Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

Neither Michael nor Charlotte knew what to say.

“The perfect little circles you saw,” Darryl went on, “are red blood cells-erythrocytes. The bigger ones are leukocytes, or white cells. Some of the tiny matter you see between them is what we call neutrophils.”

“Those are a kind of phagocyte, right?” Charlotte said. “They eat bacteria and die.”

“Exactly-med school is coming back to you, I see.”

“Don't be a smart aleck.”

“But there are a lot more neutrophils than there ought to be,” Darryl added.

He let that sink in, but when no one jumped to the next step, he said, “Which means that before this blood ever went into the bottle, it was tainted.”

“How? By what?” Michael asked.

“Offhand,” Darryl said, “I'd say it came from seriously sick or injured people. People with wounds, perhaps, that were seeping pus.”

Suddenly Michael understood the especially putrid odor from the bottle-the “wine” wasn't only ancient blood, it was polluted ancient blood. But why would it ever have been bottled up and transported, like treasure, in a chest?

“Forgive me,” Charlotte said, “but it's been a long day. What are you suggesting, Darryl? That some ship, from God knows when, was carrying a cargo of bad blood, all neatly packed away in trunks, to the South Pole?”

“It's unlikely the ship was actually heading for Antarctica,” Darryl said. “It was probably driven off course, and who knows how long the ice has been moving the debris southward? Ice moves, you know.”

“But why?” Michael asked. “What possible use could there have been for it, anywhere?”

Darryl scratched his head, leaving a tuft of red hair sticking out on one side. “You've got me there. Bad blood is of no use to anyone, unless it was being used in some sort of inoculation experiment.”

“Aboard ship?” Michael said.

“Hundreds of years ago?” Charlotte chimed in.

Darryl threw up his hands in surrender. “Don't look at me, kids! I don't have the answers, either. But I do find it hard to believe that the bottle, the trunk, and the body-or bodies, if it comes to that- aren't all connected somehow.”

“I'll give you that,” Michael said. “Otherwise, it would be just about the most amazing coincidence in maritime history.”

Charlotte looked to be in agreement, too.

“And once we're able to do so,” Darryl said, “I think it would be worth seeing if I could draw a viable blood sample from Sleeping Beauty.”

“To prove what?” Michael asked.

Darryl shrugged. “A match?”

“With what?” Michael said, in some exasperation; he felt like he wasn't following. “With diseased blood from a bottle? Are you saying she was saving her own old blood in bottles, as a keepsake?”

“Or is it something else?” Charlotte put in. “Are you suggesting that she was keeping a ready supply of this stuff on hand for some weird medicinal purpose?”

“Sometimes, in science,” Darryl said, looking from one to the other and trying to calm the waters, “you know just what you're looking for, and you know where to find it. Other times, you don't know, but you just keep turning things up and following every lead.”

“Sounds like some strange leads to me,” Michael said, feeling oddly defensive about the whole thing.

“Can't argue with you there,” Darryl admitted.

Charlotte blew out a breath and headed for her coat and gloves. “I'm going to bed,” she said, “and I'd advise both of you to do the same.”

But Michael suddenly felt almost too weary to get up. He stayed where he was, studying the mysterious black bottle.

“Michael,” Charlotte said, as she zipped up her coat, “get some sleep. Doctor's orders.” Turning to Darryl, she said, “And you, put a cork in it.”

Darryl gestured at the bottle.

“You know what I mean.”

Early September, 1854

The horses. It was the terrible toll taken on the horses that drove Lieutenant Copley nearly mad.

His beautiful Ajax, along with eighty-five others, had been driven down into the hold of Her Majesty's Ship Henry Wilson- a small, dark, and unbearably foul place-where almost no advance preparations had been made. There were no stalls constructed, no head collars, only tethering ropes, and even on a calm sea, the horses brushed up against each other, stepping on their neighbors’ hooves, struggling to lift their heads clear of the herd. But once the ships of the British fleet had hit the gales in the Bay of Biscay, the horses went wild with fear. Sinclair, along with many of the other cavalry officers-the ones who were not laid up with fevers or seasickness-were down in the hold, standing at their horses’ heads, trying desperately to calm and control them. But it was not possible. Each time the vessel rolled, the poor panicked beasts were pitched forward against the manger, whinnying in terror and stamping their feet on the creaking, wet boards. Cascades of water flooded down from the hatches, rivers of it sloshed around their legs, and every time one of the horses fell, it was the devil's own business to get him righted again. When Ajax went down, tumbling in a heap atop Winslow's horse, it took several soldiers and sailors to get them separated and standing once more. Sergeant Hatch, the India Man, seemed to be down in the hold at all times-Sinclair wondered if he ever slept or went up on deck for a breath of air that didn't stink of dung and blood and moldering hay-but even he was unable to stem the losses. Every night horses died-of broken bones, panic, and heat prostration (there was almost no ventilation belowdecks)- and were unceremoniously thrown overboard the next day. All the way to the Mediterranean, the British fleet had left a trail of bloated, floating carcasses in its wake.

And Sinclair, though he knew he was only a young unproven lieutenant, could not help but wonder why the army had not requisitioned steamers to make the voyage. From what Rutherford had told him (and Rutherford's father had been a lord of the admiralty under the Duke of Wellington), a steamer could make a trip in ten to twelve days that it would take a sailing ship a month or more to do. Even if it had taken a fortnight to round up enough steamships, so much of this appalling damage could have been avoided, and the troops-with their horses, in decent condition-could have arrived on the Turkish shores, ready to do battle, sooner than they would arrive now.

But no such thoughts appeared to have occurred to the command, nor to the throngs of onlookers who had attended the army's departure. When Sinclair marched aboard the transports, in the company of the Light Brigade, the Heavy Brigade, the 60th Rifles, and the 11th Hussars, he too had been caught up in the gay atmosphere at the docks. The war, everyone believed, would be so brief that it might be over before some of them had even had the chance to use their lance or sword or rifle; the Russians, it was said, were such a lackluster fighting force that most of them had to be forced onto the field at gunpoint. Le Maitre had told Sinclair that the Russian infantry's rifles were dummies, made of wood, like the swords the brigade used in its field exercises. As a result, many of the English officers had received permission to bring their wives along on the mission, and the ladies were outfitted in their finest, most colorful dresses. Some brought their own maids and favorite horses with them. As Sinclair scanned the crowds lining the docks and quayside, searching for a spot of pale yellow, he saw cases of wine, bouquets of flowers, and straw baskets filled with hothouse fruit being brought aboard. Hundreds of people were holding pennants of the Union Jack, others were wildly waving caps and bonnets and lace handkerchiefs, and a military band was playing martial tunes. The sun was shining brightly, and he could hardly wait for the adventure before him to unfold.