My tour of duty in the Gulf of Aden

Editor's note: China Daily reporter Wang Hui spent four months living side by side with the crew of the Haikou, a destroyer sent to the Gulf of Aden in December last year as part of the PLA Navy's first escort fleet. Here is his story.

"Machine gun! Machine gun!" the captain shouted as the pirates closed in on their prey.

It was early March and nine speed boats, each carrying about five heavily armed men, were heading for a nearby merchant ship. They had ignored warning shots from the Haikou, a Chinese warship charged with escorting vessels through the dangerous waters off the coast of Somalia.