The Adventures of Tintin (14 page)

THAT NIGHT, A
sandstorm struck without warning. Exhausted from the day under the desert sun and unable to move Captain Haddock, Tintin covered the unconscious captain as best he could and then hunkered down himself. At least sundown had brought cooler temperatures. Tintin had fallen asleep just at nightfall, but the storm woke him up. They were in a slight hollow behind a dune, with curtains of sand tearing through the air all around them. Tintin put Captain Haddock’s hat over his mouth and nose and covered his own mouth with the collar of his coat. He leaned back into the dune, pulling his knees up to his chest. Snowy hid in the crook of Tintin’s legs.

Tintin was too tired to move anymore, too tired to fight the storm . . . All he could do was try to turn his back to it and hang on. It seemed to go on forever, the whistle of the wind and the stinging, scouring sand. He had sand in his eyes, in his mouth, in his ears. He felt like he was becoming a sand dune himself. Where was Snowy? He could no longer tell. “Snowy,” he murmured, but his lips were chapped and his tongue was dry and the sound of Snowy’s name was lost on the wind.

Sometime later, he thought he heard Snowy howling. Tintin drifted in and out of consciousness, barely aware that he was covered in sand. Was there a light? It couldn’t be. They were in the middle of the desert, far from civilization. It was dark . . .

There
was
a light. Snowy yowled again. Tintin tried to move, but he was just . . . too . . . tired . . .

“Good dog!” he heard someone call out over the noise of the storm. Snowy barked.

Tintin blinked as lights swirled around him and shapes appeared in the blowing sand. “This one’s alive!” he heard someone call. “Check the other!”

Someone shone a light in his face. He squinted and turned away. “Yes, sir!” another voice called through the storm. “Live one here, too!”

Snowy barked again and bounced his paws on Tintin’s chest. “Good dog, Snowy,” Tintin whispered.

He awoke to bright sunshine and the smell of pipe tobacco. “Ah,” someone said. “You’re awake. Capital.”

Tintin blinked and turned over, hearing the rustle of starched sheets and realizing that he was in a bed. He was also clean, which he would not have thought possible after the past day. “I am Lieutenant Delcourt,” said a uniformed chap sitting nearby. He knocked out his pipe on the heel of his boot and stood. “Welcome to the Afghar Outpost.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Tintin said. He sat up and saw Snowy sitting near the bed, looking at him and twitching his tail.

“Fine dog you have there,” Delcourt said.

“Yes, he is,” Tintin said. He remembered the storm coming in, but very little after that. Afghar Outpost . . . where was that? How far from Bagghar? “We owe you our lives. Did you find my friend?”

“Yes,” Delcourt said, standing. He was trim, mustachioed . . . the very picture of a foreign-legion officer. “But he’s not in good shape, I’m afraid. He’s still suffering the effects of acute dehydration. He’s quite delirious. Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll pay him a visit?” He went to the door and tipped his flat-topped cap. “I’ll be outside.”

A few minutes later, Tintin and Snowy followed Delcourt across the open ground inside the square sandstone wall surrounding the Afghar Outpost. The largest structures inside the walls were a pair of radio towers. The rest of the buildings were low and flat-roofed, mostly built right against the inside of the walls. Sentries wearing loose, flowing robes and head scarves patrolled the walls. Everyone except Tintin and Lieutenant Delcourt appeared to be dressed the same way. It was what people wore in this part of the world to protect themselves from the relentless sun and heat.

Near the center of the enclosure were a well and a storehouse. “Before the storm hit, we saw a column of smoke on the horizon,” Delcourt said. “Obviously a plane crash. It seemed the decent thing to send a search party out and look for survivors. Nightfall and the storm made it a bit more exciting.”

“Thank you again, Lieutenant,” Tintin said. “We crashed a seaplane.”

Lieutenant Delcourt turned to him and said, “You’re a lucky lad, Tintin. Very lucky. It’s especially lucky that you knew how to fly a plane.”

Tintin agreed that he was lucky. He didn’t mention that he had only flown a plane that one time.

Lieutenant Delcourt led him and Snowy toward a nondescript building at the edge of the outpost. Delcourt opened the door and they entered, passing through a storeroom piled high with everything from blankets to cannonballs. They passed through another door into a makeshift infirmary. A couple of cots on either side of a side table littered with medical equipment were the only furniture, save a battered chair in the corner that looked as if it might break when someone sat in it. Bright sunlight slanted in through two windows above the cots. The floor was bare planking, and as Tintin looked around he noticed that there was also a small table near the door. On it stood a number of small brown or clear glass bottles, similar to the medicinal spirits aboard the doomed seaplane.

Captain Haddock was there, sitting on the edge of one of the cots. He stood up as Lieutenant Delcourt entered. Tintin thought he looked well, all things considered. The haunted look that came over him when he compared himself to previous Haddocks was gone. The desert and the storm seemed to have scoured something out of him and left him clean.
Just what he needed
, Tintin thought.

“Ah, Haddock. You’re awake. Good,” Delcourt said. “I have a visitor for you.”

He stepped aside, revealing Tintin, as Captain Haddock turned toward the door. “Captain,” Tintin said. He was happy to see Captain Haddock up and about.

But Captain Haddock’s face stayed blank when he looked at Tintin, and even when he saw Snowy. “Hello!” he said, cheerfully enough. “I think you’ve got the wrong room.”

“Captain?” Tintin repeated. Now he was starting to worry again. “It’s Tintin. Our plane crashed in the desert, don’t you remember?”

Haddock’s brow furrowed. “Plane? No, no, I’m a naval man myself. I never fly if I can help it.” To Delcourt he added, “He’s got me confused with someone else.”

Tintin and Delcourt exchanged glances as Captain Haddock took a sip from a glass of water on the side table by his cot. “What is this peculiar liquid?” he inquired, holding it up to the light. Snowy’s ears perked up as the water cast a wavy pattern of refracted sunlight on the floor. “There’s no bouquet,” Captain Haddock went on. “It’s completely transparent.”

“Why, it’s water,” Lieutenant Delcourt said.

Amazed, Captain Haddock swirled it in the glass. Snowy pounced on the moving pattern of light. “What will they think of next?” Captain Haddock said.

Delcourt took Tintin’s arm and turned him away from Captain Haddock so they could confer privately. “We suspect he has a concussion, heatstroke, and delirium,” he said.

Tintin shook his head and walked over to Captain Haddock. He took the water glass, held it up to Delcourt, and said, “He’s sober.” Then, to Captain Haddock, Tintin said, “Now, Captain, out in the desert.”

“The desert?” Captain Haddock repeated, as if he had never heard the word before. Tintin noticed Snowy creeping around the cot with something in his mouth, but he stayed focused on the captain.

“Yes,” he said. “You were talking about Sir Francis.”

Tintin sat on the cot, and Captain Haddock sat next to him. “Sir who?” he asked.

“Sir Francis,” Tintin repeated patiently. “You were telling me about what happened on the
Unicorn
.”

“The
Unicorn
?”

“Yes.”

“The stuff that dreams are made of,” Captain Haddock said. “Wee children’s dreams.”

“No, the ship!” Tintin said. “Please, try to remember, Captain. Lives are at stake.”

Captain Haddock reached for his water glass. As he raised it to his mouth, Tintin realized that Snowy had taken matters into his own hands! Somehow Snowy had found a bottle of medicinal spirits on the table and nudged it into Captain Haddock’s hand in place of the water glass, and now Captain Haddock was drinking the alcohol in one great gulp!

“Snowy!” he said. “What have you done?”

Captain Haddock’s eyes bulged, then closed, and he let out a huge and satisfied sigh. “Aahhhhhhhhh.”

Tintin looked back to Lieutenant Delcourt and said, “I’d stand back if I were you.”

Then Captain Haddock’s sigh turned into a low growl, slowly getting louder.

Uh-oh
, Tintin thought.

“Out! Everybody out of the room!” he cried, jumping over the cot and scooping up Snowy on his way out the door after Lieutenant Delcourt and a group of curious soldiers who had gathered in the storeroom to peek in on the strangers. He slammed the door behind him, dropping Snowy, who sprawled on the storeroom floor. A moment later, a great battle cry sounded from inside the infirmary and Captain Haddock charged through the door, breaking it into a thousand splinters.

“Show yourself, Red Rackham!” he roared, lunging as if he held a sword.

“Who is Red Rackham?” Tintin shouted. He and Delcourt rushed to get between Captain Haddock and the rest of the soldiers, who were tumbling over themselves in an effort to stay out of his way. One of them didn’t move fast enough, and Captain Haddock swiftly disarmed him, jerking his sword away and shoving the soldier into his fellows. He was immersed once again in his historical vision.

He waved the sword at Tintin and the lieutenant, then craned his neck to look past them at his equally imaginary adversary. “If it’s a fight you want, you’ve met your match!” he called out. He leaped up onto a table and assumed a fighting posture.

Tintin backed away. “A fight with who?”

“To the death, Red Rackham!” Haddock charged right off the table, and his collar caught on the wooden blade of a ceiling fan. His momentum spun the fan around before it broke. He tumbled to the floor, crashing into a barrel, and the fan landed on his head, knocking him senseless.

Tintin sprang to his aid as Lieutenant Delcourt and the other soldiers crowded around them. “Captain?” Tintin said, kneeling next to Haddock, who was slowly sitting up. Tintin relieved him of the sword and passed it to Lieutenant Delcourt, who passed it back to the soldier it belonged to.

Captain Haddock’s face was ashen. “The
Unicorn
was taken,” he said, quiet and sad. “Pirates were now the masters of the ship.”

“The crew surrendered?” Tintin said, hoping to keep the story going.

“Granddaddy said that Red Rackham called Sir Francis the king’s dog—a pirate hunter sent to reclaim their hard-won plunder.” A distant light shone in Captain Haddock’s eyes as he spoke, and Tintin again felt that he could almost see and hear the story that Captain Haddock told . . .

Lashed to the
Unicorn
’s mast by Red Rackham’s men, Sir Francis glared at the masked pirate, who paraded across the deck in front of him, gloating over his triumph. His pirate crew was busy cutting loose the
Unicorn
’s tangled rigging and refitting it for their captain. Red Rackham’s ship had sunk, but he would have the
Unicorn
as his prize. Sir Francis’s blood boiled at the thought of his ship under the control of this villain.

Red Rackham cut a mighty figure in his scarlet cape, boots, and tall red plume, which accented the black and red of his hat. He was the best-dressed pirate on the world’s oceans, and he knew it. He smirked at Sir Francis, thoughtfully stroking the points of his beard and mustache. “Now, Haddock,” he said.

“Captain Sir Francis Haddock,” Haddock corrected him.

“Oh, let us not insist on titles. You may call me simply Red Rackham, for that is my name,” Red Rackham said. “And I care not a farthing for the cargo listed on your manifest.” He held up the ship’s manifest, which listed everything the
Unicorn
had taken on in Barbados before sailing. Then he tore it up and let the pieces flutter away on the breeze over the railing.

“Why would I waste my time on rum, molasses, and dates when you have a more valuable cargo on board?” He came close to Sir Francis and leaned in, face-to-face. “Where is it?”

“You’ll have to kill me first,” Sir Francis retorted.