Ghost Talkers (28 page)

She bit the candle, gripped the matchbox between her knees, and struck the match with her bound hands. When the match flared to life, Ginger nearly dropped the candle with relief at the light. Hands shaking and eyes crossed, she managed to bring the match to the wick.

With the light, Ben was dimmer, but still present. The room itself was in disarray, as if a windstorm had blown through it. Ginger pulled the candle from her mouth and said, “I shall have to call you Tempest from now on, I think.”

“I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island; And I will kiss thy foot: I prithee, be my god.”

“Flattery. Although … if you are able to quote Shakespeare at me, could you try for something more useful?” The room still spun alarmingly, and the candle seemed to have two flames. Concussion, clearly, which was not even remotely surprising considering how hard Merrow had hit her. Tears pricked unexpectedly at her eyes. God. Merrow. She had liked him. Ginger shook her head to try to clear it. “No sharp implements? Mirrors or vases to break?”

“Alas.”

Tipping the candle on its side, she let wax dribble onto the floor, then secured the candle in the pool of wax. With gritted teeth, Ginger held her wrists over the flame and began to burn her way through her bonds.

*   *   *

Ginger slowed to a stop in the street, leaning against an unlit streetlamp. Ben kept reaching out, as if he could touch her. Each phantom brush of his hand sent chills along her arms and back.

“You're hurt.”

“Not anything life threatening.” She smiled at him. “I would lie to you, but you're reading my aura, aren't you?”

“Yes.” He ran his hands through his hair and paced around her, the folds of his uniform wafting out from his body like shreds of silk.

“Turnabout is fair play, I suppose.” Keeping her voice jaunty took almost as much effort as simply standing. She rested her forehead against the lamppost. Thank heavens the lamps were not lit at night, to make targeting the city more difficult, or she would certainly have called attention to herself by now. A woman alone at night under a streetlamp, dressed in trousers … she did not want to have that conversation with anyone.

She needed to get to Le Havre, and walking would take too long. Who could she trust here? “Ben? Is there anyone in Amiens who you trust?”

“Not sure.” He tugged at his hair as he circled her.

“The chauffeuse at the hospital near Amiens would give us a ride, but it will take nearly as long to walk there then drive to Le Havre as just to walk.” She pushed away from the lamppost and headed for the train station for want of a better direction. “Maybe there will be a night train.” But that would more likely run from Le Havre to the front than the other way around.

“Truck.” Ben lit up and beckoned her forward. “Truck driver.”

Truck driver? She didn't know a truck driv—yes. Yes, she did. Mrs. Richardson's friend Cpl. Patel drove a truck and was stationed here. “You are brilliant, my dear.”

“Stupid.” He tapped his head.

“Well … you have been a wittier conversationalist, but the content of your ideas is not suffering. And it's easier to get a word in edgewise now.”

He snorted but smiled. God. His smile, all lopsided and dimpled, would break her when it was gone. He led the way down the lane, and Ginger followed.

*   *   *

The Indian Army brigades did not rank proper billets, but were housed in tents not far outside of town. Ginger paused outside the one that Ben had guided her to, acutely aware that calling on a man in the middle of the night was beyond improper. Of course, the whole bloody war was beyond improper, and she was wearing trousers, so it probably couldn't get much worse.

Unless he slept in the nude. Ginger closed her eyes. Please, God, do not let him sleep in the nude.

Ginger parted the tent flap and crept inside. “Cpl. Patel?”

He woke with a jolt, sitting up in bed. “Who is there?”

“It is Mrs. Richardson's friend. Miss Stuyvesant.”

“Oh my goodness! Go outside! Go outside at once. It is not proper for you to be in here. I am a married man.” He scrambled at his bedside and grabbed a bundle of cloth. “I will be out in only a moment. Please.”

“Of course.” Ginger ducked back out into the night and rubbed the ache in her temples.

Ben paced around her, sometimes jumping several strides ahead. He straightened, looking back at the tent, and Cpl. Patel emerged. He wore his uniform and was tucking the end of his turban into place.

“I am so sorry to bother you.”

He waved a hand to stop her. “No bother. No bother at all. I was only alarmed—and, good heavens, what my wife would say if she knew.” He shuddered. “An excellent woman. Excellent. But I do not want to give her any cause to doubt me while I am away.”

“But she—”

“Wouldn't know? But of course she would, because I will have to tell her what happens tonight. I would not lie to her. Not for all the world. And there is an emergency, yes? That is why you have come?”

“I—yes.” Ginger wet her lips and faced the first person she would have to tell about Mrs. Richardson. “I am afraid that Mrs. Richardson is dead.”

“Oh … oh, I am very sorry to hear that.” He touched the muffler that was wrapped around his neck. “You have my sincere condolences.”

“Thank you. But that is not the emergency. I believe that someone is going to try to bomb a facility in Le Havre, and I need to get there quickly. Can you drive me?”

Cpl. Patel grew very still and studied her for a moment. He tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowing. “That man. The one on the road? Johnson. That is why you cannot go to an official?”

She nodded, grateful for his perception. “Exactly.”

Dusting his hands together, Patel nodded. “Then. We drive.”

“Thank you.”

“It is no trouble.” He beckoned her to follow him along the path between the neat lines of tents toward a row of vehicles that stood silhouetted against the predawn light. “It is no trouble at all.”

“I am afraid that it is.” Ginger pressed her fingers against the headache behind her right eye. “Dragging you out of bed to drive to Le Havre … you have my sincerest thanks.”

He smiled, his lips compressed under his heavy black mustache. Tapping his forefinger alongside his nose, Cpl. Patel glanced briefly toward his truck. His finger tapped again, and he squinted. His aura spoke of an internal struggle between the yellow-green of caution and the bright yellow of need. With a nod, as if to himself, Cpl. Patel inhaled and spoke. “About the trip to Le Havre … I would like to set you down outside the city. With apologies—deepest apologies—for not taking you all the way in.”

“Oh. Of course.” She had no right to ask him for anything, and was grateful for what he could offer.

Ben murmured, “Safer…”

Cpl. Patel nodded. “Exactly so. It is safer.”

Ginger jumped in her tracks, coming to a stop on the wooden duckboards. “Pardon me?”

“The ghost you are travelling with…” He gave a little shrug. “I did not see him—I assume he was with you the other day on the road—but I did not see him. Tonight? Still half in sleep? I was between worlds, and he is … he is very present. Very present indeed.”

“You are … you are a medium?”

“I would use a different word, but as the English describe it—yes.” He gave another shrug, still not meeting her gaze. “My wife and I, we … I miss her very much. It is why my mind was in a position to notice your ghost.”

Lucid dreaming. He could mean nothing else. Ginger tried to meet Ben's gaze, but he was staring at Cpl. Patel with a hungry green mantle of envy cloaking him. As so often happened with auras, Ginger could see the emotion, but not understand the reason behind it. Knowing that Cpl. Patel could see and hear Ben kept her from asking him what was troubling him.

“Well … to return to the original topic, setting me down outside town is perfectly fine.”

“Thank you.” He inhaled, straightening his shoulders and tucking his chin down, as if preparing for a fight. “And now, I need to ask you for a favour—understanding that it may not be within your power.”

“If I can grant it—”

“Wait—” Patel held up a single finger. “Make no promises until you know the request.”

“All right.”

He fumbled at the collar of his uniform and pulled out the identity tags that every soldier wore. “I want the third tag for the Indian Army.”

Ginger froze, utterly unprepared for this request. “I beg your pardon?”

He rattled the discs, looking directly at her, and she had no doubt that he was looking at her aura. “We have only two. British men have three. We are not trained to ‘report in.' British men—
white
British men are. It is not so difficult to imagine the connection.”

She prayed to God that it was far more difficult than that to imagine the connection. The number of people who understood what the third disc on British ID tags did was numbered no more than twelve. Every soldier had the black disc, which stayed with their body after death. The red disc—that was pulled from the bodies of corpses on the battlefield for the death records.

The blue disc … it was pulled from the necks of soldiers who were injured and would not return to the battlefield. Ostensibly, it was part of tracking the medical records. In fact, it was the key that bound British soldiers to the nexus at Potter's Field. The real reason for removing it from wounded soldiers was so that they did not report in if they died in the hospital with nothing useful to say.

“I think it was a mistake to not issue them to the Indian Army.”

He snorted. “Because it gives the game away. Not because you think we have anything of value to add to the reports.”

“Both.” Ginger wiped her hands across her face, shivering. “I will make the recommendation to my superior, but I can offer no assurances beyond that.”

He broke into a sudden grin. “Considering that I thought you would lie to me—I will take it. And thank you for trusting me.”

“I am not certain I have much choice, since you could expose me with a single shout.”

Cpl. Patel blanched. “Oh my goodness. I did not think of that. I beg your pardon. Most sincerely, I beg your pardon. I should have waited until we were not—”

“Please—” Ginger reached across the gap between them and rested her hand on his arm for a moment. “You are correct, and have nothing to apologize for.”

“Thank you.”

Ginger nodded and stared out at the path in front of them, looking through Ben to the truck that would carry her to Le Havre. “Tell me about your wife as we go?”

Cpl. Patel glowed with a rosy mist of adoration and pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “Her name is Arundhathi, and she is a most excellent woman.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ginger leaned against the wall behind a rosebush overlooking the street that led to the Spirit Corps warehouse, waiting for Ben. It seemed that she had spent most of her time over the past days waiting for Ben, but without his ability to scout ahead, she would probably be in the clutches of Merrow or Reg or Axtell or … She clenched her teeth. She was no longer certain who the enemy was, only that there was one. More than one.

Rubbing the bridge of her nose did little to relieve the headache that had taken up residence there. She hoped, very much, that Cpl. Patel had made it safely back to his camp after dropping her off. Just as fervently, she hoped that his unique position as a driver who was a medium also made his guess about the blue ID discs unique.

Morning sun slanted down the street, cutting black shadows with golden light. Ben wafted down the street and passed directly through the rosebush to stand by her with the branches sticking through his body. A bloodred blossom emerged from his neck like a boil. His jaw was set and firm.

Ben pointed down the street toward the train station. Images of him stuttered around the bush, moving toward the wall surrounding the warehouse that housed Potter's Field, before evaporating back into himself. “Merrow.”

“Damn it.” Ginger squinted down the street, but didn't see the man. She gnawed on her lower lip, thinking. “Is he alone?”

“Yes.” Ben grabbed at a rose branch as if he could snap it off. Great red wings of anger snapped behind him and then curled tightly around him.

Closing her eyes, Ginger tried to run through all the possible choices in front of her, but she was so fatigued that only one seemed viable. “Change of plans. Since we know he's here, I'm going to go to Brigadier-General Davies.”

“No!”

“Yes.” Ginger pushed herself away from the wall. “Davies can't be the traitor, because if he were, they would already know where the Spirit Corps is. He might arrest me before he lets me talk, but at least that will put him on alert.”

“Ginger…”

“I know, I know. You think it is not safe.” She straightened her jacket, wishing she were in her Spirit Corps uniform for this purpose. “But
nothing
is safe, so that provides little reason not to proceed.”

The space between Ginger's shoulder blades itched as she stepped out from behind the rosebush. She shoved her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket as she walked toward the main street. Every part of her soul screamed at her to run, but running would draw attention.

“Hide.” Ben zoomed past her, grabbing for her arm as if he could hurry her along.

Behind Ginger, a bottle rattled on the pavement. She murmured, “Is he…?”

“Yes.”

The itch between her shoulders grew until she shuddered. Merrow wouldn't shoot her, because that would draw attention.

Attention—Ginger had planned to head away from the gates to Potter's Field, because Merrow was there. But so were the guards. Merrow had been hiding from them, so that meant they weren't on his side. She hoped. Abruptly, Ginger turned around and ran screaming toward the main gate of Potter's Field.