Snowy got hold of Tintin’s pants and was trying to pull him to safety, but the boy was too big for the little terrier. The propeller zipped off some of Tintin’s hair. Snowy was still tugging at him as Captain Haddock clambered up the dune and pulled Tintin off the side of the plane’s nose. The propeller caught Captain Haddock’s parachute and flung him violently to the ground, but the tangled parachute lines finally brought the propeller to a halt.
Tintin sat up and shook his head. The first things he saw were Snowy lying on his side, passed out from exertion, and the two pilots hanging by their parachutes from the rusted wreckage of a cargo ship. Everything was quiet. The storm was passing, and sunlight started to break through the clouds.
“Well,” said Captain Haddock after a while. “What do we do now?”
Tintin didn’t have a good answer, so he said what he always said in situations like this. “We go on,” he said. “There’s a mystery to solve!”
LATER THAT DAY, Tintin was wishing they were in the storm again. He was also regretting his decision to lead Captain Haddock and Snowy away from the wrecked plane. They had gone from an ocean of water to an ocean of sand. Tintin had the terrible feeling that he had led them on a charge to certain doom . . . but it was too late to go back.
They had been walking through the desert, the sun blazing down on them without mercy, for what seemed like years. “The land of thirst,” Haddock was muttering over and over again. He had been for hours. “The land of thirst . . . The land of thirst!”
“Will you stop saying that?” Tintin snapped. The heat and his own thirst were making him a little impatient.
“You don’t understand,” Captain Haddock groaned. “I’ve run out. I’ve run out.” He sank to his knees, and Tintin stopped to prevent him from falling face-first into the sand. “You don’t know what that means,” Captain Haddock said.
“Captain, we have to keep going,” Tintin said. “One step at a time. Come on, on your feet.” With Tintin’s help, Haddock staggered back to his feet. “Lean your weight on me,” Tintin said.
“A man can only hang on for so long without his vitals,” Haddock gasped.
“Captain, calm down,” Tintin said. “There are worse things than sobering up.”
Haddock froze, and Tintin thought perhaps he had made the captain angry. But then he said, “Look, Tintin! We’re saved!”
He shoved Tintin away and broke into a run across the sand, staring into the distance as Snowy bit down on Haddock’s dangling suspenders to try to slow him down. The suspenders stretched and broke, snapping back into Snowy’s face as Haddock ran faster, crying, “Water! Water!”
“Stop, Captain!” Tintin ran after him, with Snowy at his side. He couldn’t see any water. “It’s just a mirage!”
They caught up to Captain Haddock after a minute as the captain slowed to a dazed stagger and looked around in confusion. “But it was here,” he said. “I saw it.”
“It was just your mind playing tricks,” Tintin said, trying to soothe him. “It’s the heat.”
Captain Haddock gazed sadly out over the rolling expanse of sand. A single tear rolled down his cheek, and he said quietly, “I have to go home.”
“What?” Tintin didn’t understand.
“I have to go back to the sea.”
“Captain, you’re hallucinating,” Tintin said.
But as if Tintin had not spoken at all, Captain Haddock went on. He pointed toward a dune and said, “Look, did you ever see a more beautiful sight? She’s turning into the wind, all sails set!” He had fallen in the middle of his misery, but now he got up again and described his vision. “Triple-masted, double decks, fifty guns . . .”
Tintin had been about to take drastic measures to snap Captain Haddock out of his hallucination, but this description stopped him dead. Was the captain seeing . . .? “The Unicorn?” Tintin said softly.
Nodding, Haddock said, “Isn’t she a beauty?”
Could it be that the mirage would help Captain Haddock regain some of his lost memories and unravel part of the puzzle of the Unicorn? Even facing a blazing death in the middle of the desert, Tintin couldn’t pass up the chance to find another clue. “Yes, yes, she is,” he said, playing along to encourage Haddock to reveal more. “What else can you see?”
“She’s got the wind behind her!” the captain said joyously. “Look at the pace she’s setting! Barely a day out of Barbados, a hold full of rum and riches, and the hearts of the sailors set for home!”
“Yes,” Tintin said. He could almost see it, the sand becoming ocean and the Unicorn, flying the king’s ensign, surging into view, its sails billowing as it plowed through the high seas. The voice of a lookout called across the water, “Ship ahoy! Sail on the starboard bow!”
And Sir Francis Haddock, in the uniform of the royal navy, snapped his spyglass out to its full length, and through it saw the skull and crossbones unfurling from the other ship’s mast. “It’s the Jolly Roger!” the lookout shouted, but Sir Francis noticed something else: a red pennant flapping below the pirate flag.
In the desert, Captain Haddock turned to face Tintin, saying, “The blood of every sea captain who looks upon that flag runs cold, for he knows he’s facing a fight to the death. But Sir Francis is a Haddock, and Haddocks don’t flee.”
Then Captain Haddock peered through his empty bottle as if it were a spyglass, and Tintin was lost in the story once again.
“All hands on deck!” Sir Francis commanded. “Gunners to their stations. Let’s unload the king’s shot into these yellow-bellied, lily-livered sea slugs!” Turning to his first mate, he added, “Prepare to bring her about, Mr. Eckles!”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” Eckles said. “Prepare to bring her about!”
The pirate ship was close behind them as the Unicorn crested a wave and slowly heaved about in the trough between that wave and the next. Cannon fire exploded between the two ships. The Unicorn’s sails were shredded! The pirate ship closed the distance between them, and the heaving sea tilted the ships toward each other, tangling their masts and yardarms. They rode the waves together, both ships crashing and groaning in the waves. Smoke and fire blew across both decks, stinging the sailors’ eyes.
“Mr. Eckles, secure the cargo!” Sir Francis bellowed. Then he issued a general order, his voice booming across the storm-tossed deck. “Prepare to repel boarders.”
Twisting up, the pirate ship leaned over, its keel briefly scraping along the edge of the Unicorn’s deck. Pirates leaped across the gap as others swung from the pirate ship’s deck into the Unicorn’s rigging. Still others landed on the upper decks. The shouts and cries of battle merged with the sounds of the storm and the groaning of ships’ timbers. The two ships collided, and the pirate ship was badly damaged. It began to sink, and Sir Francis feared that it would drag the Unicorn down with it. He leaped into the rigging. A knife flew past his head, slitting the upturned brim of his hat and clipping away part of the red plume. But no knife was going to stop him from saving his ship! Up the mast he climbed.
When he reached the horizontal yardarm, he clamped his legs around the mast and began sawing at the tangled ropes that bound the two ships together. The Unicorn was listing as the pirate ship dragged at it. Sir Francis looked over and saw that the rear decks of the pirate ship were already underwater.
He shinnied out onto the yardarm and over to the mast of the pirate ship, closing in on the last rope holding the two ships together. Reaching the pirate ship’s mast, he caught that rope and sawed through it with his cutlass. The loose end of the rope in his hand jerked him off the mast as the ships separated, and Sir Francis dangled free, one hand on the rope and the other brandishing his cutlass at the swarming deck below.
He swung back to the Unicorn’s mast and slid down to the deck, dispatching pirate after pirate. “Rally, ye sailors of the Unicorn!” he cried out. “Rally to the king and to Captain Haddock!”
His sailors answered with a cheer. On the deck, silhouetted by the smoke of musk
ets and a fire blazing somewhere on the rear decks, Sir Francis spotted the figure he’d been looking for . . .
“And then he saw him,” Captain Haddock whispered. His face was caked with sand, and his lips were parched and dry. “Rising from the dead!”
“Who?” Tintin asked.
But Haddock had fallen silent. He began to sweat as he struggled to hold on to the memory. “Captain!” Tintin said. “Captain, who did he see?”
The wind was the only sound for a minute or so. Then Captain Haddock said, “It’s gone . . .”
“What do you mean, gone?” Tintin protested. “What happened next?”
“By Jupiter, I have a beard,” Captain Haddock said, fingering his chin. “Since when did I have a beard?”
“Captain, the Unicorn! Something happened on the Unicorn? It’s the key to everything!” Tintin grabbed Captain Haddock and shook him a little. “You must try to remember!”
Haddock began to sway on his feet even after Tintin stopped shaking him. “The Unicorn?” he repeated. “What? I’m so terribly thirsty.”
“Captain!” Tintin repeated in frustration. What could he do to get Haddock to remember?
“Tintin, what’s happening to me?” Captain Haddock said fearfully. He sank to the ground, with Snowy pacing anxiously around him and Tintin supporting him.
Tintin knew exactly what was happening to Captain Haddock. Maybe none of them would ever get out of the desert, but at least one good thing came out of the experience. “And to think all it took was a day in the Sahara,” he said when Captain Haddock was resting comfortably on the ground. “Congratulations, Captain. You’re sober.”
“Sober,” Captain Haddock said as if he couldn’t quite believe it. He mouthed the word several more times with a surprised smile on his cracked lips. Then he passed out, and Tintin was left to watch over him as the sun touched the horizon and the sand stretched endlessly in every direction. Bagghar was far away. Sakharine was ahead of them in the race to capture the third model Unicorn . . .
One of these days, Tintin thought, I’m going to tell this story to someone, and we will all laugh about it.
But right then, things seemed pretty desperate.
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 rep
eated. 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.”
The Adventures of Tintin Page 9
