AE on Norwich Island Part 32

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island

Part 32

Epilogue and Bibliography

EPILOGUE: FACT AND FICTION

Of course, Norwich Island is a work of fiction. All specific events, to say nothing of Earhart’s state of mind and the activities of ghosts, psychologist birds and talking crabs, are the products of my imagination. However, the novel is grounded on, and reflects, the recorded facts outlined below:

1.       Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan, flying their Lockheed Electra 10E in an attempt to circumnavigate the globe near the equator, vanished near Howland Island in the central Pacific on July 2^nd, 1937.

2.       Over one hundred radio messages were received by various stations in the Pacific and elsewhere after Earhart and Noonan disappeared. Some of the texts that I’ve imagined Earhart transmitting are based on these receptions (See Gillespie 2006:Chapters 12-19).

3.       The events and transmissions reported for July 5^th  represent my effort to make sense of complex, fragmentary messages recorded by the late Betty Brown, then Betty Klenck, of St. Petersburg, Florida (See Gillespie 2006:Chapter 17).

4.       Corsair float planes from the battleship USS Colorado flew over Nikumaroro on July 9^th, 1937, and reported seeing “signs of recent habitation,” but flew on after “diving and zooming” failed to elicit a response from anyone on the ground (See Gillespie 2006:Chapter 20)

5.       With three exceptions, the island of Nikumaroro, in 1937 known as Gardner Island, is and was as it is described in this novel, based on published literature and eleven visits (as of 2016) by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), on six of which I have participated as senior archaeologist. The three exceptions are these: I have not personally experienced ghosts, psychotherapist boobies, or talking crabs. However, I can easily imagine them. Obviously.

6.   On November 29, 1929, the S.S. Norwich City ran aground on Nikumaroro’s northern reef, exploding and burning; eleven men were killed. The survivors camped nearby until December 4^th, when they were rescued. The remains of their camp were viewed and photographed by a party from New Zealand who surveyed the island in 1939. Records indicate that the survivors and their rescuers left a cache of surplus supplies in case anyone else were cast away there in the future. Apparently their campsite was on the land later called Nutiran, near the wreck site, but their extraction point was some distance to the south, and it was there that the cache was left (See http://tighar.org/wiki/SS_Norwich_City).

7.       On October 13^th, 1937, the schooner Nimanoa hove to in Nikumaroro’s lee and sent a party ashore to assess the island’s potential for colonization (See Maude 1968:315-42; Bevington 1990:16-22). The party was led by colonial officers Harry Maude and Eric Bevington, and included Koata, an elder of Onotoa in what would become the Republic of Kiribati (and was then the Gilbert Islands part of the Crown Colony of the Gilbert and Elice Islands), who would later serve as the Nikumaroro colony’s leader; he figures heavily in my previous novel, Thirteen Bones.

8.       In his journal (https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bevington_Diary.html), and then in an interview with Gillespie and Patricia Thrasher of TIGHAR, Bevington reported seeing what appeared to be the remains of someone’s “overnight bivouac” at a location southeast of Bauareke Passage. Maude described these remains to me as small mounds of debris. Excavation in this vicinity by TIGHAR in 1991 yielded parts of a woman’s and man’s shoes, the top of an Alka-Zane jar, and a broken sling psychrometer (See Earhart's Shoes:123-8).

9. From offshore, probably on departing the island, Bevington took a photograph of the Norwich City wreck. Caught in the extreme left corner of his image, presumably by accident, is an anomaly that forensic imaging experts have identified as consistent with the upended landing gear of a Lockheed Electra (See https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/57_Bevingtonphoto/57_HidinginSight.htm and https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/69_BevingtonObjectUpdate/69_BevingtonObjectUpdate.html).

10.    Nikumaroro was colonized in 1939 by immigrants from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (now Kiribati and Tuvalu). In 1940, they found a partial human skeleton near the southeast end of the island. Various contemporary documents indicate that nearby they found signs of a campfire with bird and turtle bones, parts of a woman’s shoe and a man’s shoe, a sextant box, a sextant’s inverting eyepiece, a Benedictine bottle, and small corks on chains, possibly from water bags (See King et al 2004:206-34). It is this discovery, and its aftermath, that form the core of Thirteen Bones (King 2009).

11. Archaeological surveys and excavations by TIGHAR at what we believe likely to be the site of the 1940 discovery have revealed the remains of multiple campfires and substantial deposits of bird, fish, and turtle bones and clam shells (some of the latter broken in ways that suggest efforts to pry them open with pieces of steel barrel rim, found nearby, others of which appear to have been smashed with rocks, while others are undamaged). The fish heads were apparently not eaten, and a few baby turtles apparently were (See https://www.academia.edu/25994228/Nikumaroro_Atoll_Archaeology_Seven_Site_Fishbone_Analyses_to_2016).

12.    Excavations at the site (known as the Seven Site – here called Freshwater Camp) have also revealed a number of artifacts apparently dating from the 1930s. These include:

a.      Three glass fragments comprising a small footed glass jar, which chemical analysis shows contained a mercury-based substance; it is similar to American freckle crème containers used in the 1930s;

b.     Pieces of thin, flat, beveled glass, fragments of thin metal, and pieces of what appear to be rouge, interpreted as the remains of a cosmetic compact;

c.      A fragmentary bone-handled jackknife, manufactured by Imperial Cutlery of Providence, Rhode Island;

d.     Fragments of a Mennon skin product

e.      Fragments of what was probably a pharmacy-formulated skin lotion;

f.       A “Talon” autolock zipper slider manufactured by the Hookless Fastener Company of Meadville, Pennsylvania, in the mid-1930s (See https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Expeditions/NikuV/Analysis_and_Reports/Zipper/Zipper.html);

g.     Drafting or drawing leads;

h.     A small red bead (See http://ameliaearhartarchaeology.blogspot.com/2014/10/bead-dazzled.html);  

i.       The probable remains of a small electric battery; 

j.       In one of the charcoal deposits left by burning, hundreds of small fragments of badly rusted thin ferrous metal and some that is thicker, curved, and ridged on the edge, interpreted (by me) as the remains of a dutch oven;

k.     Next to the same fire feature was a rectangular deposit of oxidized thin ferrous metal 40 cm. on a side, roughly the size of the larger, metal first-aid kit reported to be aboard Earhart’s Electra; and

l.       In another fire feature was a snap matching one on a wooden first aid kit held by TIGHAR that is similar to the smaller kit reported to have been aboard the Electra (http://ameliaearhartarchaeology.blogspot.com/2016/05/earharts-first-aid-kits-at-seven-site.html).

m.  Also in that fire feature, two bottles – one a brown beer bottle dating from before World War II, the other apparently a St. Joseph’s liniment bottle – whose bases were mostly melted and whose tops were shattered, along with a piece of wire whose ends may have been wrapped around the bottles.

13.                On October 13^th, 1937, during the Nimanoa’s visit, Colonial Cadet Officer Eric Bevington and several of his Gilbertese colleagues hiked around the island; although Bevington’s published account (Bevington 1990:17-18) doesn’t quite agree with his journal (https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bevington_Diary.html), they seem to have walked inshore from the beach at least part of the way down the lee side of the island, then trudged (unhappily; they found it a rather grueling trip) up the windward beach. They must have passed close to the Seven Site.

I hasten to add that there are ways to account for just about everything we’ve found on, and learned about, Nikumaroro without assuming that Earhart and Noonan landed and died there. But doing so requires imagining a great many remarkable coincidences. On balance, as I wrote a few years ago in a summary article (King 2012):

To this author and to TIGHAR, it seems more efficient to account for (what we’ve found) by concluding that Earhart, Noonan, and their Electra ended their world flight on Nikumaroro.

Bibliography

Backus, Jean L.

1982  Letters From Amelia: An Intimate Portrait of Amelia Earhart. Boston, Beacon Press

Ballantyne, R.M.

1858  The Coral Island. Republished 2003 by Wildside Press, Rockville, Maryland.

Bevington, Eric

1990  The Things We Do For England – If Only England Knew! Salisbury, Wilts, Laverham Press

Butler, Susan

1997  East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart. Philadelphia, DeCapo Press.

Earhart, Amelia

1932  The Fun of It: Random Records of My Own Flying and of Women in Aviation. New York, Harcourt Brace and Company.

          1937  Last Flight. New York, Harcourt, Brace

Gillespie, Ric

2006  Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance. Annapolis, MD, Naval Institute Press.

King, Thomas F.

          2009  Thirteen Bones. Indianapolis, IN, Dog Ear               Press

__________, Randall S. Jacobson, Karen R. Burns & Kenton Spading

2004  Amelia Earhart’s Shoes: Is the Mystery Solved? (Updated Edition). Walnut Creek, CA, Altamira Press.

Lovell, Mary S.

1989  The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart. New York, St. Martin’s Press.

Maude, Harry E.

1968  Of Islands and Men: Studies in Pacific History. Melbourne, Oxford University Press.

Morrissey, Muriel E.

1963  Courage is the Price. The Biography of Amelia Earhart. Wichita, Kansas, McCormick-Armstrong

___________ and Carol L. Osborne

          1987  Amelia, My Courageous Sister. Santa                      Clara, CA, Osborne Publisher.

Putnam, G.P.

1930  Andrée: The Record of a Tragic Adventure. New York, Brewer & Warren.

1939  Soaring Wings: a Biography of Amelia Earhart. New York, Harcourt Brace.

Traprock, Walter E. (sic: G.P. Putnam, aka George Shepard Chappell)

1921  The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas. New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Republished 2012 by Forgotten Books, www.forgottenbooks.com.

Wels, Susan

2009  Amelia Earhart: The Thrill of It. Philadelphia,             Running Press.

Winters, Kathleen C.

2010  Amelia Earhart: The Turbulent Life of an American Icon. New York, Palgrave MacMillan.

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island

Part 32

Epilogue and Bibliography

EPILOGUE: FACT AND FICTION

Of course, Norwich Island is a work of fiction. All specific events, to say nothing of Earhart’s state of mind and the activities of ghosts, psychologist birds and talking crabs, are the products of my imagination. However, the novel is grounded on, and reflects, the recorded facts outlined below:

1.       Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan, flying their Lockheed Electra 10E in an attempt to circumnavigate the globe near the equator, vanished near Howland Island in the central Pacific on July 2^nd, 1937.

2.       Over one hundred radio messages were received by various stations in the Pacific and elsewhere after Earhart and Noonan disappeared. Some of the texts that I’ve imagined Earhart transmitting are based on these receptions (See Gillespie 2006:Chapters 12-19).

3.       The events and transmissions reported for July 5^th  represent my effort to make sense of complex, fragmentary messages recorded by the late Betty Brown, then Betty Klenck, of St. Petersburg, Florida (See Gillespie 2006:Chapter 17).

4.       Corsair float planes from the battleship USS Colorado flew over Nikumaroro on July 9^th, 1937, and reported seeing “signs of recent habitation,” but flew on after “diving and zooming” failed to elicit a response from anyone on the ground (See Gillespie 2006:Chapter 20).

5.       With three exceptions, the island of Nikumaroro, in 1937 known as Gardner Island, is or was as it is described in this novel, based on published literature and eleven visits (as of 2016) by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), on six of which I have participated as senior archaeologist. The three exceptions are these: I have not personally experienced ghosts, psychotherapist boobies, or talking crabs. However, I can easily imagine them. Obviously.

6.   On November 29, 1929, the S.S. Norwich City ran aground on Nikumaroro’s northern reef, exploding and burning; eleven men were killed. The survivors camped nearby until December 4^th, when they were rescued. The remains of their camp were viewed and photographed by a party from New Zealand who surveyed the island in 1939. Records indicate that the survivors and their rescuers left a cache of surplus supplies in case anyone else were cast away there in the future. Apparently their campsite was on the land later called Nutiran, near the wreck site, but their extraction point was some distance to the south, and it was there that the cache was left (See http://tighar.org/wiki/SS_Norwich_City).

7.       On October 13^th, 1937, the schooner Nimanoa hove to in Nikumaroro’s lee and sent a party ashore to assess the island’s potential for colonization (See Maude 1968:315-42; Bevington 1990:16-22). The party was led by colonial officers Harry Maude and Eric Bevington, and included Koata, an elder of Onotoa in what would become the Republic of Kiribati (and was then the Gilbert Islands part of the Crown Colony of the Gilbert and Elice Islands), who would later serve as the Nikumaroro colony’s leader; he figures heavily in my previous novel, Thirteen Bones.

8.       In his journal (https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bevington_Diary.html), and then in an interview with Gillespie and Patricia Thrasher of TIGHAR, Bevington reported seeing what appeared to be the remains of someone’s “overnight bivouac” at a location southeast of Bauareke Passage. Maude described these remains to me as small mounds of debris. Excavation in this vicinity by TIGHAR in 1991 yielded parts of a woman’s and man’s shoes, the top of an Alka-Zane jar, and a broken sling psychrometer (See Earhart's Shoes:123-8).

9. From offshore, probably on departing the island, Bevington took a photograph of the Norwich City wreck. Caught in the extreme left corner of his image, presumably by accident, is an anomaly that forensic imaging experts have identified as consistent with the upended landing gear of a Lockheed Electra (See https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/57_Bevingtonphoto/57_HidinginSight.htm and https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/69_BevingtonObjectUpdate/69_BevingtonObjectUpdate.html).

10.    Nikumaroro was colonized in 1939 by immigrants from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (now Kiribati and Tuvalu). In 1940, they found a partial human skeleton near the southeast end of the island. Various contemporary documents indicate that nearby they found signs of a campfire with bird and turtle bones, parts of a woman’s shoe and a man’s shoe, a sextant box, a sextant’s inverting eyepiece, a Benedictine bottle, and small corks on chains, possibly from water bags (See King et al 2004:206-34). It is this discovery, and its aftermath, that form the core of Thirteen Bones (King 2009).

11. Archaeological surveys and excavations by TIGHAR at what we believe likely to be the site of the 1940 discovery have revealed the remains of multiple campfires and substantial deposits of bird, fish, and turtle bones and clam shells (some of the latter broken in ways that suggest efforts to pry them open with pieces of steel barrel rim, found nearby, others of which appear to have been smashed with rocks, while others are undamaged). The fish heads were apparently not eaten, and a few baby turtles apparently were (See https://www.academia.edu/25994228/Nikumaroro_Atoll_Archaeology_Seven_Site_Fishbone_Analyses_to_2016).

12.    Excavations at the site (known as the Seven Site – here called Freshwater Camp) have also revealed a number of artifacts apparently dating from the 1930s. These include:

a.      Three glass fragments comprising a small footed glass jar, which chemical analysis shows contained a mercury-based substance; it is similar to American freckle crème containers used in the 1930s;

b.     Pieces of thin, flat, beveled glass, fragments of thin metal, and pieces of what appear to be rouge, interpreted as the remains of a cosmetic compact;

c.      A fragmentary bone-handled jackknife, manufactured by Imperial Cutlery of Providence, Rhode Island;

d.     Fragments of a Mennon skin product

e.      Fragments of what was probably a pharmacy-formulated skin lotion;

f.       A “Talon” autolock zipper slider manufactured by the Hookless Fastener Company of Meadville, Pennsylvania, in the mid-1930s (See https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Expeditions/NikuV/Analysis_and_Reports/Zipper/Zipper.html);

g.     Drafting or drawing leads;

h.     A small red bead (See http://ameliaearhartarchaeology.blogspot.com/2014/10/bead-dazzled.html);  

i.       The probable remains of a small electric battery; 

j.       In one of the charcoal deposits left by burning, hundreds of small fragments of badly rusted thin ferrous metal and some that is thicker, curved, and ridged on the edge, interpreted (by me) as the remains of a dutch oven;

k.     Next to the same fire feature was a rectangular deposit of oxidized thin ferrous metal 40 cm. on a side, roughly the size of the larger, metal first-aid kit reported to be aboard Earhart’s Electra; and

l.       In another fire feature was a snap matching one on a wooden first aid kit held by TIGHAR that is similar to the smaller kit reported to have been aboard the Electra (http://ameliaearhartarchaeology.blogspot.com/2016/05/earharts-first-aid-kits-at-seven-site.html).

m.  Also in that fire feature, two bottles – one a brown beer bottle dating from before World War II, the other apparently a St. Joseph’s liniment bottle – whose bases were mostly melted and whose tops were shattered, along with a piece of wire whose ends may have been wrapped around the bottles.

13.                On October 13^th, 1937, during the Nimanoa’s visit, Colonial Cadet Officer Eric Bevington and several of his Gilbertese colleagues hiked around the island; although Bevington’s published account (Bevington 1990:17-18) doesn’t quite agree with his journal (https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bevington_Diary.html), they seem to have walked inshore from the beach at least part of the way down the lee side of the island, then trudged (unhappily; they found it a rather grueling trip) up the windward beach. They must have passed close to the Seven Site.

I hasten to add that there are ways to account for just about everything we’ve found on, and learned about, Nikumaroro without assuming that Earhart and Noonan landed and died there. But doing so requires imagining a great many remarkable coincidences. On balance, as I wrote a few years ago in a summary article (King 2012):

To this author and to TIGHAR, it seems more efficient to account for (what we’ve found) by concluding that Earhart, Noonan, and their Electra ended their world flight on Nikumaroro.

Bibliography

Backus, Jean L.

1982  Letters From Amelia: An Intimate Portrait of Amelia Earhart. Boston, Beacon Press

Ballantyne, R.M.

1858  The Coral Island. Republished 2003 by Wildside Press, Rockville, Maryland.

Bevington, Eric

1990  The Things We Do For England – If Only England Knew! Salisbury, Wilts, Laverham Press

Butler, Susan

1997  East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart. Philadelphia, DeCapo Press.

Earhart, Amelia

1932  The Fun of It: Random Records of My Own Flying and of Women in Aviation. New York, Harcourt Brace and Company.

          1937  Last Flight. New York, Harcourt, Brace

Gillespie, Ric

2006  Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance. Annapolis, MD, Naval Institute Press.

King, Thomas F.

          2009  Thirteen Bones. Indianapolis, IN, Dog Ear               Press

__________, Randall S. Jacobson, Karen R. Burns & Kenton Spading

2004  Amelia Earhart’s Shoes: Is the Mystery Solved? (Updated Edition). Walnut Creek, CA, Altamira Press.

Lovell, Mary S.

1989  The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart. New York, St. Martin’s Press.

Maude, Harry E.

1968  Of Islands and Men: Studies in Pacific History. Melbourne, Oxford University Press.

Morrissey, Muriel E.

1963  Courage is the Price. The Biography of Amelia Earhart. Wichita, Kansas, McCormick-Armstrong

___________ and Carol L. Osborne

          1987  Amelia, My Courageous Sister. Santa                      Clara, CA, Osborne Publisher.

Putnam, G.P.

1930  Andrée: The Record of a Tragic Adventure. New York, Brewer & Warren.

1939  Soaring Wings: a Biography of Amelia Earhart. New York, Harcourt Brace.

Traprock, Walter E. (sic: G.P. Putnam, aka George Shepard Chappell)

1921  The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas. New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Republished 2012 by Forgotten Books, www.forgottenbooks.com.

Wels, Susan

2009  Amelia Earhart: The Thrill of It. Philadelphia,             Running Press.

Winters, Kathleen C.

2010  Amelia Earhart: The Turbulent Life of an American Icon. New York, Palgrave MacMillan.

AE on Norwich Island Part 31

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island

Part 31

October 13^th, 1937

The island rose gently over the eastern horizon.  The Gilbertese delegates crowded the foc’sle, watching it grow as the little schooner Nimanoa glided into its lee.

“That’ll be the Norwich City, then,”  Eric Bevington said, peering at the wreck with his binoculars.

“Must be,” Harry Maud confirmed, around his pipe.  “Bigger ship than I’d realized.  Must’ve hit full tilt – great embarrassment for her master, I imagine.”

“Poor devil.  Several deaths, I seem to recall.”

“So I’ve read.  A couple of white men and several Arab firemen.”  

Harry swept the shore with his glasses.  “The island’s bigger than I’d thought, too.  Longer, at least, across the wind.”

 “The delegates seem quite enthusiastic.”

“Now they know the freighter’s a wreck, and not someone here to claim the island before us.  We’ll see what they think when we get ashore.  Water’s the great thing, of course.”

“The men are confident about digging wells.”

“I’ve a good feeling about this island, Eric.  I think we’ll find it quite sufficient to support a plantation, and a substantial village.” 

“Big trees.”

“Yes.  Pisonia grandis – buka to the Gilbertese.  One of the great native trees in these parts – not good for much, though, and on inhabited islands it’s all been cleared to make way for coconuts.”

“I’ve seen only one or two – on Beru, I think.  Reminded me of oaks back home.”

“Visually, yes, but the wood’s quite soft.  There may be kanawa, though – Cordia, a tropical hardwood.  Beautiful grain to it, and very good for houses, furniture, boxes, you name it.”

“Yes, I’ve a box made of it; very handsome.”

The two colonial officers watched as the ship’s master brought the schooner alongside the streaming reef-edge.  Eric pondered the dense-packed forest.

“Buka, is it?”

“It’s a spirit-tree to the Gilbertese, you know?  Their metaphor for existence is a great tree, they conceive of history – all of existence, actually – as a tree.  And the buka is associated with an important ancestress, who taught her people the ways of navigation and all sorts of other important arts, in the beginning time.”

“You know these people so well, Harry.”

“Hardly.  Hardly scratched the surface.  They’re deep people, Eric, with challenging traditions and a long, violent history.  Wonderfully accomplished navigators, and subtle philosophers.”  

Harry chewed his pipe, knocked it out on the rail as the sails rattled down and the schooner hove too, just off the Norwich City’s stern.  He waved his pipe at the island.

“The ancestress – what was her name? – came from an island – a legendary island called Nikumaroro – that I suppose was much like this one, covered in buka trees.” 

He pondered the wooded shore, straightened abruptly from the rail, snapping his fingers“

“Ah! I have it! Manganibuka was the ancestress. Etymologically related to the tree, don’t you see?” 

He pushed off from the rail, started forward toward the two elders standing by the staysail boom.

 “Hi, Mautake, Koata, do you see a good way ashore?”

----------------------

Surf booming on the reef.  Birds stirring in the trees.  She couldn’t move, but didn’t want to.  She lay in her hammock in the darkness.  Nothing left to get rid of.  All emptied out.

No water left.  Well, some in the Benedictine bottle from the little rain squall two days ago. She would drink it when she got up.  

When she was stronger.  She would be stronger, surely, when the sun rose.  Later.

Which was different from earlier.  Why was that?  How was it?

Earlier, she had been in other places, done other things.  Had she also been there, done such things, later?  When was later? How was it different from earlier? From now? She wrestled with it all, trying to figure it out.

The cat is dead.  The cat is not dead.  Mister Eric will come.  Mister Eric will not come. Mister Eric has come, or he hasn’t. 

Ungenauigkeit.  Indeterminacy. Uncertainty.  That’s what it meant. Physics classes, and people she’d met. Scientists from Germany, and Princeton. Ungenauigkeit and verschränkung – entanglement. Somehow related. The kitten is entangled -- verwirrt – in the ball of yarn; I am verwirrt in the complexities of a family. Oh yes.

Oh no, don’t think about family…

“Mommie, Pidge…”

Blackness. Then light again. Leaves, zooming birds. Surf booming.

Was she entangled with the cat, the crab, Mister Eric?  Boo-ka? Koata? The Milky Way?  Something beyond the Milky Way?  What was indeterminate? What did it matter whether the cat was dead or alive?  A metaphor for what?

“Mystery.”

The wonder of it all.  Mystery, out there, in here, all around, to be explored.  Great mystery.  She was entangled in mystery, indeterminacy.

“It’s time.”

No, it was never time. It was always time.  But yes, it was time.

Light filtered through the canopy – bright green leaves glowing with fresh sunlight, laced with black branches.  Behind, above it all, where the Milky Way had blazed, a bright blue sky, puffy white clouds tinged with the pink of sunrise.  Shining white fairy terns fluttered and soared through the green-blue vault, calling, rising, becoming dogwood blossoms that spun and spiraled upward.  The surf roared. 

The hammock split up the middle and deposited her on the ground.  A change of position, perspective, the tattered canvas and ropes crisscrossing her field of view. 

Clattering on the coral rubble, from all sides.  A presence.  Mister Eric and Koata?  Boo-ka – The Lady? Maybe, maybe. But of course…

“We’re right here, sweet-chops.”

She sighed, watching the Milky Way form before her eyes. God, what was out there? Smiled.

Of course.

“You know, you keep mispronouncing my name.”

Yes, she knew.

“This time, Bill, we’ll make it all the way to Cherryville. And damn the cannibal apes!”

“Hello, Bogie.”

<<o>>

__________________

Notes

“…the little schooner Nimanoa glided into its lee.” See Eric Bevington, 1990, The Things We Do For England, If Only England Knew. http://www.amazon.com/Things-We-Do-England-Only/dp/0951576208, Harry Maude, Of Islands and Men, pp 327-8, and https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bevington_Diary.html

“… some in the Benedictine bottle.” According to one report, the Benedictine bottle found by Koata and the colonists contained some water (See http://tighar.org/wiki/Benedictine_Bottle_found_on_Nikumaroro ).

“… becoming dogwood blossoms…” Dogwood blossoms, AE said, “smiled at me a radiant farewell” before her “Friendship” flight – “a memory I have never forgotten” Last Flight, p. 9.