THE MAN ON THE ICE

It was our second day on Crater Hill, so, like, not far from the base. From the ridge, you could look back down and see McMurdo spread out there, all safe and snug. Twinkling lights. Inside and under the snow five hundred people did their jobs. Movies. Ping pong. Research projects. Shopping Amazon. It was comforting to look down and see it. It was pretty clear to me that by now my project wasn't going to pan out, so I was looking forward to movies and video games and real food. 

Instead, here we were huddled on Crater Hill, drilling in the cold like shitheads. The third and last drill bit whined. The last two had hit something at 35 m and cracked. The second burned out the engine. It was day two of a week long stay and we were already on the auxiliary engine and last drill bit. That's all we had. I'd tell you what we were drilling for, but let's skip it unless you're in environmental science. 

Hell, even then it turned out to be wrong, so who cares, right? My thesis advisors didn't...

You asked me what the most frightening thing I ever saw, was, right? Yeah?

Ok. So, first, this happened. If you want, I'll give you the names of the people who were with me, O'Boyle—and go ask him the same thing. We told everyone when we got back. Hell, we radioed right after. People still wag their fingers at their ears when they talk about us—the guys from Brown—and the man on the ice, I'm sure. I bet it's one of those stories that sticks to a place. They still tell it, though this was, I don't know? 2003? Or 4. 

We're set in these little shit tents. It's freezing. We could go back to McMurdo but this was part of it, right? We didn't want to look like pussies. 

"Who the fuck is out there?" O'Boyle says to me. Shouts I guess. His big ass glove practically smashes me in the face and I turn.

The wind picks up, and finally, on the bowl of snow on the far side, I see a figure, heading west. He's like a black dot out there, tramping along. No vehicle. No pack. So I take one of the tracks and drive out, figuring its someone from the radio station, or some dumb other dumb shit. I tell O'Boyle to wake Dhajir in case someone is like hurt, or sick. I tell him to wait, I'll be back.

And I drove out there. 

But once the guy hears the track coming, the fucker TURNS away from me. I can see it's a guy. A big guy in a tan coverall, like a mechanics' bib. Goggles. Some sort of jaunty fucking cap. The cap was also tan. He starts walking towards a pass in the rocks ahead, but of course, the track can run him down no matter what. He can't get away. 

When I'm maybe 50 feet from him, he stops with his back to me. I get out of the track.

"YOU LOST?" I shout, laughing. My lips are numb.

He turns to me, and the tip of his nose is black, with little white bits on it. He's holding a gun. A pistol. Like one from an old war movie or something. He's wearing these weird glove-like things that have a finger but are otherwise a mitten, but just on his pistol hand. His clothes, I notice, are thick, but look like shit. Like they've been patched again and again. There is a cobalt blue number stamped on his right chest: 103. The goggles look old too. Orange. But I can't see his eyes. 

"Hey man," I say, but I'm sure he couldn't hear me. I raise my hands.

He raises the pistol at me, like dead on me, and then pulls the trigger. Over the wind, for a second, I hear the CLUNK and then the sound of—I don't know—cursing, in German.

He shouts something in German at me, gesturing with the pistol to make certain I understand him, and boy howdy, do I. I don't speak a lick of German, but that man said "if you follow me, I will kill you," as sure as I am from Texas.

Shaking, I drive the track back to Crater Hill camp, and O'Boyle comes running over with a half a dozen guys who watched from the ridge. Our conversation went something like this:

Who was he?

I don't know.

What did he do?

Tried to shoot me.

Shit.

Shit.

We called it in. We went in early. We filed reports. We talked to some guy from the FBI at Yendegaia even, who had a lot of questions about where, and which direction and how long and such this guy was moving.  But I'll tell you what scared me more than anything else. Antarctica is neutral. Countries publish lists of personnel there. McMurdo. The Russian station. There's a rescue list, too. Because you sure as shit don't want to be lost down there with no one knowing you're there.

So you know what fucking scares me the most?

There wasn't a single damn German in Antarctica at the time. At least none anyone knows anything about. And what about THAT friends and neighbors? Story's over. Drink up.