Ben Stewart - Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg

Parker has abandoned the east side and a minute later is alongside Hurricane . Sini grabs the rope and clips in.

‘Do you really want to go?’ Frank shouts. ‘You were just in the water – are you okay to climb?’

‘It’s all right, I’m fine. I feel good.’

Frank nods and a second later she pulls and swings out over the water.

‘I’m coming after you,’ she shouts up at Kruso. ‘I’m just behind you!’

Below her the coastguard boat pushes against Parker . A Russian officer grabs Sini’s rope and starts yanking it, swinging her from side to side. She unclips the safety knife from her harness, reaches down and cuts the rope beneath her. The officer stares at the rope falling into the bottom of his boat in a little heap. He pulls a gun. Sini looks down, she can see it. The guy’s pointing the pistol at her and shouting in Russian. Adrenaline surges through her body, her arms wrench her up the rope, as far away from that gun as she can get.

The coastguard boat is ramming Hurricane now. The officers are still eyeing Kieron’s camera; it’s obvious they want to seize it, they’ve already grabbed at it four or five times. Frank makes the call to get Kieron and his footage back to the Sunrise . ‘Kieron, we’re coming to get you!’ Parker swings around so Frank is five metres from Hurricane . Frank shouts, ‘It’s time to go!’ Kieron unclips the camera and throws it over the water. Frank fumbles it but manages to keep hold. ‘That’s great,’ he shouts, ‘but I need you too!’

By now the gap between the boats is about a metre and the waves are washing them up and down in a deep sweep. Kieron screws up his eyes and hurls himself over the water, falling into Parker . Frank slaps him on the back as the driver opens the throttle, the bow lifts and they tear away from the platform and towards the safety of the Arctic Sunrise , leaving the other RHIBs to watch over Sini and Kruso.

Suddenly the climbers are being pummelled with water. It freezes their brains and seizes their limbs. The platform workers are using high-powered jets to spray Arctic water over them. The higher they climb, the more pressured the water is and the harder it is to see or feel or hear anything. Sini is just below Kruso on the rope now, but the water is incessant. Freezing. She pulls out a banner – ‘SAVE THE ARCTIC’ – but it attracts multiple direct jets and disappears in a riot of spray.

They each have a VHF radio plugged into their ears. Anthony, still below them, is looking up, gripping his own radio, convinced they have to get out of there. He shouts, ‘Just get back down, get back down quickly!’ But the climbers can’t hear him, they’re being hosed in the head. Even things that are attached to them are flying off in the torrent of water.

Sini can feel Kruso shaking. She’s known him for more than a week, long enough to know he’s not scared, that this is early hypothermia. Then bang bang bang . Gunshots. The guards in the RHIBs are firing over the side into the sea a metre from the Greenpeace boats. The activists are hit by the splash from the bullets. Anthony grabs the radio and cries, ‘Shots fired! Abort abort, move away.’

Above them the climbers are trying to descend, but because Sini cut the line when the coastguard was swinging it, the rope now doesn’t reach the water. They have to attach a new line to the rope they’re hanging off, all the time under the cascade of freezing water from the platform workers above them. Eventually Sini descends far enough for the Russians to forcibly grab her and pull her into their boat, and a minute later Kruso’s next to her.

The Greenpeace RHIBs are bobbing in the water a hundred metres away. Suddenly a coastguard officer pulls a gun and fires over their heads. Anthony shouts, ‘Go go go!’ and the boats swing around as two more shots are fired. ‘We need to go, we need to go!’ And the activists’ RHIBs rip out into the sea.

A few minutes later they’re piling into the hold of the Sunrise , pulling off their helmets, unzipping their drysuits.

‘Fucking hell, did you see those guns? It was crazy out there.’

‘What the hell just happened?’

‘Did they shoot at you? I thought I saw them shoot.’

‘What happened to Kruso? Is Sini okay? We saw her fall in.’

‘They came down. They’re safe. We stayed out there till they were down.’

Sini and Kruso are taken to the Ladoga and marched onto the deck. It’s swarming with armed men. Kruso is ordered to kneel, hands behind his back. Sini falls down and hugs his shaking body. She holds him as tightly as she can. A soldier reaches down and pulls at her drysuit; she holds Kruso even tighter but the soldier wrenches her away.

Sini is marched across the deck and pushed into the mess room. She waits to be reunited with Kruso but soon realises they’ve taken him to another part of the ship. A guard brings her two big blankets and offers her a cup of tea. As she sips from the mug she listens to the ship’s internal radio on a speaker and hears the captain of the Ladoga issuing commands to his crew. She can’t understand what he’s saying, but she can tell he’s angry.

On the bridge of the Arctic Sunrise Dima has the radio receiver at his mouth. ‘You have illegally detained two members of our crew. We demand that you return them to us immediately.’

‘Heave to and take on board our inspection team.’

‘We have absolutely no reason to let you on board. We’re in international waters, you have no jurisdiction here.’

‘You are in Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.’

‘Well, that’s right. So if you suspect us of illegal fishing, please let us know. Because that’s the only reason you can legally come on board our ship. Unless you think we’re pirates.’

‘If you do not submit to inspection, we will use all means at our disposal.’

‘You are not allowed on board. We are in international waters.’

‘We will use all means at our disposal, including warning shots at your vessel.’

Dima looks at Pete Willcox, the captain of the Arctic Sunrise .

‘Warning shots,’ says Pete, shrugging. ‘Okay, let’s see.’

The coastguard vessel is coming closer, and through his binoculars Dima can see the Russians taking the cover off a cannon at the bow of the ship.

‘You will be shot at unless you immediately stop.’

‘Officer,’ says Dima, ‘I want you to think very carefully about what you have just said to me.’

In the mess room on the Ladoga , Sini has been listening to the increasingly demonic shouting on the internal radio. Suddenly there’s a bang and the ship shakes. Her tea sloshes in the mug and the surface breaks with ripples. On the Arctic Sunrise the activists see the muzzle flash, there’s a burst of smoke and a thud overhead.

‘Shit!’ cries Dima. ‘They’re actually shooting!’

The Russian coastguard keeps up the barrage, firing three shots into the sea beyond the Sunrise then demanding the activists take on an inspection party. The firing sounds like distant drum beats and each shot is accompanied by a little puff of smoke from the barrel of the cannon. Three more shots, another warning, then more shots – live shells that explode in the distance. Then around lunchtime, it ends. Silence. All afternoon they wait nervously for the firing to start again. But nothing. As the low Arctic sun dips below the horizon, the crew stand on deck and stare at the Lagoda. Somewhere on that ship their friends are being held.

Alex Harris retreats to her cabin, sits at a laptop and writes an email to her family back home in Devon. She’s a 27-year-old British climate change activist who’s lived in Australia for four years. Her parents knew she was sailing to the Arctic, but no more than that.