AE on Norwich Island Part 10

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island

Part 10

July 9^th, 1937

The sun seemed to leap out of the sea to the east, bright red, painting the trees crimson.  She stirred from a dream about drinking buttermilk. Sighed.  Nibbled some left-over booby. Was pleased that the crabs hadn’t found her, in her sinkhole bedroom. But several were clinging to its edge; they’d be on her before long.

Strangely self-conscious, she stripped and bathed in the salty pond.  Yes, it was salty, but it still felt good to use soap and get rid of the stink.  Walked around on the pond’s shore, enjoying the sun and wind on her bare skin.

“Maybe I don’t need clothes. ‘Wander naked with the wind.’”

She nodded to a snow-white tern that had landed on the sinkhole wall and was looking at her appraisingly. 

“Except shoes. I’ll surely see Itasca before they see me, and there’s a lot to be said for nudity.”

Scanned her white skin. Her supply of unguents and skin oils was limited.

“On the other hand, there’s not a thing to be said for sunburn.” 

Wrinkling her nose, she gathered up her boxer shorts, slacks, and blouse and climbed into them, pulled on her shoes and laced them up.

“OK, Millie, so this didn’t pan out.  We haven’t looked the whole island over yet, so let’s get going.” 

She collected her bags, saluted the tern, sneered at the crabs, and left the ponds behind.  A short struggle through the spider-infested trees and the fringing brush brought her back to the beach, where she continued to the west. 

Soon the land curved again – she had rounded the southeast end and was walking northwest, back on the lee side of the island.  Somewhere up ahead would be the Norwich, Fred’s camp, whatever might remain of the Electra.  She scanned the horizon.  Empty. Examined tide pools – plenty of fish, and quite a few moray eels. Sea urchin spines, seashells of all kinds on the beach. A giant vertebra, doubtless from a whale. The long-nosed skull of a dolphin. More turtle tracks and nests.

An hour or so later, she splashed through a knee-deep channel opening into the lagoon; peaceful, aquamarine under the rising sun, white birds circling overhead.  No sharks bothered her here, and she was quickly across. Lots of lobster shells on the beach, but no lobsters in sight.

“More’s the pity. But they’re nocturnal, aren’t they?”

Where did they go during the day? Under rocks? Deep water?

The beach north of the channel got steeper and looser, hard to walk on.  There didn’t appear to be much brush at the crest of the scree; maybe it was time for a change of pace.  She scrambled up the slope and found her way through openings in the brush, into the woodland beyond.

It was a less luxuriant woodland than those she had wandered through before – rather scattered trees, not only the big gray-barked ones, but some that had dark brown bark, and some that were taller and straighter, interspersed with patches of reedy grass.  The walking was pretty easy, though she had to be careful – it was still coral, with sharp, jagged outcrops and equally sharp-edged holes, often disguised by a network of deadfall and vines.  She found another sturdy stick, and used it to probe ahead of her, looking for foot-traps. 

She was in a relatively thick grove of trees, probing with her stick in the mottled light, concentrating on where to put her feet, when she heard the noise.  The very familiar noise of radial engines.

“Oh my god! “ 

She turned, stumbled out toward the beach, cleared the trees just in time to see three airplanes go by, perhaps five hundred feet up, flying northwestward in formation.

“Oh my god, they’re here; they’re here!” 

She threw the bag on the ground, unzipped it. Fumbled inside and pulled out the signal pistol.

Where were the flares? Here was one.

Stuffed it into the breach and locked it. Stood up, pointed the gun at the sky and took a step forward…

“Oof!”

She had stepped in a hole, hit the coral hard. The gun discharged, the flare skimming the surface for fifteen or twenty feet and exploding with a loud bang but an unimpressive puff of smoke in the dense brush. Birds scattered in all directions.

“Oh damn!”

She twisted, pulled her foot out of the hole, fumbled in the bag for another flare. Hobbled on, waiting to get to the beach before firing again.

“Biplanes.”

With floats and Navy stars.  Corsairs? 

“Oh Franklin, you’ve sent the Navy!”

But where were they now?  And where was the ship they must have come from?  She reached the crest of the scree slope, scanned the horizon.  Just as empty as before.  But she could hear the planes, just barely, off to the north. 

“They see my camp!”

She slid down the scree to the beach in a shower of coral.

“They’ll land.” 

Or go back to the ship and call in a boat.  Got to get back! Or at least in sight! 

She dragged herself north along the water’s edge, splashing in and out of the waves – the tide was high.  As fast as she could, she worked her way along the shore.  Rounded a point and could see the Norwich in the distance, and the planes, circling and zooming over the reef. She fumbled a shell into the pistol. Raised it and fired; the flare soared on a trail of smoke.

And the Corsairs flew away. 

Banked to the right and flew off to the northeast.  Their engine noise was lost in the boom of the surf.

“Why aren’t they…?

“Because they didn’t see the flare. Already turned, were all looking forward. Away from me.”

But they must’ve seen the camp! They’re going to their ship.  They’ll send boats.  They’ll be back!

An hour of limping over the shelving coral and gravelly beach brought her to where the land curved dramatically to the east, into what she had come to think of as the shark channel.  Damn the sharks, she would find a way across!

How deep was it?  Hard to say; it looked pretty shallow, from the shore.  She walked on until she reached what seemed to be its narrowest spot – less than a hundred yards, at a guess.  Waded out until the water was knee deep, saw no sharks, started to go on…

“Wait a minute. If I step in another hole….” 

The zippered bag was supposed to be waterproof, but who knew?  It had taken a lot of abuse, too.  And it wouldn’t do to immerse the water bag in salt water, or the pistol and remaining flares.

“Damn it!  I am not going to let….” 

She waded back to the shore, looked up and down it.  A good-sized bush had been undercut by the waves, maybe fifty feet farther in toward the lagoon; it hung out of the wave-cut shoreline by just a few roots.  Dead, dry, made up of stalks two to four inches across.

“That should float.” 

She hobbled up the beach, grabbed the bush and pulled it out of the bank, rolled it into the water.  It did float, high and dry.  She let it stabilize, then carefully hung her bags on it, one on each side.  Let it stabilize again, adjusted the bags, then began to wade out, pushing it.  The water rose to her knees, up her thighs, to her waist.  It began to tickle her nipples, and her feet left the bottom.  She kicked a few times and then – her toes touched bottom again.  In another minute or two she was back in knee deep water, pushing her bush toward the shore.  And no shark had made an appearance.

“Don’t get smug, Millie.  And let’s keep this bush.”  

She dragged it up above the high tide line before shouldering the bags and trudging on toward camp.

Her gear was untouched, and checking on him, she found that Fred had not moved – still just a pile of rocks and rubble, though the shirt she had hung as a flag had ripped loose and was lying on the ground.  Odd, she thought, that the crabs seemed completely uninterested in the grave.  Did they not dig?  Did they not sense buried food? Or was the rubble just too much for them to handle?

“Small miracles.”

She sat down and fumbled in the zippered bag for the binoculars.  The horizon was still clear of ships.  No large miracle, yet.

What was the range of those planes?  They had looked like Corsairs – range perhaps five hundred miles.  So their ship would have been….

“Well, it depends.  Did they fly straight here, or go look someplace else first?  And what else was on their schedule?”

Wherever it was – say a hundred miles away, as a guess, they’d have to fly back and be picked up.  She’d seen that done; the ship would steam slowly across the wind, creating a smooth area for a plane to land on.  Then the plane would taxi over to the ship, which would lower a hook from a crane….

“Say half an hour to retrieve each ship, and maybe an hour to get from here to there.  Then the pilots report, the bridge lays in a course.  Say two hours to get back here…”

 She looked at her watch. No, it had stopped working. Shook her head and looked at the sun.  No, there was no reason to expect the ship yet.  But surely before dark…..

“Fire!” 

Yes, she needed a fire – not only to cook another booby, but so she could be seen after dark.  Confirm that she was there, so they’d be sure to come ashore.  She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the complaint from her twisted ankle, and started gathering wood.  Soon she had a roaring blaze.  Thought about throwing the rubber mats on to make black smoke, decided to wait till she saw a ship.  Night was coming anyway; the sun dropping fast toward the cloudbank along the western horizon, staining the sky with bands of color – reds, oranges, yellows.  She put seawater and the cup in the dutch oven and put it on to boil.  Stripped, soaked her shirt in the hot water and gave herself a good sponge bath, imagining the Itasca or whatever was carrying those planes sneaking up, the crews peering through their binoculars to see her naked.  Didn’t care.  Shook herself all over and pulled on her shorts and slacks, her wet blouse.

Scanned the horizon again.  Nothing yet, but it shouldn't be long.

“They were off to the east.” 

At least that’s the direction the planes had flown.  So the ship would either come around the north end of the island – that seemed most likely, though she wasn’t sure why except it was the direction of America – or around the south end and up the lee side.  Well, either way, she’d have a good big fire for them to spot from the bridge.  She dragged in more wood, was too excited to butcher a booby, almost regretted that the mutton was gone.  Decided she’d just as soon go hungry.

“If I never taste canned mutton again…..”

And she probably wouldn’t have to!  She grinned in the ruddy firelight. Then thought of Fred and the grin faded. She turned to heating up her curling iron in the fire, trying without much success to tighten up the curl in her limp forelock. Gave up and went to sleep imagining herself reporting everything to the ship’s officers. Would the press be there?

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

Notes:

“Buttermilk.” Buttermilk was said to be Earhart’s favorite beverage.  See Last Flight, p.51.

“Wander naked with the wind.” From “Codes,” by Lous Montross, identified by Muriel Morrissey as one of AE’s favored poems. See Courage is the Price, p. 106.

“…snow-white tern…” The white or fairy tern (Gygis alba microrhyncha) is endemic to the Phoenix Islands. They are called “Kiakia” by indigenous people of Kiribati, a name derived from their call. They are fiercely territorial.

“…a knee-deep channel…” Baureke Passage at 4^o40’59.49” S, 174^o31’13.44” W. See https://tighar.org/wiki/Baureke_passage

“Lots of lobster shells on the beach, but no lobsters in sight.” Lobsters are apparently common at Nikumaroro; we see many molted exoskeletons on the beach, particularly around Baureke Passage. Our divers have rarely observed them live, however; they hide during the day and forage at night, probably mostly on the outer reef.

“…some that had dark brown bark.” Kanawa (Cordia subchordata).

“…some that were taller and straighter.” Tropical Almond (Terminalia catapa)

“…the very familiar noise of radial engines…” See Finding Amelia pp. 205-13 for the story of the U.S.S. Colorado flyover.  See  http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Lambrecht's_Report.html for report of the pilots.

“The gun discharged…” AE’s deployment of the signal pistol is pure speculation on my part.

“…the tide was high, she noticed vaguely.” A photo taken by one of the Colorado flight crews shows that the tide was high. This resulted in a substantial surf zone along the reef face, which may have helped hide any wreckage of the Electra that might otherwise have been seen from the air.

“Did they (crabs) not dig?” Coconut Crabs do dig substantial burrows, but they do not seem to dig for food. In 2001 I buried fresh lamb bones in a crab-invested location at depths of 5, 10, and 15 cm. None were disturbed, though bones placed on the surface in the same location were dragged away.