Spontoon Island
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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
1 March, 1937 to 4 March, 1937



Monday March 1st, 1937

A new month already, and the brilliant weather continues. Which was just as well, as this morning we were all out to Main Island to get our paws dirty on some “urban climbing”. That is, we were back to the old railway bridge just North of Mount Kiribatori, which according to the old iron plaque Mr. Hornby Doublo built for the British plantations some forty years ago. It seems rather a waste, building a whole railway that only ran for less than a decade. Still, the track exists in stockpile, the Althing have never allowed anyone to build on the old rail beds and if needed it could all be up and running in a year or so with little expense but off-season local labour.

    Thinking of labour, it was a decidedly hard slog up the ravine to get there carrying our equipment. One-inch Manila rope is the minimum that anyone really trusts, and a coil of a hundred feet is quite a burden. That, plus our usual packs with slater’s hammers and metal pegs to assist us up the sheer faces added up to about sixty pounds apiece. Though I noticed in Jasbir’s dorm Irma Bundt helping out with Li Han’s load, in Missy K’s bunch Beryl was almost driven into the ground by her pack. It is hard work having furs of all size and species working together; no wonder the Army divides into Light, Medium and Heavy infantry and cavalry. It makes tacticians’ jobs much simpler, and quartermasters at least know what uniforms to lay in stock.

    Adele seems to be far more cheerful, and small wonder. She was usually in need of first-aid by the end of the day, though mostly for painful rather than life-threatening mishaps. That is, she will be the one to put her paw into a climbing hold tenanted by angry white ants, though not deadly scorpions. Today she did rather well, swarming up the ropes with confidence they are not going to unexpectedly break, and that her new dorm-leader Madeleine has not tied the wrong knot in the rope. Madeleine is technically very qualified both in modern radios and electrics and on sailing boats.  Anyone who is sure-pawed enough to work out in the swaying rigging has little to fear from today’s scrambles up the old bridge pillars.

    The part of the trail crossed by the bridge is very little used, as the coast road handles the traffic and avoids climbing the hillside. The railway had to link to a plantation that is pretty much abandoned now, half way up Mount Kiribatori where furs were trying to take advantage of the cooler climate. It is the only place around here I have found where they are growing potatoes, and indeed some of these Spontoonies are of Irish descent (as much as Jirry is from Barsetshire that is; not for three generations.)

    A hard morning’s work climbing left us all with our paws feeling like they had been sanded down; definitely a Songmark girl would waste her money getting an expensive manicure. Then it was the turn of the rest of our systems to get worn out, as we were told to get to Main Village inside an hour! Straight along the old railway was the best route, past the sugar plantations and eventually we “steamed” into Main Village panting in the heat and being very thankful this is not July.  Running with sixty pounds of equipment is a strain, even on the steady gradients of a railway line. It is just as well we are not film stars or swimsuit models, as our backs are masses of bruises from the knapsacks bouncing around in a full speed run.  They were pulled tight as we could stand them but still the hard climbing gear inside bounced around. Jasbir’s dorm came off best; they had the idea of grabbing handfuls of big leaves from the trees as we passed and stuffing them into each others’ packs on the run, to pack them tight. Nobody else dared take the time, but we will be regretting it when we lie down tonight, tired or no.

    Thinking of swimming, I made sure Molly was out of earshot and asked Prudence how Florence got on at the weekend. The swimming club is full of hardy furs undeterred by the cool seas this time of year – and indeed if one can keep in formation in the open waters of a bay, doing so for film cameras indoors is almost easy. Prudence says she having an interesting time with that big mare Nikki and her friends, but that should be an education in its own right. And at least she will get plenty of exercise at the swimming club.

    On the way back we stopped in Casino Island where we were treated to a newsreel. Songmark do like to keep us up-to-date on how the world is faring beyond these small islands. There was a five minute reel about the upcoming American elections, where the “caretaker” president Mr. Huey Long goes to the polls to get the mandate to put his schemes into action. As they involve bleeding the extremely rich to help the poor, it is no surprise he has had three assassination attempts this year already! Considering if he gets elected anyone who owns more than a million dollars will effectively lose it as huge taxes, professional freelance assassins are probably sending magnates their price lists right now. As a populist he looks rather interesting – “The Kingfish” they call him which sounds more like a pulp magazine villain than a politician. Molly says she ought to dislike his policies on principle, but realises any fortune based on crime does not pay tax anyway.

    I would have voted for one of the other populist candidates for president, a pretty dark-headed East-coast poodle called Betty somebody (she has huge eyes almost like a tarsier, but is what Ada calls a “New York Jewish Princess” and Ada should know.) Being an actress is possibly a point against her though; a sensible population should be able to tell the difference between someone they want to see on screen and in power. I remember newsreels of her campaign about five years ago against a Mr. Nemo or suchlike where as an actress she promised free movies, cabarets and shows and sang a catchy jingle with bits something like – “What this country is in need of, is a lot of Hi-de-ho!  /  Boop-a--doop, and chocolate ice-cream!”  *  Certainly a vote-winner for all the furs standing in line for potato soup in the old “Hooverville” shanty towns, one would think. For some reason Maria says she is not recommending that economic policy to her Uncle, even though ice-cream would surely be welcome in an Italian summer. Gelato, I believe she calls it.

    Back to Songmark, though I managed to divert past the post office to pick up a “post restante” parcel I sent myself from Macao. I would hate to think of this as falling into the wrong paws, especially if they knew whose it was. Seeing what sort of “traditions” are practiced on Krupmark Island, not all furs are materialist and enemies could perform various effective rituals with Lars’ shed antler. I must return it to him sometime. Meanwhile it has its uses, that I have rather missed. I hate to keep anything from Helen, but she strongly dislikes anything to do with Lars, but as Helen is usually on gate guard with Maria, occasions may arise.
       
* Editor’s note: there is an amazing similarity with this and “Betty Boop for President”, the 1932 film by the Fleischer Brothers, currently out of copyright and highly recommended. Just one of those coincidences.


Tuesday March 2nd, 1937

A fascinating idea landed on our tables today – we knew Molly and her financiers at the Temple of Continual Reward had been working on a follow-up to the “Fish Log”, but she has been keeping very close-mouthed about it. After a long day out on the waters in my small-boat handling class, I returned to find Molly pleading with Miss Devinski to let us have one of the new, bare metal unlabelled tins with our dessert. Evidently she put forward a good enough case, as after our regular meal (rice for a change, with fish and taro leaf) she pulled out the shiny tin with a can-opener and a flourish. She also had a large napkin handy; we found out why when she opened the somewhat pressurised tin.

    I had told her last year of the alcoholic “fizzy mango” the folk had invented on the (officially) teetotal Gilbert and Sullivan Islands, made by injecting a ripe mango with yeast and leaving it in the sun. Spontoon does not grow many mangoes but it does have a lot of pineapples to experiment with. The idea of fermenting pineapple slices, canning them un-sterilised, waiting a few days then heat-treating them, is certainly a new one on me. The results are tangy, fizzy, quite sparkling on the tongue and about eight percent alcohol! We were allowed the one tin between four of us, the first and probably the last time we have sat down with any “booze” at a Songmark table. Sparkling fruit is a rather novel idea. Having the cans ferment before bottling means none of the alcohol is lost in the canning, though they do need to put warning labels on the pressurised cans.

    It is nice to know Molly has interests beyond working out how to convert a battleship gun to illegal full-automatic fire. As with the crab flavoured fish log last year, the cannery is starting with a trial batch of a few hundred tins to be tried out on tourists. It is only two months till the official start of the tourist season, after all.

    Molly’s first customers will be a lot nearer to paw and more immediate; as we left I spotted half a dozen Songmark girls waiting to talk to her. No doubt it will join the list of proscribed items to be confiscated at the gate (and drunk later by the Tutors, as first-year gossip has it. Actually we get everything returned at the end of the year in July.)
    
    We were only happy that our Tutors did not make us demonstrate tightrope-walking just after, just for the fun of it. Their fun, not ours. Everyone keeps a grab bag of food, useful items and such handy in case we get grabbed ourselves at zero notice and sent on an exercise. Maria has written a few parodies where Miss Devinski plays “spin the bottle” to decide which dorm will get picked, then another round selects which of the various tricky and exhausting (but always educational) exercises we get put through. Our pockets are usually full, just in case we are not allowed to carry any sort of pack. We have seen dorms roused at three in the morning and having to make do in their sleeping slips!
 
    As Helen has quoted one of her presidents, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Molly disagreed, saying if it was the Liberty in Red Dorm, her price for the night on Krupmark would hardly buy a round of drinks. True, she has a rather sour demeanour and unlike many mixed species girls manages to be non-pedigree without looking at all exotic. (Mixed species folk can turn out either way – Miss Wildford and Nuala Rachorska are very pretty, but Kansas Smith is decidedly not. It is something I have thought a lot about; if my “encounter” in Macao had been right now rather than 2 weeks ago I would be left wondering what equine ears and tail would look like on a kitten expected for Christmas.)

    Red Dorm, like everyone else, seems to be going from strength to strength. We are always amazed that they have not been kicked out, but then again other folk have said the same about us. Despite everything one hears, the dropout rate including expulsions here is rather low. So far only “Soppy” Forsythe has left our year and that was her idea – though we do get reminded how close to the line we keep going. That line is rather well surveyed by now, and we have charted it as if with micrometers.

    From what we hear of the Ave Argentum, they really do kick out a couple a term – more for “moral failures” than for flunking exams. They have had no fatal accidents yet, but while we were in Macao they did crash one of their Potez fighters on the runway so badly it had to be scrapped. A good thing we can boast about our safety record! Even though it is surely a matter of time before a first-year like Maria was tries something silly. Maria says a favourite stunt was to “spin the wheels”, that is to fly so low over a building the undercarriage just brushes it lightly. Now, that is something that Songmark really might throw a girl out for.
 
    After supper Helen and I had our homework to do from Saimmi, with our warrior priestess exercises. It is quite difficult, the “seeing through fire”, but I do get glimpses of what Saimmi has described. It is almost as if people were giving off plumes of heat, some more conspicuous than others. Our Tutors can be spotted all the way across the compound. So can Eva Schiller, Irma Bundt and quite a few of the junior years including Alpha Zarahoff. Definitely not the sort of “divinities” homework they set us at Saint Winifred’s, or my pre prep school of All Saints Except Saint Jerome!
 
    Beryl has, of course, some interesting tales of her Religious Education at Saint T’s. For a change I almost believe her being taught in class “Jesus loves you – but Lucifer pays cash.”

   
Wednesday March 3rd, 1937

An interesting day for Maria; in the post she received her usual bundle of airmailed newspapers, mostly in Italian. They had some surprising pictures in there – Italy’s mostly Tankette armoured force on its first ever serious manoeuvres out in the Libyan Desert. Il Puce has now sent about a quarter of his army home to work the fields, build dams, roads and steel mills – and the cash saved is going into training and upgrading the best of those remaining, giving them all radios and a rather more reliable engine. Maria has complained that her Uncle spent all the money too soon – he would have beaten anyone in 1934 but is stuck with fleets of light L3/35 tankettes that are being rather left behind by events. Things have improved though; by giving enterprising young Captains engineering teams and a free licence to use anything in the armoury, there are now a dozen specialist vehicles or “funnies” as the Press call them. A tankette with a three-inch recoilless Davis Gun is not exactly funny! There were failures of course, such as the 47 mm anti-tank gun on the light tankette that smashed the suspension with the recoil of its first shot.

    Apparently tactics are going through rather a dramatic shift as well; the plain versions are giving up pretending to be tanks and behaving more like traditional cavalry. Great sweeping pincer movements across the empty desert are being practiced – not that anyone expects to fight out there, but it is a good place to manoeuvre without damaging any crops. Maria says her Uncle is finally taking advice and having all his colonies carefully surveyed for minerals. Ethiopia could be full of Radium, for all they know. He is trying to persuade restless furs to head out to their own colonies rather than across the Atlantic to Gnu York – for generations the chief export of Italy has been Italians, and the country has been bleeding talent.

    The news around the rest of the world continues to look gloomy. Europe looks as if it is heading out of the Depression, though. Maria has invited us all back after we graduate (or fail to, whichever) and we have pencilled it in our diaries. She can easily afford to pay our return fares, much to Helen’s relief. I will be trying my best to pass on the Allworthy title, if any decent claimants show up.

    I have written again to Judge Poynter, asking if there is any news. He is a dear old gentleman, and does like my company. Not for the first time I found myself wondering how it might have been if it had been him rather than Lord Leon. Not that I am marrying anyone except Jirry (I hope). In fact, that might have made things harder – when I did find out what Lord Leon was like I had no qualms about trying to forget him.

    (Later) We were just coming in for lunch when Miss Devinski handed us Afternoon passes to go straight out again, with a growl that we would certainly be making up the lost work in our free time. There was only a time and a place specified – and all thoughts of grabbing lunch vanished as we realised we had to be at the Northernmost tip of the island in ten minutes!

    A rapid jog brought us past Superior Engineering, past the bicycle factory and the sawmill, past the low cliffs currently empty of junior years struggling up and plummeting down,  and bang on time we reached the empty beach looking across to Vikingstown on Main Island. Molly first spotted the water-taxi heading towards us; there were several water taxis in sight but only one was heading to a spot without docks and jetties.

    We were not amazed to see Mr. Sapohatan step out onto the beach two minutes later, apologising for being late. He started by congratulating us on our reports, and mentioned dryly that Lady Allworthy had a successful trip to judge from the share prices of the Barrow-in-Furryness shipyards, who are investing in equipment. He was keen to quiz us on the Direwolf, its crew, its attitudes and what ideas we had about its plans.
 
    Maria did a good deal of the talking; she is the best informed of us on Naval matters and is the only one who commonly uses the big illustrated “Jane’s Naval Review” books as anything but a heavy weight for pressing things with -much as she says that in Germany their chancellor’s dull political tract has replaced the Bible, as a big heavy thing that is handy to have around to impress visitors and press flowers with otherwise.

    Mr. Sapohatan was very keen to check that we had spoken to nobody about the “Torpedo Breaker”, which is being put into production somewhere in the Rain Island archipelago. Just because a prototype works perfectly, does not mean the design is perfect for mass production (see Italian aircraft for details; Maria has often fumed that the gap between their hand-built Schneider Trophy aircraft and their line fighters is three times that of other nations.) When we satisfied him on that account, he nodded and said in compensation for their losing the Torpedo Breaker deal he could offer some more contracts to the Allworthy yard, in terms of special components. Of course I jumped at the idea, being all too aware the Direwolf’s order will not keep the yard busy for long, and not having the time to look for customers on my own.

    It says something for how well-prepared a certain ferret is, that he had a roll of engineering blueprints with him. Actually it was only one component he wanted, and a strange one at that. The drawing reminded me at first of a chicken leg bone, a tubular shaft with bulges at both ends, though one end is a very heavy-duty pivot and the other end has a plate evidently designed to be bolted firmly to a main structure. The whole unit is just over six feet long, and specified as precision forged in one piece from extremely special high-tensile steel. None of us could guess just what it does, but three hundred of them are needed, with an option of more later.

    Well, a cheerful piece of news for Barrow-in-Furryness! I gratefully accepted the blueprints, and his assurance that payment will be made and collection arranged. I rather doubt the cheque will appear to come from this part of the world – and probably the finished parts will fly to Iceland to be picked up by a party of Swedes going to Jugoslavia, before it ever heads towards the Nimitz Sea. Of course, anything the Allworthy yards cannot make they can sub-contract out – there are a few very specialist mills, mostly in Sheffield that make things like gun barrels and armour plate that shipyards buy in as needed.

    Back via the Eastern Island post office, where a certain blueprint and covering letter was sent express Registered Airmail towards England. The mail sack was whisked away and hauled out a minute later, where by sheer good luck an aircraft was ready to take off. By the time we were back in Songmark it was already starting its four day trip.

    Thinking of trips, Eva Schiller was waiting for us with details of another mission Mr. Sapohatan wants us to accept, the Easter Holiday in New South Thule. It will be Autumn there, so we had better wrap up warmly, she reminded us. As if we needed it. Apparently all our travel visas have come through, very necessary as away from the tourist resorts the German colonists are rather cagy about letting travellers in. Maria’s name is a key that unlocks many doors, though.

    Helen was grumbling that we hardly have time to do our coursework at this rate; we are so busy being genuine Adventuresses that we are missing out on the training. And yet she had to agree that an ounce of practice is worth a pound of instruction – we were marked on our Macao trip as if it had been any other Songmark exercise. The first and second years need the classroom training, but we are getting ours rather in the “school of hard knocks.” Our self-defence classes taught us how to dodge and roll away from most hard knocks, years ago.

    Still, my tail and ears drooped at the prospect of another working “holiday”, our last ever holiday at Songmark! Last Easter we were busy enough on the Albert Island trip, and last Christmas was retrieving the Krupmark fragment – holidays are meant to be relaxing, and there is little chance of that. Though as our Tutors say, they never deduct points for grumbling, as long as we go ahead and do whatever it is.

    Just to cap it all, we are on Gate Guard again tonight. I will not be seeing the bed till three in the morning, when Molly and I swap over with Helen and Maria. We have our vacuum flasks of hot soup to fill (nothing wakes one like Vindaloo strength curry for breakfast!) and other preparations to make. This is one thing we all agree on – we will not miss this chore after we graduate. I know millions of troops have just the same dull and risky job in the cold and rain all around the world – but they get paid and we are paying to do this! If that is not adding insult to injury I’m sure I don’t know what is.


Thursday March 4th, 1937

Quite a day for Spontoon today, with Radio LONO reporting two film companies arriving on the same boat. One is a travel and Nature documentary team, and the other is someone we have heard quite a bit about – Miss Margot Melson, who makes various radical films that Prudence and her friends both watch and star in (well, as bit-part players, and whenever the plot needs any precision swimming or Native dancing.)

    I have seen the lady in question, who I had expected to be some huge strappingly hearty bear or rhino but is a fairly conventional-looking rabbit. I have not actually seen any of the films but have heard Belle and Carmen enthuse wildly about them; “Jungle Queen’s White Bride” seems to be their favourite. One gets the impression they are not trying to compete with Walt Ditzy. No doubt we will hear all about the latest project, as all Prudence’s dorm and probably Florence’s now are very keen to get into the act
 
    One can see why the film companies like this time of year; apart from the lack of tourists to wander blithely into shot, the weather has some very fine spells between the showers. Even when the weather shuts down filming there is much to do, film editing and the like in preparation for the next “shoot.” The supporting facilities on Casino Island are getting better year by year, with Spontoonies coming back from Hollywood and Ealing with professional certificates in their luggage proclaiming them as qualified camera-furs, sound engineers and the like. All the companies have to do is send the stars and a nucleus of the production team over and they can rely on finding Spontoonies to do the rest – keeping the wages spent on the island rather than lighting up Sunset Boulevard.

    Alas, we got to see very little of the bright lights, cameras and action. A morning spent at Superior Engineering working on marine diesels was certainly instructive but extremely messy. Though we wear cotton overalls, when an oil pipe breaks and pours down one’s neck they are very little protection. Adele was astounded that she was not the one it happened to – and then went and barked her knuckles when her wrench slipped. She now knows that eternal vigilance is the price of a whole hide.

    Superior Engineering have a lot of different customers – everything from the big liners to tramp steamers and fishing boats. As with aircraft, the price a customer pays depends on its priority. That is, a tramp steamer that wants “just enough fixing to get to the next port” had best look elsewhere. All the work is complete, comprehensive and produced to the best possible standard. This time of year a lot of the poorer skippers put in for maintenance, as they can get in without much delay. So one sees the greasy engine-rooms with mostly worn-out machinery installed with brand new, certified components for whatever part needed fixing – not patched up with pieces salvaged from the scrapyard as the owner probably would have been happy with.

    As unpaid labour we do get plenty of practice, and naturally the engineers supervising us are watching like hawks (which one of them actually is.) Molly is very good with a welding torch or cutting torch, hardly surprising with her love of fires. It takes a lot for Superior Engineering to actually praise someone’s work, but she seam-welds and spot-welds spotlessly!

    After getting through a double ration of mechanic’s soap in the showers, we had an afternoon of swimming off the Eastern coast of Eastern Island. It is usually calm, sheltered from the prevailing winds, and even in Tourist season few furs seem to bathe here. Perhaps ordinary tourists dislike being flown over by the main approach path (from the East, in most wind conditions) but we avidly “Plane-spot” everything coming over on final approach.

    Amazingly enough, some preparations are already being made for this year’s Schneider Trophy. That is, we spotted a class of the S.I.T.H.S.  senior year of students practicing with brand new Askania kine-theodolites as they measured the speed of the airliners coming in. The class are our rivals at the Dance Classes, and are evidently practicing for what they will be doing just after graduation.

    It is rather galling that although most furs around the world have heard about Spontoon mostly through the Schneider Trophy, I have never seen the main races! And if I follow Maria back to Europe this year I may miss them again! I had a vision of me and Helen on South Island in a few years time, knee-deep in kittens and still never having seen the Speed Week. And there is such a lot to see; the first Schneider Trophy was awarded in 1913 for an aircraft that won averaging 45.75 miles an hour, but now the Italians hold the record at over 450. On scale, by the time we are Mrs. Hoele’toemi’s current age the aircraft will be cruising at 4500 mph probably using a Leduck “Tuyere thermodynamique” engine and the rest of the Pacific will be needed for their turning circle. Presumably the winning post will need one of those ultra-high speed flash cameras that take Molly’s favourite pictures (armour-piercing shells plunging through battleship armour or breaking up against the face-hardened plates.)

    One certainty was that after an afternoon’s hard swim we would descend on the Songmark evening meal like a swarm of hungry locusts. Sweet Potato is quite nice, and with a hot curried vegetable stew and a sprinkling of crisp fried fish pieces for those who wanted them, it was a big improvement on the average.

    Even so, on the off-chance we get served Poi for our sins (of which one would deduce there must be many) all three years now come prepared with their own “improvements”. Hunger may be the best sauce by repute, but there are a dozen other varieties that friends and rivals trade at the table. Jasbir’s sister Meera turned up with a bottle of very thin Thai fermented fish sauce that almost cleared the room with its pungency! Actually I quite liked the scent, but few of the herbivores seemed to share my opinion. At least it was not that Swedish “Surströmming” rotten fish that Angelica likes, which she once put to such good use in self-defence as a chemical weapon.

    Meera is a very jolly girl, having had a very good formative education at the grand old public school of Roedean in England. She quite reminds me of myself when I first arrived; it is refreshing to see someone else enthusing over the value of pluck and fair play. Her sister Jasbir did not have those valuable formative years, and though Jasbir is a jolly good friend of mine, Meera has had the better attitudes instilled in her. Unfortunately we have Beryl and her comrade in the Ave Argentum who probably undo all the work we do in advertising a proper public school education. Saint T’s is hardly that, though privately I have to admit that it is both competent and comprehensive – for the survivors.

    (Later) By dint of non-stop hard work we are finally making a dent in all the “catch-up” work our Tutors have given us! Social life is zero, and we are getting that haggard “third-year look” we noticed in our senior year a year ago.  A Songmark third-year by bystanders’ accounts projects the attitude of a starved four-legged attack dog straining at the leash – and this for the deer and bunnies as much as the carnivores amongst us. I don’t think we look quite that predacious, although some are just about avoiding scandal. I think Sophie D’Artagnan is the only one of us who has stated an ambition to “visit every cabin on the ark” as the saying is, and she has probably worked through a corridor or two already. Her near-neighbour Susan de Ruiz is about the same; one comes from Bearn in France and the other from Navarre in Spain, provinces that border each other in the Pyrenees Mountains. It must be all that fresh mountain air that does it.

    At last, we have a few days off gate guard and can work till lights-out. It amazes me that we can think of that as a luxury, but we do. We really have changed, without really noticing it. The first-years still moan occasionally about the hard beds and the food, but we have more experience of doing without either. They will take their turn on a windswept beach somewhere with raw clams to eat if they can catch them.

    Thinking of which, we have seen the new Songmark Prospectus that we helped to design, and indeed it is quite a piece of advertising. It is a strange feeling, realising we are not likely to meet the girls who it will be bringing in come September. Meera bought half a dozen copies to airmail back to her old school chums – unfortunately so did Beryl. The prospectus strikes just the right note, I think – enough straightforward pictures of the flying, wilderness survival and sporting achievements with enough hints of other adventures. There are no pictures of Molly on the Moon Islands firing range using her saw-backed bayonet on a hapless straw dummy while laughing her snout off, or Beryl leaving a Casino at four o’clock some June morning with a full purse, a smile and some dashingly handsome male company to while away the hours with.

    The prospectus does not mention any of its students by name, certainly not the rather infamous Air Pirates who are still at large and cleaning up in the  South China Seas with their leader Leticia Fosbury-Smythe. However, it does say that a Songmark graduate is capable of fending for herself in all walks of life, however extreme. Being an Air-Pirate is about as extreme as it gets. Still, I am hardly likely to forget our Tutor-approved trips such as the Krupmark fragment and ambushing the slavers in the Kanim Islands – let alone the trips they did not at all approve of such as the Parsifal voyage with Lars. Fighting off the Moro pirates with a pom-pom and lobbing explosive charges over the side of the ship at the boarders looks fine in the films but is hardly something our Tutors want in the prospectus.

   
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