Before Amelia could say a word, an American official answered for her: “That depends on His Highness’ wishes.”
The published account of the interview made AE laugh for many years to come. “Wal, I sure am glad to be here,” she was quoted as saying, “and gosh, I sure hope I’ll meet the Prince of Wales.” If there were a reason for not having met the prince, Amelia chuckled, it was the implied nasal twang in that newspaper story.
At a luncheon given in her honor by the Air League of the British Empire, AE met Lady Mary Heath, the famous woman aviator who had flown from Cape Town, Africa, to London. Lady Heath made the flight in a small light plane called an Avian.
Amelia decided she would like to have a plane like it. One early morning she stole from Mrs. Guest’s home and took a taxi out to Croydon Airport. She had made a date to go up with an English pilot in Lady Heath’s little two-seater Avian. While they were in the air, Amelia made up her mind. She would make Lady Heath an offer.
A few days later, when they sailed home on the Roosevelt, the little plane was lashed to the deck. The boat trip across the Atlantic was a wonderful opportunity to relax. The skipper, Captain Harry Manning, realizing the strain Amelia had been subject to, set aside a deck for her exclusive use. “Can’t you take us to South America instead of New York?” she asked him one day. She did not look forward to more receptions. Often AE went into the chartroom and discussed navigation with Captain Manning. One day, they decided, they would make a long flight together.
During the voyage Wilmer Stultz behaved erratically. Although the flight was accomplished through his skill as a pilot, and he was $20,000 richer because of it, he nevertheless sank into deep melancholy. To deaden the long days of the ocean trip, he had brought a case of brandy with him aboard the ship. With the liquor he found what he craved: an escape from mundane realities; in neat water tumblerfuls he finished off one bottle after another.
One afternoon a friend entered Stultz’s cabin. The flier was naked. In his right hand he held a full glass of brandy; with his left hand he gripped the rim of the water basin. He stared dolefully at his face in the mirror. Suddenly the ship lurched. Stultz slipped from the basin, swung across the room, and crashed into the portside bulkhead. He lay sprawled and unconscious on the floor, the water glass broken in a dark splash of brandy.
Later that day, when he recovered, Wilmer Stultz found his way on deck. “Drunkenness,” he said to anyone who cared to listen, “is the only true form of happiness.”
Amelia, Hilton Railey, and the others were stunned by the little, gentle, modest pilot who from drink could turn into a complete stranger.
Perhaps Bill Stultz knew that he had been marked by the gods; for within the year, on July 1, 1929, he was killed in an airplane crash one quarter of a mile short of the runway at Roosevelt Field, New York.