Crash Landings

(Being the twenty-fifth chapter of Amelia’s adventures at the Songmark Aeronautical Boarding School for Young Ladies, on Spontoon’s Eastern Island. Amelia and her year are due to start their final exams, one way or another …

Saturday May 22nd, 1937

Dear Diary: the only good thing I can write about today is that we are not being marked on predicting the future – I would have let my dorm-mates down very badly. Just yesterday I was saying we had got away with our potentially dangerous Albert Island trip without any of the trouble and hardships Saimmi had seen for me in her fires coming true. All started as a normal Saturday, with us planning our day on Casino Island and looking forwards to some relaxation after the strains of being hunted across Albert Island. A fine sunny day in friendly company with a good lunch at the Missing Coconut was just what would set us up well for the rigours of our upcoming final exams.
	Just after breakfast I was told there was someone wanting to meet me at the gate, and indeed we had been told there had been folk asking after us when we were away. I thought at worst it might be Missy Aha or some other keen local journalist sniffing round dissatisfied with the court verdict of “fursons unknown” saving Judge Poynter, and hunting down possibilities as to other felines known to have been in the area. I had been prepared for that. I had half a dozen ways of covering that problem should it have cropped up, and indeed while we were lying low in out thorny walled bunker on Albert Island I talked it over at length with Helen, Molly and Maria.
	I had an awful shock. Two vulpine girls rather younger than us were waiting at the gate, with tear-stained fur and looking awfully upset. I recognised them at once though of all the furs I have ever met they were the least likely I ever expected to see again – from the lost plantation on the Aleutians, Lucy and Emily Pennington! 
	I invited them to Song Sodas which was just opening up when we got there, and over an ice-cream soda heard what had happened to them – and where their older and youngest sisters had got to.
	Oh my. It seems that the worst has befallen the Pennington family. All was looking up for a few months after we left, with a boom in the dried seaweed market as indeed it is an ingredient in the new Rain Island military rations which has put a lot of extra money into the trade. I recall being told their main commercial link with the outside world was through a “factor” back in Dutch Harbour who handled the plantation’s external sales. One hears of discount companies cutting out the middle-fur, but in this case their factor decided it was worthwhile cutting out the Penningtons, and in a “fit of conscience” told the authorities all about them in exchange for permission to carry on the business to his own profit. Had they been humble trappers or fisher-furs like their Aleutian “servants” nobody would have cared, but the Government discovered they had an industrial concern on their territory that had been trading seventy years without paying a cent of taxes. Molly’s speculations about seventy years’ worth of compound interest all came horribly true, and old Mr. Pennington and most other furs involved were dragged off to jail in Anchorage pending a trial they are not liable to win.
	To make matters worse, Mr. Pennington is claiming he is not a Citizen of the current “Damn Yankee” American Government, and would only pay taxes to Richmond rather than Washington. This is something for lawyers to make or break their reputations on, but as they claim not to be Citizens of any existing country the family have been provisionally declared Enemy Aliens and everything confiscated. It sounds rather arbitrary, but possibly someone wants to claim victory over the last surviving Confederate forces. The only link the Pennington daughters had with the outside world was the Songmark address I gave them, and my promise to do what I could for them in return for enjoying their family’s hospitality back in December. It was that or starve and freeze to death on the docks at Dutch Harbour where the coastguard unceremoniously dumped them. Their original land settlement grant was from the Tsarist Alaskan government, and as there is no Vostok embassy handy to appeal to the Penningtons were left without a whisker of support.
	Even so things might not have been so bad; Missy Blanche, Lucy, Emily and Cindy arrived about a week ago having spent on their fare the last of the emergency cache of golden Confederate dollars that had been a family heirloom hidden under a rock by the harbour. They got miserably short-changed too, not having been brought up knowing much about commerce and exchange rates. By the time they found my address and Songmark the last of their money had run out, and they only have three-week free Tourist visas so after that they would be deported to wherever the Spontoon authorities can find someone willing to take them (a tricky question given their state-less state). At any other time I could have advanced them enough money to help them get by, the one useful aspect of being Lady Allworthy – but we were as “incommunicado” by then as if we were on the far side of the moon, with the best trackers Rain Island and Albert Island could offer already searching for us to no avail.
	One hears rumours of various Embassies offering deals to desperate furs. The Soviet and the New Haven Embassy both invite “international comrades” to enlist, if they will agree to accept whichever brand of Revolution is relevant. Not many from Spontoon decide that a life of Soviet solidarity and fresh-air comradeship in Siberia cutting timber really appeals, but in more desperate parts of the world they have more recruits especially with the Depression as they do at least guarantee food and shelter of a sort. Even that would not have been so bad. Kuo Han has (technically) outlawed Slavery amongst its Citizens years ago to save trouble with the League of Nations, but foreigners are not Citizens and neither are existing slaves, and their Embassy is always ready to provide a one-time cash payment and a strictly one-way ticket for a suitable fur.
	They might not have been brought up with much in the way of commercial or practical skills, but the Pennington girls are solidly trained in matters of honour and duty. Rather too much so for their own good. If I was in a similar situation I could vanish into the woods to build a shelter and subsist on fish and clams over here or wild birds and rodents in Barsetshire, but of course Songmark training is very thorough that way and genteel educations tend to leave out emergency fire and shelter building in favour of piano playing and etiquette. When the Penningtons ran out of money after a night in the cheapest hotel they could find (and again they were miserably overcharged, this being tourist season and the Spontoonies were not to know of their problems) they could only think of how to get money by realising what they discovered was a very saleable asset – themselves.
	The worst of it is, all this is legal on the Embassy grounds and there is nothing the Spontoon Authorities can do about it. Lucy and Emily showed me some utterly hateful papers their sisters had signed to give them a chance in life, having received several thousand (genuine) dollars and open tickets to Europe. Blanche and Cindy are already gone, having been shipped out by air to Kou Han the day after signing, which would have been Wednesday. 
	From what I have gathered through Molly, Harold and various furs on and off Krupmark Island, those who go to Kuo Han do not return. The Authorities basically write them off as if they were “lost at sea” and that is the end of it. 
	As Lucy and Emily finished up their story, I must confess to feeling rather grim. Not unlike the sensation I felt when hearing the assassins tell Harold he was going to die for doing his duty. I have a duty too; I had promised the Penningtons I would do what I could if they were in trouble, and I had failed them. Ordering them a full breakfast at Song Sodas (they looked starved, having been too upset to eat properly for days) I returned to Songmark and requested a meeting with Miss Devinski. Our Tutors had mentioned the “visitors” who had missed us, and I confess to being in rather a rage thinking the four Penningtons could have had our beds and at least our poi ration while waiting for us to return. True, Songmark is not a free hotel and nobody yet has stayed overnight who is not a student (unless one believes various stories from its early years that may be just wishful thinking) but our Tutors have made their views on slavery plain enough on many occasions. Had they only lent the girls a leaky tent to pitch in the dunes and a can a day of Maconochie to be put on my bill afterwards this would not have happened. They could have had a month of beach holiday and all come back to Europe with us after our exams.
	I think Miss Devinski can read minds, or at least expressions and circumstances. She took me to her office straight away, closed the door and before I opened my mouth told me I was not going after Missy Blanche and Cindy – by now they would be a thousand miles away, beyond help in many ways.
	Although I have always tried to be properly respectful to our Tutors, today I took a deep breath and had to contradict her. I have a duty to do, one that goes beyond anything else – I told her I was quite aware of the difficulties, realised the lost Penningtons might not have even been taken to Kuo Han in the first place let alone still be there, and have not had time to even start making a plan to find and retrieve them – but I would, and would go through with it whatever it takes.
	Three years of reports and debates at Songmark have at least told us how to put together a good argument, and I think that morning was a record-breaking argument. I acknowledged that if I never came back I would have failed Lucy and Emily as well – so in ten minutes I hammered out arrangements that I could put in place in an hour, to look after them without me. I have favours I can call in on Spontoon, and Lucy and Emily will surely be little trouble as guests.
	Then the conversation rather went downhill. Miss Devinski was furious, but I think most of it was not turned at me. She took me outside to the mound and we descended to see Henrietta – and asked if I was going to risk ending up like her or Megan the “ship’s cat” rescued from Captain Granite’s ship. Of course it was Miss Devinski’s duty to point out she is responsible for us all, and unlike Henrietta’s disappearance years ago on Krupmark this was term time and under the very clear Songmark rules the Tutors can throw out any student for “wilfully and negligently endangering themselves and others.” As for “others”, she predicted the rest of my dorm would follow in whatever hair-brained scheme I made sound halfway plausible, and if losing one of us was bad enough losing four was not to be contemplated. Besides, we have our final exams coming up and had no time to go anywhere. Unless we resign as Songmark students.
	It was a painful decision but one I knew I would have to make as soon as I heard the Penningtons’ story. I have been brought up to believe that Duty comes first. On Krupmark and other places I have heard the incredible price quoted to capture alive a Songmark graduate (it has never been done, Henrietta having been a second-year) and I was not going to be the one to let Songmark down. I asked for another meeting on Sunday night to give me time to put a plan together – after which I would go after Blanche and Cindy, alone if needs be. If Miss Devinski wanted to throw me out of Songmark that has always been her choice. If it is a matter of failing to graduate or failing in my Duty, I have no choice.
	I half expected some kind of explosion, but it never came. She looked hard at me for a minute and told me to plan well – she would write me an overnight pass and hear the scheme at six on Sunday evening. Then with thanks to Henrietta we returned to the surface and I went up to brief the rest of my dorm.
	Not surprisingly, when they heard the facts they were not amazed that I was trying for a rescue. Helen is not cheerful at the prospect, pointing out that on Krupmark we at least spoke the language and none of us speak more than a dozen words of Chinese – besides, Molly and Maria are species that will be exceedingly rare and conspicuous on Kuo Han. In fact she says Molly has a much better chance of assassinating J. Edgar Hoover and getting away with it – in that she would blend in with the local background, can legally buy anything short of a howitzer and could probably find thousands of like-minded criminals around the country eager to help.
	That is certainly a problem. Being a Kuo Han local Li Han was our first stop; Maria sprinted off to grab her before she followed Jasbir out to the usual dance classes. Not that she can teach us Cantonese in the island dialect before Sunday night, but all the background we can get on her homeland will help. We “grilled” the poor tabby for an hour and a half, and though she was glad to help she says it is quite as exhausting as the dance class she was missing. As we had heard before, it is not exactly illegal there and the Police treat escaped slaves as stolen property like any other with stiff penalties for “fencing” them or assisting those who do so. So it will be a case of getting them and us out of the country clandestinely in the face of a hue and cry, even supposing we can find them at all. In an unknown land with the language problem and presumably no local support (unlike say, Vostok where we had aid from both the natives and the Government) that is daunting.
	We split up with jobs assigned; Maria went to her Embassy to enquire about Italian-Kuo Han relations, Helen went off to check travel routes, Molly was to head down to the Temple of Continual Reward to enquire about the underworld connections there and I headed out at almost the usual time to Meeting Island, to see Harold. After all, he has years of experience with the legal hunt for (illegal) slavers and knows where they go and what they do from many a trial. Not that many officially come to trial these days; I imagine if they said anything the Police reports would read “accidentally tied himself up in barbed wire and was eaten alive by crabs while attempting to escape.” Certainly the authorities here make sure they do not have the chance to get off with a bought jury or a good lawyer.
	Passing Song Sodas I picked up Lucy and Emily who were starting to think I had abandoned them, and we made the trip to Meeting Island together. As ever, Harold was pleased to see me though naturally with the surviving Penningtons there things did not progress as they did on the last two weeks. Which I thought rather a shame, as I had definite worries that it would have been my last chance. Furs heading out to the Great War at least had a friendly army around them and support behind regardless of whatever they had to face.
	Harold was most courteous, being the nearest Lucy and Emily will find on Spontoon to the “old-world charm” they were brought up with. When I told him the story his face was rather grim, and like Miss Devinski he held out very little hope of anyone seeing Blanche and Cindy again. The Kuo Han slavers operate a “pipeline” which is triply insulated from any outsider finding their way in, and have refined it over decades to be invisible from outside. There are regular auctions of “merchandise” but they are privately arranged matters in remote locations for a selected clientele and definitely not advertised in the newspapers, even if we could read the language. After that, nobody but the purchaser knows what happens and nobody would even think of asking the question.
	As a judge and magistrate Harold can witness all sorts of legal transactions, and I helped him draw up a document making Emily and Lucy “wards of the Estate” so if the worst happens and I fail to return they will not be penniless – they will be looked after by whoever takes on the Allworthy Estates after me. That is one thing off my mind at least; having someone who knows both British and Spontoonie law is a great help. Harold volunteered to enquire what could be done for them in terms of papers and passports; if they do not want to be citizens of the “Damn Yankees” who they have been brought up to despise, they might get a Stateless person’s passport such as Spontoon’s Inspector Stagg had after the New Haven Revolutionary council outlawed him from his own country. Considering they have Kuo Han passports that may be technically perfect but nobody will ever believe as they do not speak the language (and possibly Blanche and Cindy are the only two grey foxes there right now; certainly they will be a very rare breed on Kuo Han) that would be an improvement. Besides, given the choice they would rather have something that does not remind them of the price their sisters paid.
	After two hours I said farewell to Harold, who was looking forward to getting busy on my behalf. In other circumstances I would have shown Emily and Lucy around the delights of Casino Island, but they were hardly in a holiday tourist mood and I had to check on how impossible the plan was looking. If there is really no hope at all then I will have to agree with Miss Devinski and concentrate on doing what I can for Emily and Lucy. My ears go down flat thinking of how all four vixens could have held out, had they known it, living on shellfish off the rocks and stream water for four days and all turned up in time for a hearty breakfast together with us today. Three years at Songmark have certainly changed us, and the course equips us to deal with every eventuality. At least I hope so.
	Back at Song Sodas Helen, Maria and Molly had already returned with information. None of it looks hugely encouraging, but some possibilities are starting to show. Maria says Kuo Han and Italy are neutral, as indeed they have had little to do with each other. She can get there calling it a “trade delegation” trading on her Uncle’s name. What her Uncle will have to say about her quitting Songmark at this stage she politely declined to share with us but I can guess. She says Kuo Han is no great manufacturing nation but has a lot of mining, with Vostok getting all its bauxite from there and Italian interests could well be making enquiries through the Embassy about getting some of that trade.
	Helen says we can get to Kuo Han easily enough, changing at Hawaii and picking up the Humapore and India route on Imperial Airways. She is rightly worried about the language problem; it was bad enough when we were on Vostok, and at least there we had the support of the Authorities who wanted us to look around the place and provided us a fairly reliable guide to go with Tatiana as additional independent translator. Finding a guide who we then use to break the law (without them immediately turning us in for reward) would be a problem.
	Molly says there is at least one probable Kou Han slaver on Spontoon who the authorities have never been able to “pin anything on”, and suggests we find him and make him talk. She has some radical ideas on those lines involving power tools or mains electricity. I admit the prospect has a certain robust directness, but if we have to do anything illegal I would rather keep it to Kuo Han and only break laws nobody likes in the rest of the world or will have Interpol chase us for. Apart from that, she knows Krupmark has a start to the “pipeline” and can name some names there reputed to be involved. Interestingly she says that contrary to popular belief one or two furs have returned having been sold there. But she insists they are not the same people at all, and no longer seem capable of planning any sort of escape or even wishing to. Recalling Henrietta, I have a nasty idea what she means.
	I suggested she ask about the Krupmark connection, as indeed we can get there and know something of its hazards. An idea sprang to mind, of at least myself taking the difficult role of a “captive”. If we could persuade someone on Krupmark to basically “obtain” Lady Allworthy I could get to Kuo Han, brought to the same sort of place Blanche and Cindy are in; if no outsiders ever find that out then I will have to get there from within. The chances of ending up at the same sale (though we hear they are hardly daily affairs) as Blanche and Cindy is slim, but it will be a start. I have talents learned as a Warrior Priestess that will help once we find their trail. Furs who have seen them will remember them, and from then I can use other talents Saimmi has trained us in.
	Maria objected that I would vanish and be impossible to find, should I be held too securely to escape on my own. Helen and I exchanged glances – and Helen admitted that is not likely to happen. Both of us being Warrior Priestesses, we have learned a ritual where one of us can always find the other even if we are asleep, unconscious, drugged or whatever. We have tested it as well as we can on Spontoon, even being underground in the lava tubes does not hinder it. Unlike a radio, even the best one could imagine Cranium Island producing, there is no equipment needed as I am only too aware I will have nothing with me. As long as Helen stays on the “outside” she can find me, and if I can find the Penningtons the others will have a chance of getting us out. The details will have to depend on the circumstances, as three years of Songmark have taught us that although a good plan is essential to start with, “no plan survives contact with the enemy.” 
	Molly left to make some telephone calls while we asked Lucy and Emily for any details that might help. Emily is holding up quite well but almost broke down as she told us she had been approached by an Oriental fur whispering “details” of how Cindy at least had quite taken to some aspects of her new life. He had hinted that even now it might not be impossible for Emily to save her eldest sister Blanche by willingly taking her place.
	I had to tell her that it is extremely unlikely, and all the Kuo Han embassy wanted was an extra Pennington girl to add to their collection without paying a penny. Besides, Blanche and Cindy are probably a long way off by now and beyond the reach of even the Embassy having been passed to another part of the “pipeline.”
	That done, we had to make arrangements for looking after the two “survivors”. They have not been invited into Songmark, and they had no plans to use their first-class open tickets to Europe until either all hope for their sisters was lost or their visas expire in two weeks. Even that would be a leap in the dark on their own, as they know less of Europe than of the moon which at least they have seen before. Having them arrive unescorted on some dock in Marseilles or Hamburg would be a very bad idea; Molly says in America there are skilled furs always waiting to spot vulnerable immigrants and they might end up sharing something like their sisters’ fate.
 I am the only one of my dorm with a Pass to stay out past sundown, and there is no point in Helen, Molly and Maria irritating our Tutors until they need to. So I took charge, escorting them to Mahanish’s where they always have basic rooms for aircrew available at a fraction of the Casino Island prices. Weary mechanics and stewards want a good meal, bath and a bed; they care little for sea views and luxurious furniture when they have to be up at dawn to meet incoming flights and indeed there is little other commercial accommodation on Eastern Island. Putting them up on Casino Island would be riskier, and at least at Mahanish’s they are within easy reach of Songmark without introducing the complications of water taxis.
	Back to Songmark where we busied ourselves with maps and guide books of Kou Han, plus more grilling Li Han about her homeland. The poor girl tried her best to help, but comes from a respectable family and has little to tell us about the rather specialised questions we need answering. She did tell us that slavery was not a Chinese cultural tradition as such; given the utterly low status of “coolies” it would have been rather redundant anyway. At least she could tell us about everyday life there, which would be useful to the outside team. Molly and Maria will be rather conspicuous by their species there – I blushed recalling Molly’s capture back in the Papeete Influenza outbreak where I had been told Western does would be very popular indeed – and being fairly fresh from Saint Winifred’s I naively asked why the Authorities there did not offer promotional tickets and accommodation for such. It seems free accommodation and travel are indeed available, though only with one-way tickets!
	To bed only at lights-out, a rare thing for us at weekends when we are usually relaxing and making the most of our time off. I fear there will be little of that, in the near future.

Sunday May 23rd, 1937

A busy day indeed for everyone. As soon as the Songmark gates were open I was off to Mahanish’s to see how Lucy and Emily had passed the night, on the way my ears pressed flat looking at the sand dunes on the Eastern coast. If Miss Devinski had only loaned the sisters tents and even a can apiece of the surplus Rain Island “Sea Pie” last week things would be so different. It is ironic that the market boom in seaweed for the military ration program is the very thing that brought about the Penningtons’ exposure, just as it looked set to make them wealthy. There is a certain greedy business-fur in Dutch Harbour who I would like to have words with one day, or probably let Molly do the talking with the aid of her toolkit. The trouble is, legally he is in the right and has City Hall behind him.
	Happily both remaining girls were still safe and having breakfast, though somewhat bemused by the menus. It is hard to imagine what this must be like for them; a month ago they were being waited on by Aleutian sea-otter servants in their family mansion as they had done all their lives and their grandparents before them with very little to worry them except a distant concern over whether they could send off for suitably pedigreed grey fox gentlemen to marry. I hardly like to think of what will have happened to Blanche and Cindy already; their species is also classed as attractively exotic on Kuo Han and are liable to appeal to very different species of “gentlemen”. 
	Fortunately Lucy and Emily are young and resilient, and we have given them a certain amount of hope. They have started to look around and realise the people around them are enjoying themselves on holiday – they had vaguely heard of bathing beaches and Casinos from their old Governess, who had denounced them as wicked (which was her opinion of most things, as I gather) and they were asking about them. Emily was quite amazed at all the different species here; outside of books they had never met anyone who was not a fox or sea-otter except for us, never having left their island before this month.
	I am not sure what would be best for them while we are away; staying at Mahanish’s indefinitely would hardly do as pilots and Adventurers wandering through have a not always undeserved reputation of taking advantage of vulnerable girls. Originally I had thought of asking Mrs. Hoele’toemi to look after them but the shock of living in a Spontoonie longhouse might be rather too much. The Songmark girls are all far too busy to be more than the most limited guides and chaperones, and certainly they need looking after. If this was off-season I would think of getting a Spontoonie lady Guide to show them around full time, but they are rather busy with the tour-boat crowd. At least I had a good breakfast while thinking (Mahanish’s do a basic ham and eggs type cuisine that is wonderful compared with the Songmark menu) before deciding to ask Harold for assistance again. He has time to spend these days, has official standing and if anyone can smooth the Penningtons’ status with the local authorities, he can. In the worst case, he can write letters of introduction for Lucy and Emily to take with them to England where he still keeps in distant touch with his extended family.
	Back to Songmark, where my dorm have been busy! Molly has been out making the telephone wires ring with cryptic messages to furs who Harold would probably not approve of. Still, we are “advancing on two fronts” on both legitimate and criminal areas and need all the help and information we can get. She is meeting Lars this afternoon at the Temple of Continual Reward and hopefully enlisting his help. We had best start from a known base on Krupmark, and he can at least get us there. His old Pemberton-billings “Zeppelin terrifier” has been retired and now his enterprise has a six-seater floatplane, she says. Business must be looking up.
	(Later) Things are starting to take some kind of shape. I took the Pennington girls over to Meeting Island again and Harold gladly agreed to help them. He has been investigating the problem, and is not too happy at my proposed plan although he admits it stands the only chance of working that he can see. I have slightly mentioned my training with Saimmi, and after his years here he has seen much of the abilities of the local Priestesses. He would be happier if I was fully qualified as a Songmark Graduate and a Priestess first, though. If folk in Kou Han find out who I am as Lady Allworthy, there is likely to be a “bidding frenzy” like a shark attack. Many Oriental furs still have sore feelings against Euros from the Boxer Rebellion days and even back as far as the Opium Wars * and would not exactly be buying me as treasured favourite of the harem. 
	Harold’s law library is probably the best equipped in the Pacific, as indeed he was instrumental in organising the Spontoonie criminal code after the Gunboat Wars. What he left out of the slim volume used here was the thousand years of case law and Precedent that makes Law such a life-long career back in Britain. Effectively, laws stay on the books forever unless specifically repealed (a very troublesome procedure that other lawyers tend to fight on principle) which means there are some curious survivals that are still lurking out there like a loose Great War vintage mine still bobbing along on the currents. 
Britain was the first European Empire to abolish slavery, but the centuries of laws dealing with such are still on the books by default though nobody can see any application for them. If there were ancient traffic laws relating to furs levitating they would stay on the books despite no spiritualists or fakirs ever being proved to really do that – and the same is true relating to slaves, of which we have none but they would be covered in law if we did. Harold has been reading some early medieval laws which say no “chattel or bondsman” may be part of the King’s Cabinet as long as they have any outside owner, and says in principle it still applies to the House of Lords. Certainly something to think about. Just fifty years ago a hopeless-looking law case in the Channel Islands was won by the defendant claiming redress to a thousand-years dead Norman overlord (“Haro, Haro, hear my plea” was the phrase his very well-read lawyer dug up, after which the plaintiff had to pronounce the Lord’s Prayer in medieval French) so strange things do happen.
	Harold says he can find some trustworthy local furs to educate Emily and Lucy in modern living and keep them safe; his housekeeper is one he says he can ask, and he knows dozens of furs on Spontoon and elsewhere who owe him favours. That is one thing off my mind, at least. He was particularly unhappy with my having to leave Songmark for the rescue mission, but acknowledges the matter is urgent and there are no official forces who have jurisdiction. I am sure Mr. Sapohatan has qualified furs who could do far better, but two stateless vixens are really not his business and whatever happened to them is legal under applicable laws.
	A definitely useful visit. I took an affectionate leave of Harold, feeling rather odd and somehow wondering if we would ever meet again. Considering how badly I predicted the future about having escaped Saimmi’s visions of troubles on the way, I can hardly put much faith in that sort of feeling. Still, it was rather unnerving. I wish I had met Harold a year earlier; a very fine and gallant gentleman.
	Saimmi had to be my next stop, and meeting up with Helen and Saffina we headed across to South Island rather later than usual. Whether our Tutors had told her or by her own resources, she knew what had delayed us. Leaving the Penningtons with Mrs. H we went out to the shrine at the edge of the jungle to talk things over.
	Unlike Miss Devinski, Saimmi did not try to dissuade me from the rescue attempt. Warrior Priestesses are expected to help the innocent, and indeed the four Penningtons qualified on that like nobody I have ever met. Saimmi says she has seen a darkness in Kuo Han that some visitors have carried a trace of back to Spontoon, a specific spiritual “scent” as potent as if they had trodden in aniseed oil. She says there are priestesses of darkness as well as light, and they are as likely to develop new abilities and powers as anyone else, and have no hesitation to putting them to use if it is profitable. What was done to Henrietta is very much a case in point as it would have taken far more than physical means to mentally destroy a Songmark girl; if we are not the most resilient crowd around I hardly know who is.
	It was rather like one of those films of the Great War, where troops arrive in the front line carrying their basic rifles and only there get issued with the weapons one does not generally go on public parade with – Mills bombs, trench knives and satchel charges for close-up messy work. Saimmi taught us some rituals she had been waiting for the right occasion to introduce, having hoped we would not need to use them. Just as with a fighting engineer’s bunker-smashing satchel charge stuffed with five pounds of unstable tetryl, there is rather a risk of getting caught in one’s own blast. Furthermore there is no way to test them without using them to the full, and that would be a desperate situation indeed. One either fires the detonator or not, there is no half-way setting.
	By the time Saimmi finished with us it was late afternoon. We kneeled for her to give us her blessing, and received it in full. She has looked in her fires and seen many paths ending in darkness, and a few that do not – but one does not start on the path to becoming a Warrior Priestess hoping for a quiet, comfortable life with a retirement pension at the end of it. 
	Jirry, Marti and the rest of the family were there and with Saimmi’s blessing Helen and I retired to the jungle to pay a proper farewell to the brothers – “a soldier’s farewell” indeed. Certainly I hope Jirry had a memorable afternoon, as I certainly did myself. Then it was back to Eastern Island dropping the Penningtons off at Mahanish’s, and putting plans together with Molly and Maria.
	At six sharp I was externally cleaned, groomed and in my best Songmark uniform and blazer, knocking at Miss Devinski’s office door. Miss Cardroy, Miss Windlesham and Miss Wildford were there, somewhat squeezed in behind her and looking grim. I had a hard hour being quizzed as to what I intended doing and how. Nobody can know exactly what I will have to do, but I answered their questions as to how I would handle various extreme hazards. 
	At the end of it Miss Devinski turned to her fellow tutors who all nodded in turn – evidently they had been debating my case and were ready for a yes or no decision. She asked me formally if I was going to go ahead with my plan, which I assented. 
	I was somewhat braced for it, but it was rather a blow when she said she had nothing more to teach me, and my Songmark education was over. She held out no hope of my surviving the mission let alone succeeding with it – but said I was to return “with my shield or on it.” No Songmark graduate or third-year had ever been captured as I was planning to be and I quite agree that none ever should be, so that as of that moment I am not a Songmark student. They would be saying as much to anyone who went with me.
	Oh dear.
(Later) I am writing this sitting on the rather hard bed in our dorm for probably the last time. It is surprising what I will miss – the prospect of another month falling asleep flat-out exhausted after gate guard or our exercises was not too appealing two nights ago, but it is now when it is too late. Helen and the rest have rallied round and we are making thorough plans regardless. At least I am not being frog-marched to the airstrip with my return ticket to England in my pocket and my steamer trunk sent on after me. In fact, the Tutors have not exactly told me to leave at all, which is strange. Perhaps they hope a night’s sleep will persuade me of the impossibility of the rescue mission and their decision will not be final till I start on it.
	Tomorrow we start making arrangements. One way or another – farewell to Songmark!

*Editor’s note: in the mid-19th Century the British Empire was run as a theocracy; despite the missionary claims, Trade was God. The whole world was opening up for Free Trade with the annoying exception of China. “The Middle Kingdom already has everything it could ever want”, they would say “foreign barbarians go peddle your wares elsewhere.” Of course, this was not going to sit too well with grimly determined merchants with warehouses full of steam engines and cotton looms. It is not recorded whether any of them actually said “You won’t trade with us? Right. We’ll see about that. Trade this, Celestials!” - but they found some articles of trade to push through the borders regardless. Hence the Opium Wars.

Friday 28th May, 1937 (back-dating)

It is hot on Krupmark Island. It was Wednesday when we arrived, having arranged flight over here via Mildendo and taken some time with our preparations. Despite everything I was dyed and dressed as Kim-Anh Soosay; being “wanted for police questioning” is no social stigma on Krupmark, and indeed adds some local credibility. I carried all the identification she possesses, with my Macao passport (such as it is) and even my Spontoon Hunting License – signed and stamped after all this time. Miss Devinski has already thrown me out so I have nothing to lose on that score and on Krupmark nobody cares either way, except that documentation is always useful. It is convincing as well, in that it is not the kind of documentation anyone would get unless they needed it; Nuala tells me unlicensed girls have their whole earnings and any portable goods confiscated and are put on the next steerage berth in a tramp steamer heading out of Spontoon to somewhere unprofitable. Considering Kim-Anh is currently a dangerous disguise and rather unusable now on Spontoon there seemed little to lose by signing the form – Nuala was surprised but seemed pleased when I arrived Monday lunchtime. Naturally in her profession she keeps late hours in Tourist season and is rarely up before luncheon. 
	Maria has never been to Krupmark before although she has asked us a lot about it. She says it is somewhere her Uncle has expressed great interest in, mostly as an awful warning of what happens without firm government. Apparently the Adriatic used to be a similar haunt of crime including some of the first Air Pirates, the place being ideally suited with hundreds of little islands in disputed territory that hosted all sorts of renegades with their stolen or war-surplus ships and flying-boats. She dressed in a practical though rather stained flight suit, as did Molly and Helen; everyone travelled light but kept their own documents (I entrusted Molly with my real passport, pedigree and such.)
	Having arrived on Lars’ flying boat we had an “official” entry and this time did not have to slip ashore on the far coast in the middle of the night. It is barely six months since our last trip, and if the furs who worship at the “church” on the hill find out it was us who made off with their unholy relic and wrecked the church’s powers I doubt they would be pleased to see us. Alternatively they could be very pleased to see us, as in getting their paws on us. There were some rather explicit murals in that church that I have tried to forget. If Molly ever wants to set fire to the place then for a change I will not try and dissuade her.
	Lars still has the office and warehouse we have visited before down in Fort Bob, but he has taken control of a small residential compound half-way up the hill. Definitely his work with the Spontoon Government must be paying well, and indeed he commented that it made a change to have a customer whose cheques were not liable to bounce. The compound is not exactly fortified but all the external facing rooms are double walled construction of stout wood with a foot of rammed gravel between them making them bulletproof to small arms fire and indeed proof against anything but light artillery. Any “Homes and Gardens” magazine would be interested in the unique improvisations of Krupmark architecture assuming the residents were interested in giving away their defensive layouts. The reptilian Mr. Sstabek is still Lars’ right-hoof man on Krupmark, having helped re-establish him here when he returned from his long trip on the Parsifal last year to discover some of his other employees had decided to branch out on their own using his property as what Helen calls a “grub-stake.” I believe any survivors were suitably chastened.
	Carefully fur-dyed as Kim-Anh I was a new face in town, and glad to be anonymous to any furs looking out for the feline of British shorthair pedigree who received the dubious title from a former Krupmark resident. Walking past the rather garish and biologically explicit display of the Lucky Dragon Casino I was doubly glad nobody would recognise me from Spontoon; I could have asked Wo Shin more about the setup here but the fewer furs on Krupmark who know the better (Maria quoted an old Italian phrase; “the only way three can keep a secret is when two of them are dead.”) Mrs. Wo may be Songmark but entrusting our secrets to any of Red Dorm is not something that has ever appealed. I did ask Adele Beasley who I trust rather more and who has lived for months quite high on the hill here; Adele says her host Miss Chartwell owns a variety of slaves but buys them “in the general way” and has no more specific knowledge of how they get that way than she knows how to build a car from scratch though she owns one of those as well. If the market exists there will be a Henri Fnord to get rich on it who will not be keen on giving away trade secrets to possible competition.
	Thinking of Trade Secrets, when I visited Nuala on Monday to get Kim-Anh’s “hunting license” signed at last, she directed me to Madame Maxine’s establishment where the proprietress would be expecting me to instruct me in many things I would need to know. I had to explain I needed the paperwork for identification but had absolutely no intention of needing the practical advice! Could I have spared the time it might have been interesting to hear what she had to say, though. She is famed as being to be able to offer advice and assistance with just about anything.
	On Krupmark at least nobody will be shocked at the idea. Not that the locals would on Spontoon for that matter, but I was doing what I could to keep Lady Allworthy’s name as clean as possible; it is Kim-Anh who would be captured and indeed an exotic half-Siamese dancer should attract some interest. It would be mortifying to discover nobody wanted to buy! When we arrived Lars had to go “up the hill” for a few hours and make some arrangements with furs he said he generally has little contact with. On returning he said things were now in motion though he seemed to think little of my plan or at least my prospects of success. Although I am no star-nosed mole, I  quietly used some of the ritual Saimmi has taught us for such situations and he was certainly telling the truth about that.
	We had several days on the island before things could be set up involving Kuo Han. Lars showed us around his warehouse where he has some “new lines” in, both in commercial bulk and as one-off specials whose owners have probably been court-martialled for losing them. He has a consignment of that Vostok built crop-sprayer Molly was to happy to test awhile ago, which filled with water she has been knocking ripe fruit off high branches with on South Island. I had thought it looked a little incomplete, having a screw thread on the front that did not seem to connect to anything, and various empty fittings for expansions that hardly seemed necessary on a glorified garden sprayer.
	I should have known better. Lars tells Molly more than she tells us, and Molly would never have been so happy knowing her gift was just a useful gardening implement meant to be loaded with quassia chips or derris extract against greenfly. There is now what looked like a mechanic’s grease-gun screwed onto the front of the complete article plugged into the liquid tank, plus a battery and a quart sized cylinder of compressed oxygen. The five-gallon rucksack tank is pressurised by the paw-pump that had been on Molly’s cut-down version, but that pressure is just used to squeeze three pints of odd silvery-grey fuel gel into the “grease-gun” part which has valves at each end and a spark-plug at the back end. 
	Lars took us out in his aircraft half an hour’s flying to a remote sand-spit far from prying eyes to demonstrate. It is a well-engineered piece of equipment – pulling the loading lever charges the heavy chamber with fuel, and the first pressure on the trigger injects pure oxygen at the back of the “charge”, still kept in by the spring-loaded valve at the front nozzle. The second trigger pressure ignites the whole mass, which departs through the front valve at about two hundred feet a second.
	It is definitely spectacular. Rather than squirting a hosepipe stream of fire, it is more like a solid slug moving twice as fast as a tennis serve burning white at the back, accelerating like a rocket – and on contact the whole charge splashes in an incandescent mass ten feet across. Stray splashes in the lagoon carried on burning underwater, and the coral sand it hit was turned to quicklime by the heat. I am not sure what the Vostok patent fuel consists of, but it looks as if it involves magnesium powder and some form of oxidant built in; possibly the same stuff they sell in two-ounce tubes at Eriksson’s Outdoors for starting camp fires. Lars presented Molly a complete unit with his complements - and she was extremely appreciative. If not quite right there on the spot, then as soon as we returned to his compound at Fort Bob. I was wondering what she would think was a suitable engagement present; presumably having been brought up with furs who see jewellers’ windows as a source of ready cash given a handy brick she thinks little of diamond rings.
	We had a camera along and took some fine souvenir shots of Molly hosing incandescent fire around the place, laughing her head off. If the Germans ever established a “church” involving emulating Valkyries with fire and lightning I think she would be a very enthusiastic churchgoer. Jasbir tells us that Buddhism involves personally trying to emulate rather than worshipping the deity – and Molly emulates a winged destroyer rather too well for comfort. Lars says the original Vostok pamphlet has cartoon instructions showing one can first coat a resistant target such as a pillbox or tank with one or two shots of unlit fuel before firing an ignited shot at it; certainly the Vostokites are making the most of their chemical industries against vastly outnumbering Soviet hordes perpetually poised just across the seas.
	Not surprisingly Molly and Lars share a room, and I had one to my own next door with Helen and Maria sharing another at the far end of the building. The first night was somewhat disturbed, what with my worries about the rescue trip and the fact that all the armour was on the outside walls of the building; the partition between my room and Lars’ was notably thin and Molly being notably - energetic. On the second night I slept rather better but awoke with the first light of dawn as we have been accustomed to in Songmark. I recognised Molly’s tread in the corridor, evidently returning bare-furred from the toilets. She winked and pointed next door, putting a finger to her muzzle for silence, and winked as she waved for me to follow.
	It seemed a perfectly proper thing to do at the time. Lars has been the perfect host, and was evidently putting himself to a lot of trouble on our behalf. For Molly, she had always liked the idea of me joining her in a herd as is mentioned in biblical times. It is a very natural deer thing after all, and though she knows I always planned to marry Jirry she sticks to her ideas with commendable fortitude.
	Lars was fast asleep, and certainly a handsome sight in the early light. If he spent more time practicing his hula dancing I think he would win the Spontoon competitions rather than take second or third and certainly he has the rather well-toned physique for it. I confess my tail went somewhat sideways, recalling a certain beach in the Kanim Islands and indeed a well-appointed hotel room on Casino Island. Both of those occasions had been after awfully dangerous adventures that we had been lucky to survive. I had noticed such things have rather an effect on me. That morning, my head was still full of risks and dangers I was preparing for – and the effect was much the same.
	I fear I was most unladylike. Which was rather way I became Lady Allworthy in the first place, not two hundred yards away. Knowing that whatever happened I was never likely to be on Krupmark again added a certain something, and indeed I made the most of my opportunity. Miss Devinski would have approved of that sentiment if not indeed the cast list involved. “Carpe Diem” she agrees with, but “Carpe cervine”, decidedly not.
	One definitely notices that Nature has well equipped deer to live in herds. I would not have thought Molly the type to share her good fortune in general, and healthy stags can certainly keep a considerable number of does very happy with their situation – indeed had Maria and Helen joined us I doubt anyone would have been disappointed. Not that Helen has ever liked Lars, but herding cats is proverbially difficult. 
	Lars had a great deal of business to do in the day and in gratitude we all helped out, even Helen who is the least happy of us with the location and company. Although on Krupmark furs do not have to worry about paying commercial insurance (nobody would insure them) they do have “protection” overheads. Some of that is in tax-like tributes to furs living higher up the hill, and some is in straightforward guarding from the competition – and here everyone is in competition. Someone once compared Krupmark society to a bucket full of snapping crabs, where the main social urge is to claw one’s way to the top and “devil take the hindmost.”
	Lars invited us to pick from his sale stock and we all equipped ourselves with the new version Fedorov Avtomat, the oddly organic looking gun whose body is a single cast piece of patent magnesium foam that floats on water. Apparently the troops call it the “peanut” as it looks a little like a raw peanut pod, more so than a regular weapon. There are many fascinating features such as a barrel shutter that only opens when the safety catch comes off, helping keep mud and debris out of the bore. It is a definitely handy small-calibre piece, well suited for confined spaces as it is compact with no sharp angles to snag on clothes or surroundings and it “points” instinctively. Helen and Maria proved to be excellent shots with it though today none of us needed to put those skills to practical use and confined ourselves to potting some driftwood targets down on the shore.
	 I recall Beryl once persuading some hapless tourist to invest in Krupmark on the grounds that it was a crime-free zone. Having no written laws that can be broken she might strictly speaking be right – I would call it more of a “free-crime zone” myself. As I recall thinking on an earlier trip here, the good thing with going about armed here is that one does not have to worry about hitting innocent bystanders should one need to spray lead around, as there are none. They are sure to be guilty of something heinous or they would not be here.
 	The most hazardous part of local life we saw was the traffic; not that there is much even compared to Casino Island but furs driving rather poorly maintained lorries flat-out with no traffic regulations or even common-sense make life on the main streets rather tense. There are no pavements. It certainly encourages a fur to keep one’s eyes wide open, and encourages quick reflexes dodging. The “run” from the docks and the airstrip to Fort Bob tends to be made with the throttle pushed to the floor, possibly to discourage rivals or random marauders jumping onboard or having time to plan anything more elaborate. Almost anywhere else on the planet the drivers would be summonsed for driving like a maniac, though Maria seemed to think it was perfectly normal technique. This may be a continental thing. We have heard (and not from Beryl) that in France every police prefecture retains the professional services of a medically certified maniac with whom juries make fair legal comparisons.
	Lars’ working office is rather like any other small business, except that more of it is written in code. On his desk he had a sheaf of a dozen photographs, portraits of various furs. There were quite a few species, a bull, a warthog and one of those bats with the amazingly convoluted ears and muzzles that look almost like a pawfull of fleshy leaves. Lars noticed me looking through them and explained they were overseas customers for a business transaction he had in mind. Naturally one does not ask questions about Krupmark business.
	In the evening Lars held court with Mr. Sstabek and his other employees, and announced the “deal was going down” the following day, that being the Friday. It had been a tricky piece of double-cross to set up, but even Helen grudgingly approved the plan when she heard it. Getting Kim-Anh “captured” would not be a problem – all he would have to do was make sure I took a walk outside his compound unguarded and the right furs would be waiting to grab me. The tricky bit would be getting to the right market in Kuo Han; there are all sorts of unfortunate things that can happen to a captive there. Plus, having Lars’ agent managing to report back my location to the “outside team” of Molly, Maria and Helen without blowing his cover. The details were complex but I recall we all agreed they seemed as sound as could be arranged in the circumstances. The stoat who was to “betray” us to the slavers and fail to capture Molly bowed and said it would be a pleasure. 
	It is rare that we start off on such a risky business, and I have to be as prepared as possible mentally. Helen and I performed the Spontoonie “sunset song” which might be the first time in a very long while it has been done on Krupmark Island, after which she and Maria retired to their rooms for an early night’s sleep. Quite right; they may be chasing me all the way across the Western Pacific and back, and that night was the last one they had any guarantee of nine hours sleep in a bed. One gets used to the occasional cries, shouts and random gunfire of Krupmark Island; I recalled thinking that one really could get used to almost anything. Furs in the Great War learned to sleep through artillery barrages with water and mud up to their tails, by all the stories.
	My first job was to call Molly in to help with the finishing touches to Kim-Anh’s fur dye; even with a mirror it is much easier with two to make one match a passport. Kim-Anh’s markings are at least symmetrical; folk with more random dyed disguise markings have been known to betray themselves in a hurried transformation by matching exactly what is in the mirror, with right and left sides reversed compared to their passport photographs. Molly agreed that Lady Allworthy would raise far more interest at any sale but the idea was that I get to an auction and fail to make the “reserve bid” which will be set impossibly high for Kim-Anh, letting Lars’ agent remove me from sale to be offered elsewhere. The last thing I wanted was to actually get sold off, as Kim-Anh or otherwise.
	Recalling our chase over the Casino Island rooftops last year following the foiled raid in the Kanim Islands, I can tell there is certainly a lot of money in the awful business. That gang had their own flying boats and an extensive (and expensive) organisation, which we were glad to scotch. And that was just for Pacific Natives, not pedigree Euros who by repute can command fantastic prices. Although Helen always had her suspicions of Lars, she had to admit at the time he helped the authorities decisively flatten that gang. The one who fell six storeys off the hotel rooftop was flatter than most.
	Having finished, Molly stood back and admired her work as the dye dried. We could already hear Maria snoring at the end of the corridor, as indeed a Songmark girl learns to make the most of whatever chance to sleep she can get. And of other opportunities too – Molly grinned and pointed next door. I can say we had a most pleasant evening, with no disappointments for anyone. Lars did say he knows Molly is leaving with me, and indeed that was the plan as we are scheduled to head over to Europe in July for an indefinite time and he may never see her again. Everyone made the most of their opportunities.
	Dear Diary – I am leaving you with Helen, who as part of the “outside team” will have more chance to pass it on. Tomorrow I go “over the top” as decisively as anything Father did in the Great War – and at least he had the Regiment around him and a fair idea where he was going!

(Editor’s note: the Diary breaks here – from later accounts it can be deduced that things did indeed go hideously wrong. There seems to be good reason why almost nobody shipped to Kuo Han comes back.)

	The day of departure is one I remember the start of very well. A very fine dawn, with a hurried shower (Lars’ compound has rather better plumbing that Songmark, and the hot water runs all night) followed by my meeting Helen bright and early for “morning song.” The idea was for Molly and me to head down to look at “The Beach”, fully armed – but the firing pins for the Fedorov would be in Lars’ pocket before we left. This had to look convincing, as only one of the kidnappers was in Lars’ pay and the rest would smell a trap if we just strolled out as if we were promenading along the Rainbow Bridge on Casino Island. Having him supposedly sabotage our weapons would be a very Krupmark thing to do, Molly pointed out, and as aesthetic and artistic a move as anyone makes around here. Molly was to tackle Lars’ hench-fur, knock him down and escape to spread the alarm while the rest dragged me off.
	We said farewell to Helen and Maria, first having tested the ritual Saimmi taught us for finding each other really does work off Spontoon. There are talents that one uses off “internal batteries” and others that one needs to tap into the internal energies of a land; after centuries of having the cursed fragment buried not a mile away, the island’s energies are still as corrupted as anywhere we hope to find. If sacred rituals work here they will work anywhere.
	As scheduled, Molly and I walked out to the beach, heading through Fort Bob with no more than the expected “friction” with furs calling out various insults and offers. It was sometimes hard to tell which was which. Having our rifles slung rather kept things quieter than they might be; Helen has recalled her grandmother describing how in her home state everyone going around armed and laws against duelling never being enforced, made the place very polite. Molly agreed enthusiastically, but her idea of the rights to arm citizens includes flame-throwers and mustard gas, with any householder allowed to improvise chainshot mines against potential burglars or furs walking on the grass. By repute every young kit and pup native to Cranium Island goes through a phase of building doomsday devices, and if they ever came on the market Molly would doubtless insist that private Citizens have the right to buy them as well.
	We had just about reached the first of the ramshackle service sheds behind the “establishments” at The Beach when we were jumped. One of the equally ramshackle lorries heading out of Fort Bob raced towards us and screeched to a halt blocking the street – while we were looking at that half a dozen furs jumped out from a supply shed behind us and grabbed us. Definitely they have had practice at this sort of thing; one seized my rifle on its sling and another dropped to the floor behind my knees, pulling me over backwards where two others were waiting with chloroform-soaked rags. The last thing I remember thinking before I passed out was there was no sign of the stoat who ought to be there.
	Chloroform is beastly stuff, though I think the old-fashioned ether our old dentist used to use back in Barsetshire is even worse. I did not exactly wake up, but more bobbed back and forth around consciousness like a buoy just under the surface for an hour or two. I was in the dark cargo hold of an aircraft in flight, something twin-engined and in definite need of a tune-up. I was lying on some sort of greasy blankets, and was glad we could not have been flying at any chilly altitude as I seemed to have mislaid my clothes. This was not unexpected. As I turned over testing the restraints someone had put on, my muzzle jammed into another unconscious fur, whose scent I could hardly fail to recognise. Molly. This was definitely unexpected, and even half doped with chloroform I realised things had somehow gone horribly wrong.
	The flight lasted at least three hours by which time Molly was coming round, complaining of a splitting headache even before she realised that was the least of our troubles. The Krupmark end of things had somehow misfired, but it was too late to worry about just how and why – Lars, Maria and Helen would have to tackle that as well as coming after us. Although it was ill-lit in the cargo hold I noticed the light fading by the time we touched down in fairly smooth water, the pilot only skipping twice across the waves making me think we were in a harbour or lagoon rather than open ocean somewhere.
	Molly was recovered sufficiently to whisper this size aircraft could not have more than two or three crew, and we should be able to take them. Chains are a useful enough weapon and possibly the crew were expecting the usual shocked and frightened kidnap victims rather than two Songmark third-years not in a mood to take prisoners. It was quite a poser – something had evidently gone wrong with the plan and we were probably heading into far more danger than expected. On the other paw, even if we won against the crew we would have lost our chance of ever finding Blanche and Cindy Pennington, and wasted all the effort we put into the quest so far. Interrogating the pilot might be difficult if he or she does not happen to speak English.
	I reassured her that we certainly would break out, but now was not the right time – hopefully we could find out what had gone wrong on Krupmark as well as still finding the Penningtons. Two dead pilots and us stranded at an unknown spot presumably in the South China Seas will do neither. Molly gritted her teeth somewhat but agreed. 
	Actually we were hardly given the chance to break out; our captors had evidently done this before. Though Molly found a pencil in the aircraft bilges and diligently sharpened it to a needle point (we had been shown this by Mrs. Fairburn-Sykes in our self-defence classes years ago, and practiced it by driving it through the eye of a coconut in one thrust) we hardly saw the crew when we landed. The hatch opened and while someone shone bright electric lights in to dazzle us, someone else pushed in a bowl of plain boiled rice and another of water before slamming and locking the cargo hatch. I had hoped to get an idea of where we were by any buildings in view, but saw nothing outside.
	It took another two days in the aircraft, by which time we were both awfully uncomfortable not having any chance to wash or such – it might have been worse as there was at least an inspection hatch in the floor we prized up for answering the call of nature. Still, as Molly said, it was not going to be us who cleaned the aircraft out. Not that anyone had cleaned it much recently. We could have got to Kuo Han faster I am sure but I calculated we were flying a circuitous route which fits with what we have heard about the “pipeline”. The Penningtons were sent direct but in their case everything was technically legal even on Spontoon. Had they been locals I am sure Mr. Sapohatan would be shifting heaven and Earth to retrieve them but as it is – it is us or nobody on their trail.
	Being jammed in the hold of an aircraft is neither relaxing nor healthy, and indeed supremely tiresome. After our heads cleared from the chloroform I started doing such exercises as space and our restraints allowed, mostly muscle stretches and tensioning. Molly and I just had room to sit back to back with our feet against the side of the fuselage, alternately pressing back and resisting. It is hardly a run along Eastern Island with pack, but it kept us busy and in condition, ready to respond in an instant to any opportunities that might have cropped up. Sadly, none did.
	At the end of the second day we arrived. Actually we were sweltering for a couple of hours as the flying boat rocked at anchor possibly waiting till nightfall; though we had not been flying at more than five thousand feet that was far cooler what with the drafts whistling in through the cargo hold. Memo to myself: if at all possible try to wait till an aircraft stops before answering a call of nature through a hole in the fuselage when the slipstream is racing past. “Spitting in the wind” does not quite describe it.
	As the hatch opened we scented exotic vegetation as well as the more usual harbour scents, and distant sounds of activity with cranes, machinery and voices in what I think was Cantonese. Kuo Han after all, it seemed. It was something of a relief; I had been worried that after our initial plans on Krupmark had misfired we would be taken somewhere else. So I could tick off two things gone right; delivered where we planned and presumably by the people we planned to be infiltrating. I was sorry Molly had fallen into the trap, but to be honest I was glad of the company.
	Whoever was in charge of this had presumably been briefed about our capabilities – that or the locals are always ultra-cautious about moving captives until they are sure just who and what they have. There were half a dozen mustelid furs, stoats and weasels standing on the dock five paces clear of us with drawn pistols (they seem to favour “broomhandle” Mausers with those clumsy snail magazines and the wooden holsters as detachable stocks making them the world’s most inaccurate sub-machine pistols) while two very different furs came close in a small sampan gesturing us to come out of the hold onto their boat. They were identical white mice girls, albinos with pink eyes and by their lack of costume they were not salaried help. 
	It was certainly well thought-out, with the mustelids in charge keeping well back and only the mice within range if we tried anything; of course that would do us no good and we had no reason to wish the mice harm. We were escorted off a rather shabby floating dock into a covered lorry (metal sided, not canvas that sharp claws could get through) and another half an hour got us to a high walled compound somewhere up in the hills. In a way it was encouraging – it looked exactly the sort of place we had heard about, suggesting we were on the right track after all.
	Oh my. 
	I can hardly say I was surprised at anything that happened there, having done my research beforehand – but with this trade it is a matter of evidence that leaks out from one “horizon” after another – as if one was gathering information about a bottomless whirlpool, by relays of ships signalling to the outside world before they finally vanish. Some captives are rescued at various stages in the process, though famously none are reputed to come back from Kuo Han. Our accommodation left something to be desired, though the rice-straw mats were actually no harder than a Songmark bed and we were not required to be up till three in the morning. The diet of what I think was millet mash was possibly designed to break down our morale – but having lived on so much poi for years, actually it made a change.
	When Molly was captured more than two years ago she was indeed marked but possibly her captors were operating at short notice to grasp the opportunities the Papeete Influenza outbreak presented. This time they had all the traditional supplies of their trade and … made certain that what had been done as a field expedient nearly three years ago became a permanent feature. My skin rather tingled and burned for an hour or two, but it was nohing worse than the after-effects of one of Mahanish’s fine chilli dishes the morning after.

(Editor’s note: some weeks of the diary seem to be lost at about this point. It is unknown whether they will Ever come to light, or if Amelia wished that to happen.)