On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon, the Wager was wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The crew, marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2,500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

Then, six months later, another, even more decrepit, craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways and they had a very different story to tell. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. The first group responded with counter-charges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. While stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

My Review

What’s most amazing about this story is that it is true! Five warships leave England in 1742, bound for South Amwerica with the intention of sinking and burning enemy ships along the way. The way, means sailing across the Atlantic and into the Pacific via South America and on to the Philipines. An incredibly difficult feat at the time.

The Wager (the name of one of the shipos and the only one that survives), tells of the disaster that befalls the crews and the struggles they endure to survive shipwreck, mutiny and murder. 250 days after their last sighting they re-appear off the coast of Brazil with only 81 survivors. Then, unbelieveably, six months after that another group of survivors appear with an account that contradicts that of the previous group of survivors.

The book explores the story of their survival, the mutiny and murder that occurs, starvation, scurvy, rescue by Indians and the strength of characters the men must have had in order to survice the hardships they faced. The book culminates in the court case that ensues once the survivors get back to England. It really is an incredible story of human endurance and is really well told.

Will be checking out other books from the author.