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.
5. India to Australia
Two days later, on June 17, the Electra was pronounced ready; and on that same day they left Karachi for Calcutta, 1,390 miles directly across India to its eastern border.