4.Africa to India
Far from the customary skies was Africa and its smells. To Amelia’s sensitive nostrils the aromas of South America had been the lush and pleasant ones of fruit, fish, meat; in Dakar, as in St. Louis, the odor was the strong one of people.
The big bare feet of the natives she found extraordinary. She walked through the teeming streets, her eyes focused to the riot of color, her ears tuned to the comic opera of sound. Splashes of bright yellow, red, and green marked the native garments. The women wore Mother Hubbards and slung their babies on their backs or held them at their breasts. Amelia went over to one of the market stalls and bought a large bag of freshly roasted peanuts, her only West African export.
At Dakar, the Electra was scrubbed and washed, oiled and greased; the engines were given a forty-hour check, and a faulty fuel-flow meter was repaired.
The flight so far had been over the charted Pan American route to Natal and the Air France course to Dakar. Ahead, however, inland across Africa, lay regions rarely, if ever, flown over. Exactly what course they would fly, pilot and navigator wereundecided. But they would have to leave soon, for tornadoes to the south and sandstorms to the north had been predicted. They would have to find a way somewhere in between.
The schedule for crossing Africa was a strenuous one. It meant flying the distance of 4,350 miles in at least four separate legs—a daily flight, in comparison, from New York to St. Louis. Where neither pilot nor aircraft was replaced, or replaceable, and this fact coupled with the thousands of miles that lay behind and ahead for the same pilot and plane, the flight became an ordeal of endurance and courage.
Amelia carefully studied the situation: the navigation aids were only two—contact and celestial. She could fly contact by following her map and identifying landmarks with the corresponding symbols on the sectional; but the African maps were pitifully inadequate, even when supplemented with pilot reports at each stop on the way. There were no radio beams to home in on, nor were there any lights at the landing fields they planned to stop at for refueling. For Fred, although he could, if it were clear, make position fixes from the sun and the stars, navigating over Africa was more difficult than finding his way over any ocean.
“Our flights over the desert,” Fred wrote to his bride of one month, “were more difficult than over water. That was because the maps of the country are very inaccurate and consequently extremely misleading. In fact, at points no dependence at all could be placed on them. Also recognizable landmarks are few and far between, one part of the desert being as much like another as two peas in a pod. However, we were lucky in always reaching our objectives. In all the distance I don’t think we wandered off the course for half an hour, although there were times when I wouldn’t have bet a nickel on the accuracy of our assumed position.”
Despite the difficulties Amelia blithely set out. They would push through somehow: there were, after all, countless places for an emergency landing if anything went wrong or if they lost their way.
On the morning of June 10 they took off just before six o’clock. The course was due east over the Senegal and Niger to the Sudan. Some 1,140 miles, seventeen hours, and fifty minutes later they sighted the upper reaches of the Niger River and landed at Gao. There the ubiquitous gasoline drums marked “Amelia Earhart” awaited them like squat silent sentinels. The months of planning in spotting the fuel were reaping their rewards. George, to Amelia’s soaring satisfaction, had done his job well. The rest was up to her.
The next leg was 1,000 miles long. The following morning, again before dawn, they left Gao for Fort-Lamy, flying over the Niger River for 170 miles then crossing endless stretches of barren desert land to Zinder. Then below lay spread out the broad valley of the Yobe River with its long brown tendrils and sprawling swamps. Now in the shifting pattern of land and water, for as far as her eyes could see, Amelia watched Lake Chad come into full view. She ran her eye over the shining surface but was unable to find any shore lines. Islands in the great lake had in outline the shapes of fantastic creatures out of storyland, with large fat paws and broad flattened heads.
As a little girl in Atchison, Amelia would climb into the old buggy in the barn with her sister Muriel and her cousins, the Challisses, and lead expeditions to imaginary lands. The map of Africa had been her favorite. Names such as Timbuktu, Senegal, Khartoum had stirred her dreams.
For Amelia in the cockpit of her own plane, the world of her childhood imagination was coming to life. Yet she missed seeing Timbuktu. If she had known about it beforehand, she could have visited the fabled town, for it lay but 400 miles up the Niger River from Gao. But the pressure of having to meet her schedule prevented the side trip. Someday, Amelia kept telling herself, she would return and make a leisurely trip, when she had time really to see and do.
Cranes, maribou storks, blue herons abounded about Lake Chad, as did many other birds she could not identify. Shewatched the shadow of the Electra, like a strange black flying fish, glide over the surface of the water. Once across the shore and over jungle, she looked for the elephants and crocodiles which had meant Africa to her ever since she had been a little girl in bloomers, but she could see none. Yet through the haze that now began to rise from the hot land like steam from a kettle she caught now and again the sight of a hippopotamus. The cockpit became hot and stuffy, and Amelia opened the windshield for a breath of outside air.
According to the pattern of early take-offs and landings for the African hops, it was just before noon when they approached Fort-Lamy for a stopover. The sun was high; its rays direct and glaring. As she came in on a long glide for the touchdown, Amelia held the throttles more forward than was usual: she needed a faster landing speed to compensate for the thin, hot air with its weak lifting power on the wings. Thick beads of sweat bubbled, broke, and ran down her face and neck. Her eyes smarted from the sting of the salt and she tried to blink the drops of sweat away. Her hands were wet and slippery on the wheel and throttles, and quickly she brought back one hand then the other to rub it dry against the leg of her trousers.
The Electra rolled swiftly over the ground. Gently Amelia touched the brakes until her plane came to a stop. Hoping for cooler air, she slid back the cockpit hatch. The inside of the plane was like an oven turned up to broil, but the hot outside air only added more heat to it. Quickly she taxied the plane and parked it. The bright metal wings sizzled in the sun; AE climbed out of the cockpit, skipped on tiptoe over the hot metal, and jumped to the ground. Fred swung open the door of the fuselage and climbed out. Pilot and navigator looked at each other: they were soaking wet, each separately chafing at the neck and waist from collar and belt. Amelia removed the kerchief from about her neck and wiped her face dry. She looked at the Electra: it sagged at one wing. The oleo strut of the left landing gear had just collapsed.
The landing gear was not repaired until 1:30P.M.the next day. Because the heat was well over 100° AE and Fred decided to make that day’s hop a short one. They flew to El Fasher, only a few hours away. Fortunately, there was a strong tail wind, but Amelia felt as if she were riding a bucking bronco. The heat from the hot, dry sands below rose in strong convection currents that buffeted and pitched the Electra like a ship in a rolling sea. Fred felt as if he were back to his days of sailing ships. They were both happy to get to El Fasher, but not for long. When they crawled out of the plane, men with guns were waiting for them—disinfecting guns. As a health measure, pilot, navigator, and plane had to be thoroughly sprayed. Amelia and Fred submitted and squirmed.
One day at El Fasher was enough. Although the next day was Sunday, it was not a day for rest or prayer. The thirteenth of June, like any other day on the schedule, was marked for a flight, this one into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to Khartoum.
The land flown over was for Amelia the bleakest and most desolate in all of Africa. There were no rivers, no native villages, not even one identifying contour line on the map. As far as Amelia could stretch her hand over the course line there was blank space beneath.
Unable to fly by contact, she locked in the auto pilot and studied the romantic-sounding names on the map. Qala-en Hahl, Umm Shinayshin, Abu Seid, Idd el Bashir, Fazi, Marabia Abu Fas: as she pronounced them, each in turn rolled from her lips and tongue in twisted vowels and consonants. What wonderful sticklers they would make for crossword puzzles!
As they approached Khartoum, Amelia was struck by the orderly way in which the city was laid out. She learned later that Kitchener had used the Union Jack for the blueprint. The city was situated on the banks of the Nile, 1,350 miles south of Cairo and several hundred miles west of the Red Sea. They remained in Khartoum for only two hours, time enough to refuel but not time enough for any sight-seeing.
From Khartoum they set out for Massaua, in Italy’s Eritrea. From above AE noticed an occasional grouping of colorfully striped tents; they marked stopping places along the endless camel trails across the desert. The blowing wind wrinkled and scalloped the waste of land.
Two hundred miles out the Electra bisected the Atbara River. Across the river sandy plains gently rose to foothills, the foothills to lush green mountains. As it approached the foothills, the plane hit bumpy, contrary air currents. The flow of air coursing down the slopes of the mountains tangled with the strong convection currents rising from the ground. Amelia fought to hold her plane steady, but it pitched and tossed. She added throttle and climbed to 10,000 feet, but the buffeting continued. To the left and about 3,000 feet below her wing she caught sight of Asmara, the capital of Eritrea; to the right, a range of peaks that towered to 14,000 feet. She weaved in and out and across to the other side. The eastern slopes came suddenly; sharp and abrupt, they angled quickly down into a broad, flat, sweeping valley. For the next 30 miles the land continued flat all the way to the Red Sea.
As she had found the Blue Nile and the White Nile to be neither blue nor white, but green, so now Amelia discovered the Red Sea not to be red, but blue. She was gradually seeing the world, or at least its rivers, in its true colors. She lowered flaps and landing gear and began her letdown.
Standing at the end of a bay formed by two coral islands and the mainland was Massaua. Late-afternoon shadows lengthened over the port. Mounds of salt about the town, like sand dunes she had seen at Cape Cod, glittered in the slanting rays of the sun. Two small clipper ships, some freighters, and countless other smaller craft rode the tide in the harbor.
After she had landed, Amelia soon discovered why Massaua was one of the world’s great exporters of salt. The blistering sun, causing temperatures often in excess of 120°, could evaporate hundreds of gallons of salt water in pans set out along the shore and leave thick layers of salt.
Amelia had forgotten to eat, as she had done so often before during these daily flights. She was starved for food; she felt “as hollow as a bamboo horse,” she said to one of the Italian officers who had greeted her when she arrived. The officer did not know how to translate the remark for his bewildered colleagues, but he understood her meaning, laughed, and nodded. Food had been prepared for them.
To prepare for the long flight across Arabia—it was a distance equal to the one she had flown over the South Atlantic—Amelia now flew the Electra 335 miles south and east down the coast of Eritrea to Assab, where the runways were longer and where a large number of gasoline drums had been stored for her.
The next morning, and well before daybreak from across the Red Sea in Arabia, they left Assab. It was June 15. Their destination, Karachi, India, lay 1,920 miles away. The flight would have to be non-stop, as the Arabian authorities had forbidden the Electra to land in their country; in fact, they had even refused the right to fly over their country. And, Amelia reflected, from what little she saw of it, their country was as forbidding as their refusals.
One hour and fifteen minutes after take-off they had passed over the southern entry to the Red Sea and had reached the English possession of Aden. From Aden, Amelia snaked a course along the southern Arabian coast. Flying at an altitude of 8,000 feet, she could see the blue of the Arabian Sea and the abomination of desolation which was the shore. Beyond the coastal mountains stretched the bare and endless sands of the desert. Of all places to make an emergency landing, Amelia thought, this was the worst. She reached into the cubbyhole to the right and behind her, and pulled out her Arabian credentials. “To Whom It May Concern” they began. Amelia hoped they would never have to concern anyone, because among other things the credentials begged for clemency for the fliers in the event they went down. AE wondered what would happen if she and Fred encountered the wrong nomadic tribe.
Amelia glanced at her instruments, then her eye stopped at the fuel gauges. The left engine seemed to be using too much gasoline. She reached for the mixture-control lever to lean out the fuel. The lever would not move; it was jammed. AE quickly analyzed the possibilities of a forced landing: neither the Arabian Sea nor desert was inviting, nor did she want to try to make it back to Assab; they would have to try to push through to Karachi. She eased back on both throttles.
Ahead was the Gulf of Oman, and across the gulf, Gwadar. At Gwadar she looked at the chronometer; it was five o’clock. Karachi was only two hours away. She hoped that by flying at a lower rpm she might make it.
The fuel supply lasted. When they reached Karachi, the chronometer for elapsed time since take-off had clicked off thirteen hours and ten minutes. It had been one of their longest flights. Weary, AE walked away from the plane.
“There’s a phone call for you,” someone said to her.
“Oh, yes,” Amelia answered flatly. Probably some newspaperman, she thought.
“It’s from New York. Mr. Putnam is on the wire.”
AE rushed inside to the telephone and picked up the receiver.
“How do you feel?” GP asked from 8,000 miles away.
“Fine. A little tired, perhaps.” The connection was good.
“How’s the ship?”
“Everything seems O.K. There’s been a little trouble with the fuel-flow meter and analyzer, but I think they’ll cure that here.”
“How’s Fred?”
“Fine....”
“Having a good time?” George asked.
“Oh, yes,” AE answered. “It’s been very worth while. We’ll do it again, together, some time.”
“O.K. with me. Anything else?”
“Well, I’ll cable tomorrow an estimate of when we should get to Howland. Good-by.... See you in Oakland.”
Amelia hung up the telephone and walked away slowly. GPwas a most considerate and understanding husband, and when their friends had their little jokes about George’s role as the “forgotten husband,” he was always good-humored. After the Atlantic flight, she remembered, her Unknown Husband was decorated. Friends and well-wishers had gathered in her hotel suite in New York. The rooms were crowded with floral bouquets of congratulations.
A woman friend of AE’s went from bouquet to bouquet untying ribbons of various colors, and from them she fashioned a rosette. She walked over to George, who was sitting in one of the easy chairs.
“Stand up, husband!” the woman said. The husband obliged. She fastened the decoration to the lapel of GP’s coat. “For distinguished service in self-effacement beyond the line of marital duty, I hereby bestow upon you the ‘Order of the Forgotten Husband.’”
A flash of laughter cracked across the room. GP smiled uneasily, then laughed with the others.
“And,” added AE from the side line of spectators, “for having a sense of humor, too.”
Then, later, he organized other forgotten husbands of women fliers into the Forty-Nine Point Five Club. The women had formed an international organization of licensed women pilots and called themselves the Ninety-Nines. AE was the first president of the group. Not to be outdone, GP proposed a new trophy from the 49.5’s. It was an endurance prize to be awarded to the first wife who stayed home the longest. The trophy: a cut-glass baby bottle with crossed silver safety pins. The award was never made. There was no one who qualified.
Amelia kicked up the dust at Karachi as she remembered the telephone conversation with GP. Certainly she had never qualified for the trophy, but she would give it an honest try if she ever got home from this long trip. There was another continent to fly over, and another after that; not to mention the Pacific Ocean, which was more than equal to both of them put together.
For the present, however, the chance to ride a camel could not be foregone. Amelia and Fred rose to the occasion—literally. The way the camel swung up from the ground, nose-diving forward then lurching backward, Amelia, ensconced between the humps, felt as if she were going into a flat spin.
“Better wear your parachute,” Fred called over to her.
After the ride, or rather the swing aloft from extended rubber pads, AE went to the post office to have the “covers” canceled for her subscribing philatelists back home.
Out at the airport, the largest AE had ever seen, mechanics from Imperial Airways worked around the clock getting the Electra back into top-flight condition. Two instrument specialists on loan from the Royal Air Force repaired the troublesome fuel-flow indicator and the jammed mixture-control lever.