AE on Norwich Island Part 27

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island 

Part 27

September 19^th, 1937

She rocked gently as light spread through the forest.  Boo-Ka had come in the night and talked to her.  What had The Lady said?  She couldn’t remember, just recalled the feeling of peace it brought her.  A strange comfort and serenity.  But now the sun was rising and she was fiercely thirsty.  She worked her way gingerly out of the hammock; it was getting so thin, and if it gave way there would be nothing between her and the crabs.  Leaning on a stick, trying not to put down her left foot too much, she hobbled to the shore for a can of water, then back to camp to re-start the fire, set the dutch oven on to boil with the freckle crème jar in its center.

Without much interest, she scanned her campsite, her scattered possessions.  Some empty bottles, the small wooden first aid kit, a ragged shirt, the zippered bag.  One Swiss shoe, full of crabs. Where had the other one gone? A couple of tiny crabs were trying to open her compact.  She shooed them away, opened it and examined her face in the mirror.  It looked haggard, drawn, blotchy.

“God, the freckles!” 

She clicked the lid shut, tossed the compact aside.

Her foot.  Had to treat her foot.  Up, leaning on her stick, down the slope to the ocean.  Surf roaring on the reef, birds crying.

Tide pool.  Lovely little fish.  Why was she here?

“Foot.  Treat the foot.”

Sat down, unwrapped it.  Swollen, puffy, clear up to the knee.  Red and blue streaks.  Smelled bad.  Skin tight, stretched.  She plunged it into the tide pool.  Little fish came to feed, then some bigger ones.

She watched the waves breaking on the reef.  So regular, so powerful.  Boo-ka was standing in them, undisturbed by their rise and crash.  Not moving or speaking, but communicating.  Amelia knew her message.  Accepted it but shook her head.

“Mister Eric…..”

She couldn’t see the Milky Way.  Why not? 

“Daytime, too bright.”

But it was there. Like all the other things she couldn’t see but knew existed.  Whales in the deep ocean.  G.P. in California.  California itself.  Africa.  Mommie and Pidge in Medford.  Atchison. 

“Howland Island.”

Did any of these things, people, places exist when she couldn’t see them?

“Ask the cat, tasty-foot.”

The crab was standing on a coral shelf, lifting its rear end to the waves breaking against it.

“What are you doing?”

“Having babies.  They live in the ocean till they’re ready to come ashore – those the fish don’t get.”

“You’re female!”

“Sure.  Does that surprise you?”

No reason why it should surprise her, so no, it didn’t.  And it didn’t matter.  She slid into the tide pool and out of her ragged coveralls and underpants, rinsed off.  Thought about just staying underwater.  Dragged herself out, shaking her head.

“They’re coming.  Mister Eric….”

“Maybe so, maybe not.” 

The crab had left its – her – perch and was standing on the edge of the tide pool. 

“But the cat knows. Or doesn’t”

Never mind the damned cat. The dream had been clear. She watched the crab get washed over by a wave, presumably releasing eggs into it.

“Does it bother you?”

“That a lot of my babies get eaten by fish?  Nope.  Fish gotta eat, larvae gotta die.”

“And then….?”

“Ah, so that’s bothering you.”

“Of course it’s bothering me.”

“Well, that’s the great mystery, isn’t it?”

“So you don’t know.”

“I’m only a crab, sweet-chops.  Only a crab.”

“A crab full of blab.”

“Yup, but just remember, there are more things in heaven and earth…..”

“Not Shakespeare, too!”

“… than are dreamt of in your ungenauigkeit.”

“Shut up, crab.  What’s your name, anyway?”

“Thought you’d never ask!  Birgus latro; my friends call me …”

“Birgie, I’m sure. I don’t want to be your friend.”

“That’s close enough for now, Meelie. And one of these days we’ll be real friendly.”

September 22^nd, 1937

The crab was scrabbling around under her hammock.  Waiting for her to fall out?  How many of him were there, and how many little hermits?  How many rats?  They’d get in on the fun, too.  Crawling all over her inert form, beginning to nibble and pinch.  What would she do?  Leap up in pain, or lie there and let them feast? Would she even notice?

Moonlight was falling through the trees of Freshwater Camp.  Whose fresh water was no longer.  She was distilling, but it was slow and painful. And she worried about the dutch oven. How long would the freckle crème jar last?

Could she amputate her own leg?  The blood, the pain.  Hacking through her own flesh with the dull bone-handled knife.  Would she pass out?  And had the infection now gone too far up her leg?  She would never get through the shaft of a femur with that knife.

“Oh, Mister Eric, please come soon.”

More scrabbling.  She leaned over the edge of the hammock to say something disparaging to the crab.  But it wasn’t a crab.

It was people.  Ghost-people, filmy and fluttery, but not the silent-screaming children or the club-wielding warriors.  These were – white people, talking, perhaps, in English, but so softly, with so much strange distortion, that she couldn’t make it out.  Like a lot of radio transmissions.  They were on hands and knees, or sitting on the ground.  Women and men, no children, scratching at the ground with – what, trowels?  Flat-bladed mason’s trowels?  What in the world?  They faded, flickered away.

Were they looking for her? In the future?

“Andrée.”

GP had written a book, remember? Dedicated it to her. About the polar explorer Andrée, his death, the discovery thirty years later of his campsite and corpse.

“Not going to leave a corpse. A leg, maybe, but not a corpse.”

Now – was she asleep and dreaming, or awake? – she was looking into the face of the old man, Koata.  He was holding her face, one hand on each side, looking earnestly into her eyes, talking in his strange language.  Strange but somehow comforting; he cared for her, was trying to help her.  He drifted away, and her eyes opened to sunlight filtering through the trees. 

She struggled out of the hammock, refilled the dutch oven and refreshed the fire.  Wrung the neck of the last captive frigate, skinned and gutted him, put his breast and thighs on the grill plate to cook.  The knife was getting so dull.  How could she sharpen it?  Coral limestone was far too soft.  She had tried using pumice – pieces of which she had found on the beach, presumably float from volcanic islands somewhere – but it too was too soft too.

She chewed on frigate breast without much interest, thought about harvesting some clams, thought how it would hurt to walk.  Wondered what those ghost-people had been doing, where they had come from.  When had they come from?

And what about – Koata?  What had he been doing?

“Trying to help you, Sweetheart.  Help you along your way.”

“Hmph.  Not my way into your guts, anyway.”

“Well, he’s a bit too late for that, if you believe in things like late and early.  But however you figure it, early or late, it’s your way.”

“You’re driving me crazy.”

“You’ve never needed my help.  ‘I think I’ll fly around the world at the equator. No need to learn Morse, or get straight about time zones.  La tee ta, I’m Amelia Earhart!’  Talk about crazy!”

Amelia Earhart, she thought.  Yes, that’s me.  And I was trying to fly around the world.  Yes, in a ship, a beautiful silver ship.  With Fred.  What’s happened to Fred?

“Moved on, has Fred, and sadly inaccessible to us.  I ought to resent that, but I don’t.  All heart, I am.”

“Mister Eric is going to save me.  Mister Eric and Koata.”

“Maybe so, maybe not.  Depends on the cat, Sweetie.”

Yes, flying around the world.  That’s what I’m doing.   The world is a globe, a planet, circling the sun.  The sun just appears to rise every morning because the world was really revolving as it circles it, like she had tried to circle the world.  Yes, that’s how it is.  What marvelous beauty and order!.

“And there’s no one to bury you, you delectable little morsel.  Though Koata may take care of your head.”

She started; Birgie was talking.  She needed to respond. Be clever.

“Uhh – not the way you’d like to take care of it.”

“Alas, I can’t crack a skull.  Peel a coconut, yep, if I’ve really got to, but crack a skull the size of yours, no.  My little hermit pals will have to clean it out.”

She struggled for a come-back.  “Bully for your hermit pals.”

“The crabs crawl in, the crabs crawl out…”  Birgie sang gaily as she climbed a tree and disappeared from sight.

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Notes

“One Swiss shoe…” Ric Gillespie argues that it was the remains of one of Earhart’s Swiss walking shoes that Gallagher on Nikumaroro and later Dr. Steenson in Fiji identified as being a woman’s shoe; See “A Shoe Fetish IV” in TIGHAR Tracks April 2016. I am not convinced, but it is certainly possible, so I have allowed for it here.

“A couple of tiny crabs were trying to open her compact.” See http://ameliaearhartarchaeology.blogspot.com/2012/09/artifacts-of-seven-site-compact.html for evidence of a woman’s compact at the Seven Site.

“…Women and men, no children, scratching at the ground with – what, trowels?” TIGHAR’s 2010 fieldworkers at the Seven Site, including me.

“GP had written a book…” Andrée, published in 1930 and dedicated to AE, then just back from her first Atlantic crossing.

“…she was looking into the face of the old man, Koata.” See Thirteen Bones, Chaps 18-19.