Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

“Yes, yes…” she murmured, finally eating the tiny piece of the muffin. “But then, is this a part of America?”

“Not really. This-Point Adelie-is a part of the South Pole.”

The South Pole. She might have guessed as much. Apparently, the Coventry had been blown so far off course that they had indeed reached the Pole itself. The most unexplored place on earth. She wondered if the ship had survived the voyage, and if any of the men aboard had ever lived to tell the tale. And if they had, would they have been bold enough to tell all of it? Would they, for instance, have regaled their friends at the tavern with their story of binding the heroic soldier and the invalid nurse in a length of iron chain and hurling them into the ocean?

“The eggs have some melted cheese in them,” Michael said. “That's how Uncle Barney-that's our cook-likes to make them.”

He was trying to be kind. And he had been. But there was so much that he could never know, and she could never say, to anyone. How could they even believe what little she had told them so far? Had she not lived it herself, she would have thought it too fantastical to be true. She picked up the fork, and tried the eggs. They were good, salty and still warm. This Michael Wilde was watching with approval as she ate. He was tall, with an unshaven face and black hair that looked as wild and unruly as her younger brother's used to be when he'd return from flying his kite in the downs.

Her younger brother who had been in his own grave for well over a hundred years already.

Gone. They were all gone. It was as if a death knell were clanging in her head. It didn't bear thinking of. She took another bite of the eggs.

Even though he was still brimming with questions, Michael did not want to interrupt her meal. Who knew how long it had been since she'd last eaten hot food? Years? Decades? More? Everything about her, from her clothing to her manner, suggested someone from another era altogether.

How would he ever be able to wrap his mind around such a concept?

In fact, it was Eleanor who broke the silence by asking, “And what do the people do here, at this encampment?”

“Study the flora, the fauna, the climate changes.” Global warming? He'd let that wait. Something told him she'd already had enough bad news in her life. “Personally, I'm a photographer.” Would even that make sense? “I do daguerreotypes, sort of. And I write, for a magazine. In Tacoma-that's a city in the northwest United States. Near Seattle. People in Seattle like to make jokes about it.”

He felt like he was babbling. But as long as he was talking, she was eating, and that made him happy. She wasn't exactly digging in, more just going through the motions… as if dining were a skill she was trying to remember.

“And the negress? She is a doctor?” she said, with a note of incredulity.

Okay, Michael thought, wherever and whenever Eleanor was from, there was bound to be a learning curve. “Yes. Dr. Barnes- Charlotte Barnes-is a very respected physician.”

“Miss Nightingale does not believe that women should be doctors.”

“Which Miss Nightingale is that?”

“Miss Florence Nightingale, of course.” She'd said it as if she were pulling out her calling card, the reference that would legitimize her somehow.

Michael wanted to laugh. It all just kept getting stranger by the minute. He wondered if she'd run this professional reference by Charlotte.

“She is quite ardent in our defense as nurses, but she also believes, as do I, that there are distinct roles in which the two sexes should serve.”

A long learning curve.

Michael let her nibble at her food, and they talked, though with many hesitations, about other things-the weather, the mounting storm, the work done at the station-and he had to mentally shake himself from time to time, just to remember that he was talking to a woman who claimed-with little evidence so far to contradict her- to have been born sometime in the nineteenth century. Someone who had clearly drowned-how else did you wind up frozen in an underwater glacier? He'd have liked to ask her directly about all that, but they'd just met, as it were, and the words weren't easy to come by, even for a journalist trained to ask tough questions.

And he feared the reaction she might have. Could it trigger some sort of breakdown?

Eleanor sipped her cocoa.

“We were thinking that you could stay here, in the infirmary for now,” Michael did say. “You'll have complete privacy, and Dr. Barnes, if you need her, is right next door.”

“That's very thoughtful,” she replied, dabbing her lips with the paper napkin, then glancing with curiosity at the floral motif that ran along its border.

“We can even try to rustle up some extra clothes,” he said, “though I can't say they're gonna fit all that well.” Eleanor was slim and slight, and anything he borrowed from Betty or Tina or Charlotte was going to look like a tent on her.

“What I have on will do,” she said, “though I would like the opportunity to launder them… and,” she said, blushing, “perhaps to bathe?”

It was precisely such considerations that had persuaded Michael and Murphy and Lawson to house Eleanor in the infirmary under close wraps-not only for her own health and safety, but because she was bound to be an object of the most intense scrutiny if the other grunts and beakers got wind of her. She'd be the Miley Cyrus of Antarctica. And her life going forward, Michael knew, was going to be like no one else's had ever been. Once a supply plane carried her back out again, back to the world-to Dateline NBC and People magazine and her interviews with Larry King and Barbara Walters-she was not going to know what had hit her. And all Michael could do now was try to protect her as long as he could.

Even when he'd carried Kristin down off the mountain, it had made the local news. That was enough. He wouldn't wish the media glare on anyone.

Eleanor finished the cocoa and neatly folded up the paper napkin again, clearly intending to preserve it. Charlotte returned, carrying a fresh pair of hospital pajamas and a terry-cloth robe; she glanced at Michael, as if to convey that Murphy had filled her in on the game plan and she could take it from here.

“Okay then, I'll see you both tomorrow,” Michael said, lifting the tray away. Eleanor looked just a little alarmed at his departure-not surprising, he thought, given that he had become her first friend in this world-but Michael smiled and said, “Fresh muffins again tomorrow. I promise.”

From the bereft expression on her face, it appeared to be small consolation.

October 26, 1854, past midnight

How long he had lain there on the battlefield, Sinclair never knew. Nor was he sure what had awakened him. He only knew that the moon was out, and full, and the sky was filled with stars. A cold wind was blowing, making the torn pennants flutter and carrying the low moans of soldiers and their steeds, still unwilling, or unable, to die.

He was one of them.

His lance was still in his hand, and when he raised his head a few inches from the ground, he could see that its shaft was broken in two, though not, apparently, before it had skewered the Russian gunner. He had to put his head back down, to catch his breath- even with the wind, the air stank of smoke and decay. His jacket and trousers were stiff with blood, but he sensed that it wasn't his.

When he could lift his head again, he saw his horse, Ajax, lying dead some feet away. The white blaze on his muzzle was stained with blood and dirt, and for some reason Sinclair felt it vitally important that he wipe it clean. The horse had served him well, and he had loved the beast. It wasn't right that he should be left in such an ignoble state.