Incident in a Nowhere Place (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine May 2002

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Incident in a Nowhere Place (Cont.)

THE CREW DOESN'T see it that way. Don Robertson and Leon Sefton were angry and contemptuous of Scott's criticisms. Both told me they thought Scott was drunk that night and in no state to judge anything that happened. "He became hysterical," said Robertson, "completely off the rails out of control."

Scott told 60 Minutes that the crew, himself included, had had "quite a bit to drink," although he thought that "concentration on alcohol is irrelevant." Robertson and Sefton both acknowledged that the crew had been drinking. But when I asked them if anyone had been drunk, or if they thought alcohol might have affected the crew's responses, both said no, and provided a most seamanlike reason: They faced an early departure the next morning and a last patch of tricky navigation through the racing shallows of the Amazon before reaching the sea. Blake wasn't inebriated either, Robertson said. "You don't get round the world that many times by making poor judgments," he said.

"Pete was aware of piracy; he knew he had one chance," Sefton said. "You've got to remember we had the two boys aboard, Robin and Charlie, more or less the same age as Pete's daughter. He just did what he felt he had to do. For the rest of my life I'll remember the way he looked charging through the saloon after this guy, holding the rifle, a look on his face of pure outrage. I remember thinking, 'You're a gutsy bastard.'"

Robertson told me he'd spent the better part of a month waking up at night, wondering uselessly and painfully what they might have done differently. "But it all happened so quickly, before any of us had time to think." As for his friend Peter, Robertson thought Blake had made the only move he could. He and the rest of the crew, he said, are untroubled by Blake's decision to confront the pirates.

"Peter must've felt our guys were in extreme danger," Robertson said. "He wasn't about to hang about to see what would happen." It was a sailor's reaction, Robertson believes. "We were never armed, in our opinion. The rifle was something stuck away for the next voyage. If we'd thought we'd needed six armed guards aboard the boat to do the Amazon, we wouldn't have gone there. Peter would have said, 'Let's forget it.'"

Blake's old friend and shipmate Sir Robin Knox-Johnston told me that he understood Blake's actions completely, and that he too would likely have trod the same path to death. "It's no good waiting around, hoping for the best," he said, "and finding your crew all dead half an hour later."

Everywhere Blake's death has been discussed, the debate has revolved around his decision to go for his rifle. Many would have behaved differently, allowed the thieves to take what they wanted in the hope they'd go away with no harm done. Many see Blake's choice as a fatal mistake.

But only Blake could make that choice. He was a man of decisive action, a figure of clearcut grace and stature. What's more, he was the captain of a ship. Captains at sea have always been a law unto themselves; they are responsible for the lives of all aboard. Just as there is no single way to handle a hurricane, there is no rule for piracy. There are only men and their choices.

The captain's intimate friends characterized him as a man of unflinching resolve, one who would tackle trouble head-on. Blake was indeed a leader in the Shackleton mode; in his mind, his responsibility for his crew and his duty to protect them were clear. If there hadn't been a rifle aboard, he would have used something else. His hands, even. Or a bottle of Steinlager.

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