi doing so, and can hardly complain about the consequences. Certainly I would never forgive myself if anything happened to Molly and Maria while I was off enjoying myself knowing they were going into danger.

*    Editor’s note: in the 1930’s Mr’ Wells’ idea of an atomic disintegration bomb was more like a nuclear flare, or a chunk of a star melting the neighbourhood to a volcanic crater as it stayed burning for several days. See E.E. “Doc” Smith’s “Masters of the Vortex” for a slightly more modern description.


20th December

A last day of preparation! We got plenty of sleep at least, being just up for Sun-Greeting song. Happily a bivouac shelter can just be rapidly stepped out of in dry weather, and we joined in the ritual with Oharu and her students. A busy morning practicing rituals followed; Oharu says we have to get this absolutely perfect on Krupmark and will have no second chance.

    Actually, although Priestess Oharu looks outwardly quite calm one can see she is under a lot of nervous strain. Apart from Rumiko I have not really met any Japanese, and the body language is somewhat different. I think this trip could be difficult for her; she is not physically toughened up by the look of her. Still, if it comes to it Saffina or Maria could just pick her up and carry her; for short distances we have surely hauled heavier stretchers and rucksacks.
 
    I must say, it is enough to worry anyone. Oharu made me describe the Cranium Island stone as I first found it cast up on the cooled lava flow inside the volcano, with various blasted and splintered bones around it. I doubt those could have been the Priestesses who put it there; to be “buried in fire” the volcano must have been active centuries ago, and there would be nothing left. The remains must have been those of furs who were sent out to retrieve the fragment, either to take for themselves or because they were sent out as a typical Cranium Islands “Experiment.” Oharu says that the rituals Saimmi had taught me saved more than my life – according to her, losing to such a stone would capture one’s soul. I doubt there is anything in the Bible dealing with this, though I have not read Archbishop Crowley’s wholly new and revised version yet. The Reverend Bingham sticks to Version 1.0, but Spontoon is rather remote and some things take awhile to get out here.

    We are about as ready as we are going to be, so in the afternoon we took advantage of an hour of sunshine to have a brief wash in the only bathing pool in the Glen. The water is cold but bearable if one keeps moving, and Helen and Saffina joined me. It was rather odd – as we splashed around in our bare fur I could spot something watching us, yet on the other paw there was certainly nobody there. In fact, one had the impression the valley itself was watching. Saffina raised her tail invitingly, and blew a kiss in the general direction of the presence.

    I recall our one Japanese student Rumiko telling cautionary folk-tales about that sort of thing. According to Japanese legend it is unwise for girls to sleep out on verandas and such in the open air in rainstorms, lest they attract the attentions of the thunder-god (who fortunately manifests himself in a more personable form than a lightning bolt.) Maria’s comment at the time was it would be at least an interesting experience and a good use of a rainy evening. She seems to be thinking a lot about such things in the last few months.

    It felt rather like getting our call-up papers as we struck camp, packed our bivouac gear into the knapsacks and headed down towards the beach. There we met Saimmi who was with two other Priestesses we have seen before but do not know by name. Saimmi had said she would leave us behind unless we passed the sternest tests she could give us – apparently those two were our replacements ready on the spot should we fail. In the course of duty, Saimmi certainly put us through the wringer! We were pale-nosed and shaking by the time she finished and rather grudgingly passed us as fit. Then it was awaiting the laden water-taxi from South Island, where Molly and Maria had spent the time selecting equipment and generally finish preparing for the physical side of the trip. Molly is carrying the Mauser rifle that appeared from a mystery benefactor; she really wanted to take the T-Gew but there are narrow caves to negotiate and my anti-tank rifle is rather unwieldy in cramped spaces even without the two-foot sword bayonet.

    The rest of us have suitably anonymous Vostok rifles, the “Fedorov Avtomat” Mark Fours that are lightweight but have a good rate of fire – the average Krupmark hired thug tends to be an enthusiastic but not too accurate shot especially at night, unless of course we have the misfortune to run into some of the guards from “up the hill” where Adele is staying. Then as Beryl says, all bets will be off. Another advantage is we are all carrying the same ammunition – on Cranium Island we had four different sorts ranging from my revolver to the T-Gew. Standardising on the Fedorovs is a happy compromise, and the short 6.5 mm rounds do not weigh half a pound apiece. In fact, the whole clip is about the weight of one T-Gew round!  Molly dreams of getting one of those Vostok built armoured cycles the Motor Cossacks ride that can carry all the hardware and still jump walls and ditches like the horses the Cossacks had to leave behind on the Russian mainland. Some folk seem to be thinking hard about that; in this year’s “Jane’s All The World’s Armoured Vehicles” we read that the American army has started a specialist Tankette Destroyer Command.

    Maria says she has heard Kansas Smith is already heading towards Krupmark, though we stand a fair chance of beating her to it. What Maria hears these days, and how, is an interesting question. I doubt she hears it from Mr. Sapohatan, who might be expected to tell me and Helen of our group, rather than Maria. In fact on some occasions she has given me information to pass on to Post Box Nine, rather as if she is paying her taxes to the local authorities.

    As the afternoon faded we met up with Oharu on the beach where the flying boat was landed, also meeting Saimmi who was there to see us off with a few final notes.  Our instructions are clear – if we get the stone, get it back to Spontoon at all costs. This basically means getting Oharu back, as nobody else stands much chance of handling the fragment. We have memorised the maps of Krupmark, and if necessary the rest of the party will scatter and make for pick-up points, hopefully pulling pursuit away. Although she did not say it as such, Saimmi left us in no doubt that the rest of are of secondary importance in terms of getting back.

    A larger team might be handy for this, but we are going to have to move fast and secretly in what is basically enemy territory. All being well, we can bounce in and out before anyone even knows we are there. In effect it is like pulling a bank raid behind enemy lines – twice the hazards. This is one reason we are going on the longest night, to give the best cover. It is clear on Spontoon, which is rather a problem with slipping in undetected on an island as paranoid as Krupmark – but Saimmi says she can arrange something to help us.

    Well – I am handing my diary to Saimmi, as it is a case of – “return with your shield or on it” and one thing is certain – we are going to be rather busy.



next