AE on Norwich Island Part 15

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island

Part 15

July 23^rd, 1937

She woke with a start. Something was pulling her hair!  

The moon was high; she had dozed off on the ground by her fire.  One of the big crabs was fumbling with her head – purple-brown, malevolent. 

The talking kind. She rolled out of its grip.  And there were little hermit crabs all around; they would soon be all over her.  She smashed the big one with a rock, threw some of the little ones in the fire.

“Vengeance is mine, sayeth Amelia.” 

But what good did wreaking vengeance do?  It wasn’t like they would learn anything, and as her nightmare crab had said, there were plenty more where he came from.

Had he been a nightmare?  His claws had been real enough, and tasty. 

“Crab.  Genus Cancer – I think.  Species – who knows?  They don’t talk; they DON’T TALK!” 

She glared at the one she had just smashed.  No movement, no sound.  So much for him – IT!  In the morning she would move the rock, rip off his – ITs claws! – and grill them for breakfast.

“Be careful misquoting Scripture, Sister.”  

The ironic voice came from under the rock.

She climbed into her hammock, but had trouble sleeping.  The night was alive with sound – birds in the trees overhead murmuring sleepily, falling branches now and then, unknown things moving in the underbrush, and the constant clatter of shells on coral.  The hammock was safe enough, but was there no way to create a secure camp?  Maybe, at least for key periods of time; she would work on it in the morning.  Sleep finally came, but then it was dawn.  Groggy, she almost forgot to scan the horizon.  It was empty.

Where were the binoculars?  She didn’t know, and upon searching, couldn’t find them. 

“Well, they’ll turn up.” 

Or wouldn’t.  Why did she care? Oh yes...

She breakfasted on the crab claws and sipped water with a drop of vegetable tonic – walking around as she did so, cursing the cannibal crabs.  Then she set about building her fort.  Piled driftwood a foot or so high, forming a wall encircling an area about ten feet across, enclosing the trees from which her hammock hung and with her fire place forming one corner.  Tonight she could dine in peace by simply lighting the whole thing, pitch out any crabs inside the walls, and have an uninterrupted meal before bedtime.  She smiled grimly.  It might be a bit warm, and the local supply of firewood would go faster, but it would be worth it.  This time she used her griddle to carry the tinder out into the sunlight, and bring back the fire to light the driftwood.

July 25?  I hope it will not be necessary much longer, but I am finding ways to adapt to life on this strange island.  With Fred’s sun helmet and a combination of our clothing (I am wearing one of his shirts as I write, and his belt to hold up my deteriorating slacks) I am able to protect most of my body from the sun, though my face is red and peeling, and the freckles will take a long time to fade even with liberal applications of Dr. Berry’s.  Flying in a closed-cabin aircraft is no way to build up a protective tan. 

I have water to drink – in carefully rationed amounts – thanks to my improvised still – although the coffee cup that was one of its critical components has cracked.  Luckily I found another at Platform Camp, and as back-up I have my little freckle crème jar.  Fred’s lighter has given out, but I find it easy to start fires with the concentrated light of the sun, using the eyepiece from his sextant.  The crabs are bothersome, but I have built Fort Earhart Putnam, a construction of driftwood that I will set alight when they get too thick.  Between its burning walls and my faithful engine-cover hammock, I should have deliverance from the crustaceans. 

I walked perhaps half a mile along the shore today, and out onto the reef, which stretches flat for fifty or more yards here before dropping off into the depths.  There are many tide pools, full of multi-colored fish of many sizes.  I selected one of modest size with about a dozen fish in it, and as the tide began to turn, filled its outlets with crumpled-up windowscreen.  As before, it worked splendidly; although most of the fish escaped, as the tide reached its nadir three were left squirming in the shallows, where I scooped them up and threw them up on shore.  Gutted and scaled, they are now sizzling on my improvised griddle – a heavy-duty steel sheet, probably from the shipwreck’s galley.  I lost Fred’s lighter somewhere along the way, but it doesn’t matter; it was out of fuel, and as long as the sun shines and I don’t lose the sextant eyepiece, fire-starting is no problem.  Hog apple provides my fruit course.  I am tempted by other fruits, but afraid of them too.  Regrettably I have yet to encounter any fruits I know to be edible like papaya or banana.  Thank goodness for Fred, may he rest in peace, or I would not even have hog apple. And thank the island, and my experience with the Atlantic shore, for purslane, though I haven’t found any on this side of the passage.  If rescue doesn’t come soon, however, I shall begin sampling other vegetable fare.  Perhaps when this is all over, I will write a “how-to” book about surviving on a desert island.

She didn't mention the piece of aluminum she had found on the reef, or how she had cried over it.

July 24^th, 1937

Fort Putnam worked to keep out the crabs; even after the fire burned down, they didn’t cross its ashen walls until after she had climbed into her hammock.  But it didn’t keep out the ghosts.

The ghost singular, that is – at least, only one ghost remained in memory when she woke up.  A tall, ephemeral woman, wispy as spiderwebs, with long web-like hair.  She wore a flowing top of some kind, perhaps made of tapa cloth, and a grass skirt.  She appeared outside the smoldering driftwood wall, and then sailed right through it.  Barefoot. Inside she stood looking at Amelia in her hammock with a gaze that conveyed ineffable sympathy.

“Who are you?” I asked when I found my voice, aware in the instant how corny it sounded – but how was she to know?  To my astonishment, she answered, but her language was like none I have ever heard, and I understood not a word.  She spoke at some length, with many graceful hand gestures, and always wearing that sad, searching look.  Then, with a slow bow, she simply faded into the night, and I slept.

As she woke in the brilliant morning sunlight, she found the ghost’s visit strangely comforting.  She was not altogether alone, with no company except birds and insulting crabs that wanted to eat her.  All right, so the ghost was doubtless the construction of her mind – like Dr. Karla and the talking crab! – but she was a comforting construction, and Amelia was glad to let her stay.

“Besides, it’s her island.”

Wondered why she thought that, but was sure it was true.

She scanned the western horizon, to the south and to the north, expecting nothing and seeing nothing. 

“I’ll probably embarrass myself if – when – I finally do see a ship.” 

Her dirty, ripped slacks were past saving.  It was time to let them go and switch to Fred’s extra pair, baggy and unfashionable as they would appear to rescuers.

After eating and operating the still long enough to produce a pint or so of water, she pocketed the bottle of hand lotion and worked her way back across to the lagoon shore to inspect the beach she had found the day before. 

It was a lovely thing – a long half-moon curve facing east, all white sand, turquoise water, soaring white birds.  Boobies under bushes.  The sun wasn’t yet too punishing so she stripped, rinsed out her shirt and thinning boxer shorts in the gently lapping water – keeping an eye on the little shark fins farther out.  Washed the slacks, too, so they would be clean rags.  Hung the clothes on a bush and settled herself in the shade of a tree while they dried.  The breeze felt good on her bare skin.  Yes, there was much to be said for the natural life.

Clothes dry – it didn’t take long – she beat them vigorously to remove as much salt as possible. The shorts came completely apart in her hands. She sat for a moment looking at their rags, thinking of Gene.

What was he doing? Had he given her up? Or was he pulling every string he could to extend a search. Were he and G.P. cooperating? What did Gore think? Would she ever see Gene again? Ever…

“Of course you will. Get on with it, Amelia. And I guess you’ll just have to get used to Fred’s jockey shorts.”

She pulled on her shirt and Fred’s slacks, first rubbing herself all over, but sparingly, with lotion to minimize itching.  Rolled up the pants legs.

“All I need is a stalk of hay to chew on.”

Walked south to the end of the beach, and there found another sign of long-ago human habitation.

She stood for awhile staring at it, walked around to examine it from different angles.  It was another stone structure of some kind, or the foundation of a structure.  A hollow rectangle, lying partly in the water, partly in the beach, partly buried by beach sand.  About thirty feet long, fifteen wide from the water to where the wall became buried by sand.  Made of coral slabs, piled against one another like dominoes.

Ancient, surely, but not a marae.  Interesting but of no value to her.  She scraped her foot through the sand inside the structure, but nothing popped up.

“I wonder if the ghost lived here.” 

Well, maybe so, maybe not; she was nowhere to be seen in the bright light of day.  At least it was more evidence that someone, sometime, had been able to live here, had been able to survive.

“For how long?” 

No answer to that one, either.

Not far southeast of the ancient ruin, the beach gave out, replaced by a rather steep bank rising three or four feet up from the water.  The land above the bank was flat, and supported only a thin, scattered belt of brush near the water’s edge, with the usual forest behind.  She was able to walk relatively easily around the bushes and under the trees, as usual waving a branch in front of her for the spiders.

The tree cover began to change.  The gray-barked trees gave way to trees like those she had seen just before the Navy planes came -- just as big as the oak-like ones, but with darker gray-brown bark, yellow flowers, and small green and brown fruits shaped somewhat like pomegranates.  She wondered if they were edible, but was still cautious about biting into one.

“Now, if a snake were to suggest it….” 

She had seen no snakes.  Were there no snakes?  Perhaps not; how would they get here? 

Soon she found herself on a small promontory jutting into the lagoon, heavily forested in the new kind of tree.  The promontory formed a small embayment just to its southeast, loaded with small, darting, silvery fish.  She walked along the shore – a solid coral shelf dropping directly into the lagoon – and wondered whether and how she could catch them.  Came upon a big colony of clams, each the size of her hand or larger, quietly feeding on the microscopic stuff that flowed over their gaping orifices.  Another food option.  Someone long ago had apparently harvested clams here; their abandoned shells were thickly packed along the shoreline.

There didn’t seem to be too many obstructions between her and the ocean shore, so she decided to cross back and walk up the shore to her camp.  It was relatively easy going, back under the big gray-barked trees again, but as she approached the fringe of brush along the ocean shore, she stopped short.

“Another one?”

It looked like the campsite she had found up by the shipwreck, but more compact and organized.  A pile of cans and boxes, with the remnants of a heavy tarp – maybe a hatch cover – draped over it.  Just inside the landward edge of the ocean-fronting brush, it would have been visible by a passing boat if the brush were stripped away. 

“What in the world…?”  She picked up the tarp’s edge, imagining uses for it though much of it was badly rotted, and examined the cans.  Twenty or so in all – the familiar cans that probably contained mutton (oh well), vegetables, and perhaps fruit (that would be welcome), and bigger, rectangular ones probably containing tea or ship’s biscuit.  Surely from the Norwich, but why all the way down here?  Why piled so neatly and buttoned down under a tarp?

Her legs weak, she sat down on the ground with a thump, quieted her racing heart.  More manna from heaven!  This, she thought, could mean the difference between survival until rescue came, or – not.

“But why is it here?”

“Don’t look a gift can in the lid, Sweetheart!” 

She spun around.  Another big purple-black crab was sidling out of the brush.

“Don’t Sweetheart me, you… antediluvian arthropod!  Where did these cans come from?”

“Sticks and pelicans can crack my exoskeleton, but words can never hurt me. I can tell you all about the cans – Oh yes I certainly can can-can, but I won’t.  What’s your worry, sweet-chops?  Open one up!  Chow down!”

“Ah!  I’ll bet they’re poisoned!  This is all a trick!”

“No, no, perfectly good, perfectly good.  Well, most of them.  Some of them, maybe not, after all these years.  You’ll just have to take your chances.  Like Russian roulette.”

“What does a crab know about Russian roulette?” 

“Everything you know, you yummy little morsel, you.  But never mind that.  Eat up!  Get fat!  I’ll be back.”  He scuttled off into the brush.

The sun was past its zenith.  She would have to move fast to put her fire together and catch the rays at sufficient intensity to light the tinder.  And then reconstruct Fort Putnam and prepare for the night.  She grabbed a can at random and hurried up the beach, tossing the can in her hand.

“Russian roulette…..”

She rebuilt the fort’s walls, set fire to them, opened the can as the sun fell into the sea.  It contained mackerel and smelled rotten.  She threw it to the crabs and fetched a booby, making sure it was a male. 

“Dodged that bullet,” she murmured, peeling booby breast meat off the bones and listening to the crabs batting the mackerel can around in the rocks. 

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

A thick fogbank crowded the highlands north of the Golden Gate as she passed over, but the graceful new bridge stood in bright sunshine.  She banked right and then left to align on the Oakland runway.  The sun was bright on the field, and the handsome Spanish revival terminal building.

Her clothes were so dirty!  And – she was still wearing Fred’s sun helmet!  She snatched it off her head, wondered where Fred was, had just concluded that he was back at the navigator’s station in the rear when the plane seemed to dissolve and she was falling…..

She woke – was she awake? – on the ground, surrounded by the embers of Fort Putnam.  She wept, her whole body shaking. 

When she opened her eyes she was looking up into the sad face of the ghost.  Once again speaking incomprehensible words, making graceful but meaningless hand gestures.  She seemed to be pointing, or waving, toward the – which way? 

“I’m sorry; I don’t understand.”

The ghost raised her hands to the sky, where out over the sea, the Milky Way blazed. Dropped them gently.

“Uh… yes, I came from the sky.  I…we have… machines that fly….”

The ghost slowly shook her head; her long, filmy hair floated in all directions, but with hypnotic grace.  Was she saying that she didn’t understand?  She gestured again, slowly upward with hypnotic flutters of her fingers, gave a sad but somehow welcoming, reassuring smile, and faded into the gathering dawn.

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Notes

“Crab.  Genus Cancer – I think.” The Coconut Crab is actually Birgus latro, but it’s unlikely Earhart would have known that.

“I lost Fred’s lighter somewhere along the way.” In 1989 we found a cigarette lighter from the 1930s  on the beach in this area. It was probably an artifact of the USS Bushnell visit in 1939 or the 1944-46 USCG Loran Station, however. See https://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/1989Vol_5/Artifacts.pdf,

“She sat for a moment looking at their rags, thinking of Gene.” Eugene Vidal reportedly said that he procured AE’s boxer shorts for her. See for instance East to the Dawn p. 291.

“I guess you’ll just have to get used to Fred’s jockey shorts.” My guess; I am ignorant of Fred Noonan’s taste in underwear

.

“…another sign of long-ago human habitation.” Recorded by TIGHAR in 1989, and in more detail in 2010, we think this may be a prehistoric fishtrap.

“(Trees) with darker gray-brown bark, yellow flowers, and small green and brown fruits.” Cordia subcordata, called “kanawa” in Kiribati.

“…a small promontory jutting into the lagoon, heavily forested in the new kind of tree.” Kanawa Point, once covered in Cordia, logged off in 1940-41. Located at 4^o 31’48” S, 174^o 31’49” W. See http://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/14_2/14-2Kanawa.html for a somewhat dated description. Also see Earhart’s Shoes 2004:97-98

“…their abandoned shells were thickly packed along the shoreline.” It is possible that these shells were left by AE or Noonan, or by the 1939-63 colonists, but my guess is that they are ancient.

“A pile of cans and boxes…” See http://tighar.org/wiki/Norwich_City_Survivors'_Shelter for discussion of the various places where Norwich City related supplies might have wound up. My selection of this location for the last Norwich City cache is arbitrary, and different from Ric Gillespie’s (He puts it east of Baureke Passage) but consistent with the available data.