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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