Pirate - Duncan Falconer [21]
The bulker began to swerve from side to side, as sharply as it could, creating large waves behind it, sending a churning wake towards the pirate boats. From what Stratton could see, the carrier had little or nothing else in the way of physical defences. No water cannon. No barbed wire or fencing. Short of any surprises, the boat looked like easy pickings.
The crack of gunfire could be heard above the thud of the mother craft’s engines. The pirates were in full attack mode.
Stratton, Hopper and Sabarak weren’t the only ones transfixed by the attack. So was their armed guard. Stratton looked at the back of the guy, calculating the possible phases after incapacitating him. He looked at the four or five Somalis on the prow. Guns in hand. The odds were not good enough.
He stood on a pile of fish boxes in order to get a better look at the action.
The bulker leaned steeply over with each desperate turn, its decks empty. No sign of any crew on board. Stratton could imagine them all inside, hatches battened down, locked inside the citadel, hoping desperately that it would be enough to defend against the pirates. No doubt they would also be wishng they had done more defensive preparation before entering the Gulf of Aden. But like wild dogs, the Somalis had a reputation for pressing the attack for as long as there was a chance of succeeding. Stratton had heard of Somali pirates boarding a boat and staying on its deck for more than a day while trying to gain entry to it.
The two longer attack boats each carried five or six men, the others three or four. As Stratton watched, one of the little boats accelerated along the length of the cargo carrier. A bang followed by a rocket with a smoking tail shot from the speedboat and curved over the top of the ship, narrowly missing the bridge and dropping into the sea the other side.
A second speedboat tore up the starboard side and released a rocket of its own. This one struck the bulker’s funnel and exploded like a hand grenade with a sharp crack, leaving a dramatic black scar and indent on the red-painted metal.
A guttural shout went up from the Somalis on board the mother craft followed by a cheer from the others. One of the longer attack craft closed on the rear of the ship, which continued to manoeuvre desperately. But the experienced Somali coxswain mirrored the turns as he got closer to the stern. As he closed the gap to a mere metre from the back of the bulker, one of his boarding team raised a metal ladder a couple of metres long, formed into a large hook shape at the end. The carrier turned again. As it did so it leaned over. The pirate boat bumped the ship and the boarding team heaved the curved end of the ladder over the top rail, where it hooked on firmly. A Somali in back loosed off a burst of rifle fire while another scrambled up the ladder, quickly followed by others.
More shouts from the exultant Somalis on board the mother craft as they watched their comrades create a foothold. Within seconds, every pirate on the speedboat, except for the coxswain, had climbed aboard the cargo ship and was sprinting towards the superstructure.
The next long speedboat closed in for its turn. Stratton could hear the clatter of rifle fire increase as the Somalis already on board took their positions, tugging on doors, scaling exterior ladders and stairways all around the superstructure in an effort to gain entry. As the second boarding team attached its ladder and quickly clambered aboard, a burst shattered several windows on the superstructure. It looked like the Somalis were violently attacking a door with pieces of wood. Firing guns into locks. The cacophony went on. Smoke began to rise from a fire somewhere on board.
After a while, the vessel’s erratic swerving ceased and its speed reduced. The bridge wing doors on one side opened and a couple of the Somalis stepped out, their arms waving.
The cargo ship was theirs. Once again a cheer went up from