uninhabited island off the coast of Patagonia . Now the real ordeal began . the shores of Chile , where they were — you guessed it — also captured by the Spanish and held in captivity for two years .
Unfortunately for survivors , this was no island paradise with lagoons and swaying palm trees . There was almost nothing to harvest or hunt , just celery grass that ( unknowing to them ), at least abated their scurvy . Conditions deteriorated fast for the starving men , who began to argue and fight . Sensing he was losing control , the captain began having men beaten and flogged for minor infractions , ultimately shooting a midshipman to death . The men began rallying around gunner John Bulkeley , who exhibited true leadership . As weeks turned into months , the death count mounted . The remaining survivors decided to take their chances on the open seas on a makeshift boat they had crafted — without their captain . Bulkeley and his group somehow made it to the Brazilian coast — where they were captured by the Spanish and held in captivity for two years . Upon release , the 29 survivors eventually made it back to England .
Back on the island , the captain and two others tried their luck with an equally unseaworthy , handmade craft . Setting off in the opposite direction , they eventually washed up on
“ The sobering reality of shipboard life in the age of sail as told through Grann ’ s riveting prose will hit you with the power of a 100-foot wave ...”
Safely home in England , the two groups of survivors would tell vastly different versions of what transpired aboard the Wager — each accusing the other of mutiny , a crime punishable by hanging . But the Admiralty declined to try the castaways , likely due to harming the reputation of the Royal Navy with talk about cannibalism , the incompetence of its officers , or anything that might cast doubt on the civilizing mission of the British Empire .
I ’ m a longtime fan of Patrick O ’ Brian ’ s brilliant Aubrey-Maturin series set during the Napoleonic Wars . But those are fiction . The sobering reality of shipboard life in the age of sail as told through Grann ’ s riveting prose will hit you with the power of a 100-foot wave . The Wager is an instant classic that I believe will be read for years to come . And I ’ ll wager you will think so , too .
You can cruise comfortably and safely along the coastal waters at the southern tip of South America aboard a ship that is nothing like the Wager on The Wilderness Beyond : Patagonia , Tierra del Fuego & the Chilean Fjords .
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Scuttlebutt From the Age of Sail
Grann sprinkles his text with some nautical expressions that were so pervasive during the age of sail that they were quickly adopted on land . To “ toe the line ” is from when young seamen stood at attention for inspection by lining their toes along the seams of the ship ’ s wooden planks . And being “ three sheets to the wind ” comes from a ship whose lines to its sails have snapped , causing the vessel to pitch drunkenly out of control . While waiting for their rations , seamen in the Royal Navy would gather around a water cask — called a
“ scuttlebutt ”— to catch up on the latest gossip . Saying you feel “ under the weather ” is because sailors who became seasick during violent weather conditions would go below decks to the most stable part of the ship . We can thank the greatest officer in the history of the Royal Navy , Lord Horatio Nelson , for my favorite — to “ turn a blind eye .” When the flagship signaled for Nelson ’ s ship to withdraw , he ignored it by placing his spyglass against the eye that had been blinded in an earlier battle — and continued the fight .
John Bregoli has been writing for O . A . T . for 19 years . An avid reader , his favorite literary quote is from Groucho Marx : “ Outside of a dog , a book is man ’ s best friend . Inside of a dog it ’ s too dark to read .”
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