A Captain's Duty

only link to the outside world would be cut off. My portable radio from the Maersk Alabama had died by now. Later, the navy told me that all their radios beep like that when the “Talk” button is pressed.
    The pirates were feeling the heat, too. Every few hours, one would open the rear door and jump in the water to get cool. Or they’d take a piss from back there. They let me back to the door that day to do the same. They had at least two guns on me as I stood there. I could see the Bainbridge off in the distance, but the chance for escape was nil. I couldn’t even take a leak. It was like being at the old Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough after having four beers in the first quarter of a football game and four hundred guys are standing behind you, waiting for their turn. Too much pressure. I said, “Forget it, this ain’t going to happen.”
    The mood in the boat was light. The pirates were nonchalant. They felt they still had the upper hand. They had a hostage and they didn’t have to deal with an enormous boat or watch their backs thinking a hidden member of the crew was going to come up and brain them. In fact, I’m sure that pirates will intentionally do this in the future—board a ship, drop the lifeboat, and take the captain and another seaman off the main vessel. It’s an effective strategy, from their point of view. It’s far more manageable to have one or two hostages instead of twenty. I believe it’s only a matter of time before we see the lifeboat strategy put into action off the coast of Somalia.
    I was happy the navy was there, but I didn’t think it changed my situation that much. The pattern that other hostage-takings had followed was clear: pirates take ship, pirates take hostages, pirates bring them to shore, and pirates work out a ransom. Any ship from the French or British or whatever navy that trailed them to Somalia was there only to make sure that the hostages weren’t unloaded and driven to a safe house. Other than that, they kept their distance. They weren’t in the rescue business.
    It didn’t occur to me that the navy would try to intervene. In my mind, I was still alone in a lifeboat in the middle of nowhere and it was going to be up to me to rescue myself. The idea that CNN would be flashing updates on my situation and that the president would be tracking the progress of the negotiations was beyond my imagination.
    The conversation in the boat was mostly banter. The pirates weren’t threatening me—yet. The main topic of conversation was what a bunch of mule-headed sons of bitches I sailed with.
    “That crazy engineer,” one of them would say. “Chief mate, too. What a pain in the ass. What is the matter with them?”
    It was like the engineer had broken some code of the sea that said you must assist pirates in taking over your ship. The other Somalis were cracking up about how the crew had deceived them, but the Leader was genuinely angry.
    “Why did your crew attack me?” the Leader said, accusingly. “They stabbed me!”
    I almost laughed. You take my ship with AK-47s and threaten to kill everyone and you’re offended that someone gashed your hand?
    “Well, you were shooting at them,” I said. “You scared them! What did you expect?”
    As time went on, I showed the pirates where everything was on the boat: the first-aid kit, water, survival equipment, flashlights, food. Eager to see what supplies we had onboard, they started opening plastic bags and tossing the contents out, ruining the stuff they wanted to use and that we might need later. As they tore through the bags, I noticed the Leaderwas holding his injured hand in his other palm and every so often I saw him grimace in pain.
    “Hey,” I said. “Did you clean that wound out?”
    He shook his head.
    “Better do it. If that thing gets infected, it’s going to get nasty.”
    The pirates opened the first-aid kit and started passing bottles and packages around. Obviously, Somalia doesn’t have a first-rate medical system, because they were looking at these medicines like they were Mayan artifacts.
    “What is this? What do you do with this thing?”
    I said, “Give me that.” Musso piled everything back in the box and brought it over to me and I told him what I needed: eyewash, saline water, bandages, and tape. I rolled out a length of bandage and reached in my pocket for my knife. I pulled it out, unclasped the blade, and started cutting lengths and laying them on my knee.
    It had gotten quiet in