AE on Norwich Island Part 29

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island

Part 29

September 28^th, 1937

It was a lovely tide pool. Bigger than a swimming pool, ranging from four to eight feet deep. Crystal clear water, replenished regularly by the surf now booming just beyond the lip of the reef. Full of fish, every size, shape, color imaginable. Big brain corals that seemed almost iridescent. Staghorn corals, plate-like corals. Sea anemones and sea cucumbers.

She had been looking for sea cucumbers when she came out here, clear to the edge of the reef – hard on her foot except that the warm, circulating water seemed to soothe its fire. Once here, she hadn’t been able to resist stripping off her ragged shirt and jockey shorts, lowering herself gently into the water. Floating, paddling, ducking herself.

“For the fun of it.”

She smiled, floating on her back in the shimmering water. Her shirt and shorts were hung on the stick she had used for balance on the way out, now stuck upright in a crack. Her hair, long and no longer curly, spread out around her head. She looked placidly out over the edge.

There were dolphins – not in the tide pool, of course, but right off the reef, so close that she had been startled at first by their blowing. Half a dozen or more, leaping and cavorting. She blew them a kiss.

She had awakened that morning with a pretty clear head. Not too much confusion. Probably because there had been a brief rain squall last night and she had been able to drink her fill, even fill a few shells and cans and her Swiss shoe to set aside. It was perfectly remarkable what a difference it made to have enough water – or not.

“I’ll write something about it for Cosmo.”

It was refreshing to imagine the future; she should be grateful to Birgie for helping her do so. Making her do so.

“But how can you be grateful to someone who wants to eat you?  Academic question; she’ll not get the chance.”

So, what about the Bureau of Air Commerce? Gene would support her, and Eleanor would too, most likely. And the public, when she came home from this ordeal – even with a leg missing, or maybe that would make it better – the public would be behind her all the way.

So much to be done, to improve airports, regularize flight schedules, encourage industry to build bigger, faster planes capable of carrying big cargo loads long distances. Prepare, very likely, for war.

“War. My god…”

But she would be living proof of what women could do. She would never again have to lecture on the subject – at least not often; she would make the point simply by doing her job, with grace and elegance.

And she could take care of Mommie, and Pidge… Tears sprang from her eyes. How worried they must be! If only there were a way to let them know that she was alive, and that she was coming home. She grimaced furiously in the direction of America.

“I am coming home!”

As if summoned by her thoughts, there was a schooner.

Quite a way offshore, heading northeast. Was it really there? She blinked, closed her eyes, opened them again. Yes! It was still there! Solid, real, heeling over as it tacked up the wind.

Up, on her feet. Oh heavens, she was naked! Into the jockey shorts, never mind the shirt. No, wave the shirt, jump up and down…

“Ow!” Not on her swollen, tender foot. But wave, wave! She could see… yes, someone on the stern, maybe at the wheel. A flash of light – binoculars! He saw her, surely!

“Oh, Mister Eric, Koata – you’re here!”

What to do? Stay here and keep waving? Surely she had been seen by now; yes, there was another flash from the binoculars. The man – just a silhouette against the shining sea – waved an arm! What would they do? Go around and anchor in the lee – or tie off to the Norwich City, as the schooner had in her dream. This WAS the schooner in her dream! Nimanoa!

So she should go around to the other side, meet them when they came ashore. And – heavens, make herself presentable! One last wave, and she began to hobble back toward the beach.

But in her dream they had found her on this side, in her camp. Should she do something that violated the structure of the dream? What would happen then?

“Oh god, I don’t know. Just let them come!”

She turned, waved again, stepped in a hole and went down, her foot sending such shock waves up her leg that the world went black, streaked with brilliant red, and she collapsed on the reef.

For a time all she could do was lie half covered by water, while waves of pain swept through her, but gradually they diminished. She watched as the world slowly lightened. Saw sky, clouds, birds.

Gingerly, she sat up, removed her foot from the hole into which it had slipped. Twisted to look out over the reef edge. There was no ship.

“Gone around. Going to anchor, tie off.”

She got up on her knees. The stick had floated away. Managed to rise to her feet, pain stabbing up her leg. Hands on knees, keeping weight off her left foot, she struggled to maintain consciousness. Surely she really had seen a ship – yes, surely. Though maybe not. She shook her head, grimaced.

“OK, going to meet them isn’t in the cards – if…. So, back to camp. Follow… follow the dream.”

-----------------------------

Aboard the schooner Leukothea, beating upwind for Canton Island and a hoped-for cargo of copra, Ivan Yonklopovitch pounded the taffrail, almost in tears.

“Please, Captain! I saw her! Woman, white woman! Long hair, nothing but…” He pondered a second, could she really have been wearing jockey shorts?

“Almost naked, waving a cloth. She must be – how you say? Castaway!”

Dirty Mike McWatter grimaced around his cold cigar, scanning the receding shoreline with the binoculars he had seized from his mate. Deeks Enos, the Hawaiian helmsman maintained a studious silence; it was fun to watch the haoles argue.

“Igor, you drunken Bolshie….”

“My name Ivan, Captain, you know that. And no god-fucking Bolshevik; White Russian; how often I tell you?”

“You look like an Igor to me, you vodka-swilling Commie. So you had me dragged up here from my nap…”

“No good Kanaka didn’t want, but I said must get captain! Poor woman! We rescue!”

“Igor, that island – Gardner Island, it’s called, is unin-fucking-habited!” Nobody there! Get it? No woman, no man, no nothing but birds and crabs.”

“Woman maybe shipwrecked! Got to save her!”

“Igor, you pathetic drunk, there’s nobody there! I’m looking; I’ve been looking. Nothing but birds and fucking dolphins.”

“She wave and run back toward beach!”

“So she must not’ve been too anxious to be rescued, eh? Anyways, she’s not on the beach now, and nobody seems to have seen her but you.”

“I saw! I saw! For sure! Must rescue her!”

“This island doesn’t even have a fucking anchorage, you bleary-eyed Bolshie. We couldn’t get ashore if we wanted to!”

“Not Bolshevik! I take boat, four Kanaka, we go over reef!”

“And bust up my boat, and maybe my Kanakas too? You’re dreaming, you crap-mouthed Cossack!” He handed the binoculars back to Yonklopovitch and spat over the rail..

“Enough of this crap, Igor. Steady as she goes.”

Enos nodded, began composing a song in his head about a lonely woman on an island. No one had asked what he had seen.

September 29^th,  1937

Morning. Another morning. Bird calls. Surf. Crab clatter. Wind in the boughs.

No one had come. She had reached camp, unwrapped her feet, found the long-discarded tin of Vince and used the dregs of powder she found there – or did she just imagine them? – to scrub her teeth with her finger, rinse her mouth. Put on her only remaining outerwear – Fred’s fraying coveralls – and composed herself in the hammock.

But what if they missed her? She should at least go out to the beach! Maybe leave a sign there.

But in the dream they had found her on their own. Trust the dream.

She had waited, and finally gone to sleep.

And now it was morning and no one was there. Except Birgie, hanging upside down on the tree-trunk above her feet.

“You were expecting…?”

She fought back tears.

“I saw a ship.”

“So, figured it was Mister Eric come to rescue you, eh?”

“Well, it wasn’t impossible. Still isn’t.”

“Been a long time, though.”

It was true, of course. But maybe they had had trouble anchoring, or mooring to the shipwreck.

“Maybe they had trouble mooring, but I don’t think so.”

“You’re now an expert on ship operations.”

“Nope, don’t know a spanker from a spinnaker, but I am part of the great crab communication network, and I’m not picking up any signals.”

“You communicate… how?”

“Our little arthropodic secret, sweet-chops, but take my word for it, everything around you is communicating, all the time.”

“How?”

“Like I say, honey, it’s our secret. Just like radio’s yours. How do those signals propagate?”

“Radio signals? They’re waves of electromagnetism – created by passing electricity through a magnetic field.”

“Um-hmm. And electricity is…?”

“Electricity is… Why am I explaining this to a crab?”

“So I’ll explain to you about crabmunication, and tree-talk. But never mind; I won’t, and you wouldn’t understand if I did.”

“I will not be patronized by a crab!”

“Hoity-toity! No conversations with crustaceans!”

She closed her eyes, blinking back scarce tears.

“I didn’t say that. I just… Oh damn!”

Why wasn’t Dr. Karla here? Or Boo-ka? Why did she have to talk with this…

“…this bilious bug!”

“Hey, hey, careful, there, madam mammal; let’s have some interspecies respect!”

“I’m supposed to respect you?”

“You might try it. You know…”

“Bushwa!”

“…you’ve actually been pretty good at that.”

“What?”

“Respecting other life forms – rodents, birds, horses, Syrians, Chinese…”

Was Birgie complimenting her?

“So why not a little fellow-feeling for Birgus latro?”

“Right; you’d like me to give you a hand.”

“Good one! But I’ll settle for a foot – that left one’s really no use to you.”

“Thanks, but I’m attached to it.”

“You’re hittin’ on all sixes today! Give the girl some water and she turns into Joan Blondell!”

“Not really my style.”

“There you go again. Going all high hat on me.”

“Bush…”

“Y’know, if you hadn’t gotten so high hat, you wouldn’t …”

“Be here.”

She hesitated, looking up into the leaves.

“I know, Birgie; I know…. If I hadn’t let myself think I could do anything, that the gods or fates would take care of me…”

“Yup.”

“If I’d been more honest with people – including myself. If I hadn’t taken to lording it over Mother and Muriel. If I’d accepted more help, learned more…”

She lapsed into silence, staring stonily into the branches. When Birgie spoke, it almost sounded gentle.

“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, Meelie.

She nodded. Knowing that didn’t help.

And you’d be home now, safe in the bosom…”

“I’d be home, publishing another book, making more lectures, and then…”

“Then…?”

And then. Well, yes. Just imagine…

“Maybe help Franklin, and Eleanor. Use my … my fame – to advance good causes, help people. Help develop aviation. Help the country, the world. And of course, my family…”

Birgie was silent.

“And damn it, that’s what’s going to happen! I’m not done yet! Mister Eric and his men are tying up to the shipwreck right now! They’ll be here, and… Birgie?”

No response. Overhead, the leaves sparkled against the sky. She concentrated on them, forming her words carefully, speaking to the trees.

“Or… OK, let’s face it.”

The branches quivered in the breeze; two snow-white terns zoomed across her field of vision. She whispered.

“…or ‘I, like you, shall lay me down and die.’”

---------------

Notes

“I’ll write something about it for Cosmo.” AE wrote regularly for Cosmopolitan Magazine, and served as its aviation editor. See http://www.ameliaearhartmuseum.org/AmeliaEarhart/AEAviator.htm

“…there was a schooner.” “Some years after her last flight, it was reported that a Russian sailor had seen a white woman signaling from a small island dressed in jockey shorts. George told Gene that the outfit was wrong – it couldn’t be Amelia, because ‘she always wore my shorts when she flew, but I wear boxer shorts’” East to the Dawn 291-2. On this thin basis I have built this otherwise entirely imagined episode.

“Joan Blondell.” Popular vaudeville and movie performer in the 1930s and beyond, often in comic roles. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Blondell.

“I, like you, shall lay me down and die.” From a poem fragment attributed to AE; see Courage is the Price, p. 108.