Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island
Part 25
September 13th, 1937
“My
god, Koata, it’s a white woman!”
The
face looking down at her was that of a white man. A young white man,
with a British accent. Why couldn’t she speak to him? She tried, but
nothing happened.
“Quick! Get the others! She’s ….
She’s barely alive! Terribly
dehydrated!”
That’s
silly. I’ve been drinking like a
fish. Or have I?
It
didn’t matter. It was rescue! Someone had come!
Others
were crowding around now – all brown faces.
Talking in a language she didn’t understand, but – good heavens! It was like The Lady’s language, wasn’t it?
Maybe,
maybe…..
The
Britisher was cradling her head, giving her water from a canteen. It slopped out of her mouth, onto her
chest. She had no shirt. Maybe no pants either; she couldn’t tell. The Britisher didn’t seem to notice.
“Good
job you came in here, Koata! What
compelled you….?
“There
was a trail, Mister Eric, and I wanted to look at these trees.” The older brown man pointed upward.
“Kanawa,
are they?”
“Yes
sir, and ren.”
“Well,
here’s the stretcher. Very well done
indeed, men. Now let’s ease her
carefully ….. Mind the left leg – My God!”
She
felt the hands of several men under different parts of her body, lifting and
sliding her onto a stretcher; she could see that it had been improvised of
shirts and sticks. Now they were lifting
her, turning, moving down the path.
“Easy,
easy. Don’t joggle her. Oh dear God in Heaven, let her survive!”
The
Britisher was praying for her. How
charming! She tried to smile at him, but
he was out of sight now, behind the stretcher as the men jogged ahead with it,
down her familiar path to the sea, then to the right. Headed around the end of the island to run up
the lee shore, she thought. They must
have a ship up by the Norwich City.
Oh
god, she was saved! Rescued! She would soon be home! Mommie, Pidge!
“Afraid
she’ll lose that leg,” the Britisher – Mister Eric, the older man had called
him – was saying. “Certainly
gangrenous.”
Could
she fly one-legged? Certainly
feasible. There had been that British
woman….
“I
wonder,” the older man was saying, “how long she be here. Where she come from.”
There
was a pause before Mister Eric replied.
She listened to the sound of feet crunching in gravel, the cries of
birds.
“Anyone’s
guess, Koata. With luck she’ll be able
to tell us.”
Feet
crunched on gravel for awhile before he spoke again.
“But
I’ve a hunch, Koata…. I wonder if she’s Amelia Earhart – Putnam, rather. Have you heard of her, Koata?”
The
man called Koata must have said no.
“Famous
avia – that is, flyer of – er – sky canoes, you understand?”
“Yes,
Mister Eric, aeroplanes.”
“Quite
so. We’ve – careful there, don’t tip the
stretcher! And here, take this
shirt! Cover her – er – privates. Anyway, we’ve been told to be on the lookout. She was flying round the world, and
disappeared up around Howland – you know Howland Island?”
The
older man grunted. Both men were
breathing hard, all of them exerting themselves to bring her to safety. Oh my god, she was going to be all
right! She was going home!
Mister
Eric spoke again, puffing with exertion.
“Close
to three months ago; my god, what she must’ve been through!”
She
had not said goodbye to Boo-Ka!
But
The Lady would understand. She knew.
The
crab – or crabs – would be so disappointed. She grinned and lost consciousness.
When
she came back to herself, the great rusty bulk of the Norwich City was very close.
She could see – how could she see this, lying flat on the stretcher? – a
little schooner lying just astern of the big wreck. Probably tied off to her. Mister Eric was hailing.
“Ahoy
Nimanoa!
Nimanoa! Send a boat! We’ve a seriously injured woman here! A white woman!”
They
were carrying her out across the reef.
The tide must be low, but still, how would they transfer her to a
boat?
They
must have had a way. They were lowering
her now, carefully into a boat lying alongside the reef edge. The sea
must be very calm. How fortunate. Now she was being rowed, now lifted
up to the
schooner’s rail, over it. Another white
face, a young, round-faced white man with a pipe. Talking to her in
English.
“There,
there, my dear. You’re safe now, you’re in
good hands. Take her to my cabin,
Takena. We’ll care for her there. Water’s the first thing. Lots of it, but we’ll give it to her
slow. Spoonfuls, eh? Then some food – Mister Fleming, perhaps a
light broth?”
Another
English voice – no, Australian:
“Yes,
Mister Maude, right away.”
Footsteps
pounding on a wooden deck. She was being
carried into a cabin that smelled of pipesmoke.
They were turning her around to lay her on a bunk.
And
around……
And
around….
And
around….
She
fell out of her hammock onto the rubbly ground.
September 14th, 1937
She
struggled to write with Fred’s compass.
Was the dream prophetic? It was so vivid, so real-seeming. So much detail: Mister Eric, Mister Maude,
Koata, a schooner called Nimanoa.
The people talking in – I think – Boo-Ka’s language. Is this what’s
going to happen? Am I going to approach death but be rescued
at the last moment by a couple of British men and some islanders aboard a
schooner? But lose my leg?
“Maybe so, sweetcake.”
“So
now you can read?”
“Or maybe not.”
“It
either is prophetic or it’s not.”
“Is that so? You’re an authority on dreams, of course.”
“It
has to be one or the other.”
“Does it now?”
“Will
you stop talking riddles?”
“I thought you didn’t want me
talking at all.”
“I
don’t! But…. Just tell me, if you
know. Was that dream prophetic?”
“You think I know? I’m just a crab, whose life must seem so
drab….”
“Oh,
for heaven’s sake!”
“But you want me to take a
stab.”
“If
I could impose on you….”
“… impose on me to blab. OK, sweetie-chops. Just one hint: Ungenauigkeit.”
“German?”
“Yup. Think on it, tasty-cookie. If you’re
uncertain, that is.”
He scuttled off into the brush.
She scratched her chin, advanced the lead in the compass.
Ungenauigkeit. She
couldn’t summon up the meaning of ungenauigkeit.
She
should know its meaning. Her father was fluent, though he hadn’t spoken
it often in her presence. But in school – yes, she had studied German in
school. Her thoughts veered off into
fragmentary memories of campus, classes, reading, opera, climbing the roofs of
Ogontz. A million miles away, a million
years. Had she ever really been
there? Was there such a place? Yes, and she had been there, so why couldn’t
she remember ungenauigkeit?
But
the word seemed familiar for some other reason.
Someone had used it in conversation, more recently than college. Who?
When? It was so hard to remember,
so hard to keep her thoughts on track.
She
gripped her head as though she could squeeze her errant thoughts into order. Somewhere, sometime…..
A…. a reception.
What a strange word for – people standing around, in clothes of many
colors. Drinking from glasses, eating
little bits of food. Lights, flowers,
music. In a … a city, yes, that was it,
a city.
“Los…
Los Angeles?”
Yes,
Los Angeles; the scene clicked into place.
Movie people, and some from the university. Talking about some scientist in Germany.
“Something
about cats…..”
It
flickered away. Gone. Lost.
“Put
your subconscious on it.”
But
don’t mope about it. You’re not in that
city, and not likely to be if you don’t pay attention. Get up, get to work, let your subconscious
turn it over. Maybe ….
She
rose wearily and hobbled off to gather firewood.
------------------------
Notes
“There had been
that British woman…” “Miss S. O’Brien, a one-legged airwoman….” Barrier
Miner, Broken Hill New South Wales, 20 June 1931. See http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/46611923
“Her father was
fluent…” AE’s father was “force-fed the German language;” East to the Dawn: p. 23
“…climbing the
roofs of Ogontz.” At Ogontz, the school
in Philadelphia that AE attended, she was punished for climbing on the roofs in
her nightgown. See East to the Dawn:
76.
“Talking
about some scientist in Germany” It is pure speculation on my part that
Earhart might have heard of Erwin Schrödinger;
see http://www.iflscience.com/physics/schr%C3%B6dinger%E2%80%99s-cat-explained
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