A Captain's Duty

by Richard Phillips

  I couldn’t make out what the shapes were, but I had an idea. Merchant ships can’t dispose of plastics on the ocean, but the navy can.

  The navy confirmed it. They told the pirates it was just garbage floating away.

  With the Leader gone, the cohesion among the pirates frayed even more. Tall Guy and Musso turned on Young Guy. Maybe it was the stress or the fact that he didn’t seem to be as gung-ho as they were—that had become clear when they were talking with the navy negotiators. Now they started to bully him.

  “What, do you want to go drink a beer like an American? Do you?”

  “No. I’m Somali.”

  “We’re Somali sailors, we work around the clock. We don’t stop. You’re like one of those lazy Americans, drinking beer and going to the movies. You want to go to the movies?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “You go to hell, American. We’re here for the mission.”

  And then they called him a nigger. I was shocked.

  “Do you want to be an American? Are you a nigger?”

  The Young Guy shot back at them in Somali and English. All three of them were seething with anger. And they each had a gun within easy reach.

  I fell asleep for a few hours and woke up with a start. The idiots were still arguing.

  “I feel better now,” I said. “But I want to go swimming.” I did want to hit the ocean again. The memory of that cool water had stayed with me.

  To my astonishment, the Somalis began to untie me. My hands were swollen and painful as they undid the ropes, but relief just flowed through my body. They left a loose tangle of ropes around my feet so I couldn’t run and dive out the hatch.

  “Come on, just let me dive in there,” I said. I just wanted to cool off.

  “No, you’re too weak.”

  “I’ll just jump in and jump out.”

  “Too weak, too ill. Just sleep.”

  Young Guy unraveled a couple of exposure suits and laid them out in the aisle next to me, making a kind of bed for me.

  “Lie down,” he said.

  “I’m not lying down, I’m not doing anything you say. Let me jump in the water.”

  It was a standoff. I’d decided on total opposition. Cooperating hadn’t gotten me anywhere with these thugs.

  The pirates berated me for a few minutes, then they went away and sat in their usual seats.

  I moved my feet, loosening the ropes as much as I could. Young Guy noticed and came down the aisle with his flashlight. The bindings got looser and looser.

  “He’s playing with the ropes.”

  “No, I’m just stretching out.”

  But then, I thought, Enough.

  “I’m out of here, I’m not playing this game anymore.” I kicked the ropes free from my feet and stood up. The pirates’ heads popped up from fore and aft. I walked forward.

  Musso jumped up. “Down, down! You can’t leave.”

  “So shoot me,” I said. “I’ve had enough. I’m out of here.”

  Musso dropped his gun and grabbed me around the waist. I felt Tall Guy come up behind me and grab hold of my leg.

  “I’m sick of this.” I took two steps toward the forward end of the boat.

  BOOOM. A muzzle flash from the front of the boat. I reeled back and sat, landing on the third seat.

  “What are you guys doing?” I shouted.

  Young Guy had shot off a round from the front end of the boat.

  “What’s going on in there? What’s the problem?” The voice was coming from outside and it sounded female.

  The pirates were shouting at one another. “You can’t shoot in here!” “What are you doing?!” “No shoot!”

  “What’s going on? What happened in there?” said the female-sounding voice, sounding urgent.

  “No problem! Mistake!” The voices were coming from everywhere in the gloom of the boat. “Relax, okay, okay!”

  Young Guy, pissed off for being cussed out, was in the cockpit now. Tall Guy was with him.

  “It’s okay,” he was yelling at the woman who was outside the boat. “No problem now! All good.”

  I went to lie down on the makeshift bed. As I turned, I saw Musso and Tall Guy walk up toward the forward hatch. “Mistake, no problem! Okay, okay!” They were raising themselves up as I slid down to the floor.

  I was exhausted. I just wanted to rest.

  All of a sudden, shots rang out. Bangbangbangbangbangbang. It sounded like six or seven in a row. As the noise echoed in the tiny boat, I dove into the row of seats, getting as low as I could. I felt something raining down on my face, jabbing my skin. What now? I thought. What just happened?

  It seemed like the shooting went on for fifteen minutes, but I’m sure it lasted only a few seconds. I felt raw terror and confusion as I burrowed down as far as I could.

  “What are you doing?” I shouted. “What are you guys doing?”

  I thought the pirates were shooting one another, and I was caught in the crossfire. They’d been arguing and it had escalated to gunfire. And now, after days of heat, punishment, and threats, there was complete silence.

  All of a sudden I heard a voice. A male American voice. “Are you okay?” it said.

  I couldn’t understand who was talking.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “But who are you?”

  I looked up. Young Guy’s face was a foot from mine. He’d fallen from his perch in the cockpit and he had dropped to the deck. His eyes were wide open and he was struggling for air.

  “Hu-hu-huuuuuhh.” I watched as he was taking his last breaths. He let out a moan, and I knew he didn’t have long to live.

  Then I saw the outline of a figure in front of me. He was dressed in dark clothes. That’s all that registered. The SEALs told me later they heard a muffled shout after they’d fired on the pirates. They’d thought it was one of the Somalis coming after me. So a SEAL slid down the towrope to the bow and entered the lifeboat.

  The SEAL checked the pirates. They were all dead now.

  “Do you know how to get out of here?” the SEAL shouted.

  I untied the rest of my bindings and stood up. I climbed over a barrier of rope the pirates had tied across the seats. My legs were weak. I staggered to the hatch and started to untie a rope the pirates had tied to secure the hatch from being opened from the outside. I could feel someone on the other side of the door pushing and pulling, trying to force it.

  “Hold on, let me get it open,” I yelled.

  I got the rope free and the door was ripped open. A burly SEAL burst in and pushed me down into the boat. I could see his face hovering above me. Behind him I saw the enormous bulk of the Bainbridge looming above us. I felt like I could reach out and touch it.

  “He’s wounded, he’s wounded,” the SEAL shouted. My face must have been bleeding from the flying debris caused by bullets ripping into the boat.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said.

  I stumbled toward the aft end of the boat and they gunned the engine. There were five navy guys onboard with me and they gave me the thumbs-up. The whole thing had probably taken all of sixty seconds.

  There was another boat buzzing around. The SEALs were yelling to their commanders, “He’s okay. We got him!” A voice crackled on the radio, “Is he injured? Repeat, is he injured?” One of the SEALs radioed back, “Might be injured.”

  “I’m fine,” I called out.

  The launch zoomed toward the Bainbridge. I saw the big ship coming closer and closer and I thought, My God, it’s over. I made it. I’m out of there. I’m alive.

  Andrea was sleeping early Sunday morning when she thought she heard my voice, saying, “Ange, I’m okay. Don’t worry, I’m okay.” She woke up, went into the bathroom, and then got back into bed.

  “Andrea,” said Amber from the other side of the bed. “I just had an epiphany.”

  “What is it?”

  “I really think Rich is going to be all right.”

  “Do you really
think that? Because I was feeling the same thing.”

  She said she knew then that something was going to happen. It was Easter Sunday. Good or bad, Andrea felt that things were coming to a head.

  Amber fell back to sleep, but Andrea couldn’t. She kept thinking, Enough talking. I have to do something. Rich has got to be tired and hot by now. How much longer can he hold on? She wanted to send me some positive energy. But she was 7,500 miles away from her husband—what could she do?

  Then it came to her. When the bishop of Vermont had called on Thursday, he’d graciously asked if there was any way he could help the family. All of a sudden, it seemed urgent to Andrea that she do something on Easter morning. And she knew exactly what it should be.

  A few years ago, we’d gone to a mass out on Cape Cod with my family. The priest had just returned from Africa, where he worked as a missionary. And he talked about his work and how much it meant to him and he went into this homily that we always remembered. He would say, “God is good,” and the response was “All the time.” Then he’d say, “All the time,” and the response was “God is good.” This priest was trying so hard to get a crowd of very proper Catholics in stuffy Hyannis, Massachusetts, to really enter into the spirit of the thing, and it struck us as funny and moving at the same time.

  That became one of our family sayings. We’d be saying good-bye to someone at the airport or we’d be hanging up the phone and one person would say, “God is good” and the other would answer, “All the time.” It was just one of those codes every family has that binds you together. In times of crisis it was a reminder to be thankful for what we had.

  Andrea lay in bed, unable to sleep. The minutes clicked by, 6 a.m., 6:30. She could have kicked herself. She was thinking, Everyone, even the worst Catholic, goes to church on Easter morning. Why didn’t I ask the bishop of Vermont to request all the priests to use that little homily in their masses? I could have had the whole state of Vermont saying it! That image of thousands of people from Burlington to the college kids in Brattleboro to all the sleepy little farming communities repeating those simple words was very powerful to her.

  “I had to do it,” Andrea said.

  She jumped out of bed, ran to Alison, and asked her if she could request that both Father Privé in Morrisville and Father Danielson in Underhill say the homily. Then she went about her morning routine. My mom arrived from Florida—she couldn’t stay away any longer. And my sisters were getting ready to go home to their families.

  Little did Andrea know, Alison called the priest and couldn’t get a hold of him, so she jumped in her car and started driving. The GPS sent her the opposite way and she ended up driving mile after mile in the wrong direction, terribly afraid that she would miss the priest. But she finally turned around and made it to the church and Father Privé said he’d be happy to do it.

  Around 11 a.m., Andrea thought, Where the heck is Alison? She’d been gone for five hours. Right then, her co-worker, Jonathan, walked in and said, “You’ve got to hear this.” And he took his iPhone, hit “Speaker,” and put the phone on the kitchen table. Alison, being Catholic herself, felt the need to stay at the church. And Andrea could hear a mass in progress, and it came to the homily and the priest began to sing, “God is good!” and the people in the church called back, “All the time.” Father Privé had managed to put our family motto into a song. Andrea felt a huge wave of emotion sweep over her.

  She leaned her head against the wall and started to cry. She thought of all those people who didn’t really know me, doing this for our family. Through her tears, she looked up and out the dining room window. It had begun to snow, which is one of my favorite things in the world.

  Andrea felt this was her sign. She turned her face to the wall. And she said to herself, “Oh my God, he’s really going to be okay.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Day 5, 1945 Hours

  I am very pleased that Captain Phillips has been rescued and is safely on board the USS Boxer. His safety has been our principal concern, and I know this is a welcome relief to his family and his crew. I am also very proud of the efforts of the U.S. military and many other departments and agencies who worked tirelessly to secure Captain Phillips’ safe recovery. I share the country’s admiration for the bravery of Captain Phillips and his selfless concern for his crew. His courage is a model for all Americans.

  —President Barack Obama, April 12

  The navy lifted the Zodiac onto the Bainbridge with a davit. I was walking with my hand on the shoulder of the SEAL striding ahead of me. We walked into the back hangar, where navy guys called out, cheering and congratulating me. But it was still very tense—there were corpsmen running back and forth, with headphones and voice sets, obviously checking for more pirates and getting the situation on the lifeboat squared away. I waved and called “Thank you” as I was being led straight to the sick bay, where a medic was waiting.

  Relief just flooded through me. Everything had happened so fast, it seemed like I’d been teleported out of that hellish boat onto this huge ship. The tension began to drain out of my body, slowly.

  Thousands of miles away, Andrea hadn’t heard a thing by Sunday morning. People were still coming and going and calling the house. She said good-bye to my sisters, who had to go back to their families, then went upstairs around 11:30 a.m., hoping to take a nap. Her bedroom was her safe zone, and it was understood that it was off-limits. Thinking she would fall asleep to the TV, Andrea turned to a movie channel and there on the bottom of the screen was a little ticker that said, “Captain Richard Phillips freed.”

  She didn’t believe it. She went flying down the stairs and found Jonathan, screaming, “YOU HAVE TO FIND OUT IF THIS IS TRUE!”

  In the jubilation and the excitement, everyone had forgotten to call my wife. They just assumed someone else had done it. I guess when information is so ubiquitous, you can’t imagine anyone not knowing some important piece of news, especially when they’re married to the central character. So Jonathan had to call Maersk and the Defense Department to get the scoop. Andrea didn’t care—all she needed was to know that I was safe.

  Jonathan got confirmation almost immediately. “I went running through the house shouting the news,” Andrea remembered. “And then I called everyone I knew.” Soon, the house filled with family and close friends.

  Soon Andrea started to see pictures of me on TV. That was when she really knew I was okay—when she could see my face. She became glued to the set, not caring how many times they played the same tape. “I just couldn’t get enough of it,” she told me.

  Around 3 p.m., the phone rang. Her friend Paige answered it. The farmhouse was getting so many media calls that she adopted a tough tone when she said, “Who is this?”

  And I said, “You mean to tell me you don’t recognize my voice?”

  She screamed.

  I could hear Andrea run over to the phone and I heard Paige blurt out, “It’s Richard.” I heard Andrea’s voice saying, “Hello, hello?”

  I did my usual, “Is your husband home?”

  “No,” Andrea said.

  “Good. I’ll be right over.”

  Andrea told me that she had tears in her eyes.

  “I’m just so glad you’re okay,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. And then, “What were you thinking getting into that lifeboat?”

  It was so good to hear her voice. That’s all I needed, just to listen to her. The words hardly mattered. I asked her about the kids and she asked if I was hurt anywhere and if I’d had anything to eat. She went into nurse mode.

  The call was cut off. Andrea told me later that she started flipping out because she finally had her husband back but couldn’t speak to me. Paige called back a bunch of numbers and ended up getting a Navy SEAL onboard the USS Boxer, which was sailing near the Bainbridge. She told him how happy and overwhelmingly grateful they all were, and he said, “Oh ma’am, we’re just doing our job.” She invited him and the other SEALs to Vermont for a home-cooked Italian meal
. It was exactly what Andrea wished she could have said to the SEALs. Paige was crying when she hung up.

  The medic cut off my clothes. For the first time, I could smell myself. On the lifeboat, I hadn’t realized how funky I’d become. I flashed back to the days onboard the Patriot State, the training ship at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. That first summer, some of the other youngies and I had a contest to see who could go the longest without a bath or shower. There was no AC on that ship, so it was like a duel to our death. We called ourselves the Rude Family. I thought, I would have won that competition.

  The medic gave me the okay, and I was taken up to the deck and straight onto a helicopter and flown to the USS Boxer, a big navy assault ship that had arrived after the Bainbridge. Two of the Navy SEALs came with me, still mission-minded and completely focused on what they were doing.

  After I got on the Boxer, I went through another physical exam. I was given some new clothes—a T-shirt, a blue jumpsuit, and a baseball cap. I was then escorted to VIP quarters. A guy came in. “Anything you need?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’d love a beer.”

  The guy nodded. “We can do that.” I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the captain of the Boxer.

  He turned away and just as he began to walk off, I called out, “Hey.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Think I can get two beers?”

  The captain smiled.

  “Yeah, you can have two beers.”

  The guy left and I stripped off my clothes and got ready for a shower. I was brushing my teeth buck naked when the captain returned, with two sailors hauling a huge cooler. It was full of beer.

  “Holy crap,” I said. “How long am I going to be here?”

  They laughed at that, and the captain told me I could make a phone call. He also let me know President Obama wanted to talk to me. I finished my shower, jumped into my clothes, grabbed a beer, and followed the captain.

  The sailors showed me to my room and I just sat on the bunk taking it all in, drinking my first beer. I’m free, I’m alive, I’m safe. It felt unreal. It seemed like I’d been taken from the living hell of that lifeboat to this clean, calm ship in a split second.