Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
1 May, 1937
Saturday May 1st, 1937 Dear Diary – a shocking day, especially so soon after yesterday’s triumph. All started as usual, with our trip along with Jasbir’s dorm and half the first year across to Casino Island for the dance class – most of Songmark was on the island with the second years playing Kilikiti against the High School here. An excellent dance morning, with the Sind sisters showing quite a level of skill for the crowd. They are as proud of being Indian as I am of being British (quite right too), and are never slow to demonstrate skills learned in the traditional dances of their country that can be readily adapted to hula. It is splendid to see Jasbir passing on the traditions! As with any school, in the last year one’s thoughts turn to how it will be when we are gone. Not all of it is as good as knowing Meera is carrying it on, though. Red dorm will be third-years, with all the skills and practice that entails. Yes. Well. I must confess, it is getting rather strange to sit in the Missing Coconut and wonder how many times we will be here as Songmark students. For Jasbir’s dorm it will only be a paw-full more visits, if that. Still, they made the most of it, having done the traditional dash across the road to the sea to the tune of the first rapid-fire snapping of tourist cameras this year. The tour boat is leaving tonight for Hawaii, and evidently the Tourist Board has told them where and when to come for a good view – it would be rather a coincidence to randomly find twenty furs on the unfashionable side of the island with their cameras ready just as we finished our dance classes. The first-years were somewhat embarrassed, though we have become used to the idea that any pretty (or handsome) fur in a lei and grass skirt is a National Asset for the Spontoon tourist trade. As last week, Helen took my other clothes back to Songmark (via an afternoon’s shopping) and I changed into Kim-Anh’s fur patterning and costume. It seems to go on much easier these days, and it is more than just practice. As Mr. Tikitavi said about his sculptures, the shape is there inside the rock and it is just a matter of removing the parts that hide it. It is a strange feeling. Kim-Anh has her own passport that was good enough to get me into the Gilbert and Sullivan Islands, and has established a past – if I could only speak Cantonese, Siamese or Portuguese it might be a more convincing one. Anyway, five minutes later I was at Malou’s house greeting her and her kitten, and learning more about how Kim-Anh should look, move and stand. One can recognise a fur by their walk no matter how they are otherwise disguised, we are told, and indeed it is something I have practiced changing. It is surely very difficult to teach someone this kind of thing, but I have a good teacher. I have spent three years trying, amongst much else, to tell Molly and Helen that the way to sit in a high-backed chair is not to straddle the back and fold one’s arms on top of it, but to little avail. Molly generally quotes one of her favourite movie stars (in her homeland they take the place of philosophers) and growls “I yam what I yam.” A break for green tea was most welcome – and then I had a surprise, the first of many today. Malou announced her husband would be home soon and she would be pleased to introduce us. She had told me much about her husband, a powerful dark furred equine from the Fillypines, and I think she enjoys watching my reaction. Malou says she is totally confident she has her mate’s heart, so much so that she never worries about dalliances with other girls. They happen, that is, but it never worries her – in fact, she says she is proud of her husband’s successes. I was trying very hard to keep my composure, much to Malou’s amusement. She has pointed out that Kim-Anh is not Tailfast to anyone – and neither am I right now as Amelia. My ears were definitely blushing, contemplating the very species-specific Precautions I bought last week being put to use. The idea of not wasting twenty cowries’ worth of Precautions should absolutely not be a factor – but regardless I found myself having to quash that thought. It was quite alarming feeling myself relaxing that way. Just then I heard the front door open, and rather braced myself to make a polite greeting followed by a hurried retreat, lest I stay and regret it in the long term. The sitting room door opened and Malou sprang to the welcoming arms of her mate – and I got something of a shock. I know the Fillypino mare Nikki very well, she being one of the few early Songmark graduates who stayed on in the area – and it turns out Malou was picking her words carefully when describing her husband! As the saying goes, I made my excuses and left. That was embarrassing. Malou and Nikki found the whole thing highly amusing, and at least Nikki’s invitation was one I had no difficulty in politely turning down. Mind you, I have heard from Prudence and co. that Nikki is of somewhat extreme tastes, and after paying that way for experience on Nikki’s aircraft last year even they swore never again. What with the Rotes, Tatiana and Millicent and now discovering Malou and Nikki, I must know half the Sapphic couples between Hawaii and Japan! I am still confident it is scarcely one in several hundred ladies have any such interests let alone ever do anything about it, but they are drawn to the same Adventuring lifestyle as a Songmark girl and Spontoon seems to be a centre for all sorts of Adventure. I did not ask about the real origin of Malou’s kitten, as I fear the answer would be … disturbing and I had enough of that for one day. I was in something of a dark mood as I got on the water taxi towards Meeting Island, early for my appointment with Judge Poynter. He has never seen me as Kim-Anh before, and I had planned to surprise him. The weather was suitable, with a sudden Spring squall blowing out of the West and clouds erupting around Mount Kiribatori to spill the heavy rain over Spontoon’s central waters. Generally a Songmark girl is out in the front of a water taxi, not sat in the middle of the canvas arch like a tourist caught out on the way back from the beach. On the trip over I kept telling myself that most of my problems were not real ones, but only a matter of opinion – a lot of furs would love the prospect of becoming Lady Allworthy, and count the way I got it as a very small price to pay. Nothing, indeed, that a real “gold-digger” would not have done with far less hope of getting the main prize. To get all the worldly inheritance of such a “husband” without actually having to live with Leon Allworthy is what many furs would call the best of all possible worlds, and to get the chance to raise the name of an ancient title from the mire is one any of my teachers at Saint Winifred’s would point out is a wonderful opportunity. And yet – I had become used to the idea of being Mrs. Amelia Hoele’toemi, a blushing bride with a new longhouse alongside Helen as my sister-in-law, putting our three years of Songmark training to good use as we earn money for the family adventuring. I was worrying before about it being unfair on Jirry if I had returned home this July having taken all his interests up for over two years, when he could have been happy all that time with a nice Spontoonie girl who was not going to vanish on him. I can hardly be an absentee Spontoonie wife exiled in England any more than I can be an absentee landlady living here on the profits from Barrow-in-Furryness – though legal, neither setup is fair on so many other furs. It is true enough that I have never met any of the furs working the farms and shipyards of the Allworthy estates, but they have heard about me – and after years of neglect are eagerly looking to me (or someone) to do their duty. I have put some work their way, and proved I can do so, which rather removes any excuses I might have made about being unfit to run the place. Unlike what Molly and Helen seem to have heard in school in their homeland, being a member of the aristocracy is not just about privilege and reward but duty and responsibility as well, and a crushing burden it often is for very little repayment (one may inherit an estate in theory worth millions but it is all “entailed” meaning one can never sell a square foot of it, and any Yankee soap-boiling magnate may have ten times the ready cash income and no leaky mansion house to pay the bills on.) I hardly know if Lord Leon gave the place a second thought except to regret his access to the money was frozen when he fled into exile, but realistically I have to doubt it. I was scarcely hoping that Justice Poynter had any good news for me, as I crossed Meeting Island trying to stay under the umbrella - Kim-Anh’s outfit does not really go with our Songmark yellow oilskins. Judge Poynter always gives his housekeeper weekends off as everyone knows, but the sitting room curtains were drawn. Which is why I was surprised to hear voices inside the bungalow just as I was about to knock – unfriendly voices, though I could not make out at first what they were saying. Looking down I noticed splinters where the door had evidently been forced. For a second I thought hard about running for the police, but the nearest station is by the dock and even if I persuaded a constable to run back straight away with me it would be ten minutes – and furs who break a Judge’s doors down are not likely to be there in to collect autographs. I was definitely on my own and unarmed, without even the various items most Songmark girls build into their uniforms and day clothes – but looking around the yard I spotted a broom leaning against the wall, and in another second was unarmed no longer. The broom head unbalances things so that had to go first; fortunately it was just wedged and not glued, and came off silently. Just opening the front door might have been a bad idea, as someone could be watching from inside or rigged an intruder alarm behind it – a pile of tins is the usual improvised one we are taught. I happened to know the bathroom window has a loose catch though, and in a few seconds had hooked a claw through the gap and slid into the closed and unoccupied room. Silk has the advantage of being a very smooth and quiet material. There is a fanlight above the bathroom door into the corridor, and standing on the bath stool I could open it silently to see and hear what was happening in the sitting-room just opposite. Indeed Judge Poynter had company behind the drawn curtains, and decidedly uninvited company at that. What I saw was Judge Poynter standing in the middle of the room, with three furs facing him and away from me – a shaggy bovine, a red-haired canine with long ears like Brigit Mulvaney, and a reddish stoat. All three had recognisably local machetes in their paws (the stoat being evidently left-pawed). They were demanding he kneel and face them as a “lickspittle tyrant of the old Empire” – and from what else they said, I gathered he was not the first they had murdered for their professions. I had heard of this just the week before and indeed Judge Poynter has been in the news as an example of devotion to his post. The article had a quote from captured anti-imperialist saying “we never kill the bad ones – they do our work for us.” Judge Poynter faced them squarely, and totally unafraid told them that he might be cut down, but would live or die on his feet against such furs. I have never seen anything so noble as the old gent standing there. It suddenly became very clear just what my best chances were, and how very few seconds I had to act. The next few seconds might have been a blur on film, but I remember exactly what happened as if it was some deadly ballet. All three were facing away from me, so I had one second’s worth of surprise I had to use to the full. We are taught that when outnumbered the only tactic that works is to shorten the odds immediately. We are also taught various moves with strict provisos never to practice them on living furs, and why. The bovine had a pistol holstered on his hip, but seemed to be relishing using his blade instead. He was the first of the odds I had to reduce. I pulled the bathroom door open and before anyone began to turn was in a move I have seen Molly use on dummies on the firing range with her bayonet – I had only the broom handle but with all my momentum and every muscle from my toes to my wrists lunged into a “stop thrust” up at the bovine, aiming just at the hollow where the neck meets the skull. Something gave way and he went down, falling on the table with a crash as his companions jumped out of the way and I sprang into the room, moving as fast as I have ever done. The canine began to swing his machete up but I had the longer reach lunging with five feet of broom-handle and he took it straight to the solar plexus. I have not been taught to duel or fight fair against armed furs, and today was not the day to start. Judge Poynter had not been idle either. As the stoat turned towards me Harold kicked the low table over, the edge slamming in behind the stoat’s knees sending him sprawling. A broom-handle makes a decent quarterstaff and keeps one well away from danger – mine swung full circle and came down on the red-furred wrist with all the force I could put behind it. Mustelids are notoriously light-boned, and he dropped the weapon with a yelp and an oath in Gaelic. I followed that up with a crack across the side of his head a little below the ears where the bone is weakest, and he went down. Just then the canine was getting up and Harold shouted a warning – I turned just in time to catch two pounds of blade recycled from lorry leaf-spring on the broom handle, with predictable results. That blow was halted but the wood was sheared almost through, cracking. I threw one two-foot length to Harold and realised I now had a sharp-tipped splintered staff, with less reach but new options. I thrust straight for the canine’s eyes, only tearing a gouge in his brow but I think he read what was in my own eyes clearly enough. Unfortunately that acted as a spur and his next blow knocked the staff right out of my paws to clatter down the corridor well out of reach. Before he had recovered and swung back for another blow I seized the first heavy item to paw, the venerable gasogene that had sat in the corner of the room for forty years providing Harold with fresh soda water, and swung the thirty pounds of water and acid filled metal-wrapped glass in an overhead arc connecting with the canine’s head. They both broke. I was sorry for the gasogene, it was a lovely piece and had served so well and so very long. For a second there was a silence, with only the tinkling of glass spinning away down the corridor and my own ragged breathing. I put my finger to my muzzle for silence, and did a quick check around the house for any more intruders. Finding none I picked up the telephone, noting with no great surprise that the line had been cut. I slipped outside the back door and did a wide circle through the streets, starting a hundred yards away and closing in. Meeting Island is sparsely inhabited at weekends, relatively few furs actually living there and many of them were off on Casino Island for shopping and the like. It was fifty yards from Judge Poynter’s house that I spotted him; there was an unfamiliar tall grey-furred canine of the wolfhound type sitting unobtrusively in the shadow under a mulberry tree with a picnic basket. But few tourists come here, and they tend not to have binoculars out unless there is something rather better in view than bungalows and rather uninspired administration buildings. I memorised his face as I walked by – and spotted the telephone booth at the end of the street. In a minute later I was on the phone to the Police station, gasping out a story of hearing shouts and screams from the Judge’s house, and dreading something awful was happening in there – which would certainly have been true. When the desk sergeant asked me who I was and where, I put the telephone down and stepped clear of the booth. I knew there were few minutes left before the police arrived, but I needed the time to think. Harold had never seen me as Kim-Anh, and I had entered a curtained room on a dim day with the light behind me nor had I opened my mouth except to hiss defiance. I was wearing oriental silk gloves and would have left no paw-prints on the broom-handle or elsewhere – and as to any other shed fur I left, that could have come from one of my earlier visits. The only person who might have seen me going into the bungalow was the grey wolfhound, and as he did not react when I walked past I doubt he had either unless he is extremely well trained. Just then I spotted three constables on bicycles pedalling furiously towards the bungalow, and made my mind up. In four minutes I was back at the water taxi heading for Casino Island. The bank there keeps various bundles there for me and Kim-Anh under our respective names, and retrieving a lightweight change of clothes I was heading to a swimming pool from which changing room Amelia Bourne-Phipps once more walked out amongst the other tourists. The first thing was to send a postcard to Post Box Nine, as I needed to tell someone official and I was not sure how the constables would take it. My duty done, I steeled myself to return to Meeting Island, as indeed I had an appointment to keep and folk would surely ask how it went. Not amazingly the bungalow was cordoned off with most of Spontoon’s police force investigating, and after showing my face to be told no visitors were allowed, I turned round for Songmark. It was certainly a tense time of it, trying to read our textbooks on my own in the dorm while Helen and the rest were still having a fine time shopping on Casino Island. My postcard must have found Mr. Sapohatan at home, wherever that maybe, for an hour after I returned to Songmark Miss Devinski called me down and with a steely expression announced I had a visitor while handing me a Pass only inscribed “until no longer required”. It was encouraging that I was being given Passes rather than thrown out – but meeting Mr. Sapohatan is never a relaxing experience. He was waiting outside the gate exchanging pleasantries with Beryl and Adele, before greeting me politely and suggesting we take a walk along the beach. Song Soda has a soundproofed room, but strolling along the surf line is better yet. I had been spending some of the time awaiting his visit with getting my thoughts and notes in order, and as we walked along towards the Southern tip of the island I gave my report as fully as I could. Mr. Sapohatan heard me out and we walked on in silence for a few minutes, till we reached the tip of the sand spit looking out towards South Island. It is rare that we get told things by Mr. Sapohatan rather than reporting things to him, but today was an exception. He nodded neutrally and says my story fits exactly with what was recorded – it seems Harold had taken delivery of a new Dictaphone machine that week to evaluate its value in court, and when someone started to break the door in he swiftly set it to record out of sight in a half-open drawer. So we have every word of what happened, and yet (as I thought) not one word uttered by me. Oh my. It seems I am rather more dangerous than I thought. The three Fenians had been identified by the Bosun of the tour boat they were travelling on as deckhands, and messrs. Malone, O’Malley and Flaherty were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital – the bovine O’Malley apparently had a neck broken “as neatly as any hangman could have managed”, as Mr. Sapohatan put it. Mr. Sapohatan asked how I thought about that. I recalled Harold looking them in the eye unafraid to die if needed, and replied that had there been a dozen of them I would still have gone in there – and unlike in Hollywood film plots, it is jolly hard to knock a determined fur out without a real risk of making it permanent. Mr. Sapohatan nodded neutrally, and mentioned that it was really a Police matter more than his own area. There will be a trial, but he noted that if the Police do not call me as a suspect he will not be the one to tell them. He notes that it being almost tourist season there were many folk who disliked the idea of a high-profile trial just when so many tourists are weighing up where is a nice place to go this Summer – but Judge Poynter insisted, being a stickler for proper legal process let the results be as they may. Secret Trials are the sort of thing furs complain about Vostok going in for, after all. So – I said farewell and returned to Songmark feeling resolute rather than worried. Our Tutors did not roast Molly and me about the battle with the pirates last year, though indeed Miss Devinski had a lot to say about us getting in that situation in the first place (especially since Lars was involved, never mind that he was the one being attacked.) If Miss Devinski asks for a full report on my afternoon I will be bound to give her one – but if not, then “if in doubt say nowt” as Prudence often says. Our Tutors have their own channels of information, and there are things they pointedly never ask our dorm. In fact the hole in what they ask us about is so clear-cut that I could think they know exactly what happens. Maria and Molly were the first back and I thought hard about what to tell them. But I waited till Helen returned then suggested a shower to freshen up, and indeed my fur was somewhat scented of chlorine from five minutes in the indoor pool on Casino Island. Maria has more experience with such things – she says that in former years bath-houses were the place where sensitive information was exchanged, but nowadays with microphones the shower is a favourite spot – not that it would be a worry for us but Molly has mentioned spotting if furs are “wired for sound” far more easily if they are in the fur. We might not be but the building is another matter. I know that star-nosed mole in Crusader Dorm has reported rather more live wires in the walls of the Songmark buildings than the visible lighting circuits would suggest. Her species may look alarming but their snouts’ electrical sense is very useful apart from making them walking lie-detectors. Anyway, I told them how things had gone – the puzzling thing was I felt very little different afterwards. One hears of furs being sick to the stomach and the like – I wonder if this is something our Warrior Priestess training has helped me deal with? I can believe at least Helen and I am internally steeled for such things by now and Molly hardly needs it. She has speculated dreamily that if there is one thing better than letting tracer rounds rip at the target with something large and fully automatic, it is the instant of anticipation when one hears the breech block lock back and feel the potential of everything just ready to roll. Molly is very well-adjusted to what she does, which might itself be a bad idea. Anyway, now it is just a matter of waiting to see how things turn out and if I feel a heavy official paw on my collar. Molly says I was a fool to hand in the pass I got today when I returned from meeting Mr. Sapohatan, which was as near a blank cheque as makes no odds and could have been used indefinitely. Maria’s comment was that Molly is never given such things as our Tutors well know how she would use them. Back to our studies, trying to concentrate! Helen rarely talks much about her life before Songmark, but she has mentioned it was rather rough living in oil boom towns and mining towns while her Father waited for the phone to ring and tell him some fire-fighting was needed more than urgently. She mentioned a friend of her late Father was employed as a trouble-shooter for the oil companies, which was dirty work in more ways than one. This Mr. Harksby she rather liked, and says most of the time he was an easy-going gentleman until his duties demanded otherwise. Helen says it was “like he kept all the rough stuff in a box – only took it out when he gotta use it, then he put it all away agin’ and shut the lid.” This is possibly a very good way to handle such things. next |