Ghost Talkers (15 page)

It occurred to Ginger that if Ben's grandmother on the Harford side was German, then so was Reginald's. And she had a very good idea of where his hat was.

*   *   *

Ginger left Mrs. Richardson at the lodgings for the Spirit Corps volunteers and went with Merrow to the camp. The streets of Amiens alternated between picturesque canals, seemingly unmarked by the war, and others that were ruined wastelands. On one street, the entire front of a building had been reduced to rubble, leaving the rest untouched, so that Ginger could see inside it like a dollhouse.

Though there were some civilians, most of the people were soldiers. Frenchmen in their “horizon blue” uniforms and Algerian tirailleurs with soft red caps passed British soldiers in their khaki. A group of West Indian soldiers sat on the roadside, cleaning their rifles. Their rolling accents brought Helen to mind.

She had left Lady Penfold with a list of possible mediums to pair Helen with in the circle. The challenge was that it had to be someone absolutely trustworthy, since Helen carried the knowledge of the binding in her mind. While another medium wouldn't automatically sense it, the risk when linking minds was that memories could cross the boundaries. Whoever it was would have to be approved by the powers that be.

To the side of the road ahead, long rows of peaked white tents stretched to the edges of the field. Men in khaki walked among them, or sat in the shade of their tents. They were all so young. Suddenly, Merrow did not look quite so much like a boy. It seemed that there was barely a man over five and twenty among them.

At Ginger's side, Ben sighed and stared with flutters of lavender wistfulness at the tents.

“Are you all right?”

Merrow glanced around at her voice, and Ginger gestured vaguely to the air beside her. “I was—Ben. Sorry.”

His eyes widened, and he bit his lower lip. “Just—you just pretend I'm not here, ma'am.”

“Thank you.”

Ben watched Merrow increase his pace a bit to give Ginger a modicum of privacy, though he didn't go so far as to be out of reach should she need him. “He's a good man.”

“So he seems. Now … why did you sigh?”

“Oh—just, I never thought I would miss those.” He nodded to the tents. “But they make me feel a little homesick.”

“What? Did you and your family go camping?”

“Nothing so rustic.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Truth be told … disturbingly, it feels more like home here than in London, which I barely remember. Even before … this. Dying, I mean. I don't know why it's so hard to say.… But even before that, London—hell, England seemed like a dream.”

How ironic that being on the Western Front actually made Ben more stable, because he had such strong emotions associated with it. If not for Potter's Field calling British souls to the nexus, it would be littered with ghosts. And, likely, if she went into the areas held by the French or the Central Powers, the air would be cold with them.

Past the tents, the field dropped away into a series of scorched pits. Scattered pieces of wood lay like kindling. Scraps of fire-blackened cloth fluttered among the rubble.

Ben stopped abruptly. “Ginger. I think you should go back.”

“Please tell me we are not going to have this argument every time I try to do something.” She followed Merrow another few feet, until the familiar coolness of Ben's ghost faded. Ginger stopped and turned to face him. “Are you coming?”

His aura fluctuated with uncertainty. “I can't imagine anything useful surviving.”

Behind Ginger, Merrow called, “Anything the matter, Miss Stuyvesant?”

“Ben doesn't think anything could have survived.” Ginger forced a smile for the young man, looking over the devastation. A smell of charred meat lay over the field. “I'm not certain how you did.”

“I can—I can show you.” Merrow pointed to the edge of the craters. “We were in a cabin, not—not a tent. Part of it is still standing.”

Now that she knew what to look for, she could see that one of the piles of rubble was the remnants of a building. Nearly an entire wall, and part of another, leaned together like a pair of drunk old men.

“Merrow, you can't take her.… He can't hear me.” Ben stared at the sky. “I do not think I shall ever get used to this.”

“That makes two of us.” Ginger turned and began to pick her way over the rubble at the edge.

“Wait—” Ben pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Will you please point out to Merrow that they are still clearing the site?”

“I feel like a telegraph operator.” Ginger stumbled on the uneven soil, and Ben put out a hand to catch her, but passed through her arm. She waved him off. “I'm fine, dear. Private Merrow? Ben says that they are still clearing—”

She stopped and understood, finally, what Ben had recognised that she had not. The scraps of cloth that fluttered in the field were from uniforms. Corpses. Ginger dealt every day with the dead, in the form of souls, but not bodies. The soldiers were still retrieving the bodies of the dead.

Merrow looked back over his shoulder. “Ma'am?” His expression changed abruptly, as his aura sprouted burgundy spikes of alarm. He scrambled back up the crumbling slope and passed Ginger to stand on the road. Ben spun at his passing and similar protective spurs erupted from his form.

“Damn. Ginger, darling. Do be so good as to go stand behind that brick wall, won't you?”

She had no intention of doing anything of the kind. Ginger turned, as the men had done. Coming along the road toward them were Johnson and five other men.

Ginger sighed. “I see.” The stupidity of men never failed to astonish.

With something like a growl, Ben started walking to meet them and then flowed streaming over the ground. He circled them in a whirlwind, kicking dust up. Johnson coughed, raising his arm against the debris.

Merrow jumped a little and glanced over his shoulder at Ginger. “Is that…?”

“Yes.” Ginger could not put Ben back together again if he exerted himself too much as a poltergeist. She balanced on her toes in a moment of indecision. Which would defuse the situation? If she removed herself and hid—no. Johnson and the men would fight Merrow and then come find her.

Ginger walked forward, trying to recall how she used to move to make the lines of her silk gowns sway and draw attention to the curve of her corset. In the heavy blue linen of a Spirit Corps volunteer, it was difficult to do, but the movement still caught Johnson's eyes.

“Miss Stuyvesant—” Merrow scrambled after her. “I don't—I don't think this is a good idea.”

Ben whirled back through the air to hover in front of Ginger. “One of his friends said that he's going to challenge Merrow to a fight. If Merrow looks like he's winning, he's going to shoot him. Either way, he's going to have his way with you. You have to go.”

“Nonsense.” Still, she wasn't so foolish as to come within grabbing distance of the men. If Merrow were close enough, she would touch him so that he could hear Ben as well. Although, truly, Johnson's intentions were painfully clear. “Lt. Johnson. What a pleasant surprise to find you here.”

With a grunt, the man lowered his arm, still squinting against the dust. “Capt. Harford wants to make sure you're taken care of.” He jerked his head toward the other soldiers. “I brought some help along.”

“So I see.” Ginger swallowed, painfully aware that “taken care of” could have more than one meaning. “That was very kind of him.”

“I thought so too.” Johnson smirked and flexed his fists. “Gave me an opportunity to pay my respects to you and your fellow.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“It depends on how cooperative you are.”

Merrow stepped in front of Ginger again—this time, square into Ben. The sudden chill made him shudder. “You won't touch a hair on her head.”

“It wasn't the hair on her
head
that I was interested in, kid.” Johnson pulled off his coat and handed it to one of the other men. “But if you're asking for a rematch … I lost my balance on the train. Don't intend to do that again.”

“Wait—” Ginger tried to step around Merrow, but he doggedly stayed between her and Johnson. “This was about a kiss. I regret declining.”

“I'm sure you do.” He cracked his neck.

With no more warning than that, he rushed Merrow. The young man crouched a little, bracing himself for impact—

—and then Johnson was on the ground, so swiftly that Ginger did not see how it was done. Merrow was kneeling on the man's chest, holding one arm across his throat.

Ben shouted, “Gun!” and flung himself back toward the other men, highlighting a man with blond hair who aimed a revolver at Merrow.

Ginger pointed at it. “Merrow, watch out!”

Merrow flung himself back into the dirt of the road, as the small crack of the revolver added its noise to the greater thunder of the front. He rolled to the side, dropping into the cover of the ditch. Ginger fumbled with her bag and pulled out the gun that Lady Penfold had given her on the way to the train station.

Small, with intricate chased gold patterns and a mother-of-pearl handle, it looked like a toy compared to the revolver in the blond man's hand.

Shaking, she pointed it at the man with the gun. “That is quite enough.”

Johnson sat up, laughing. “Do you even know how to fire that?”

She did not, in fact. Her family had never been the sort to chase a fox, or even go shooting for birds. It wasn't the done thing in New York, and when she'd moved to London, it had been all about the pleasures of Town with only occasional forays into the country for a house party. Still, her aunt had shown her the basics in the car, and they seemed straightforward enough.

“Stay where you are.” Ginger took a step backward. “Pvt. Merrow, come with me, please.”

Johnson waved the blond man forward. “Go ahead, Lyme. She doesn't know what she's doing.”

Ginger looked around wildly for Ben. He was clad in plates of red fury, like armour, with spikes of deep-burgundy alarm. He knew how to fire a gun, but could not touch it.

And she could. Just as she could hold a pen and channel a ghost so they could draw on a map. “I can shoot a gun as well as if I were channelling Ben Harford.”

Ben's head whipped around with a flash of crystal blue understanding. “Are you certain?'

Johnson stood and advanced toward Ginger. She squeezed the trigger, and the gun only clicked. He laughed again. “Saftey's on.”

“Yes. Please, yes.” Ginger looked at Ben and opened the doors to her soul.

“She's asking for it, boys.” Johnson winked. “They always do, in the end.”

Ben kicked dust up around them, raising a field of dirt and leaves and blood-covered fabric. He barrelled back and sank into Ginger's embrace.

He is behind enemy lines and, God help him, the route back to their own trenches has been overrun. He's wearing one of the Huns' uniforms, and his German is good enough to pass, thanks to his grandmother, but he doesn't know the passwords for this unit. If they challenge him …

If they challenge him, there's nothing to be done. He checks his revolver and makes sure there's a round in the chamber.

He starts forward, then stops before he rounds the corner into their section of trench. Crouching by a British corpse, he grits his teeth and shoves his hand into the man's pooling blood, then wipes it across his forehead, letting it run down his cheek.

Slinging his rifle off his back, he makes sure it's loaded but the safety is on, then he uses the gun as a makeshift crutch. Limping, he staggers around the corner.

“Hilfe! Hilf mir!”
He points back the way he came.
“Die Briten—die verdammten Briten durchbrochen.”

The young man on watch is scrawny, with dark hair and circles under his eyes. He looks as frightened as British Tommies do and probably wants to be home just as badly. The blood and the limp act as a password.

He is past the sentry and limping down the trench. There's a sign lying in the mud.
St. Vincent St.
All of the trenches have names from back home. He knows this one. Around another corner, and then
 …

“Kennwort.”

“Die Briten—”

“Kennwort.”

The limp and the blood were only going to get him so far. He raises the rifle and snaps the safety off. The recoil slams against his shoulder.

Ginger stared at the pistol in her hand. Smoke curled from the muzzle. Her arm ached. Why did her arm ache? God, but she was exhausted and cold. So cold. Someone was screaming. The sentry that she had—no, that Ben had shot—no.

It was Johnson, and he was on the ground clutching his knee. The man with the gun … he was on the ground too, but holding his hand. Both of them were bleeding. Had she…? Of course she had. That was why she had let Ben use her body.

“Ben?”

Wind circled her, tugging at the hem of her skirt. “Here.”

Oh, thank God. She almost lowered the pistol with relief, but there were still four other men. Merrow had re-emerged from the ditch with a fresh cut on one cheek. He had his gun in his hand as well.

Ginger addressed those of Johnson's men who were still standing. “I think you gentlemen should take your colleagues and go back to Amiens.”

“I'll see you thrown in jail,” Johnson shouted from the road. “You can't just shoot a British soldier and get away with it.”

Ginger tried to keep the gun steady. “And if you tell them that I shot you, they'll ask why. Did you really think this through?”

“So maybe you don't go to jail. Maybe we take care of you in Amiens.”

“You are an idiot. You were trained to report in when you die. You think you can just kill someone and not have anyone know?” But, of course, someone had done just that. Ben's murderer had to be someone who knew how the Spirit Corps worked.