A Captain's Duty

by Richard Phillips

  I nodded to ATM, Colin, and the other sailor. I wanted them to know the crew was still hidden away.

  “Captain, Captain come in.”

  I pressed the portable radio against my leg, hoping to mute the sound. Then I brought it up slowly and turned down the volume. I walked over to the radar and pretended to be looking down at it, while I lifted the radio up and spoke into it.

  “Shane, go ahead.”

  I heard him breathe out. He sounded relieved.

  “I’m down on E deck. Where are the pirates?”

  I looked up. The four had moved back to their positions: one on each wing, the Leader with us on the bridge, and Young Guy on the flying bridge. I relayed that to Shane, while pretending I was working on the console.

  “I think I can take them.”

  Shane was a take-charge kind of guy. That I liked. But attacking the pirates was not a good idea. “Negative, negative,” I whispered, turning my back to the Leader. “Pirates all spread out. Automatic weapons. Do not attempt.”

  Musso yelled from the bridge wing. The Leader hurried over to the door and tilted his head down. It seemed like he was listening.

  “Shane, I think they heard you. Stay quiet.”

  “Roger that.”

  Two hours had gone by.

  The Leader tried the radio again, calling out in Somali. I turned and looked out the bridge windows.

  I noticed something white in the water, about five hundred yards off our starboard beam, near where the pirates had come aboard. At first I couldn’t make it out. It looked like a piece of flotsam that was half-submerged and drifting at the same rate we were. You see junk like that all the time, containers that get swept from ships during storms or floating piles of plastic. But something caused me to stare at this piece.

  With a start, I realized it wasn’t a piece of seaborne junk. It was the Somalis’ boat. The skiff was floating upside down, most of the hull underwater, and the nice white ladder was next to it. They were slowly drifting along with us.

  I turned to call to the Somalis, but I caught myself. Did the Leader order them to scuttle the boat? I thought. They could have just tied it off and let it float alongside the Maersk Alabama. Losing a boat like that doesn’t happen by accident. They’d raised the stakes as they came onboard. Now I felt they were going to be even more desperate.

  I wondered if the Leader had ordered the boat scuttled to intimidate his men. “Either we take the ship,” he would have said, “or we die on it.” Abandoning your only escape route meant the Somalis had to connect with the mother ship or take one of our lifeboats to make their getaway.

  The elation I’d felt when the pirates’ bluff had failed drained away. These guys were committed. There was no way they were going to leave empty-handed.

  By noon, we’d settled into the beginnings of a routine. ATM and Colin were sipping water occasionally, sitting on the deck on the bridge on the starboard side aft. The third sailor was leaning against the wainscoting trying to keep cool. The Leader was alternating between the radar and the VHF, trying to find the mother ship, coughing and spitting every so often like he had TB. I was shutting off the occasional alarm and trying to think how to get my three crewmen down with their shipmates.

  It wasn’t going to be easy. If I gave the guys the signal to make a run for it, the pirates would cut them down before they’d taken four steps. No, we’d have to get the pirates to take the men off the bridge. I started to formulate a rough plan.

  “Ah,” the Leader said. I looked up. He was fiddling with the VHF radio.

  Shit, I thought, he’s figured it out. I walked over and looked at the readout. I’d tuned the set to Channel 72. He now had it on 16, the correct frequency for communications between the crew and the outside world.

  “—sk Alabama, we’ve been attacked by pirates. Repeat, four pirates aboard.”

  The Leader stared at the set. So did I. It was Shane’s voice, but what was he doing?

  “Roger that, this is the guided missile cruiser USS Virginia. Helicopters are launching.”

  “Thank you, USS Virginia. When will the helicopters arrive?”

  I smiled. There was no USS Virginia on the frequency. Both voices were Shane’s. He must have made his way down to my room and taken the handheld VHF radio there. And he was doing the same routine I’d pulled yesterday, pretending to hail a navy warship and requesting help.

  Now the Leader was truly perplexed. The entire crew had vanished into thin air but now one of them was talking to the U.S. Navy. Musso came over to investigate. His AK clanked against the console’s side as he leaned over to listen.

  “Who is that?” the Leader said.

  I just raised my eyebrows.

  “I have no idea, I’m here with you.”

  Shane’s voice came over the radio.

  “This is the chief mate. Repeat, Somali pirates aboard. They’ve taken over the ship.”

  “That’s the chief mate?” the Leader said.

  I listened. “It does sound like him.”

  Shane continued: “Four pirates aboard. All armed. All four stationed in and around the bridge…” And he continued his spiel with the phantom navy ship.

  “Where is the other radio?” the Leader demanded. I saw real fear in his eyes. The last thing pirates want to do is negotiate with the U.S. Navy. They like to deal with ship owners only. Ship owners don’t have laser-guided missiles and sharpshooters.

  “There are only two radios I know of,” I said. “The bridge has them both.”

  The Leader looked like his brain was going to explode. We were turning his plans inside out. The Somalis had taken over the ship, but we had taken over the Somalis. For now.

  “We go around again,” the Leader said.

  I shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

  Again, it was him and me. We made our way down to E deck, then down all the way to the main deck.

  I walked down the darkened corridor, the ship dead and silent as a bombed-out city. The chief had cut the emergency power. We had only flashlights. I saw the door to the AC room open ahead of me. I knew the Leader would want to check that out. I brought the radio up. “Okay, entering the AC room. Starboard side door is open. You guys need to get that locked up.”

  We stepped into the AC compartment. Its massive machinery cooled the entire ship. But the compressors were quiet now. Ahead was the engine room. I didn’t want to go in there unless I absolutely had to. If, for some reason, the chief engineer hadn’t gotten the message, we’d find him and his assistant waiting for us.

  “Entering engine room,” I said. I stepped in.

  A dead engine room is an eerie, eerie place. There was a little smoke wafting from inside and a bulb burning off to the right, but the place was in almost total darkness. You could hear the drip drip drip of water from pipes. You could feel the bulk of the enormous diesel engine in front of you, but you couldn’t actually see it. There are empty quiets and full quiets and this was the latter. I felt like we were going to be ambushed.

  I led the way. Six steps in, the Leader called to me.

  “No, no, we’re done. We go.”

  I turned, surprised. The Leader looked spooked. He turned and I followed him out.

  We made our way around, poked our head in the dry storage room and everything was empty. Meanwhile, I was opening every external door I could. “Do you want to see out here?” I would say, and then I would just leave the door open. This would give the crew a chance to move around fast if they needed to. It would also give any rescuers a chance to get inside the ship quickly. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, I thought.

  But I still didn’t believe anyone was coming. What we were going through had never happened before in the modern age—a U.S. ship being taken by pirates. I had no idea if the navy would even be interested. I knew there were warships in the area, but there was no protocol for rescuing merchant mariners.

  To me, the only one who was going to save us was us.

  Again we
found no one. I could tell the Leader was getting more and more unnerved. Every room we opened, there were clothes laid out as if someone was just about to get dressed, or a cup of orange juice sitting there as if someone had just poured it. We walked into the galley and on the cutting board were a knife and half a dozen slices of melon that looked like they’d been cut just a few minutes before. On the burner, a pot of coffee was sitting, steam coming out of its spout.

  It reminded me of the famous case of the Mary Celeste, the ship found in the Atlantic Ocean back in 1872 with the crew’s hairbrushes and boots and shirts all in their places, the cargo all accounted for, but no men aboard. It became the most famous maritime mystery of all time, the ghost ship that lost its eight-man crew on the way to the Strait of Gibraltar. (Piracy was originally suspected, but there hadn’t been any reported in the area in decades and no valuables were touched or signs of violence found.) The Maersk Alabama had that same abandoned air as we walked through one silent room after another.

  “Where is the chief engineer?” the Leader said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “These guys are crazy. They could be anywhere.”

  We entered the bosun’s room. I’d noticed before that the Somalis were wearing cheap flip-flops. The bosun had some nice leather sandals by his bed and now the Leader was staring at them.

  “Look at those shoes,” he said.

  It was like he was asking my permission.

  “Go ahead!” I said. “The bosun doesn’t care. Try ’em on.”

  The Leader kicked off his flip-flops and tried on the sandals. He nodded.

  The next stop was the mess deck, which we’d been through on the first go-round. There was a long table with a blanket thrown across it. I stared at that blanket. I was sure it hadn’t been there the first time we’d walked through. I didn’t know it then, but Shane later told me he’d been roaming the ship when he heard us coming, and he’d dashed into this room just ahead of us. With him, he’d had the EPIRB (emergency position indicating radio beacon), which is a transmitter that can tell rescuers exactly where your distressed ship is. He’d taken it out of its housing, which activates the unit, before we came blundering down the hall. Panicking, he’d thrown the blanket over it, then turned and began searching for a hiding place. Right at that moment, Shane was in the next room, the hospital bay, crouched beneath the desk in the space where the chair usually slid in. We walked in and Shane could see my shoes, only three feet away.

  If the pirates had gotten him, we’d have lost one of our best leaders. But I didn’t even hear him breathe.

  We looked in a few more rooms and then headed back up to the bridge.

  The crew and I were keeping one another safe at this point. I was alerting them to the pirates’ movements, and they were keeping a wild card in our hands by staying hidden. Even if the pirates shot a couple of us, they gained no advantage. They still had sixteen guys secreted all over the ship, keeping the vessel out of their hands. And the ship was drifting, powerless. It was a standoff. But the Somalis had reinforcements a lot closer than I did.

  The ship was becoming a gigantic oven. The AC was off, and the fans that sent fresh air funneling through the rooms weren’t working. The heat was getting intense even when an occasional breeze moved through. I couldn’t imagine how the guys in the after steering room were suffering. How long could they hold out before they needed to get some fresh air or water?

  The fear I’d felt when I saw the first pirate board the ship hadn’t faded. But I was just too busy to pay much attention to it. In some ways, ATM and Colin and the third sailor had it worse. They had to sit on the deck and imagine what could happen to them. I was constantly thinking of how to get us out of this mess alive.

  We climbed back to the bridge, sweltering in the afternoon heat. The pirates were getting hinky. Why couldn’t we find the crew? I just shrugged. “I don’t know where they are,” I told them again and again. “I’m here with you.”

  The Leader wanted another search. This time, Musso and Tall Guy came with me, both armed. Again, I entered the engine room, trying to keep them away from the half-hidden door to after steering, where I thought the crew was. Our flashlights were darting here and there, and we’d get flashes of equipment: lube tanks, dials, pipes. Musso and Tall Guy made it a few steps farther than the Leader before calling, “Enough!”

  Even pirates are scared of the dark. It made me grin—they had the guns and they were frightened.

  I took them to the mess deck and their eyes lit up when they saw the melons. “You want fruit?” I said. “It’s all yours.” I helped them load up their arms with juice boxes and melon slices. I headed back to the bridge and as I climbed the outside ladder on the house, I could see the Somalis two flights below, struggling with all their loot. I waited for them.

  “You need some help?” I said to Musso. I held out my hands. “Here, let me carry the gun.”

  He laughed.

  I took some of the juices and the fruit and went ahead.

  Just as with the Leader, I could have escaped at any time. But the thought never really crossed my mind. Three of my men were in imminent danger. I couldn’t leave them to the pirates. It didn’t solve anything. Besides, it’s just not possible to do something like that and remain the same person you were before. I wanted to be able to look myself—and the crew members’ families—in the eye after all this was over and say, “I did my duty as a captain.”

  Like I said, you take the pay, you do the job.

  Back up to the bridge. We filed in and the pirates took up their normal positions. It was past noon. The pirates were fidgety, agitated. Their jubilation at taking an American ship was souring. They were constantly chattering to each other in Somali, and their conversations were becoming more abrupt. A note of panic had crept in.

  I grabbed a drink of water, then wiped my forehead and took a few breaths.

  The Leader handed me the phone. He barked out a number. It was like a broken record now, the pirates endlessly repeating the same tactics: search, call, threaten. But the threats were wearing thin. After the second ultimatum, when they told us they would start killing us in two minutes, they gave up that tactic.

  The Leader had stopped looking at the LED on the phone, so I just entered random numbers and hit the pound button. The phone dialed, then buzzed.

  “This phone is the worst. Seriously, I wish I could get it working for you.”

  One of the crew took this opportunity to start talking to the pirates. And despite my hostage advice the night before, the first thing he brought up was religion.

  “Assalaamu ‘alaykum,” he said. He nodded at Musso.

  Musso just stared at him.

  “I’m African,” he said. “We are Muslim brothers.”

  The pirates looked at one another. Musso began to laugh.

  I tried to catch the sailor’s eye. Next he’d be telling them to chop off the heads of the Christian infidels and take him back to Somalia.

  But the pirates didn’t care if he was directly descended from Mohammed himself. He was a pawn in their game.

  The Leader looked at me. “We search again.”

  I’d been expecting this.

  “No way,” I said. “I’m tired of walking around.”

  I pointed at ATM. “Take him. He can show you whatever you need.”

  I knew if ATM could walk out, guarded by only one pirate, he might get away. One man knew the ship, the other didn’t.

  The Leader looked at ATM and seemed to be considering the offer.

  “Okay,” he said. “We go now.”

  ATM stood and came walking toward me. The Leader turned to give the other pirates some instructions in Somali.

  As ATM passed me, I whispered to him, “He’s not armed. Take him to the guys.”

  I couldn’t catch his face as he slipped by. I don’t know if he even nodded.

  But I could feel the tables turn just a bit. It was our turn to take a hostage.

  ELEVEN


  Day 1, 1100 Hours

  “We are planning to reinforce our colleagues, who told us that a navy ship was closing in on them.”

  —Abdi Garad, a pirate commander, from the Somali port of Eyl, Agence France Presse, April 8, 2009

  ATM and the Leader left. I went back to shutting off alarms, but in my mind I was willing ATM to somehow ditch the pirate and find a safe place to hide. The remaining Somalis alternated scanning the horizon with watching us.

  My searches with the leader had taken about twenty minutes. Fifteen minutes after ATM and the Leader left, my radio sputtered to life. “Attention, pirates, atten—”

  I grabbed it and turned the volume down. I turned and looked aft. I could hear Mike Perry talking on the radio. With the alarms going off and their shouting at one another and us, the pirates hadn’t noticed anything. I brought the radio up closer to my ear.

  “—one pirate. Repeat. We have your buddy. We will exchange him for the captain.”

  I gripped the radio and smiled. Damn it, we’d done it. But it was way too early to celebrate. I went back to shutting down alarms. I didn’t want a confrontation yet. I wanted to keep things slow.

  After thirty minutes, the pirates started getting fidgety.

  Tall Guy came into the bridge and pointed his gun at me. “Hey. Where is he? Where is this guy?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m here with you.”

  “Get the guy,” he said.

  I pointed to the radio. “Lot of interference. Too much metal in this ship.”

  He frowned, but he went back up to the bridge wing.

  Fifteen minutes passed. Then another thirty. I could see the pirates shooting glances to one another and hear them asking questions in Somali. Tall Guy shouted over at me.

  “Where are they?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said. “You have to send someone down to look.”

  Musso thought about that.

  “Okay, you go.”

  “I’m tired of walking around. Why don’t you send the big guy?” I said, pointing to Colin.