We all take risks. Only some of us are punished

James Moriarty, Hannibal Lecter, Silas Lynch, Simon Legree, Iago, Iscariot, Schettino… pity Francesco Schettino:
 all but doomed by his name alone. What a great name for an alleged villain. The skipper of the Costa Concordia, the cruise liner now wrecked off a Tuscan island whose name sounds like a typographical tweaking of ‘gigolo’, presents an Anglo-Saxon media in search of cliché with an embarrassment of riches.

The disaster happened because (it’s claimed) Schettino was ‘attempting a “sail-by” salute to impress the islanders and passengers’. Tut tut. He fled his ship ahead of 100 passengers and crew. Boo hiss. He was ‘friendly with a Moldovan hostess’ who has helped the headlines by ‘denying’ she was having an affair with him. Tee hee. He tripped and ‘fell into’ a lifeboat before he had intended to leave his stricken ship. Yeah right. He was planning to return to the vessel. Pull the other one. The rocks he ploughed into ‘were in the wrong place’. Ho ho.

Every British comic stereotype of the Italian male is on display in these reported claims: bravado, incompetence, lechery, cowardice, denial. The Schettino portrayed plays into the role of a panto Italian villain. Notice how often his Christian name and honorific ‘Captain’ get dropped in reports, and he’s simply Schettino. Even Hitler was accorded his ‘Mr’ for some time by a more respectful British media. But, like ‘Mussolini’, ‘Schettino’ sounds wickedest unadorned.

All harmless fun, you may say, and I cannot disagree. Despite the enormous tragedy of lives lost, and the commercial disaster too, an undercurrent both of hilarity and of a rather sneering kind of censure has been present almost from the start. And perhaps that adds to the gaiety of nations.

But spare a thought for Francesco Schettino. Do you remember those dreams we’ve surely all had in which we’ve been involved in the most appalling disaster — our little brother’s murdered/we’ve crashed the car/we’ve lied and let down people we love/Dad’s on his deathbed — and one wakes up, pillow wet with tears; and opens one’s eyes with the horror still lying heavy on one’s mind; and the sun’s shining behind the bedroom curtains and — Oh, thank God for that: it was only a dream?

There will have been a dawn last week when Captain Schettino awoke from a heavy sleep, and, just for a moment, didn’t recall. And then it all came back. Foolish risk — taken so many times before, without incident. Friday 13th. Awful noise. Rocks tearing into the hull. Ship keeling. Blackout. Total mayhem. Everything a blur. Ended up on shore with screaming passengers still on board. Funked going back. God knows how many passengers and crew drowned. Ship a total loss. Career over. Talk of an affair with the Moldovan woman. Lifelong ignominy ahead. International media baying for blood  and — Oh Lord, it wasn’t a dream. It’s just happened. And it was me.

Even for serial killers, even for child-abusers, even for psychopaths, I’ve felt a twinge of sympathy as I try to imagine their morning-after horror. Yet there’s a great chasm between their misdeeds and Schettino’s, and it’s worth reminding ourselves of it. If he did attempt this sail-by, it was to give pleasure to passengers and islanders. He never meant to hurt anyone; there was never the least unkindness in his actions. I doubt he even thought what he was doing was reckless: you don’t plot a course thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll hit some rocks — but who cares?’ You think, ‘I’ve done this so many times before, without mishap; the risk (if there is one) is miniscule.’ Schettino simply blundered. Blunders can have dreadful consequences but they are a million miles morally from acts of ill-intention or even of wanton carelessness.

And there’s a second consideration I invite you to entertain. Though in retrospect the calculation Captain Schettino (or somebody else) made or overlooked was manifestly wrong, was the balance as he saw it between risk and benefit necessarily wrong? How many times in your life or mine have we taken a slight risk for a benefit we could in truth have done without — and got away with it? How many overtaking manoeuvres at the wheel, how many speed limits flouted because we were in a rush, how many metaphorical hands off the handlebars to tip our hat to a young lady, how many did-or-didn’t-I-put-the-fireguard-round-the-hearth — oh never mind, a stray spark is most unlikely?
How many airline pilots have taken the jet a little off course to show the passengers a natural wonder beneath, incurring a very slight risk? How many times, entrusted with the care of children, have we organised adventurous jaunts that could (but, we thought, almost certainly wouldn’t) have ended in tragedy? How many small risks have we knowingly taken because (a) it might impress; (b) it was fun; or (c) it was good for those in our care to see or try something new? How many short cuts, how many what-the-Hells? How many nothings ventured nothings gained?
When, as from time to time they must, these things do go awry, the censure comes strong and easy. When they don’t (as 99.9 per cent of the time they don’t) the most we expect is a finger-wag, and sometimes an admiring one at that. But what’s the moral difference between the speeding driver who doesn’t hit a child, and the speeding driver who does?

On the night in question, Friday 13 January 2012, there will have been some tens of thousands of ships at sea in the world’s oceans. It’s likely — more than likely: certain — that many hundreds will have been taking navigational risks, either as to course, or weather, or condition of vessel. None of them foundered. Most their skippers will have felt a just a pinch of guilt leavened with a larger measure of satisfaction at another night’s navigation without incident. Schettino was the unlucky one.