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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
  23 April, 1937 to 25 April, 1937



Friday 23rd April, 1937
   
Just as I was getting used to the bruises from Monday, our Tutors evidently thought it would be a good idea to refresh them for the weekend. Back to Moon Island for some more self-defence lessons but this time with a difference. We warmed up by another relay race through the half demolished barracks, narrowly avoiding the broken glass and splinters as we did out best to carve seconds off the time without the surroundings carving chunks off us. Just when we were getting used to that Miss Blande lined us all up and announced some more self-defence lessons with a difference. We have opposition – twenty furs in very plain Rain Island fatigues without rank badges, a couple of whom I recognise. One was in the batch of Rain Islanders whose unenviable mission it was to try and break into Songmark last term (I recall Belle and Carmen caught her and scared her witless by speculating on the … nature of the interrogation they would give her) and two others I have seen as Spontoon Guides. All in all, not exactly a polished ceremonial unit but a rather practical bunch.

    I am not too sure where our Tutors draw the line on “self-defence” – being able to bring down an unsuspecting sentry type from behind and immobilise him is not quite what the Songmark Prospectus talks about. Miss Blande was quite poker-faced as she explained that we needed to learn such things to prevent it being done to us. Molly seemed quite keen on the idea, but she has always quoted “the best form of defence is attack, and the best form of attack is surprise.” Preferably with a salvo of battleship shells at ten miles range, unless she can find where Krupp hid all the top-secret Paris Cannons at the end of 1918.

    Having seen the “surprise self-defence” demonstrated a few times, we were invited to have a go. Naturally Beryl cheated, though not surprisingly she did it very effectively. She always carries a silk flying scarf as many of us do, folded into a pocket and she demonstrated how to throw a weighted end around a guard’s throat, instantly stifling and pulling him back. I could see she has practiced this, and she cheerfully explained that a holy Oriental fur back at Saint T’s had shown her eager first-year class how to use it. She showed Miss Blande the end of the yellow silk scarf is weighted for swinging by a small but heavy brass idol of a native Indian goddess that Jasbir recognised as the destructive aspect of Kali; evidently Beryl had some interesting religious instruction at her old school.

    Of course, practicing such things on live furs rather than dummies is tricky in that they are always liable to turn and spot you, especially if they hear or scent you coming. To make things a little more realistic there were eight “sentries” at any one time and we had to pick one. We were warned that next time round we would have that job, and although bumps and bruises on the “victim” are unavoidable, not to get too carried away.

    Adele Beasley and Li Han did object slightly that this was not exactly in the spirit of self-defence – though we pointed out to them that an Adventuress may have to escape from various situations and that involves getting past furs trying to stop her. Our defending that ship of Lars from pirates was self-defence though we did it with a two pounder pom-pom and a crate of high explosives – it is not the technique but the circumstances. Our Tutors have never forbidden Molly to carry my (unloaded) T-Gewehr, as in some circumstances they acknowledge I would be right to “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” as Miss Blande put it.

    All morning we had a decidedly stressful time of things, with everyone stalking and ambushing each other through the glass-strewn rubble. Some of the Spontoon Guides I have not seen in awhile – in fact one I last remember seeing last year and I recall him telling us it was his last tourist season then – as shepherding tour-boat crowds away from the cliff edges and quicksand has a decidedly wearing effect on even the most tolerant and patient furs. When the Guides start imagining which loud and stout Hawaiian-shirted tourist should in a fair world discover they were not fibbing about the quicksand after all, it is time to change jobs.

    After we practiced our first-aid skills on each other again (one hardly expects to escape with a whole hide after half a day of jumping, crawling and being thrown around such sharp-edged rubble) at least luncheon at the base was good. The Rain Island system of having all leaders elected as “syndics” at least means furs who are no good at cooking do not keep the job. I have to admit, from everything Father told me about European armies the usual extent of using available talent goes more like “anyone here musical? You? Right, you’re volunteered to shift this piano”. The Syndic cooks make the most of their issued rations, and rather like Songmark they buy a lot locally to the great benefit of the local economy which also cuts down shipping costs. Actually I have heard the Rain Island military are one of the main customers of the fish cannery here; there is some complex deal they made many years ago when Spontoon was poor and casting around for alliances.

    Ever keen to promote her product, Molly has been generous with cans of her “fish log” which she donated to the Catering Syndic. Unfortunately it is too expensive to be bought for general issue, and in the Rain Island system there is no separately catered Officers’ Mess which would have the funds and a small enough demand to be manageable. Even the increased production this year is only about four thousand cans and an army could eat that at a sitting – besides, they would want a bulk discount which Molly is not disposed to give. Better to sell it at full price to the tourists, with perhaps a stall at the airport shop to glean any remaining Shells from their pockets on the way out with promises that they will not find it at home.

    Back to the airfield and some tricky maintenance problems! With some aircraft one gets the impression the designers are so confident in their designs never going wrong that they build cable runs and such into places nobody will ever get to. Unfortunately anything can wear out, and maintaining some of the bits is like trying to thread a needle blindfold wearing riggers’ gloves. Small paws and flexible figures are certainly what one needs – Beryl and Li Han are certainly better off than Missy K or Irma Bundt. That Oryx girl in the first year will hate this job; Maria and Irma have enough trouble with their own far smaller horns getting stuck. In a canvas covered aircraft, one hasty toss of their heads could punch a hole right through the fabric.

    Four hours is more than enough of that on a nice day with blue skies to contemplate flying in – the Songmark prospectus mentions learning in the healthy climate and wide open spaces of the Pacific and is rather quiet about all the hours we spend with our heads stuck under an oil-dripping engine cowling. Maria grumbles that if ever a fur could catch claustrophobia, this is the way.

    Although the second-years have been doing some Gate Guard already, we still have some to do before our final exam schedule takes up every second. I missed my share last night on night sailing class, and have to catch that up teamed with Adele Beasley who has been given extra to do. There being an odd number in my year (nineteen rather than the usual twenty, for reasons that have never been clear and are unlikely to be explained to us now) the dorms have always had to mix on these shifts to some extent.

    Fortunately it was a fine evening for early gate watch rather than the usual night rains and we consoled each other that there should be fewer than half a dozen of these to do. Certainly our Songmark days are running out now, as things we do a few times per term can be counted on the fingers of one paw. The occasional treats like heading out to Mahanish’s or Bow Thai are something we might get to do once before we leave, or possibly not.
 
    Adele had a lot to tell me about her holiday on Krupmark, none of which she was likely to write home about. I recall that although she was cured of her curse in Tillamook back in February that had not cleared up all her worries. A lot of things happened in her life that might or might not be due to her curse – she tells me she had to check whether or not she actually liked some of the things  she encountered while under its effect, or whether that was an effect of that old shaman’s rather inaccurate cursing of her treasure-hunting parents.

    It took awhile for the full tale to come out, and definitely she has had an … interesting time. Although one hardly thinks of a Songmark girl as being a nurse and ladies’ companion, she spent some of the holiday reading to an expectant mother. The details were odd – not just that what was wanted was romantic fiction by Bill Sandmoon (not an actual writer I hear, but the pen-name of a syndicate who turn out a dozen rather slushy romances a year) but why her “employer” could not read it for herself. Adele almost jumped out of her fur when the female of the rather odd guard dog trio came round the corner – she says Lady Osis is very like her including the surprising nature of her pedigree. It did seem rather odd that a four-legger hound should understand and like romance novels, but from what Adele hinted, Lady had been taking lessons from the plots of previous ones. I would have thought such a canine rather disadvantaged if a conventional romantic affair was wanted, but apparently Lady achieved what she set out to get, with the help of her “owner” a Miss Chartwell. The precise details were hard to believe, but Adele said she had verified most of them.

    Apparently Lady has a brother, Lord, who Adele returned with to Spontoon and handed to Miss Chartwell’s local employees – naturally such furs do not have passports, though nobody from Krupmark would care anyway when Macao is famous for issuing passports to a block of wood or a ham sandwich as long as the “administrative fees” are paid in hard currency. Exactly what Lord is doing here is hard to say, though Adele dropped some dark hints about sibling rivalry.

    Considering what else Adele had to say (they say confession is good for the soul, and indeed she seemed eager to unburden herself to me - people do that for some reason) I am glad I went to Antarctica rather than joining her trip. I suppose it could be a lasting effect of her ill-luck curse; after all, if she had lost a paw last year as a result of the curse, removing the curse would not get her paw back. Similarly, discovering she actually likes various things is something that happened to her, and there is little the shamans in Tillamook could have done about that. What folk actually like is somewhat built-in, and finding it out a matter of opportunity. Miss Chartwell has a reputation if anything rather worse than Lars, and our Tutors are equally unhappy about a Songmark girl mixing with either of them – which may be why Adele has extra guard duty.

    Back to the hard but welcome Songmark bed at three in the morning, more carefully than usual as we are not changing shifts. Definitely Molly, Helen and Maria would not appreciate me waking them. Even after all this time Maria is a sound sleeper and getting her up in the morning is like trying to bump-start a tank stuck in the mud of Flanders up to the sponsons. It is a good thing I was tired enough to sleep through a thunderstorm as her snoring has alas not improved – Songmark does a lot for its students but there are limits to what even our Tutors can do.

   
Saturday 24th April, 1937

Our first weekend of term-time! Having the extra half hour in bed was a mercy after last night’s gate guard; if the Tutors had been really unhappy with me I expect they would have put me on the later guard so I missed out the weekend lie-in, such as it is. Maria has managed to snatch half an hour’s sleep in those conditions, but that does little to prepare for demanding days like ours. We are painfully familiar with what half an hour’s sleep a night is like – last Spring on the military exercises we could scarcely walk in a straight line after a few days, and were falling over our own paws. Four hours a night after gate guard feels like luxury in comparison.

    An almost leisurely breakfast for a change; we are in no huge hurry as there is little point in getting to Casino Island until the shops and dance class are open. Prudence and co. were first out, evidently having a formation swimming event to rehearse for – and this time all Florence’s dorm went with them. Florence evidently has an all-day pass.
 
    Our own day was certainly busy enough once it started, with the whole morning demonstrating what we know to Mrs. Motorabhe and the dance class. Free Saturdays are going to be rare now, and it is anyone’s guess how many more times we will get here. Knowing the Songmark timetable, the class were eager to get the benefits of our experience before we vanish in July. Jasbir’s dorm turned up as well, and they probably will be vanishing forever – at least Jasbir is returning to Utterly Pradesh and Irma Bundt is heading the other direction to Basle in Switzerland where she will work at the “Goetheanum” which is the heart of her religion.  I thought it was called the “Goethearium” originally, having evidently mixed it up with the idea of a religious aquarium. Molly makes the occasional good-natured dig about Switzerland preparing to unleash a devastating surprise attack of Theosophical warfare on Europe and Germany in particular. Beryl has told of an underground factory in the Alps where shells and aircraft spray tanks are even now being filled with Theosophical Warfare agent, but that is just Beryl for you. What Li Han and Sophie D’Artagnan are doing I am not sure, but it looks like their dorm is breaking up. Only mine and Prudence’s are sticking together after July as far as I know.

    Anyway, today was a most excellent joint dance effort with many of the new arrivals stepping through their paces. Just because a fur grows up around the Nimitz Sea and learns his village dance traditions does not mean they can demonstrate a Spontoon Custom dance in formation with a dozen others, to the standard the Tourist Ministry want. Indeed, many of the Spontoon dances are about as authentic a tradition as Molly’s “fish log” and not many years older. Still, a few days’ instruction makes a lot of difference providing they already know the basics of hula dance.

    After all this time, although we certainly worked hard we finished without feeling like a collection of worn-out rugs ready to slump on the floor. Three years of Songmark training definitely make a difference. In many respects we are getting hard as nails, though hopefully not as Beryl usually finishes that phrase “just as easy to hammer.” We did hammer across the road to the sea bathing, where the very welcome waters cooled us off. It is getting warm now on a good day, and one can almost hear the engines of tour-boats warming up around the Pacific rim and the rattling of printing presses as tickets to Spontoon are eagerly snapped up for the coming season.
 
    After a fine luncheon at the Missing Coconut Maria headed off to her Embassy and Molly and Helen followed – as far as we can plan anything we plan to visit both Britain and Italy after graduating as Maria and I have unfinished business. Maria has a gentleman of her nation and species working at the embassy who has had his eye on her for a long while; this has amused her but she is getting suspicious of his intentions. Having a Warrior Priestess around may be interesting especially if folk do not believe in such things, and Helen gets to practice her talents seeing what information she can pick up from him that regular means will not provide.

    Having changed into my fur-dye as Kim-Anh Soosay I was booked to see Malou for my definitely specialist “deportment classes” but remembered to stop on the way at a certain shop. Amelia Bourne-Phipps is somewhat known on Spontoon but Kim-Anh is not, and no eyebrows were raised at a certain rather species-specific purchase of Precautions. If I never use it for its designed purpose, it will be useful as a spare high-capacity “water carrier, elastic, emergency” in our outdoor kits or waterproof the muzzle of Molly’s T-Gewehr. Even with the muzzle brake fitted.

    Malou was as ever quietly pleased to see me and had various things to say about my style and outfit as Kim-Anh – certainly, she says I might pass inspection as long as I do not try to speak any of the languages I supposedly know. That is the problem – I might run into someone who knows Macao much better than me. I know in those correspondence courses Beryl runs on being a bogus detective, doctor or vicar there is a chapter on how to recognise a real one even off-duty and to deflect unwanted questions without generating too much suspicion.

    An hour of “deportment” was followed by a welcome break for green tea and to help look after Malou’s child, then another hour hard at work. Certainly our Tutors can hardly complain I waste my time with frivolous entertainments at weekends – I have spent about three afternoons at the pictures since arriving here, not counting the official screening of “Olympia” last year our Tutors took us to.  The other films were hardly Little Shirley Shrine epics either; I fondly recall that fine German film “Diary of a Lost Girl” starring Louise Brooks which was such an utterly stark expressionist “film noir” that many of the audience ran away.

    Finally, Malou pronounced that I was doing fairly well in my studies with her. Anyone can put on fur dye to look different on a photograph (I recall Florence Farmington’s efforts) but half of the clues to recognising someone is the way they stand, move and walk, and the hundred little mannerisms that furs pick up from their friends and neighbours that are very different in Asia than Europe. I could wish she could write me a training receipt for our Tutors – but it is enough that they let me take such training. Songmark is fairly flexible as to the extras that we learn on our own time provided they are useful; Prudence and co. can always take film jobs with precision swimming teams if the Adventuring does not pay well enough. On those lines, our Tutors have not squashed any of Beryl’s money-making schemes provided she could prove they are not actually illegal under the Spontoon criminal code. Beryl knows lawyers, probably (extremely) criminal ones, and has completely memorised the local laws for good reason.

               Malou seemed in a very good mood, and mentioned her husband’s flying charter service was doing very well. She is very happily married by all the evidence, and when I told her I hoped to be Tailfast this year she congratulated me. Not being a Spontoonie except by marriage she was never Tailfast, but living here of course she has heard all about it. In a season’s time I hope to be Tailfast, Helen may be married and so probably will Prudence! Of course, with Prudence it is rather different – though given the rather strange characteristics of spotted hyenas like her fiancée (fiancé?) Tahni, not as different as it was with Millicent and Tatiana last week.

    I only just missed meeting Malou’s husband today by all accounts -  which was perhaps just as well, as Malou seems to like telling me things to test how well my composure holds up. My tail was certainly twitching by the time I left – and I reminded myself sternly that I should only be thinking about meeting Jirry tomorrow, for the first time in far too long. Still,  spending twenty cowries on Precautions even if they are not used today is always a good investment – an ounce of prevention saves a tonne of problems as our dear Tutors tell us, though not perhaps thinking of these sorts of problems. On the other paw, possibly they are. Mrs. Oelabe is always very direct about such matters.

    It was rather a shame to wash off Kim-Anh’s fur pattern again after just a few hours; now I have invested more in getting her right she deserves to get more exercise. After all, she has a passport she has not used in a year since returning from the Gilbert and Sullivan islands. The Daily Elele has an article about those islands this week, with there being a new Governor arriving on the good ship H.M.S. Pinafore who has vowed to discontinue his predecessor’s prohibition edicts. Apparently the local bootleggers are screaming blue murder and having clearance sales of “blue ruin” and other such bathtub distillates that will be swept off the market by a legal trade in less toxic beverages. The new governor is a very modern Major General (retired) of whom I have heard Father speak in admiring tones. Molly will doubtless disapprove; she has always said that a lot of honest hard-working bootleggers really turned bad when the wicked Government repealed Prohibition, gratuitously removing their living without consultation or compensation. Had they been in any other trade the Government would never have got away with it (she says.)

    Back to Songmark for teatime, which was a rather fine scrambled egg dish with Popatohi for those who wanted it. Quite a treat and a surprise. A lot of Songmark girls will be out on Passes spending their allowances on food rather than returning for the meal provided, which is quite understandable when it is Poi or pastefish on the menu. Which just goes to show, our Tutors like to keep us off balance and tempt us back for the meals we have already paid for rather than patronising the Casino Island restaurants. Nothing around here happens without a reason, though sometimes it takes us awhile to guess just what it is.

    Helen, Molly and Maria returned just when the last of the food was vanishing – apparently Helen picked up rather a lot at the Italian Embassy that neither she nor Maria liked. Maria is used to some furs being jealous of her position and indeed admired by many more – but Helen could read a lot in a couple of the embassy staff that was news to her. Not surprisingly, some “gentlemen” dislike the very existence of highly qualified, powerful girls who are absolutely not going to see things their way. Italy and Spain are rather famous that way. Maria has mentioned the Church is kicking up a fuss about her Uncle’s youth organisation, the “Giovanni Fascista” or some similar name – having young ladies trained in public displays of athletics wearing suitable costumes is not what the Vatican wants to see.

    Thinking of things furs do not want to see, Molly and I were put on evening Gate Guard – presumably as we will be too busy to do much later on this term. It was a nice Spring evening at least, and Molly was fairly calm until Florence Farmington turned up, the last one back on the day’s Passes and with two minutes to spare. Having already seethed about Tatiana getting married, Molly was not at all happy with Florence getting a Pass to spend the day with Gilda the huntress – after all,  Molly would definitely not get one to date Lars who is far more conventional.

     Still, it is our Tutors who decide Passes, and Florence will presumably be writing a complete and conclusive report on her day’s education (that might well be re-edited into next month’s edition of “Extra-Spicy Pacific Tails”, for all I know) which will be embarrassing for her. One way or another we earn our Passes.
 
    If anyone had come over the wire tonight, given Molly’s mood I would not have given tuppence for them getting out with a whole hide. Although she insists on still carrying my T-Gewehr (which is a fairly useless weapon at night, as in fifty yard visibility its mile plus-range is rather irrelevant, one might as well have a pistol) and our Tutors let her, she has a rather practical bayonet on the end of it that she has used on target dummies with great energy and enthusiasm. Her current letter-opener is a French Lebel model with triangular blade section, or rather three edges converging to a formidable spike. I was very glad to finish the shift at three in the morning without her having found a reason to use it! Actually with the mood she was in I fear she scarcely needed a solid reason, and was looking very hard for an excuse. I have heard one of the American second-years comment that her school magazine has a “Girl most likely to…” section for its graduates – and Molly’s entry would be “Girl most likely to use a bayonet and laugh.”

    I definitely worry about Molly. Some folk mock British public schools for trying to turn out a standardised character of student at the end of it, with deportment and elocution lessons to get rid of accents that would hinder their advancement in respectable areas, and a strict emphasis on team spirit and fair play rather than individuality. But that is hardly such a bad thing, given the alternatives.
 
    Thinking about it, Songmark does not try in the slightest to influence its students in those ways – we have both Rosa Marquetta and Eva Schiller in the same first year class, and if they graduate as anything but staunch Anarchists and National Socialists respectively, it will not be of our Tutors’ doing. Assuming they do not kill each other first, of course. Molly has certainly learned many things in three years, but at heart I wonder if she is still really the gangster’s daughter now made far more competent and dangerous. The world would hardly thank Songmark for unleashing that on them.

    I think Beryl quoted her old Headmistress as having a phrase about Saint T’s graduates not being sent out into the world unprepared for its dangers, but rather being prepared to enjoy being one of the dangers. But I hoped that all this time and my best efforts would have mellowed Molly a little.


Sunday 25th April, 1937
   
A bright Spring day indeed, and despite being on gate guard till three in the morning I was awake well before the alarm. On hearing various furs declaim that a solid eight hours sleep is essential for one’s health and beauty, a Songmark girl tends to laugh hollowly. The chance would be a fine thing, as they say. Mrs. Oelabe keeps a very keen eye on our health though, and unless we absolutely must stay awake for days as part of the course (the joint exercises with the Spontoon militia last year are something we will never forget) we always get just about enough. In fact, when our Tutors tell us to get an early night our ears and tails go down as we are assured they have something more than usually severe lined up for us the next day. After the first term any Songmark girl knows to head upstairs to bed right away on hearing that, knowing that minutes are precious things even when slept through.

    Out of Songmark and off to South Island the minute the gates opened! We did not exactly run down to the water taxis but I have rarely walked it faster. Helen is keen as ever to meet Marti, and in my case “absence makes the heart grow folder” – Molly and Maria were quite amused. The way to Haio Beach has rarely seemed so long. At last we were there – and quite a reunion it was! It has been over a year since I met the entire Hoele’toemi family together (Saimmi is elusive, and both Jonni and Heneri live on Main Island) and with the obvious exception of Moeli’s husband and kitten everyone was here.

    It has been a long time since I met Jirry – indeed, I think he looks thinner after his long voyage though still in very nice condition. But after ten minutes Saimmi claimed Helen and I for our training (just our luck – Molly and Maria were the ones who got to stay and talk to them – being a Warrior Priestess has its price.)

    Saimmi took us up to Mount Tomboabo, the hike being a pleasant stroll for us but I noted Saimmi was panting somewhat at the top. Like all Spontoonies she keeps fit, but with her duties hardly has time for the near Olympic levels our Tutors have raised us to in three years and indeed it is a nine hundred foot climb of pretty steep trails. Certainly, it was a view well worth anyone’s efforts – looking right out over the central waters, which we know inside and out now, literally in my case. Since starting my sailing certificate, I have committed the local depth soundings chart to memory and keep up with the changing patterns of sandbanks that amaze many tourists trying to sail the route they took the year before. The local surveyors are never out of a job around here, what with every big storm rearranging the sandbanks – and they are not the only thing that change the landscape, as we discovered.

    Indeed, Saimmi noted our gaze and stepped us through a ritual we have not seen before.  It was very strange – as if the world around us was fading with clouds – then for about a second we looked out at the islands – yet the islands were very different. The buildings on Casino Island were simply not there except for some stone structures, and even the shape of the lands had altered. It was just a brief glimpse then everything returned to normal – but from Helen’s amazed expression I think she had seen it too.

    Saimmi warned us not to try the ritual on our own, unless we were standing on a similar site of power; it would take far too much out of us. Helen guessed we had somehow seen the islands as they used to be. Saimmi nodded, explaining just how the Great Ritual changed the islands five hundred years ago. There were more islands back then; I had heard her say as much before but only thought of low lying islets with a few palm trees that come and go over decades like we have seen in charts of the Kanim Islands – not islands the size of Casino Island wiped off the map! In the Pulp Magazines that sort of thing usually goes with Cranium Island types detonating half a tonne of sensitised radium or allotropic iron while they laugh insanely. The fact that Spontoonie rituals, however long and energetic, could do it is unnerving.

    Rather chastened we returned to Haio Beach for an excellent luncheon. Then – it would be wonderful to record that (as Marti and Helen certainly did) Jirry and I caught up on lost time, and quite made up for all the time apart.

    True enough, he was very glad to see me. I could tell there was something troubling him though, and it did not take long to find out what. My being Lady Allworthy is the problem – and not for the sort of inverted snobbery reason that, say, Liberty Morgenstern would sneeringly turn down a Duke for. It looks as if for a time I will actually have to go and be Lady Allworthy in England – and there is no guarantee I will be able to find a rightful heir. Even if one turns up with a legal claim, if they are as bad as the rest of the family seem to have been – I would have trouble handing over the Estates and the furs on them to such control. The rest of the family do seem to have a dark streak in them, and I can believe the tenants would be happier to have anyone take over as long as they are not related by such a bloodline. This may be why everyone in England is so pleased to smooth all the obstacles out of my way ahead of me just when I would appreciate a whopping big one that would wreck my progress to the House of Lords through no fault of my own.

    Of all the troubles I ever worried about, this one rather hits out of the blue. Jirry was very willing to make me an honest Spontoonie bride last year had I appeared with nothing but my bare fur, thrown out of Songmark and with a somewhat unexpected kitten on the way that would not match the rest of the Hoele’toemi clan. I can see his point of view – he has no ambition to see what the Barrow-in-Furryness climate is like while he does a re-enactment of Tarzan Lord Greystoke as “wild jungle consort” to Lady Allworthy. The Spontoonies are civilised and well-educated indeed, but I doubt the newspapers and the local gossips would quite see that. If anyone back in England has heard of the Spontoons they think of it as somewhere like the impoverished Pauper New Guinea (next to Papua but with no gold) and all the Natives running around in bare fur or loincloths with bones through their ears. Persuading folk that they are perfectly civilised would be a job I doubt I can do, and indeed the Tourist Board would not thank me.

    As I admitted, I have already started taking responsibility for the people of the Allworthy estates – I could hardly ignore them, and Jirry knows that. Which is part of the problem. One can hardly run a business by telegram and airmail letter, especially a business I have no experience in at a place I have never been. I know Barrow-in-Furriness on the map, but that is my limit. Helen and Molly used to assume that Britain and especially England is so small I must practically know everyone there – not so!
 
    Rather a disturbing day, in fact. Back to Songmark feeling rather under a cloud, though the weather was as cheerful as one could hope. Helen was very cheerful, and endured the water taxi crossing quite philosophically – she was not sick even once, which makes a change.  Molly and Maria are putting their heads together to see if there is another way out of the problem we have not thought of yet – at least we have till the end of term. Of all the obstacles I had planned to overcome in terms of getting Tailfast to Jirry this coming Solstice, I had never thought he would be the reluctant one.

    Having returned rather early, I had time to look through the Sunday edition of the Spontoon Mirror. I rarely read it (Molly is an avid reader, as she still likes to read about all the thrills and spills of Hollywood) and noticed they had an interview with Judge Poynter. His career of more than forty years in the Spontoons made quite an article. Though the Mirror often has some sharp things to say about “Euros”, it conceded that he had stuck at his post for very little reward, and was a fine example of devotion to Duty. Then, the Empire is founded on such furs – who never get rich or praised in the newspapers, spend years and whole lives tucked away administering and ministering to the local furs as doctors, engineers and suchlike in places one can hardly find on the map. Of any hundred who head out to the tropics, thirty or forty leave their bones there and many more return with their health shattered forever.

    I wrote off to the good Judge immediately, hoping to meet on Saturday and discuss the sorry state of things. If I cannot solve my problems with being Lady Allworthy, it will not be through the lack of qualified help and sharp minds on the task!


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