Warning: seaworthy language ahead
Thirteen
Tintin pinned a thumbtack onto the chart, in the middle of a blank space of blue sea. "The Peary is here," he said. He took another thumbtack and pinned it a short space behind the first. "And this is us. Our maximum speed is 16 knots, while the Peary can't go any fast than 12 knots. We could, therefore, gain on them by about 6 kilometres per hour. They're 250 kilometres ahead, so in theory we can catch up in about 37 hours or so. Give or take."
"Yeah, but they might have reached the meteor by then," the Captain pointed out. "Give it up, lad: it's useless."
"Tintin's right," Professor Phostle said encouragingly. "We must try, Captain."
The Captain waved his hand dismissively. "They have 250 kilometres on us. Do you know how far that is?"
"Yeah, it's this far!" Tintin measured the space between the two thumbtacks, then held up his right hand. His thumb and forefinger were separated by a tiny space. "Come on, Captain! Where's your fighting spirit? We can't just… throw in the towel. Not now, when victory is in sight."
"No." The Captain shook his head and stood up, his face set firmly. "It's impossible. It would be futile to try. We're going to turn around and go home."
"Captain!" Phostle cried. Tintin quietened him by stepping on his foot and applying a small amount of pressure.
"Fine," he said, pressing harder on Professor Phostle's foot when the man opened his mouth to protest. "All right."
"All right?" the Captain asked suspiciously.
"Yes," Tintin said. "I'm agreeing with you. We should turn around and go home."
"Oh. Ok, then."
"I don't suppose," Tintin began, before breaking off and biting his lip nervously. "Look, Captain, I'm freezing to death here. It's cold in the plane. You know, after the reconnaissance flight. You don't happen to have any whisky handy, do you?"
"You? Whisky?" The Captain looked startled.
"Yes. It'll warm me up a bit." Tintin radiated innocence.
"Er, I'll just see if there's any left." The Captain got up and went to a locker in the corner of the room. Keeping his back turned to the table, shielding the contents of the locker, he opened it and slammed it closed within seconds. When he turned around, he was holding a full bottle of whisky. He retrieved two tumblers from a smaller cabinet that was bolted to the floor and returned to the table, where he poured two healthy measures of whisky into the tumblers. "I'll just join you for one," he said.
"Thank you." Tintin smiled nicely and took the offered glass. He took a small sip as the Captain emptied his own glass. Automatically, Tintin poured him a second, healthy measure. Then, he adopted a disheartened attitude and sighed heavily. "I do think you're right," he said sadly. He watched from the corner of his eye as the Captain drained his second glass and poured himself a third.
"Oh aye?" the Captain said.
"Yes. What's the point?" Tintin asked philosophically. "Let's face it: the game is finished and we didn't win. You're right to give up. It's much easier to give up, and this way they can't call us losers to our faces. You know, because we gave up and went home before it became a real race."
The Captain put down his fourth drink and stared at Tintin. "Eh?" he said.
"I said you're right to back down, Captain, and give up. I mean, they don't play fair, do they? Trying to blow up the ship; trying to sink us in open water; trying to sabotage our fuel… The odds are completely stacked against us. Why shouldn't we give up the struggle?"
"Give up the struggle?" the Captain asked. His voice had gone quiet and he was staring at Tintin through narrowed eyes. "What are you saying?"
"Nothing," Tintin said. "I mean, we may look like idiots, or even cowards, when we go home with nothing to show for it, but in the end we" –
"How dare you!" The Captain got to his feet and thumped the table. "This is no time to quit! We can't just… throw in the towel! Not now that victory is in sight! Where's your fighting spirit, lad!"
Tintin drank the rest of his whisky, knowing he'd won. Then, when the liquid started to burn the roof of his mouth, he spat it back into the glass with a grimace.
"Never!" the Captain continued, his voice growing louder with drunken indignation. "Thundering typhoons! We'll show these… these… polyglot Patagonian p-pirates what we can, we can do! The… the l-lily livered l-l-lublanders! To the bridge!" He pointed dramatically to the door before putting his cap on his head, ruining the effect. "To the bridge!" he roared again. "Show a leg, mates! On deck with the pair of you!"
Tintin grinned at the astonished Professor Phostle as they stood and followed the Captain out. He was like a steam-roller, simply barging through anything and anyone that stood in his way. He picked up steam when he spotted the head engineer out having a cigarette and chatting with gloomy Bill the chef. "Get on with it, Chief!" the Captain shouted as he jogged past. "Thundering typhoons, man, jump to it! Full speed ahead! The enemy has 250km on us, and we've got to catch them up!"
Bill stared as the three ran by. "Did he say 'enemy'?" he asked.
The Chief Engineer shrugged. "I think so."
"Poor bastard: he's obviously having a flash-back."
The Captain went up the stairs to the bridge. "You!" he pointed at his first mate, who was reading a book with his feet up next to the ship's wheel. "Get up and get on that wheel! Stick to your course. Steer North by East." The Captain caught sight of Tintin and rolled his eyes. "And watch out for any icebergs," he added sourly.
Within a half an hour the Aurora had picked up speed and was powering through the water. Ice bobbed in her wake and smaller pieces broke up as she passed. On the bridge with the Captain, Tintin felt a glow of self-satisfaction as everyone set to work, pulling together for a common goal. Now if only everything else in life was as easy to manage as Captain Haddock…
x
Tintin found Captain Haddock on the prow the next morning. It was barely dawn, the red light from the rising sun bleeding into the lazy night sky and reflecting back on the water, as though they were in an ocean of rusted blood. The Captain held a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and his pipe in the other. He glanced around when he heard the approaching footsteps.
"You're up early," he said.
Tintin shrugged. "I woke up about a half an hour ago and couldn't get back to sleep."
"Too choppy for you? The waves, I mean."
"No, I guess I'm just a little excited." Tintin jiggled a little, grinning nervously. At his feet, Snowy yawned and sat down. "When do you think we'll catch up with them?"
"Oh." The Captain shrugged. "Not for a while. We should sight 'em later on today, and overtake this evening or tonight."
Tintin nodded and leaned against the rail, staring out to sea. The Captain cast a sly, side-long glance at him. In the early morning, his eyes still puffy from sleep, he looked very young. Too young to be careening recklessly around the world, following dangerous criminals and risking life and limb for the sake of the morning news. The most he should have to worry about was making sure his homework was done on time, and what he and his friends should get up to on the weekends. What is he? The Captain thought. Thomson said he was fourteen, almost fifteen. By thunder, when I was that age all I cared about was kissing girls, convincing my mum to let me get a motorbike, and trying to find a shifty adult to buy beer for me and my mates.
The youth of today had changed. For the most part, they were lazy, self-absorbed wastrels that would account to nothing, with their skinny jeans and their self-entitled attitudes. But Tintin bucked that particular trend. He was on the opposite spectrum: energetic and curious, absorbed by other people and their actions, and he worked damned hard. The Captain had had plenty of opportunity to watch the boy as he worked on the article he was writing. He certainly didn't cut corners or shirk his responsibility, that was for sure.
He shook his head and wished, for a short moment, that he wasn't the captain and that the responsibility didn't lie with him. But I am, he thought sadly, and it does.
"What's up?" Tintin asked.
"Eh?" The Captain's eyes widened. For a second he had forgotten that Tintin was there.
"You look… sad," Tintin said. He cocked his head to one side. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," the Captain replied morosely. "Just thinking about stuff. You know: responsibility."
"You're the captain, Captain," Tintin said with a grin. "I trust you completely. If anyone knows his responsibilities, it's you."
"Yeah." You won't be saying that when we get back. "I'm going up to the bridge. You coming?"
x
Shortly after noon a plume of smoke appeared on the horizon. At first, it could only be seen through binoculars, but as the hours passed and the Aurora steamed on, it grew until the vague hint of a ship could be seen. The Captain couldn't help but feel immensely happy, and a little proud, of the pursuit.
"We're going to do it," he said, passing the binoculars to Tintin. "We're actually going to pull this off!"
Tintin looked at the ship in the distance. They were still very, very far ahead. "We can beat them," he said at last, "can't we?"
"Of course we can! We're going faster than she is. Mark my words, lad, we'll have her overtook and left behind before the sun sets."
"Captain!" Sparky shuffled into the bridge, wrapped safely in his red parka. He rarely left the radio room unless it was for short spurts outside smoking: the full impact of the arctic cold always hit him like a ton of bricks. He waved a piece of paper and made his way over to them. "This came in," he said through chattering teeth. "I thought you'd want to see it right away."
"Good man," the Captain said cheerfully as he took the paper. He looked at it, and at once his face became serious. "Take a look," he said at length, handing it over to Tintin. "Blistering barnacles." He rubbed his eyes tiredly.
Tintin read it through, absorbing it carefully. "What do we do?" he said quietly as he handed it back to the Captain.
"You're asking me? How the hell should I know? I think it's the final straw, lad." He turned back to Sparky. "Go find the science geeks. Tell 'em to meet me in the saloon. Tell 'em I have important news for 'em." It wasn't really up for debate, he knew. He was too much of a sailor to turn his back on this.
x
They sat at the long dining table and waited for the Captain. He held the same message Sparky had given him. When everyone had stopped talking, he cleared his throat and began to speak. "Gentlemen, I have in my hand a message we received a few minutes ago. It's a distress call. The text is disjointed – probably because their radio's packed in already. We don't even know the name of the ship; just her coordinates.
"S.O.S. CIT – that's the ship's name, but we don't know what it is yet – 70°45' North, 19°12' West. In collision with iceb[erg]. Taking in water from… [Req]uest assistance. Urgent."
He looked up and around the room. Everyone looked shocked. It was most people's standard reaction the first time they encountered a distress signal in the middle of open waters, when the very definite chance of a watery grave loomed for some poor souls lost out there. "So there it is, gentlemen," he said quietly. "We have a choice to make. We can go to the aid of this ship, but if we do we have to abandon all hope of finding the meteor before the Peary. Or we ignore this message and continue on our course. It's up to you to decide." He sat down and waited for a clamour to break out. It was his experience that people in the field of science were passionate about their studies, to the detriment of humanity. The doctors of Auschwitz and Birkenau sprang to mind.
There was a heavy silence. Finally, Professor Phostle stood up. "There is no question about it, Captain," he said. "Human lives are in danger. We must go to their aid at once, even if it costs us the prize."
"Bravo," Tintin said.
The Captain nodded. "Then I'll give the order to turn the ship."
x
Tintin went with the Captain, but his mind was working. He didn't pay any attention when the Captain gave the order to turn, and he barely heard the Captain talking about sending out a reply to the distressed ship. Something played at the back of his mind. It was a thought that he didn't like, a sneaky thought that had come out of nowhere and started to niggle at him, until his stomach felt as though someone was poking at him deep inside.
He had a devious mind. He knew that, and had come to terms with it ages ago. He had a devious mind because he could think like a complete bastard. He never acted on his thoughts – he didn't have the constitution to be a complete bastard, and his principles were too strong – but they helped him see into the minds of criminals, to work out motivations for truly evil deeds. And only a complete bastard would plant dynamite on a ship, and send a big ship to cut a smaller ship in half in the middle of the night, when most of the people onboard were sleeping and defenceless.
The question was, how few morals does a complete bastard have? Not actually being a complete bastard, Tintin just didn't have the answer.
"Are you awake?" the Captain said loudly. "Did you hear what I just said?"
"Send a radio signal out," Tintin said promptly, still busy unravelling his sneaky thought.
"I said your dog just got a door to the face."
"What?" Tintin snapped out of it at once and looked around for Snowy. The dog was trotting over to him, his tail down and his ears back, looking injured. This was a sign that he wasn't injured in the slightest, but still wanted some sympathy. "Aw! My poor baby!" Tintin picked him up and cuddled him. "Did someone hurt you?"
"I think Billy-Boy got the door closed in time," the Captain offered. "Snowy probably smelt that stew we're having today."
Tomato stew. Tintin's nose wrinkled at the thought. "Poor Snowy," he murmured. "Don't worry: you can definitely have my dinner tonight." If anything, Bill was a very creative chef. It just wasn't a very good sort of creativity.
"Here we are." The Captain pushed open the door to the radio room and handed the script he'd quickly scribbled out to Sparky, who started to broadcast it on all channels in the hope that the sinking ship would be able to hear it. Even if the transmitter was broken, there was still a chance the receiver would pick it up.
Polar research ship Aurora to CIT… in distress. Your message has been received. We are steaming towards you. Keep in touch with us. Good luck.
x
A few hours later, and still nothing. The ship was heading back to where the unnamed ship was steadily taking on water. The Captain had stepped outside for a smoke and Tintin was sitting on the couch, still worrying at the sneaky thought. At his feet Snowy was eating Tintin's shoelaces while his master was distracted.
The door opened and the Captain stepped back in. "It's parky out there now, lads," he said with a shiver. "Anything yet?"
"Still no reply," Sparky said with a sigh.
"You're still putting it out?"
"No, I gave up a half an hour ago and asked Angelina Jolie out on a date. I'm just waiting for her answer," Sparky said sarcastically. "Yes, Captain, I put it out again, and I'll keep broadcasting all night if I have to."
"There's still hope," the Captain said hollowly. He reached out and knocked on the table for luck. "The radio just packed in, that's all."
"Exactly," Sparky agreed. There was an unwritten (but often shouted) rule onboard ships: never tempt fate.
"Maybe," Tintin said slowly. His thought had fully formed, and he had a plan. "Unless…" He trailed off, still thinking about how to word it.
"Unless they've gone down?" the Captain asked, disgruntled. "Is that what you're implying?"
"What?" Tintin quickly cleared his head. "No, not at all. Look, Captain, will you let me send out a message myself? I think I have it worded right."
"Well, yeah, but…" He glanced over at the radio. "What if they miss our reply?"
"This won't take long," Tintin said. "And I promise: we'll keep sending yours too."
"Oh, alright then."
"Great." Tintin sat down at the desk and started to write quickly. The Captain stood behind him and read it over his shoulder. "You're having a laugh!" he exclaimed. "That's what you want to send? That's insane!"
"It's not that crazy…"
"What the bloody hell does the name of the ship matter? Besides, you'll be up all night waiting for replies."
Tintin nodded resolutely. "It won't be the first time," he admitted. "I'm used to going without sleep by now. I once walked from Borduria to Syldavia."
The Captain stared at him in open astonishment. "You're nuts," he said finally. "You're absolutely stark, raving bonkers. Do as you like." He held his hands up to show that he was absolving himself from the situation. "I still think you're absolutely crazy, though, and I'm turning in for the night."
"Good night, Captain."
"'Night, lunatic."
Tintin ignored him and handed the note to Sparky, who read it quickly. "Can we send it?" Tintin asked.
Sparky shrugged. "I don't care. I'm up all night anyway."
x
Captain Haddock made his way to his cabin. At sea, when darkness fell, it crashed over the seascape with an air of finality. It wasn't the same when you were on land, with the lights of roads and cars and streetlamps and houses and buildings… there were always lights on land, unless you lived in a cave in the middle of nowhere. At sea it was different. The dark smothered everything, and the stars shone brighter than anywhere else.
Except maybe the desert, he thought, remembering.
The sea was calm and, though it was cold, the night was clear, and the blanket of stars stretched out over the midnight sky. In the distance there came the low rumble of whales, which built to a beautiful echo that stirred the Captain's heart. Around them, the ice creaked as it refroze and cracked again and again, an action repeated over thousands of days and throughout thousands of miles of ocean, and unknown to all the radio sent its message over the silent airwaves.
Polar research ship Aurora to all shipping companies. Please, will all companies owning ships with name commencing 'CIT' please advise us immediately of full names of those ships. Also, please inform us if one of those ships is in distress, in position 70°45' North, 19°12' West.
It would be a long night.
Author's Note(s): Tintin technically doesn't swear in this chapter: he just thinks the word bastard and it's being used in it's proper context (seriously, some of the people he went up against were really sneaky bastards).
I didn't slip in that comment about the icebergs, when the Captain is talking to his first mate: that's actually in the book an I'd forgotten all about it. :D
You've probably guessed what the sub-plot between the Captain and the Thompsons is by now, but as this is still a part of the modern Tintin series it all works out in the end. I promise that it does a lot to cement the relationship between Tintin and the Captain, and still fits in with the books (I'm talking about how Tintin didn't actually move into Marlinspike for quite a while: he's still living in Labrador Road during The Seven Crystal Balls, and seems to move in fully after they get back from Tibet). Please, trust me on this. As littlepie put it: oooh, the FEELS! (great comment, by the way! Cheers for the review!)
Speaking of Tibet, modernising that is a thought that won't go away. There's a poll up at the top of my author's page if you're interested in having a say about it. If it does happen though, it won't be for quite a long time (there's a series of shorts planned, set between the adventures, to show the progression of the Captain wanting Tintin to move into Marlinspike, that I want to get finished and up before taking on another modernisation).
For some reason the spell check in FF . net won't work for me, so apologies for any mistakes. fjak fjaf jafk jdakfjak. See? No squiggly red line. :(