CHAPTER 6

The morning sun was creeping into the quiet tent through the mosquito net of a rolled-up fabric window that no one had noticed the day before. The shy light hemmed in gold the sleepers' shapes and the white fur of Snowy who was curled at the feet of his master, shining on the visor of the captain's cap. The sailor was lying on his side, features drawn with fatigue, frowning in his sleep, an arm still reaching towards Tintin.

The young reporter's night had been rather agitated, constantly interrupted by pitiful moans when he moved involuntary and pain wake him with a start, anxious gasps: "can't breathe... can't breathe..." and exhausted sobs. Fifteen times, the captain had leaned in the dark to put the covers back in place, repeating: "steady, lad… I know it hurts... but it'll pass... I promise..." with amazing patience for a man of his temperament.

They had slipped into a heavy slumber shortly before morning, turned towards each other, drawing comfort from this closeness like dozens of other times.

A little further, Calculus was snoring lightly, a bubble swelling at his nostril, sometimes mumbling "... further to the west" and then suddenly rolling to the other side in a flailing of skinny limbs, smacking Nestor twice on three. The butler, who was lying stretched out, his hands crossed over his chest like a recumbent statue, remained impassible - he was a fairly heavy sleeper for a man his age.

The police officers came after them in this line of snoozing sardines.

Everything was peaceful. Outside, birds were chirping and the skittish hooves of a chamois intrigued by the tent were crunching in the snow. The mountain was superb, sparkling with whiteness under the radiant sky. It was going to be a beautiful day, again, perfect for walking, but they needed to get started quickly. No one was moving, though.

A ray of sunshine tickling his left eyelid finally bothered enough Thompson to pull him out of his doze, and he yawned widely. And like every morning for the past twenty years, the first thing he did when he woke up was to locate his colleague.

Thomson was snoring quietly beside him, with his nightcap pulled down over his forehead and thick woolen socks on his feet. He didn't seem to be cold, although they had insisted on putting on their pajamas while the others went to bed fully dressed. His mustache, which was pretty much the only thing sticking out of the blanket, was rustling with each intake of breath. From time to time, he was mumbling something incomprehensible and smiling stupidly. He must have been dreaming of something pleasant.

Thompson, who had no idea from which magic bag Nestor pulled his endless food, did not try to get up to prepare breakfast. Instead, he enjoyed staying in bed a little longer than usual. He was in no hurry to ask his aching muscles to toil again. He also knew that if he stirred, his colleague would wake up automatically. It had always been like this, even when they had first found themselves sharing this little room at the police academy after a confusion over their last names: they were, so to speak, connected, like real twins.

At the time, they were playing with it, further accentuating their resemblance by dressing exactly the same, imitating each other's manners to drive the Chef insane. Thomson had found the idea of the canes and Thompson that of the bowler hats. At the barber's, they had been roaring with laughter when they'd first seen their mustaches trimmed almost identically in the mirrors. They were young and there were so many things they dreamed of that were the same - going around the world, learning tap dance, writing a famous novel - where was the harm? They were not bad at their work, so people turned a blind eye to this constant joke.

Then war had broken out.

And when David Thompson had been forced to pin a yellow star on his sleeve, Theophile Thomson had not hesitated for a second to sew one on his too.

They had gone together at Dossin barracks after David had received a summons from Mechelen for compulsory labor, and the German officer too had laughed loudly when he had seen them come in, before writing Thom(p)son D. T in his register and assigning them a convoy number.

Three weeks later, they were boarding a train bound for Auschwitz.

Theophile had never tried to correct the mistake, even when their bowler hats, their neat black suits and their canes had been taken from them, even when their identity had only been a number on a cardboard hanging from their necks, even when their heads and mustaches had been shorn, even when laughter and dreams had become meaningless words.

The rest, really, was just a fog and when shadows crept out of it, Thompson wiped his sweaty forehead to chase them away and looked to the skies. Yes, you had to forget in order to remember that, whether the gray clouds were weeping on the cobblestones or the sun was shining on the red slates of the roofs, there were no barbed wire on Brussels' horizon.

But there would always be some in their minds.

David and Theophile had remained prisoners over there. The feeble entity the train had brought back was just a common name and two initials that meant nothing.

After the war, the Chef, whose parade uniform was now covered with medals and who also walked with a cane, since he was missing a leg, had rehired them without saying a word.

The Thom(p)sons.

Bowler hats, English canes, neat black suits… people laughed when they saw these two featherweights pass by with matadors' mustaches. People laughed at their awkwardness, their nervousness, their mannerism. People laughed at Thomson's stuttering, at his difficulty in assembling his thoughts, at his stupid habit of repeating what his double said.

Nobody knew.

And what was the use to explain? Surviving the horror hadn't made them better than others. They hadn't been sent over there because they were heroes, to begin with.

The Thom(p)sons.

Ordinary. Invisible. Well in line. Everything in its place, each moment timed so as not to leave any room for anxiety. Routine, routine, routine. Never disobeying orders, even if the situation was completely absurd. Let people laugh at them, because that was what had always protected them, but stay true to their oath to serve their country, because that was what had kept them human.

Together, always together.

Years had gone by. They had become a bit bolder. Something of the old them had resurfaced: their fascination with disguises, their desire to travel, their taste for grandiose phrases. People still didn't take them seriously, but they had gotten used to it. They were following their own path and that was all. The Chef kept on assigning to them missions no one believed them capable of handling. And, sometimes, they did manage to fulfill them.

Sometimes too, they found themselves giggling softly when they looked at each other at the end of a busy day, while bathing their tired feet, sitting in their facing armchairs, and, in the dim light of their boring little living room, the muffled laughter of Theophile and David joined them.

Then they met Tintin. Tintin who was overflowing with life, joy, energy. Tintin who was so clever, so nimble, so resourceful. Tintin who often took an interest in their investigations, who frequently helped them, who most of the time let them have the laurels. Tintin who always forgave their excesses of zeal and never seemed to think they were foolish. Tintin who called them "my friends".

Then came along the irascible sailor who gave out more orders than the Chef, who couldn't stand their slowness but always found them something to do that they could actually do, who called them every name in the book all day long and who said "our friends" when talking about them; and later they met Professor Calculus who, deaf as he was, did not allow himself to be counted for less and who made them travel farther than they would have ever thought.

And before they could even realize, together had begun to mean much more than two injured initials hiding behind the same boring name. There was Tintin, the famous boy reporter. There was Snowy the dog, of course. There was Captain Haddock with his loud mouth but also his big heart, there was Professor Calculus and his mysterious pendulum, there was the Chef, there was the impossible Castafiore, there was the Fatherland... and there was them – the pudgy, bald, clumsy, happy Thom(p)sons.

Together was all that.

And it felt good.

Theophile and David also thought so, and little by little, their ghosts had faded away to make room for memories.

oOoOoOo

Haddock, whom Nestor had forced to abandon his post at Tintin's bedside (the butler had threatened to throw down the ravine the few bottles of whiskey his master had managed to stuff in his rucksack if he did not go freshen up and drink at least a cup of coffee), was watching the Thom(p)sons, vaguely shaking his head, amused in spite of himself.

They were bareheaded, in shirtsleeves, shaving in front of a pocket mirror hanging from a tree branch. Giggling, they were humming together a ridiculous song and, from time to time, bumping their hips in rhythm.

The captain was split between worrying about the recruitment criteria of Interpol or just laughing at the show. These two clowns had a gift in making his blood pressure increase tenfold, but there was something peculiarly moving about them, as if they were just two kids grown up too fast. He had even pondered, at a time, about telling them to come and settle in Marlinspike Hall (their collection of eccentric bachelors would have complete), but then he had dropped the idea: Tintin would never have stopped working, if they had been living with them. Now, the young reporter was already solicited often enough by the detectives, he did not need to be served at home a reason to skip more meals while he toiled for the police.

The old sailor's gaze came back to the corner of the tent, where Nestor was trying to coax the young reporter into eating a few spoonsful of porridge, and he dragged a weary hand over his face.

Tintin was not fine. That dreadful night had had exactly the result that was to be expected: the boy was now running a fever. There was no way they could lug him on a makeshift stretcher with his broken ribs and yet they had to find a solution - and fast! - to bring him back to civilization.

The captain let out another big sigh and leaned his elbows on the small table, foraging in his shaggy black hair with some despair.

- "You seem worried, old friend."

Haddock rubbed his jaw, blinking to try to dispel the sands of tiredness in his eyes. Resting his bearded chin in his palm, he didn't bother hiding the defeated slump of his shoulders as he turned to the little scientist who was sipping his second cup of tea, as comfortable atop of this snowy mountain as if he had been in Marlinspike Hall on a spring morning.

- "I am worried, Cuthbert," he said grimly.

Professor Calculus, his small green hat perched on his vast bald head, looked at him with intelligence and compassion.

- "But you're not going to give up."

- "No, of course not," Haddock growled. "As long as there's still a breath of life in that old carcass of mine, I will fight to keep the ship afloat, Thundering Typhoons! It's just that... not matter how I look at it, I can't see how we're going to get out of this one, old chap."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, frustrated by his helplessness and the feeling that something he should have noticed was there, right under his nose, and that he was missing it.

- "If only we could fix this darn radio..."

There was a silence, during which the captain, who could no longer think straight, almost fell asleep. Then Calculus' slender fingers snapped in front of his face and he jumped, spilling his coffee over his legs.

- "What? Iceberg straight ahead, helmsman, to starboard!"

He realized where he was and glared at the giggling professor.

- "That makes you laugh?"

- "Not at all", said the old goat.

And Haddock suddenly understood what was odd.

- "How can you hear me? You don't have your ear trumpet."

Cuthbert Calculus, prominent physicist, Nobel Prize winner in several fields and currently the oldest of all the shipwrecked party, grinned like a kindergarten kid about to make a good joke.

Then he removed his hearing aid from his ear, fished the bulky battery from his pocket and wrapped it all carefully in his handkerchief before handing it to the stunned captain.

- "I stumbled on it an hour ago, while looking for my tinted glasses. Nestor must have put it in my luggage. Did you know, Archibald, that this little device works on the same principle that a radio does? Currently, it can only receive, but if we were to tinker with it a bit… we could probably transmit as well."

He coughed lightly, his eyes twinkling behind his round glasses.

- "Well... We'd need for that to have in our midst someone who knew a little bit about sound waves…"

For a few seconds, Haddock did not react, his mouth agape and his eyes blinking stupidly. Then he jumped up with a roar and the Thom(p)sons, spooked, jumped into each other's arms, while Nestor came running, alarmed, a dripping spoonful of porridge in his hand.

- "Billions of blue blistering barnacles, Cuthbert! You… you…! Oh! In my arms, old chap!"

The little professor, plucked from his seat, lifted in the air and kissed again on both cheeks, wriggled to be put down. Then, quite happy with himself, he hooted dreamily:

- "Don't you think it'd be lovely if it was dear Bianca Castafiore who'd pick up our signal? It would not be the first time we'd owe our salvation to her charming help during a trip to Syldavia…"

Haddock wiped the tears blurring his eyes - tears of laughter, gratitude or tiredness, he did not quite know which one it was - and he clasped his callous hand on the scientist's frail shoulder.

- "Oh, she doesn't need a radio to be heard across the country. But… as long as it is not Joylon Wagg on the other end, I think I'd be ready to hug pretty much anyone answering us, including that walking cataclysm."

TBC

I can't believe I made myself cry over writing the Thom(p)sons. This wasn't planned at all… They're not even my favorite characters…

Anyway. I don't know if it worked out in English, but in French, people call them "les Dupondt" – "Dupond with a D" and "Dupont with a T", as they always patiently precise when they introduce themselves – and giving them names like David and Theophile and then stripping them from these names to just leave them their initials really made it heartbreaking, like if they had started to be just one person from the moment they stepped in the dreadful barracks…

By the way, all this isn't cannon, of course. Hergé once said in an interview that these characters were plain bores, people so stupid that they don't have proper feelings. But he didn't write them like this all the time… yes, they are clumsy and not the sharpest tools on the shelf, and they do follow their orders without thinking most of the time, but they care a lot for Tintin and the gang and they show a lot of courage and dignity when they are condemn to death in San Theodoros. So, while I studied them for this story, it didn't seem wrong to imagine that maybe they had turned out like this because they had been through a lot (and it wouldn't be a first in Tintin's adventures to find out that a not very reliable character isn't half bad as he seems… ^^)

Another thing that I wanted to mention is that I'm not quite sure which one is who in the English version of the comics. In French, as far as I remember, Dupont (I've made him Thomson on a whim here) is the one who chimes in all the time while Dupond (Thompson in my fic) is the one who seems to have a little more wits (Who has which shape of mustache, I don't know, though): but maybe it's the opposite for you, actually. Drats. I should have checked. It's not like it still is the war: I can probably order the English comics from somewhere, instead of just listening to the audio books from the BBC (they are great, by the way!).