CHAPTER 7
Captain Haddock felt Tintin's forehead and let out a sigh of relief: the fever had finally subsided. He was about to withdraw his hand when he noticed the boy was unconsciously leaning in the comfort of his palm in his sleep and, instead of going back to ask how much progress Calculus had done with the radio, he sat down next to the makeshift bed, groaning that Earth decidedly was too low. Snowy, who was snoozing on his master's legs, lifted his head, blinked at him absently, then fell back to sleep.
The captain's hand went back to the young reporter's forehead, brushing back the sweaty ginger quiff, his calloused thumb softly rubbing the thin white scar left by the spy's bullet.
Five years already! And yet his old heart was still racing on when he thought of that dreadful night. The gunshot in the dark, Snowy howling outside, the phone call to Mr. Baxter... the appalling wait, not knowing if the lad was going to make it through... and then the three weeks spent at Tintin's bedside, patting his back when he had nausea, cringing when the pain made him whimper in his sleep, trying to distract him with old tales of the sea because reading gave him migraines and playing with Snowy tired him too much, then taking him for short walks in the green corridors of Sprodj Atomic Research Centre when he got stronger, holding his arm to prevent spells of dizziness... watching his progress with anguish, reminding himself constantly that this iconoclast of Syldavian doctor knew what he was saying, that the patient was very healthy and would recover without any sequelae...
"It's a miracle. The bullet only grazed his skull." Yeah, sure. That was no miracle in the captain's book. A miracle would have been for the spies to miss the target completely.
But the doctors had been right. The young reporter had indeed fully recovered and this adventure which had almost been the last had led them as far as the Moon! Thundering typhoons, when he thought about it… you had to be mad. And all because...
- "Captain…"
He jumped, but then realized that Tintin was just muttering in his sleep. His rough hand resumed stroking gently the ginger head and he didn't even notice that he was humming an old sailor song, like his own pa' did by his bedside, a long time ago.
Oh, Tintin was not his son – even if something akin to pride made his heart swell when someone made the confusion, even if he was thirty-two years older than the lad and that it could have been true. Tintin was his friend, his best friend.
But Tintin was also, in many ways, just that "boy reporter" the Petit Vingtième told adventures of as if he was the hero of a comics.
A young man who burst out laughing in the street without worrying about people's gaze, who liked to speed on his motorcycle and to run with his dog; a growing lad who could eat with gusto either a rata prepared in the depths of the Amazon jungle or the meal served aboard a ship rolling in a storm; a boy who could move mountains to solve a mystery but waited until the last minute to finish a paper; a kid who hugged you spontaneously when he felt happy or relieved.
Haddock suppressed a smile.
In a sense, Tintin and Snowy were quite similar: most of the time in a good mood, relentless about going out in whatever the weather, curious to the point of recklessness, incredibly not resentful but stubborn as mules when they put their minds to something, independent but quick to show their affection…
-"… and rather wary of spiders", Haddock completed, stifling a laugh which, for some unknown reason, hurt just like a bundle of needles in his constricted throat.
- "Woof", said Snowy indignantly, raising his head as if he had recognized the word hated by his master.
Tintin stirred again. His eyelashes fluttered, he mumbled something unintelligible, then his eyes opened and wandered around fuzzily before settling on the captain.
- "Sleep well, lad?" asked the old sea dog in a tone that wanted to be light but was heavy with relief.
Three, two, one… cogs in slow motion were visibly re-engaging in the young reporter's head. The fever was definitely gone, leaving him with only great weariness.
- "Not really", croaked Tintin.
Haddock took the glass of water that had been waiting on a suitcase, leaned over and supported the young man's neck while he was drinking avidly, then propped him up on the piles of blankets behind him when he struggled to sit up, wincing and breathing through his nose.
Snowy, fortunately, had somehow understood that it was not a good time to be all over the place with joy at seeing his master awake, and although his ears were perked up and that his tail beating a frantic rhythm, he did not try to jump on the reporter to lick his face, but lay down wisely against his hip.
- "I had some nightmares, I think," Tintin said, frowning. He scratched the white and curly head of his ecstatic dog absently, as if he was still lost in his dream. "I… I dreamed I was in the professor's submarine, when these weeds got entangled in the propellers… the oxygen reserves were almost empty…"
He paused and shivered, as pale as the collar of his shirt.
"I couldn't breathe anymore."
The captain merely nodded.
Tintin often had nightmares, especially when he was exhausted or preoccupied by something. It was nothing abnormal, had said the doc shortly after their trip to the Moon, when Haddock had managed to set as condition that he'd go see a doctor for his heart that Tintin would also make an appointment for a complete assessment (this umpteenth concussion in the hold of the rocket could have had really serious repercussions on someone who had undergone a serious surgical operation so little time before). Apparently, having nightmares was even a good sign - body and mind were said to release this way the stress built up during dangerous reporting. "And you also happen to have a pretty vivid imagination, young man."
Ha ha.
Haddock did not see anything good in the fact that someone who had not lived through the war would wake up regularly screaming at night because he thought he was trapped at the mercy of a brute strangling him / holding him at gun point/ clubbing him / drowning him / threatening him with a syringe filled with nobody knew what dangerous substance.
Tintin's brilliant mind was of no help to him when he was fighting against his memories. In his dreams, he could not escape being what everyone seemed to forget that he was: just a boy, who had seen far too much, long before becoming a man…
- "I'm sorry I made you worry," said the reporter softly, placing his hand on the captain's clenched fist.
Haddock harrumphed.
He had long learned that it was ridiculous to pretend that only females had feelings, but the habit was hard to get through.
- "Good for you to know what you've done wrong, landlubber. But next time you crash a plane, try to get out of it with a simple band-aid on your forehead like always", he groaned.
Snowy, far from being fooled, began to squirm happily, reassured to hear again in this gruff tone the friendly intonation of the usual banter between the two men.
- "Blistering barnacles, what will your readers think if you start being clumsy and nonchalant like... like that beatnik jellyfish they hired by mistake at that weekly magazine!" *
- "I'll do my best, captain," said Tintin solemnly, but an amused spark was dancing in his eyes as he pushed away Snowy who wanted to lick his nose.
Haddock shook his head, huffing, then looked for his pipe, stuffed it, lit it and, after taking the first puff, grinned frankly at his friend.
- "It's good to have you back again, lad," he said.
Tintin smiled too, that youthful smile that made the world a better place just looking at it. Then his face turned serious again, his eyes darkened, he calmed his dog with a firm pressure on the neck and, the next minute, the boy was gone, and the reporter was back.
- "How long have I been unconscious?" he asked. "Where are we now? Are the others fine? Any news of rescue?"
Straight to the point, as usual.
Haddock sighed. He had his answers ready because he knew to the last comma what questions the young man would ask when he woke up, but he wished Tintin would not always be so quick in pushing aside his health to jump back into the adventure.
- "We're all fine. It is now... ten in the morning", he said, looking at his watch. "It's been three days since the plane crashed. We covered about twelve kilometers north-northwest, descending towards the valley. We have not moved since we pitched the tent in the sheltered corner of this plateau. The Thompsons did a little reconnaissance and the slope then intensifies. We'd have to rope up to keep going down."
He removed his pipe from his mouth for a moment.
- "Ha! Suffice to say it's not worth trying. Not to mention the detectives, it'd be foolish to ask Nestor or even Cuthbert to go rock climbing. No, best we can do is to stay here, where a helicopter can easily land. We have food, water, blankets, we can hold on until a rescue party arrives."
- "But then they would need to know that we're here..."
With an arm still crossed over the covers, frowning, Tintin patted his lips with his finger. Haddock smiled as he put his pipe back into his mouth. Usually the familiar gesture was followed by an energetic "I think I'm beginning to understand!" but there was no need for that today.
- "Cuthbert is on the case," said the captain, delighted to be the one bringing the good news. "He found a way of tampering with his hearing aid to turn it into a radio."
For a few moments, Tintin stared at him in a daze, then his face lit up.
- "But of course!" he cried. "Oh, how did I not think about it earlier?"
The old sea dog rolled his eyes, resisting the urge to blow a puff of smoke in the young reporter's face.
oOoOoOo
Five hours later, Tintin was able to get up, though still wincing and cradling his ribs. Revived by a dreamless nap and Nestor's bons petits plats – another miracle, considering the circumstances – he insisted on sitting next to Calculus while the old man worked on the makeshift radio.
Haddock and the Thompsons made a round trip to the plane to bring back pieces of equipment the reporter and the professor needed for the repairs: the pilot's helmet and microphone, various parts of the dashboard, tangled wires, screwdrivers, etc., as well as a haul of other more prosaic things (cans, additional blankets, a feather pillow, slippers, a toiletry kit...) which Nestor had made a list of too, as if they were going to stop by the grocery store on their way back from a stroll in the countryside.
In the evening, as thick clouds were gathering over the darkened mountains, boding a change in the weather which would not be to the advantage of the shipwrecked, Calculus finally announced that the apparatus was ready.
Everyone leaned closer when they first tried to see if they could pick up something.
The radio – or more precisely the jumble of wires and bits and pieces they had assembled – crackled, hissed, then finally the indistinct sizzle turned into something clear. It was one of the last trendy French songs.
- "... les vacances sont terminées, sous prétexte que l'on est rentré, pourquoi faudrait-il tout changer ? …" **
The captain snorted loudly.
- "These modern singers know nothing else than whining "yeah, yeah" nowadays", he grumbled. "Thundering typhoons! In my time..."
- "I danced on that song with Martine", said Tintin thoughtfully. "Last summer, actually."
There was a moment of stunned silence that he did not notice, busy tampering with the switches, orienting the antennas differently and calling from time to time: "Allo? Allo?".
The Thompsons came closer not very inconspicuously, taking their notepads out of their pockets, while Haddock cleared his throat and tried to sound indifferent.
- "Martine? Which Martine?" he asked.
Then his eyes widened upon realizing that she must have been the girl with the butterfly glasses and the ponytail who had jumped on Tintin as soon as they had gotten off the plane when returning from Ischia. Thundering typhoons! She seemed nice enough but she had been wearing trousers!
- "The secretary of the art gallery? Martine Vande-something?"
The detectives hastily scrawled the name in their notepads.
- "Martine Vandezande," Tintin corrected absently. "She invited me and I said yes. T'was the least I could do. I made her cry when I accused her wrongly of murdering of her boss."
He still felt mortified at the memory.
- "So you two went out for a dance," repeated the captain slowly. "And?"
The Thompsons were holding their breath, pencils hovering in the air. Nestor was strangely silent in his kitchen area. Calculus was the only one... ah, well, no, actually. Even good old Calculus was listening, his ear-trumpet set and ready, his head cocked to the side and looking extremely interested.
- "And nothing", said Tintin with a shrug. "I trod on her feet all night long. Apparently I'm no good at dancing the twist. I should stick to the Bloushtika."
- "The Bloushtika!" repeated a rocky voice on the radio. "Dhe nazional dance of our Syldavian neighborrrrs. By dhe vhiskers of Kûrrrvi-Tasch's! It vill not be said that dhese little sheep vill always frrrrolick underrr dhe noze of dheir masterrrrs. To vhom do I have dhe honorrrr to speak, may I ask?"
TBC
* He's talking about Gaston Lagaffe (another Belgian comics' character, if you've never heard of him) who wandered into the offices of Tintin's rival magazine, the Journal de Spirou, in 1959. Nobody knew who had hired him… and to this day, they still haven't been able to kick him out!
** Johnny Halliday, Comme l'été dernier (1962).