The cool breath of Ben trailed behind her. Ginger braced herself against the swaying movement of the train as she worked her way back. If she could just stand on the platform, the fresh air would do her some good.
In Potter’s Field, the soldiers came in reconciled to their deaths due to the nature of the conditioning that had been laid upon them. But none of these men had any real concept that they would die, and, given the course of the war thus far, probably only a handful would see England again without a wound.
A man stood up in front of her. “Pardon, ma’am. You’re in the Spirit Corps, aren’t you?”
“I—why do you ask?” She took a step backward before she could stop herself and shivered as Ben enveloped her. The man wasn’t asking if she was a medium. The mundane version of the Spirit Corps had hospitality huts all through the arenas of war. Potter’s Field was the only one with mediums. She was wearing her Spirit Corps uniform still, so there was nothing sinister in his question.
“I know you ladies just serve tea and all, and … this is an imposition, but it would mean a lot to me. I didn’t get to kiss my sweetheart good-bye.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Can I close my eyes, and have you kiss my cheek? And pretend?”
All the deferred kisses this war produced, and most of them would never be collected. “Of course.”
He closed his eyes and turned his head, holding on to a seat for balance. Ginger rose on her toes to kiss his cheek. It was lightly stubbled and smelled of cheap soap. He was taller than Ben and had straight hair of an in-between brown.
Ginger whispered, “Be safe.”
“Thank you.” His voice was hoarse, and he turned away without looking at her, but not before Ginger saw that the rims of his eyes had grown red.
“Me, too!” Another man popped up out of his seat. Skinny and with freckles under close-cropped red hair, he winked at Ginger. “Just plant it right here.” He leaned toward her, laying a finger on his cheek.
“I’m next!” Behind Ginger, a soldier tapped her on the shoulder. Built like a bulldog, he had an upturned nose that wrinkled when he grinned at her.
A breeze ruffled the bulldog’s tie. Ginger glanced into the spirit realm. Ben stood with his hands clenched into fists, twice the size he usually was, with red shuddering out of him.
“Please don’t.” She put out her hand as if that could stop Ben. If he poltergeisted here, she did not have the circle to calm him again.
“I would very much like a body.” Ben growled and shoved his hands through one of the men.
The soldier who had asked first stood up again. “Hey—hey, fellows. Leave the lady alone. She was just being nice.”
“I just want her to be nice to me too,” the freckled soldier said.
The bulldog nodded and glanced around the car. “A kiss is all we want, right, fellas?”
A roar of agreement went up around Ginger. She ground her teeth together. Of all the stupid things. Where the devil was their commanding officer? No doubt riding in the first-class cars.
The first man shook his head. “Come on—”
Chuckling, the bulldog glanced around him and other men from his unit stood.
“Gentlemen, I am but one woman.” She held out her hands in placation. “Please understand that kisses are outside our normal purview. When you arrive in Amiens, my fellow sisters of the Spirit Corps will be happy to make you feel welcome in any other way.”
“Going straight to the front.”
“That’s right.”
“You’re our last chance.”
“Then I’m afraid that, with behaviour like this, you have no chance at all.” Oh, but her tongue was going to get her into trouble someday. Likely today. Ginger tried to slide past the bulldog so she could return to her seat.
“Hey.” He put his arms across the aisle and held on to a seat on both sides. “I asked nice.”
At the front of the car, Pvt. Merrow stood up. He straightened his coat and walked back to Ginger. “Let—let her pass.”
The bulldog glanced over his shoulder. His aura did not even flicker at the sight of Merrow, who had to be two stone lighter than him at least. “Beat it, kid.”
“No.” Merrow licked his lips and swallowed. “This is your only warning. Act like—like a gentleman and let her pass.”
The bulldog and his fellows laughed. Oddly, Ben laughed too. “They have no idea…”
No idea about…? And then Merrow moved with a speed and fluidity that astonished Ginger. It was not boxing, or any other sport she had ever seen. Two quick strikes with the edge of his palm broke the bulldog’s grip on the seat. Another strike with a flat hand spun the man, whose eyes had widened as his aura flared with red anger.
Merrow grabbed the bulldog’s arm, pulling the man toward him, and then flipped him over his shoulder and dropped him over the bench, in the laps of his fellows. They went down in a tangled mass.
Straightening, Merrow tugged his uniform until it was tidy and stepped to the side, blocking them long enough for Ginger to pass. As the men began to stagger to their feet, the other soldiers, who had been content to watch, filled the aisle and stopped them from reaching Ginger and Merrow.
She sat down, shaking a little, between Mrs. Richardson and the wall. The older woman gave Merrow a hug when he sank into the seat. “Oh, well done, young man.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” Ginger glanced to the back of the train. “How did you do that?”
“It’s—It’s called bartitsu. I … I read about it in a Sherlock Holmes story, and then it turned out it was a real sport, so I found a teacher and … I’m a little guy. This…” He spread his hands, which were shaking, and gave a shy grin. “You didn’t—you didn’t think Captain Harford kept me around for my looks, did you?”
Ben leaned against the wall, aura unruffled again, and grinned. “Tell him I kept him around for his pluck. The bartitsu was a bonus.”
Chapter Twelve
When they disembarked from the train in Amiens, Ginger realized how much the sound of the engine had been masking the guns. She had been able to hear them, of course. Even in Le Havre, the battery range had been like distant thunder.
Here though, her very bones vibrated. Mrs. Richardson flinched at a particularly loud explosion, although her aura did not show any alarm.
The soldier to whom she’d given the green muffler paused by them. “That’s one of ours. Nothing to be worried about.”
“Thank you, dear.” Mrs. Richardson patted him on the arm and winked at Ginger. “Now, do take care of yourself, and if you write to me, I’ll mail you some socks as well.”
Ginger stifled a smile, as the older woman had deftly detained him as a shield while the bulldog and his cronies disembarked. There had been no more incidents on the train, but the crush of the platform would make a casual shove very easy. Ranks of smartly uniformed men disembarked from the train, clean and ready for duty. Standing on the platform waiting to board were bedraggled rows of soldiers covered in dirt and smoke, unshaven and unwashed. Amid these unwashed masses wove an unexpected scent of musk and honey.
Beside her, Ben suddenly stiffened.
“Miss Stuyvesant, is that you?” Familiar aristocratic tones cut through the hubbub in a timbre strikingly like Ben’s. “By Jove, it is.”
With a smile, Ginger turned to meet Reginald Harford. “Captain. How do you do?”
“Very well indeed, if you’re here.” The tall blond man peered past her toward the train. His hair was perfectly pomaded, and his cheeks shone as if he had come straight from the barber. “Where’s Ben? Off struggling to manage all your luggage?”
She had thought to break the news gently, but his comment changed her mind. “He’s dead.”
Reginald gave a laugh and then stopped. His aura went white with shock. “You’re serious.”
Ben leaned close to Ginger and murmured, as though anyone else could hear him, “Don’t tell him that I—well, not survived exactly, but that I am a presence still.”
She hadn’t planned to. It didn’t matter how shocked Reginald’s aura looked, she didn’t trust him further than she could throw him. “The explosions at camp 463.”
He reached up as though to pull a hat from his head in respect, but his head was already bare. “Devil of a thing.” Reginald glanced around the platform. “And you are here to … forgive me if this is indelicate, but there won’t be a body to view.”
“I … I know.” Ginger plucked at the strap of her rucksack. “His parents asked me to collect his belongings.”
Reginald scowled. “I hadn’t realized how little they trusted me.” He brushed the words out of the air, though he could not erase the discontent from his aura. She could hardly blame him. It had not occurred to her until just that moment that Reg might receive Ben’s belongings. “Forgive me. That was unnecessary. Of course they would want you to have his things. And I would be a cad if I let you carry on alone.”
“I’m not—”
“Johnson!” Reginald stepped to the side and called past Ginger. “Escort Miss Stuyvesant to HQ and then— Where are you staying, Miss Stuyvesant?”
“At the…” She trailed off. The solder, Johnson, was the bulldog from the train. “At the Spirit Corps lodgings. And truly, I have Ben’s batman with me, so I shan’t need a guide.”
“That runt, Merrow?” Reginald barked a laugh. “Ben would want me to look out for you.”
“No, really. I wouldn’t.” Ben ran a finger down Reginald’s back, making him shudder.
“I am well provided for already.”
“It’s war, Miss Stuyvesant. I know that all you Spirit Corps ladies see is the dancing and tea in the hospitality rooms, but trust me. You’ll want a man with you. I’d come myself, but I have to get these misfits to the front.”
“Then, please, take all of your men with you. I do not require Johnson in the least.”
“I insist.”
“And yet, I have already declined.” Ginger offered her hand. “I wish you the best at the front, Captain.”
Chuckling, he bowed over her hand. “The red hair should have been a clue that you’d be a firebrand.”
Ben circled his cousin. “God. And he’s going to inherit the estate. He’ll run it into the ground by the time he’s thirty.”
“Captain … where is your hat?”
“What?” Reginald straightened, a hand going to his head. “Never wear the thing, if I can help it.”
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 th
e 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?”
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