Chapter Text
Tintin was a private person, and Archibald Haddock was not one to pry. He was sure the lad felt at ease around him, but if that ease did not lead to a complete unburdening of his innermost thoughts and feelings, that was Tintin's own business. His physical bearing, like his personality, was upright and steadfast. Movements economical and precise, purposeful. It might occur to those who knew Tintin that he had grown not a hair taller than necessary; there was nothing extraneous about him.
When Tintin came into Captain Haddock's study one afternoon, after missing the lunch Nestor had put out (which was not out of the ordinary on its own), there was something about the movement of the usually reliable frame which caused Haddock to put down his pen at once and stare at him with a feeling of disconcertion.
Tintin stepped only partway into the room, before stopping behind an armchair some distance away from Haddock's desk and resting a hand on it. There was something about him - his tentative steps and the creep of his hand along the chair back, his white face which looked so small and doll-like from this distance, that said that something was not right. The lad was not at all himself. He looked thoroughly shaken.
Haddock stood, scattering papers.
"What's the matter, my boy?" he asked, just as Tintin was saying - "Good afternoon, Captain."
Tintin's eyes dropped and a small smile twitched his lips - not a happy smile.
"It's nothing, captain. I just, I ... I just woke from a nap. I think I must have had some strange dreams. That's all."
The Captain rounded his desk and strode to him at once. He looked like a poor orphan waif who barely had the energy to support himself. Orphan he might be, small as well, but the captain had hardly ever seen him so depleted that he looked like the archetype he had always defied. The Captain's instincts made him catch Tintin by his shoulders, despite the uncharacteristic flinch away from him, and cajole Tintin into the armchair. The boy's knees gave easily and he folded there, looking tired and tense.
Snowy had been sticking to his master's ankles, and now he sat in front of Tintin's knees, his chin resting on Tintin, gazing up at him. The dog's blatant worry did not ease the captain.
Unsure of how best to tender to his needs, he rang for Nestor to bring them tea. While they waited, Tintin attempted to pull himself together, but allowed Haddock to pile cushions around and behind him, only stopping the Captain when their bulk took up most of the seat. The captain clicked his fingers and dashed off to bring him the blanket that he remembered in the living room, returning to tuck it around Tintin a moment later.
Tintin's next smile seemed more genuine. "Really, Captain, you needn't fuss so. I told you, it was just a dream." He sat up straighter, neatened the blanket over his lap. Snowy jumped up into it and plastered himself to Tintin's chest.
Nestor at that moment came with the tea things. He'd been very quick, and the tray was also laden with finely sliced bread, curls of butter, dishes of jam and whipped cream and little pastries. It was almost tea time, which accounted for his readiness.
"Wait, Nestor, let me move the table," the Captain ordered, all action as he tossed a couple of books off a side table and dragged it to Tintin's side. The tray was set upon it with a chorus of comforting china clinks. Haddock pulled the other armchair as close as he could and started preparing Tintin's bread and jam before he could lift a finger.
"Is something ailing you, master Tintin?" Nestor asked, eying the throne of cushions.
Tintin squirmed visibly, looking sour for a moment before the expression was brought under control.
"It's nothing," he said. Snapped it, really, shoulders drawn in. He took a breath and appeared to relax. "I don't need all this fuss. Really, Captain," he directed at Haddock. The slice of bread that he had been preparing for Tintin was looking a little worse for wear from the enthusiasm of the Captain's butter knife. He slathered strawberry jam on top - tasted just as well one way or the other, didn't it?
"It's no bother, Tintin. You're looking peaky, no harm in some coddling," Haddock dismissed.
"Was there something the matter with Snowy earlier, master Tintin?" Nestor asked, still hovering at a discrete distance. "I can call for the vet if you think it prudent."
The captain looked at the creature snuggled protectively against the redhead. Is that what had the boy out of sorts? Something wrong with his dog? But no, he seemed fine to all appearances.
"Snowy's alright, isn't he?" The Captain asked. "It's Tintin who's got a touch of something."
Nestor bowed in silent acquiescence, neither agreeing nor arguing his employer's assessment, but submitting to it either way. Haddock was used to people obeying him whether they thought him a fool or not, so usually the captain didn't concern himself with their opinions. Sometimes, if he caught too strong a whiff of scepticism in an underling, it was useful to remind them exactly who was in charge, so he took an extra moment to glare at his butler, and therefore caught the significant look the butler was giving him. from his position in the room, Nestor's face was not visible to Tintin - a secret communication then, possibly? The Captain pressed the plate of bread and jam at Tintin and tried to be as subtle as possible about his confusion.
"Let me just," the Captain blustered as he got up, "That is - perhaps we have something to bolster the spirits, Nestor? I think I remember seeing a bottle of some tonic or other in a cupboard." The captain hesitated when the little white face turned up to him, blue eyes perhaps a bit red-rimmed, lips pale as apple blossom.
"It won't be necessary, Captain," Tintin said, his voice more strident than before. "I feel better already. I'm sorry to have worried you for no reason. Nestor, please don't concern yourself. Snowy and I are right as rain.” Snowy scrubbed his muzzle into Tintin's jumper, a tiny whine slipping out. Tintin embraced him securely with one arm, as if in reassurance.
Haddock could not resist that imploring gaze, and sank back down again. "Alright, lad. If you're sure." He didn't want to distress the young man, and that was most important right now.
"Thank you, Nestor," Tintin said, grateful and firmly dismissing. The butler left the room, and Tintin relaxed again, this time more believably. Whatever the butler had wanted to tell Haddock regarding the situation, it could not help Tintin as much as leaving him in peace would. With Captain Haddock of course. It was inexplicable, but the presence of the boy gathered up all of the Captain's erratic thoughts and inclinations and tied them together harmoniously with a neat bow, and from Tintin's behaviour, the Captain thought that he somehow had the same effect upon the young man. It was what made them gravitate towards each other whenever they were in the same space. Magnetism, Cuthbert Calculus might call it, if he'd cared to observe the effect. Or, magnetic attraction. Another way of naming it that made the Captain's thought process stumble and shy away.
Haddock busied himself with pouring the tea into the delicate crockery, adding milk. The Captain had introduced Tintin to the British way of taking tea, so Tintin had his the same way as the Captain. Just a half-teaspoon of sugar, and a musical tinkling of teaspoon on bone china with a good stir. Some tea always escaped in the process, but he thought he'd done rather well this time.
Tintin sighed quietly and sank back against his cushions. He still held the plate of bread and butter, the other hand busy petting Snowy.
"You're not hungry, are you?" Haddock observed. Tintin slid tired eyes to him, and the Captain understood without him having to say a word. "No need to cling on to that then." He took the plate from an unresisting hand. He slid a cup and saucer closer to Tintin. "But drink up, a warm drink will do you good whatever ails you. Fatigue, a headcold, a twisted ankle - I'd prescribe it for anything," he said.
Haddock resisted adding a drop of anything else to his own tea; though, to be honest, he would actually prescribe a good dose of brandy for any ailment before he'd suggest tea, but he knew Tintin would reject it. He ate, but his appetite, too, failed him after a light snack. To lighten the mood, he chatted about the correspondences he'd just been undertaking - the offer of captaining a fleet of ships from Plymouth to Panama, which he thought he'd decline but was undecided; the floods in India that an old friend had found himself in the middle of. Tintin sipped his tea as he'd been bidden, and made a noticeable effort to follow the Captain's every meandering thought, as if to prove that all was well with him. He was so good at it that Haddock quite forgot that he was supposedly ill. Haddock did an impression of the Captain of the Guard that the friend in India had described to him (not that Haddock had ever met the chap) and Tintin let out a peeling laugh, which was well worth the spilt tea that had come from Haddock throwing his arms about like that. Then Tintin yawned and the Captain remembered what had led to Tintin sitting before him looking all small and blanket-wrapped. Haddock tamped down his energetic display at once and found himself on one knee at Tintin's arm rest.
"But lad, you're tired." He felt Tintin's forehead with his palm. He was reassuringly warm, but not hot; and the colour had come back to his cheeks and lips somewhat. A miserable expression crossed the young man's face while he allowed himself to be examined, and the Captain knew it was self-loathing and not directed at him. He knew it pained Tintin to be a burden in any way, but Haddock could not control his instincts to coddle the boy, even as Tintin took it as a reproach. God knew Tintin's wellbeing had more bearing on Haddock than his own. If only he could take care of himself with such assiduousness as he did Tintin! He was in better shape that he'd ever been only because it was part of caring about what Tintin cared about. "You go to bed, Tintin. See if you don't feel better after a bit more sleep. You look fit to fall asleep for half a century."
Tintin's lips twitched up and then down. "And miss the best part of my life? I hope I don't."
"I'll wake you after a week, how about that?" the Captain said. Tintin smiled at him, and only then did the Captain realise that he'd never removed his hand, and was now in fact stroking his smooth forehead and letting the tuft of his fringe tickle his palm on each upstroke. He took his hand away hastily and made a harrumphing noise that he hoped restored the usual balance between them. "Come on, Snowy, let your master up."
he succeeded in unwrapping Tintin and urging him along before him, and the docile boy went silently, all the way back up to his room. The Captain saw him in but managed to restrain himself from going any further. He didn't want to annoy. Tintin turned and hesitated before he closed his door, looking the opposite of annoyed. There was something needy in his eyes.
"I'm very sorry to have worried you, Captain," he said quietly.
"Not at all, lad," Haddock answered, too loudly. Too business-like to counter the intimacy of the moment, just outside Tintin's bedroom. "Just you get better. If Nestor finds that tonic I'll let him know to serve you some when you ring for him."
Tintin nodded. "Thank you. I'll sleep now, then.
A terrifying thought occurred to Haddock - Tintin waking later during the night, taking a turn for the worse but too proud to call for help. He stopped the door. "And you'll wake me if you want to, won't you. Please do, my lad. I don't care if it's three in the morning."
Tintin did not look honest when he promised that he would, but there was nothing Haddock could do about that short of camping by his bedroom door. Which was not a bad idea.
Haddock reluctantly peeled himself away from his young friend and went back downstairs. In his office, Nestor was clearing away the tea things. "Dinner will be ready in half an hour, sir," he said.
"Nestor, confound it, what was all that about Snowy earlier?"
Nestor straightened. "I happened to be in the linen closet after lunch and the dog was whining most piteously. I thought nothing of it for a while, but then after some time decided I should investigate. The dog was in Tintin's room. I called out several times and as there was no answer, I attempted to enter to see what the matter was."
Haddock had to restrain himself from shaking the man to get him to speed up the plodding pace of his retelling.
"I could not open the door. It was locked. I thought it very odd that master Tintin should lock the dog away in his room and be elsewhere, so I became concerned at the possibilities. I retrieved the key to the door from the collection I keep safe - I would never normally violate the young man’s privacy so; but as I said, it seemed a suitable action at the time. I thought at first I'd put my hand on the wrong key, because the lock would not give; but then, I heard master Tintin through the door, telling me that everything was quite in order, though the dog seemed to be still in a state of distress. Tintin must have locked the door from the inside and left the key in the lock. I begged forgiveness of the young master and explained my reasoning. He remained within and repeated that all was quite well and I shouldn't concern myself. That was the end of the matter, and I was forced to concede and go on my way.”
The tale was odd. It was strange. It was concerning, as Nestor had put it. "I don't think Snowy was in trouble at all - he was worried about Tintin. Was the lad very ill, do you think? Dogs can sense these sorts of things. Maybe he wasn't rousing. I should send for the doctor, shouldn't I?"
Nestor said nothing, merely blinked slowly.
"Blistering barnacles, if only the boy would be honest with me. I'd know how much to worry then. It will aggravate him if I call a doctor over, I know it will. I should do it anyway, and to hell with hurting his pride. But he's sleeping now, it's best to just let him rest. Rest is always best, don't they say? Besides, he looked a lot better by the time he went up." He pointed a decisive finger at his butler. "We won't call the doctor now. We'll wait until tomorrow, and see how he looks."
Long after he'd finished dinner, which Tintin also missed, Haddock sat up in the living room, sometimes trying to read, sometimes pacing with his pipe, accompanied by a bottle of Loch Lomond and a crackling fire. Now and then he went into the dark hall, standing perfectly still and straining his ears for a noise from upstairs. He felt a bit like Snowy, ears pricked at something beyond human hearing. Would that he were Snowy, that dog seemed to know what was up with Tintin. The clock chimed midnight. The whisky bottle was still quite full. He'd stopped drinking earlier, when his head had started to get that warm, foggy feeling which didn't suit the worry simmering at the back of his mind.
Feeling grave and fully sober now, he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, put the whisky away and set a guard across the fire. He trudged up to bed. The floorboards hardly squeaked, but Haddock trod quietly nevertheless, his ears straining again. All was quiet. He stopped outside Tintin's door and put his hand up, allowing just the fingertips to brush the wood of the door. The lad sometimes left it slightly ajar, and the Captain would allow himself the briefest glance inside while he went past, to reassure himself that all was well. If the door had been unlatched this time, perhaps that would have been a sign to open it and see what he could see of Tintin; but it remained firmly shut and the Captain pressed no further. He went on to his own room and went to bed.
By noon the next day, everything was well and truly back to normal. The concerns over Tintin disappeared like dew in the morning. He'd come bursting into the breakfast room first thing and started loading his plate with eggs and bacon almost before he was seated, declaring himself 'famished', his voice boisterous as he apologised for the 'nonsense' of yesterday as the Captain's toast dropped from his limp grip in astonishment. Snowy had been famished too, by all appearances, as he gulped his breakfast down in a moment and whined until Tintin refilled his bowl with bacon and toast. He must have fasted to stay by Tintin's side until he was better.
The Captain was pleased. No, ecstatic. He was all too ready to accept Tintin's reassurances that it had been a passing funk, exhaustion, 'one of those days'. He thought back on it - maybe he, Haddock, had been overreacting. There had been nothing wrong with the boy, just a little pale in the cheeks, not even a fever!
Tintin's appetite stayed up, and he even spent the afternoon helping Calculus in his rose garden. The silly Captain, fussing and mothering Tintin until he'd escaped to his room. No, he wouldn't regret his attention to Tintin; the lad's smile was as warm as ever. No doubt Tintin saw him as a parental figure; not always, but sometimes; and weren't parents supposed to leap into overreaction at the slightest hint of illness? Best to put it behind him. The Captain was in a good mood all day, and spent much of it with a good deep glass of whisky and a doze in the afternoon sun.
Nothing would exist to connect that strange event to the next catastrophe if the truth had not eventually come out; and, well, if Tintin had not survived.
Tintin had encouraged the Captain to accept the offer to captain the fleet across the Atlantic. Tintin was a great believer in keeping active, and eventually Haddock agreed on the private incentive that taking up the helm would keep his wits sharp, and stock him with interesting stories for lively young companions who thought that sitting still for ten minutes was a grievous character flaw. Tintin himself was going to be on a diplomatic mission to China for most of that time, setting off just before the Captain, and no doubt the lad's urging was somewhat motivated by the thought that Haddock would be bored at Marlinspike without him, which was not wholly untrue.
"You'll give Chang my greetings, won't you?" The Captain said over lunch one day after Tintin had laid out his flight plans.
"Oh!" said Tintin, his eyes widening. "I thought I hadn't told you - I mean, yes, I'll be seeing Chang. The embassy have agreed to fly him into Shanghai to meet me and be a translator."
The Captain felt a strange, icy coldness as he watched Tintin fiddle with his soup spoon. Why in the name of seven hells hadn't Tintin told him? Did he expect the Captain would be jealous that they'd be there together, getting up to all sorts without him? Should he be jealous? He wasn't sure what he was. No, by thunder, he wasn't jealous, he was happy for the lad! He'd be with his friend, whose spirit was as lively and his heart as warm as Tintin's and who wouldn't grumble about stiff joints and the need to sit down and have a drink in every restaurant they passed. It's what a parent would want, or a friend for that matter.
"You didn't tell me," The Captain said, and for all he managed to keep the coldness out of his tone, the words hung awkwardly in the air before he continued- "I knew you'd find a way to have him along, I'd be a monkey's uncle if you went all the way to China without meeting Chang."
Tintin smiled. "Of course, I'll give him your warmest greetings, Captain; I know he'll be very pleased to hear them," he said, almost too keenly, as if making up for his oversight.
So the Captain looked at maps and lists and went to Brussels to have a few important meetings with some men in suits who knew not very much about oceans but a lot about conversion rates to South American currencies and eyed him appraisingly as if to fit him into their calculations for profit. Haddock managed to keep his temper throughout, and only tripped over a chair leg once, which was pretty good going and seemed to do enough to convince the moneymen to let him take charge of their vessels.
The Captain thought he didn't mind a little busy-ness, as Tintin was preoccupied by his China preparations and also had important meetings to go to. There was plenty of animated chatting over hasty breakfasts, and much recounting of woes and little amusements as they lounged by the fire at the end of the day. After a day sufficiently packed with doing, Tintin allowed himself to put his feet up (in slippers, even!) and sip companionably on a small glass of whisky.
It was the evening before Tintin was to set off for China, and Tintin had to be up very early for his flight the next day, so he tried to make excuses of last-minute preparations to disappear after dinner, but the Captain could not have it.
"It'll be two and half months until we're back together, old man," he said, unashamedly wide-eyed and imploring. "Goodness knows what you'll get yourself into when you're back from China and I'm still in the shark-infested Caribbean, and by the time I get back you'll have shot of somewhere else and it will be Christmas before I lay eyes on you again. Can't you leave off preparations for tonight? I know you, Tintin, you'll be triple-checking something you've already learned off-by-heart. Nestor knows how to pack your bags, doesn't he?"
Tintin wavered and then gave in, turning back to the Captain. "Very well, you're right of course."
The Captain grinned and left the rest of his Tarte Tatin with gooseberry cream to get up and hustle the young man to the French doors, which had been open on account of the warm August night. By the doors was a bottle of champagne on ice, left just as he'd instructed Nestor. The Captain steered his companion into the fresh air and served them both a drink.
"A toast, Tintin, to our safe journeys," he declared, raising his glass.
Tintin looked up at the captain with a smile, and his cheeks looked positively glowing in the orange sunset.
"Here's to your voyage, Captain," he said, with his usual gravity.
The air was alive with birdsong and crickets and redolent of the smell of the rose garden, and the Captain delayed his drink to watch Tintin tip his head back and close his eyes, and notice the bubbles hiss quietly as they touched Tintin's lips.
They talked, and then they went out into the garden and did a slow circuit, wine glasses still in hand, until the sky had gone navy blue and the bats flitted silently over their heads.
Then they went up to their own beds as they always did, and the Captain knew that by the time he woke in the morning Tintin would have left for China.
But the Captain was woken before his alarm by a sharp rapping upon his bedroom door, and by blistering barnacles, Nestor had invited himself into the room before the Captain had even rolled his head on the pillow.
"It's Tintin, sir," Nestor said. He entered the room and went directly to Haddock's wardrobe as he sat up in bed, completely bewildered. "He's been taken to hospital. There was an accident; must've been on his way to the airport."
"Oh God," Haddock said, and waited to wake up again, properly this time.
Nestor laid out his clothes and made it quite plain what the Captain should be doing. "He's, he's alright though?" His heart was beating like a drumroll and he thought he might faint as he stumbled out of bed, not feeling the floor under his feet.
"The nurse couldn't tell me much, but he's gone into surgery and they've had to tow the car away. Unsalvageable."
"Oh God," Haddock said again. He fumbled with his clothes and let Nestor help him on with them. His alarm went off then, which meant it was seven o'clock in the morning: Tintin should be sitting in his seat on the plane right now, waiting for their turn on the runway. But he wasn't there, he was lying in some surgical theatre and being cut and sewn and there would be doctors shouting over his head, saving his life. "Oh, Fifty thousand, thundering -" He said weakly. Nestor turned Haddock about and set him on course for the door.
Haddock found he could move, finally; he could run. He leapt down the stairs and into his car, and time was like molasses around him as he accelerated beyond a point the speedometer had hit before, and was never worried about his reaction time.
Somehow he arrived at the hospital, and the slow-moving nurses told him which floor had a waiting room in which he could sit and receive news when his friend was out of surgery.
Haddock was not a patient visitor; he didn't mind that he made himself very unpopular with the staff on that floor when they repeated that he would have to wait. The ward matron herself was induced to come along and did not hold back with her response when Haddock shouted at her that they were all incomparable bristling nitwits who couldn't keep track of one measly patient. By the end of her tirade Haddock's knees had given out and he fell to the floor in a pathetic, sobbing heap at her feet. If she'd been the harridan she pretended, she would have been within her rights to give him a solid kick, but instead her manner changed and she urged him gently into a chair and put one of the nurses in charge of bringing him tea.
"Doctor Jones is the best surgeon in the hospital, he'll do everything he can to put the young man to rights," the nurse said. A sweet lass, with feathery red hair escaping her cap.
"Did you see him?" Haddock blubbered. "Did you see when they brought him in? Was he awake?"
The nurse gave his hand a pat. "I couldn't tell, sir. He might have been resting his eyes."
The captain groaned.
The tea went cold in his two-handed grasp, and he stared quietly into it as he sat through the interminable wait. He was called to the reception to receive a call from Nestor, who told him that Snowy had come back from the vets with some bruises and a limp but no broken bones - Snowy! Haddock had not given the little dog a single thought. He could be heard howling continuously in the background, a truly mournful sound. The butler continued that the appropriate people had been informed that Tintin would no longer be going on their diplomatic mission (Poor Chang, probably already in Shanghai and counting the hours until Tintin's flight landed). The garage had called to report that they'd arrived at the scene to find the car wrapped around a tree, the front caved in and crumpled. Tintin- in that mess of twisted metal! Haddock put his hand over his eyes and tried to banish the vision. There had been no other vehicle. The accident, said Nestor, had been not far from home, on a quiet road out of the village, and the milkman had come across it and telephoned from the next house on his route. All that hubbub and screaming of an ambulance while they'd all been cosy in their beds up the road.
The Captain went back to the waiting room and stood around in a daze.
Then there was another nurse, telling him that the young man was out of surgery and in a private room. She was looking at him with somewhat wild eyes.
"I hope this isn't impertinent, sir, but aren't you that pair who went to the moon?"
"Where is he? Take me to him this minute, thundering torrents of typhoons," He said, grasping the young lady's shoulders. She shrank away.
"Er, this way. It's not visiting hours but the matron said you could."
She led Haddock down the corridors to an open door. There was a bed inside, and there was Tintin on the bed, his face unrecognisable and swollen, some sort of uncomfortable-looking traction apparatus keeping his legs in the right position. He was swaddled in bandages.
"Tintin," the Captain cried. He approached quickly but shuddered to a stop some distance away, afraid to hurt the lad with his clumsy attention. "Is he out of danger?"
"The doctor will know everything, and he'll be along in a minute. Mr Tintin will probably sleep a good while longer, while the anaesthetic wears off," the nurse told him, professional now. "I have to see to other patients now, sir."
The Captain hardly noticed her leave. He sank down onto the only chair in the room and watched Tintin's chest rise and fall under the bandages and blankets. Below the bandages over his jaw and above the bandages over his chest, his clavicle was bare. The bones looked frail, and the beginnings of a nasty red-purple bruise peeked up from his ribs.
"My poor lad," he whispered into the quiet room.
When the doctor arrived, he spoke cheerily of a good surgery to relocate the jaw, a few pins in his right arm and both legs and everything set back to order. They'd see whether that nasty internal bleeding started again, and if it didn't, there was every chance that the patient would more or less recover, or at least stay alive. The doctor refused to be drawn on whether Tintin's mobility would be completely restored, but apparently he'd been awake enough to report that he could feel his toes before he’d been put to sleep for surgery, and the spine looked alright so he wasn't paralysed. Haddock gave the man a firm handshake with both hands, then realised it wouldn't do and swept him into a hug. The man was quite unequal and could only wait for the wiry old seadog to release him. He took it well enough, brushing himself down when he was set back on his feet.
"The matron will be around in a minute, so you'd better say goodbye until tomorrow because she won't have anyone on her ward overnight."
Indeed, the sun was setting outside, casting an orange glow just as it had done the night before, on the patio.
Alone again, the Captain dared to approach a little closer and gently took Tintin's limp hand (the left one, on the surviving hale limb).
"Goodbye Tintin. I have to go, but I'll be back tomorrow as soon as I can. You just rest there and get better." He wondered if his voice reached Tintin, somewhere down in his unconscious. It would have to do for his comfort, as Tintin would probably wake alone in a few hours and Haddock couldn't think about that or he wouldn't be able to leave.
When he got home, Haddock went straight to his whisky cabinet and took out a bottle of Loch Lomond. Methodically, he upturned a tumbler and poured himself a measure. He took it and went to the window - pitch black now - and stared out at the vague treeline and thought about what might have happened in the early hours of the morning on that country road. Tintin was a somewhat reckless but adept driver. Perhaps Snowy had distracted him? But the scene that replayed most often was a huge delivery truck roaring along, the driver hardly sobered up from the drinks he'd had the night before, bearing down on the car so fast that Tintin had had no choice but to swerve into that tree, a look of wide-eyed horror on his face - Haddock knew it well; the lad had looked death in the face enough times before. And then - CRASH! And the truck driver tearing away as fast as it could. Another explanation was deliberate sabotage of the vehicle. It was possible: they had enemies enough. There had been no report of it from the garage, but perhaps they hadn't been looking for the right signs. He'd telephone them tomorrow.
These thoughts circulated round and round Haddock's head, and even though he knew he wouldn't solve anything just by thinking it out, he couldn't help himself. There would be answers when Tintin awoke, if he remembered what had happened. But- by jove! If it had been sabotage, and the bastards learned that their murder had been unsuccessful, then Tintin was still in danger!
"Nestor! The telephone!" Haddock exclaimed aloud, before he realised that was one thing that could not be brought to him. "I'll be on the telephone!" He corrected to Nestor as he passed the bemused butler at the door. He rang up the blundering fools Thomson and Thompson. He had little faith in their power to protect, but any police presence might put off an assassin. At least, as friends of Tintin's, they would be bound to leap into action. He did not think the local constabulary would jump so fast. He was right - as soon as the two dunderdusters heard of Tintin's plight, and Haddock's suspicions about a sabotage, they vowed to guard him. Even the stout ward Matron would not have the power to send a pair of metropolitan police officers home past visiting hours.
Poor Snowy sounded hoarse as he whined on the landing outside Tintin's closed bedroom door. When the Captain went upstairs he found the dog curled up, head on his paws. Haddock sighed and didn't try to offer any words of comfort. Nothing but his master's return would satisfy loyal Snowy. Haddock rested his back on the wall next to the door and allowed himself to slide down to sit next to him. He stroked Snowy, feeling the sorrowful whines as vibrations in his hand.
"Poor old mutt. If you could talk, you could tell us what happened, couldn't you? Still, good thing you've come off with only some bumps and bruises. If anything happened to you, I don't know that we'd ever convince Tintin to wake up."
To his surprise, Snowy got up and rearranged his position, this time resting his head on the Captain's outstretched leg. Haddock paused in amazement at the unusual honour before continuing his caress.
Now that Tintin was out of surgery and nothing but another recovering patient, the Captain was forced to wait for visiting time, so the matron told him when he dashed into the ward.
"But - blistering bargeholds, I haven't seen him awake yet! This is nothing but rankest injustice; a pox on anyone who puts a pocket watch in front of Captain Archibald Haddock and tries to tell him to wait for the thrice-confounded hands to point to the right numerals so he can go five paces down the hall and see a friend who's been crunched up against a tree and sawed open and plastered up by a pack of interfering troglodytes who only want to keep their system of exchanging bed pans running on time!" The redness of Haddock's face was part anger and part lack of oxygen as he delivered this alternate view of the situation.
The matron looked very sour and pointedly wiped her face with a handkerchief.
"Nurse Auden, fetch the orderlies to have this gentleman escorted from the building," she called, possibly seeing the futility in reasoning with the panting man before her.
"Ah - Captain Haddock," said a man, strolling down the corridor. He carried a bowler hat and a smart umbrella swung from his elbow.
"Ah, Good Morning, it's Haptin Caddock," Said his double, strolling two paces behind him.
"Thomson and Thompson!" Haddock cried in relief. "You've been guarding Tintin, God bless you!"
"Guarding!" The matron snorted. "As soon as they arrived on my ward they demanded the use of two of my beds for police business and didn't stop snoring all night. Kept half my patients awake," she snapped. "I knew who I should thank for the pleasure of their presence too," she said, jabbing a finger into Haddock's chest. "Any more nonsense of this nature, I shall have your friend moved to another room in the hospital and I shan't tell you where!"
Haddock reeled back, turning his ire on the two detectives. "You pair of empty-eared molluscs were asleep? How on earth was that to be any help to Tintin, eh?"
"We had a look in," one of the said.
"Yes, we had a look in at him when we arrived," said the other.
"He was asleep."
"To be precise, he was sleeping. Nothing amiss about that."
"Well, have you seen him this morning?"
"We've only just finished our morning ablutions, haven't we Mr. Thomson?"
"Indeed Mr. Thompson; we were just going to have a spot of breakfast before we went to check on Tintin."
"A breakfast comes next, quite. We might bring him up a bit, might we not-"
"Never mind about that!" the Captain shouted. "Tell this wretched, winkle-picking witch to stand aside; she won't let me see Tintin because her devilish stop-watch says so."
"Now that's enough!" The Matron said.
"Won't let you through?" said one.
"But you must come through; why, Tintin would want it, wouldn't he?"
"Precisely, it would be Tintin's wish."
"Dear madam, please grant this man free passage to the patient. He's part of the protection effort," said one, with a level of deference that was rather too late coming that morning. In the end, the authority of the Thom(p)sons prevailed, against all reason, and the Matron very reluctantly allowed Haddock to pass her.
That was enough to have the Captain careering down the corridor, barely resisting turning around to blast the lot of them with another round of vitriol. Not even checked on Tintin, not since last night! The nincompoops!
He almost overshot Tintin's room, but caught onto a rattling cart of medicine bottles and stopped himself.
There was the boy, awake, by the milky bosom of the syphinx!
Haddock was at his bedside in a moment, looking up and down and seeing that everything was more or less as it had been last night.
"Tintin, lad..." He said.
Tintin's eyes were cracked open; one of them dreadfully bloodshot.
"Ca'tin," He mumbled, barely moving his mouth. "Thought I heard you."
"Oh, Tintin," said Haddock. He couldn't resist picking up Tintin's hand any longer. It twitched in Haddock's hold. "We were worried about you. You - you might be dead now, you silly old man. Your car was pressed into a tuna can, they've told me. Do you remember it?"
Tintin blinked, and a little groan escaped his lips. "They tol' me ... tol' me it w's ca' cr'sh. Don' 'emember."
"Never mind, old chap," said Haddock.
"Ah, he's awake, Thompson," Said Thomson from the doorway.
"He's woken up, Thomson," said Thompson.
"Good morning, Tintin," they chorused.
"You're in a sorry state, I should say."
"To the point: You're battered as tenderised beef."
"Captain Haddock here thought your car might have been sabotaged. That's why we're here, guarding you."
"In case the fiend comes back."
Tintin's brow furrowed. "Sab - no, it was - it wasn' sabotage."
"But you said you didn't remember," the Captain exclaimed. Tintin closed his eyes and Haddock cursed the volume of his outburst.
"I don' know. I thin' I fell asleep. Cap'in - did ..." Tintin wavered, his eyes filling with tears. They overflowed and rolled down his cheeks, and the Captain's handkerchief was in his hand in a moment.
"What is it, lad?"
Tintin just groaned, seemingly reluctant to finish his question.
"Snowy ..."
"Snowy! He's only bruised, my boy," the Captain assured him quickly. "He's whining the house down all day and night, missing you of course."
"I thought ... there was no way he was alive," Tintin sobbed, each contraction of his chest looking like it pained him a lot.
"Now, now," The Captain said, and stroked the hand in his.
"Sorry. Morphine. I thin'" Said Tintin.
Haddock shoo'd the Thom(p)sons off to their breakfast ("And you may as well clear off. A pair of marvellous protectors you've been! thankfully, it looks like sabotage isn't afoot here.") They left with many words of reassurance to Tintin.
"I' sor'y cap'in," Tintin repeated, between bleary bouts of tears, no matter how many times Haddock shushed him and told him to stop talking nonsense. He soon learned that Tintin was not capable of changing his tune, thanks to the effects of the morphine, and realised that his presence might be more distressing to Tintin than his absence.
"You go to sleep, dear boy. Rest and get better and we can all have you back in Marlinspike before you know it."
He pressed a firm kiss to the hand, absently.