Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island
Part 18
August 5th,
1937
She had been
reluctant to sleep; who knows how long it would be before she woke? But finally she had climbed into the hammock,
tried to put crabs out of her mind, and drifted off.
And then The Lady was
there, beckoning to her. She swung out
of the hammock, pulled on her shoes, and followed the ethereal form through the
trees.
They crossed the
island to the vicinity of the peninsula and the ponds with the clams and little
flashing fish. But now – she felt no
surprise – there was a house there. A
large log-beamed house with a thatched roof that swept upward to a sharp peak,
and walls of some sort of woven stuff.
There were people there – old people and children, but were they really
people? They were like The Lady, wispy,
here and not here. The house was the
same; it seemed to waver in and out of existence. The lady was talking to her, perhaps
explaining, perhaps introducing her to the people.
An old woman appeared
at the edge of the group, stood stock still, then fell to her knees and held
out her hands prayerfully, reciting incomprehensible words.
The Lady spoke to the
old woman, not unkindly, then turned to Amelia, who for the first time
understood…..
Thunder crashed;
lightning streaked across the sky, and rain fell – a deluge. Utterly confused, she found herself standing
– alone – among the trees of the peninsula, with neither house nor people in
sight. Soaked to the skin and hardly able to see through the pouring rain. She struggled to get a grip on reality. What reality?
Which reality? One reality won
out.
“Rain – oh my god,
rain!”
She raised her face
to it, drank in the cool, fresh rainwater that fell on her. Stripped off her shirt, wrung it out, let it
get soaked again, wrung it out again, hung it on a bush. Did the same with her slacks and jockey
shorts. Drank some more, let the rain
rinse her body, then grabbed her slacks, shorts, and ran for her camp to spread
some canvas, collect some water.
Her hammock was full
of rainwater. Shrieking with laughter,
she emptied it into the booby boiling can.
Spread canvas and engine covers, set empty cans, even her little freckle
cr̬me jar, upright to catch the rain Рwhich was already slackening. A few minutes more and it was all over, the
storm sailing out to sea. But she had
gallons and gallons of fresh water!
Her hammock was still
wet, and she was naked; the breeze actually felt almost chilly. But she was clean, and had fresh water
running through her body, pumping among her cells. She crawled nude into the hammock and slept
peacefully.
As the morning sun
shot through the trees, and the birds rose out of the treetops, she awoke more
refreshed than she could have imagined the day before, her mind clear and
logic-driven, she organized her clothes.
Here were her slacks – thinning and ripped – and Fred’s jockey shorts,
but where was her shirt? She looked
everywhere, couldn’t find it.
Luckily she had
Fred’s last one, and his coveralls too, when his slacks gave out. Not at all fashionable, or even good fits,
but they would cover her nakedness and protect her from the brutal sun.
“If they give
out before someone comes!”
Dressed, she carefully
decanted water into the two water bags, filling them completely with lots left
over. Decided to remain in Camp Can
until she had gone through the “extra” water and perhaps found her Javanese
knife. But she would explore on to the
southeast today to seek her next camp, perhaps begin moving some of her gear
there. Before that, though…..
She walked slowly back
to the peninsula. Yes, this was where she had been. No, there was no house there, and no people.
Shuddering, she
turned and hurried back to Camp Can.
After a breakfast of fish
and biscuit – the biscuits were running low, and she was very untrusting of the
other cans – she set out, walking briskly along the shore carrying the old
suitcase filled with a potpourri of gear.
Crossing the small channel, she found the land just back of the beach to
be rather low and swampy, and decided to try the lagoon shore for a
change. The lagoon was bordered here by
a rather steep bank, four or five feet high.
Again she found evidence of long-ago people – strange little stone walls
built out into the lagoon. She kicked
some sand off their edges so she could make out their shapes – just rough
rectangles, at an angle to the shoreline. Did they have something to do with The
Lady, and the tall thatched house?
“No telling.”
A short distance
along the shore she found a pleasant grove of tall trees, with those mysterious
little fruits. The cooling wind from the northeast blew through, from across
the lagoon. A big tree had fallen,
providing a good deal of firewood, and there were trees conveniently spaced for
stringing her hammock. With no big
branches directly overhead from which a crab could spring. She put down the suitcase and sat on the log
for awhile, the wind in her face, then left the suitcase to mark the spot and
returned the way she had come.
That night Fort
Putnam blazed for the last time – though of course, she would probably have to
build a new one at her next camp. It
should have a new name, though. Fort
Fred? Or what about the lady? What was her name?
“The Lady of the
Trees.”
Why did she think
that? Why of the trees rather than of
the sea, the wind, the stars, the birds?
“The crabs. No, not the lousy crabs.”
She had tried
smashing the small hermit crabs and extracting their meat, but there wasn’t
much to them and they were troublesome to process. Easy to catch, though; they were everywhere,
and so interested in her….
“In eating me, that
is.” She pitched one as far as she could
into the forest.
“He’ll be back.”
“Not you again!” How had he gotten inside the burning
fort? He waggled his claws dismissively.
“Yep, me again, and all my little hermit friends. Know how many of us there are here?”
“No, and I couldn’t
care less.”
“Oh, you will, you will. So
I’ll tell you. Eighteen thousand, seven
hundred, forty – whoops, seventy-eight.
A bunch just came ashore. I’m not
counting the kids at sea, of course….”
“Bushwa! Go chase yourself!”
“Rather chase you, but I can wait.
All the time in the world.”
She looked around for
a big enough rock to crush him, found a log instead. Beat him with it until he scuttled away, over
a low spot in the burning wall, chortling as usual.
Forget him. Shakily,
she threw the log on the wall to burn and climbed into her hammock.
Think about the
Lady. Of the trees. Why of the trees?
Of the sky too, really,
and the sea, the air – everything. But
everything came together, was concentrated somehow, in the trees, and she, the
Lady, embodied that coalescence.
“A tree… takes
nutrients from the ground, processes them, delivers carbon dioxide to the
air….”
Yes, that’s how it
worked. Science made everything sensible, logical, understandable.
“But The
Lady…..”
Where did she come
in? What was she?
“What am I?”
Human being. Around and around. Strange….
She went to sleep thinking of ghosts, trees, the sky, the Milky Way.
August 6th,
1937
Pulling her travois,
she trudged down the beach, along the narrow passage to the lagoon side. Waded
across the channel and continued down the narrow lagoon beach to her new
campsite. Unloaded and carried her gear
up the bank to where she had left the suitcase.
She strung up her hammock, set up a firepit, arranged her clothes,
tools, and equipment on the fallen tree.
Decided to put off building a new burnable fort until and unless it
proved to be necessary.
“Maybe the crabs
don’t come here.”
One immediately
scuttled over the leaves; she laughed at her wishful thinking.
The new camp was
pleasantly cool, facing the northeast wind and well sheltered by trees, but it
didn’t present many food choices. It was
a short walk back to the ocean shore, though, with its tide pools and nesting
boobies. She spent much of the day
there, exploring the tide pools. Lots of fish, eels, and on the beach lots of
lobster exoskeletons, all empty of lobsters. She grinned crookedly.
“Hannibals. But the
critters themselves must be somewhere.”
Visions of elegantly
presented lobster tails filling her mind, she explored far out on the reef flat
but found no living lobsters. Finally gave up and trapped a handsome big fish
in a tide pool. Threw it up on the reef to flap itself dead.
“Very sorry, mister
fish. You were a beautiful fellow.”
And free. Free to swim anywhere, everywhere. But not alone. Part of this great network, this film of
life.
“As are we all…..”
And now she would eat
it and it it would be part of her. And one day….
“You’ll be part of me, sweetcakes.”
This time there was a
good big rock nearby. She dined on
grilled fish and crab claws that evening, and sampled the pomegranate-shaped
fruits. Little meat, but some, and the
seeds seemed edible – at least, she ate them.
“We’ll see…..”
She watched the moon
rise over the lagoon. Should she go back to the ocean shore and look out for –
what was she looking out for? Oh yes, a
ship. No, watch the moonrise instead.
---------------------
Notes
“The lady was talking to her, perhaps explaining,
perhaps introducing her to the people.” See Laxton 1951, https://tighar.org/wiki/The_Ghost_Maneaba,
and Thirteen Bones Chap. 10 for other
descriptions of this encounter.
“…strange little stone walls built out into the
lagoon.” We
noted these in 1997 but have not investigated them. They may be more
prehistoric fish traps, or perhaps structures designed to catch sand and create
new land in the lagoon.
“I’m not counting the kids at sea, of course….”
Coconut crabs go through their larval stage at sea, and come ashore as
juveniles and occupy gastropod shells until they outgrow them. See http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/2811/0. Hermit crabs go through a similar
metamorphosis; see http://crabstreetjournal.org/blog/2013/02/21/what-is-the-life-cycle-of-a-land-hermit-crab/.
“…continued down the narrow lagoon beach to her new campsite.”
At approximately 4o40’54” S, 174o 30’54” W, on the land
unit known as Aukaraime, this is what we have called the Shoe Site because of TIGHAR’s discovery of shoes there in 1991, or
the Bivouac Site because Eric
Bevington reported seeing signs of an “overnight bivouac” in this vicinity in
late 1937; see Earhart’s Shoes
Chapters 12 & 15, http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/29_ShoeFetish1/29_ShoeFetish1.html,
http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/31_ShoeFetish2/31_ShoeFetish2.html,
and http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/48_ShoeFetish3/48_ShoeFetish3.html
“Hannibals.”
The name given by young AE and her Atchison playmates to the leftover
exoskeletons of locusts. See Courage is
the Price, pp. 61-2
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