July 8th, 1937
Her
dawn scan of the horizon was disappointing as usual – so usual that it almost
wasn’t disappointing. She hurried up the beach to Fred’s grave as the sunlight
began to flood the landscape. It was undisturbed; only a couple of crabs
crawling around on it, and a few more down on the fading blood patch.
“Thank
God!”
For
small favors. He was still dead. She had… no she hadn’t!
She
strode back to her camp, got the fire started, filled the dutch oven with
seawater and put it on to boil. Stood awhile under the trees where her hammock
was slung, searching her field of view – up to the north cape, down to where
the horizon disappeared behind the shoreline vegetation to the south.
A
booby marched across the rubble downslope. She nodded to it.
“OK.
Right. On with it. There’s really no point in staying here, now that the ship’s
gone and I don’t have – don’t have Fred to – to take care of. I …”
She
sat down suddenly on the scree, face in her hands, shaking. Gradually became
calm. Fixed her eyes on the unbroken line of the western horizon.
“I
might as well see what the rest of this place has to offer.”
Maybe
it offered fresh water. The dutch oven
was beginning to bubble, but it was slow, slow. And it took constant
tending. If one of those pools she’d
seen at the other end of the island was fresh….
“But
why should it be? If it were, wouldn’t
there be people living here?”
The
booby had stopped pacing, was standing and staring at her.
“Yes,
there would. But who knows? And I’d look
pretty stupid sitting up here operating this silly still when there was a whole
lake of fresh water down at the other end.”
But
what if Itasca came?
“When
Itasca comes, they’ll circle the
island.” The booby cocked its head at her as though listening. “That’s only natural. Sure, they’ll see the shipwreck, and….”
Well,
that was something to consider. If
they’d heard her broadcast, they’d be looking for the Norwich…..
“In
which case, they’ll come ashore and look.
So I’ll leave my camp so it’s easy to see. Even….”
Rising
in a rustle of coral gravel, she slid down toward the shipwreck. Wrenched a
piece of wood paneling out of the scree – some piece of the
superstructure. Carried it back up to
camp, dug her compact out of the zippered bag and pried the rouge from its
compartment. She almost never used
rouge, so what was in the compact was dry and hard. She used it like a crayon to write on the
panel: “At other end. AE.” Propped it up against some rocks and the tool
kit – easy to recognize as being from an airplane. She carefully returned the rouge to its
compartment, the compact to the bag.
Pulled the dutch oven out of the fire to let it cool. Another cup of
water. Shooed the nesting booby off her nest and found an egg – guaranteed
fresh! Took it back and fried it on the steel plate. Ate it quickly – not bad!
– and got back to work.
Sorting
through her supplies, she stacked most of them carefully in the midst of her
camp, where they would be easily visible to anyone coming up the scree slope
from the shore. Tied one of Fred’s
shirts to a tree branch where it would flutter in the wind. Packed the zippered bag with only the most
basic gear – the bone-handled knife as a back-up to her sheath knife, Fred’s
lighter, the eyepiece from the sextant in case the lighter gave out. Fred’s bottle of skin bracer, her toothbrush,
her tin of Vince and vial of vegetable concentrate. The bar of soap.
Wrinkled
up her nose. “You’re getting smelly, Millie.”
She’d
been in and out of the water often enough going out to the plane, but had only
had two baths since they’d landed, and yesterday’s had been a distracted one.
“If
there’s fresh water in those ponds…..” Shook her head.
“If
there’s fresh water in those ponds, you’re not going to mess it up with soap.”
Well,
she’d find another tide pool to bathe in, and never mind the salt. But for now…
she decanted the fresh water into a water bag, added the cup and dutch oven to
the zippered bag. The signal pistol and a couple of flares. Went to get the
raft, back at the old camp. Fred’s camp.
There
was something wrong with it. Only one
side seemed to be inflated, and not very inflated at that. She’d have to pump it up. Where was the pump?
“Uh-oh.”
There was a long, jagged cut across the raft’s
once-inflated gunwale. As she approached,
a crab crawled out of it.
“Oh damnation!”
She kicked the crab and it soared off into the
brush. Another came out and she stomped
on it. Hurt her foot; the crab scuttled away.
“Damn, damn, DAMN!”
She had wiped her bloody hands on the gunwale
after throwing in the contents of Fred’s pockets. That had been enough to attract the crabs,
and they had simply….
“Eaten it.”
Picked and pinched and chewed right
through the rubberized fabric, let all the air out, and gone exploring
inside. The raft was ruined.
“Eaten its little innerds out. Damn!”
Up to the north, over the cape where Fred had
taken his sightings, birds were circling. Circling, circling.
“OK, so be it.”
She gathered Fred’s belongings – a crab had
started working on his wallet; she grabbed it from the beast’s claws and
tromped on its pilfered shell. Too hard to crush with a foot; she kicked it
into the brush. Carried her gleanings
back to her hammock, dumped them. Forced away thoughts of him. Look forward.
“OK, then.
If I can’t raft across the channel, I’ll darn well walk around the other
way.”
She threw the straps of the two bags over her
shoulder and started off, leaning on the bamboo rod.
She headed north along the shore, to round the
north end and walk down the long northeasterly shore she remembered from the
overflight. Passing Fred’s grave, she let
herself experience regret, loneliness, guilt, but quickly put it all away. No
point in it. Tipped his sun helmet to
him.
“Thanks, Fred.”
When Itasca showed up, she would really
have to get rid of the helmet. It
wouldn’t do to be photographed in it; it would seem – disrespectful, and it
would be on front pages all over the world.
Was she disrespectful? Irresponsible? Had she
brought all this on? Made this happen?
She marched on.
As far as she could remember, there had been no
passages through the reef on the northeasterly side of the island; it should be
a straight walk down to the ponds at the far end. How long a walk once she rounded the north
end? Three miles? Four?
Not far; she’d be there by midday.
Though the going was not entirely easy.
The beach sloped steeply and was mostly made up of coral rubble; it was
like walking the side of a gravel pile.
Before she had gone half a mile the muscles of her legs were beginning
to complain at the strain of walking on a slope – a slope that was none too
stable, and slid under her feet.
Should she go inland? No, where the beach ended
there was a belt of thick, tangled brush, with the big gray-barked trees
behind, and doubtless piles of deadfall, bushes, and vines. No point trying to struggle through that; the
beach was the clearest highway. She
walked as close to the water as she could – here it was sometimes almost flat,
and often she was walking on solid coral, which wasn’t too slippery if she
stayed above the water line. Little
sharks and moray eels swam alongside as she walked, and the tide pools teemed
with fish.
Here was a small grove of coconut palms, but
there were no fresh nuts on the ground, and she had no way to climb the
trees. Most of the trees were old, and
easily 40 feet high. And they didn’t have steps cut into them like trees did in
inhabited areas.
“Don’t know how I’d climb them even if there were
steps.”
She experimented, trying to cut a step with her
Javanese knife. The fibrous trunk was far too tough. The work needed a machete.
Could she climb without steps? Climbing, after
all, was her forte.
She took off her shoes and tried, got about six
feet up the trunk before losing her foothold and sliding back down, painfully
scraping the insides of her thighs. Landed in a heap and sat looking up at the
waving treetops.
“Hence the steps.”
And what would she do if she got to the top? She
had seen young men twisting coconuts off their stems, dropping them to the
ground, but that meant hanging onto the trunk with their legs while…
“Break my fool neck.”
There were half a dozen or so much smaller trees,
doubtless grown from nuts dropped by the bigger ones, but none of them seemed
to have anything harvestable.
Could she knock a nut down with another nut? She
tried to pick one up off the ground, but it wouldn’t budge – it was rooted in
tight. Another fell apart in her hands. Finally she found one she could lift,
that held together. Backed up, set up as though for a penalty shot.
“Aaaand up!”
The coconut soared up – graceful, powerfully
thrown – about fifteen feet, and arced uselessly into the bush. She recovered
it and tried a football pitch. No go; the coconut was far heavier than a
football.
“Well, shucks.”
There had to be a way, but with any luck she
wouldn’t have to find it. She picked up her bags and walked on.
The shoreline began to curve to her right, first
gently, then acutely. Soon the Norwich
was out of sight. And then she was
gazing down a long, straight beach that faded into the misty distance. She felt
the northeast trade wind full in her face.
“Certainly is the windward side.” Wilder than the
other side, big white-topped rollers coming in like galloping horses, booming
and roaring on the distant reef-edge.
“All the way from America.”
If she could only
ride them back…..
The beach was flatter here, and somewhat more
like a real beach, with sand – or at least coral that was ground down into
relatively small pieces. She walked
close to the edge of the waves, where they lapped gently on the beach after
breaking on the reef, a hundred yards or more out. Lots of tide pools, lots of fish.
Some portions of the reef were almost paved with
sea cucumbers. Looking, she thought, like a million dogs had pooped on the
reef.
“Beche de
mer.”
Tried to remember how they were prepared. She had eaten them in
Indonesia, in some kind of stew.
“Dry them, that’s what they do. Then cut them up
and cook them in a sauce.”
She didn’t have sauce makings, but if worst came
to worst…
Time for a bath? No, not yet, though there were
inviting tide pools.
“Not quite ready to consort with the cucumbers.”
Kept walking, scanning the horizon. Where, oh where was Itasca?
On her right, the beach sloped up to where the
vegetation started – thick, tangled brush just like on the other side, with the
same big gray-barked trees behind. Lots
of birds in the trees, and nesting under the bushes. Just as tame as on the other side, seemingly,
but she didn’t walk up to them to see if they would react. Every now and then an opening in the brush
gave her a view of the interior – just the big trees, and sometimes more brush.
The walk became
monotonous, the heat intense, the bags banging on her sides uncomfortable. But the wind was cooling, and the beach was
pretty flat, easy going as long as she walked on the packed, wet sand close to
the water’s edge. It really was sand
now, albeit very grainy sand.
She turned, looked
back at her footprints. Her absolutely isolated footprints. Walked on.
Surprised to find tears on her cheeks.
“Oh God damn it! Why
did it…?”
She walked on, into
what felt like darkness though the sun was bright and hot.
“He didn’t have to come.
I didn’t force him.”
“Needed a navigator.”
Another dozen steps.
“He wanted to come.
He begged me to let him come.”
That wasn’t quite
true. She shook her head. But he had wanted to. And she had needed him.
“It was his big
chance. Make his name, for his navigation school.”
The darkness
gathered. She staggered a bit in a patch of soft sand, wobbled, caught herself.
“I didn’t cause…oh
damn, damn, DAMN!”
She spun, sat down
heavily, face in hands, tears springing.
“I didn’t kill him! I
didn’t kill him!”
Lay on her back, arm
over her eyes against the sun, steadying herself.
“It’s done. It’s
damned rotten, bloody rotten, godawful rotten. But it’s done, and
there’s no use…”
She lay for a time
under the baking sun, with the surf loud in her ears. Nothing happened.
Sat up, wiped her
eyes, struggled to her feet and marched on, shaking her head. Nothing was
resolved, but the darkness had gone away.
“I don’t know what
killed him, and I guess I never will.”
“It all just seems
so… so unnecessary. So wrong!”
“But it’s what is…”
She walked on. And
on.
Ahead of her,
something shiny but brown caught her eye, moving at the edge of the water. An animal? No, it was something inanimate,
just washing in and out with the waves.
“A bottle.”
She dodged a wave and
grabbed it before it could wash out again.
A brown, long-necked bottle.
Beer. Probably beer. It looked familiar. Probably American.
An American bottle
must mean….. She peered at the horizon,
first one way, then the other. Surely…..
“Don’t be a ninny, Millie. It could have floated here from – Los
Angeles, or….”
Several minutes later
– or longer? She came back to herself,
sitting on the beach. Looked at her wet
hands, felt her wet cheeks.
“Crying. Again.”
Why? When would she
stop?
On your feet, Millie. Keep going.
Don’t stop. Don’t think. No, keep thinking but think forward. What’s
past is done. Keep planning, keep looking ahead. The future, Millie, the future.
“The future. In the future….”
Itasca would
come. She would get home. She would write about the adventure, about
poor Fred. She would fly again…..
“Fly….”
Come on, Millie. Take the bottle, it might be handy to collect
water. Where had it come from? Oh yes, America….. the ocean… She unzipped the zippered bag, dropped the
bottle in. Gathered up the bags, walked on.
The shore seemed
endless, passing like a slow, boring newsreel.
The heat reflecting up from the coral was scorching; her eyes closed to
slits; her gait slowed. The whole world,
all existence, seemed to have become focused down to the sole activity of
placing one foot before another. She
stumbled on, not thinking, trying not to think.
And on, and on….
She woke with a
start; she had dozed off.
“My goodness,
sleepwalking!”
Felt her face and
knew it – and her arms – were sunburned.
“Damn.”
She turned toward the
water, to splash her face. Wait, the salt would sting.
“Well…..”
She had things for
sunburn; she’d come prepared for that. Stumbled
up to the shade of the bushes, put down the zippered bag and opened it. Considered the last dregs of Freckle crème in
the elegant little footed jar. No, that
would burn. Mennen skin bracer? Better; it too would sting, but not as much
as salt water. She poured some into her hand, rubbed it on her face and arms.
“Of course, now I’ll
be sticky.”
No help for it;
they’d have plenty of fresh water to wash in, and a sick bay, on the Itasca. She pulled the binoculars out of the bag and
scanned the horizon again. Nothing. Of course, Itasca could be lying off their campsite right now. Maybe leaving had been a mistake….
Suddenly the sky, the
huge blue cloud-flecked sky, was bearing down on her, pushing her to the
ground. The beach wasn’t coral sand; it was gypsum! There was a roaring in her
ears. Hugging herself, squinting her
eyes closed, she rolled on her side and lay there awhile, shaking. Gradually the feeling passed.
“Goodness, Amelia. Get
hold of yourself.”
She palmed a handful
of sand – it really was just coral. Pulled
herself up, put the binoculars back to her eyes, swept the horizon.
“If they’ve found my
camp, they’ll steam around here. They
could come any time. I’ve… I’ve nothing to fear…”
She smiled a twisted
smile.
“… but fear itself.”
She trudged on.
“And crabs.”
What was that ahead
of her? A set of long, curving tracks –
almost trenches, extending from the high tide line up to the edge of the
brush. Then another and another.
“Canoes! Someone’s dragging….”
Who? Natives?
Pirates? Wasn’t there a scene like this in The Coral Island, when the pirates came?
No, they weren’t canoe
tracks. She had seen these before –
where? Couldn’t remember, but they were
sea turtle tracks.
“Going up to make
nests, lay eggs. At night….”
File it away. Something to know. Turtle eggs can be eaten – she’d seen them in
African markets – and they’d have fluid in them ….
“Icch.”
Walked on, counting turtle
tracks. Seven, eight, nine….
“I won’t need them. Itasca will be here….”
Finally the land
began to curve away again to her right.
Must be coming to the end of the island.
The wind was at her back. Time to
look for…. What? The ponds, yes, the ponds. She scrambled up the beach – rubbly again
above the high tide mark. The brush was
fairly thin here, lots of walkways through into the trees.
It was shady under
the trees, and loud with bird cries and the rattle of leaves and branches in
the wind. But she was sheltered from the
wind by the surrounding brush, and it quickly got hot. The trees were festooned with spider webs,
and the ground was littered with deadfall.
She fell repeatedly; her face was slimy with sweat and coated with
spider webs.
Wait, wait, be
sensible. She found a convenient sized
stick, hung both her bags on her left shoulder and used her right arm to wave
the stick in front of her face, clearing away the webs. That was better. On through the hot green darkness under the
big trees.
Light ahead now, and
then she came out of the trees facing – a pond!
Clear water – perfectly transparent – lapping the coral-rock shore. Her spirits soared, she grinned; it had
to be fresh, or it wouldn’t be so clear!
The pond occupied a
sort of sink-hole in almost solid coral rock, laid down in sharp-edged
layers. Very solid, very flat, and no
deadfall in it at all. No grass or soil
either, not even much sand except at the water’s edge, two or three feet below
the coral shelf. She dropped her bags –
that was a relief – and jumped down to the sand. Fell to her knees, dipped her face to the
water and drank ….
It was salt! Salty as the sea! Maybe saltier!
“Oh, crap!”
She
didn’t scold herself for the profanity.
After awhile she
climbed out of the sinkhole and dragged herself over to the second one,
hopelessly. It was salt too, and not
even clear like the first one; instead it was slimy and stagnant-looking.
Evening was coming,
and she knew it would come fast. She
realized she was hungry. All she had had was that egg for breakfast.
“Famished.”
This
was probably a good thing.
“If you’re hungry,
you’re alive. Come on, Millie, snap out
of it!”
She gathered wood –
lots of dry twigs and limbs back in the trees – and built a fire against the
inside of the sinkhole. The sand would
make a soft sleeping place. On the coral
above, across the pond and under a bush, she saw a booby sitting on an egg. Walked around and dispatched it as she had
the first one, carried its body and its egg away back to her side of the pond
before its mate returned. She cut off the head and let the carcass drain out,
hanging from a bush. Watched and felt a spasm of guilt as the bird’s mate
returned to the nest, wandered around squawking, finally flew away.
“I’m sorry, I truly
am, but it’s eat or be eaten out here.”
But how was she going
to pluck the bird?
“Without a pot… Damn,
Millie, you should’ve thought of that.”
Could she skin it?
Mary had showed her how to skin a chicken; she thought it had turned out rather
dry, but…
“Beggars can’t be
choosers.”
She pulled out her little Javanese knife and cut the skin around the
bird’s thighs, began to peel, cutting away the connective tissue. It was
surprisingly easy. She threw the feet, skin, and entrails up onto the coral
shelf for the crabs.
She dined that night
on booby breast and fried egg. If there was a foetal booby in the latter it
wasn’t apparent, and the egg didn’t taste any fishier than had her breakfast. Drank water from the bag, with two drops of
vegetable concentrate. She had enough water to last another day, sparingly, then
she’d need to fire up the still again.
If…..
“But they will
be here. It’s been almost a week.”
She lay on the sand, forcing
away thoughts of Fred, of the Electra, of home and family. Looking up into the
deepening darkness as her fire died. So
many stars, the Milky Way. She traced it
out, star-cluster to star-cluster, imagining herself soaring among them. Drifted off and slept soundly.
-----------------
Notes:
“Climbing, after all, was her forteIn her youth, Earhart
was well-known for her propensity to climb buildings, roofs, domes (See East to the Dawn pp. 76,
89-90; Amelia, My Courageous Sister, pp. 55-6
Sea cucumbers.
Observed with Larry Inman, Isaac Edwards, and Leoni Todhunter on this stretch
of reef, 2015
“Make his name, for his navigation school.” Noonan had left Pan American World Airways,
where he had worked as a master navigator and navigation instructor, not long
before the World Flight began. He had also divorced his wife and remarried. It
is unclear exactly what his plans were after the World Flight, but starting his
own navigation school is a good guess, and Lovell in Last Flight (p. 242) states his intention as a fact. His widow
reported that he had “had several good business offers.” See https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/Noonan.html.
“…it was gypsum!” In 1923, AE and her family had sunk most of
their money into a gypsum mine near Moapa, Nevada, the brainchild of a friend,
Peter Barnes. During a visit to the “diggings” by AE and her father, a flash
flood wiped out the operation and killed Barnes. AE was witness to the entire
disaster, which incidentally wiped out the family’s modest wealth. See Courage is the Price, pp. 119-27
“Nothing to fear
but fear itself.” From FDR’s first inaugural address. See http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/
Sea turtle
tracks. We have regularly observed sea turtles tracks and
nests on Nikumaroro’s beaches, especially toward the southeast end.
“…she’d seen them in African markets.”
See Last Flight p. 65
“…wave the stick in front of her face, clearing
away the webs…” This is
a practice we have adopted on Nikumaroro, and I assume that Earhart would have
done the same.
“The pond occupied a sort of sink-hole in almost solid coral rock.”
This pond is at 174o41’37.60 S, 174o29’39,15” W.
“Mary had showed her how to skin a chickenI don’t know whether
Mary Brashay skinned chickens, but it was and is not an uncommon way to prepare
them. See for instance http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/grim79.html.
AE’s mother was another source of information on chicken preparation; see Amelia, My Courageous Sister p. 22.
No comments:
Post a Comment