Colder Than Ice

by MacPherson, Helen

  “Let me finish here and I’ll be there shortly.”

  AFTER GAINING DIRECTIONS from Allison, Rob skillfully maneuvered around the hut’s internal walls with his blade. At one place, the blade sunk a little further, heralding a possible entrance that was plugged by ice. As he peeled away at the barrier, more evidence of a smaller room came into view, surprisingly free of all but a few icicles that clung to the ceiling. Despite his growing excitement, he continued until he’d uncovered a space large enough for a human to walk through.

  “Alli,” he called softly.

  Allison got up from the wooden bench she’d been cataloguing on and went to Rob’s side. She was lost for words. Lying within a sleeping bag, his hands calmly folded over an encased document, was a man, his face weathered by the exposure to the elements. Unlike the other body, no one had gone to the trouble to sew him into his sleeping bag. His pose reminded Allison of one of the knights of old.

  She walked quietly across the small confines of the room and peered down at the encased document he was holding. In bold on the document were three letters: ERF. She crumpled to the floor, the shock of the discovery too much to take in.

  Rob rushed to her side, afraid she’d fainted. “Are you all right?”

  She looked up at Rob’s concerned face, her eyes glistening with tears. “You’ve found him,” she whispered. “You’ve found Eric Finlayson.”

  “No kidding? Bugger me.” He stepped out of the small room and turned to the others, preoccupied in various corners of the room. “Hey, we’ve found the man himself.” He quickly stepped aside as the group crammed around the doorway.

  Allison stood and cast her eyes around what had been Eric Finlayson’s final resting-place. The personal area wasn’t that dissimilar to the others they’d found. A small shelf contained his belongings; a faded silk sled pennant, half family crest, half American flag was tacked to the wall. There was a record on an opened phonograph—possibly the last tune he’d heard before he closed his eyes forever. She reverently touched each of the items before returning her gaze to the man laid out on the small bed, his features surprisingly calm, a glimmer of a smile around the corners of his lips.

  Rick forced his way into the room and attempted to pull the monogrammed document from the dead man’s hands. “Damn it, he doesn’t seem to want to give this up too quickly, does he.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Allison screamed in outrage at the desecration of the man whose existence she’d sought to prove for so long.

  Rob clasped Rick’s shoulder with a vise-like grip. “Why don’t you step back, mate. This is Alli’s find, not yours. Besides, you had your turn with the last diary.”

  Rick turned and saw the murderous look in Rob’s eyes. Stepping back, he rubbed his shoulder while Rob calmed Allison.

  “That proves again the ability of man to conquer all he sees. Here we have the proof.” Rick pointed at the bed.

  Allison, having recovered from the shock of Rick’s attempted theft, laughed. “He can’t be too bloody skilful. He died in the attempt.”

  Sarah chuckled. “Congratulations, Rob, and congratulations, Alli. He must have been the last. Otherwise, I’ve no doubt someone would have wrapped him in a shroud as well.” She looked at the frozen hands that grimly clutched the prize of what could only be Finlayson’s diary. “How about we see if we can release that without too much injury to the body itself. Rob, can you tell Michela?”

  “I’m here.” Michela stepped into the room and stared at the man in the cot. The words of Charlotte Finlayson echoed across the miles before spiritually rebounding off the walls of the small room: “Bring my ancestor home.”

  His features, although withered, were as Michela had remembered seeing him in the painting behind Charlotte Finlayson’s desk. With the exception of the pallor of his skin, the only thing that was missing were the eyes that had seemed to radiate from the painting, now in death, forever closed. She glanced sideways and took in Allison’s shaking figure. Without thinking she stepped closer and lightly touched Allison’s arm. “Are you okay?” she softly asked.

  Allison looked down at the hand softly stroking her arm and then at Michela. “I’ll be fine,” she quietly replied, giving Michela’s hand a small squeeze.

  Sarah cast an “I told you so” smile at Michela before turning her attention to Allison. “So what do you want to do?”

  “If possible I’d like to try and remove the diary. Once that’s done, I think I’ll take it back to my hut and see what it holds,” Allison said. “Michela, I know Mrs. Finlayson’s requirements, but do you think it would be okay if we tried to work out how her ancestor died?”

  Michela nodded, only now able to think coherent thoughts as opposed to the ones that had rushed through her head at Allison’s gentle touch. “I don’t think that would pose a problem, especially if we take it slowly.”

  Rick took Dianne’s hand. “If you think I’m going to give you a hand then you’ve got another thing coming. Come on, love, we may as well continue with the cataloguing.

  “I’ll give you a hand to move him,” Rob offered.

  “First things first,” Sarah said. With Michela’s help, she managed to carefully pry Finlayson’s fingers open enough to pull out the encased document. “Here.” She handed it to Allison.

  Allison held the document as if it was the most precious thing on earth. “Thank you,” she whispered and smiled at them. “This is a dream come true.”

  ALLISON ENTERED HER hut and carefully placed the diary on the table. I think this is going to be a long morning, and my camera’s still in the mess hut. I better grab that and a coffee while I’m at it.

  On her way to the mess hut, she watched Rob, Michela, and Sarah as they carried Finlayson. Catching Michela’s glance in her direction, she waved as her thoughts returned to the interaction in the hut and Michela’s reassuring touch. She shook her head to bring herself back to the present and entered the mess hut. She retrieved her camera and a cup of the brew made fresh that morning, and returned to her apple.

  Allison photographed the document’s jacket. It was made of cardboard, encasing its contents on all sides bar one. “Hmm, a good way to protect the contents.” She tilted the open side toward her and the book slid out, its cover obviously once brilliant deep green leather. “Now that is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship.”

  Only the gold monogrammed letters of ERF and the gold border that formed a boundary to the diary broke the green leather. She lifted the book and a small waterproof pouch fell from the back of the casing.

  “SO, WHAT DID I tell you?” Sarah smugly said as she and Michela removed the stiff sleeping bag from Finlayson.

  “I still think you’re making things up. She wasn’t thinking. If it had been you in my place, she’d have done the same thing,” Michela replied.

  “You can say what you want, Dr. DeGrasse, but I think you know she likes you.” Sarah dodged Michela’s soft punch. “Do this like last time?”

  Michela nodded. “Let me get comfortable.” She leaned against the wall of the container. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “It’s a male who looks to be a lot older than the other male, but this could be due to the exposure of Finlayson’s skin to the extremes over the passing years. Anyway, if we take that into account, my rough guess is that he’s about the same age—late thirties to early forties. I’m going down through the layers here and he seems to be wearing a hell of a lot more clothing than Ross was. Mind you, if he’s died from the same thing then there probably wasn’t that much body fat to keep him warm. I’m unbuttoning his shirt and cutting through his undershirt.” Sarah sucked in a breath. “Shit, it looks as if he may have suffered broken ribs at some stage. His chest is tightly bound. Are you getting all this, Michela?”

  “Yes, yes, give me a minute,” Michela replied as she furiously wrote.

  ALLISON PHOTOGRAPHED THE front and back of the pouch and set her camera on the table. She took a long sip of her coffee, allowing th
e contents to warm her insides.

  She set the cup down, took up a pair of long-nosed tweezers, and carefully unfolded the waterproof covering to reveal two photographs, one on top of the other. She put them beside each other, picked up her camera, and photographed them before studying them more closely.

  The first photograph was of a woman in a flowing dress of the 1890’s, accompanied by a small child dressed in a pinafore. From the extensive research Allison had undertaken on Finlayson, she knew this could only be a picture of Finlayson’s wife Charlotte, and their son Robert. She smiled at the family portrait of father, mother, and son in the second photograph. Finlayson stood proudly behind the seated Charlotte, the smiling child on her lap.

  She carefully picked up the family portrait, turned it over, and struggled to read the inscription on its back. She turned on the high-resolution lamp, hoping the light would make her reading that much easier.

  SARAH TAPPED THE floor as she waited for Michela to catch up. “Are you ready yet?” Michela nodded. “As I was saying, it seems he’s suffered some sort of rib damage as his ribs are tightly bound. I’m going to cut through the gauze to see if I can see what the source of the injury is.” She cut through the icy material and pulled it back.

  Michela, nose in her notes, heard Sarah gasp. “What’s wrong?”

  Sarah looked down at the seated Michela. “Take a look.”

  Michela put the notepad on the floor, went to Sarah’s side and looked at Finlayson’s body. She blinked twice. “Oh shit, what do we do now?”

  THE HIGH-RESOLUTION lamp allowed Allison to see the fine copperplate inscription written all those years ago. My darling Elizabeth may this memory of a happy day tide you through the cold days ahead. My love and thoughts will always be with you. All my love, Charlotte.

  Thinking she’d read it wrong, she scrubbed her eyes and read the inscription again. Her mouth open, she turned the photograph over to reveal the family portrait. “Son of a…” she said out loud. “ERF doesn’t stand for Eric Robert Finlayson, the E stands for Elizabeth. Finlayson was a woman!” She put the photograph down, hurled herself through the door, and half-ran, half-slid the distance to the makeshift morgue.

  She burst through the door of the morgue and found Sarah and Michela intently studying the body. They turned around and shielded the body from Allison.

  Allison struggled to get her words out and breathe at the same time. “You’re not going to believe this. I’ve got the most amazing news.”

  Sarah smiled, her arms crossed. “I bet our news is better than yours. We’ve found the first female expeditioner on the Continent and it’s Finlayson.” Sarah pointed over her shoulder with her thumb to the body. “This makes the Conner-Boyd expedition of 1928 not the first time a female set foot on Antarctica.”

  Allison laughed, her breath coming a little easier. “You may have found the first female expeditioner, but I can do better than that. Eric’s name is actually Elizabeth. And by the looks of the photos that fell out of his, I mean her diary, she was married to a woman—she’s gay.”

  “Just because she was living with a woman, doesn’t mean she was gay. It could’ve been a Boston marriage,” Michela said.

  Allison tilted her head. “What’s that?”

  “By most modern-day accounts they were intense friendships formed between women who had no interest in marrying, in the more conventional sense that is. As far as we know, they were asexual relationships, but very strong, loving friendships all the same. This could have been the sort of relationship Charlotte and Elizabeth shared.” Michela turned to Sarah for confirmation.

  “Or, they could be gay, and she was more comfortable dressing as a man rather than a woman. I mean, have you ever heard of a Boston marriage resulting in actual marriage? And heaven knows, it can’t have been that easy to be a woman in the late 1800’s and one who was an explorer to boot!” Sarah replied.

  “Either way, how do think we should break this news to the rest of the group?” Allison asked, not receiving any great comfort from the concerned look on both Sarah and Michela’s faces.

  “Let’s do it after dinner. People tend to be a lot more relaxed on a full stomach, and something tells me this news isn’t going to go down all that well,” Michela ventured.

  “What about Di and Rick?” Sarah asked. “They’re going to be keen to know what you’ve found in the diary.”

  Allison waved her hand. “Leave them to me.”

  ALLISON CAST HER eyes around the table in the mess hut. “Today, while I was reading the Finlayson diary a small waterproof pouch fell out. It contained two photographs, one had an inscription on the back. It’s this inscription that leads me to believe that Eric Finlayson isn’t Eric at all, he’s Elizabeth.”

  There was a stunned silence as Dianne, Rick, and Rob absorbed Allison’s revelation.

  “Garbage,” Rick replied. “You must have read it wrong.”

  Sarah folded her arms. “She did no such thing. I conducted the same investigation on Finlayson as I did on Ross. Trust me when I tell you Finlayson is definitely a woman.”

  Confused, Dianne turned to Allison. “But in the reading material you gave to me on Finlayson, you said he was married and had a child. How can that be?”

  Allison shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain the child, but I can tell you that these two women were in a stable relationship of some sort or another.”

  Dianne looked at Sarah, and then back to Allison. “That’s disgusting.”

  Rick stood and pushed his chair away from the table. “You’re damn right it is.” He wheeled on Sarah. “So, a damned dyke was the first to establish a base in Antarctica. You must be pretty happy about that. Bloody hell, you’re all over the damn place.” He angrily jabbed his finger at Sarah. “You and your bloody perverted lifestyle, you don’t deserve to be here.”

  Rob strode toward Rick. “That’s it. I’ve about had it with you, mate. You’ve had this coming for a long time. No one and I mean no one offends my friends.”

  Michela stepped between them. “Hang on, Rob.” She turned to Rick. “And, Rick, you hang on a minute, too. If you’re pointing fingers then you better point one at me as well.”

  The implication of her words hung in the air. Dianne cast a baleful eye at her. “I should have known. I always had a funny feeling when I was changing in the same hut as you and now I know why.”

  Michela quickly glanced at Allison, before she turned her steely-eyed gaze on Dianne, who defiantly stood beside Rick. “Ms. Peterson, you’ve got to be joking.” Michela cast a disdainful look the length of Dianne’s body. “Please credit me with some taste.”

  “You’re bloody sick, you know that. You’re a bloody pervert just like her!” Rick bellowed.

  Allison held up her hands. “Please, just stop it. We’ve discovered a world first. This will make the dig a household name and establish us for future expeditions. Now’s not the time for name calling—”

  Rick pointed at Michela. “Why are you bothering defending that damn dyke? If she was looking at Di’s body, what makes you think you’re all that safe?”

  Disgusted, Allison rolled her eyes. “Oh for heaven’s sake, you uptight prick, get a life.”

  Rob burst out laughing.

  “Hang on a minute, Alli,” Rick said, “or have I got it all wrong? Do you like what that damn psychologist dyke puts out?”

  “That’s it!” Rob hit Rick squarely on the jaw.

  Sarah knelt beside an unconscious Rick, while trying to push away a hysterical Dianne. “Shit, mate, you dropped him like a bag of spuds.” She arranged him in the coma position and stood. “You know, you really ought to be more careful.”

  “Yeah,” Rob said. “And he really ought to learn some bloody manners.”

  Chapter Ten

  My Darling Charlotte,

  It has been over two months since I last made an entry in my diary, and it is only now through sheer will that I do so. The second expedition that left in such good spirits has
failed to return. Their original journey was to be no more than twenty days duration. I knew them to be an exuberant band and didn’t really expect to see them before the twenty-five day mark. This day came and went, as did many others. Without the dogs, sleds or ability to man a search party, I can only assume the worst—they have perished also. I thought I had reached my lowest ebb.

  The three of us that remained tried our best to maintain each other’s spirits, dutifully keeping our diaries so as to have at least something to show for our time here. However, the worse was yet to come. The day came when our ship was to rendezvous with us and yet it did not appear. We waited in vain for one week and then two but still there was no sign of it. I can only assume that it too has been lost and now we are trapped. Trapped with our food dwindling and no possible means of escaping the continent we so proudly set out to conquer.

  Where have I led my men? What have I done?

  ERF

  Antarctica—2010

  MICHELA CHUCKLED AS Sarah attempted to divide her time between the overflowing pot on the stove and preparing the dinner rolls. “Need help with that?”

  Sarah turned the gas down on the stove. “Aargh! I can’t believe you let me loose in a kitchen.”

  “Yeah it does look a little out of control.”

  Sarah laughed. “Hah, no more so that what it’s been like here over the past few days. Alli’s not talking to Rick at all and I can barely get a word out of Di. I swear, meals around here are like pulling teeth. It’s a wonder they’re getting any work done on the dig.”

  “I know what you mean. I think we better have a team meeting after dinner, if we survive it, that is.” Sarah threw the spoon as Michela rushed out the door.

  “Everyone’s a bloody critic,” Sarah yelled.

  “EVERYONE’S BEEN WALKING around on eggshells these past few days. I’m not pointing any fingers here. I’m as much to blame as anyone else. But we’ve got very little time left to finish the cataloguing of the site and then commence our pack up.” Michela consulted her notes. “By my estimate we’ve two more days of digging and cataloguing. After that we have to start packing or we’ll miss our window to get home.”