Eleanor was still resolved to return her share to Sinclair-after all, she hadn't wagered so much as sixpence out of the small sum she carried in her faded velvet reticule. When he came back, he stuffed a handful of coins and notes into Moira's mesh handbag, then waited for Eleanor to open her own. She declined.

"But it's yours!" he said. "Your horse came in, at very favorable odds!"

"No, it was your horse," Eleanor said, "and your money." She could see that Moira wanted no part of this n.o.bility, and she was sorry if it made her friend uncomfortable.

Sinclair paused, the money in hand, then said, "Would it make you feel any better if I told you I'd made my own packet, too?"

Eleanor hesitated, as Sinclair dug into the side pocket of his trousers, withdrew a wad of pound notes and playfully shook them at her. "You two," he said, gallantly including Moira, "are my lucky charms."

Eleanor had to laugh, as did Moira, and she could no longer argue when he opened her purse and slipped her winnings inside. It was far more money than she had ever possessed at one time, and she was glad to have the lieutenant there to help guard it.

Dark clouds from the west were only beginning to obscure the bright sun as they sauntered back toward the high main gates. They were just pa.s.sing through them when Eleanor heard someone cry, "Sinclair! Did you have a winning day?"

As she turned, she saw the two men who had accompanied Sinclair to the hospital that night, only now they were not in uniform, but in handsome civilian attire.

"By Jove, I did!" Sinclair replied.

"Then, in that case ..." the big one-Captain Rutherford- said, extending his hand palm open, "you won't mind settling accounts?"

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather consider it an investment and leave it where it is, to seek some future gain?"

"A bird in the hand," Rutherford replied, smiling, and Sinclair dutifully slapped some of the cash from his pocket onto the open hand.

"But forgive me," Sinclair went on, taking one step back in order to effect the introductions all around. Le Maitre's companion, a Miss Dolly Wilson, nodded-her face was almost entirely obscured under her wide-brimmed garden hat, garlanded with burgundy and mauve flowers-and Sinclair then asked, "Are you all traveling back to town? I was going to hire a carriage, but perhaps we could make the journey together."

"Capital idea," Rutherford replied, "but I've already got a coach waiting, in the Regent's Circle. Plenty of room for all."

Eleanor glanced at Moira, who looked both thrilled and fearful-this day, for both of them, was taking so many unexpected turns that she herself began to feel as if she were riding a wild horse galloping off across the fields.

"Then right this way," Rutherford declared, brushing out his muttonchops with the tips of his fingers, "for time and tide ..."

"Wait for no man," Moira piped up, always anxious to complete a saying, and Eleanor noted that Rutherford gave her an appreciative glance-a glance that lingered, most notably, on the glimpse of creamy bosom afforded by her unb.u.t.toned bodice.

"Right you are, Miss Mulcahy" he said, offering her his arm. "May I escort you?"

Moira appeared flummoxed for a moment-a man of Rutherford's stature, wearing a pearl-gray cutaway coat, offering his arm to someone of her social position-but Eleanor gave her a discreet nudge and she slipped her hand onto his arm, and out they all went.

The coach was a brougham, with a family crest-a lion rampant on crossed shields-drawn by a st.u.r.dy pair of Shire horses with bay coats. Until that moment, Eleanor had been unsure of the world she had entered, but this-the family coach, the easy way the men all had with money (though her lieutenant, she guessed, was overly profligate with his)-decided the matter. Both she and Moira were swimming in waters way over their own heads.

The interior of the coach was upholstered in Morocco-finished leather, with its fine pebble grain, and stowed beneath the seats there were lap robes, also embroidered with the family crest. The footrests were of polished mahogany and the front wall-just behind where the coachman sat-housed a small window, like a trap, with a ta.s.seled handle. And though the captain had a.s.sured them there would be plenty of room, there was not, what with Rutherford being such a large man and Moira possessing such an ample figure. Room also had to be made for Miss Wilson's striking hat. Sinclair, very courteously, offered to sit between Eleanor and Moira so that they might gaze through the open windows and enjoy the pa.s.sing view.

They were traveling through a largely rustic landscape, the Ascot racecourse having been built, in 1711, on the fringes of Windsor Great Park, in a natural clearing close to the village of East Cote. The green fields were dotted with sheep and cows, and the farmers and their families, going about their ch.o.r.es, often paused to watch Captain Rutherford's impressive coach rumble by. A boy with a heavy pail in each hand stood stock-still, staring, and Eleanor could well imagine his awe; she had felt it herself, at the sight of such coaches going by, and wondered, as he was no doubt doing, what it was like to be inside of one ... to be a wealthy landowner, or born aristocrat, who traveled, and lived, in such a manner. When her eyes met, for just an instant, with the dumbstruck boy's, she felt such a welter of emotion-at first she simply wanted to explain to him that she wasn't in fact one of those fortunate few, that she was merely a simple farm girl by birth, ordained to live a life much like his own-but then, a curious thing happened. She inclined her head slightly, as she imagined an aristocrat would do, and felt in her breast a thrill of delight, and pride, and deception. She felt the way she had when she'd worn a princess costume-as a little girl, at a country fair-and thought the townspeople had mistaken her for the genuine article.

"Winning always whets my appet.i.te," Sinclair declared. "What would you all say to a buffet supper at my club?"

Le Maitre-or Frenchie, as Eleanor now recalled-said, "Perhaps we should go to my club? Given certain circ.u.mstances, regarding Mr. Fitzroy," he added, raising one eyebrow at Sinclair, who brushed it off.

"Pshaw! Nothing to fear from that quarter," Sinclair said, even though Fitzroy had been demanding satisfaction ever since he'd been thrown through the brothel window. "What would you say to some cold meats, cheeses, and a much finer port than anything Frenchie's club could provide?"

Eleanor didn't know what to say-events were galloping on again, with her barely clinging to the reins.

When no one lodged an objection, Rutherford declared it a fine idea and rapped hard with his knuckles on the trap behind his head.

When it opened, and the coachman's head leaned down, Rutherford said, "Pall Mall-the Longchamps Club."

The coachman nodded, the trap was closed, and the carriage wheels rattled loudly over a wooden bridge.

Eleanor, her shoulder pressed close against that of Lieutenant Copley sat back on the plush seat and wondered how this marvelous dream might end.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

December 7, 8 a.m.

THE FIRST THING IN THE MORNING, as soon as he was dressed and before he'd even had his coffee, Michael checked on his baby skua, whom he'd named Ollie, after another unfortunate orphan, Oliver Twist.

It hadn't been easy deciding what to do with him (or her, as there was really no easy way to determine its gender at that point). But adult skuas were devious birds, and had a nasty way of preying on the weak-he'd seen a pair of them work to distract a penguin mother from her brood, just long enough for one of them to snap up a chick, drag it away, and rip it, screeching, limb from limb. They just might do the same with Ollie if the bird didn't grow a bit and get its wings.

But after consultation with several of the others at the base, including Darryl, Charlotte, and the two glaciologists Betty and Tina, it was decided that the best place for Ollie was in a protected environment, but still somewhere outdoors.

"If you raise him in here, he'll never be able to fend for himself," Betty had said, and Tina had vigorously agreed. To Michael, with their blond hair braided into coils atop their heads, they looked like a pair of Valkyries.

"But if you kept him in the core bin behind our lab," Tina had suggested, "he could have the best of both worlds."

The core bin was a rough enclosure behind the glaciology module, where the ice cylinders that they had not yet had time to cut up and a.n.a.lyze were stacked like logs on a graduated metal rack.

"I just unloaded a crate of frozen plasma," Charlotte said, "and we could use the empty box to give the little guy some cover."

It was sounding more and more like a grammar-school cla.s.s working together on a biology project.

Charlotte retrieved the crate and they tucked it into a corner of the enclosure, then Darryl went next door and brought back some dried herring strips he used to feed his own living menagerie. Even though he-she?-was clearly starving, the baby bird didn't immediately take the food. He seemed to be waiting for the bigger bird to descend from somewhere and peck him away. He'd already been programmed, as it were, to die.

"I think we're all standing too close," Darryl said, and Charlotte agreed.

"Just leave the strips near the crate, and let's go in," she said, with a shiver.

They had all gone back to their separate rooms, fallen into the uneasy sleep of people with no day or night to mark their time, and in the morning Michael had immediately gone to check on his ward.

The herring strips were gone, but had Ollie been the one to eat them? Looking around the frozen ground, where wisps of snow skidded around like wispy white feathers, he couldn't see Ollie either. He lifted his dark green eyeshades away from his face, knelt down, and peered into the back of the crate. Charlotte had left some of the wood shavings, used to cushion the plasma bags, inside the box, but snow and ice had already blown into it, too. He was just about to give up when he saw something black and shiny as a pebble tucked into the far corner. It was the bird's tiny unblinking eye, and now that he looked more carefully, he could make out the tiny gray-and-white fluff ball of its body. Curled up, the bird looked like a dirty s...o...b..ll.

"Morning, Ollie."

The bird stared at him, with neither fear nor recognition of any kind.

"You like the herring?'

Not surprisingly, Michael got no reply. He took out of his pocket two strips of bacon that he'd smuggled out of the kitchen on his way to the core bin. "I hope you're not keeping kosher," he said, leaving the bacon just inside the crate. He saw Ollie's eyes flick, for just an instant, to the food. Then Michael stood up and headed back to the commons for his own breakfast. It was dive day, and he knew it would be important to fuel up before taking what the grunts and beakers alike referred to as "the polar plunge."

Darryl was already halfway through a stack of blueberry pancakes, smothered in maple syrup, and a pile of veggie sausages, when Michael sat down. Lawson was sitting across the table. Contrary to any fears Hirsch might have had, his vegetarian status had done nothing to undermine him among even the grunts. In fact, n.o.body had turned a hair. As Michael had quickly learned, eccentricities of any sort were as common in the Antarctic, and as blithely accepted, as penguins squawking. People came to pole-Michael always had to remind himself to say it that way-to do their own thing. In the real world, they'd already been cast as loners, oddb.a.l.l.s, and kooks, only down here n.o.body cared. Everybody had his own quirks to deal with, and being a vegetarian didn't even rate on that scale.

"The first year that you come down here," Lawson confided, speaking for the government personnel, "you do it for the experience."

Michael could buy that.

"The second year," he went on, "you do it for the money."

"And the third year," he said, grinning, "you do it because you're no longer fit for anything else."

There was some uneasy laughter, except for one of the grunts, Franklin, the ragtime piano player, who swiveled toward them and said, "Five years, man, I've come down here for five years in a row. What the h.e.l.l's that make me?"

"Beyond repair," Lawson said, and they all laughed, including Franklin. The put-down was the lingua franca of base life.

After powering through his own breakfast, though with a lot less coffee than usual-"You really don't want to have to pee once you get into a dry suit," Lawson had advised him-Michael went back to collect his camera gear. He sealed up his Olympus D-220L in its watertight Ikelite housing, made sure it had a brand-new battery, and said a silent prayer to the G.o.d of technical f.u.c.kups. Hundreds of feet under the polar ice cap was no place for even a minor glitch to crop up.

Like just about anything in the Antarctic, a dive was a complicated production. The day before, Murphy had sent a work crew out onto the ice with a huge auger, mounted on the back of a tracked vehicle, to bore two holes through the ice. The first hole, which would be covered by the rudimentary dive hut, was the hole the divers would use to get in and out of the water. The second hole, maybe fifty yards away, was the safety hole, just in case anything from shifting ice to aggressive Weddell seals made the first one temporarily inoperable. (Weddell seals could get very territorial about a nicely drilled breathing hole.) Murphy also insisted, den mother that he was, that anyone diving get a once-over from Dr. Barnes first. Michael had to prop himself up on the edge of her examining table, let her examine his throat and nasal pa.s.sages, clear out his ears, take his blood pressure. It was odd, having to let someone whom he'd come to regard as simply a friend treat him suddenly in a professional capacity. He just hoped she wouldn't have to give him the hernia test, by holding his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and having him cough.

She didn't. Nor did she seem the least bit uncomfortable in this different role. Charlotte, he discovered, could put on the dispa.s.sionate face of the physician and go about her duties in a purely clinical manner. Not that it stopped her, when the exam was done and she had declared him fit as a fiddle, from asking, "You sure you want to do this?"

"Absolutely."

She was taking her stethoscope off and slipping it into a drawer. "Going under that ice, in a face mask and all that gear ... you don't have any claustrophobia?"

From something in her voice, he suddenly had the thought that she was talking about herself, not him.

"No. Do you?"

She tilted her head to one side, without looking him in the eye, and he thought back to the snow-school night, when they had had to sleep in the hand-carved domes.

"How'd you make it through the igloo training?" he asked.

"Darryl didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"That boy can keep a secret," she said appreciatively. "I never did go inside."

Michael was puzzled. "Tell me, please, that you did not go back to camp, by yourself." He was appalled at the thought of such recklessness.

"Nope. I slept in eighteen layers, inside the sleeping bag, with just my feet inside the tunnel. I was afraid if I wedged any more of me in there, Darryl might suffocate inside."

Once he knew about her phobia, and how she'd toughed it out without ever letting on, he admired her even more.

And Darryl, too, for being able to keep her secret.

"I'll be on the walkie-talkie all day," Charlotte said, "if you need anything out there."

He expected no less.

"Now you and Darryl be careful, and watch what you're doing. And don't you let Darryl boss you around too much."

"I'll tell him you said so." Then he started piling on all the outdoor gear again and left the infirmary for the dive site.

To get there, he had to board a Spryte-a humble cross between a tractor and a Hummer, which in turn dragged a Nansen sledge weighted down with some of the extra diving equipment. Darryl sat beside him, looking like a kid on his way to Disneyland. Their caravan made slow progress on the ice, and it was about ten minutes before Michael saw the prefab dive hut, built along the lines of a garden shed, sitting out in the middle of nowhere, with a black-and-white flag flying. The hut itself was an improbable pink, like a pale summer rose, and a couple of the base personnel were piling up fresh snow all around its foundation to keep out any wind; its floor actually rested on cinder blocks a foot or so above the ice.

Darryl craned his neck out the side of the Spryte as they approached, and his fingers drummed nervously on his knees. They would have to undress, then suit up for the dive inside the hut, because once you were encased in all the waterproof gear, you would pretty much suffocate from the heat unless you were quickly able to immerse yourself in the ocean; the open water itself, regardless of the depth or season, kept to a fairly steady 33 degrees Fahrenheit.

It looked like Franklin, whose handlebar moustache was all you could see poking out from under the furry hood, who waved them to a halt.

"Nice day for a swim," he said, jerking open the cranky door of the Spryte. Darryl tumbled out first, slipping on the slick ice, and Michael followed, as Franklin started to off-load some of the gear from the sledge. They went straight into the hut, which felt like walking into a kiln after being outside. s.p.a.ce heaters were mounted on metal brackets, and an impressive rack of gear hung from cluttered racks along all four walls.

But most noticeable was the round hole, maybe six feet in diameter, sitting like a big Jacuzzi in the center of the floor. A steel grid had been placed over its top to prevent any accidental or premature entries, but Michael couldn't help but gaze down into it, into the deep blue water, frazzled with shimmering ice platelets, that awaited him below.

Calloway, a wry fellow with a p.r.o.nounced Australian accent, said, "G'day mates, I'll be your divemaster for today's activities." From what Michael had heard from Lawson and others, Calloway wasn't really an Aussie, but had adopted the persona as a ploy to get girls, many years ago, and somewhere along the way had forgotten to give it up. "Now, let's strip down to our skivvies and get started. There's a lot to do."

That turned out to be the understatement of the year; Michael had dived many times before, and was used to the lengthy process of suiting up, but this outdid anything he'd ever been through before. Under Calloway's expert instruction, he and Darryl first put on expedition-weight polypro long underwear, and over that a Po-lartec thermal jumpsuit. On their feet, they wore the U.S. Antarctic program's own issue socks, and Thinsulate nylon sh.e.l.l booties. Darryl, at that point, looked suspiciously like a red-haired elf.

Calloway next handed them each a light purple dry-suit undergarment to haul on over all the underclothes.

"Bit warm in here, eh?" Calloway said, flapping open the front of his flannel shirt.

"You can say that again," Michael agreed.

"Bit warm in here, eh?" Calloway dutifully repeated.

Michael had had to get used to the soph.o.m.oric sense of humor that prevailed at Point Adelie, or, in his experience, at any remote camp where men tended to congregate.

Next up was the dry suit itself, which Calloway held up like a fashion designer showing off his latest creation. "State of the art, mates. TLS Trilaminate. Much lighter than the compressed neo-prene jobs, and it won't retain the surface moisture either."

It was hard to imagine, as Michael struggled into yet another layer, to believe that it was lighter than anything else. He was already feeling like the Michelin man, and this was before they got to what would surely be the most constricting step of all-the protection of the head and face.

Calloway was digging in a duffel bag Franklin had brought in, then extracting two black Henderson ice caps-full-face hoods that left room only around the eyes and lips; a thin strip of neoprene ran above the mouth aperture. Pulling the balaclava on, Michael felt like a burglar. And over it, he knew, would come the attached latex hood. Calloway had to help him drag the hood over the top of his head, and down to the top of the orange dry suit, where it snapped closed like a suction cup, effectively turning him into a big human sausage in a complete orange casing.

"Can you turn that down?" Darryl said, lifting one bulky arm toward the nearest heater. "I'm dying."

"No problem, mate, shoulda done it sooner." He flicked off both heaters. "A few more minutes, and you oughta be out of here," he said, encouragingly. He helped both men on with their mountaineering glove liners, then their three-fingered rubber dry gloves, followed by their weight harnesses (without being weighted down properly, Michael knew, a diver could bob upside down until he drowned). Finally, he hoisted onto each of their hard-sh.e.l.l backpacks a ScubaPro ninety-five-cubic-foot, steel oxygen tank with twin regulators. Michael could barely move.

"Any last words," Calloway said, "before the face masks go on?"

"Hurry," Darryl gasped.

"Remember-no dawdling down there. You've got one hour, maximum."

He was referring, Michael knew, both to their air supply and to a human being's ability, even under all the gear, to withstand the extreme temperatures.

"The nets and traps are already down?" Darryl asked, as he wrestled his wide rubber fins over his booties and onto his feet.

"Sent 'em down myself, not two hours ago, tied to the lines from the safety hole. Good luck with the fishing."

"Before we forget," Michael said, "I'll need that."