Blood and Ice

by Robert Masello

  “To luck, then,” Rutherford said, weary of all the words, and draining his glass all at once.

  Eleanor had had champagne just once before in her life, when the town's mayor had celebrated his election with the farmers and tradesmen, but she was sure that it was meant to be drunk slowly. She lifted the glass, and the cold froth of the bubbles almost made her sneeze. Even the glass was cold, and the wine, when she tasted it on her tongue, was sweet and surprising. She took only a sip, then gazed at the glass, with its bubbles rising, and it reminded her of the bubbles one would sometimes see under the thin ice that covered a stream. There was something very nearly mesmerizing about it, and when she took her eyes away, she saw that Sinclair was amused at her concentration.

  “It's for drinking,” he said, “not contemplation.”

  “Hear, hear,” Rutherford said, commandeering the bottle to refill his own glass, and then Moira's. He leaned very far over her as he poured, and Moira obligingly leaned back in her chair to afford him more room, and a better view.

  Eleanor, who had often wondered what the interior of such impressive clubs might be like, was somewhat let down by the reality. She had imagined far more sumptuous surroundings, rich with gilding and ornamentation and fine French furniture beautifully upholstered in silks and satin. The room, large though it was and with a high, beamed ceiling, felt much more like a comfortably appointed hunting lodge than a palace.

  Under Bentley's close supervision, a series of cold dishes-veal tongue, mutton with mint jelly, duck in aspic-were brought out, and the men regaled their companions with stories of the brigade and its exploits. All three were members of the 17th Duke of Cambridge's Own Lancers, first formed in 1759, and as Rutherford proudly declared while holding a scrap of duck aloft on his fork, “Never far from the cannon fire since!”

  “In the thick of it more often that not,” Le Maitre added.

  “And soon to be so again,” Sinclair said, and once more, Eleanor felt an unexpected pang. The situation in the east was worsening-Russia, under the pretext of a religious conflict in the ancient city of Jerusalem, had declared war on the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and defeated the Turkish fleet in the Black Sea. It was feared, as Rutherford explained to the ladies, that “if we don't stop the Russian bear on the land, he will soon be swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.” Any such challenge to the British command of the seas, it was universally understood, had to be nipped in the bud.

  Eleanor grasped only some of this, her knowledge of foreign affairs-and even geography-being slight; her education had been limited to a few years at a local academy for girls, where the emphasis was on etiquette and deportment rather than more intellectual matters. But still, she could see the eagerness and the enthusiasm with which her male company were looking forward to the prospect of battle, and she marveled at their bravery. Frenchie had removed from his pocket a silver cigarette case, on which was emblazoned the emblem of the 17th Light Brigade. It was a Death's Head, and beneath the crossed bones were unfurled the words, “Or Glory.” It was passed from hand to hand, and when Eleanor received it, she instinctively recoiled and gave it quickly on to Sinclair.

  A platter of cheeses, then sweets, were served, along with what was surely the third-or was it the fourth? — bottle of champagne. Eleanor just remembered hearing the popping of several corks over the course of the meal, and when Sinclair offered to fill her glass again, she placed a hand over it.

  “No, thank you. I'm afraid it's already gone to my head.”

  “Perhaps you'd like to take some air?”

  “Yes,” she said, “that would probably be well advised.”

  But when they excused themselves and stepped to the portico door, they could see that the rain had finally arrived. The pavement was wet and shining in the light of the gas lamps, and as Eleanor looked on, a pair of gentlemen in top hats and black capes bolted from a hansom cab and up the steps of the equally grand clubhouse across the street.

  “These houses are quite beautiful,” she said, craning her neck to see the facade of the Longchamps. There were great rounded columns, made of a cream-colored limestone, and an exquisitely carved bas-relief of a Greek god, or perhaps an emperor, above the imposing double doors.

  “I suppose you're right,” Sinclair said, affecting nonchalance. “I'm so accustomed to it, I hardly see it anymore.”

  “But others do.”

  He lighted a cigarette and gazed out at the rain. A weary dray horse, drawing a wagon of beer kegs, slowly clip-clopped by, the wheels rumbling over the wet cobblestones. He blew out a puff of smoke, then, struck by inspiration, said, “Would you like to see more?”

  Eleanor wasn't sure what he was proposing. “I didn't bring an umbrella, but if you-”

  “No, I meant more of the clubhouse.”

  But Eleanor knew it wasn't allowed.

  “There's a quite marvelous tapestry, a Gobelins, in the main hall, and the billiards room is the best in Pall Mall.”

  Seeing her uncertainty, he said, leaning close with a mischievous smile, “Oh, yes, I see your natural reluctance, and it is quite forbidden. But that's why it will be such fun.”

  Would it? All day long Eleanor had felt like she'd passed through the looking glass and was moving in a realm she didn't fully understand, and this was just one more instance of it.

  “Come on,” he said, taking her hand like a child inviting another to play. “I know a way.”

  Before she knew it, they had reentered the club, passed back down the corridor from the stranger's coffee-room, then crept up a back stairs that she suspected only the servants were to use. Sinclair inched a door open, then put a finger to his lips as two men in white tie, holding brandy snifters, ambled by.

  “Not even if the Admiralty ordered you to?” one asked, and the other said, “Particularly if the Admiralty ordered it,” and they both chuckled.

  Once they'd gone, Sinclair opened the door wider and escorted Eleanor through. She was standing at one end of a narrow mezzanine, overlooking a vast entry hall with alternating white and black marble tiles. A dual staircase swept up on either side, and at its apex hung a huge antique tapestry, depicting a stag hunt. It was faded, but must have once been done in brilliant purples and blues; a ragged gold fringe lined its edges.

  “It's Belgian,” Sinclair whispered, “and quite old.”

  Still clutching her hand-no one had ever held it so long, or so possessively, and she still did not know how she should have responded to such conduct-he drew her on, offering her a glimpse of a cardroom, where several men were so focused on their game that none so much as looked up at the opening of the door; a sumptuous library with satinwood bookcases standing twelve feet high, all lined with leather-bound books; a trophy room with various silver plates and cups and a veritable menagerie of stuffed animal heads staring off, glassy-eyed, into eternity. Three or four times they had to duck into alcoves or behind closed doors to avoid being seen by a passing servant or member of the club, and on one such occasion Sinclair whispered to her, “That buffoon with the belly is called Fitzroy I've thrashed him once, but I fear I shall have to do it again.”

  When Fitzroy had passed, stifling a belch with the back of his hand, Sinclair drew her out of hiding again. “This way,” he said. “Just one more.”

  They were on the third story, and she could hear a hard but unfamiliar clacking sound, as Sinclair led her up a narrow, carpeted stair, and into a velvet-curtained recess. He held his finger to his lips again, then, finally releasing her hand, parted the curtains a few inches.

  They were standing on a tiny balcony, with an elaborately scrolled black iron rail; below them there were half a dozen billiards tables, spread like a deep green lawn across the wainscoted gallery. Just two of the tables were in play, and the men at one were only in their shirtsleeves, their suspenders hanging down; Eleanor blushed at the sight. One of the players stroked a white ball and it rolled smoothly across the table, striking a red ball, before gently nestling against the bumper.
>
  “Well played,” his opponent said.

  “If only life were a billiards table,” the first one replied, pausing to rub something on the end of the stick.

  “Ah, but it is. Weren't you told?”

  “Must have been on furlough that day.”

  “Like most,” the first one said with a laugh.

  Was this how men talked, Eleanor thought? Was this how they conducted themselves in private? She was both fascinated and embarrassed; she wasn't supposed to be there, she wasn't meant to see, or hear, any of this. Though she didn't dare speak, for fear of being overheard, she looked at Sinclair. He turned toward her, and in the confines of the balcony, concealed behind the barely parted curtains, she could feel the intensity of his gaze. She lowered her own eyes-why had she allowed herself to drink that second glass of champagne; her head still felt light from it-but then she felt his finger touching her chin, raising it, and she allowed her face to rise. He was bending toward her; she was aware chiefly of his pale moustache. And then, though she was sure she had given him no improper encouragement, his lips were touching hers… and she did not resist. Her own eyes closed, she could not have said why, and for several seconds time seemed to stop altogether-everything seemed to stop-and it was only when a victorious whoop went up from one of the billiards players below-”That's the game, Reynolds!”-that she took a half step back, her lips tingling, her face on fire, to look again at the young lieutenant.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  December 8. 10:00 a.m.

  “Not possible, not possible, not possible,” Murphy was saying as he strode down the corridor and into his cluttered office in the administration module. Michael was close behind, with Darryl lending support.

  “It's not only possible,” Michael insisted yet again, “I saw it, with my own eyes. Right in front of me!”

  Murphy turned around and said, in a tone meant to convey sympathetic concern, “Look, this was your first time diving in polar waters, right?”

  “What's that got to do with it?”

  “It can be an overwhelming experience, and that goes for a lot of people, not just you. The water temperature, the ice cap above, the unfamiliar critters-you said yourself you had a close encounter with a Weddell seal.”

  “Are you suggesting I mistook a seal for a woman frozen in the ice?”

  Murphy paused, to let things cool down.

  “No.” Then, “Maybe. You probably weren't keeping track of your time, or your oxygen levels. I'm sure you've heard of rapture of the deep-maybe you had a touch of it down there. I had a guy who swore he saw a submarine, and it turned out to be a nice big pressure ridge. You were just lucky you came to your senses and got out while you could. And as for you,” he said, speaking to Darryl, “you should have been keeping better tabs on him. You were dive buddies-that means keeping an eye on each other and staying close.”

  “Point taken,” Darryl said, looking sheepish. “But the fact remains, he brought up the wine bottle. It's in my lab now, thawing. You can't deny that the bottle exists.”

  “It's a big leap,” Murphy said, falling into his high-backed swivel chair, “from a frozen wine bottle to a woman-wrapped in chains yet-stuck inside a glacier.”

  Michael hated to add this, but he felt that he had to. “And she might not be alone.”

  “What?” Murphy exploded.

  “There might be someone else frozen with her.”

  Even Darryl, who hadn't heard that part, hesitated.

  “Is that all of them then?” Murphy replied. “Or maybe they were all getting off a bus, and the bus is frozen inside the glacier, too.”

  There was a temporary standoff while Murphy unrolled an antacid and popped it into his mouth.

  “You got pictures of the seal?”

  “Yes,” Michael said, knowing where he was going.

  “And the sea spider? And the scale worms? And the trunk the bottle came from?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why no pictures of the ice princess?”

  “I was too scared.” The words were like ashes in his mouth, and even as he'd been hauled up into the dive hut, he had wondered how-at the most crucial moment in his career-he could have failed to get a photo. The shock, coupled with the urgent necessity to surface, had just been too great. And though he knew it was a pretty good excuse, he still felt an unrelenting disappointment in himself-a disappointment that could only be cured by going back down again.

  “Why don't we just settle this the easiest way possible?” Michael said. “Let me go back to the scene of the crime.”

  “It's not that easy.”

  “Why not?” Michael asked, as Darryl chimed in with, “I'll go, too.”

  Murphy looked from one of them to the other. “You may think that we're off in the middle of nowhere, with nobody looking over our shoulders, but you're wrong. Every single thing we do here, I have to write up and report to the NSF, or the U.S. Navy, or the Coast Guard, or, believe it or not, NASA. See that?” he said, pointing to an unwieldy tower of papers and forms stacked in wire bins on his desk. “That's just one week's worth of crap I've got to fill out and file. And every dollar of what we do has to be accounted for. You know what it cost to send that auger out onto the ice, and prep the dive hut, and prime all the gear?”

  “I'm sure it's plenty,” Michael said, “but that's why we need to do this quickly. Everything's still in place. I can go down tomorrow-and with a little help from Calloway and the right equipment, we can even get the body out of the glacier somehow. Jesus,” Michael said in exasperation, “this could be a monumental find.”

  “Don't you mean a monumental story for your magazine?” Murphy retorted.

  There was nothing more to say for the moment. Murphy chewed on his antacid, and Michael and Darryl exchanged a long frustrated look.

  Murphy blew out a weary breath. “Where's Calloway?”

  “I saw him in the rec hall,” Darryl said.

  “Tell him to get over here,” Murphy said, busying himself with some papers on the desk blotter. “Now.”

  Michael knew enough not to say another word. And so did Darryl.

  The wine bottle rested in a small tank of tepid seawater, on the counter in Darryl's marine lab. With its icy coating gone, the label was revealed, but the ink had been so smudged that it was nothing but a blur. Darryl peered into the tank, as if watching a live specimen that might surprise him at any moment, and Michael paced up and down, wondering what else he might need to do to persuade Murphy.

  “Give it a rest,” Darryl advised him. “He's a bureaucrat, but he's not stupid. He'll come around if he hasn't already.”

  “And what if he doesn't?”

  “He will, trust me.” Darryl sat back on the stool and looked at Michael. “I'll tell him I need to go down again to collect more samples-he can't refuse a beaker-and at that point, what's the difference if he lets you go down, too?”

  Michael considered it, but he was afraid it wasn't fast enough. “What if she's gone?”

  “Gone?” Darryl said, incredulously.

  “I mean, what if I can't find her again?”

  “A glacier that size isn't going anywhere soon,” Darryl replied, “and I know exactly where you were. I can orient it from the dive and safety holes.”

  Down deep, Michael felt the same way. Something told him he'd be able to find the girl again, no matter what.

  He came back to the table and studied the bottle in the tank. “When do you think we can take it out?”

  “What? You need a drink?”

  Michael laughed. “I'm not that thirsty. What do you think it is?”

  “I think it's wine.”

  “But is it sherry or is it port? From France, or Italy, or Spain? And what century-the nineteen hundreds? The eighteen hundreds?”

  Darryl had to ponder that. “Maybe if we can bring up the chest you saw, that will help date it.” He paused. “The girl might help, too.”

  Despite their friendship-or maybe because of it-Mic
hael had to ask the question. “You do believe me, don't you? That I saw her, in the ice?”

  Darryl nodded. “I'm the guy who studies sponges a thousand years old, and fish that don't freeze in freezing water, and parasites that purposely drive their hosts crazy. If I'm not your guy, who is?”

  Michael took what comfort he could from Darryl's show of support- and Charlotte, too, had assured him that she would vouch for his mental health-but the night, nevertheless, was a long one. He ate a big meal of chicken, black beans, and rice-it was as if he could never get his inner furnace hot enough to banish the chill of the polar sea from his bones-and tried to distract himself in the rec room. Franklin was banging away at a Captain and Tennille song, until Betty and Tina tired of their nightly Ping-Pong game and decided to watch a DVD of Love Actually on the big-screen TV A couple of the other base staff, playing gin rummy in the corner, groaned when the movie came on.

  Michael ducked outside to the core bin to check up on little Ollie. The light in the sky was faint, obscured by a thickening scrim of clouds, and the wind was blowing especially hard. He had to kick some snow away from the crate and, as always, he had to look hard to find Ollie tucked away in the back. He knew Charlotte was right-that if he took the bird inside, it would never adapt to its natural life again-but it wasn't easy to leave him out there. The temperature was already at fifteen below zero. He took his paper napkin from his pocket and shook out the shreds of chicken and a big ball of rice that he'd smuggled out of the commons. He pushed them into the crate, on top of the wood shavings, said, “See you in the morning,” to the little gray head staring out at him, and went back to his room.

  Darryl was already asleep, the bed curtains drawn around his lower berth. Michael got ready for bed, taking a Lunesta first; he had enough trouble sleeping under normal circumstances, and the present situation was anything but. He did not want to turn into one of those guys who staggered around the base like a zombie, suffering from the Big Eye. He turned out the light and climbed up into his bunk in a T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. He checked his fluorescent watch-it was ten o'clock sharp-when he pulled the bed curtains closed and tried to relax enough to let the sleeping pill do its job.