A Captain's Duty

government official decides to inspect your ship (that is, until you pay him a bribe) or a stowaway comes crawling up your line.
    I was in the middle of this housekeeping when ATM, the Pakistani-born AB, interrupted us.
    “Boat approaching, three point one miles out, astern.”
    Shane and I swiveled to look out. There it was, a white skiff, approaching at twenty knots, at least. It looked like one of the boats that had chased us yesterday, maybe twelve meters long, with a powerful outboard engine. I could see his wake, white in the turquoise water. With the haze, visibility was down to three to four miles so ATM had gotten on it as quickly as I could have hoped.
    I looked at the water. The winds had dropped down since yesterday, and the seas were calm. We weren’t going to get lucky again. We were in a race with a much faster boat and the waves weren’t going to stop them today.
    “Mate, find out where the bosun has his people.”
    Most of the crew would have been in their beds or just getting up and beginning their morning routine. But I knew thatthe bosun was working somewhere on the ship with a team and I wanted everyone accounted for.
    “He’s on the bow,” Shane said.
    “Make sure he knows what’s going on in case he has to pull his men in,” I said.
    “Got it.”
    “Course?” I called out.
    “Two hundred thirty.”
    “Set a course for one hundred eighty,” I said.
    “One hundred eighty.”
    The quartermaster turned the wheel and I looked through the glasses. The fast boat was closing at 2.5 miles. It shifted into our new course.
    There was no question now. These guys weren’t out for tuna. They were coming after us.
    “Call UKMTO right now,” I called.
    I didn’t have time to mess with the Brits. Shane made the call.
    I could hear him answering a barrage of questions: How many people in the boat? How many guns do they have? What color is the boat? What color is the inside of the boat?
    Finally, he hung up.
    “What did they say?”
    “Call back when they’re within a mile.”
    I didn’t have time to ask why. I grabbed a portable radio—it would be in my hand for the coming hours—and checked the radar.
    “Where’s the goddamn mother boat?” We were over three hundred miles off the coast of Somalia. There was no waythese guys had made it this far alone. There had to be a trawler out there with a leader calling the shots. But I couldn’t see it and nothing was showing on the radar. I thought, What if these guys are herding us straight toward the mother ship?
    Shane had gone to the pyrotechnic box and taken out eighteen flares as soon as we spotted the Somalis. He started breaking out flares before heading down toward the main deck to get eyes on the crew. “I’m going down to get ready, I’ll send the third up,” he called out as he dashed off the bridge.
    I knew the chief was up. Mike was an early riser, and right now he’d be sitting on his bunk reading the Good Book. I rang his room and he answered. “We’re in a piracy situation, I need you in the engine room,” I said and jammed the phone back down. I needed his eyes on the engine console as we ramped up speed.
    The boat was two miles away. We were doing 16.8 knots, and they were doing 21. They were chasing us down.
    At one nautical mile, I called to Colin, “Sound the intruder alarm.” He hit the ship’s whistle, long short, long short, long short. Then he ran to the wall and hit the general alarm, same code. That told every man on the ship to head to his muster point immediately. I looked down over the stern and saw the spray from the pirate hoses shooting out water. At one hundred pounds of pressure per square inch, that stream would knock a man down. I called into the radio, “Switch to Channel One.” That was our emergency band. Colin started issuing a succession of orders. “Get the fire pump going, hit the lights, tell the bosun to bring his men in.”
    I pointed to the pyrotechnic box. “Get ready to start shooting those flares,” I called to Colin. “When they get within a mile, fire your first one. Aim directly at them.” He nodded.
    It was 7 a.m. ATM, Colin, and I had the bridge. The crew was mustering to the safe room. The engineers were locking themselves in the engine room. The first and third engineer were making their way to the after steering room. The chief engineer was already in the engine room. With him installed there, he could shut down the engines if he needed to, and the first engineer