“It looks like it. We only now picked them up on the radar, but it seems they may be closing the gap.”
“So, do we call it in now?” John asked the captain.
Craig pulled down the binos and handed them back. He knew the captain had to make a decision. If they really were pirates, then they needed to report it. If they weren’t, then crying wolf could have some repercussions.
The captain seemed lost in thought. Craig did resent the fact that Todd was captain and he wasn’t. Todd was younger, and Craig had been with the line longer. But in this case, he was glad he wasn’t making the decision.
“An hour ago, there was another distress call from a Liberian-flagged freighter up near the straits. So before we start pulling assets, let’s make sure about this. Mr. Weiss, let’s change course and see what they do. Come to 240 and hold it steady.”
“Aye, Captain,” came the heavily accented reply.
A ship the size of the Wilmington could not turn on a dime. Even after the new course was put in, it took awhile for the huge ship to begin its ponderous turn. Rolf came back to the bridge wing and joined the others as they watched their wake and the two boats in it. At first, it seemed as if the boats would continue along their previous course. Craig felt a sense of relief wash over him.
That relief turned to icy fingers of apprehension when suddenly the two boats veered to the right, back on an intercept course. It seemed as if they were going to have company after all. To make matters worse, by changing the Wilmington’s course, the distance between them and their pursuers was cut.
“I guess that answers that,” John remarked to no one in particular.
A blossom of anger bloomed within Craig. This was his last trip, and he was damned if he was going to be held in some little Somali hut while negotiations went on about how much was going to be paid to release them all.
“Mr. Murphy, I want you to get the crew together. They’ll be going into the panic room. You, a helmsman, and I will stay on the bridge until the last moment, then join the others if it looks like they’re coming aboard. Mr. Harris, I want you to take charge of the panic room until I get there. I don’t want any panic, though, among the crew. If they get aboard, they get aboard. No heroics. We just do what we’re told until the insurance company secures our release. Understand?”
They all nodded. Craig understood that their standing orders were to do nothing in the way of defense. That stuck in his craw, but the insurance companies had their reasons, he guessed.
He passed word on the PA for everyone to gather in the galley, then made his way back down. When the trailing boats changed course to intercept them, he had felt a tremor of fear. That fear was mostly subsumed, though, to be replaced by anger. He couldn’t believe this was happening on his last voyage. And while he knew pirates had taken some pretty big ships, it was still hard for him to imagine the Wilmington being boarded and captured by men out in little skiffs. The Wilmington had a crew of 19, so how could a few jumped-up fishermen take them down?
Most of the crew had gathered in the galley by the time he arrived. They knew something was up, but the looks on their faces reflected curiosity more than anything else. The last person to arrive was the Chief. Craig would have liked to be able to pull him aside beforehand and brief him, but there was no changing that now.
“Can I have your attention please?” he asked, waiting for everyone to quiet down. “We have a situation here. It looks like we are the target of a pirate attack . . .” He had to stop as the crew broke out into rumblings. New regulations allowed for more non-citizens to crew US-flagged ships, and the bulk of the Wilmington’s able and ordinary seaman were Filipino, both naturalized US and Philippines citizens, and while all could nominally speak English, a few seemed to need the others to repeat what Craig had said, but in Tagalog.
“Quiet, please! Quiet down! There is no need for panic here. If they do come aboard, we just need to wait it out.”
“But Sir Craig, what if they come to kill us?” asked Ting, one of the ordinary seaman, fear evident in his voice.
Craig never knew why the Filipinos tended to call him “Sir Craig” and John “Sir John.” He asked a few and never got much of an answer. They called the captain “Captain,” and the Chief “the Chief,” but while the other few nationalities aboard called him Mr. Murphy or even “Chief Mate,” with the Filipinos, it was almost always “Sir Craig,” with the “sir” sounding more like “ser.”
“They won’t kill us. How can they get any money from the insurance company if they did that?”
“They’ve done that before,” someone else interjected, with others nodding in agreement.
“And that’s why the captain’s ordered everyone into the panic room. And remember, most of the time, the pirates never even get aboard. We’re a big ship with a real high freeboard. I’ve seen the two pirate boats. They look like crap, like the first decent wave is going to break them apart.”
“Then why are we going to the panic room?” asked Rio, one of their few Indonesian crew members.
“It’s just a safety precaution. If they do manage to get on board, there’s no way they can get into that compartment. We’ll just need to wait it out for rescue or worst case basis, until our ransom gets paid. Look, we can discuss this more later, but for now, I want everyone to move down to the panic room. If these guys never get on board, then no harm. no foul, right?”
As the crew started slowly moving out, he grabbed the Chief Engineer. “Can you kinda take over in there? The captain’s staying on the bridge for now, but the panic room’s sorta in your scope of responsibility, right? I mean, once the captain has given the order to go there.”
“Well, I’m not so sure about that. The captain’s got full authority over safety, but sure, I’ll handle things until he gets down there,” replied the Chief, the only man on board with more time at sea than Craig.
Craig shook his hand and hurried back up to the bridge. The captain and Rolf Weiss were on the bridge wing, so after nodding to Randolf, who was still on the helm, he went out to join them.
He was surprised to see how close the two boats were. He didn’t need the binos to see the men inside each one, looking up at them. The Wilmington was supposed to be a pretty fast ship, but the little skiffs sure didn’t have a problem closing the gap between them.
“Everyone’s on the move towards the panic room now. The Chief’s in charge down there now.”
The captain frowned. He and the Chief didn’t really get along that well. Part of that was the shipping line’s policy of both of their scopes of responsibility, something a bit more muddled than in most shipping lines. Part of it probably was the age difference. The Chief was older and had many more years afloat. And part of it just might have been personality differences.
“What’d the CTF say?” asked Craig.
“They didn’t,” was the simple reply.
“They didn’t? But that’s what the CTF’s for, right?”
Bong Benedicto had been watching and listening to the interchange. Now he turned away from the two men.
“I haven’t contacted them yet,” the captain replied, voice calm but firm.
“Uh, Todd, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got two pirate skiffs about ready to crawl up our ass. Don’t you think we should let the Combined Task Force know about it? You know, in case we might need some help?” Craig’s rising anger was evident in the note of sarcasm as he spoke.
“Mr. Murphy,” the captain told him, the emphasis on the formal salutation indicating his displeasure at Craig’s breach of decorum, “if you bothered to read up on our policies, you would know that we report to corporate. They’ll contact the CTF if they deem fit.”
“’If they deem fit?’ What the hell? They’re not out here. It’s our ass on the line, not theirs.” Craig was getting rather excited.
“Remember the Fedor Varaksin?” was the captain’s response.
The mention of the Russian ship stopped Craig’s blossoming tir
ade. Three years before, the Fedor Varaksin had been carrying relief supplies for Ethiopia when 12 Somali pirates took her. The Russian frigate Yaroslav Mudryy responded, and after the pirates would not stop, the frigate fired on the rudder, crippling the cargo ship. There was a tense 6-hour standoff with the pirates parading crew members in view of the frigate, hands tied and rifles aimed at their heads.
The Russians stormed the ship, and in the firefight, 12 of the 18 Russian crewmen were killed. The official reports were that the pirates killed the hostages, but the underground rumor was that at least 10 of them had been killed by Russian weapons.
Underground rumors also held that only five pirates were killed in the actual firefight. The rest surrendered. But where all versions of what happened converged was that shortly after the ship was secured, perhaps within 30 minutes, all 12 pirates were dead and their bodies thrown overboard.
In addition to the loss of life amongst the crew, the Fedor Varaksin was heavily damaged and had to be towed to the Kherson Shipyard in the Ukraine for lengthy and costly repairs. As far as Craig knew, it hadn’t even been put back out to sea yet.
“Corporate wants to find out just what CTF ships are in the area before putting out a distress call. I think you can agree that however effective some navies might be in re-taking ships, as crew on this ship, maybe someone other than the Russians or Chinese might be in our best interests. We’ll be safe in the panic room until the right rescue effort can be mounted.”
Despite his frustration, Craig had to admit that made sense. He wasn’t sure whether corporate was more concerned about the crew or the damage the ship might receive, but either way, the crew was at risk.
That didn’t make it any easier to take, though. He looked back at their wake, and the two boats were only two or three tenths or so in back of them. They looked pretty small back there, and the Wilmington was a pretty big ship. It wouldn’t be easy for them to make it up to the deck. He wondered if there was anything they could do to make it a bit harder for them, maybe enough to tip the balance. A germ of an idea began to form.
“And with that, I think you and Mr. Weiss here need to get below. I will follow in a few moments along with Mr. Fenix.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Craig responded, getting back into a more formal mode of address. He and Rolf made their way below. Just as they came to the ladder leading to the panic room, Craig stopped.
“Hey, I’ve got to check on something right quick. You go ahead.”
Rolf gave a non-committal grunt and continued on.
Craig reversed direction and made his way out onto the deck at the stern of the ship. He needed to get to the one of the high-pressure fire hoses.
“Can I help you, Sir Craig?” came a voice from in back of him.
Craig jumped, heart in this throat. He spun around to see Able Seaman Benedicto behind him.
“You scared the shit out of me!” he gushed out. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, Sir Craig, I wanted to see what I might do to keep the pirates off this ship. I don’t want to go be a hostage for months. Irish, my wife, she’s going to have a baby soon, our first. And I want to be there when our baby comes, when we do the christening. I don’t want to sit there in Somalia.”
He looked at Craig expectantly.
“But they might not even take the ship. And even if they do, corporate will get us out.”
“No offense, Sir Craig, but the line is not as dedicated to get the crew out as quickly as you Americans.”
Craig wanted to protest, but he couldn’t. An American shipping line, or British, or whatever, tended to act with more vigor to rescue their own countrymen than the crews, which were usually Filipino, Indonesians, or the like. It wasn’t that they were expendable, per se, but the priority was for the home country officers first.
“Well, Bong, I don’t know what we can do. I just wanted to go aft and see if maybe one of our fire hoses could be of use.”
“I was thinking the same thing, Sir Craig.”
Together, they made their way to the stern. There were two fire hoses available, one on either side of the big orange rescue boat which perched on the sled, and without rhyme or reason, Craig chose the port hose. He peeked over the side. The two boats were pretty close. All the men were armed, and Craig wondered if he was doing the right thing. He glanced back at the bridge wing, but the captain had left it. He was probably down below already.
Craig took the hose nozzle off the rack and started to get in position when Bong reached over and took it from him.
“No disrespect, but when have you used a hose last? I think I should aim, and you turn it on.”
Craig had to agree. As an Able Seaman, Bong had more recent experience in using a hose. Like all ships, the Wilmington conducted the required weekly fire drills, but as the Chief Mate, Craig never handled the equipment himself. He went to the lever that would open the flow of water.
By now, the boats had split up, each heading up a different side of the Wilmington. Craig could tell that they had been spotted, but no one fired. That emboldened him a bit.
“OK, Bong, I think they’re almost in range. Let me know when you want the water.”
Bong waited a few more moments before calling out “Now!”
Craig shoved over the lever, then rushed to look over the side. It was a long way down, and the vertical distance and the forward motion of the ship worked to dissipate the force of the water. But it was still powerful enough to knock the pirates from their squatting positions. One man almost went overboard.
As the boat swerved away, Craig rushed to the starboard side to see if he could get at the second skiff. In the intervening seconds, however, that boat had made it past the stern, and it was now protected by the bulk of the ship. He ran back to Bong, but the second skiff had skirted the reach of the hose and was also coming in to hug the ship’s side.
He wasn’t sure just what he could do. He knew he should get down to the panic room, but he felt that he had to do something. He couldn’t just give the ship up that easily to friggin’ beat-up skiffs.
Leaving Bong, he started running up the length of the ship. Perhaps “running” was too generous a phrase. Shipboard life wasn’t conducive to a strict exercise regimen, and Craig was getting on in years as well as in girth. So “hurried” might have been a more accurate term to describe his efforts to get forward. He was breathing heavily by the time he made it all the way to where the pirate boat was matching them.
He had only been there a moment when a grappling hook came flying up over the rail. It was pulled back until the hook caught. Craig hesitantly approached it, then looked over the side. Below him, one of the skiffs paced the big ship. Four faces were looking up, and one man had started to climb the rope.
Craig wondered if he could dislodge the rope. This wasn’t the Middle Ages where he could send pots of boiling oil down upon those besieging the castle. Anything that could be done, he would have to do it as he was. He reached out and pulled on it, but with the man’s weight on it, the rope was too solidly attached. He was about to give up when one man below raised his rifle and fired a volley of rounds.
As far as he could tell, the rounds weren’t close, but he could understand the implicit warning. He jerked himself back, but he did it so suddenly that he fell and smacked his head in the Wilmington’s unforgiving deck. He was stunned for a second. He knew he should hightail it out of there and get down to the panic room, but he needed a moment, and sitting there was the best he could do. And when a rifle muzzle was pointed over the rails, followed by two arms that pulled their attached body up and onto the ship, he knew his chance was gone.
The man pointed the rifle at Craig, yelling something that had no meaning to him. But he understood the rifle. So Craig just stayed put as his head cleared. It wasn’t long before another man clambered aboard. This was a much younger man, barely more than a boy, actually. The first man told him something, then ran off, leaving the boy to watch over him.
&nb
sp; Craig wanted to say something to him, but he wasn’t sure what he could say. The boy didn’t look aggressive, and Craig knew the pirates would not get ransom money if he was killed, but to say he was not scared would be a pretty big lie. He really should have gone with the captain to the panic room.
The boy jumped up, and that startled Craig, too. There was another man coming aboard, this one older and seemingly more confident. Craig wondered if he was the leader. The two spoke for a few moments when yet a fourth man came over the rail and aboard. Craig had counted four men in the skiff, so with four aboard, they were pretty committed. Their skiff had to be out of reach by now.
The fourth man glared at Craig. The guy had a crazy gleam in his eyes. He wasn’t that tall, maybe 5’ 6” or so, and he was small, but with a wiry strength evident. He came up to Craig, looking at him, a smile coming over his face and revealing several missing teeth. He had an old, ancient rifle that Craig recognized as an M14. He pointed it at him, then poke him with the muzzle. Craig had a sudden fear that this man did not care about a ransom, that all he cared about was violence. He felt gorge rise in his throat. He was certain the man would kill him. Without thinking about it, he scooted back, his butt dragging on the deck. But surprisingly, the man just made some comment, laughed, and ran off.
The younger boy stayed, though. He moved a step forward, then put the muzzle of his AK under Craig’s chin, using it to force Craig’s head up.
Was this it? he wondered. Was this how it was going to end?
“Please,” he whimpered, not knowing what to say. He just wanted to live. He wanted to get back home to June.
That seemed to anger the boy. He swung the rifle’s muzzle, smashing Craig against the side of his head.
Craig fell over on his side stunned. The rush of fear tasted like vomit in his mouth. He cowered, afraid to move. Eventually, Craig risked a glance up. The boy was just looking at him, and at least he didn’t seem about ready to explode into violence anymore.
Another man came back for a moment and said something to the boy before rushing back off. The boy looked down at Craig before telling him something. Motioning with his rifle got Craig’s attention, though, and despite his dizziness, he managed to get up.
The Return of the Marines Trilogy Page 30