CHAPTER 2

"Blistering Barnacles. Not again!" Haddock thought, trying to straighten up. He unleashed a string of well-placed curses when his dislocated shoulder flared up with white-hot pain. Breathless, slumped against the freezing metal, he tried to calm his heart that was beating too fast and took a few moments to examine the situation. His first observations did not please him at all.

It was dark.

It was cold.

There was no noise.

The others were either still unconscious or dead. The plane was broken into two pieces. Bare wires were bristling in the pale moonlight and the stars could be seen, blinking far away on the black canopy, through a massive crack in the roof – or was it the floor?

The storm had stopped, but the cold scent of snow was strong enough to mingle with the - too familiar, much too familiar ... – smell of a large, dying metal bird, lying on the ground after a forced landing.

At least nothing was going to catch fire.

Something moved in the rubble and Haddock felt his heart leap with hope. A faint barking sounded in the awful silence of the mountain and Snowy emerged from beneath a mound of disemboweled suitcases, wearing what must have been the nightcap of one of the Thom(p)sons. He got rid of it with an annoyed sneeze and rushed towards the captain, whining plaintively.

- "It's all right, old chap, it's over… I'm fine. Look for Tintin, Snowy, my boy, look for the others!" Haddock ordered in a hoarse voice.

He didn't have the strength to get up and anxiety was twisting his guts: what if he was the only survivor? No, it couldn't be ... they always got out of everything unscathed (or almost so) ... their luck was not going to abandon them now... Unless... except if... maybe the time had finally come to say farewell…

Snowy barked, pricking up his ears with intelligence. He licked the old sailor's face, wiping away the salty tears glistening on the weather-beaten cheeks, then set out to find the rest of the crew. His little white curly tail soon started to beat happily and the next moment, Nestor straightened up, looking completely lost, the bowler hat of one of the Thom(p)sons crooked on his head.

- "Forgive me, Monsieur, I did not hear..."

Something that was half a laugh, half a sigh of relief choked in Haddock's throat. His butler was tottering a little, but he seemed all right, except for a small scratch that was bleeding on his balding forehead.

- "A little more to the West..." Calculus muttered then and they noticed that he was still strapped in his seat, the only one that had not been torn off by the crash... and hung from the ceiling, upside down.

- "Cuthbert! Le Ciel soit loué!"

- "What hap-p-p-p-pened? T-t-the end of t-t-t-the world?"

- "To b-b-be p-p-precised… are we d-d-dead?"

The Thom(p)sons, staggering and shivering, their black suits powdered with snow, climbed back inside through the crack in the cabin, holding on each other, their mustaches still bristling with fear, their twin neckties as rumpled as the rare slicky hair on their round heads.

- "No, we're alive! Thousand thundering typhoons! We are alive! Thanks to that incredible kid who once again managed to land us in one piece!" Haddock cried, exulting despite the pain that pulsed like a hot iron mark on his shoulder. "What a man, all the same!"

And he will show up in a minute. He's alive. Probably not even hurt! Well… maybe knocked out by the crash, but this ginger quiff of his will soon pop in the room and he'll tell us that we can still use the radio to ask for help…

His eyes were boring burning holes in the direction of the cockpit. The night was engulfing this part of the plane, as if the nose of the aircraft was buried in a thick pile of snow.

They had just gotten Cuthbert down when Snowy barked again, making them jump.

- "The dog must have found his master!" cried the captain, trying to straighten up but not succeeding. Frustrated, gasping, he picked up the first thing that came to his hand and threw it at the flustered others (it was a celluloid duck, probably belonging to Calculus who liked having such things swimming in his bath). "Go see what it's about, you fat lot of sea gherkins! Tintin may need some help to get out of the rubble!"

But by the time the Thom(p)sons got out of the blanket they were twisted in and Nestor got up stuttering excuses (Calculus, of course, had heard nothing: on the other hand, he had found the duck and was examining it with some suspicion), Tintin lifted the hung curtain which hid the cockpit and slipped on their side.

- "Are you all right, my friends?" he asked anxiously.

- "What took you so long?" gasped the captain.

But he probably wasn't heard, because the Thom(p)sons, Calculus and Nestor had all started to speak at the same time - the policemen mumbling things without tail or head, Nestor swearing to God that he was not made for adventure and Cuthbert admonishing the reporter because he was "asking about such trivial things" while they were in a critical situation: "you had me used to better choices, my young friend".

Haddock sighed in frustration and gathered his strength again to try to get up. But a soft hand touched his arm.

- It's your shoulder, isn't it, Captain? asked Tintin softly. "Don't move, we have to set it back first."

The old sea dog shook his head vigorously, feeling his eyes tingle again.

- "Nothing broken, lad?"

He could not see a thing in this dratted darkness. He wanted to grab the boy by his shoulders, check himself that he was in one piece.

- "Stop fussing," said the young reporter sternly. "Leave it to me. We're going to set your shoulder back and then you will feel much better. And that'll be very good, since this crew clearly needs a captain on deck..."

Haddock would have laughed if he hadn't wanted to cry so much. Relief and concern were throttling him, mingling with the swirling thought that whatever Tintin could say, if he hadn't been there then everything would have gone down the drain, captain or no captain on deck.

The young man called Nestor and somehow managed to reset the butler back to his natural state of studied nonchalance. He guided him precisely and a few moments later, the injured man let out a howl that made the plane shake, the Thom(p)sons jump and sent Snowy back under his stack of suitcases.

- "I think someone knocked at the door", said Calculus absently.

- "Feeling better?" grinned Tintin.

Haddock cautiously moved his arm and groaned something at Nestor that sounded more like threats than touched thanks. The butler, however, was not listening to him. Looking a little confused, his eyebrows raised, he was trying to make out the features of the young reporter in the dark, as if he were surprised that Tintin had not set the captain's shoulder back himself: he was far more used to treating this kind of injury than Nestor…

- "Well, my friends, we should try to get some rest. We'll think better after some shut eye. Plus, we'll have some light when morning comes", Tintin announced in his clear, determined voice." That part of the plane could be quite comfortable if we were to clear it up a bit. Thompson, Thomson, may I ask you...?"

- "Certainly, Tintin!" cried the two policemen in chorus.

- "Thank you, gentlemen. Nestor, there should be blankets in the compartments, as well as flashlights. Could you try to find them?"

- "Oui, monsieur. I'll be on it right away, monsieur. Oh! May I take the liberty of suggesting that we all drink a cup of hot cocoa? I have - well, I had, before the accident ... - ah, there it is! I have a thermos here that I had taken with me just in case we'd be cold on the last part of the journey..."

- "Nestor, you're an ace!" cheered Tintin, smiling. "It's a great idea, it'll warm us up."

He took a step, patted Calculus on the shoulder to stop him from rambling to no one, had him sit down and made sure that the good scientist was with the group in both body and mind. Then only, he let himself sink next to the captain and leaned against the cabin wall, closing his eyes for a moment, his lips pursed in a tight line. The moon slipped through the crack of the plane and lit up his drawn features, his forehead beaded with sweat.

Haddock frowned.

- "You okay, lad?"

Tintin did not answer immediately. His hand sought in the shadows the hand of the old sailor and squeezed it for a moment, almost convulsively.

- "This time, I really thought we were goners," he whispered. "I couldn't straighten up the plane and... for a while, I thought I was going to kill us all..."

- "But you didn't. You saved us all, son", Haddock replied firmly, squeezing back fiercely that ordinarily steel hand that was trembling like that of a child in his. "Cuthbert, those two duffers, Nestor and I... you saved us all."

The familiarity only came to him when he was overcome with emotion. The rest of the time, it always seemed much more natural to mark how much he recognized in this wonder boy the man he was so proud to be friends with.

Tintin opened his eyes and rolled his head to the side to look at the captain.

- "Thank you for being alive", he muttered with a weak smile.

- "Come on," harrumphed the captain. "Stop being all emotional, son. It doesn't suit you. You're exhausted. Take your own advice, get some sleep. Tomorrow you'll be fit as a fiddle while we old goats will be complaining about our poor bones and you will hack this radio like a chef. I bet we'll be at Sprok Villa for supper and then it'll be the devil if I get back on a plane before a month."

- "I heard that Signora Castafiore was going on a tour in Syldavia once again. She had greatly enjoyed dancing with you by the lake…"

- "Don't talk about misfortune, boy."

Calculus was sipping his hot cocoa, watching them with something akin to tenderness behind his thick round glasses. Nestor was keeping busy, comforted by the thought of being useful. The Thom(p)sons had stopped shivering and were quibbling about the best way to arrange the improvised dormitory. Snowy was noisily chewing the bath duck.

The night no longer seemed so cold nor the broken plane as sinister. Tomorrow the sun would rise and they would set up a battle plan. Allons, they had experienced worst situations than that! Soon, this umpteenth plane crash would be just a memory of which they would laugh together.

Haddock fell asleep without even realizing it, his belly warmed up by the hot cocoa, as if he were at home in Marlinspike Hall, with his cat snuggled on the quilt and his familiar things around him. He did not feel it when he was helped down on a makeshift mattress and tucked into a blanket, nor did he hear the wind rise and howl around the cabin like the ghost of a wolf.

He had not notice that Tintin had pulled away gently to go help the others settle down. He heard nothing of the Thom(p)sons' fussing over the beds, nor of Nestor's collapse when he discovered that he had no spare linen, nor of Calculus almost falling into a crevasse when he went to the loo. The young reporter managed all the crises, big or small, then, when everyone had finally fallen asleep, he retired again to the cockpit, drawing the curtain behind him.

There the air was icy, scintillating. The cracked cockpit shone like crystal and the immense night full of frozen stars, above the white mountain, made Tintin feel like he was back on the Moon.

He sat back into the torn leather seat, wrapped himself in his blanket and leaned back with a groan. Snowy climbed on his knees and snuggled under the warm, thick woolen blanket with a small yap that could mean a lot of things - Cold! Not had enough to eat! Go home?

What will become of us, Tintin?

- "I don't know, Snowy…" Tintin mumbled, stroking the small white dog that was yawning. "I don't know how to tell them, you see, that there's no hope of repairing the radio… that if we want to make it out alive, we'll probably have to come down the mountain on our own... and that I am not at all sure I can do it..."

He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, trying to take a deep breath to calm his anxiety. The sudden burst of pain took his breath away and his knuckles whitened, tight on the bars on each side of the seat, as he tried to keep quiet. Snowy whimpered in concern.

Panting, Tintin waited for the stars that had nothing to do with those in the firmament to clear his vision. His teeth had drawn blood from his bitten lip and the copper taste almost made him gag. Forehead flooded with sweat, he pressed his fists against his eyes. These tears of exhaustion, there was no way he would let them come out, not when the lives of his friends depended on him.

I need to take them home. I will take them home.

TBC

Note: In the French version, the Captain "vouvoie"Tintin (and it gives their relationship A LOT of depth, I must say. I do think that 'my' reason is the right one. The fact that an old sea dog doesn't say "tu" to such a young lad means he respects him a lot). But sometimes, the Captain does "tutoie" Tintin. It doesn't happen often, but it's usually when he's greatly in distress - like thinking that Tintin will kill himself over doing something dangerous or when he's really upset because he can't find words to comfort him - like in Tibet, for example. I didn't know how to convey that in English but I hope the emotion wasn't completely lost in translation... I love these two and I want to them justice in the language YOU are used to read them...