Ghost Talkers (23 page)

“Um … yeah.” He fumbled in his pocket with the hand she didn't hold. “I should've just bought the poems, but I didn't figure we'd need them that long. And, well, travelling light. And—why steak?”

“Or liver. That's probably got more blood in it, actually.” She steered Merrow toward the butcher shop, hoping Westrup would think she was picking up something for the trip. “I want to adjust your bandages and add some blood to obscure your face. Ben did it once when he was behind German lines.” Only he had used the blood from a corpse.

A spike of alarm punctured Merrow's composure for a moment, and then he wet his lips and nodded. “All right. A fellow ought to—ought to be used to blood by now.”

As they reached the door, Ben appeared in front of Ginger and nearly made her stumble. “Sorry.” He put out his hands to catch her, as if that would do any good. “What's going on?”

“Reginald has men at the station,” she murmured.

His head whipped around to stare at the station, and his lips pulled back in a snarl. Great wings of fire and jet spread out, fanning the air with his protective rage. “I'll kill him.”

“I'd rather you just find out what's on the paper, dear.” Ginger risked a glance back up the street. There was the damned major from the bookstore. “Come along, Merrow. Oh, and could you cover your eye as if you've been punched?”

Ginger could not quite bring herself to walk through Ben, so she stepped a little to the side to go around him. With a hiss, Ben soared off down the street, trailing anger after him like the wake of a ship.

She pushed the door to the shop open. The trill of the little bell called the butcher to the counter, or rather the butcher's wife. The shop was spotlessly clean, and here, Ginger could see more of the effects of the war. They had very little meat for sale, and the prices were outrageous. Le Havre had better stores, but then they were the port where the convoys brought supplies into France. Here, so close to the front, most of the local provisions must have gone to the soldiers. What little was available had prices jacked up to take advantage of the officers fresh out of the trenches.

Still, she put on an efficient smile. “Good afternoon, madame. Do you have a scrap of beef? Something only fit for the dogs.” Ginger glanced at Merrow, who dutifully had his hand clapped over his left eye. “He got hit by a cart, and I want to keep the swelling down.”

The butcher's wife was a tiny woman with her dark hair pulled back into a severe bun. Lines of strain were etched under her eyes. She pursed her lips. “No scraps.”

“I'm sure your cuts are of the highest quality.” Though, in fact, Ginger had had kitchen staff to handle the butcher before the war, and she still wouldn't know a good cut from a bad one in the raw. “But this is only to—”

“I mean that there is no waste. The army.” The butcher woman jerked her chin toward the door, as if that explained everything. And perhaps it did.

“Then your least expensive, please.”

With a snort, the woman slapped a piece of waxed paper on the counter and reached into the cooler. She drew forth a fatty, gristly mess and dropped it into the middle of the paper. “Voila.”

It was disgusting, and perfect. “Thank you. And might I buy your cloth as well?”

The butcher looked down at the bloody rag she was wiping her hands on. “This? Eh. I will get you a clean one.”

“No, no—that one is perfect. No point in soiling a fresh one, since it will just get more blood on it.”

She paid the outrageous price for the gristle and the rag, then sat Merrow down on the window ledge. With the efficiency she had acquired in her time nursing, Ginger wrapped the bloody cloth around his head with the gristle packed near his eye. A bit of it peeked out, which was gross and effective.

Ben pushed through the wall of the butcher shop just as she was finishing. He made a sound of revulsion that was, in the moment, deeply satisfying. “What the devil are you—oh … clever.”

She glanced at him and raised her brows. With her head turned away from the butcher, Ginger mouthed, “What did you find out?”

He shook himself, settling the folds of his attention around his form. “Lyme has Merrow's picture, and yours.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Specifically, he has my photo of you.”

“Are you certain? I did have more than one copy made.”

“And how many did you inscribe
To my dearest love
? I carried it in my breast pocket. Always.” Ben glanced over her shoulder. “The butcher is starting to wonder why you're still here.”

“Can you read her mind?”

“No, but I can read a scowl.”

Ben slid toward the door. “I'll scout ahead. You two come slow behind me.”

Ginger nodded and took Merrow by the arm. He was rigid under her grip, and his aura had gone dark with fear. With a nod to the butcher's wife, Ginger let Merrow hold the door for her, and then they both stepped out onto the street. The major from the bookstore was standing a little down the street, pretending, not very well, to be window shopping. Though what use he had for lady's handkerchiefs, Ginger could not imagine. Still, it meant he was not looking directly at them when they started down the street, so, hopefully he would not notice the alteration in Merrow's appearance.

Ben zipped through the crowd, causing a horse to shy as he brushed past it. He circled Ginger and Merrow, all spikes and plates of red armour. “There's a group of walking wounded, coming down the cross street. If you can bear over that way, I don't think the idiot behind you will be able to object when you join them.”

“Thank you.” And, of course, being in a group would make disappearing that much easier.

Ginger worked her way to the left side of the street, where another cut diagonally into the one they were on. Everything funnelled into the train station at this point. The stream of men in their hospital blues stood in marked contrast to the seam of khaki surrounding the station.

Her heart raced in her chest and sweat beaded the back of her neck, despite Ben's cool presence. This was oddly more nerve-racking than crawling through the listening trench. There, at least, she had the benefit of others' memories to know the exact range of things that might go wrong. Here, she had only her own resources—and, with luck, Ben's observations—to give her a bit of warning.

As they merged into the shuffling mass of wounded, Ginger tried to work Merrow closer to the middle of the group. Thank heavens they would not have to worry about tickets on a train bound for the hospital. Ben rose above the crowd and sank back down with some relief. “The major has stopped. He's still watching, but he's not following you anymore.”

“It seems as if he really ought to have something useful to do,” Ginger muttered. The hospital was in Étretat, which got them no closer to Le Havre. They would have to board the train and go straight through to exit on the far side. At least then they'd be inside the station, though she had no idea how long it would be until the next Le Havre train.

“Fellows like him never have anything useful to do.” Ben chewed his lower lip and turned toward the train station. “I'll see if Reg is around anywhere.”

Ginger nodded, none of her tension releasing now that they were in the line. The chances of Reg's men spotting them, disguised and in a group, were thin. She knew that she could relax a little, but her body would not unwind.

“Hallo, sister. Where did you come from?” A doctor in his midforties, with absurdly curly hair and a long scarf that would have made Mrs. Richardson faint, came alongside Ginger with his hands tucked behind his back.

Well, here was a good reason to still be nervous. Ginger let go of Merrow's arm, since there was no good reason for her to still be holding it. She concentrated and tried to sound less American when she answered. “I was at a casualty clearing station near the front. Sent back on leave, and then got pulled out almost immediately and reassigned.”

“Oh. Don't I know how that is. I can't remember the last time I had leave.” His long nose bent like a hook when he smiled. “Still. Glad to have you. Canadian?”

“Yes.” Good enough for the moment. They were even with Lyme and the MPs. Ginger turned her head away from them to look at the doctor. “And you?”

“Oh, all over. I move from time to time, but you could probably tell that.” He stepped forward and caught a soldier who stumbled, steadying him until the man could walk by himself. “Have you worked the trains before?”

“No. I'm really just transferring.” Her back prickled as they walked into the station.
Please, please don't let Lyme spot us.

“No such thing as ‘just' transferring.” He winked at Ginger. “But I'll put you in the car with the light wounds.”

“That's very generous.”

“Well, it's a pity you lost your leave. Still, at least Le Havre is a nicer place than the front.”

“Indeed.” Le Havre? That was unexpected luck. She had expected that the train would be going to the hospital in Étretat. Ginger glanced at the men around them and realized that they all had the fluttering letter
E
pinned to their uniforms. So this was a group of soldiers returning home. Maybe this would be the best possible thing. Merrow could just get on the ship with them and get out of this dreadful war.

A cool breeze announced Ben's arrival. “I think you're in the clear. No sign of Reg. Looks like he just has his men here.”

The train stood ahead of them, with steam that billowed like an aura around its iron black body. It seemed to be made of fear and grief. Some of the cars were already full, and not even the bustle in the station could mask the moans of pain from within. The group of soldiers Ginger was with headed for the fifth car.

The doctor nodded down the line. “Go on to car eight. It's the lightest injuries there, so you shouldn't have to do much more than fetch water. Changing dressings on a train is a whole other skill.”

“Thank you.” Ginger reached for Merrow. “I've been looking after this fellow today. He can't hear.”

The doctor eyed the bandages and
tsk
ed. “Looks like he might lose the eye too, judging by the blood. I'll take him into my own car. Don't you worry at all.”

“Oh—” She could think of no plausible objections. “Thank you.”

Ginger walked to car eight, praying that Merrow would be all right on his own.

*   *   *

Despite the doctor's assurances, Ginger spent the entire trip to Le Havre working. While the soldiers in car eight had very few physical wounds, their minds were not in good repair. One man spent the ride weeping silently with his head cradled in his hands. Another had chewed his fingernails to the quick and had to be restrained to keep from gnawing his fingers bloody. Ben paced alongside Ginger, but she had no opportunity to speak with him.

But she had time to think. It felt like she had so far done little but race from one place to the next since Ben—since Ben's death. They had thus far been assuming that the man who killed Ben was the same as the traitor that Ben had been after. But … if Ben was right, and the traitor was not working alone, then there was no reason that the murderer and the leak had to be the same person.

Indeed, it was far more likely that it was two different people, particularly given the message from the spy in the German ranks. Given what Ben said about Axtell, could he be the one? When did he dye his hair though? That was the question—Ben's murderer had light hair.

But the note said that the traitor was in London. If that was so, then an accomplice here had killed Ben. It seemed likely, to Ginger, that the accomplice would be one of the people involved in drowning Capt. Norris in the baths. Both murders had involved British officers.

And then there was the hat that Brigadier-General Davis had said was found at the scene.… Reginald had lost his hat, and it would have had the name Harford in it. He would have been able to go from Le Havre to Amiens without trouble. And certainly he had been dogging her steps. Turning up first at the train station, then at the camp. And leaving his men at the train station with her picture—

Ginger's thoughts skidded to a stop and she turned to Ben, almost speaking to him before she caught herself.

His brows went up in response. “What? What idea did you just have, my darling, beautiful girl?”

She clenched her jaw and looked about the car, but the other nurses were closer than she liked. Wetting her lips, Ginger moved a bit farther down the car and crouched next to a young man who was staring blankly out the window. Murmuring, hoping that it would appear that she was speaking to the young man, but that he wouldn't hear her, Ginger said, “You said you carried my picture in your breast pocket.”

“Yes.”

“So Reginald has your things.” Of course he must. Why else would he have gone straight to the prisoners of war? “Ben, you said they hadn't finished clearing the bodies at the … from the explosion. So, if Reginald has my photo, where did he get it?”

He greyed, face sagging under the realization. “From my body.”

She swallowed and forced herself to continue. “And your notebook. You always carried it—”

“—in the same pocket.” He swirled in a storm cloud of frustration. “So we've escaped Amiens, when that's exactly where we need to be. Perfect.”

 

Chapter Twenty

As soon as Ginger got off the train in Le Havre, she struggled back through the stream of soldiers disembarking from car eight to meet Merrow. Ben followed at her side, floating slightly above her head to look over the crowd.

“That doctor you were talking to is headed your way.” He flitted forward and then back. “He hasn't seen you yet.”

Ginger ducked her head and pushed through the soldiers to the side of the station. Chewing the inside of her lip, Ginger put her hand on her nursing veil. There were enough women in the station that she should blend in. The question was if looking like an on-duty nurse, with the veil, would get her more attention than removing it and the apron.