Sunday, September 18, 2016

AE on Norwich Island Part 7

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island: 

Part 7

July 6th, 1937

The plane didn’t move again that night.  She visited it briefly when the tide was low at about three in the morning; Fred again insisted on going with her.  Even in the dark of night it was still hot, and the smell inside was enough to make her gag. Fred – who held the flashlights on the instrument panel but had little to say – was clearly in pain. 
Everything in the plane was wet, moldy.  She ran the engine, listened for messages but heard nothing, transmitted a few SOSs and Fred’s mysterious numbers.  She asked him to interpret them and he seemed puzzled, said he would have to take new readings with the sextant.  He was quiet and moody, but seemingly himself.  No mentions of Marie.
“Amelia,” he finally said, “I’m going to be sick – got to get out of here.”
“Go ahead, Fred; I’ll be right along.” 
He hoisted himself up through the hatch; between surf roars she listened for him retching on the reef, but couldn’t hear him. 
“Kinda like Itasca and our signals.”
She switched off and hauled herself gratefully up into the night air.  Fred was a dark silhouette against the moonlight-reflecting reef flat, shakily sweeping his flashlight back and forth as he waded ashore.  Time to sit awhile on the ship, cool off in the breeze and let Fred’s vomit wash off the reef before she slid off the wing.
“They’ve heard us. Someone has, anyway. Bud. They’re on their way.  But save what’s left of the fuel just in case.”
And the ship wasn’t going anywhere; surely the spring tide had passed.  She murmured a little prayer to that effect, to whatever powers controlled the universe, gazing up at the Milky Way blazing overhead.  The sky was full of stars. What would it be like to travel among them? How often had she asked herself that question? What would she be piloting? She smiled, whispered to the void.
“Bogie.”
She and her cousins had gone a lot of places, playing Bogie in the old barn, but not to the Milky Way. However… 
“Enough.” 
She shook her head, slid down to the reef and started back toward the flickering campfire. 
Fred appeared to be asleep.  She climbed gingerly into her hammock, pondering what else she could do for him. Would Doctor Eyth’s vegetable formula help? Maybe ease the pain, at least, give him energy to fight off the infection? Did she have any left? Check in the morning.
She woke to another golden morning of crashing surf and crying birds; she had not been troubled by crabs.
But no Itasca, no smoke or sail anywhere across the long horizon.  Fred was already up – in fact, where was he?  She jumped up, looked up and down the beach, and saw him almost around the low headland that terminated the view to the north.  Naked or nearly so, splashing in the water.  Before long he came walking back, slowly, every now and then throwing rocks in the water.  He was carrying his little tin briefcase and wearing his spare shirt and slacks.
“Hi,” she said as he came up the scree slope.  Who, she wondered, would he think she was?
“G’morning.”
“Good idea to get cleaned up.  Maybe I’ll go do the same.”
“Right.” 
He sat down, staring out at the Electra where it stood on the reef.
“Shall I check your head?”
“It’s OK.”
“No pain?”
“No pain.” 
He was lying.
“Look, can I give you some of my vegetable concentrate? GP swears by it, and so do I. Gives you energy, fights off infection…”
“I’m OK.”
“Well…”
“I’m OK!”
She watched him for a moment in silence as he stared stonily out to see. Threw up her hands.
“OK, I’ll go wash up.”
“Right.”
She walked up the shore, just around the headland, and found a tide pool.  Stripped and scrubbed herself with the bar of soap from the rubberized bag.  Stood naked in the sun and wind to dry before dressing.
“He’s coming to himself. Realizing what he’s done.  Ashamed.”
Shook her head.  This wasn’t his fault.
“My fault.”
Shook her head again at the unwelcome thoughts. They’d been so tired in Lae, so spent. Why, why had she – well, they – thought they could push through to Howland?
And farther back – skipping out on Paul, not getting the training he intended to give her in radio operations, navigation. Why?
“Hubris, Millie, hubris.”
This time the head shake was violent. No, the situation was no one’s fault. It just … was.  No use fretting over it.  Just find ways to cope until they were rescued.  There were the fishhook and line she had brought off the plane; yes, she could put Fred to work fishing.  Take his mind off things.
“Better check that head first.”
She was dry, but a bit salty.  She brushed off what she could and got dressed.  Skin lotion was definitely going to be on today’s agenda.
“Between the salt and the sun…..”  She grimaced.
“Freckles…”
Couldn’t be helped, and she had the skin oils.  Hand crème, the Mennen skin lotion, her little jar of freckle cream. 
Back at camp, Fred was still silent.  She spread hand crème on her arms and face.
“Hope they get here before we run out of this stuff.”
“Yeah.”
“Too bad we jettisoned so much of it in Lae.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll certainly be able to give them some good endorsements, though.  Sure you don’t want some?”
“I’m OK.”
He was not OK.  But he agreed to take the fishhook and line and try his luck in the tide pools.  He ambled off down the shore toward the shipwreck, and she straightened up the camp, assessed their supplies, put the dutch oven through its paces, eventually producing almost three cups of semi-fresh water.  She drank some, brushed her teeth, poured the rest into one of the water bags.  The other was empty.  She refilled the dutch oven and started it cooking again, opened one of the last cans of …. 
“I am really getting sick of canned mutton.” 
She looked at the remaining can.  Probably mutton too; put it in the zippered bag.  If the Itasca didn’t arrive today…
She organized their clothes, ropes, sextant, and other gear, found her log-book but seemed to have lost her pencils.  But there was a mechanical pencil and leads in Fred’s navigation kit; she’d ask to borrow those.
“Today I’ll write.  Get caught up.” 
Fred brought back a good-sized fish; he said it was a wrass. She was impressed.
“Hurray! How’d you catch him?”
He shrugged, showing no enthusiasm.
“In a tide pool. Took the hook.”
She scaled and gutted it with her knife, and grilled it on the baking sheet, turning it with the steel straps.  Fred picked at his share with little sign of appetite. Let her examine his head.
It was startling – a great blazing bruised bump with the wound at its center still oozing pus and blood.  His skin was clammy to the touch, and he shivered.  She washed the wound out with salt water and treated it with iodine, left it uncovered to dry in the air.  What else could she do?
“You need to rest.”
“Damn – darn little else to do.”
“They’ll be here today, and we can get you some real medical attention.”
“Yeah.” 
He lay back and threw his arm over his face.  Was he going to sleep again?
“Uh… Fred….”
“Um-hmm?”
“Those coordinates you gave me to give to Bud….?”
He looked at her, frowning. 
“Bud?”
“Don’t you…. ?  Well, here.” 
She pulled the paper out of her shirt pocket. 
“You gave me these numbers to send to the guy we heard – thought we heard – on the radio yesterday. Bud.”
He looked at the paper as though he’d never seen it before, shook his head slowly.
“I….. uh… “  He folded it and put it in his pocket.  Got up a bit shakily.
“I’ll…. uh… take the sextant and check them.” 
He picked up the sextant in its case and walked off down the scree before she could say anything else.
Her watch had stopped, but from the sun’s position she estimated that it was about ten in the morning.  Would he wait and try for a noon fix?  He clearly didn’t recognize the numbers she had given him – the numbers he had written down.  And where had he gotten them anyway, perched up there on top of the plane with no instruments?  And out of his head?
“Oh Fred, Fred,….”
What they had sent Bud, and where the Itasca might be searching as a result?
It looked like the water had boiled down in the dutch oven, so she took it off the fire, checked. Yes, another almost full cup, but the cup had a thin crack down its side.
“It’s eventually going to shatter.”
She would need to keep an eye out for others.  Thought about going to the shipwreck to look for one, but didn’t move.  Finally dug out her log-book, found that Fred had taken his mechanical pencil with him, but shook her zippered bag and the stub of a #2 fell out.
July 6.  I do not know the name of this island.  I’ll call it Norwich Island, after the ship that’s wrecked here.  It’s a big ship, probably a freighter, and it must have struck the island at top speed on the crest of a storm wave to have gone as far as it did up on the reef – almost to the beach.  It looms there as I write this; I am sitting on the upper edge of the rocky coral beach, under a big oak-like tree with no acorns.
I have been here four days.  We landed safely except that Fred hurt his head badly – how badly I am still not sure, but it worries me greatly.  The Electra is still out there on the reef, but there is no question of taking off in it without a great deal of help.  I don’t have the fuel, and one landing gear is stuck in a crack.  The after end of the ship is full of water at high tide.  I fear the tides have been getting higher – going from neap to spring, though we may be past the spring – highest – tide.  I hope so.  If they got high enough to float the ship we might lose it altogether.  I still have hope of getting it to Howland, and then to Honolulu for repairs, so we can finish our flight.  I have been transmitting distress calls whenever I could get to the ship – that is, when the tide hasn’t been too high and the heat hasn’t been intolerable.  We had some communication yesterday – of sorts, with someone called Bud or Bob.  Surely Itasca is on her way by now.
I found a cache of edible canned goods – a miracle! – not far from where we came ashore, probably left by survivors of the shipwreck.  We have been eating from them – mostly mutton, unfortunately – but have just about run through them.  Luckily they haven’t run through us.  Fred caught a fish for us this morning.  I think I may try a booby or its eggs for dinner.  Tomorrow, I feel sure, Itasca will be here.
Fred did stay on the headland – really just the north tip of the island, as flat as the rest of it – until after noon, and she saw him using the sextant, sighting on the sun and bringing its image down to the horizon, then sitting awhile, doubtless checking his tables.  After awhile he came walking slowly back, head down, concentrating on the ground but still stumbling from time to time.  He walked up the scree slope, looking very tired.  Handed her a page of notebook paper.
“Here’s where we are.”
Unlike the note he had given her earlier, this one made sense:  “Long. W174o 32’ 30”  Lat. S 4o 39’ 20”.“
“So, southeast of Howland.”
“Right.  Almost right on the line of position.  About 360 miles.”
“Well.  OK then, I’ll transmit it!” 
She jumped up and started down the scree.  Fred lay back under his tree.
She reached the edge of the reef flat before she realized that the tide was coming in.  It would be waist deep at the plane, and getting higher.  And miserably, baking, steaming stinking hot inside. 
“Maybe wait…..”
But what if the ship floated?  What if it went off the reef?  This might be the last chance!
“We’re past Spring Tide.”
Started to turn around. Stopped.
“How do we know that?”
Turned back toward the plane.
“We don’t.”
Looked back at Fred; he appeared to be asleep.  Kicked a rock, hurt her toe.  Swore, strode into the water and splashed out toward the plane.
“Why didn’t I get him to shoot the sun earlier?” 
Because he was out of his skull, of course, and she was distracted by other things. Why didn’t she this? Why hadn’t she that?  
“Damn it!”
It had to be 120o  inside when she hauled herself through the door.  The tail of the plane was full of water; the smell was like a very old, clogged sewer.  She struggled up over the fuel tanks, gasping in the heat, stuck her head through the hatch for fresh air, dove back into her seat and groped for the microphone.
“KHAQQ to any station.  Amelia Earhart to any station.  Amelia Putnam to any station.  We are at one seven four degrees, thirty-two minutes, thirty seconds west, four degrees, thirty-nine minutes, twenty seconds south.  We are on a reef island near the wreck of a ship named the Norwich.  Please respond.” 
She pounded the mic on her leg till the button slowly rose.  Silence but for static.  Sweat was pouring into her eyes, her head was swimming.  She turned off the radio, started the starboard engine – thank God it started! Dragged herself up through the hatch.  The sun was beastly hot, but there was a bit of a breeze.  She sat there for awhile letting the battery charge, then slid back down and tried another transmission.  No response.  Gasping, afraid of passing out, she shut everything down and crawled up through the hatch, slid down to the reef.  The water was up to her armpits and the waves were breaking against the seaward side of the plane.  It shuddered as each one struck and passed under it. 
She shuddered too, clutched the trailing edge of the wing, planted her feet as though she could hold the plane in place by sheer force of will.
But the plane didn’t move, despite the continuing wave pounding, and eventually she let go and slowly splashed back to shore.   Fred was still sprawled under his tree.
“OK, my turn to get a fish.”  
After a wet, tiring, sometimes frightening and utterly profitless pursuit of fish around a tidepool, she sat for awhile watching the water flow in and out with the surges of surf across the reef.  Watched as the tide gradually dropped and the pool began to drain, the fish draining out too. 
“So, if I blocked the outlets with something that would let the water through but keep the fish in…..” 
What could that be?  Some kind of net?  Nothing leaped to mind, but maybe if she searched the shipwreck, or the old campsite…..
She walked up the rubble slope to the edge of the bush, where a booby sat watching her.  Stopped about six feet from the bird, which raised its shoulders a bit and let out a mild squawk, but made no move to escape.
“Well, Miss or Mister Booby.  I’m sorry, but if it comes to you or me…..” 
But it hadn’t yet come to that, and wouldn’t for a few hours yet
“Put if off.  Itasca may appear any minute.” 
Swept the horizon with a long, intent stare.  Nothing.
As night came on and her stomach growled, she built up the fire and steeled herself to her task.  First down to the shipwreck to find a large enough container.  Found a biscuit tin, filled it with sea water and carried it, staggering with the weight and the uneven ground surface, up to the fire.  Seeing her coming, Fred roused himself to help her carry it the last thirty yards or so.  She settled it among the flaming wood to boil, dusted off her hands, took another long look at the horizon, hardly visible, growing dark.  No ship, no lights. She sighed, turned back to the fire. Fred raised an eyebrow at the can.
“So, that’s for…?” 
“Plucking a bird; there’s only one food can left and I just can’t stand any more mutton – if that’s what it is, and it prob’ly is.”
“Oh.” 
He seemed profoundly uninterested, did not volunteer to catch a bird or fish.  She unholstered her sheath knife, holstered it again. Walked over to a bush under which a booby was sitting quietly, looking at her.  As she got close it raised its wings a little, opened its beak, but made little noise and no attempt to escape.  Forcing herself to feel no emotion, speaking no words of greeting or apology, she dodged its squawking beak, grabbed its big head and swung its body round and round just as she had seen Mary Brashay do with chickens, all those years ago. 
The neck went loose and she let the body drop; it twitched for awhile and then was quiet. It had been sitting on two eggs.
“I’m sorry, booby.”
They had to eat, didn’t they?  Quickly beheaded and disemboweled the bird, threw the guts as far away as she could, let it bleed out. It was a male, she noticed. Back at the fire, she plunged the carcass into the now-boiling water to loosen the feathers.  Just like those times back in Atchison when Mary and Charlie had culled the Otis flock. For fricassee; frying chicken had come neatly prepared from the butcher, not to be seen by children until the parts were presented on a platter, golden and succulent.
“Oh, for shortening and flour…”
She went back to the nesting-place – no nest, really – and collected the eggs to try for breakfast. If necessary.
Down to the shipwreck to find a long, sharp steel rod to spit the bird.  There were quite a few options – both pipes and solid rods.  She chose one of the latter with a point of sorts on it, turned to start back up the beach.  Noticed something in the fading light, half buried in coral rubble.
“Old screen door.” 
What a homely object – like one on the back door in Atchison, but it must have been somewhere on the Norwich’s superstructure.  Why would they need a screen door at sea?
“Wouldn’t.”
Kicked it gently; the wood was falling apart.
“But ships come into port, and there are mosquitoes.” 
She knelt, pulled the screening out of the rotted frame, rolled it up.  Imagined herself using pieces of it to block the channels draining a tide pool.  Yes, it ought to work. 
“Though I’m not going to need it. They’ll be here by morning.”
Back at the fire, she pulled the booby out of the water and quickly plucked it.  Fred watched with no particular evidence of interest.  She spitted the bird on the rod and rolled a big rock around to the fire’s edge.  Stuck the blunt end of the rod in the rubble, leaned it over the rock so the bird was suspended over the fire.  Sat back satisfied, and turned it from time to time.  Thought of asking Fred to do it, decided to leave him to his reverie.  Walked down the beach away from the fire and scanned the darkness out to sea.  No lights.
When she judged the bird to be cooked, she laid it on the baking sheet and pulled meat off the bones.  Offered some to Fred; he ate a little without enthusiasm, and without conversation.  She ate most of the breast – fishy, but not intolerable.   Fred sat looking into the fire.
“Can I look at your head?”
“What?”
“Your head.  Let’s see how it’s healing.”
“Right.  Do need to go to the head.” 
He levered himself up slowly from the ground and stumbled into the darkness.  She watched and listened till he came back, moving slowly, and without another word lay down to sleep. 
But he was troubled in his dreams, thrashing about, talking incomprehensibly.  She sat beside him, talked to him soothingly, stroked his arm, and he finally calmed.  She used a flashlight to examine his head – terribly swollen, pulsating, oozing pus.  She treated it as best she could without waking him, lay down in her hammock and fell instantly asleep, not waking until well after nightfall.
At about midnight the tide was low and Fred was awake – weak and shaky, but coherent.  He insisted on going with her to the plane.  Again he held the flashlight – shakily – while she transmitted.  Distress calls in voice, SOSs with the maddeningly sticky mic button.  Listened.  Sometimes she thought she heard a response of some kind, and once “KHAQQ” came through loud and clear, but then dissolved into static.  She was about to give up when the receiver came to life – a faint voice, but a voice, male of course. Had he said “Earhart?”   
She looked at Fred, wild with excitement.  He seemed to rouse a bit, smiled weakly.  She grasped the mic, waited till the voice stopped, pressed the button.  It felt like it was embedded in jelly.
“KHAQQ to unknown station.  Can you read me?  Can you read me?  This is Amelia Earhart.  Please come in.” 
Beat the mic on her leg; the button grudgingly came up.  No response – or maybe – a carrier wave at least.  Maybe …..
Fred slumped against the bulkhead, dropped the flashlight. 
“KHAQQ to unknown station.  Amelia Earhart to unknown station.  We are at one seven four degrees, thirty-two minutes, thirty seconds west, four degrees, thirty-nine minutes, twenty seconds south  We have taken in water, my navigator is badly hurt.  Repeat – on island reef longitude one seven four degrees, thirty-two minutes, thirty seconds west, latitude four degrees thirty-nine minutes, twenty seconds south.  Taking water, navigator hurt.  We are in need of medical care and must have help; we can’t hold on much longer.”
No response this time, not even a carrier wave.  And power was getting low.  And Fred……
Nothing for it.  She shut down the radio.  Either they had heard her or they hadn’t.  A wave hit the ship and it shuddered; how high had the water gotten? 
“Fred?  Can you move?” 
She shook his shoulder.  He looked up, grimaced.
“Amelia?  Have I been out?  I’m sorry….” 
He groped around at his feet, found the flashlight.
“It’s OK.  We made contact!  I think.  I sent the coordinates!”
“Great…  good…  They’ll be here soon, then.  Let’s….”
“Yes, get out of here.  Fresh air.  Come on.” 
She climbed up through the hatch, reached down and helped him to follow.  The tide was coming in, but still quite low; the wave she had felt must have just been a freak, a rogue.  But if such waves were common…
Nothing to do about it.  And they’ve heard us.  They know where we are!  They’re coming!”  She slid down into knee-deep water and Fred followed.  She patted the fuselage hopefully and led the way to shore. 
“Damn!”
Fred stopped short.  She turned back toward him.  The water glistened around him, alternating streaks of black and moon-silver.  Star reflections sparkled in the black streaks.
“What’s wrong?”
“Forgot the flashlight.  Set it on top of the tank…”
“Never mind; it’s light enough to see, and we have the other one in camp.” 

She took his hand; he came along without resistance. Up the scree slope, shaking water out of their clothes.  Fred offered her the raft; she declined and he didn’t argue.  She climbed into her hammock and fell asleep instantly. 
----------------------
Notes
“…Bogie…” “Bogie was played in the barn on the bluff above the river (in Atchison) which – once full of horses and carriages -- now contained just one carriage, complete with carriage lamps. Amelia, with her vivid imagination, turned the vehicle into a magic chariot in which she, accompanied most often by Katch and Lucy (Challis) and Muriel, traveled the world.” East to the Dawn, p. 36. “There, in an old abandoned carriage, we made imaginary journeys full of fabulous perils.”  Last Flight, p. 84; “In the semi-darkness of the barn we climbed into the carriage and magically age, sex, time and space were transmuted.” Courage is the Price p. 57 (note: Ms. Morrissey refers to the game as “bogey).

Doctor Eyth’s vegetable formula…” See “The Lady and the Lake,” by Joe Cerniglia, http://ameliaearhartarchaeology.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-lady-and-lake-joe-cerniglias_8.html, for discussion of AE’s (and GP’s) devotion to vegetable extract. Cerniglia’s research suggests that Dr. Eyth may have been the druggist whose product AE recommended to her mother and sister, and said she and GP used.

The hand crème, the Mennen skin lotion, her little jar of freckle cream…” All products in use in 1937, and found at the Seven Site on Nikumaroro. See for example Joe Cerniglia, “Notion of a Lotion,” http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/62_LotionBottle/62_LotionBottle.htm

We’ll certainly be able to give them some good endorsements, though.” We suspect, but have not been able to verify, that AE agreed to endorse the products of corporate contributors to the World Flight’s financing.

“…just as she had seen Mary Brashay do with chickens…” Mary Brashay was a long-term servant in the Otis (Earhart’s maternal grandparents’) household in Atchison (See for instance East to the Dawn, p. 16); she is as likely as anyone I can imagine to have shown Amelia how to dispatch a chicken, though she may not have intended to.

Charlie.” Charlie Parks, the Otis’ other long-time servant. (See East to the Dawn, pp. 16, 29, 54, 56.

“…the parts were presented on a platter, golden and succulent.” See “Amelia Earhart’s Favorite Dish” at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/427771664577742088/

Imagined herself using pieces of it to block the channels draining a tide pool.” We have found multiple pieces of windowscreen at the Seven Site on Nikumaroro, and suspect that this was how they were used.

“…a faint voice, but a voice… Had he said ‘Earhart?’” Lookouts aboard Itasca, searching north of Howland Island, on the night of July 6th thought they saw flares. Chief Radioman Leo Bellarts transmitted: “Earhart from Itasca. We see your flares and are proceeding toward you.” When nothing was found, Itasca’s captain concluded, probably correctly, that what had been seen were flashes of heat lightning. Finding Amelia: 189-90. 

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