Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

They were an unusual bunch, the nurses who had signed on to the mission, and Eleanor was well aware of the suspicion they engendered in many of the people back home. In some quarters of the British public and press, they were lauded as heroines, going off to do grim but honorable work under the most appalling conditions. But in others, they were written off as immodest and opportunistic fortune seekers, young women of working-class backgrounds hoping to romantically ensnare a wounded officer at his most susceptible moment. And though fourteen of the nurses had been recruited from public hospitals, as were Eleanor and Moira, Miss Nightingale had also selected six holy sisters from St. John's House, eight from Miss Sellons's Anglican sisterhood, and ten Roman Catholic nuns-five of them from the Norwood Orphanage and five from the Sisters of Mercy at Bermondsey While many of the soldiers were themselves Roman Catholic, the idea that these nuns might be closely tending to wounded men who were not so inclined-men who followed the Protestant faith, for instance-was shocking to many back home. What if, under the guise of nursing, the sisters used this golden opportunity to proselytize in secret for the sinister Church of Rome?

As the Vectis approached the Dardanelles, Eleanor observed Miss Nightingale steady herself at the ship's rail and gaze off at the passing land. Her dark hair was neatly done, with a severe part down its center, and her long face, paler than usual, wore an uncommon expression of rapture. Eleanor looked off in the same direction, but all she saw were arid, yellow fields. The ocean breeze picked up some of Nightingale's words, and Eleanor heard her extolling to Mrs. Bracebridge “the fabled plains of Troy, where Achilles fought and Helen wept.” She looked transported by the sight. Eleanor knew that Miss Nightingale was from a fine family, and had been educated at the finest schools, and she envied her for it. She herself had gone to London in hopes of improving herself, but the hard and unending work at the Harley Street hospital had left her little time, or money, to pursue such ends.

Sinclair had briefly changed that.

But how would he have reacted, had he known that she was coming over to the theater of war? He would, she felt certain, have warned her not to do so. But the thought that a time might come when he would need her-and she would be thousands of miles away, unable to help-was too much to bear. When the word had gone out that volunteers were needed for the field hospitals, Eleanor had jumped at the chance, and Moira-whose attachment to Captain Rutherford was, perhaps, more practical than ardent-said, “Birds of a feather flock together,” and blithely signed an application of her own.

What, she wondered, had become of Moira? Long gone now, of course.

Bustling into the room again, his arms filled with hymnals, Sinclair said, “These should do nicely.” He bent down to the furnace, ripped several of the books into pieces, and fed the crumpled pages into the burgeoning fire. Eleanor said nothing though the sacrilegious act added to her discomfort.

When the fire was roaring, he closed the grate and announced that he had collected some other things, too. He went to the door and dragged in a canvas sack that he had left outside; from it, he produced candle stubs, tin plates and cups, bent spoons and knives, a cracked decanter. “Tomorrow, I'll make a more thorough reconnaissance, but for now we have everything we need.” He was back in his military mode, scouting his surroundings, gathering provisions, planning strategies. Eleanor was relieved to see it, and hoped the mood held… for she had learned that something far darker could always, at any moment, supplant it.

Grabbing at the bag of food from the kennel, now propped against the table leg, he said, “Should we warm some up for dinner?” He made it sound as if he was asking if she would care to indulge in a chocolate souffle. “Food,” he said, before adding, as he placed one of the black wine bottles on the table, “and drink.”

December 14

The infirmary at Point Adelie did not actually have a proper morgue, but then it didn't really need one. The whole continent of Antarctica was a cold-storage unit, and Murphy decided to keep Danzig's body in the coldest and most protected spot of all-the glaciology vault built ten feet under the core bin. After the geologist's body had been recovered from the crevasse the year before, that was where they'd kept his body, too. Betty and Tina were less than thrilled, but they understood the gravity of the situation and were willing to make the accommodation.

“Just so long as you seal the body up tight,” Betty said. “We can't have any risk of contamination to the core samples.”

“And I don't want to feel the poor guy's eyes boring through the back of my skull,” Tina added. “It's spooky enough already down there.”

With that, Michael had to agree. He had volunteered to help Franklin with the removal of the corpse; he felt he owed at least that much to Danzig. After Charlotte had made some basic preparations, the body was zipped into a clear plastic body bag, then into a second bag of olive-green canvas. Michael and Franklin had used a gurney to transport it down the bumpy concourse to the glaciology lab; the wind was blowing so powerfully that the gurney was tipped over twice, and each time that Michael had to lift the body again, he felt a chill descend his spine. The corpse was already beginning to stiffen up, either from rigor mortis or the effects of the subzero temperatures. It felt to Michael like he was lifting a human statue.

The steps down into the ice vault had been cut out of the permafrost, and rather than try to negotiate the gurney down them, Franklin and Michael simply carried the body, by its shoulders and feet, underground. A single white light on a motion sensor went off as they entered and bathed them in a hollow glare. There was an earthen slab carved from one corner of the vault, and Franklin gestured at it with his chin. Michael hoisted up his end-the head and shoulders-and they swung the body onto the slab. It landed with a thump. On the other side of the vault, a cylindrical ice core rested on a long lab table, held by a vise. Several drills and bits and saws hung from a wall rack. In a continent of cold, this place struck Michael as the coldest spot of all-and the most frightening. A frozen tomb that called only for a millstone to be rolled across its entrance.

“Let's get the hell out of here,” Franklin said, and Michael thought he saw him surreptitiously cross himself.

At the top of the stairs, huddled in the freezing wind with her arms around herself, was Betty. “I hope he's not going to have to be there long,” she said to Franklin.

“Whenever the next plane can make it in,” he said, already stomping off toward the rec hall. But Michael lingered. He had a generous slice of cold roast beef in his pocket for his pet skua, and when he pulled it out, Betty smiled. “Ollie will be beside himself.”

Michael brushed away the snow that had once again piled up in front of the plasma crate, knelt and looked inside. There he was- bigger than ever-his gray bill poking up out of a nest of slender wood shavings. Seeing his benefactor, the bird shook himself all over and waddled to his feet. Michael held out the roast beef, and after regarding it for a second, Ollie lunged forward, grabbing it in one swoop and gulping it down. “Next time maybe I should bring some horseradish,” Michael said. The bird looked up at him, perhaps waiting for more. “One day he's going to have to fly away” Michael said over his shoulder, and Betty chuckled.

“What, and give up a good thing?”

When Michael stood up again, she said, “Face it-that bird is tame and probably wouldn't survive a day in the wild. They don't serve roast beef there.”