AE on Norwich Island Part 8

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island

Part 8

July 7^th, 1937

She woke to bird cries and surf sounds.  The sun was just coming up, and overhead the birds were streaming out to sea to seek their breakfasts. She watched them with a sense, almost, of contentment, and then hunched up in the hammock to scan the horizon, and the reef….

“Oh my God!” 

Out on the reef, the plane was – somehow lower than it had been, and it had changed positions.  It had moved again!

And was continuing to move, slowly, in jerks on each breaker, in toward her, then toward the reef edge, and turning.

“The gear must’ve broken off.  And…  oh my god, it’s floating!  Fred!  The ship’s floating!”

She scrambled up, into her shoes. Sprinted down the scree, out onto the reef flat, deeply drowned by the high tide.  Splashed out till the water was up to her waist before realizing….

“What are you going to do, you idiot?” 

She stopped, balancing herself on the coral as the waves ran around her.  Whatever the ship was going to do, she couldn’t stop it.  All she could do was watch.

The Electra had come to the edge of the reef.  A swell came in and carried it back a few feet toward shore, then toward the edge again.  All in silence but for the boom of the breakers, the cries of the birds.

On the edge, teetering.  Another swell crashed around it, partly over it.  This time it didn’t move back toward land.  As the swell withdrew, finally there was sound – an anguished shriek of aluminum on coral, a ripping, tearing sound.

The right wing dipped, the left wing came up like the ship was banking into a turn.  Then another swell hit it.  Another scream, and then it slid, slid, over the reef edge. Bobbed, tail in the air, for long seconds, a minute, two…

And then dove smoothly, without further sound, out of sight.

Fred had come up behind her, silent.  Now he put his arms around her waist.  She hardly noticed.

“Gone.  The ship’s gone.  Gone.” 

A crazy hope flashed across her brain; it would get caught on a ledge, and when Itasca got here they could get a line on it and….

Don’t be stupid.  Even if it did hang up, the waves would soon beat it into scrap metal against the wicked cruel coral of the reef edge.

“Wicked, cruel, coral.”

Tears flowed down her cheeks. 

“Cruel, wicked, hard coral….”

Fred finally spoke, gripping her shoulders.

“Ships sink, Amelia.”

Yes, and theirs just had.

“Ships sink, but people survive.”

She let him turn her around, let him walk her to the shore and back to camp.  Let him help her sit down in the raft.  She was vaguely aware of him standing away from her, watching, as his words circulated through her mind. 

“Ships sink. Ships sink.  Ships sink…..” 

She lay back on the raft’s gunwale, was briefly, vaguely aware of the blue morning sky and white clouds through the branches overhead; then they dissolved into nothingness.

-----o-----

“But people survive. People survive.”

Behind closed eyelids, she replayed the morning’s events and then deliberately, carefully put them aside. Stored them away for future reference and thought instead about Fred.

“Ships sink, but people survive.”

Fred had had ships torpedoed out from under him during the War.  She had never asked him about it, and he had never volunteered anything.

Time to change that.  Who knew how long they would be stuck here; she might as well get his story.  In the end, he was really a good man, a competent and thoughtful man, in many ways an attractive man.  Not the worst man to share a desert island.  And writing his story, along with her journal of their Robinson Crusoe, Coral Island sojourn, would pass the time.

And it would be better than castigating herself for things she should have done, or not done. No, there was no point in doing that. None.

The breeze tickled her cheeks, boobies cried.  She opened her eyes to green leaves, white birds flying, blue sky.  Sat up and looked out at the reef.  Empty, but for birds circling and diving, surf crashing, and – was that a piece of the plane sticking up?  A landing gear somehow stuck in the reef, airwheel tire in the air?  She examined it with almost clinical detachment.

“Had to leave a reminder, did you?”

She turned to share her thoughts with Fred, and her heart seemed to stop. 

He wasn’t in the raft.  Of course he wasn’t in the raft; she was in the raft.  He was… 

“Oh my God!”

She could see only his feet, protruding from behind a bush about thirty yards inland. They were jerking in the strangest way…..

She was on her feet in an instant, stumbling up the slope, screaming silently as she began pulling the crabs off him.  They were everywhere!  A massive carpet of them, around and on him, under his shirt, inside his pants.  Delicately, oh so delicately pinching off pieces of flesh and delivering them to their mouth-parts.

“Oh God Oh God Oh God….” 

She slapped at them, grabbed them and threw them away, seized a piece of driftwood and scraped them off him.  Finally seized his hands and dragged him away from the mass of them, farther inland. Came back and stomped on them, kicked them, dropped big rocks on them.

Back to Fred.  Blood everywhere; could he possibly still be alive?

No.  His nose was gone.  One eyeball too; the other hanging by – what, the optic nerve?  Ears mangled.  She ripped open his shirt; there was a gaping hole exposing his intestines, full of crabs.  Little ones, mostly, the size of fingernails – she scooped them out, scraped them off, threw them away by the handful. 

Finally she seemed to have discouraged them.  She crouched by his body, glaring at them, and they stayed away – ten feet or so, but she knew they could cover that distance in seconds.  Some were up in bushes, clinging to twigs and branches, staring at her with their eye-stalks. 

“Oh, you godawful monsters…..” 

She was going to cry, or throw up, or both.

No she wasn’t.  She wasn’t!  She was going to bury the body.  Had to, save him – what was left of him.  If she left him unburied for a moment they’d be all over him.

Of course, if they were all over him they wouldn’t be all over her.  Brush that thought away! 

She began digging.  The rubble was easy enough to move by hand; she threw pieces at the crabs, hitting some, driving them back.  Digging occupied her mind, her hands; it was good.  Back and forth, digging a trench as long as his body, next to it, just outside where his blood was soaking down into the coral. 

When she had the trench down about a foot she took a break. Shuddering, went through his pockets. Collecting personal effects to turn over to Bea. Bushwa! She didn’t want to bury things she might need.  Collected his lighter, his wallet – that was for Bea, though it – like the pocket from which she extracted it – was thick with coagulating blood.  His mechanical pencil out of his shirt pocket.  Left his watch; he’d been attached to his Pan Am watch.  It didn’t seem to be working anyway.  Had it been working when he took his sightings on the sun?  No knowing.

Quickly, not giving the crabs a chance to reassemble, she ran over and dumped Fred’s belongings in the raft.  Her hands were covered in blood; she wiped them on the raft’s gunwale, raced back to Fred, stomping and kicking crabs along the way.

Back to digging, till she was exhausted, and her hands were bleeding from contact with the stones.  The trench was down to two feet or more.  That was going to have to be enough.

Pushed him, pulled him, rolled his body over into the trench-grave; used the driftwood to push and scoop rubble over him.  Piled it higher and higher, then collected beach rocks and piled them on top.  Anything to keep the crabs out.  Hoped it would keep them out!  Thought about a gravestone, couldn’t decide how to make one. 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

They’d just dig him up when Itasca got there. 

“God, what a shock they’ll have.” 

But she would warn them. She was already working on how to describe Fred’s death, how to write about it.

Down to the reef, to a tide pool.  She stripped, plunged into the water, scrubbed her clothes, her body, getting the blood off.  Stood nude in the sea breeze, collecting her scattered, shattered thoughts, scanning the still-empty sea.

How had he died?  Surely the crabs hadn’t killed him – he would have screamed, yelled, and it had all been silent.  But for the clatter of shells – she shuddered at the memory, and at the fact that they were still clattering, scattering over the rubble. She turned to see where they were going. Back to the death site, mostly.

“After the blood. God!”  

What to do about them? Well, maybe they couldn’t dig through the heavy rubble covering – poor Fred. And if they congregated on the drying blood she could kill them by the dozen, and maybe that would discourage them.

“Maybe.”

Were crabs discouraged by the deaths of their compatriots?  Did they care?  Did they think?

She shook her head.  Probably not. Just eating machines.

“So…”

She shook out her clothes, pulled them back on.  Glanced again at the open sea.  Nobody watching. Nobody out there.

“He gave me the raft, and I was…..”

So destroyed by the loss of the ship that she had just passed out.  She shook her head.

“Well……”

And Fred, then, had walked into the woods and – what?  Killed himself?  Slashed his wrists?  She hadn’t seen a knife by the body.  He hadn’t shot himself; she’d left their only gun in Lae.  Did he just – die? 

“God!”

Was it a prayer? Yes.

“I hope so.” 

His gear was neatly arranged by the raft.  The sextant in its box, his little tin African briefcase with toothbrush and razor, two shirts in a paper bag, the coveralls they had bought in Fortaleza.  And in another bag, a pair of jockey shorts and  -- a handsome, unopened bottle of Benedictine. 

Shaking her head, she carried the bottle down to the grave, tossing it up and down.

“More weight than he should’ve carried.  I wonder when he ….” 

Forget it, it didn’t matter. But what to do with the booze?

“Plenty of rocks around…”

It would be satisfying to watch the stuff sink into the coral rubble. She raised the bottle to smash it on the stones covering the grave.

“But…”

She might need it. What if, God forbid, Itasca didn’t come, but a passing fisherman did?

“Trade item…”

Or she could pour it out in something. Watch the crabs get drunk.

“Amusing, perhaps, but defeats the purpose.”

Purpose. What was the purpose of booze? She shook her head, tears starting, and set the bottle at the head of the grave.

“You hang onto it, Fred. Poor devil.”

The blood had soaked down into the coral, and dried.  The crabs seemed to be losing interest in it; there were only a dozen or so scrabbling around.  She stomped on them.

It was early afternoon, and she was done.  But hadn’t even started on the day’s work she had been thinking about before the plane….. 

She spoke to a passing booby.

“OK. Onward, get the jobs done.  One less mouth to feed, anyhow.” 

Being cruel and callous seemed to help somehow, to feel good. She looked at his grave, spoke to it.

“Just like a man. So damn much work to do, and what do you do?  Good bye, Amelia!  Or Marie!  I’m checking out now!  Toodle-oo!”

She sat on the scree with the wind lifting her hair, and thought about being alone. What poor company a man was, so much of the time. Nothing like her childhood crowd in Atchison, nothing like her adult female friends. They understood her. But men…

“Even men one’s married to…”

Though G.P. was a fine man. Thoughtful, supportive, and he’d make sure that the Navy found her. He and Gene and Eleanor.

Eleanor.  Looking out to sea, she could almost see the homely, wise face out there somewhere in the clouds.

“Eleanor!  Where are you?  Where is Franklin?  This can’t be happening!  He’s the President!  It’s the Fourth of July!”

No it wasn’t; it was the Seventh.  Or the Sixth?  The Eighth?  Hadn’t she just written the date somewhere?  Where?  How had she known?  Had she?

She felt weak, dizzy. Hadn’t eaten all morning.  Trembling, she gathered firewood, got the fire going. Found the booby eggs and cracked them on her cooking sheet, was instantly repulsed by the little not-quite-formed boobies she found there.

“Oh god! Feathers, even!”

She tipped them into the fire and walked around for awhile letting them burn up. Another booby was sitting on the nest from which they had come. Looked somewhat different from the one she had butched.

“Female, I’ll bet. Laying another egg. But for now…”

She found the rubberized bag and extracted the last can.  Pulled out her knife.

“What’ll it be today, folks?” 

She punctured the top, twisted, sawed, pried it open.  Turned up her nose.

“God, beets!” 

And stained with rust.  But she ate them anyway.

As she ate, she kept finding herself looking up toward Fred – toward his grave – the pile of coral rubble and beach rocks barely visible over the crest of the beach.  Tried not to think about him, alive or dead, and particularly not as she had last seen him.  Finishing the beets, she used a tiny bit of water and a pinch of Vince to brush her teeth.  Checked herself in her compact’s mirror.  The ship would surely arrive today, and she'd better look good for the press.  There might even be a newsreel cameraman on board. Well, “good” might be stretching it.

"Heavens, those freckles!"

Fished around in the zippered bag and found the little jar of freckle créme.  Almost empty; it was the last one of the six she had started with.  She dabbed a finger-full on each side of her nose, rubbed it in.  Maybe the freckles would pale out by the time anyone saw her.  Rubbed her hands on her pants, scanned the horizon again.  Still empty.

She dragged her gear from their campsite – Fred’s camp – to a new one under the next big tree down the shore.  It was only perhaps fifty yards, but it was different, farther away from that mound of coral, the bloodstain.  Considered for a moment and then brought Fred’s gear too – clothes, shoes, his little tin briefcase, the sextant, his sun helmet. His jockey shorts. She held them up. Why did men wear such things? Hardly better than panties. And men had equipment to contain down there. Thought about Gene, put the thought away.

“Not my style, but you never know.”

She found two convenient trees and hung her hammock, gathered driftwood but didn’t start a new fire yet; it seemed like too much trouble. 

But a fire would make smoke  – smoke to attract attention.  Maybe…  She stared out to sea.  No ships.

“I’ll see them, for heaven’s sake, and then will I ever build a fire!” 

She went down to the beach by the Norwich’s rusted bow, littered with trash of all kinds. Found the rubber mats she thought she had remembered, dragged them up to her campsite to add to the fire when the time came.

“That’ll give them some smoke to see.”

And what a story she’d have to tell them!  Culminating with the tragedy of Fred’s passing, so soon before rescue, and …..  She shook her head, fished around in the zippered bag and found her log-book.  Took Fred’s pencil from her pocket. 

“They’ll love it at the Herald.” 

She felt better imagining how the book would sell.  Looked at yesterday’s entry – the 6^th.  Of course, today was the 7^th.

July 7^th.  We have lost the ship.  When we awoke this morning, it was floating – I think the landing gear had broken off from the constant back-and-forth battering of the waves.  Even as we watched, it floated to the edge of the reef, raised a wing as though in farewell, and slid gracefully beneath the wave.  It left one landing gear wedged in the reef, standing upright – wheel in the air – like a sentinel.

So the World Flight has ended.  All we can do now is wait for rescue.

Why do I say “we?”  It’s just me now.  Fred – it’s so hard to say – Fred is dead.  Died peacefully, I hope, presumably from complications of his concussion, right after we watched the ship disappear and while I was unconscious.  The crabs began to ….

She couldn’t write about it.  Not yet.  Couldn’t relive it.

I buried him in the coral beach rubble, and have his personal effects to give Bea.  That seems so cold, so impersonal.  Fred was a good man, a fine navigator, a wonderful, gracious companion-in-adventure.  I shall miss him.

She closed the notebook; unsatisfactory as it was, that was all she could write, for now.  When Itasca came…..

“They’re coming, they’re coming.  They’ll be here soon.”

She pondered the sea, the whirling birds, the crashing surf, the red sun dropping into great piles of gray cloud along the horizon.

“But until they get here, you’re on your own, Millie – just like you’ve always been.”

In the sunset she walked down the scree, away from the fire. Let her eyes adjust and stared out into the night, across the empty reef flat, out to sea.

“Ships sink,” she murmured into the darkness, at the band of moonlit white surf marking where the Electra had vanished.  Remembered Fred’s words, his arms around her waist, willed away a vision of his crab-ravaged face.

“But people survive.”

There were no lights beyond the surf line.  Just stars in their millions winking on above the horizon.

“So -- don’t waste time mourning – survive!"

She turned her back on the sea and marched back to the fire.

-----------------
Notes:

“Bobbed, tail in the air, for long seconds, a minute, two…” Whether and how far the Electra might have floated has been the subject of considerable debate. Assuming it went over the reef edge relatively intact, the weight of its engines would have undoubtedly caused it to float nose-down; see Finding Amelia p. 190. How long it might have floated, if at all, depends on how intact its by-then empty fuel tanks were. I assume that it didn’t float long, but this is only an assumption.

“…was that a piece of the plane sticking up?” The so-called “Bevington Object,” aka “Nessie.” – see http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/69_BevingtonObjectUpdate/69_BevingtonObjectUpdate.html. Also, I suspect, the purported aircraft wreckage described by Emily Sikuli – see http://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/15_1/carpentersdaugh.html and Amelia Earhart’s Shoes pp 268-70, 275-77.

“…pinching off pieces of flesh…” For what crabs do to a body, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBXpSSEcXYs

“Some were up in bushes, clinging to twigs and branches, staring at her with their eye-stalks.” In 2001 I performed an informal experiment with lamb bones from the previous night’s dinner, wrapped in a TIGHAR work shirt that my wife hated and wanted me not to bring home. I put the package under a tree north of the Seven Site, and went back an hour later to observe. The shirt was pulsating with feeding crabs, which were dragging bones out and fighting over them. Many others were perched in nearby trees and bushes, seemingly watching and waiting their turn.

“She’d left their only gun in Lae” In 2012, in the context of a discussion about whether AE and Noonan had a flare gun, Gary LaPook posted documents at https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?topic=985.0 suggesting that AE carried a small pistol on the World Flight, which she had left in Lae. Although TIGHAR’s Ric Gillespie has dismissed these data as faulty, I see no reason to do so. Harry Balfour’s report that AE left “her pistol and ammunition” at Lae is widely interpreted to refer to the flare gun (c.f. Sound of Wings p. 264), but Balfour didn’t actually say it was a flare gun, and the flare gun seems an unlikely thing to leave behind when about to depart on a long over-ocean flight.

“…the coveralls they had bought in Fortaleza” See Last Flight, p. 69

“But what to do with the booze?” AE’s father Edwin’s alcoholism was a dark cloud over her adolescent years. See for instance East to the Dawn pp 53-8 and Letters from Amelia pp. 33-6.

Eleanor, Franklin. The Roosevelts. Amelia and Eleanor were friends, and Earhart supported the president’s reelection campaign. Roosevelt had authorized construction of the landing field on Howland Island. See East to the Dawn pp. 288-90, 349-52, 362-3, 365-6.

“Not my style, but you never know.” According to Gore Vidal, AE wore men’s boxer shorts while flying, because they were more comfortable under slacks than women’s underwear, and to accommodate in-flight urination. Gore’s father Gene said he procured them for her. See for instance East to the Dawn pp. 291, 338.

“They’ll love it at the Herald.” AE had a contract with the New York Harald under which she supplied the newspaper with an ongoing series of accounts describing the progress of the World Flight. These accounts were later published by GP as Last Flight.

“Don’t waste time…” Per Joe Hill, 1915: “Don’t waste time mourning – organize.”  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_mourn,_organize! I have no idea whether AE was a fan of Joe Hill’s, but her political views seem to have tended in liberal/progressive directions.