A Captain's Duty

by Richard Phillips

  I sat ATM down on the floor near the wheel and told him to steer the boat to my commands.

  “Get in here, Colin,” I called out. He was out on the bridge wing. He ducked behind the pyrotechnic locker.

  “I will in a minute,” he shouted back. “As soon as they stop shooting.”

  We’re in it now, I thought. It had happened so fast. But where was the goddamn mother ship? If the bigger vessel got alongside, they would be able to put twenty-five armed men onboard. Game over.

  I wanted the crewman sitting on the deck. The pirates were firing up at an angle. The only way to get hit by a ricocheting bullet was to be standing up. When there was a break in the gunfire, Colin came hustling onto the bridge.

  “Quarter mile away,” I called into the handheld radio. “Shots fired, shots fired.”

  The bullets were making a huge racket as they slammed into different parts of the house and ricocheted off: splat, whooom, pat. I looked down at the pirate ship. They were now about 150 feet away. Suddenly they revved the motor and came around behind us to our port side. They were still shooting, semiautomatic mixed with automatic. The AK-47 makes a distinctive sound, a fast, deep tat-tat-tat-tat. I’d never heard one shot before except on TV. Bullets were pinging off the superstructure a split second after the AK-47 spat them out.

  I had to do something. I grabbed a few flares and ran out to the port bridge wing and started shooting down at the pirate boat. I could see they were coming alongside at the point of our number two crane. Bullets were flying everywhere, but the Somalis’ aim had gotten better—the bridge wing was getting raked with fire and they were stitching their way across the wing where I was, ping ping ping. I ducked down and then popped right back up, spotting one Somali sitting in the boat cross-legged, firing up at me. I could actually see his face, concentrating hard on drawing a bead on me.

  I started popping up, firing a flare, and then ducking down behind the wind dodger, which is a metal hood that deflects the wind over the bridge. I was like a jack-in-the-box, hiding and then standing to fire. Those flares were our only chance of stopping them at this point—putting a flare in the boat, hitting a gas can…a one in a million shot—and the best way to draw fire away from my guys on the bridge.

  Out of flares, I dashed back onto the bridge. “Fifteen degrees left,” I called to ATM, who was now manning the wheel. I looked down at the GPS and we were doing 18.3 knots. I was putting us into what’s called “racing maneuvers,” a zigzagging technique that makes it hard for another boat to come alongside. The deck of the Maersk Alabama was only twenty feet above the water’s surface. All the pirates needed to do was put their skiff parallel to our ship, toss a rope with grappling hooks on our deck, then shimmy up. “Now fifteen degrees right,” I called. You don’t want to turn too hard or you’ll kill your speed. You get it swinging and then take it back the other way.

  I looked down at the water and couldn’t believe what I saw. The pirates were lifting this beautiful long white ladder into the air. I thought, Where the hell did they get that thing? It looked like something you’d get at the Home Depot, a pool ladder with rungs that hook on top. Usually, the Somalis used grappling hooks or a pole or a line, but this damn thing seemed custom-designed to take our ship. It had two vertical pieces that connected nice and tight to our fishplate, a piece of solid metal that comes six inches high off the deck.

  I saw the hooks fasten onto my ship. Within five seconds, a head popped up over the side, followed by a body jumping quickly to the deck. He was a little aft of the number two crane, so he was about seventy feet away from me. It was the guy I would come to know as the Leader.

  Goddamn it, I thought. They’re onboard.

  “One pirate aboard,” I called into the radio. “We’ve been boarded.” The Somali didn’t have a weapon in his hand. I leaned over and saw he was bringing up a white bucket on a yellow line. That’s where his gun would be. And right behind the bucket was a second pirate.

  “One pirate aboard, one pirate climbing,” I called into the radio.

  We were sliding down a slippery slope toward disaster. The pirates had guns and we didn’t. All that we had to fight them were our brains and our willpower. Most guys would take the guns in that contest, but we had to play the hand we’d been dealt.

  I ran back onto the bridge wing with fresh flares in my hand. The Somali on the deck turned and raised his hand and I heard pow, pow, pow. He had his gun now and he was shooting. I shot back a flare and it bounced off the deck and tumbled into the water. I ducked down just as the guy blasted off a few rounds and BAMMMMM, a bullet slammed into the wind dodger directly in front of my face. I looked up and saw the dent in the metal.

  “Oh, shit!” I said. If it had gone through the steel, that bullet would have caught me squarely in the face.

  I hopped up. The first pirate was gone. He must be hiding behind the containers on deck, I thought. I knew his ultimate target had to be the bridge, but it would be a while before he could reach it.

  The second pirate came over the top of the ladder and landed on the deck.

  “Two pirates aboard,” I radioed.

  I faced a decision: Give up the bridge now, lock it up tight, fall back to the safe room, and wait it out. Or I could hold the bridge and pray the pirates couldn’t make it through the piracy cages and up seven stories.

  I didn’t want to give up my ship. Hell, no, I thought. I’m not giving up the bridge to anyone. There’s something about the bridge that’s special to a captain: It symbolizes your control of the ship. It’s like a pilot in the cockpit of a 747. You’ve been trusted with this thing. You don’t want to hand it over unless you absolutely have to.

  It was what I call my first mistake. I should have begun the retreat right then. But I thought I still had time. I wanted to be in control for as long as I could. It was hubris, I guess. Come and take it from me.

  I fired a couple of flares at the second guy. I could see the pirates were very thin and dressed in dirty T-shirts and shorts with rubber sandals. The second guy immediately sat cross-legged on the deck and began firing up at me with his AK-47.

  From down below, I heard three shots that sounded like a rifle. I later realized it was the first pirate shooting off the locks on the chains that secured the outside ladder. But I still thought he was tucked behind those containers on deck, waiting for the other guys to join him. The pirates had time on their side. They knew we weren’t armed. There was nothing to stop them except the piracy cages. If they got through those, we were hostages. But until the Leader started coming aft, I still felt secure on the bridge.

  I dashed back onto the bridge, ready to lock up and start our pullback into the depths of the ship. ATM was crouched on the floor, looking up at me anxiously, waiting for the next order while Colin was moving around the bridge. I opened my mouth to talk when I thought I saw a shadow in the corner of my eye. I turned. It was the first pirate, and he was outside the bridge door pointing a battered AK-47 at me through the window.

  NINE

  Day 1, 0735 Hours

  “The key to our success is that we are willing to die, and the crews are not.”

  —Somali pirate, Wired.com, July 28, 2009

  Just as I turned, the Somali shot off two rounds into the air. POWWW. POWWW. Up close, that weapon sounded a hell of a lot louder than from down below.

  “We’re fucked,” I heard one of my crew say behind me.

  “Relax, Captain, relax,” the pirate yelled at me. He was short, thin, and wiry. His face was tense. “Business, just business. Stop the ship, stop the ship.”

  I was so shocked I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t believe he’d gotten up so fast. He’d gone through the piracy cages like they were child’s play.

  It was 7:35 a.m. The pirates had taken about five minutes to board my ship and take the bridge.

  I still had the portable radio in my hand. I turned my back to the pirate, pressed the key, and, in a low voice, said, “Bridge is compromised, bridge is comprom
ised. Pirates on the bridge.” This would let the first engineer in the after steering room know the pirates were in control. “Take the steering,” I half-whispered.

  “No Al Qaeda, no Al Qaeda, no problem, no problem,” the pirate yelled, the AK-47 pointed at my chest. “This is business. We want money only. Stop the ship.” He was twelve feet away.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “It takes time, just relax.” When you stop a ship, you have to shift down gradually through a program. I pulled the ship back from our sea speed of 124 revs down to full ahead, which is the maneuvering speed we use in ports.

  Different alarms were going off all around me, brrrrrrrtt, brrrrrrttt, brrrrrrrtt, whoo, whoo, whoo. The noise was incredible. I started dancing around the console, silencing them. I looked over at the phone. It was lying sideways on the desk where Colin had left it. I hoped to God UKMTO was on the other end listening to all this go down.

  I realized the rescue center alerted by the security alarm hadn’t called and asked for the nonduress word. Did anyone know this was a hijacking and not just a malfunction?

  I walked over to the stick and jiggled it. Nothing. The chief engineer had switched control over to his instruments in the engine control room. The first and third had control of the steering. They were now in control of the ship. They were on their own.

  It was a small victory. Whatever happened, the Maersk Alabama wasn’t going to head to the Somali coast, unless the pirates hunted down my entire crew.

  “Stop the ship, stop the ship,” I called into the radio. I left my finger on the key button so everyone could hear what the pirate was saying. I could feel the engineer kill the engines. That thrum that you grow so used to died away. We were now gliding through the water, going in circles.

  That annoyed the pirate. “Stop this circling,” he called to me, and the muzzle of the AK-47 circled around as he talked. “Straighten the ship out.”

  “Okay, no problem,” I said. I started working the stick and the wheel. Nothing happened, of course, because the first assistant engineer, Matt, was steering the ship down below. I gaped in astonishment and then looked over at the pirate.

  “Ship broken, ship broken,” I said. I showed him how moving the wheel had no effect on the direction we were moving.

  “What?!” he yelled. “Straighten out the ship.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I’d love to, but you broke the ship. You wanted me to slow down, and we did it too fast.”

  I pointed to the console and tapped on the bow thruster reading. The bow thruster is another screw at the front of the ship that enables us to maneuver. The indicator read “0.” Then I pointed to the rudder angle indicator. It was dead, too.

  “Ship broken,” I said.

  The pirate didn’t like that. “Shut off the water, shut off the water, stop the ship.”

  ATM went out to help the other pirates get up the ladder. I was going around the consoles, shutting off alarms. I killed the fire pump and the spray from the piracy hoses died away.

  As I was moving around the consoles, I came to the radar set. I looked up. The Leader was distracted, barking orders to ATM. The radar set has three knobs on it. The first is the gain, which controls the sensitivity of the radar to incoming data. I turned that all the way down. Then there were the anti-rain and the anti-sea-clutter knobs, which screen out things like ocean waves, swells, and precipitation. I turned those two all the way up. By doing so, I’d degraded the radar completely. You could have parked a battleship two miles away and the radar would have looked as clean as an empty dinner plate. I wanted to rob the pirates of an extra pair of eyes, in case the navy came calling.

  I walked away, strolled to the VHF radio, and switched the channel from 16 to 72. No one used 72. If the pirates tried using the VHF, they might as well try calling the surface of the moon.

  I looked up. ATM came through the bridge door followed by three pirates. One of them was the tall guy who’d been shooting up at me, the other was the one I would come to know as Musso. He had an AK-47 slung around his shoulder and a bandolier of ammunition. He looked like he was ready to face down Rambo. He was limping; apparently, he’d injured his foot climbing up the ladder. There was the other bandit I came to know as Young Guy, just because he looked like he was a college student. But with his Charles Manson eyes, he would turn out to be one of the more sadistic of the pirates. And there was the other Tall Guy, who never made much of an impression on me. There was no question who was in charge—the first pirate on-board, the Leader, gave the orders and the others obeyed them.

  The three older pirates were probably between twenty-two and twenty-eight. Young Guy was no older than twenty-two, I would say. Between them, they had two AKs and several bandoliers of bullets. They also had what looked like a 9mm pistol, with a rope or lanyard hanging from the butt, and as I looked at it, I thought I saw a U.S. Navy insignia on the gun. What the hell were they doing with a navy sidearm?

  That question would come back to haunt me later.

  The pirates took up positions on the bridge. I could tell they had some experience. The Leader stayed with us. Tall Guy went to the starboard bridge wing, Young Guy went to the flying bridge, and Musso went to the port bridge wing. They told ATM and the third mate to sit on the deck, starboard side. Meanwhile, I was at the console, silencing alarms, because they were still going off continuously, whoop whoop whoop and ding ding ding. It sounded like a war had broken out and it just added to the stress.

  The Leader gestured to me. “These guys are crazy,” he said. “They’re Somali pirates. I’m just interpreter.”

  I looked at him, like, You can’t be serious. The good cop, bad cop routine? Really?

  “Dangerous guys,” the Leader shouted. “They will kill you. They’re crazy!”

  No shit, I thought. They looked dangerous. My heart was racing with adrenaline and fear.

  But the Leader’s approach was very smart, I thought. He wanted us to trust him, and what better way of doing that than making himself our only salvation against the rampaging pirates?

  “Call the crew,” the Leader said. I knew this was coming. The more hostages, the more leverage the pirates would have with Maersk. They wanted all hands on the bridge to prevent anyone from braining them with a wrench or garroting them while they slept. But I’d be damned if I was going to give them any of my men. In fact, my plan was to get Colin and ATM out of harm’s way as quickly as I could.

  “Okay,” I said, and I picked up the mike on the PA system and the handheld radio. “All crew, all crew, report to the bridge. Pirates want the crew on the bridge, repeat, pirates want the crew on the bridge.”

  Nothing. I prayed that everyone stayed where they were.

  The Leader was yelling at his men, so I keyed my handheld radio. “Four pirates aboard. Two on bridge wings, one on flying bridge, one inside the bridge. Two AKs on the wings, one nine-millimeter in the bridge.”

  The Leader turned and snapped at me.

  “Call them again,” he barked. I repeated the “come to the bridge” message.

  Not a sound from below.

  The bridge was getting uncomfortable. The crew down below hadn’t secured the secondary power supply yet, so most of the emergency lights were on—every third bulb was lit. And the air-conditioning was shut down, so we were beginning to broil up there. A deck is like a greenhouse. It traps heat. I felt the sweat just running down my back.

  I wanted to open some kind of communication with the pirates, besides them barking out orders and me following (or pretending to follow) them. Any hostage training will tell you: don’t appear too confrontational or too meek. Maintain your dignity was a phrase I remembered. If you’re screaming at the boss or whimpering in the corner, you give your captors an extra, personal reason to put a bullet in your head.

  I decided I was just going to be myself. It had worked for me so far in life. I decided to trust my instincts and forget about trying to be the perfect hostage.

  I needed to start a rapport wit
h the pirates. They were very on edge, not wanting us to get close to them. Whenever you approached one, their eyes would get wide and they’d wave at you with the gun.

  I looked over at the Leader. “Can we get these guys some water?”

  He nodded. I motioned to ATM, and he stood up and walked to the water fountain by the port door, watched carefully by the pirates.

  As I worked the console, I sidled over to where the Leader was standing. “Hey,” I said. “You guys got cigarettes? We have some if you’re out.”

  He nodded. I went to the GMDSS table and grabbed a few cartons that I always kept there to give the harbor pilots and problematic port officials. I distributed them around. From being in places like Mombasa and Monrovia, I knew how popular tobacco was in Africa, and the last thing I wanted was some gunman with a nicotine shake pointing a gun at my guys.

  They lit up and a bit of the tension went out of the room. I grabbed some sodas and handed them over, too.

  The Leader took a puff and pointed to me.

  “What nationality?” he said.

  “Me?” I said. “Or the ship? What do you mean?”

  “The ship, the ship, what nationality?”

  “U.S.,” I said.

  His eyes lit up. I heard the other pirates whoop. Obviously, they’d hit the mother lode.

  “What about crew? Nationality?”

  “All different,” I said. “American, Canadian, African.”

  Now that I had them in a good mood, smoking and laughing, I wanted to slow things down. I needed time to think.

  The UKMTO knew we’d been taken by pirates. I was calculating in my mind how long it would be before help arrived, and I wanted to put the brakes on as much as possible. Any delay would give me time to strategize. I wanted to think out my moves a few steps ahead.