Warning: this chapter contains ungentlemanly swearing.
Seven
The Aurora was due to sail at noon. The official ceremony started at 9am, and by 7.30am wharf nine was filled with people. By the time Tintin had made his way onto the deck, along with his camera and Snowy, the crowd was a teeming, solid mass. The only part that was remotely clear was directly in front of the ship, where a small platform had been set up. Cameras and news people were camped in front of that, carefully documenting the build-up. This wasn't the first time Tintin had been a part of such a huge, national outburst of happiness, but he still felt the surge of excitement from seeing it again. It was hard to believe that he was a part of this; that none of these people would be here, cheering and excited and happy, if it wasn't for some small part he had played in making this happen.
Captain Haddock was watching the scene. He stood on the deck, leaning against a steel wall, resplendent in his dress uniform. Tintin had to check twice to make sure it was really the Captain. "You scrub up well," he said, impressed.
The Captain quirked his lip in a quick grin. He looked grim, as though he was nervous or uneasy. "Yeah," he said. "Good one. You don't look half bad yourself."
Tintin was wearing a simple, dark brown suit and a light yellow shirt. "Thanks. I figured I should probably try and make an effort."
"Have to look your best when you're on TV," the Captain muttered.
Tintin grinned. "Nervous?"
"Not half."
"Relax, you'll be fine."
"Yeah, right. Thundering typhoons, knowing my luck I'll fall over or something. Or say something. Swear at them."
"Don't be ridiculous," Tintin said with a laugh. "You'll be great. All you have to do is smile, and think before you speak."
"You watch," the Captain said ominously. "Just you watch."
x
The ceremony started without a hitch. Professor Phostle said a few words on behalf of the Royal Astrological Society of Belgium, which was received politely by the crowd. Snowy had then wandered up onto the platform, and was received with a round of rapturous applause and loud cheers – by the time Tintin had managed to get up there to retrieve him the dog was sitting up on his hind quarters, begging like an adorable mongoose.
Then, it was the Captain's turn. Tintin watched as the head of the Society of Sober Sailors, accompanied by the Society's female secretary, approached him and presented him with a plaque that named him the new, honorary President of the Society. The Captain accepted it humbly, with a bit of self-conscious embarrassment. He took a few pictures of the scene for his article, and waited as the secretary of the organization gave the Captain a large bouquet of flowers and said a few words.
Then, just as the Captain predicted, it went wrong.
Tintin inched closer under the pretext of getting a better shot as a whistling, round-faced crewman approached the Captain. "Where do you want it put, Captain?" the crewman asked innocently.
"What put where?" the Captain asked as the ceremony moved on. He was still standing with the president and secretary of the S.S.S.
"The whisky, sir. In your cabin, as usual?"
The Captain looked at the boxes that were being loaded on to the ships. Then, he looked at the president and secretary of the Society for Sober Sailors. Then, he looked at Tintin. "I told you," he said helplessly. "I told you. Didn't I? Didn't I say? I said this would happen. It's always my fucking luck…"
"Language, Captain," Tintin said sweetly. "The TV cameras are staring to point your way again."
"Yeah? Well, fuck them too."
Up on the platform, the head of the European Foundation for Scientific Research was presenting Professor Phostle with the flag that would be planted on the meteorite. Now accompanied by the rest of the research team, Phostle shook hands with the head and made another little speech. Bored, Tintin took a few pictures before going back to document the crowd. There was more variety in the crowd; more spontaneous moments to capture. He scanned the faces, searching for an interesting subject… and found one.
Interesting. Thompson and Thomson were in the crowd. They weren't looking at him – they were absorbed with the ceremony that was still taking place on the platform – but that wasn't what Tintin was interested by. He was far more interested with who the Thompsons were with: two policemen in uniform, two men that Tintin recognised, and one woman who was completely unfamiliar. His instincts screaming at him, Tintin dropped the camera, put his head down, and walked briskly to the Aurora. It was time to beat a temporary retreat.
As he approached the gangplank, the Captain was hailed by the ship's communications officer. Tintin slowed up to allow the Captain time to get there first: the comms officer looked flustered.
"Read this," the man said, thrusting a piece of paper at the Captain. "It just came in."
"Blistering barnacles," the Captain muttered as he read the paper.
"Everything ok?" Tintin asked warily as he reached the Captain.
"Not bloody likely," the Captain said. He looked furious. He quickly extricated Phostle from the rest of the scientists and thrust the paper under his nose.
"What is this?" Phostle asked, frowning as he scanned the page.
"That, my friend, says that another ship is already en route to the meteorite," the Captain said angrily, his eyes blazing. "The Peary sailed yesterday, so they've already stolen a march on us."
"What?" Phostle asked. He read the page again. "I don't believe it! How did this happen? They're going to take possession of the meteor! All is lost! My career is ruined! I'll have to kill myself or turn to drugs like a common physicist!"
"Hang on," Tintin said, placating the professor. He himself was shaken slightly after seeing the Thompsons and the company they were keeping, and had decided that it was a damned good thing to get out of Belgium for a while. Now was not the time to cancel this trip. "They haven't found it yet, and the Aurora is a very fast ship. We can still do it."
"Tintin's right," said the Captain. "We still have a chance."
"Then we must go forth at once," Phostle said, determined. "We must" –
"ALL HANDS ON DECK!" the Captain roared, ignoring Phostle. "Get a move on, lads, hup-hup-hup! I'm at the helm; Mate, get to the bridge. You there! What are you waiting for? Get onto that ship!"
"Sorry Captain!" said Professor Phostle as he hurried up the gangplank behind the Captain. Snowy chased at their heels, jumping playfully around them.
"So what's the plan?" Tintin asked with a grin. He started to follow the Captain to the bridge.
"Keep out the way, lad," the Captain said, nudging Tintin out of the way as two crewmen weighed down with a heavy crate scuttled passed. "Go on: I'll catch up with you later." And then the Captain was gone, shedding his dressy coat as he headed up the steel ladder to the bridge. The ship's bell rang out and the steady, thrumming chug of the engines started up a moment later. Tintin looked around: everyone looked busy. Even the scientists were heading down to the workrooms on the ship's lower level, bouncing equations and mathematics back and forth as they tried to figure out how long it would take them to catch up with the Peary. With nothing else to do, Tintin went to the rail to watch Brussels as the Aurora pulled away.
The crowd cheered and shouted and waved, and Tintin grinned and waved back. There, in the crowd as the Aurora chugged away from the wharf, were the Thompsons and their company. The eldest of the company, a portly man in a black priest's cassock, pointed at Tintin and said something. He was clearly angry about something. In response, Tintin smiled back and saluted the man before making himself scarce.
Yep: time to get out of Belgium for a while.
x
The Hearst-Faber Conglomerate had its public headquarters in Boston, Illinois. There, in its smart multi-storey building, the huge business put its best face forward. It was active in the local community and sponsored good causes all over the world. It was a financial powerhouse with a homely image: a true American company made of apple pie and Uncle Sam, who supported the underdog and joined with its conservative target market to bemoan the lack of moral fibre in modern America.
Its real headquarters were a bit further away, in Sao Rico. Here, outside of the American authority, it banked its profits without paying taxes and organised hostile take-overs of foreign businesses, relocating whole workforces to third world countries while destroying the American job market with a sneer and some backhanded sympathy. Here, the real business was done.
Marcus Hearst-Faber had inherited his position in the company from his father, who in turn had inherited it from his father, who had built it from the ground up and was the last (and, so far, only) Hearst-Faber naïve enough to actually believe in the ideals the company was built on. Inheriting a multi-billion dollar company and building it were two different things; a distinction that Marcus Hearst-Faber had yet to realise.
He lounged in his leather office chair, one foot braced against the bottom of his expensive, walnut panelled desk as clouds of grey smoke from his thick cigar floated serenely above his head.
Beside him, his assistant Johnson waited patiently for his master's voice. They were watching the spectacle that accompanied the sailing of the Aurora, safe in the knowledge that their own scientific research ship, the Peary, had already sailed for the Arctic. The Aurora had just sailed earlier than anticipated. Almost two hours early, in fact. Johnson was nervous about this, but Hearst-Faber looked content.
"Best of luck, gentlemen," Hearst-Faber said as the Aurora tooted its horn and sailed out of Brussels. He switched the TV off and allowed his chair to twist gently back and forth, a habit he had when he was pleased with himself.
"You sound confident," Johnson said quietly.
"I am," Hearst-Faber confessed with a broad smile. "They haven't a hope! You know by now that what I want, I get, and I want the Peary to succeed. I wouldn't have spent all that money on this if I didn't want it to succeed."
"Of course, Mr Hearst-Faber. But there is still a chance that" –
"There is no chance. I know they sailed sooner than I'd have liked, but that's nothing that can't be fixed. Don't worry, my dear Johnson: I've taken care of everything."
"But" –
"No buts: this meteorite will mine, and the new metal will be mine. There's a fat sack of cash to be made out of this, and I intend to be the one to make it," Hearst-Faber said firmly.
"As you say, sir," Johnson murmured. "As you say."
Author's Note: In the original, due to the times that were in it (what with World War 2 and the Nazi occupation of Belgium) the 'bad guys' (or bankers) were American Jews. In subsequent editions, Hergé changed this, moving the rival company's headquarters to Sao Rico (a fictional South American country) and renaming the boss 'Bohlwinkle', thinking that it wasn't a Jewish name (it is). In this, it's an American company run by a white, male, right-wing, upper class twat with a cigar, mainly because white, male, right-wing, upper class twats with cigars seem to be capable of extreme villainy.
The line "This wasn't the first time Tintin had been a part of such a huge, national outburst of happiness" references the events, early in Tintin's popularity, when Hergé and others organized 'coming home' events for an actor playing Tintin when stories concluded. The crowds that showed up to see 'Tintin and Snowy' returning from their recent adventures were huge.