The Adventures of Tintin (8 page)

Tintin followed Snowy in through the porthole and saw they were entering what must have been the captain’s cabin. It was a dark-paneled room, chock-full of seagoing knickknacks and bric-a-brac. Sextants, models, charts, strange skulls and artifacts, a birdcage in which a parrot turned a single beady eye toward these strange intruders . . . and in the middle of it all, lying flat on his face, was a man who could only have been the captain himself. Around him were the pieces of a chair he had apparently fallen on, either because of the explosion or after dodging the planks that had come flying in through the window.

Tintin made a mental note to apologize for the planks. He was sure the captain would understand.

Unless, of course, the captain was in league with Sakharine; then they would be at odds. Tintin wasn’t sure what to think yet. As he crawled in through the porthole, his foot caught on part of the rope and he fell. He sprawled on the floor, barely missing Snowy, who glanced over at him briefly and then looked back at the captain with a curious expression on his furry face.

The captain stirred and began to sit up. Tintin got a good look at him for the first time. The captain had a blunt and honest face with a big red nose and a bushy black beard. He straightened the collar of his blue wool turtleneck sweater, which he wore under a black wool coat. Unruly hair stuck out from under his gold-braided cap. He resettled the cap on his head, rubbing the spot where the plank had apparently hit him.

Then he saw Snowy, sitting on the cabin floor watching him, and the captain rocketed to his feet, punching his head straight through the floor of the birdcage so he was suddenly wearing it like a mask. “Arggghhh!” he cried. “The giant rat of Sumatra!”

In the next moment he saw Tintin, who was just getting to his feet. “Aha!” the captain said. He snatched up one of the broken chair legs and shifted into a swordsman’s posture, holding the chair leg out at an angle toward Tintin. “Thought you could sneak in here and catch me with me trousers down, eh?”

Snowy growled and lowered his head, offended by being compared to a rat. Tintin got hold of another chair leg and brought it up just in time to parry a lunge from the captain. They circled each other, the captain hacking wildly at Tintin, who jumped and dodged out of reach. From the top of a sea chest, Tintin said, “I’d rather you kept your trousers on, if it’s all the same to you.”

“I know your game,” the captain snarled. “You’re one of them!”

Tintin parried a thrust and hopped back to the floor. “I’m sorry?”

“They sent you here to kill me, eh?” the captain said. Snowy lunged and caught the captain’s pants leg in his teeth, shaking hard enough to unbalance the captain for a moment.

“Look, I don’t know who you are,” Tintin began, but the captain’s rant went on.

“That’s how he planned to bump me off. Murdered in my bed by a baby-faced assassin! And his killer dog!”

“Assassin?” Tintin said. “Look, you’ve got it all wrong.” He parried yet again. “I was kidnapped by a gang of thugs.”

The captain stopped and glared at Tintin. “The filthy swine!” he said. “He’s turned the whole crew against me!”

“Who?”

“A sour-faced man with a sugary name,” the captain growled, as if pronouncing a curse. “He bought them all off. Every last man!”

“Sakharine!” said Tintin. Now he understood what was happening aboard the
Karaboudjan
.

“Nobody takes my ship!” the captain raged.

“Sshhhh,” Tintin said. He pointed toward the door. The captain appeared to understand.

He slumped against a case filled with nautical relics, suddenly feeling sorry for himself. “I’ve been locked in this room for days,” he groaned, “with only whiskey to sustain my mortal soul.”

You’re certainly well sustained, then
, Tintin thought, as it was clear the captain had been drinking. But it would have been rude to say it. On a whim, just to be sure, Tintin tried the door.

It opened. Tintin looked back at the captain, arching one eyebrow.

“Oh,” the captain said. “Well, I assumed it was locked.”

“Well, it’s not,” Tintin said. “Now you must excuse me. If they find me here, they’ll kill me. I have to keep moving and try to find my way off this drunken tub.”

He slipped out into the corridor with Snowy, shutting the door behind him and walking straight into a sailor he hadn’t seen coming. A guard, or someone just passing by? It didn’t matter. The sailor caught Tintin in a bear hug and they wrestled as, from inside the cabin, Tintin heard, “Tub? Tub!?
Tub!??
”

The door opened just as Tintin and the sailor spun around in the corridor, banging into the wall next to it. In a rage, the captain knocked the sailor down with a single punch. He fell to his hands and knees, trying to get up. When he lunged for the captain’s legs, the captain slammed the door into him, knocking him out cold. Tintin caught the sailor as he fell over and, with the captain’s help, dragged him into the cabin.

“Thanks,” Tintin panted when they had laid the sailor out.

“Pleasure,” the captain said.

Tintin offered his hand. “I’m Tintin, by the way.”

The captain shook Tintin’s hand. “Haddock. Archibald Haddock. There’s a longboat up on deck. Follow me.”

With that, he went into the corridor. Tintin did a double take as he registered what the captain had said. He couldn’t believe it! Had he narrowly escaped death only to stumble right into the cabin of the one man on Earth who could unlock the secret of the
Unicorn
?

“Hang on a second,” he called, hurrying after the captain with Snowy right at his heels. “Did you say
Haddock
?”

ON THE BRIDGE
, Allan and Tom were weathering a storm. Not from the ocean, which was beginning to calm a bit, but from Sakharine, who was enraged at Tintin’s escape.

“Champagne bottles!” he roared. “You hid from champagne bottles. You let the boy escape and now Haddock is out, too? Because the boy climbed the outside of the ship? Find them! Find them both!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll kill ’em, sir,” Allan said.

“No. You can kill the boy. Not Haddock,” Sakharine said. He tapped Allan with his cane to make sure Allan got the message.

“Oh, he’s just a hopeless old drunk,” Tom said. “We shoulda killed him long since.”

Now it was Tom’s turn to take a couple of pokes from Sakharine’s cane. “You think it’s an accident that I chose Haddock’s ship, Haddock’s crew?” Sakharine demanded. Looking back at Allan, he added, “Haddock’s treacherous first mate? Nothing is an accident.”

He let the tip of his cane fall back to the floor and looked out to sea as Allan and Tom exchanged perplexed glances. Wind ruffled his hair and beard, and as Sakharine raised his arm, his hunting falcon spiraled down out of the sky and landed on his forearm. “We go back a long way, Captain Haddock and I. We have unfinished business, and this time I’m going to make him pay.”

Tintin followed Captain Haddock through the maze of the
Karaboudjan
’s lower decks. They stopped every so often to wait for running footsteps to pass as the crew searched for them. “We have to reach the door at the end of this corridor and up the stairs,” Haddock said as they peered around a corner down a long stretch of hallway with no cover. “This is going to be tricky.”

Indeed it was, Tintin thought. Despite the urgent situation, though, he couldn’t help asking questions. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to the Haddocks of Marlinspike Hall, would you?”

Haddock squinted at him. The question made him wary, Tintin could tell. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s for a story I’ve been working on,” Tintin said. “An old shipwreck that happened off the coast of Barbados. A man-of-war, triple-masted, fifty guns.”

Before Tintin could say more, Haddock grabbed him by the shirtfront and slammed him up against the wall. “What do you know of the
Unicorn
?” he hissed.

“Not a lot,” Tintin said. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

This answer appeared to calm Haddock somewhat. “The secret of that ship is known only to my family. It has been passed down from generation to generation. My granddaddy himself with his dying breath told me the tale.” Haddock’s gaze grew distant as he reminisced.

Tintin waited for a moment, then prompted him. “And?”

“Gone,” Haddock said, shaking his head.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I was so upset when he kicked the bucket, I had no choice but to drown me sorrows,” Haddock said sadly. The whiskey on his breath told the rest of the story. “When I woke up in the morning . . . it was gone. I’d forgotten it all.”

“Everything?” Tintin said. He was stunned. At first it had seemed like an incredible stroke of fortune that he had escaped from the hold straight into the cabin of the one man who would have known the secret of the
Unicorn
. Now he was downcast, because Captain Haddock’s memory was lost to drink and Tintin was right back where he had started. In fact, he was worse off. Sakharine was probably very unhappy that Tintin had escaped.

“Every last word.” Haddock looked up and down the corridor. The coast was clear, and he took off toward the stairs that led up to the door that was their goal. Tintin followed, still not quite able to believe that Haddock had forgotten
everything
.

He couldn’t give up so quickly. “Well, is there somebody else in your family?” he asked. “Maybe they would know.”

“Sir Francis had three sons,” Haddock said. “All but my bloodline failed. I am the last of the Haddocks.”

Here is a possibility
, Tintin mused, thinking of the poem from the parchment. A thin one, but it was all he had. “Did you say
three
sons?”

They got to the bottom of the stairwell just as a search party entered the stairwell on the floor above. Haddock, Tintin, and Snowy ducked under the stairs and froze as the sailors passed. Snowy couldn’t help himself. He let out a small whimper after they were gone. Tintin patted him on the head to soothe him.

Haddock came out, looked around, and started up the stairs. Tintin and Snowy followed.
Three sons
, Tintin was thinking . . . and just like that, he had it.

“I know what Sakharine’s looking for!” he said in a too-loud whisper just as they reached the top of the stairs.

Haddock whirled to shut him up. “What are you raving about?”

“It was written on the scroll,” Tintin said. “
Three brothers joined. Three Unicorns in company sailing in the noonday sun will speak
.”

Amazed, Haddock just gaped at Tintin for a long moment. Then he said, “Really?”

“Sir Francis didn’t make two models of the
Unicorn
. He made three! Three ships for three sons!” Tintin felt a rush of excitement at solving this part of the puzzle.

Haddock appeared to feel it, too. “Excellent!” he said, and headed off down the corridor with a new spring in his step.

“Sakharine’s after the third model ship,” Tintin said.

They reached a door and Haddock tried it. It wouldn’t open. “Barnacles!” Haddock swore. “Someone’s locked the door!” He stood there, apparently at a loss for what to do next.

Tintin wanted to talk about the three models, but Captain Haddock’s mind was elsewhere. What a frustrating man he was! “Is there a . . . key?” Tintin suggested.

“Key!” Haddock said. “Yes! Now that would be the problem.”

Again he led Tintin through the convoluted mid-decks of the
Karaboudjan
, and again they hid and dodged search parties. After a few minutes they arrived at a door just like the locked door at the other end of the ship, but this one was open just a crack. Haddock pushed it slowly and carefully. His body language told Tintin that they must remain absolutely silent.

The two of them peered into the room beyond the door, Snowy also taking a look and sniffing the air. It was dark and the sounds of snoring were Tintin’s first indication of where they were. His eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he saw a motley group of sailors sleeping, sprawled in hammocks and bunks and on the floor.

“Mr. Jaggerman,” Haddock whispered. “Top bunk in the center. Keeper of the keys. Careful, mind; he’s a restless sleeper on account of the tragic loss of his eyelids.”