AE on Norwich Island Part 5

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island

Part 5

July 4^th, 1937

Well, she had tried.  The inside of the plane had smelled like dead fish, or worse, but the heat had been tolerable, and the flashlight had given her enough light to work by.  She had run the right engine awhile to build power, then spent a short time listening, going through the frequencies.  Cried openly when she heard a commercial station in Honolulu asking for her response, and tried to use the microphone key to send the dashes they requested. Heard nothing to suggest that she had gotten through. Tried some S-O-Ss using the same system, and some voice messages.  Lots of carrier waves and static in response, but nothing that indicated she was being heard.  Finally called it quits, gathered up Fred’s sextant in its flat wooden box, and the sun helmet.  The carefully wrapped, canceled first-day covers.  Packed the miscellaneous items in one of their suitcases and splashed back across the reef through the rising tide – after reeling in and securing the kite; no need to risk leaving it flying through the night. 

Fred was asleep, snoring.  He slept a lot, it seemed. Was it an effect of his injury, or just a sailor’s adaptation?  She dragged up some driftwood and stoked the fire, set out her shoes and socks to dry, arranged the gear she had brought ashore.  Ate some more canned mutton, managing not to gag.  She hadn’t had time to turn the engine covers into a hammock, but she lay down on them, forced down her worries and managed to sleep. 

And dream.  Of Jackie Cochrane – in the desert, of course – talking urgently, calling out to her.  She tried to reply, tell her what was happening, but somehow couldn’t make the words come out. She felt paralyzed, mute, desperately wanting to cry out, but unable to make her voice work.

She woke almost weeping with frustration, to little crabs tentatively nibbling her leg, having crawled up inside her pants again.  Cursed, jumped up, stripped, kicked and threw crabs in all directions till she stubbed a bare toe.  Pulled her pants and shoes back on and checked Fred for crabs; the raft’s sides seemed to be keeping them off.  He was sleeping peacefully; the man was amazing!

She slept only fitfully for the rest of the night, and watched the sea lighten as the sun came up behind her.  High-pitched bird cries competed with the roar and boom of the surf, as the boobies and frigate birds sailed out to sea. 

Today, she would definitely make the hammock.  And compose a concise message she could send in Morse code tonight.  Unless……

But there were no lights out on the water.  No ship.  No rescue yet. 

But there wouldn’t be. 

“They wouldn’t come close to an island at night; they’d be afraid of running aground.  I think.”

“G’morning, Beautiful.” 

Fred’s voice was low, oozing with sensuality.  She jumped.

“Wh..  er, good morning Fred.”

“Beautiful Marie, in the beautiful morning.” 

He had rolled out of the raft and over next to her – why hadn’t she heard?  Bird noise, and the surf.  He put his hand on her thigh.  She scooted away.

“Fred….”

“C’mon, Marie.  We have plenty of time before breakfast.”

She scooted farther away, remembering Toronto.  Not unusual for men with head injuries to get amorous, with whoever happened to be close.  It could even be a sign of recovery.  So – don’t rebuff, just jolly him along without getting in trouble.

She scooted a little farther, patted his shoulder.

“Calm down, Fred; just rest.  Like you say, we have lots of time.” 

Keep talking, try to bring him gently back to reality.

“So… let’s just take it nice and easy.” 

He was groping for her breast, pushing close to her.  His breath smelled foul, but then she thought, hers probably did too. Where was her Vince? Never mind. 

She pushed him gently away; he pulled her back.  She tried to squirm away; he grabbed her shoulder.

This wasn’t going to work.  He was too strong.  She was on the verge of being raped.  She had never been raped.  What might it be like to be taken by force? 

He was getting both arms around her; she wasn’t interested in the experiment. Managed a clumsy back-flip and broke free; rolled over and jumped up.

“Wait a minute, Fred; I – er – have to go to the ladies’ room.”

This apparently made sense to him.  He lay back on his elbows.

“OK, Marie.  Just don’t be long, Honey.”

“Not a chance; be right back.”

She hurried down the beach.  The sun was already hot on the top of her head.  Much as she hated them, she’d need a hat if this went on much longer. Did she really hate them, or was that just G.P.?

But if nothing else, there were her freckles, what the sun would do to them. 

“The least of your worries, Millie”

Still, imagine the news photos.  Well, the public seemed to be charmed by her freckles, even if she wasn’t.

She paced along the line of flotsam left by the night’s high tide – was it a bit higher than yesterday? – trying to organize her scattered thoughts.  There had been times – at each of their stops, really, when Fred could have made a pass at her and she might have been receptive.  He was an attractive man, and she was no slave to obsolete moral codes.  She might have……

But he hadn’t.  He’d been the heart and soul of decorum.  Devoted to his new wife, Bea, talking about being anxious to get home to her. 

“Who the devil is Marie?  Or was Marie?” 

Someone out of his past?  Some complete phantom?

She looked back; he wasn’t following.  Realistically, he couldn’t get too aggressive without being felled by his injured head.  And if worst came to worst…..

“I can pop him on the noggin.”  She grinned crookedly. 

“I know just where to do it.”  Shook her head. 

“My oh my, you can be a nasty one, can’t you, Millie?”

Or….   of course, she could go along with it.  It had been a long time.  But – he was so dirty, smelly, and the potential complications...

“OK, keep him at bay till he regains his senses, and if necessary, bonk.” 

There was quite a bit of driftwood on this stretch of beach; she found a suitable club, swung it a few times and then used it like a walking stick, going slowly back to where he rested under the big tree. 

He was asleep. 

She stirred up the fire.  What to cook for breakfast?  Open another can, or look for something fresh? She scanned the vegetation back of the beach – nothing obvious hanging on the trees, or falling from them. She smiled at a vision of curling up in Rye with G.P.’s silly old book.

“’fraid this isn’t one of the Filbert Islands.”

A fish in one of the tide pools?  A booby?  There were plenty of the big birds standing and sitting around, too stupid to worry about being caught.

“Graceful on the wing, but phlegmatic on the ground.”

Catching chickens in Atchison. A box propped up on a stick, with a string attached.  Some grain under the box, chicken walks in, pull the string.  Just for fun, back then, but now….

“Hardly need a box. Could probably just grab one and wring his neck. Maybe these are the Filberts, sans nuts. GP will be so smug!”

But scaling a fish or plucking a bird would be a lot of trouble.  A crab?  Beat one apart with a rock, or just boil it?  She’d need a pot. Booby eggs? That would be easy enough, and she could boil them in the dutch oven. But the Boobies seemed so devoted to their eggs, and she didn’t know how close they were to hatching. The thought of a dead bird fetus turned her stomach.

“OK, a can it is.” 

She picked out one from their shrinking pile, used the knife to cut it open.  More mutton.  Oh well.

As she warmed the stew, she repeatedly glanced at Fred, so she was ready when he sat up, holding his head.  She stood, keeping her club close.

“G’morning, Amelia.  Wow, overslept.”

Whew.  She relaxed, but only a little.

“No alarm clocks here, Fred.  But no ship yet, either.”

“Today for sure; they’ll be here.  You’ll see.” 

He straightened up stiffly and hobbled into the trees.  When he came back he was all business.  He had picked one of the bumpy green fruits, was rolling it around in his hand.  He pulled out a small pocket knife, began peeling the thing.

“We’d better take stock; assess our options.”

“I thought they were going to be here today.  Is that fruit good to eat?”

“Well, it depends on what you call ‘good.’  Smells terrible, and doesn’t taste like much, but it’s not poisonous, and a lot of people – natives, mostly – say it’s good for you.”

He carved off a piece and held it out to her. It was whitish inside, with little black seeds.  She wrinkled her nose.

“Ich!  It smells like……”

“Vomit, right.  But like I say, it won’t kill you.”

She tried to ignore the smell and nibbled the slice.  It didn’t taste like much at all.  She chewed the slice and swallowed.

“Well, that’s good to know.  Anyway, do you think they’ll be here today, or not?”

“It’s called….” He squinted his eyes, maybe as a wave of pain passed through his head.  “…called hog apple.  Called lots of things, but sailors call it hog apple, probably ‘cause it’s fed to hogs.”

“Oh.  And….”

He looked at her, strain showing on his face.

“Oh, will they be here today?  Yeah, they should be.  Actually, I don’t know what’s keeping them.  It’s not that far down from Howland.”

“Unless they don’t know we’re here.”

“That’s … the risk, of course.  Looking here is the… logical thing to do, but…” He grimaced again. 

“It’s the Coast Guard we’re talking about.  And we don’t know which messages they heard…”

“If any.  Are you – does it hurt a lot?”

“A bit.  Comes and goes.  Yeah, if they heard any, and then there’s how they interpreted them.  They could waste a lot of time looking for us somewhere to the west, or north, or east, thinking we came down in the drink.”

“So….”

“So it may be a few days before they get here.  Realistically, they might not get here today, or even tomorrow.  So…  we’d better put together a better shelter, and figure out how to get more water, and maybe how to catch fish, or….”

He stopped, sat down, his eyes going unfocused. 

“Oh shit, my …. Oh.. sorry… spinning….”

She helped him lie down, examined his head.  The dressing was crusty; she removed it and frowned.  The wound was still violently discolored, oozing blood and pus.  She cleaned it out as gently as she could, using another cup of salt water and more gauze, this time from the large metal first aid kit.  Dabbed it with Mercurochrome; he flinched but didn’t cry out.  Fashioned a new dressing and attached it with tape.

“Is that better, Fred?”

He threw his arm over his eyes. 

“Yeah, but the light – god, the light!” 

He was hot; she estimated a fever of maybe a hundred degrees or more.  And he had passed out again.

She hung up a shirt to shade him from the sun, put a wet compress on his forehead, and sat awhile looking at the waves crashing on the reef.  Yes, they needed a better shelter, a way to catch fish – though damn it, none of this should be necessary!  Itasca would be here; somebody would be here.   Soon!

Still, better to be busy than to sit around fretting.  She ate some of the stew, found her can of Vince and brushed her teeth, considered.  The tide was pretty low; she could wade out to the ship and bring in some more gear, though it would already be much too hot to spend serious time inside.  Maybe attach the antenna to the kite so she could loft it for the nighttime transmissions. Would that make up for the lost belly antenna? Pondered what she knew about antennas, impedance, relationship of antenna length to wavelength.  Would it really do any good to get the antenna higher in the sky?  Tried to summon up Joe Gurr’s voice, so authoritative on such things.  She wasn’t sure.

“Why, oh why…”

Shook her head. Yes, she should have learned more about radio, about Morse code, about – so many things. But there was no use now… Shook her head again.

“Well, it can’t hurt, if I can get it up there.”

Was the high tide really getting higher?  There were cycles, after all – was it neap and spring?  Tried to remember what she’d learned all those years ago clamming.  Well, she could ask Fred…..

“If….” 

She looked at him, lying inert.  But he was breathing regularly and seemed comfortable enough. 

Why hadn’t they taken more time to rest in Lae, after all those brutal hours?

Shook her head again, violently; leaped to her feet.

“All right, enough, damn it, enough!” 

She headed for the plane.

It was impossibly hot inside the fuselage.  She found the extra antenna wire and wiggled gratefully up through the hatch into the breeze.  But the sunlight on the aluminum was blinding, and would play havoc with her skin.  Quickly, she spliced the wire into the V-antenna.  Removed the string from the kite, substituted the wire, payed it out.  Easy!  Dove back down to her seat, tried a few transmissions, received no responses.

Too hot to stay, and the tide was rising.  Back over the tanks to gather some rope and twine, a couple of cloth bags to use, perhaps, as sun shades.  Splashed ashore and found Fred still asleep. 

“Best thing he can do, I s’pose.” 

Restless, she donned the sun helmet and walked down to the shipwreck.  Waded around the bow, ventured inside through a gaping hole in the port side.  The hulk was burned out, and she didn’t risk climbing its rickety-ladders again, but found some useful items – a heavy baking sheet, doubtless from the galley, that she could use as  a griddle, some potentially useful wire and flat steel straps, and some stout pipes to use as tent poles.  And there was a fish – a pretty, colorful one, trapped in a tide pool hardly larger than itself.  After a moment’s thought she stripped off her shirt, used it to tangle the fish up and pulled it out.  Let it flop itself dead – turning silver-gray – on a slab of coral while she shook out her shirt and put it back on.  If Fred were back into his fantasy world, she’d be ill advised to stroll up shirtless.

But he was sleeping, peacefully enough.  She stoked up the fire, gutted and scaled the fish with the Javanese knife, cut off the head and tossed it in the fire.  Heated up the baking sheet and slapped the fish down on it.  The smell of it cooking made her realize how hungry she was.

“Hollow as a bamboo horse”.

Fred, disturbingly, was not.  He awoke at the smell of cooking fish, and didn’t seem particularly confused – no mention of Marie, no sexual innuendos – but he was subdued, not saying much, staring out into the gathering darkness.  He picked at the fish, abstractly, with little interest.

By the light of the setting sun and the fire, she wove the engine covers together to make her hammock; tied the ends with ropes and raised it between two small but stout trees.  Brushed off her hands and returned to the fire.

 “Fred, can you remind me about tidal cycles?”

“Cycles?  Like neap to spring?”

“Right.”

“Well, that’s the cycle.  Neap is the lowest of low tides; spring is the highest of high tides.  The cycle goes on and on, repeating itself, cycle after cycle after…..”

“Do you know where we are in the cycle?”

“Here?  Now?  No, not without a table.  I could guess if I took measurements over a few tides.”

“It looks to me like the high tide’s getting higher.”

“Well, it’s got to be doing one thing or the other.  So if you’re right, we’re going toward spring.”

“How much higher could it get?”

“Dunno.” 

He lay back on the gunwale of the raft and looked fixedly at the stars that were winking on overhead.

He roused himself when she took a flashlight and started to make her way across the low-tide reef. She waved him back toward the raft.

“You don’t have to come.  It’s really a one-person job.”

“Umm.  Don’t want you to fall in a hole.”

More likely you’ll fall in one. She didn’t say it. Say something else; engage his mind.

“By the way – we lost the belly antenna.”

“Oh yeah? Really?”

“Yes. It’s missing along with the aft mast; the ventral mast is dangling and the starboard pitot is bent back.”

“Think we lost ‘em landing?”

“I’m afraid not. More likely on takeoff; we were so heavily loaded…”

“Rhatz! That’s why we couldn’t raise Itasca!”

“Well, I’m not sure. I’ve been trying to sort it out. Not that it matters now.”

“No, except we may want to fiddle with the antennas that’re left. Rhatz!”

“I’ve already attached an antenna wire to the kite.”

“OK, good. But… rhatz!”

He picked up the other flashlight and started down the slope. She followed and they worked their way out to the plane.

Tried transmitting, listened.  Static, occasional snatches of voice, maybe code.  Something on 1320 kilocycles, but she couldn’t be sure. She tried sending code with the mic key, and they both tried voice, on different frequencies.  If the kite antenna was helping, she couldn’t detect it.  She reeled it in and secured it for the night while Fred tried a last transmission. 

Climbing up over the wing to the overhead hatch, she heard him -- reciting monotonically. She stopped, listened. Of course, he was reciting to himself as he tried to key Morse code with the microphone:

“Es-timate two eight one … um… miles north to Howland. Call KHAQQ. Uh… On r-e-e-f north end. N-o-r – damn! – ship-wreck… Ple-a-s-e r-e-spond….”

She paused with her head in the hatch, listening with him.  Static, just static.

“Did you hear something?”

“Thought I did.  Dunno. My Morse really stinks.”

“Good try anyway.  281 miles?”

“Something like that.  Want to try again?”

“No, let’s save power.” 

He shrugged, shut down the receiver. They splashed back toward shore.

281 miles?  Why not 280, or 285?  Had he taken bearings?  If so, when, and why hadn’t he told her?  He seemed so gloomy; probably better to leave the question for morning.  She climbed into the hammock; it was comfortable enough. Through the branches overhead she caught glimpses of the Milky Way.

Yes, she’d made mistakes, but things would work out. They’d winch the plane off the reef and get it aboard – well, aboard something to get it back to the States. If she couldn’t fly it off the reef…..

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

Notes

“…commercial station in Honolulu asking for her response.” See Finding Amelia:136-7 for discussion of stations KGU and KGMB’s efforts to establish communication with AE.

“…sextant in its flat wooden box.” See https://tighar.org/wiki/Sextant_box_found_on_Nikumaroro for images of sextant boxes of the period, as well as a discussion of the sextant box found on Nikumaroro in 1940 and its possible association with Noonan.

“…sun helmet.” Included in the Luke Field inventory. See https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Luke_Field.html

“Ate some more canned mutton, managing not to gag.” During the “Friendship” trans-Atlantic flight in 1928, AE and the other members of the plane’s crew spent thirteen days at Trepassey Bay on Newfoundland eating mutton and rabbits (See Last Flight, p 5).

“Jackie Cochrane.” Aviation pioneer Jacqueline Cochrane (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Cochran) was a friend and colleague of AE’s, had a much-loved home in Palm Springs, and is said to have been ascribed psychic abilities (See Sound of Wings p. 237 and http://www.ameliaearhartmovie.com/georgeputnampsychics.html)

“Where was her Vince?” In an undated, unsigned note, probably written in 1936, AE instructed her mother to “(u)se Vince after every meal more often if not feeling well. Important” (Letters from Amelia, p. 198). Research by Joe Cerniglia of TIGHAR has revealed that Vince was a tooth powder/mouthwash, packaged in small tins with screw tops.

“Much as she hated them, she thought, she’d need a hat,” “Today I loathe hats for more than a few minutes on the head.”  Last Flight, p 2

“…the public seemed to be charmed by her freckles, even if she wasn’t.” AE’s wholesome image was presumably enhanced by her youthful, outdoors-girl appearance. Anecdotal evidence that Earhart disliked her freckles (See for instance Amelia, My Courageous Sister, p. 95), and looked for ways to suppress them is summarized by Joe Cerniglia and colleagues in “A Freckle in Time or a Fly in the Ointment,” http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/freckleintime/FreckleInTime.html.

“Catching chickens in Atchison…” AE caught chickens in Atchison with “an empty orange crate with a hinged lid. This lay on its side with the lid sticking out like an awning and propped open with a stick. To the stick was tied a long string with me on the other end…” The Fun of It p.13.

“…sailors call it hog apple .” For common names of Morinda, see http://naturespathways.com/herb-blurb/item/515-noni-common-names-%E2%80%94-noni-morinda-indian-mulberry-hog-apple-canary-wood-latin-names-%E2%80%94-morinda-citrifolia#.Vy_NwYQguM8

“Joe Gurr’s voice…” Joseph H. Gurr was AE’s radio expert. See http://tighar.org/wiki/Modifications_by_Joe_Gurr for details regarding his involvement with the Electra’s radios.

“Hollow as a bamboo horse.” See Last Flight, p. 99

“Rhatz!” This expletive, like other words that may be unfamiliar to 21^st-century readers (e.g. “zozzled,” “bushwa”) was commonly used in the 1920s and 30s according to sources I’ve consulted. Today we might say “rats.” I’ve tried to incorporate ‘30s slang accurately, but drew the line at spelling “OK” “okeh,” as AE does in Last Flight.

“Es-timate two eight one … um… miles north to Howland.” A “badly keyed” message received by listeners for Earhart on the night of July 4^th was interpreted as saying “Two eight one north Howland call KHAQQ beyond north don’t hold with us much longer above water shut off” (Finding Amelia p. 169 and Chap. 18); I’ve chosen to imagine Noonan trying to make a more sensible transmission whose meaning was lost due to his limited Morse Code skills.