Spontoon Island
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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
22 March, 1937 to 25 March, 1937



Monday March 22nd, 1937

Last week of term! At last we have caught up on our flying schedule after Macao; I took up the Junkers 86 for two hours open-ocean flying with Jasbir’s dorm acting as crew. Jasbir is a superb navigator; she explains that in Utterly Pradesh one has to be. The terrain is either intensive rice fields or untouched jungle, with few places to land in emergency except for “pukka” well-made roads which might not appreciate an aircraft dropping in on the traffic.

    On open-water crossings there is time to relax somewhat between waypoints; just keep the aircraft well trimmed and the engine revs steady, and concentrate on holding a course (easy enough using Radio LONO with the big directional aerial the Junkers carries). There was little traffic on the sea or in the air, and indeed the Pacific looks decidedly lonely out of sight of land. At twelve thousand feet we were above the lowest layer of clouds, and felt rather isolated with neither sea or sun in sight.

    Jasbir is full of news from home; it seems folk are going ahead full-speed with the plans to “Ennoble” the Indian Government. I would guess that London thought the scheme through and worked out all the details before releasing the idea. Five locally born Dukes are being created, along with a dozen Margraves (a rank that never has existed in Britain, being entirely Continental) and scores of lesser nobility. The ruling Maharajahs of Native States are extremely pleased with the idea; the last thing they wanted was elections everywhere.
 
    Still, some folk will not be happy with it. I was reminded of that oil painting I saw in the saloon of Mr. M’wede’s yacht. There is a classical Victorian painting one sees prints of in schools and churches allegorical of defeating the Indian Mutiny, with Britannia slaying a four-legged Bengal Tiger over the bodies of a mother and cub it had savaged. The parody on the yacht was subtly done in exactly the same style with similar figures – though the scene was different and not one a Victorian would put on the wall. Few furs would. One hopes allegorical house-cats and such tigers are not interfertile. Anyone who would commission such a picture is decidedly not going to approve a measure that looks likely to defuse tensions in the Empire for decades to come.

    The last leg of the navigational exercise brought us in over Albert Island, where we had a grand view through a break in the clouds. I could see the central jungles very well, and the bright green swamp that we explored to our cost. One hopes the Natives keep that area Taboo permanently; though I hardly take seriously Beryl’s plan for establishing an Institute for Topical Diseases (not a misspelling of “Tropical”, but focussing on fashionable ones) one could well imagine perhaps Vostok or Ioseph Starling sending in teams to bring the local plagues home for breeding and later release on their enemies. They have the idea already; the month we left Vostok the Government were claiming the Bolsheviks were infecting their water supply with germs spread by saboteurs (typhoid) and dropped from aircraft (Para-typhoid).

    Another ten minutes at cruising speed and Mount Kiribatori was clearly in sight, a great streamer of cloud hanging downwind off its summit. Definitely Spontoon weather is the child of its hills; Orpington is just as big in terms of land area but with only a low plateau it does not “breed” rain clouds and is a lot dryer. Those little islands in the Albanian South Indies that I helped colonise last Summer are even worse off; I hope the Johnsons prosper well but would not bet money on it. Anywhere the Polynesians never colonised was probably left empty for a good reason.

    Back to Spontoon, managing to pull off the smoothest landing in the Junkers so far. Sophie D’Artagnan and Li Han have been examining the mysterious fitments it was installed with between the Japanese factory license-building it and Songmark acquiring it. There was a heavy release loop like a bomb shackle, an electrical cable and a fuel line. Something was carried underneath and dropped or jettisoned; a bomb would not have needed the fuel line and a fuel tank would not have needed the electrical connector.  Very odd.

    Of all our dorms, I think mine and Prudence’s are the only ones to have “gone Native” in that we are not planning on returning to our homelands immediately. Not permanently, anyway. Jasbir’s is rather in the middle ground, followed by Missy K and Madeleine’s dorm (who I think the Spontoonies would just about trust with a burned-out match. In the middle of a tropical downpour.)
 
     The second-years were awaiting us with the toolkit and fuel bowser ready, and the first-years with brooms and other cleaning supplies. I took the chance for a chat with Eva Schiller, the first occasion since yesterday. I know she has strenuously denied being in some Thule Society or other, but since nobody claimed she was in the first place, that rings a little hollow. As we are going to New South Thule, I asked her where the original was.

    Well! It was quite a story that I heard; although folk accuse Eva’s people of lacking a sense of humour one can hardly say they are short of imagination. Eva says that nobody has yet proved where Thule was, but a better question is to ask what it was. According to her, in the most ancient of times, there were no sentient furs at all (something that fossils do seem to confirm.) At some place on a high, cold plateau or mountain pass, something happened – rather like the Garden of Eden but resolutely without a God in her version. The species that came out of Thule are the “true” ones in her philosophies; others are some way further down the list and she hinted they probably gained their intelligence and shape by accident, or some sort of awful error.

Eva added that for decades Germans have been wandering the world searching for evidence of Thule; she quite discounts all the fossils in Africa since in cold, icy climes mountains are being eroded right now and there is little chance of anything getting fossilised except under the ice. I can see some kind of logic, in that if no fossils are being made in the genuine area nobody should worry about not finding them. Her Uncle’s Department has made startling discoveries on the Tibetan Plateaux but the Berlin jury is still out; many favour Greenland as their favoured candidate.
 
    I had heard myself that the first thinking furs were wandering around the savannah or out of the jungle; certainly there are some very old fossils to point that way. But she quite pooh-poohed that idea, pointing out that plain common-sense suggests furs in hot climates have less need for fire, clothing or built shelter, so are hardly likely to be first in the queue to develop anything. She is an Arctic Fox herself, and may not be wholly unbiased. I know some classical philosophies were based on logical deductions rather than tiresome gathering evidence of facts, but that is why they were classical and not modern ones. Eva has some jolly odd beliefs considering she keeps campaigning for “common-sense” ideas; she has turned up her nose at anything Albert Beerstein has come up with about the nature of things, and yet the idea of ice moons habitually crashing seems not to bother her. So long as it is invented by the right people with proper pedigrees, she seems happy enough to believe anything. I must see if Beryl wants to sell her the Sword of Siegfried, and think of a good reason it looks so like a Spontoonie machete.

    I refrained from asking if Thule might have been knocked completely off the map by a falling moon; according to Professor Schiller, the orthodoxy over in Germany these days is the “World Ice Theory” which tells of the moon being made of ice, and that a succession of former Moons have crashed on Earth. We are trying to keep on Eva’s good side, at least till we get back from Antarctica. That is a place where a fur could certainly have an “accident” and never be found – and most people would not be at all surprised if a Songmark girl wandered away from a tour party.


Wednesday 24th March, 1937

It is getting warm in Spontoon; the temperature was in the high seventies as we joined the first-years for a brisk run across Main Island. There was some work going on in the villages under Mount Kiribatori; after the success of the big composting power station over by Vikingstown, the village elders have decided they want one as well. Professor Kurt von Mecklenburg und Soweiter will be pleased.
 
    Molly is not so pleased; this part of the island has Spontoon’s sugar cane fields, and after harvest every year the dried fields were put to the torch in a wall of fire hundreds of yards across. A spectacular sight for the newsreels, and one to warm Molly’s heart – but rather wasteful now there is a better use for all that “Bio-humic material” as Professor Kurt calls it. Keeping the fires in check was always a problem, and over the years more than one longhouse has caught light from sparks carried surprising distances on the wind.

    Still, it should be quite a benefit to the local economy as well as benefiting the fields. Part of the project involves restoring an old water-mill that will be used for grinding the tough crop wastes down before the digester gets to work – and the digester (the size of a single-decker bus, on the blueprints) will be turned by the same mill. Miss Cardroy had us all sit down with our notebooks and slide-rules to work out the gear ratio they will need to turn it once an hour with the available power. Certainly our Tutors never miss a chance to get us some practical experience!

    Looking up at the Southern slopes of Mount Kiribatori, I rather wondered how the Priestess Oharu was getting on – of course, with her skills she could be standing in the forest watching us and none of us would spot her. We could use help in Neue Suden Thule if things down there are as Saimmi suspects, but apart from the difficulty with Molly, Priestess Oharu is perhaps not the one to send on that trip. I have heard from Saimmi the story of that boxed German sniper rifle that Molly received with delight (till she discovered who sent it) and Priestess Oharu has had a run-in with some Germans before. That was on Hawaii, not Antarctica, but she may be somewhat leery of them since then.

    Still, as with our Vostok trip we are being invited over as honoured guests and if we behave ourselves and do not irritate the locals we should be back with plenty of tourist snaps promoting “Health Through Happiness” as the organisation calls itself. Anything we find out for Saimmi or Mr. Sapohatan will be a bonus.


Thursday 25th March, 1937

A rather nautical day today, starting with my heading down to Pirate’s Cove along with Madeleine and Jasbir, our freshly minted Day Master’s Tickets carefully packed. Our Tutors asked us to register for work, even though none of us are staying on Spontoon this Easter. It is quite like the aircrew Union Hall that I am also registered with – though I hope any sailing job turns out better than my first commercial flying one that introduced me to the Allworthies. Definitely I am not going to take on any crossings to Krupmark, no matter what money they offer. The “Essential humanitarian supplies” listed in the ship’s cargo manifest would turn out to be munitions or opium, no doubt.

    Although nobody is going to trust us to ferry their J-class racing yacht to meet them in Hawaii, we can apply for crew jobs and be trusted to take the rudder or navigate through less hazardous waters. Sadly, with the coral reefs and currents around the Nimitz Sea, that rather cuts down the possibilities. There are hazards all over.

    For the new season a lot of Spontoonies are getting ready to handle tourists and their various needs. The fast rescue craft made from a crashed flying-boat was going through its paces; though it has cropped wings and cannot leave the water, at top speed it barely draws a foot, very useful at low tide when some tourist sailor has misread the charts again and is stuck on the sandbanks to the North of Eastern Island. Our first-years were all over it, some of them getting very friendly with the (rather handsome) Spontoonie brothers who own it and might be persuaded to take them out on high-speed trips. Helen muttered “A ride for a ride”, whatever that means. Our Tutors would never approve of us taking passengers up in the Tiger Moths, even if they are Spontoonies.

    It is hard to believe looking across the empty central waters that in three months time there will be tour-boats docked at every pier, with their tourist passengers peering at every dock. There will be hot-dog stalls, fish and chip vans, and enough ice-cream and iced drinks on sale to lower the average beach temperature a degree or so. It is quite peaceful still, and the only tourists tend to be independent-minded travellers who would rather sample the local cuisine than insist on egg and chips. Rather than the blindingly colourful shirts the Hawaiians sell as a subtle revenge to the tour-boat denizens, many of the Euros passing through at this time of year wear severely practical Jaeger or loden-cloth costumes not unlike our own. Then, they are more likely to be prospectors or anthropomorphologists than sunbathers or Casino card-sharks.

    It is a fact that our Tutors keep learning new tricks. Evidently inspired by our adventures getting the Tiger Moth unstuck from the sandbank, we spent the morning on one of the long sand-spits near Vikingstown. Our Tutors had borrowed us a motor bicycle, one of those heavy despatch-riders machines, and one of those Vostok-built lorries the Ministry of Works uses for road maintenance and such.  Our mission – to drive them out onto the mudflats till they stuck, them rescue them.

    We have certainly been soaked to the skin under the fur in more unpleasant mud than the fine beach spot, but after two hours it was a shambling crowd of earth-hued shapes that staggered up the beach quite unrecognisable as a Songmark party. If Miss Melson was doing any science-fiction films, “Invasion of the Mud Maids” would be a suitable title for something involving footage of us. The motor bicycle and lorry were carefully hosed down and checked over, before we could do more than scrape the worst of the beach off us. Ada Cronstein noted that the beaches are cleaner this year since Professor Kurt started to make “bio-humic material” of all kinds valuable. On Casino Island his great rival might manage to do something about Pebble Beach (where tourists avoid beachcombing) but the Ministry of Works will have to re-route all the hotel and residential drains to a greatly enlarged methane digester. Not something to do in the middle of a tourist season.

    A trip back via Meeting Island and the public baths there, hurrah! There is a definitely powerful shower in the outer part, useful for anyone who has worked a full shift at the fish canning factory in Summer. It was definitely in demand today – first on us fully clothed, then in the fur. There was enough mud washed off to fill a few window-boxes or provide an indoor sand beach for the big public baths had the owners wanted such.

    I must say, it was a treat to soak in deep, hot water even without thinking where will be this time next week. Whatever strange discoveries we make down South, I will be surprised if luxurious heated swimming pools are included on the list. Molly lets only me, Helen or Maria scrub her back, or indeed get particularly close. She was less edgy in the first year, despite us getting quite used to shared showers and such since then.
 
    New for this season there is an open-air section of the baths opened up, facing South and very nice to dry one’s fur off in the sunshine. One thing Spontoon does not have is a “Lido” but with such beaches perhaps the Althing doubt there would be enough demand. It was sheer luxury to have half an hour in the sun relaxing, and chatting with the Spontoonies getting ready to don far more clothing to run the Hotels and such.

    Susan de Ruiz and Sophie D’Artagnan were talking with a very nice young equine gentleman we have seen at the dance club from the S.I.T.H.S. team – from what I overheard he will be wearing a bell-hop uniform from next month at the Marleybone, and spend his days hauling suitcases around. Sophie speculated that he will be getting a lot of extra “duties” and some very appreciative tips from lady tourists. According to various pulp magazines, hotels have a fair percentage of  wealthy businesswomen on trips far from home, holidaying widows and the occasional highly disappointed honeymooning bride who have the same general idea of “room service” that we found in Macao.

    The young gent’s ears blushed somewhat and he admitted that some of the Euro guests were rather over-friendly. Thinking about what a lot of the tourists actually look like (rather than the svelte minkess on the pulp cover I saw last week), one can sympathise. Being able to drop the guest’s baggage and scoot before they lock the door in front of one and put up the “Do Not Disturb” sign may be the more usual test of athletic prowess.

    Although we had dried our fur tolerably well, our clothes were still damp and it was a tousled bunch of us who arrived back at Songmark for teatime. Decidedly a hungry bunch as well – happily it was a rather punchy fish curry that may well have been Pastefish but nobody complained. Just as one could probably fly a bedstead or a barn door with enough engine power (so Eva Schiller says, but she has ten years gliding experience and often says that when you know gliding, you know flight) with enough spicing anything chemically digestible will go down well enough. We have tried curried lugworm on our Survival trips, and at least one can say it is a huge improvement to eating it without.


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