AE on Norwich Island Part 20

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island

Part 20

August 17^th, 1937

Midday.  Perched high in a tree at the island’s ultimate south end, she peered out at the sea, dead flat and shimmering.  She was past being thirsty, knew she was becoming dehydrated again, wondered abstractly what to do about it.  Her still was sitting amid the coals of the dead fire in her camp down below, so why wasn’t she firing it up?  Pondered the question, had no answers.

Kept watching the sea.  Thought about binoculars.  Hadn’t she had binoculars once?  No matter; she could see the sea. What was she looking for out there?

Far out, it wasn’t entirely calm.  Clouds marched slowly across the horizon on legs of rain, but they didn’t come close.  Like great water beetles, scurrying – but in slow motion – across the sea without a thought for her and her island.

Her island.  Had she always lived here?  No, she had lived somewhere else, but it was too much trouble to think about where, think about when, who, how. 

The trees here were high and thick, healthy.  This was a good part of the island.  Very happy, very comfortable.  But no water. 

“Except in the leaves.” 

She picked and ate a few.  Moisture – but not enough.

Down below, in the dappled twilight of the forest floor, was the path of light-colored coral slabs she had discovered when she arrived – when had that been?  It led from the pond that – some time in the past – she had thought might be fresh water, but wasn’t. Led from that pond to an overgrown complex of stone walls and small platforms.  A place of residence at some time in the distant past. 

Or did the path lead from the walls to the pond?  Which way did it really go?  It was important to find out!  She had to know!  

Anxiously, she climbed down out of the tree, stood on the path, looked this way and that.

“What am I doing?” 

She staggered along the path to her camp, on a small platform under tall trees.  Her left foot hurt.  Why? 

She blew on the embers of her fire until she got it going, fetched water in the still and started it cooking, abstractly watching steam escape from around its bouncing inverted top.

As night fell she sat under the stars and sipped from the thermos cup full of tepid water the still had produced, chewed some cold fish.  Tried to capture her thoughts, fluttering around her like butterflies.  What were butterflies? 

“Butterflies live in Atchison.” 

What a strange word – Atchison.  But she could visualize it – a white house with peaked roof, elaborate cut wood along the eaves, arched glass windows.  There were butterflies there.  Yes.

“I am Amelia Earhart.  American.”

What did “American” mean?  Harder than Atchison.  A flag?  A lady, but not THE Lady, holding a torch. 

“I…. fly.  In airplanes.  Machines that fly.”

Machines.  What were machines? 

“I am married.”

What did married mean? Someone else was involved.

“To…. G.P. – George P.  G.P. Putman.  No, Putnam.  G.P.  

Oh Simpkin!”  

Her body was wracked with sobs, but she shed no tears, and soon began to wonder why she was sobbing.

“I am on Norwich Island, because….. I landed my airplane here.” 

Why had she done that?  Why not land it in Atchison? Maybe the house was in the way.  So, land here, where there weren’t any houses.  Yes, that made sense.

“But that’s wrong.  That’s not it.”

It?  What was “it?”

She lay back and pondered the Milky Way, a great bright rip across the sky.  What was it?  Where was it?  Her eyes closed and she dreamed of approaching it, but it always retreated before her.  Leading her on – where?

She woke with a start. The night had suddenly gotten darker. Why?

The Milky Way was gone. All the stars.

“Clouds.”

What were clouds? And what was that…

“Rain!”

She needed to do something about rain. Yes! She leaped up, began setting out containers, spreading canvas.

The squall was brief but intense; she was able to drink her fill, and fill her containers. She lay under a dripping leaf, mouth open. Wet, almost chilly, but sleepy again…

Something nipped her leg.  A crab, of course.  She sighed, climbed into her hammock.  The stars were back; she could catch glimpses of the Milky Way through the still-dripping branches.

August 18^th, 1937

“Well, apparently I’m back by the ponds.”

Hands on her hips, she surveyed her surroundings.  Her hammock was pitched between trees growing at either end of a small, broken-down coral-stone platform, about two feet high and ten feet long.  Wing walls of similar construction ran off into the surrounding foliage.  A nicely laid path of coral slabs described a gentle curve across the adjacent clearing – floored with sun-blasted, algae-blackened coral – to the pond where she had eaten a booby and slept so long ago. Cans stood about on the platform, and low spots were covered in canvas, all containing water. She shook her head.

“Where have I been?”

She ticked off the events – losing the Electra, Fred’s death and burial, walking around the island. The Corsairs.  Platform Camp, Purslane Camp, Can Camp, Lagoon Camp.  She had lost her Javanese knife; patted the beaded sheath to make sure it was still on her belt, still empty.  She had fallen, hurting her foot, destroying her shoe and her notebook. She had put her journal in the sextant box, her foot in Fred’s shoe.  Had started to pack, and then – nothing. 

Well, something.  Something vague, misty, and strangely comforting.  A feeling, from somewhere, that things would be all right.  She shook herself all over.

“Might as well take advantage of it.”

She went to work with energy.  Decanted the water from cans into the water bags. Started the dutch oven making more water.  Went to a tide pool and caught two fish, gutted them and put them on the grill.  Bathed, rinsed out her clothes.  Sorted her gear.  Sat down to eat. Poured a thermos-cup full of water, sipped.

“Plenty of water.”

For now. But how long would it last? How long would it keep her brain cells operating?

“Two-three days.”

Then it would be back to the still, full-time. Unless it rained again.

“Which it might. Or…”

So, if – when – it did, how could she catch more water? The cans and canvas were good, but what about the empty bottles? Could she devise funnels to catch the rain, concentrate it into their mouths? Yes, probably; the leaves of the big gray-barked trees were probably big enough.

What about the full bottle? The bottle of Benedictine was leaning against a log, along with the empties.

“Dead weight.”

Felt the tears start. Marveled that she had the moisture for them. Abruptly sat and stared out to sea, through the shore-side bushes. Cried, not at all for herself.

“Oh why, why?”

How many times had she done this? How many times had the grief, frustration, anger broken through her resolve? In Des Moines, in Chicago, at Ogontz…

“Utterly pointless, Millie. Get to work.”

Looked again at the bottle. It was heavy to lug around, and it contained fluid. Sure, a devilish fluid, but still moisture.

No, it wasn’t devilish; it was its interaction with a human being’s guts and nervous system that was devilish.

How many times had she chewed on this argument? Followed it around in tedious circles?

She looked out to sea, for stability. A booby was standing in her line of sight, head cocked to one side.

“Dr. Karla!”

The bird seemed to nod.

“Dr. Karla, thank you for … seeing me.”

The bird stared at her. She stared back. The chances of it being the original Dr. Karla seemed slim, but it didn’t matter. The talking cure was a way to face one’s life-questions, regardless of who was listening.

“Or not.”

And the bottle presented a quandary. She picked it up, weighed it in her hand.

“Here’s the thing, Dr. Karla. I am not thirsty now, but I will be and I have been. Very thirsty. It’s surprising I can talk, and I’m sure I sound very – croaky – to you. I need water, truly, and it’s hard to come by.”

The bird said nothing.

“This bottle contains liquid. It would slake my thirst, at least somewhat, for awhile. And then give me another container to catch the rain.”

She looked over the booby’s shoulder, out to sea. Blue, blue, white, all the way to the horizon. Empty of ships. The sky devoid of aircraft.

“It’s about fifty percent water, if I recall my chemistry. But the other fifty percent is alcohol, and alcohol…”

She hesitated. She had never talked with anyone about this. But that, it was said, was exactly the condition with which the talking cure might help.

“My dad… my father, Edwin Earhart, was a wonderful man. He was funny, he was kind, he was thoughtful, intelligent, wise in all kinds of ways.”

Dr. Karla shifted from one foot to the other.

“But… he drank. Alcohol, like this stuff.”

The bird shrugged its shoulders, flapped its wings.

“Drank a lot, Dr. Karla, and at most inopportune times. He disappointed us, and embarrassed us, so very many times…”

The bird settled down. It must be sitting on an egg. Funny she hadn’t seen it before.

“But the worst thing was what it did to him, Dr. Karla! We could see it happening, and there wasn’t anything any of us could do to stop it! Not Mother, not Pidge, not I… It broke up our family, it drove us into penury! It made us dependent on others! It almost killed my poor mother!”

She found herself sobbing, face in her hands, choking on tears. Steadied herself, looked up. Dr. Karla was silent, sympathetic.

“He got better for a time, Dr. Karla, and we all went to California – that’s on the coast – over there…”

She waved her hand eastward.

“And that’s where I learned to fly, thanks to him and Mother. But… it didn’t work. He’d changed, and finally we gave up – well, Mother gave up, and we… we left him…”

Drove and drove, in her yellow roadster. Taking Mommy east, via all the great parks. Trying to put Edwin behind them.

“And then he died, Dr. Karla. It killed him. They said it was cancer that killed him, but I’m sure the drinking – exacerbated it, made him more vulnerable… And... I was there when he lost his fine mind, and it… it killed him.”

She sat for awhile shaking. Looked stonily out to sea.

“And he wasn’t the only one, Dr. Karla. Bill Stultz – a wonderful pilot, a wonderful man, who flew… flew with me across the Atlantic, got in his plane drunk one day and screwed himself and two innocent passengers into a pasture! And… oh, there have been so many others!”

She tossed the bottle in her hand.

“So… they call this stuff giggle water, and it’s easy to say -- better giggle water than no water at all. But…” 

“But?”

She stared. Had Dr. Karla spoken? The bird cocked her head quizzically.

“Do you think it’d drive you crazy? That you’d run into the ocean and drown?”

“Well…”

“Climb a tree and pitch yourself out?”

“Well…”

“Embarrass yourself in front of the crabs? Or me?”

“Uhh…

“Drain the Itasca’s liquor locker when she gets here, if she gets here? Never be able to stop till you got swollen up like your father and died in misery?”

“No, no…” She shook her head, threw herself down and sobbed, shook, beat her fists on the rubbly ground. Finally rolled back into a sitting position.

“OK….”

The bird was gone.

She peeled the wrapping off the bottle’s neck, twisted out the cork, filled her little freckle crème jar and sipped.

“Oh Dad....”

Dad the drunkard. The funny, talented, bright, inventive, loving drunkard. Without whom she wouldn’t be who she was. Without whom she might never have flown.

“In which case….”

Yes, in which case she wouldn’t be here.  Or….

“That way madness.  What’s done…..”

She drained the tiny jar, unsurprised by the alcohol’s effect, quietly lay back and slept. 

She woke when a crab – a medium-sized hermit – nipped her arm.  Sat up and brushed off the half-dozen crabs that were wandering around on her body.  The fire had died; the still, when she checked it, had produced almost a cup of water.  She sat awhile sipping it, with almost-the-last drop of vegetable concentrate. Carefully corked the Benedictine and tucked it in the rubberized bag.

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Notes

“…at the island’s ultimate south end…”Around 4^o41’ 47” S, 174^o 29’35” W

“…the path of light-colored coral slabs”  The coral path was still there in 2010, and is what prompts me to think that there may have been prehistoric platforms near the pools – on the land subsequently called Ameriki – before the U.S. Navy bulldozed the area in 1944 to build a long-range radio navigation (LORAN) station that operated there until 1946; see https://tighar.org/wiki/USCG_LORAN_Station. .

“Oh Simpkin!” “Simpkin” and “Mugs” were reportedly AE’s pet names for her husband; see Sound of Wings p. 302 and http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm/search/collection/earhart/searchterm/Simpkin/field/all/mode/any/conn/and/cosuppress/.

“In Des Moines, in Chicago, at Ogontz…” The Earhart family lived in Des Moines and Chicago as their fortune deteriorated during Amelia’s adolescence. She then attended the Ogontz School in Philadelphia (See https://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/ogontz.html).

“The talking cure.” A term adopted by Sigmund Freud for encouraging a patient to describe symptoms and talk through them, often leading to their resolution or reduction. See http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/psychotherapy.html.  Since Freud was using the term in the early 20^th century, it seems likely that AE was familiar with it.

“But… he drank …” AE’s father, attorney Edwin Earhart, took her to her first airshow and apparently encouraged her interest in flying, but he suffered from alcoholism, which eventually led to the near dissolution of the family. See for example Courage is the Price 78-91; East to the Dawn pp. 53-59, 94; The Fun of It p. 25-9, and http://ellensplace.net/ae_eyrs.html. He died of cancer in 1930; AE visited him on his deathbed. The musings I imagine here, however, mostly reflect my own experiences with alcoholism.

“Bill Stultz “ Bill Stultz, pilot on the Friendship flight, died in a crash in 1929, taking two passengers with him. Investigators reported that he had been drinking heavily. AE attended his funeral. See East to the Dawn: 225-6.