Spontoon Island
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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
28 December, 1936 to 31 December, 1936

28th December, 1936

An interesting morning again today – Mr. Sapohatan returned to call us all into a meeting, Saffina included. He reprised the overall plan for us all,  though he did not mention to Molly exactly who they were hoping to trap. We have not told her ourselves; we know how she tends to rush into things when she gets excited. Everyone volunteered, of course. The surprise came when he said he could only take Molly and any other second year, not us or Saffina along to the actual trap site. Our Tutors have put their collective foot down; setting us out together to Krupmark must have given them some grey hairs and we are not to be risked together again so soon, when there are plenty of volunteers from the S.I.T.H.S and similar who can do that bit.

    Still, we are wanted on the backup which could be just as important and probably more difficult; instead of setting an ambush we may have a naval chase and boarding a desperate vessel on the open seas. I suddenly had visions of swooping down in the Songmark Junkers 86 with one of those LeDuck engined aerial torpedoes under each wing, sending one skimming the waves across their bows at five hundred knots with the promise of the next one ploughing through their boiler room on the waterline.

    Unfortunately we do not get to use such things, not even a “get out of Jail Free” pass or any sort of Carte Blanche as the Agents of the Committee of Public Safety had in the French Revolution. I suppose that would rather give the game away if we had one and folk discovered we are from Songmark. We are supposed to use our skills, training and luck, though hopefully not relying on luck too much. It is like rock climbing without a protecting rope; mistakes are a lot more dangerous, so one concentrates on not making any. As they say even when roped, “The leader must not fall.”

    A tramp steamer has no schedule as such but moves from A to B according to what cargoes are available and wanted elsewhere, which makes predicting the Three Moons’ course as tricky as predicting a pinball game two moves ahead. But their scout on Spontoon has been led to discover a Native Ritual involving a dozen or so island maidens (in the Polynesian sense, if not perhaps strictly as Euros would class them) and a priestess staying on a deserted island overnight. This would be too good to miss; in fact it might seem too good to be true for anyone who knew about our previous “sting” in the Kanim Islands – but it seems the Authorities believe they made a clean sweep of everyone involved in that, and no warning leaked out. As soon as the ship heads this way we will be put on immediate alert, and are asked not to go too far from contact in the meantime. No New Year camping trips on the summit of Mount Kiribatori, then.

    When Mr. Sapohatan had gone, we all sat down for a long talk. Saffina was wondering why the Nimitz Sea has this kind of problem – Jirry agreed with me that the short answer is, it is vulnerable because of its isolation. With ships and now seaplanes available, any raider can pounce on a sparsely settled island and vanish off into the wide expanses of the Pacific. As we know, in an hour from Casino Island one can fly an awful long way, and aircraft are just getting faster and longer ranged all the time. A Schneider Trophy racer could fly four hundred and fifty miles in that time – though happily being single seaters they are not the sort of aircraft we have to chase, and indeed they never carry enough fuel for an hour at full throttle. In fact it is a fine balance between completing the course and cutting down weight; a ground crew who see the engine run dry as their aircraft taxies back after the race congratulate themselves on having judged it perfectly.

    Something that I did not say to Jirry, was that the Spontoon Independencies would be far less raided if they were still part of an Empire. Although the local forces and Rain Island do what they can with their resources, the Pacific is a big place and their international reach limited. One hears of British and French gunboats heading up rivers in China and shelling flat some local warlord’s forts if they capture Europeans; I cannot really see Rain Island doing that on Kuo Han, despite everyone knowing that is the main focus for the slave trade in the Pacific. In Jasbir’s dorm, Li Han has told us something of her country, which is corrupt rather than dedicated to the trade – like we hear about Cuba, a lot happens that is technically illegal, but ignored if good for business.

    It is hardly likely that Spontoon would subscribe to the “send a Gunboat” policy even if they had the navy to do it, considering their own history of the Gunboat Wars. London, Paris and Washington are far more concerned with protecting one of their missing citizens than the morals of demolishing someone else’s town and civilians in punishment for taking them.

    Still, as before we could console ourselves that we should have a day or two free before we are called out anywhere; it will take that long to set things up and check whether the Three Moons takes the bait. Maria declares we should give Mrs. H a break for once, and offered to take us all for a meal. The motion was carried wholeheartedly, as we might not be together too often like this.
 
    Although in tourist season South Island is fragrant with food stalls and the hotels in Resort Bay do a roaring (or should that be “drooling”?) trade, at this time of year only the places stay open that suit the demand. All those are on Resort Bay, so we strolled up Northwards to that beach and took a look at what was open. The restaurant at the Topotabo Hotel was serving but they have Euro standards and we were in Native costume, so that was out. We ended up somewhere I have been past scores of times but never actually dined at, the Pie-House of the Sacred Steak and Kidney. Maria used to know it well; when her church was next door she dined there most Sundays after Mass and morning service.

    I must say, having two “Euro” meals in two days was rather a treat. Our local cooking tends to be rice or manioc, with fried taro leaves and fresh fish or dried shrimp. Today was more like the meals back in England, a big well filled meat pie apiece, with mashed potato and bright green processed peas. It is hard to believe Maria and Saffina look on it as exotic foreign cuisine. True enough, it only really suits the climate here in the middle of Winter, but that hardly stops most tourists. Father told me that in the Great War, the French restaurateurs were scandalised that faced with their sophisticated world-class menus all our troops wanted to eat was ham and eggs, egg and chips and kippers (which the French do not make as such, and troops with dictionaries trying to explain about smoked herrings got more blank looks than fish dinners in the early months of the War.)

    Still, an excellent meal. Pastry is something the local cuisine it wholly lacking in, probably just as well for the Spontoon general health and trim figures. Wheat flour and lard all have to be imported, as does most of the meat except chicken. As an occasional treat it is excellent, and would be useful to cure any homesickness – say, that of a Songmark graduate who cannot get home again while the authorities are convinced she is a spy.

    The sad fact is – while the Government believes Soppy Forsythe about me, I cannot go back to England – and without getting back to England I cannot sort out the question of the Allworthy title. Even if I could get a believable fake passport it would hardly help matters. Getting back as Kim-Anh Soosay would only work out until I had to openly become Amelia Bourne-Phipps to battle with the lawyers there – at which point the fat would be in the fire, and the fan would urgently need cleaning. Having sneaked into the country on high quality false papers is a poor start to proving one is not really a secret agent.

    One sees the occasional newspaper from home, and indeed there is a lot going on. The New Party is proving as resolute in Government as it was in opposition; the country seems perfectly content apart from predictable malcontents. Some riots in the East End of London around Cable Street were rapidly quelled, and a lot of the troublemakers are being handed one-way steerage tickets back to Russia, Ireland or out to New South Zion respectively.

    On the way back we took half an hour to examine the bamboo grove that is currently two storeys high and still growing even in midwinter. Just visible through the wrist-thick stalks we could see tumbled and uprooted blocks of stone; Jirry tells me the Church had started their project of building a Calvary when the bamboo started to grow. Actually the first stage had been a formal “Garden of Peace” which nobody was too likely to object to, but the religious carvings were already on order. I used the “seeing through fire” ritual to see just what was there now, and there were a few surprises.
 
    The nearest thing I can think of is field drains; could one see the water under a landscape it  would be in natural flows and sheets moving downhill,  coming together in valleys and only welling up visibly at spring lines. Field drains would be regular lines obviously patched into the pattern, placed to gather and focus what was there. The bamboo grove had the equivalent to new piping, making it a focus where there was none before. When we see the Priestess Oharu I must ask her how she did that – it is well beyond anything we have learned, and the effects are very startling. If I was the herbivore type I might recommend these bamboo shoots highly; certainly they would contain a lot of energy, if not in the way that puts inches on one’s waistline.

   
30th December, 1936

A quiet two days, but just what the doctor ordered – and Mrs. Oelabe, for that matter. The weather is fine, so although we could not risk going off South Island in case the summons came, there was plenty there to enjoy. We braved the weather to swim off Haio Beach, and indeed it is no colder than late Spring bathing in England. In other words, fine for hard exercise but none too tempting for extended paddling.

    Molly and Maria seem to be happy enough with exploring the island; there are various Euros to talk to at Resort Bay, some of them “Remittance men” who have been sent to be out of the way for various reasons and have stories they are keen to tell, and Maria is keen to take down. She fills her time with her journalism; her Uncle started his career that way after all. It seems to be good training for speeches, debates and all sorts of persuasion; I have read the reports on how she fared at the start of the month at the big Festival of Nations. Considering how few folk around here are actual admirers of Il Puce, she did rather well by all accounts.

    All being well, we should get to Casino Island tomorrow for the big bonfire – some of the village folk are already busy weaving the palm leaf effigies they will be casting on the fire. By tradition, the more care and time one takes with the effigies the more bad luck and worries burn along with them. That is one thing we cannot make long in advance, not knowing if we will make it to the bonfire ceremony; being stuck with an effigy unburned after midnight is considered the worst possible luck.

    Helen commented that if Adele was here she only needs to make a round ball of palm leaf strips and draw the lands of the world on it like a globe – wherever she goes is bad luck. When she comes back from Krupmark I will have to get right to work on her problem, or we will both be in even more trouble with our Tutors than we already are. Whatever she did there in Summer, she never said but never complained about either. It might be that she enjoyed herself with experiences it is bad luck to discover one enjoys. On scale, I will do my duty in the coming raid, but if I found myself laughing wildly while cutting down a raiding party in a hail of bullets, I will know there is something seriously wrong. Or at least I hope I would still know it.

    Molly is still having fun with her sprayer; she has actually found a good use for it. The locals ferment a sort of plant feeding spray from seaweed which is sprayed over the leaves; it is generally like a thick jelly but the sprayer handles it very well. She is at least keeping fit, hauling the solidly built knapsack with two gallons of fertiliser around the village’s banana plantation, the trees being rather too tall to be properly reached by the stirrup pumps that was all there was available before. It is good to see her keeping out of mischief; she has not fired a shot in a week, which is a long time for her to go without. Still, she is predictably looking forward to the big bonfire.

   
31st December, 1936

Farewell to our last full year in Songmark! Waking up in the guest longhouse in such good company was a very nice way to end a year that we saw begin on Vostok. As Warrior Priestess (trainee) we are not obliged to sing the full Morning Greeting and Sunset Song, and indeed it would hardly be compatible with being a Songmark student in term time. After breakfast we did practice our devotions though, hopefully summoning up strength for the New Year. We will be recommencing our Priestess studies tomorrow, and then it will be a few short days before term starts again.
 
    Arriving in the village at lunchtime, we saw various village girls hard at work on whatever effigies they are planning to give to the flames. I was busy shopping for Mrs. H but when I returned it was to see Helen and Molly having a furious row – something almost unheard-of, they generally get along extremely well. Molly stalked off without another word as I arrived, her tail hiked in irritation.

    It took some persuading to get Helen to “spill the beans” as she puts it. She had found Molly apparently peacefully engaged in handicrafts, learning from the village girls how to make an effigy of what trouble she most wants to be rid of. All well and good – until Helen spotted just who the image was of. By the ears and tail it could have been Beryl, though Molly has no serious rivalry that I know of with her sometime business partner. It was the broad palm leaf strips looped over the shoulders and tied at the waist in a fairly accurate kimono that clinched it; Molly was most ungratefully making a burnable model of Priestess Oharu.

    I can quite see why Helen violently objected; I would myself. Although I was some distance away scouting on point as we left the church on Krupmark, I did hear something of Oharu admitting having a severe crush on Molly. Well, that is hardly anything strange around here, as Prudence would certainly confirm (and claim that the fraction of her dorm to the rest of us, one in five have such interests. That is probably wishful thinking on her part; before coming out here I had scarcely heard of the idea, which puts it well under one percent. Songmark candidates are not typical in so many ways.)  If the figure had been of the vixen Captain Granite we would only have applauded, but I am told Oharu saved Molly’s life at great risk to her own in the typhus and certainly saved everyone at Krupmark. As I have done to various folks when Duty took me to the Double Lotus bar, simply pointing out she had no interests that way would be quite enough. Belle and Carmen were very keen on expanding my horizons in the first year, having heard tales of remote country girls’ Public schools that bore very little relation to the facts. I had to disappoint them both ways, but still count them as friends.

    Anyway, Molly was persuaded to dismantle the figure before she formally named it, so no harm done there. Hopefully the prospect of imminent action should take Molly’s mind off things.

    As the afternoon went on without any summons postmarked Post Box Nine, we could relax and start to assemble our own effigies. It is a Tradition; although one would think it a sign of a happy life to turn up at the bonfire empty-pawed, the Spontoonies would regard that as rather tempting fate – just as Molly says gamblers never comment on their good luck while the cards are still in play. I plaited together a thin book that I coloured with red ochre to resemble a passport, and named it as such. Helen had made a similar but thicker sheaf of leaves as a textbook; as she did two years ago, she will cast a maths book into the fires. Maria has thinner, loose leaves that could be telegram forms.

    A fine evening looked likely! The skies cleared as we embarked for the main celebration on Casino Island, which was briefly brought to some of its tourist-season life for the occasion. That is, food and drinks stalls were unpacked that have been in storage since September, and were doing a roaring trade. We all attended, all the Hoele’toemi family and many cousins; Namoeta was in from Orpington Island telling us they do not have celebrations on such a scale there. In fact, apart from concerts there is rarely such a crowd in Tower Hill Park at any time of year.

    All was going well – until I spotted Violobe, one of the trainee Guides we know well, heading straight towards us in the crowd. Everyone’s ears went right down. We were in the middle of a party crowd, streaming up the hill towards the celebrations when our expected summons came. Molly cursed, rapidly bought a glass of hot spiced palm wine from a vendor and threw it straight down her throat before handing me her effigy.

    I handed mine and hers to Jirry to be burned by proxy, and we all had to say farewell. Molly had already gone, heading towards the seaplane jetty where she would head out at top speed to the little island of Moto’s Revenge. We know it on the map but have never set paw there; it is just a patch of waterless coral sand with scrub vegetation, like a hundred others in the Kanim Islands. Our own route was to the docks, where we boarded a patrol vessel and headed off into the night. There goes our celebrations for 1936!



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