Richard Phillips: A Captain's Duty

“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.