The Adventures of Tintin (10 page)

Tintin had almost finished sending his message when the inside door to the radio room burst open and Tom spotted him. “In here! He’s in here!” Tom shouted. Tintin could see Allan rushing up behind Tom.

Tom leveled his gun at Tintin, but Snowy leaped from the table, trailing bits of uneaten sandwich behind him, and sank his teeth into Tom’s arm. The gun went off, and the bullet broke the window. Jumping up from the transmitter, Tintin socked Tom twice in the jaw, the combination knocking the thug backward into Allan. In the confusion, Tintin grabbed Tom’s gun and ran out onto the deck.

He took the stairs in a single bound and skidded to a halt when he saw that the lifeboat was gone!

“Snowy!” he said. “Captain Haddock has—”

Snowy took off down the deck toward the stern. “Wait!” Tintin commanded. Then he saw what Snowy had seen. Captain Haddock had for some reason moved on to another lifeboat. What was he doing? Had he dropped the first one? Tintin ran after Snowy, hoping to get to Captain Haddock before he dropped this boat, too. They might not get a chance at a third.

“Captain, get ready!” Tintin called out. “Here we come!”

Allan was shouting from the radio-room door. Other sailors had appeared on the upper decks of the
Karaboudjan
’s bridge. “Get him!” Allan shouted. Then he started shooting!

Captain Haddock looked up as he heard the commotion, and the lifeboat ropes slipped from his hands. The boat slipped and dangled at an angle from the pulleys. Haddock flinched away from a ricocheting bullet and fell into the boat, landing next to Snowy, who had just jumped in. There was a crash of breaking glass. Tintin dove headlong after Snowy and the captain as bullets whined through the air all around. He landed in the bottom of the boat. “Let go, Captain!”

“I can’t!” Captain Haddock yelled. “I already did!”

Tintin looked up and grabbed on to one of the oarlocks as the boat swung and banged into the
Karaboudjan
’s hull. The last rope had slipped off the pulley and jammed. It was looped around the lifeboat’s bow, caught fast on an oarlock on one side and the boat on the other. There was no way to pull it off without lifting the boat, which was far too heavy to lift even if Tintin could have gotten back up on deck to do it. They were sitting ducks. Bullets from the
Karaboudjan
’s crew were coming closer.

A spotlight from the main deck targeted them. Now Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Snowy were in real trouble. The crew’s bullets wouldn’t miss them for much longer.

Tintin didn’t like guns very much, but as the spotlight shone down on them from the bridge, he found a use for one. He aimed carefully with the pistol he had swiped and shot out the spotlight, plunging them back into darkness. The lifeboat swung, and he tugged vainly on the rope to free the boat, knowing it wouldn’t work but not sure what else to do.

The rope wouldn’t budge. Right at the railing, not twenty feet from Tintin, a sailor took up a firing stance. “I’ve got you now!” he shouted. The sailor took careful aim, but the
Karaboudjan
rolled in the sea and he had to readjust.

That bought Tintin a critical moment.
One shot
, Tintin thought.
That’s all I’m going to get
.

He, too, took careful aim . . . and shot through the last rope holding up the lifeboat!

The boat fell into the ocean with a huge splash, soaking everyone on board. Tintin spluttered and threw Tom’s gun overboard, grabbing an oar. Haddock already had the other one in hand, and they rowed for their lives as bullets smacked into the water. At the railing, the sailor was cursing. Another searchlight came on and swept the nearby waters. The glare nearly blinded Tintin, but he could just make out the figure of Sakharine emerging from the radio room onto the deck. He also spotted the other lifeboat that was bobbing in the ocean with the unlucky sailor whom Haddock had dropped overboard. He had finally untangled himself from the rope and was now adrift.

An idea came to Tintin. He pulled in his oar and flattened himself in the bottom of the boat. “Captain! Get down!” he said.

Captain Haddock got the idea. So did Snowy. All three of them hid from the searchlight. A signal flare blazed into life over the water, and Tintin heard a sailor call out, “There he is!”

But the searchlight was not on them.
This just might work
, Tintin thought. He dared a glimpse over the lifeboat’s gunwale as the hulk of the
Karaboudjan
swung slowly around and bore down on the other lifeboat. “Full speed!” someone on the ship sang out. It sounded like Tom. A moment later the lifeboat was smashed to splinters by the
Karaboudjan
’s bow.

The boat occupied by Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Snowy drifted farther away. The seas were starting to calm a little, but waves still slapped over the lifeboat’s gunwales. Captain Haddock bailed out water with his hat as the
Karaboudjan
corrected its course, aiming for Bagghar once more. They watched the spotlight from the
Karaboudjan
pick out the wreckage of the other lifeboat, waiting for the inevitable moment when Sakharine figured out what had happened and turned the
Karaboudjan
to look for them.

But a minute passed, and then another, and still the
Karaboudjan
steamed on. The searchlight played back and forth over the wreckage and then winked out.

“I think we can row now, Captain,” Tintin said.

“Then row we shall, Tintin,” Captain Haddock said, and they put their backs into it.

Looking over the railing of the
Karaboudjan
, Sakharine thought he was going to explode. “You idiots!” he raged. “What have you done?”

Next to him, Tom gazed down at the wreckage with pride. An empty whiskey bottle floated amid the pieces of the lifeboat, a sure sign that Captain Haddock had been there. “We killed them, boss,” he said with great satisfaction. “Just like you wanted.”

Sakharine grabbed Tom and forced him up against the railing, bending him over backward. Tom’s eyes popped. “No,” Sakharine said. “Not like I wanted. I needed Haddock alive!”

He was about to throw Tom overboard, just to make himself feel better, when Allan said, “Wait a minute, boss. There are two boats missing!”

“What?” Sakharine said. He looked down the railing and saw that Allan, for once, was right. There was a second boat gone.

“So that one must have been a decoy!” Tom said.

Sakharine flung Tom away from him. Tom’s shoes scraped the deck as he tried to keep his balance. He fell into a sitting position, and Sakharine noticed something near Tom’s right foot. A piece of paper.

He bent to pick it up. On it was written the word
Bagghar
, and below that a string of dots and dashes.

Ah
, he thought, looking out over the dark water.
Tintin, you are perhaps a bit more clever than I’d thought
.

“They’re on to us and our destination,” Sakharine said, holding up the piece of paper so that all his imbecile henchmen could see it. “Find them! Make absolutely certain they never reach Bagghar!”

Leaving them to make preparations, he stalked to the stern of the
Karaboudjan
, where a seaplane, standing by on a catapult launcher, waited. Tintin and Haddock might think they had escaped him, but they were about to find out that a head start on a rowboat wasn’t worth much when your adversary could fly.

THE SUN ROSE
over a seemingly endless ocean. Haddock was leaning against one gunwale, Snowy was looking out over the other, and Tintin was rowing hard by himself. “We have to get to Bagghar ahead of Sakharine,” he said.

“I know! I know!” Haddock said. Then, after a brief pause, he added, “Why?”

Tintin tried not to be annoyed. “Because Ben Salaad has got the third model ship.”

“How do you know?” Haddock asked. He sat up straighter and seemed to focus, at least for the moment. “Who’s Ben Salaad?”

Tintin shipped the oars and dug the brochure from the radio room out of his pocket. He showed Haddock the picture from its interior page. “The sheik of Bagghar. He collects old ships for display in his palace. This is the prize of his collection.”

Haddock looked at the picture showing a glossy full-page photograph of the
Unicorn
in an ornate case, behind thick glass. “Blistering blue barnacles! That
is
the
Unicorn
!” Haddock cried.

“Captain, do you see this distortion around the model?” Tintin pointed to the slight waviness of parts of the model ship in the picture. “It means Ben Salaad exhibits it behind bulletproof glass.”

“And Sakharine is going there to steal it!” Haddock said, finally getting the picture.

“He has a secret weapon: the Milanese Nightingale,” Tintin said, even though he didn’t know what kind of weapon the Milanese Nightingale was. He had the faintest beginning of an idea but not enough to be certain of anything. “But that won’t be enough to solve the mystery, and that is why Sakharine needs you. That’s why he took you prisoner! There is something he needs you to remember.”

“I don’t follow you,” Haddock said. Tintin could see his fingers starting to search his pockets for a bottle.

“I read it in a book. Only a true Haddock can discover the secret of the
Unicorn
.” Tintin looked at Haddock, and Haddock looked at Tintin.
Come on, Captain
, Tintin thought. Snowy whined and nudged Haddock’s knee.

“I don’t remember anything about anything,” Haddock said eventually.

“But you must know about your ancestor Sir Francis!” Tintin said. “It’s your family legacy!”

Haddock was now definitely patting his pockets. “My memory isn’t what it used to be.”

“What did it used to be?” Tintin asked.

“I’ve forgotten.”

Frustrated, Tintin was silent for a while. He was trying to work things out in his head, but he was also imagining how great the story would be when he finally got it. The secret of the
Unicorn
! What he needed at the moment was to motivate Captain Haddock, break him out of his self-pity—remind him what he was good at.

But what was he good at? As far as Tintin could tell, Captain Haddock was so far gone into his bottle that he had lost his ship, his family history . . . everything.

What did a man like that have left?

Tintin wasn’t sure, but he knew he’d have to figure it out or else Sakharine would get the third
Unicorn
and they would never solve the mystery. Tintin refused to let that happen; he had his teeth into this mystery now, and he would not let it go. He would row to Bagghar himself if he had to . . . if he only knew which way to row.

Aha
, he thought.
Captain Haddock may be full of self-pity, and he may be a little too fond of liquor, but he is still a seaman
.

“Captain,” Tintin said, “can you get us to Bagghar?”

He deliberately asked the question in a tone of voice that made it clear that he didn’t think Captain Haddock could do it. Reverse psychology!

And it worked. “What sort of a stupid question is that?” Haddock exploded. “Give me those oars. I’ll show you some real seamanship, laddie.”

He moved toward Tintin and picked up the oars, flipping them over his shoulder as he kept shouting. “I’ll not be doubted by some pipsqueak tuft of ginger and his irritating dog. I am master and commander of the seas!”