At the shipyard
that built
HMS Agamemnon – the 64-gun warship
that became Horatio Nelson’s favorite – a tarp-covered
yacht arrives in
December 2009. Her shroud protects her from prying eyes,
allowing her
to retain
her anonymity. Lynn Rival is the
first British yacht to succumb to a pirate attack in the
Indian Ocean.
Rachel and Paul Chandler are
heading to their next port of call, Tanzania, when armed
men board
their yacht
in the wee hours of the morning on 23 October 2009.
Questions race
through
Rachel’s mind when she realizes they are Somali pirates.
How did they get here, so far
from Somalia,
so close
to the Seychelles?
Why are the
warships not
stopping them?
What is the
Seychelles
coastguard doing with all the
new resources they are supposed to be deploying?
Why weren’t we
warned when
we left Port Victoria? (17)
But what can she and her
husband do? They are an English couple, enjoying their
retirement as
they sail
around the world. Rather than risk their lives, they
surrender. Unlike
many of
the seamen who endure such captivity until the shipping
company
negotiates and
pays an acceptable ransom demand, the Chandlers are taken
from their
yacht into
Somalia. What follows is the harrowing account of their
ordeal, from
the moment
the pirates approach, through the many months of captivity
until after
their
release thirteen months later.
They also discuss the lengthy
and aggravating negotiation process. The pirates expect a
high ransom,
but the
reality of what they want and get are vastly different.
This causes
additional
problems, as do the intermediaries who negotiate on the
pirates’ behalf
and the
Chandlers’ family, which must raise the ransom. Even then,
there’s no
guarantee
that the sum will arrive or that the hostages will be
released.
The book includes a glossary
of Somali/English words, deck plans for the Lynn
Rival, maps and diagrams, photographs, a “Behind the
scenes”
section, a
postscript entitled “2001: The ex-hostage learning curve”,
and a list
of
organizations and areas referred to in the book. If there
is any
drawback to
the volume, it is the publisher’s poor choice for the font
chosen to
represent
the diary entries. It is faint and difficult to read
without a
magnifying
glass.
Throughout Hostage,
the Chandlers share how
maintaining a routine, doing simple tasks, allow them to
maintain their
sanity.
The pirates permit them to listen to the radio, and nearly
a year into
their
ordeal, Paul records one poignant sentiment about the
reality of piracy
and how
most people view pirates.
It’s Sunday, 19 September. I
am half
listening to the
World Service and catch ‘. . . International Talk Like
a Pirate Day . .
.’ They
can’t be serious? I listen on. Apparently they are. It
has caught on,
enough to
warrant a five-minute slot on Newshour. The
rolling of ‘r’s is appropriate, but
there’s not much ‘Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum’ or
‘Heave ho, me
hearties’
here. A lighter moment, but how I do wish that the BBC
had taken the
opportunity to add a rider: that modern piracy is no
laughing matter
and that
hundreds of hostages are held captive in appalling
conditions. (334)
Recounted
through individual journal entries,
transcripts of phone conversations, and a joint narrative,
the
Chandlers
provide a vivid, terrifying portrayal of what they endured
and of the
pirates
who imprisoned them. Their diaries show the disparity
between how the
pirates
treated and acted with Paul versus Rachel, and how they
reacted to each
other’s
interactions with the pirates following the two periods of
separation
that the
Chandlers experienced. Nothing is sugar-coated here, and
the rawness of
hope, humiliation,
anger, terror, despair, and frustration seep into readers’
pores until
we
experience only a minute fraction of what this couple
endured.
Pirates
and Privateers
