Ghost Talkers (18 page)

Ben jerked his hand away. “Sorry—sorry. I didn't—I'd rather you didn't…” He crouched under a blanket of shame and stood amidst rage at the same time, both images woven into the ether. “I forgot that you got emotions with the memories. My apologies.”

Ginger's chest ached. Mrs. Richardson squeezed her hand and was a warm and comforting weight. Merrow seemed dull with shock. Ginger sucked in a breath, shuddering. “It's fine.”

“Yes … well. My head—not the carefree place it used to be. Just think, if I'd passed earlier, you'd have jolly memories of cricket matches to live through.”

“Then I should have perished of boredom and joined you.”

“And this is when I curse your father's American blood.”

Ginger blew him a kiss. She forced her body to take another breath. “Did you hear what Reg and Zitron talked about?”

“He asked if you'd spoken. Zitron said no. Then it was just innocuous things about the weather and the camp facilities. And nothing about skirts. I can only assume they were speaking in code, but damned if I could figure it out.” He gave a wry grin. “Even if I weren't … scattered, I wouldn't have been able to sort it.”

Mrs. Richardson asked, “Are there really codes based on the weather?”

Ben laughed, and a bubble of amusement floated up from Merrow. Ben said, “The weather. Fish. The number and length of pauses you take in a sentence. I once knew a fellow who could stammer in Morse code. It was quite impressive. Another woman used the length of stitches in her dresses to carry messages. I used to carry cigars that had onionskin paper tucked inside. Lived in fear of grabbing the wrong one and smoking my secret message.”

Merrow said, “Remember the baker, sir?”

“Right!” Ben rubbed his mouth, grinning. “We had a live drop who signalled that he had a message waiting by the number of pastries in the window. You had to let him know you were the contact by ordering a specific grouping of pastry. Damn good pastries. Pleasantest password exchange I've ever had to do.”

“All of which are lovely,” Ginger said. “But the question that I want to bring us back to is what Reg wanted with Amott Zitron.”

Ben spread his hands. “I don't
think
Reg does intelligence work, but he might. We don't all know each other.”

“Hmm.” Ginger could not shake the feeling of Ben's distaste for his cousin. “Is it … is it possible that Reg had you … had you killed for your inheritance? And that it's totally unrelated to the Spirit Corps?”

“No.” Ben shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“He is blond and an officer and stationed here.”

“He also smells like a cologne factory. I would have recognised him by that.”

“But … but you couldn't breathe. Would you have been able to smell his cologne?”

Ben hesitated and then shook his head again. “Well … he's had ample opportunity before. Why now?”

“Because it would be easy to disguise as an accident of war.”

He froze in thought, his edges just flickering with arrested motion. Then he shook his head again. “If I had been shot in battle, perhaps. Although … as much as I don't trust him with money or anyone I care about, I don't think he would actually stoop to those depths.” He held up a finger to stop Ginger. “And—I was strangled. So whoever did it knew the camp was going to explode; otherwise my death would have been too obviously a murder. It's best to proceed with the idea that it's related to my investigation into the leak.”

All of which made sense, but none of which, in Ginger's mind, precluded Reginald from being the culprit. “So what do we do next? Go to meet your contact in the trenches?”

“What?” Ben radiated confusion.

“Earlier today.” She grimaced. His memory was slipping more. “When you were trying to remember what you'd spoken to Schmitt about … you mentioned a contact in the trenches. Something about the gas.”

“I did?”

“Yes, sir.” Merrow shifted next to Ginger. “I mean, I—I didn't hear you say that today, but that was the plan we had before … before the explosion.”

Ben stared at Merrow with something like horror. “That was … I did? What else did I say?”

“Um … we'd planned to—to go back to Le Havre. You wanted to talk to Miss Stuyvesant about something. I—I don't know what. But you'd had a letter. From her, I mean. And then we were going straight back to the trenches.”

“The captain who was murdered.” Ben sagged with relief. “Right. Right. I remember, I wanted to talk to Ginger about Norris. And if I wanted to do so before going to meet my contact … that means that I thought they were related. And—damn.”

“Why is that bad?”

“Because I don't remember where in the trenches.”

Merrow brightened. “I know that, sir. Because we've been there before.”

“The Baker Street trench? The 11th Lancashire Fusiliers. Right.” Again, a wave of relief rolled off of Ben. “Well. Thank God I remember some things.”

“Oh, lovely.” Mrs. Richardson brightened. “If only Sherlock Holmes were there, we could ask for a bartitsu demonstration.”

 

Chapter Fifteen

24
J
ULY
1916

Merrow managed to find nurses' uniforms for Ginger and Mrs. Richardson. When she'd asked where, he gave a shy grin and ducked his head. “I have a—a friend.”

Mrs. Richardson had given a delighted chuckle at that, and nudged the young man with a wink. “Say no more.”

The red cross on their arms gave them freer movement into the trenches than their blue Spirit Corps uniforms would have, and the wimple of a nurse covered Ginger's distinctive red hair. It could not mask her flinches at the constant sound of the guns.

Or the ghosts. She had not thought about the effect of going among so many old ghosts. The British troops had been conditioned to report in and then go to their rest. But these trenches had been held by the Germans, then the French, and then the Germans—trading back and forth with the price of soldiers' lives. Thousands of memories crowded in with every thundering concussion, each one saying that this was the last sound he had heard before dying. Ginger's chest was tight, and she could take only the shallowest breaths. The brimstone-scented air burned with reminders of death.

She was not dead. These were not her memories. She kept her gaze fixed on Merrow's stooped shoulders as they walked down the narrow earthen trenches. Mrs. Richardson followed behind her, from time to time patting her on the back.

Ben stayed at her side, slipping through the ghosts as if this had always been his natural environment. “It is all right, darling. These are deep trenches. You aren't going over the top. It's all right.”

With her head down, she doubted any of the soldiers they passed could see her lips. Certainly they could not hear her over the din. “I am fine.”

“Your aura—”

“Damn my aura.” Ginger knotted her hands into fists to stop their trembling. “I cannot help my feelings, but I can bloody well control the way I act about them.”

Ben pulled back a little. “I am so sorry I brought you here.”

“It was my choice.”

Merrow had stopped and was speaking with a lieutenant who seemed too bookish to be in a war. Merrow showed him one of the documents from Ben's drawer and gestured back to Ginger and Mrs. Richardson. The lieutenant stroked his mustache and then beckoned them forward.

“Lt. Tolkien'll get us set up.”

The lieutenant touched his helmet and nodded to Ginger. “Thank you so much for visiting us, sisters. We've a couple of chaps as could use looking after. I told Private Merrow to put you in the dugout and I'll send them round to see you once you're settled.”

“Thank you.” Ginger smiled demurely. “We must all do our part.”

Mrs. Richardson patted her bag. “And we have good clean socks too, which should help with trench foot.”

It was uncharitable, but Ginger rather hoped they would be gone before then. She had trained as a nurse in the early days of the war, before they put the Spirit Corps together, and knew how to treat various ailments of the feet. It was not the thought of dealing with trench foot which made her wish to be gone, but rather the constant boom and hum of shells flying overhead.

Most of the soldiers sat in their bunkers, or leaned against the sides of the trenches looking as though no sound was occurring. How did they manage it? She knew, intimately, the crushing fear that most of these men carried inside them, and yet watching them, she would not have been able to tell that they were afraid without their auras. All of them had an air of desperate confidence.

The small dugout that Tolkien directed them to had been carved into the clay walls of the trench. It was not tall enough to stand in, even for Merrow, and had only rough planks laid for a floor. Steel water tins served as stools. Little clots of dirt shivered free from the ceiling in time with the impacts.

Merrow wiped off one of the tins with his handkerchief and turned to the other. “Just give—give me a minute.”

“Thank you.” Ginger looked back out into the trench. “Where was he to meet the spy?”

“There's a listening trench off the Baker Street trench. It's almost all the way to the German lines. Tolkien's in charge of signals, and he says it's clear.”

Ginger nodded and brushed the sweat off her palms onto her skirt. “How much time do we have before the rendezvous is scheduled?”

Merrow checked his watch. “Another hour and a half before the window for contact opens, but it'll take a while to worm down the listening trench.”

“Well, we should probably go before I lose my nerve.”

“It's only big enough for one.” Merrow stopped. “I should be the one to go, ma'am.”

“You can't hear Ben.” Ginger straightened her cuffs. “It would be different if you could.”

“Maybe he could—could he possess me?”

Ben harrumphed. “I'm not a demon.”

“No. If you were a sensitive and supported by a full circle, you could maybe channel him, but as it is…” Ginger smoothed her skirt, which was covered with dirt at the hem. “I am here because it needs to be me, and I can go down the listening trench as well.”

“I don't think—” Ben started, and stopped abruptly as Ginger turned on him.

“If you are going to say that you don't think I understand what a listening trench is, then I will be forced to remind you of how many men have reported in from them. I know exactly what it is and what I am volunteering to do.” But that did not mean she relished the idea at all. Still. It needed to be done. “Mrs. Richardson, will you be all right waiting here?”

“Oh, you know I can occupy myself anywhere.” The older woman held up her bag and pulled her knitting out of it. The ratty, badly knitted scarf that had been Herr Schmitt's tumbled out of her bag. She picked it up and frowned at the offending item. Then she smiled up brightly at Ginger. “Besides, I have these poor soldiers to attend to. Go along, you two. I shall look forward to your report.”

Biting his lip, Merrow stepped out of the dugout and gave Ginger a sturdy nod. “Let me at least show you the way to the listening trench.”

“Thank you.”

They went along through the trench, with Ben spinning in circles around her. “I don't like this. I don't—I don't…”

“Weren't you the one telling me it would be all right?”

“Yes.” He pulled in some of the dark sheets of fear that flapped behind him, wadding them up. But each one shredded in his hands and frayed into a dense mist around him. “Yes. But that was before we decided that
you
were going into a listening trench. I don't like it—”

“Here we are, ma'am.” Merrow stood next to a narrow channel carved into the earth at right angles to the rest of the trenches. “It'll get shallow really fast. You have to crawl on your belly, and—whatever happens, do not lift your head above the walls.”

“I won't.” Ginger shook out her skirt. She should have worn men's clothing—even if it wouldn't have fooled anyone, it would have been more practical for this. “Will you wait with Mrs. Richardson? And look after her?”

“Of course, ma'am.” Merrow swallowed, a ball of tight anxiety. “Be careful. Or the captain will—will haunt me for the rest of my days, I should imagine.”

Ben laughed and clutched his head. “He has that right, but don't say so.”

“He says he won't blame anything but my own pigheadedness.” She offered Merrow her hand. “Thank you.”

He stared at it for a moment, then drew himself up and offered her a salute. “I see why he loves you, ma'am.”

Loves. Present tense. Ginger turned her head away so the tears that pricked her eyes would not trouble Merrow. Nodding to herself, Ginger started down the trench. The sides brushed against her skirt, and she had to turn sideways to keep from rubbing her shoulders. A step up made it so shallow that she had to crawl with her skirt hiked up to her knees.

Gradually it became more shallow, until she had to creep along on just her elbows and toes. The dirt was shattered and torn by successive blasts. The smell of ozone and burned flesh took up residence in her nostrils. Ginger's shoulders ached from the unaccustomed posture.

She stopped to catch her breath and rest, with her forehead pressed against the earth. Ben lay next to her, half in the dirt wall at her side. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Of course.” Ginger wiped her face on the back of her sleeve and left a streak of dirt across the fabric. “Conserving my resources is not a sign of weakness, just prudence.”

She raised herself onto her elbows again and squirmed forward. The uneven, shallow trench had been dug in a hurry. She and the other sappers had needed to speed out under the cover of darkness to make this trench, praying the Germans wouldn't see her or Basil as they was digging. Hard it was, digging in the dark and trying to be silent and every second sure that you were about to be shot.