It’s 1741 and Great Britain is at war with Spain.  The Admiralty decides to send a fleet of five ships, men-of-war vessels loaded with cannons and manned by as many as 500 seamen, officers, and Royal Marines, to capture the Spanish galleon which twice a year sails from the Phillipines to the East Indies to trade gold and silver from their South American colonies for spices, silk, and other goods.

The Wager, named after a Vice Lord of the Admiralty, is the smallest and least sea-worthy of the fleet and is commanded by David Cheap, elevated from his original post as first lieutenant of the flagship Centurion to command after the death of the Wager’s captain.  Cheap is the central figure of the book which tells the story of what happened after the Wager was shipwrecked on a small island on the Pacific side of the Cape Horn.  By that time, more than half of the crew had succumbed to scurvy, typhus, or starvation and the island offered little in the way of food or shelter.  As time passed and more of the crew died from starvation and eposure, the crew became more and more unhappy with Cheap, and when he shot one of the seamen in cold blood for insubordination, the crew mutinied and followed the armorer, a man named Bulkeley.

When it became clear that there would be no rescue and that staying on Wager Island was a certain death sentence, the remaining crew adapted the remaining long boat for a risky ocean venture.  Cheap decided to sail north to join the fleet and carry out his orders, but Bulkeley broke with him and led a group of 80 men in three rude boats south to sail back through the Straits of Magellan and on to England.  Amazingly, both Cheap and Bulkeley eventually made it back to London where their conflicting tales of The Wager were presented in a court martial proceeding.

In addition to Cheap, Commodore Ansen who led the fleet, and Bulkeley, another individual described in detail is John Byron who shipped out on the Wager as a 16 year old midshipman.  As the younger son in a noble family, Byron faced few prospects so he joined the British Navy at 14.    The grandfather of the famous poet, Lord Byron, he survived the ordeal and eventually became a Vice Admiral.

This is a finely written book about a period in British and maritime history when the dangers of dead reckoning, disease, violent storms, and often hand-to-hand combat made the life of a seaman a near certain nightmare.  It’s impossible to read of the horrors of life for these men without cringing, and  Grann is a master at describing the characters and the events. In addition, he draws broader lessons from these events to make observations about colonizing, military practices, war, and the human condition.  It’s an excellent read.