Her Last Flight(55)
“Now, I’m no expert, but I think I’d better comb it through first and then sort of trim it all around,” he said. “You all right?”
Irene handed him the comb. “Oh, yes.”
Now he combed the shortened hair, and it was much easier. He was gentle too. Slow, because they had all morning and all day, there was no hurry at all. Sandy took an interest in the shorn hair, then became bored and wound between Sam’s legs. The sun climbed higher. Sam’s fingers worked their way through Irene’s hair, and already it felt different, lighter somehow, freer. He picked up the scissors again and trimmed carefully. The curls sprang away from the blades, possessed of new, exciting life. When he was finished at last, he stood up and took her hand and pulled her up.
“How does it feel?” he said.
Irene shook her head. The damp strands flew around her face and stuck to her cheek. She touched her fingers to her hair in wonder. “It feels . . . I don’t know. It feels like somebody else. How does it look?”
“Sensational.”
“Don’t kid me.”
“I’m not kidding. Come on, have a look.”
Sam got his shaving mirror out of his kit bag and held it out in front of Irene. She stared back at this woman who was not her, who could not possibly be Irene, modern and tousle-haired and freckled and sunburnt and liberated, her eyes such a pungent shade of blue they might have been pieces of sky. She couldn’t take her eyes off those curls. She lifted them one by one and held them to the sun.
“You see?” said Sam. “Sensational.”
Meanwhile, the rest of humanity was working itself up into a state of unprecedented frenzy over the fate of the lost pilots. In the space of forty-eight hours, thanks to the miracle of the modern newswire, Sam and Irene had become just about the most famous people on earth. Members of the press had camped out in their dozens outside the Oakland home of Mrs. Samuel Mallory, who stayed indoors with her daughter and had her food brought in so she wouldn’t have to speak to anybody.
The press didn’t have to camp out outside the home of Mr. Hank Foster. Irene’s father obliged them by joining the hoopla himself. He chewed the fat with the newsmen, he shared stories and photographs of Irene, he made optimistic, colorful comments about the likely fate of the pilots that were quoted around the world. Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald issued regular statements from Mr. George Morrow, on behalf of the pilots and the navy, in which no detail was too small, no speculation too outlandish, no possible mention of the sponsoring corporations unmentioned.
In later interviews, Irene would insist that she never dreamed that the world was holding its breath as she and Sam awaited rescue on Howland, and in view of her natural modesty, she was no doubt telling the truth. Despite having experienced the vast outpouring of interest in Sam Mallory’s disappearance and miraculous resurrection the year before, Irene was the kind of person who simply couldn’t imagine such a magnitude of fuss being made about her. She hoped that a ship or two might be dispatched in their direction, and was embarrassed to occasion even that much trouble. When that longed-for ship hadn’t appeared by the fourth day, she just assumed it was because the U.S. Navy had more important priorities than a couple of lost pilots, whose misfortune was their own doing. Maybe she was right. Despite countless interviews and research through official and personal correspondence, nobody’s yet established just why Sam and Irene were left marooned on Howland for so long, when any fool with a map could see that they might be found there.
Nobody can pinpoint a reason why the world—and the pilots themselves—were left in suspense for so long.
Despite careful rationing, Sam and Irene ran out of sandwiches and condensed milk on their seventh day on Howland Island. Irene suggested they look for crabs. She used to go crabbing all the time when she was younger, and her father would take her down the shore for the day.
Sam and Irene set out together on the leeward side of the island in the late afternoon, carrying one of the empty water cans. They wore swimming costumes, which they’d both packed in their kit bags because a swimming costume didn’t weigh all that much, and they’d certainly expected to go swimming once they reached Australia. Irene’s was a plain, modest suit of navy blue serge; Sam’s was nearly identical except larger and less copious on the chest. The water was warm and clear and remarkably calm, just lapping against the pale sand while the sun glittered on top. Irene marveled at the sight of her feet as she waded out. From the other side of the island, they heard the soft, steady crash of the surf, but here there was nothing but peace, and the fish that nibbled curiously at their toes, and the bright red strawberry hermit crabs that crawled along the reef, scooping up all the smaller creatures. Life grew abundantly here, in the nutrient-rich waters that swelled up the walls of the extinct underwater volcano on which they were perched. Irene plunged her hand in the water and lifted out a wriggling crab.
“Here you go!” she said. “Dinner.”
Sam waded over with the empty can. “Blow me down.”
Irene dropped the crab inside and said, “Now it’s your turn.”
“Me? I’m just looking out for sharks.”
“You’re not scared of the claws, are you?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“You are too. Come on, here’s another one. Just put your hand in and grab him from the top.”