Tintin was starting to think that he might have made better progress if he’d never met Captain Haddock. It was on the tip of his tongue to say so.
But then Captain Haddock looked at him, his pockets filled with little bottles, and Tintin couldn’t say anything. Suddenly the captain looked like a man filled with purpose. He shot Tintin a wink. “To the lifeboats!” he said.
By the time they got to the hatch that led out onto the deck, Captain Haddock was halfway through one of the bottles he had liberated from the storeroom. He was muttering something about needing to calm his stomach in such stormy seas. Tintin just hoped he would remember where the lifeboats were.
They paused by the hatch to listen. Occasionally Tintin saw a sweep of light around the edges of the hatch. He thought he also heard voices. Putting two and two together, he figured out that the
Karaboudjan
’s crew—those who weren’t sleeping in a pile below deck—were still looking for him and Captain Haddock. It was going to be a tricky trek to the lifeboats.
Captain Haddock apparently felt differently. “Let’s go, lad,” he said, and flung the hatch open, plunging out onto the deck . . . and almost running straight into a sailor, who happened to be passing by on a search sweep. Tintin pulled Captain Haddock back as the sailor made a grab for him. Taking the bottle from Captain Haddock’s hand, Tintin cocked his arm to knock the man out with it.
As he swung, the bottle disappeared. Tintin’s momentum carried him forward, though, and just as the hapless sailor figured out what was happening, Tintin knocked him out cold with a single punch.
Shaking his sore hand, Tintin glared at Haddock. “My stomach,” Haddock said, and took a drink. Then he pointed across the deck. “There are the lifeboats!”
The
Karaboudjan
rocked on the stormy sea as Tintin, Snowy, and Haddock made their way toward the lifeboats, unhooked one, and started to shove it toward the edge of the deck. Held in place by a rope sling, it teetered at the edge of a gap in the deck railing above the churning water. The ropes went up over a gantry like a small crane and were wound around the gantry frame. A single person could unwind them and hang on to them while getting into the boat. Then, when the ropes were released, the boat would fall away from the
Karaboudjan
. Tintin looked at the sea and was suddenly uncertain about whether jumping into a lifeboat was the best course of action. A wave crest crashed around the
Karaboudjan
’s bow, wetting all three of them.
Captain Haddock unwound the ropes and braced one foot on the lifeboat’s gunwale. He looked as if he was ready to cast off and jump right then, but he was distracted at that moment by a door that opened nearby, spilling light out onto the deck along with the unmistakable beeping of Morse code. Tintin and Haddock ducked behind the lifeboat, uncomfortably close to the edge of the deck and the frothing sea below, as Allan and Tom went through the door and shut it behind them. “It’s Allan!” Haddock said in a quiet fury. “Traitor! Mutineer!”
“Is that the bridge?” Tintin asked.
“Aye,” Haddock growled. “On the other side of the radio room.”
Radio room
, Tintin thought. He had an idea. “Wait here, Captain,” he said. “Sound the alarm if anyone comes.”
Haddock looked relieved that Tintin didn’t want him to go along. “Careful, Tintin!” he warned, lifting a bottle to his lips.
Tintin and Snowy crossed the deck toward the steps that led up to the radio-room door where Allan and Tom had entered. He heard a sailor complaining somewhere on the deck. “There’s no one here!” the sailor grumbled, sweeping his flashlight lazily across the lifeboat and completely failing to notice that the ropes were all undone. “Who are we looking for, anyway?”
The sailor passed around the bridge, still complaining, and Tintin risked a glance through the window next to the door. Allan and Tom were