Latest / Daughter of the Sky- The Story of Amelia Earhart / 32 - Daughter of the Sky- The Story of Amelia Earhart by Paul L. Briand, Jr.

Transcript

32 - Daughter of the Sky- The Story of Amelia Earhart by Paul L. Briand, Jr. · Daughter of the Sky- The Story of Amelia Earhart

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section thirty two of Daughter of the Sky The Story
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of Amelia Earhart by Paul Brown Junior. The LibriVox recording
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Part three, the last flight
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: four Africa to India. Far from the customary skies, was
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Africa and its smells. To Amelia's sensitive nostrils. The aromas
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of South America had been the lush and pleasant ones
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of fruit, fish meat. In Dakar, as in Saint Louis,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the odor was the strong one of people. The big
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: bare feet of the natives she found extraordinary. She walked
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: through the teeming streets, her eyes focused to the riot
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: of color, her ears tuned to the comic opera of sound.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Splashes of bright yellow, red, and green marked the native garments.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: The women wore mother hubbards and slung their babies on
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: their backs or held them at their breasts. Amelia went
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: over to one of the market stalls and bought a
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: large bag of freshly roasted peanuts, her only West African export.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: At Dakar, the elector was scrubbed and washed, oiled and greased.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: The engines were given a forty hour check and a
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: faulty fuel flow meter was repaired. The flight so far
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: had been over the charted Pan American route to Natal
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and the air France course to Dakar ahead. However, inland
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: across Africa lay regions rarely if ever flown over. Exactly
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: what course they would fly pilot and navigator were undecided,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: but they would have to leave soon for tornadoes to
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the south and the sandstorms to the north had been predicted.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: They would have to find a way somewhere in between.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: The schedule for crossing Africa was a strenuous one. It
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: meant flying the distance of four thousand, three hundred fifty
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: miles in at least four separate legs, a daily flight
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: in comparison from New York to Saint Louis, where neither
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: pilot or aircraft was replaced or replaceable, and this fact,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: coupled with the thousands of miles that lay behind and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: ahead for the same pilot and plane, the flight became
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: an ordeal of endurance and courage. Amelia carefully studied the situation.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: The navigation aids were only two, contact and celestial. She
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: could fly contact by following her map and identifying landmarks
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: with the corresponding symbols on the sectional, but the African
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: maps were pitifully inadequate, even when supplemented with pilot reports
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: at each stop on the way, There were no radio
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: beams to home in on, nor were there any lights
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: at the landing fields they planned to stop at for refueling.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: For Fred, although he could, if it were clear, make
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: position fixes from the sun and the stars, navigating over
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Africa was more difficult than finding his way over any ocean.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Our flights over the desert, Fred wrote to his bride
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: of one month, were more difficult, and over water. That
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: was because the maps of the country are very inaccurate
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: and consequently extremely misleading. In fact, at points no dependence
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: at all could be placed on them. Also, recognizable landmarks
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: are few and far between, one part of the desert
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: being as much like another as two peas in a pod. However,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: we were lucky in always reaching our objectives in all
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the distance. I don't think we wandered off the course
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: for half an hour, although there were times when I
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have bet a nickel on the accuracy of our
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: assumed position. Despite the difficulties, Amelia blithely set out they
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: would push through somehow. There were, after all, countless places
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: for an emergency landing. If anything went wrong or if
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: they lost their way. On the morning of June tenth,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: they took off just before six o'clock. The course was
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: due east over the Senegal and Niger to the Sedan.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Some one thousand, one hundred forty miles. Seventeen hours and
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: fifty minutes later, they sighted the upper reaches of the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Niger River and landed at Gao. There, the ubiquitous gasoline
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: drums marked Amelia Earhart awaited them like squat silent sentinels.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: The months of planning and spotting the fuel were reaping
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: their rewards. George, to Amelia's soaring satisfaction, had done his
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: job well. The rest was up to her. The next
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: leg was one thousand miles long. The following morning, again
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: before dawn, they left Gao for for La Meis, flying
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: over the Niger River for one hundred seventy miles, then
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: crossing endless stretches of barren desert land to Zinder. Then
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: below lay spread out the broad valley of the Yobe River,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: with its long brown tendrils and sprawling swamps. Now in
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the shifting pattern of land and water. For as far
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: as her eyes could see, Amelia watched Lake Chad come
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: into full view. She ran her eye over the shining surface,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: but was unable to find any shorelines. Islands in the
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Great Lake had in outline the shapes of fantastic creatures
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: out of story land, with large, fat paws and broad
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: flattened heads. As a little girl in Atchison, Amelia would
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: climb on to the old buggy in the barn with
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: her sister Muriel and her cousins the Chalices, and lead
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: expeditions to imaginary lands. The map of Africa had been
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: her favorite. Names such as Timbuctoo, Senegal, Khartoum had stirred
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: her dreams. For Amelia in the cockpit of her own plane,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the world of her childhood imagination was coming to life,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Yet she mist seen Timbuctoo. If she had known about
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: it beforehand, she could have visited the fabled town, for
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: it lay but four hundred miles up the Niger River
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: from Gao, But the pre of having to meet her
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: schedule prevented the side trip. Someday, Amelia kept telling herself
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: she would return and make a leisurely trip when she
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: had time really to see and do. Cranes, marabou storks,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: blue herons abounded about Lake chad, as did many other
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: birds she could not identify. She watched the shadow of
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: the electra, like a strange black flying fish, glide over
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the surface of the water. Once across the shore and
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: over jungle, she looked for the elephants and crocodiles, which
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: had meant Africa to her ever since she had been
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: a little girl in Bloomers, But she could see none yet.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Through the haze that now began to rise from the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: hot land like steam from a kettle, she caught now
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and again the sight of a hippopotamus. The cockpit became
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: hot and stuffy, and Emilia opened the windshield for a
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: breath of outside air. According to the pattern of early
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: take offs and landings for the African hops, it was
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: just before noon when they approached for La Mille for
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: a stopover. The sun was high, its rays direct and glaring.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: As she came in on a long glide for the touchdown,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Amelia held the throttles more forward than was usual. She
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: needed a faster landing speed to compensate for the thin,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: hot air with its weak lifting power. On the wings,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Thick beads of sweat bubbled, broke and ran down her
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: face and neck. Her eyes smarted from the sting of
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the salt, and she tried to blink the drops of
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: sweat away. Her hands were wet and slippery on the
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: wheel and throttles, and quickly she brought back one hand
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and then the other to rub it dry against the
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: leg of her trousers. The Electra rolled swiftly over the
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: ground gently. Amelia touched the brakes until her plane came
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to a stop. Hoping for cooler air, she slid back
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the cockpit hatch. The inside of the plane was like
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: an oven turned up to broil, but the hot outside
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: air only added more heat to it. Quickly, she taxied
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the plane and parked it. The bright metal wings sizzled
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: in the sun. A e climbed out of the cockpit,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: skipped on tiptoe over the hot metal, and jumped to
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the ground. Fred swung open the door of the fuselage
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: and climbed out. Pilot navigator looked at each other. They
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: were soaking wet, each separately chafing at the neck and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: waist from collar and belt. Amelia removed the kerchief from
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: about her neck and wiped her face dry. She looked
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: at the Electra. It sagged at one wing, the oleostrat
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of the left landing gear had just collapsed. The landing
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: gear was not repaired until one thirty p m. The
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: next day. Because the heat was well over one hundred
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: degrees a e and Fred decided to make that day's
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: hop a short one. They flew to al Fasher, only
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: a few hours away. Fortunately, there was a strong tailwind,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: but Amelia felt as if she were riding a bucking broncho.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: The heat from the hot, dry sands below rose in
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: strong convection currents that buffeted and pitched the Electra like
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a ship in a rolling sea. Fred felt as if
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: he were back to his days of sailing ships. They
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: were both happy to get to Alphasher, but not for long.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: When they crawled out of the plain, men with guns
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: were waiting for them, disinfecting guns as a health measure, pilot,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: navigator and plane had to be thoroughly sprayed. Amelia and
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Fred submitted and squirmed. One day at Alphasher was enough.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Although the next day was Sunday, it was not a
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: day for rest or prayer. The thirteenth of June, like
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: any other day on the schedule, was marked for a flight,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: this one into the Anglo Egyptian Sudan to Khartum. The
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: land flown over was for Amelia the bleakest and most
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: desolate in all of Africa. There were no rivers, no
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: native villages, not even one identifying contour line on the map.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: As far as Amelia could stretch her hand over the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: course line, there was blank space beneath. Unable to fly
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: by contact, she locked in the autopilot and studied the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: romantic sounding names on the map. Kuala enhal Um, Shinaishin,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Abu Sa'id, Id, al Bashir, Fazi, Marabia, Abu Fas, as
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: she pronounced them, each in turn, rolled from her lips
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and tongue in twisted vowels and consonants. What wonderful sticklers
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: they would make for crossword puzzles. As they approached Khartum,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Amelia was struck by the orderly way in which the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: city was laid out. She learned later that Kitchener had
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: used the Union Jack for the blueprint. The city was
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: situated on the banks of the Nile, one thousand, three
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: hundred fifty miles south of Cairo and several hundred miles
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: west of the Red Sea. They remained in Khartum for
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: only two hours, time enough to refuel, but not time
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: enough for any sight seeing. From Khartum, they set out
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: for Masawa, in Italy's Eritrea. From above, Ae noticed an
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: occasional grouping of colorfully striped tents. They marked stopping places
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: along the endless camel tracks across the desert. The blowing
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: wind wrinkled and scalloped the waste of land. Two hundred
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: miles out, the electra bisected the Atbara River. Across the river,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: sandy plains gently rose to foothills, the foothills to lush,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: green mountains. As it approached the foothills, the plane hit
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: bumpy contrary air currents. The flow of air coursing down
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the slopes of the mountains tangled with the strong convection
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: currents rising from the ground. Amelia fought to hold her
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: plaine steady, but it pitched and tossed. She added throttle
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and climbed to ten thousand feet, but the buffeting continued.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: To the left, and about three thousand feet below her wing,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: she caught sight of Asmara, the capital of Veritrea. To
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the right a range of peaks that towered to fourteen
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: thousand feet. She weaved in and out and across to
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the other side. The eastern slopes came suddenly sharp and abrupt.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: They angled quickly down into a broad, flat, sweeping valley
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: for the next thirty miles. The land continued flat all
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the way to the Red Sea. As she had found
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the Blue Nile and the White Nile to be neither
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: blue nor white, but green, so now Amelia discovered the
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Red Sea not to be red but blue. She was
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: gradually seeing the world, or at least its rivers, in
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: its true colors. She lowered flaps and landing gear and
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: began her let down, standing at the end of a
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: formed by two coral islands, and the mainland was Massawa.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Late afternoon, shadows lengthened over the port. Mounds of salt
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: about the town, like sand dune she had seen at
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Cape cod glittered in the slanting rays of the sun.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Two small clipper ships, some freighters, and countless other smaller
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: craft rode the tide in the harbor. After she had landed,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Amelia soon discovered why Massawa was one of the world's
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: great exporters of salt. The blistering sun causing temperatures often
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: in excess of one hundred twenty degrees could evaporate hundreds
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of gallons of salt water in pans set out along
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the shore and leave thick layers of salt. Amelia had
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: forgotten to eat, as she had done so often before
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: during these daily flights. She was starved for food. She
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: felt hollow as a bamboo horse, she said to one
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: of the Italian officers who had greeted her when she arrived.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: The officer did not know how to translate the remark
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: for his bewildered colleagues, but he understood her meaning, laughed
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and nodded. Food had been prepared for them to prepare
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: for the long flight across Arabia. It was a distance
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: equal to the one she had flown over the South Atlantic.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Amelia now flew the Electra three hundred thirty five miles
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: south and east down the coast of Eritrea to a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: sob where the runways were longer and where a large
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: number of gasoline drums had been stored for her. The
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: next morning, and well before daybreak, from across the Red
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Sea in Arabia, they left a sab. It was June fifteenth.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Their destination Karachi, India, lay one thousand, nine hundred twenty
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: miles away. The flight would have to be non stop,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: as the Arabian authorities had forbidden the Electra to land
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: in their country. In fact, they had even refused the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: right to fly over their country, and Amelia reflected, from
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: what little she saw of it, their was as forbidding
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: as their refusals. One hour and fifteen minutes after take off,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: they had passed over the southern entry to the Red
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Sea and had reached the English possession of Aidan. From Aidan,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Amelia snaked a course along the southern Arabian coast. Flying
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: at an altitude of eight thousand feet, she could see
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the blue of the Arabian Sea and the abomination of
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: desolation which was the shore. Beyond the coastal mountains stretched
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the bare and endless sands of the desert. Of all
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: places to make an emergency landing, Amelia thought this was
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the worst. She reached into the cubby hole to the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: right and behind her and pulled out her Arabian credentials,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: to whom it may concern, they began. Amelia hoped they
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: would never have to concern anyone, because, among other things,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the credentials begged for clemency for the flyers. In the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: event they went down. Agy wondered what would happen if
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: she and fred encountered the wrong nomadic tribe. Amelia glanced
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: at her instruments, then her eyes stopped at the fuel gages.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: The left engines seemed to be using too much gasoline.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: She reached for the mixture control lever to lean out
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: the fuel. The lever would not move. It was jammed. A.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: E quickly analyzed the possibilities of a force landing. Neither
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the Arabian Sea nor desert was inviting, nor did she
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: want to try to make it back to a sob.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: They would have to try to push through to Karachi.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: She eased back on both throttles. Ahead was the Gulf
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of Oman and across the Gulf Quater. At Quater, she
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: looked at the chronometer. It was five o'clock. Karachi was
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: only two hours away. She hoped that by flying at
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a lower rpm she might make it. The fuel supply lasted.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: When they reached Karachi, the chronometer for relapsed time since
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: takeoff had clicked off thirteen hours and ten minutes. It
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: had been one of their longest flights. Weary Ae walked
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: away from the plane there's a phone call for you,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: someone said to her. Oh yes, Amelia answered flatly, Probably
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: some newspaper man. She thought, it's from New York. Mister
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Putnam is on the wire. AE rushed inside to the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: telephone and picked up the receiver. How do you feel,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: g P asked from eight thousand miles away. Fine, a
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: little tired, Perhaps the connection was good. How's the ship?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Everything seems okay. There's been a little trouble with the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: fuel flow meter and analyzer, but I think they'll cure
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that here. How's Fred fine? Having a good time? George asked,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, Ae answered, it's been very worth while. We'll
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: do it again together some time, okay with me? Anything else, well,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I'll cable tomorrow an estimate of when we should get
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: to Howland. Good Bye, see you in Oakland. Amelia hung
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: up the telephone and walked away slowly. G P was
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a most considerate and understanding husband, and when their friends
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: had their little jokes about George's role as the forgotten husband,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: he was always good humored. After the atlantic flight, she
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: remembered her unknown husband was decorated. Friends and well wishers
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: had gathered in her hotel suite in New York. The
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: rooms were crowded with floral bouquets of congratulations. A woman
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: friend of a Ese, went from bouquet to bauquet, untying
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: ribbons of various colors, and from them she fashioned a rosette.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: She walked over to George, who was sitting in one
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: of the easy chairs. Stand up, husband, the woman said.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: The husband obliged. She fastened the decoration to the lapel
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of GP's coat. Distinguished service in self effacement beyond the
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: line of marital duty. I hereby bestow upon you the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: order of the forgotten husband. A flash of laughter cracked
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: across the room. G P smiled uneasily, then laughed with
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: the others, and added AE from the sideline of spectators
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: for having a sense of humor too. Then later he
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: organized other forgotten husbands of women flyers into the forty
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: nine point five Club. The women had formed an international
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: organization of licensed women pilots and called themselves the ninety nines.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: AE was the first president of the group. Not to
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: be outdone, GP proposed a new trophy from the forty
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: nine point fives. It was an endurance prize to be
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: awarded to the first wife who stayed home the longest.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: The trophy a cut glass baby bottle with crossed silver
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: safety pins. The award was never me there was no
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: one who qualified. Amelia kicked up the dust at Karachi
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: as she remembered the telephone conversation with g. P. Certainly
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: she had never qualified for the trophy, but she would
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: give it an honest try if she ever got home
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: from this long trip. There was another continent to fly over,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: and another after that, not to mention the Pacific Ocean,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: which was more than equal to both of them put together.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: For the present, however, the chance to ride a camel
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: could not be foregone. Amelia and Fred rose to the occasion.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Literally the way the camel swung up from the ground,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: nose diving forward, then lurching backward, Amelia, and sconced between
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the humps, felt as if she were going into a
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: flat spin. Better wear your parachute, Fred called over to her.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: After the ride, or rather the swing aloft from extended
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: rubber pads, a E went to the post office to
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: have the covers canceled for her, describing philatelists back home.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Out at the airport, the largest AE had ever seen.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Mechanics from Imperial Airways worked around the clock getting the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Electra back into top flight condition. Two instrument specialists on
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: loan from the Royal Air Force repaired the troublesome fuel
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: flow indicator and the jammed mixture control lever end of
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: section thirty two.