Jonathan peered around the smoking dining car, searching for a familiar face among the smiling, masticating spawn.
"Ah ha."
"Ah ha what?"
Jonathan pointed. Doctor Magnusson and Kurt Steiner had nabbed themselves a table near the coffee carafe. Jonathan was used to Sigrun's boxy tweed suits by now, but seeing Kurt in a neatly pressed three-piece eye-catching blue number was a new experience. Sometimes Jonathan forgot that the big fellow was actually a historian by trade, and by trade was supposed to and expected to look somewhat professional.
"Sit your arse down and say hello." He told his nephew.
"But-"
"Nope. You shoehorned your way into this, it's time to play nice."
Jonathan straightened the lapels of his jacket before striding into the car, Alex trailing along somewhat reluctantly behind him.
And he almost ran straight into Andy Hallet. In a flat cap and suspenders, a gasper dangling from his lips and laden down with cakes, it looked like Fagin had held up the dessert trolley.
"Ah, an éclair? For me? You shouldn't have."
The kid managed to speak even with the cigarette clamped firmly between his lips.
"I will cut you."
Jonathan laughed, pulling out a chair at Sigrun's table. Doctor Magnusson barely glanced up as he sat down beside her.
"Please, do sit down." She said dryly.
"Don't mind if I do, old thing."
Sigrun side-eyed Kurt, and the German shrugged. "It was your idea to keep him."
"Aw, you decided to keep me? I'm flattered."
"Perhaps you shouldn't be." Sigrun closed her notebook, slipping it into her ever-present canvas bag. One day Jonathan was going to be brave enough to ask what she actually kept in there.
"Ah, dear Doctor Magnusson, I can assure you that keeping me under thumb will hardly prevent me from participating in a spot of ill-timed tomfoolery." Jonathan shot her a grin and Sigrun rolled her eyes. Beside Kurt, Alex was worrying his napkin, earlier cockiness apparently evaporated. Under the table Jonathan kicked his nephew in the ankle.
Alex coughed nervously, Magnusson's cool eyes swinging toward him. He tapped his fingers on the tabletop and Jonathan kicked him again.
"So I really need to thank you for this opportunity, Doctor Magnusson."
She arched an eyebrow, her voice neutral. "It appears I didn't have much of a choice."
Alex reddened. Jonathan winced, knowing that he also needed to apologise for convincing her to take on another in the spotted Carnahan lineage.
"So I was thinking that I really need to step into the role and take on my responsibilities." The kid carried on.
Jonathan coughed. Kurt stared deeply into his coffee like he was trying to divine the future in its depths.
Sigrun placed her hands primly on the tabletop.
"Your responsibilities will be the same as any other junior assistant." She said flatly. "Fetching, carrying, relaying messages and surface research and logistics. If anything else is required of you, you will be informed."
Alex's jaw dropped at the blunt statement before snapping back into his skull, blue eyes sparking. His jaw worked like he was fighting with his common sense to say something asinine, and Jonathan stomped on Alex's toes so hard that he mashed his boot to the floor.
Alex's smile was painful, and it wasn't all from his smarting foot.
"Of course, Doctor." He forced the words out through gritted teeth, glaring at Jonathan. Jonathan stared back, unabashed. Alex was so used to getting special treatment from the academic world for being Evy's son and the latest in an archaeological dynasty that this new experience where he was very much starting from scratch was really leaving him blindsided.
"Has your uncle filled us in on our current situation?"
"He said you were going to Egypt to confirm some out of place artefacts."
"It's always so much fun when people talk about me like I'm not here." Jonathan complained.
"I would have thought you'd be used to that." Kurt said.
"Shut it, you."
Sigrun supped her wine. "I am to authenticate some artefacts that seem out of place in the current accepted historical record. We'll take a plane to Alexandria."
"Couldn't we have got on an aeroplane in England?" Alex asked uncertainly.
Kurt's eyebrows pulled together. "You got on two separate trains with us without once wondering where we were going?"
"It's the family spirit of wanderlust and adventure." Jonathan said.
"We'll take the ferry to Calais." Sigrun said. "My aeroplane is in Paris."
Jonathan understood why Magnusson preferred to use Dragovitch. The amount of firepower Hallet alone carried would probably be frowned on by the local constabulary. Still, he wasn't looking forward to a whole day on the night ferry.
"But first Mr Steiner and I have a speaking engagement at the Musée d'Archéologie nationale."
The National Archaeological Museum. At that Alex frowned with recognition. He ticked a glance to Jonathan. "Mum's supposed to talk there."
"Oh, I know." Jonathan said lightly.
"It was decided that we all would meet up in person before having to leave for Alexandria."
"Er, 'we all'?"
"Our other consultants." Sigrun said dryly. "I believe you're acquainted. Evelyn and Rick O'Connell."
"I can't believe that you didn't tell me that Mum and Dad were coming too!"
Jonathan was in that lightly boozed-up state where everything was right with the world, standing on the bow of the ferry as a light spray of sea foam slapped him in the face. He briefly considered jumping off the side. Sod it, Serious Talks were supposed to be the property of the father, not the Irresponsible Uncle.
"This is why you always take full stock before proceeding."
"You've never taken full stock of anything." Alex said sourly. "You could have told me we were going to see Dad."
Jonathan cracked open an eye, sea salt crusting his eyelashes.
"All right, partner." He said slowly, trying to drag himself back to full sobriety. "I think it's time to have a little talk. I thought you and Rick had worked everything out."
Alex joined Jonathan at the railing, staring out into the dark water.
"We have. I think. It's complicated."
Jonathan remembered the real beginning of the rift, when a few years back Alex had blundered into a family dinner announcing that he was considering signing up to the RAF and joining the assault in the pacific. While Jonathan had silently swallowed his horror, Rick had simply exploded in a singularly American way. And for whatever reason Alex had taken it personally that his father didn't want him to die plunging into the ocean in a fiery ball of death.
"It's just – I'm…" Embarrassed.
"He'll forgive you. It's his job."
"I know, I'm just…" Still embarrassed. It was truly astounding that while Jonathan was the human embodiment of a whirlwind of chaos, Alex and Rick were the ideal representation of the emotionally-repressed stoic Englishman.
Maybe Jonathan should worry a little more about how Evy ran her household.
"You pair are emotionally stunted."
Alex snorted. "Yeah, like you're so mentally stable."
Touché.
"And then there's Mum."
"What's wrong with Mum?"
He leaned over the railing, watching the moonlight dance off the water. "She'll want to know all about my work and my degree."
"It seems you have that sorted, you crooked little gremlin."
Later, when Jonathan was about to retire to his cabin, perhaps appropriating a bottle of something on the way, when he spotted a familiar figure hunched over the other side of the ferry.
Jonathan frowned.
Kurt Steiner was still in his stuffy professor suit, hunched up against the railing and staring broodingly into the waters of the Channel.
"That face embodies how I feel the closer I get to France, but brooding alone will give you an ulcer. Share the misery."
For a split-second Kurt looked surprised before he smoothed it away. Jonathan's eyes narrowed. You're smooth, old boy, but not smooth enough.
"Brooding? Who's brooding?"
Jonathan smiled wryly. "Whatever you say, dear chap." He lent over the side against the hulking fellow. "Are you suffering from stage fright? I would have thought you'd be able to recite your paper in your sleep by now."
After a moment of silence Kurt spoke.
"Ha, no. No, I - I haven't actually been back to France since before the War."
"Oh." Jonathan frowned. "That seems an awful long time, what."
"Says the man who has been in China for the last ten years." Kurt scoffed.
"Touché." His eyebrows rose. Even if that was true, there was obviously more on his mind than that, since old Mr Steiner had used the veteran's trick to try and derail a potentially uncomfortable conversation by mentioning the war. What war, it didn't matter. Pick one. Jonathan's own father used to get out of unwanted conversations by mentioning the Boers, sending people scrambling in their hurry to scurry away from the mentally unbalanced veteran.
"I try to avoid France myself." Jonathan's nose screwed up. "To do with a bullet in the arse and a lady ambulance driver."
"Was the bullet in the arse due to the lady ambulance driver?"
"Now that would be telling."
A reluctant smile crawled across the man's face.
"You know…" Jonathan started. Even after all this time, he wasn't entirely sure how to broach the subject. After all, realistically, he and Kurt hadn't really known each other for that long at all. "Old boy, if you need… a chat over a cuppa or something, my door's always open."
The mist off the side of the ferry must have been getting in his eyes, as for a moment Jonathan could have sworn that the stoic hulk's eyes were watery.
And then he blinked and it was gone.
"I… will keep that in mind." Kurt said softly. Jonathan understood. It was hard asking for help when you spent your whole life with it getting drilled through your skull that men had no emotions and showing any was a form of weakness. Thankfully Jonathan had never exactly been a man's-man and was able to mostly sidestep the emotional trap.
"Thank you, my friend." There was a warble in the German's voice, a waver that said not right now, but maybe later. Steiner grasped Jonathan's forearm in a Germanic tribal way that took his mind back to Ancient Rome. That misty-eyed look was back, and Kurt spun before Jonathan could see his face completely crumple.
His heart went out to his friend.
"So I'll see you in the morning?" Jonathan chirped with false cheeriness.
"Of course. Yes, of course." Taking the out, Kurt nodded briefly before vanishing through the door. Jonathan watched him go, a frown on his face. As Kurt strode away, he pulled a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket to wipe at his face. A scrap of paper fluttered to the ground.
Jonathan bent over to scoop it up, fully intending to call his friend back and hand it back. He really was.
Until he caught sight of the letters stamped into the page.
"Oh dear."
He started the long walk between sightseers and gawkers to their carriage. Jonathan reached out for the railing, and sighed before stepping up into the carriage. He was flicking the folded paper through his fingers, filled with a nervous energy.
He tapped on Sigrun's cabin door.
"Oh dear doctor, I think we might have an issue here." He glanced at the paper. "Doc?"
Jonathan slid back the door.
Papers were scattered across the floor, slowly rotating in the ventilated air, and the doctor was slumped back across the bench.
"Sigrun!"
For a moment Jonathan went completely rigid before muscle memory kicked in and he hooked his jumper up over his mouth and nose and wrenched open the nearest window. Now he was looking for it, the bitter smell of carbon tanged in his mouth.
"Doc, doc. Wakey, wakey." Jonathan checked her pulse before vigorously shaking her shoulders. "Time to wake up, Doc. Come on, old thing. Up and at 'em! Are you really going to leave Andy unsupervised?" His lips pursed as she didn't react. "The Bembridge Scholars are holding a conference to discredit your last paper!"
After a long moment that felt like forever, she began to stir.
"Jonathan?" Her eyes opened a slit. "Something smells." She started to drift off and he shook her again. Magnusson took a half-hearted shot at him.
"Now, now, enough of that. Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!"
And after a few confused, slow blinks, awareness snapped back. "Fumes!"
"Open the windows. Every window." Jonathan grabbed her long coat and covered the floor vent. "How many people were in the carriage?"
"I don't-" Sigrun tried several times to push herself up before she finally succeeded. "Mrs Stanley was going to put her little ones down to go to sleep."
"Door to door. Go!"
Jonathan followed her to the Stanleys' cabin. He forced open the door to see poor Mrs Stanley slumped over her suitcase, and he went to her. Sigrun's footsteps stopped, and he looked up to see her frozen in the doorway, face pale. Jonathan followed her gaze.
Two kids in pyjamas were collapsed bonelessly on the trundle bed.
He stepped into her line of sight, drawing her gaze. "I've got them." Jonathan said gently. "Go help Mum."
"I don't understand." The engineer was saying. "The ventilation in none of the other cars malfunctioned, I can't find a fault."
Now that didn't sound suspicious at all.
"Well, there's a reason why everybody in the car collapsed of carbon monoxide poisoning." Jonathan said sharply.
Jonathan and the head engineer glared at each other. Jonathan didn't like engineers, any type of engineers. Poncy bastards with too much education that charged you an arm and a leg to redesign a plug that somehow made it worse.
"Easy, James." The captain said, speaking in the slow, deliberate way of someone who was trying not to make it obvious that he was on precisely the right amount of cocaine. "We thank you for bringing the exhaust malfunction to our attention, Mr Carnahan. I have my people on it right now. We will find our leak and proceed with our journey."
But until then they were stuck in a floating bathtub in the middle of the English Channel.
"You'll keep me informed?"
"Of course, Mr Carnahan."
Jonathan stepped out of the office, raking a frustrated hand through his hair. Damn young idiots had no clue exactly how close they had come to a disaster, there had been twenty people in that carriage. Nine of them children.
Nine small lives that could have ended before they began.
Jonathan hadn't needed to resuscitate a child since that farm in 1939.
Well, would you look at that? His hands were shaking. And he was pretty sure he was going to vomit. Yes, he was definitely going to vomit.
Gripping the railing, Jonathan emptied his stomach of anything he'd eaten in what felt like the last week. After he'd finished retching over the side, he wiped his mouth and rocked back on his heels. Well, that was fun.
"Get a hold of yourself, old boy." Jonathan whispered to himself. "Stiff upper lip. You're an Englishman."
Wasn't that an absolute load of shite.
He sighed, feeling his hammering heart starting to calm. He needed to find the others. He needed to find Alex and check on Sigrun and-
A slightly angrier wave rocked the ferry. Jonathan, already unbalanced, almost fell over. He gripped the railing, looking at his shoes. As Jonathan's balance returned, he slowly looked up, trying to blink his eyes back into focus.
Something caught in the corner of his vision, and as he turned, Jonathan could see a black lump propped against the bulkhead. Time seemed to slow in that instant. God, don't be a body, don't be a body-
Darn it, sometimes he really resented his inability to just walk away from these situations. He slowly reached out, and-
Thank Christ, not a body. Just a bundle of canvas!
His fingers hit against something hard, and heart in his throat, Jonathan withdrew it.
Just a bundle of canvas with a diving mask hidden under it. Suddenly with a feeling of impending doom, Jonathan ripped into the bundle, pulling out a pair of swimfins and a breathing regulator.
They were stopped in the middle of the Channel. They were stopped in the middle of the Channel and wouldn't be moving until the engineers had ascertained that it was safe to do so. In a moment of clarity Jonathan realised that the sudden malfunction wasn't exactly an accident. Not at all.
The vomit was making an encore.
Jonathan turned the regulator in his hands, making out the batch and the ID in scratched German.
And he immediately dropped it as the moonlight caught on the swastika stamped on the side.
Turning tail, Jonathan ran.