There
had been old people, when he had been a boy, who had told stories of
ghosts and apparitions, with the firmest conviction that they were true.
And there had been an Irishman, in his old company in the Philippines,
who swore that the ghost of a dead comrade walked post with him when he
was on guard.
"Are you a spirit?" he asked. "I mean, somebody who once lived in a
body, like me?"
"N-no." The voice inside him seemed doubtful. "That is, I don't think
so. I know about spirits; they're all around, everywhere. But I don't
think I'm one. At least, I've always been like I am now, as long as I
can remember. Most spirits don't seem to sense me. I can't reach most
living people, either; their minds are closed to me, or they have such
disgusting minds I can't bear to touch them. Children are open to me,
but when they tell their parents about me, they are laughed at, or
punished for lying, and then they close up against me. You're the first
grown-up person I've been able to reach for a long time."
"Probably getting into my second childhood," Colonel Hampton grunted.
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