I was Chief Officer aboard this tanker and had to order the crew to round up the girls and send them back ashore, but the agent’s boat had left, and we had no option but to wait for the customs and immigration boats to collect the girls and take them home to Salvador. Being early morning, the authorities would not arrive until officer hours later in the day, so were greeted by a crowd cheering young ladies, who had been aboard for several hours and had been entertained by our enthusiastic crew. Some of them were already drunk and provide a lively sceptical for the boarding authorities, whilst I negotiated their safe passage back to the city on the Immigration and Customs launch. Not a good start to our stay in port, but as we were to remain at anchor for the next few days, there was no point in detaining the ship and we just received a stern warning for having illegal visitors aboard and the threat of big fines. A few of the girls had been gathering information about the ship’s layout and the likelihood of there being money and valuables aboard, which they passed on to a criminal gang ashore, so at 02:00 on the Sunday morning we were targeted by this criminal gang, which we refer to as Pirates. They boarded the ship with ropes and grapples and swarmed into the accommodation, where they surprised the few crew members on duty. Four of the Pirates reached the Bridge and assaulted the duty officer and his watchmen, before proceeding down the main inside stairs to the crew’s sleeping area and the machinery space. The duty officer had the presence of mind to activate the fire alarm when he saw the pirates coming aboard armed with guns and knives. I was asleep in my cabin and on hearing the fire alarm rushed to my fire station in the central hall of the accommodation, but encountered the pirates coming down the stairs, with the duty officer and watchman tied up and bleeding profusely from head wounds. In confusion I challenged the pirates, demanding that they release their captives immediately. This was the wrong move, and I had a knife thrust at my stomach. I grabbed the blade of the knife and the pirate twisted it about, cutting my fingers to the bone and causing a spray of my blood to cover them. I was thrown to the floor and saw that a gun was aimed at my head. Just at that moment the duty engineer emerged from the engine room door and distracted the gunman, who shot him in the head. Pirates outside heard the pirates inside shooting and assumed we were resisting with our own arms, so swarmed into the accommodation, shooting at shadows and everything that moved. In the chaos I was freed and ran to a nearby washroom and locked myself in, where I bound my bleeding hand with a towel to stop the blood spraying from my partially severed fingers. Ten minutes later all was quiet outside the washroom, so I ventured out to see what was happening. All the crew who had not locked themselves in their cabins were ties up on the poop deck with one of the pirates guarding them. I turned tail and ran back to the stairs to check up on the captain, who had the safe and payroll money for the crew. The captain was being forced to open the combination safe but was shaking with fear and could not set the combination correctly and was being beaten by one of the hornet like pirates. His cabin was being torn apart and his mattress split open by other pirates, searching for money and valuables. On seeing this scary sight, I ran out of the master’s cabin and headed up for the bridge, followed by one of the pirates, who fortunately took the stairs downward in his pursuit. I managed to get the crew on the bridge to let me in and I started to send May Day messages on the VHF radio to summon help. The Brazilian navy responded that they did not work at weekends and the police said they would come, but they did not have a boat. The pirate, seeing that the alarm had been raised, fled from the ship with their loot and 12,000 US dollars from the safe. I saw their boat leaving and a crewman and myself fired pyrotechnics into their craft. These were parachute flares, which must have caused the pirates some serious inconvenience, but did not prevent their escape. It was some twelve hours later that the police and our agent arrived aboard in response to our call for help, by which time I had lost a large amount of blood and had fainted. I was rushed to hospital, where an American trained surgeon stitched my fingers back in place, after finding and reconnecting the cut tendons and nerves in my hand. It was a long operation, and I was told that the surgeon had done a brilliant job and saved my hand and fingers. I am eternally grateful to him, though I had to stay in Oddstock hospital in Salisbury for three months waiting for my hand to recover and learning to use my fingers again. In the Hospital, the hand injury and burn patients were tasked with caring for the stroke and head injury victims, who were almost completely helpless as they recovered from their strokes. This was a wonderful way to help and assist people and I would have volunteered to do this even if I had not been seriously injured. It was very rewarding and very much appreciated by this group of wonderful people.
The Eagle eventually had all the injured crew attended to and was able to proceed to Aratu, to load chemicals for the USA. The authorities made a big fuss about the pirate attack, but never found the criminal gang who came aboard and robbed the ship. It was our theory, that some of the pirates were actually off duty policemen, who treated the piracy operation as a training exercise. Our agent, Marifaldo, who normally wore several items of gold jewellery, had come out to the ship without any jewellery, so we assumed he had been aware that the ship would be attacked, despite his loud denials.
John Swain
CANDLE LIGHTING SERVICE
On Sunday 11th December at 2.00 p.m. a special service will be held for those who have lost children and siblings. A reflective service with candle lighting and thumb print tree. Names of loved ones will be read out and tea, coffee and friendship offered to all.
CHRISTMAS CARDS
Do look out for the Christmas Card board if you wish to send just one card to your church family and friends
BIBLE STUDY GROUPS
During December there will be a break in the Wednesday Bible teaching groups. Details of new studies and courses will be announced in Lifeline before January.
WARM SPACE IN THE MINSTER
This continues this Thursday and throughout the winter months. Anyone is welcome, drinks served during the morning and afternoon and soup and a roll at lunchtime.
