A Captain’s Duty

　　理查‧菲利普非常了解航海的危險；
　　他在一封電子郵件中這樣子告訴過妻子。
　　原本，二○○九年四月八日這一天對這位五十三歲的船長來說，
　　就和平常的日子沒有兩樣：
　　他掌管快桅航運阿拉巴馬號貨輪這艘美國籍貨輪，
　　為世界糧食計畫署載運食物與農產品。
　　原本平常的工作一直持續到──
　　航行至非洲之角外海大約兩百英里處的海域──
　　一群扛著AK-47步槍的索馬利亞海盜發動攻擊、強行登上貨輪......

　　但是，這些海盜沒料到船員們會反擊；
　　也沒想到船長會自願擔任人質，以交換貨輪與所有船員的安全。
　　最後，海盜也沒預料到這位有話直說、堅強剛毅的一船之長會變成他們的俘虜。
　　接下來是長達五天的緊張對峙、張力節節高升的意志之戰，
　　最後演變成一場大膽冒險、千鈞一髮的海上救援行動。

　　8th April 2009 was just an ordinary day for 53 -year-old Richard Phillips, captain of the United States-registered cargo vessel, the Maersk Alabama, as it headed towards the port of Mombasa. Ordinary that is until, two hundred or so miles off the east coast of Africa, armed Somali pirates attacked and boarded the freighter. It was the first time an American cargo ship had been hijacked in over 200 years.

　　What the pirates didn't expect was that the crew would fight back, nor did they expect Captain Phillips to offer himself as a hostage in exchange for the safety of his crew - a courageous gesture that resulted in his being held captive on a tiny life-boat off the anarchic, gun-plagued coast of Somalia. And so began a tense five-day stand-off, which ended in a daring high-seas rescue by U.S. Navy SEALs.

　　In A Captain's Duty, Richard Phillips tells his own extraordinary story - that of an ordinary man who did what he saw as his duty and in so doing became a hero. It is a thrilling true tale of adventure and courage in the face of deprivation, death threats and mock executions and also a compulsively readable first-hand account of the terrors of high-seas hostage-taking.


 

作者簡介

理査‧菲利普船長 Richard Philips

　　出生於麻州溫徹斯特，家中有七位兄弟姐妹，父母親都是教 師。一九七九年自麻州海事學院畢業，一九八八年與急診室護士安翠雅‧科吉歐結婚﹐育有一子一女；一九九○年領到船長執照。二○○九年四月擔任快桅阿拉巴馬 號船長，為拯救同船十九位船員，遭索馬利亞武裝海盜劫持，在救生艇上為生存而奮戰五天，並曾一度自行脫逃而遭海盜暴力虐待，最後在歐巴馬總統的授意下，由 美國軍艦和海豹部隊突擊營救成功，並擊斃海盜。

　　菲利普船長維護船員安全並堅強求生的真實故事，迅即感動全球，不但歐巴馬總統親自接見褒揚，並已改編電影，由兩屆奧斯卡影帝湯姆漢克主演。

　 　Born in 1955, Richard Phillips is a graduate of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. He became captain of the MV Maersk Alabama in 2009 and is still a serving officer in the United States' merchant marine. His account of the seizure of the Maersk Alabama and his experiences as a hostage of Somali pirates - A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea - was first published in the USA in 2010. He and his wife have two children and live on a farm in Vermont.