Set in 1740, this is the story of the treacherous journey of six English warships, the Wager among them, with the secret mission of capturing Spanish silver and gold near the tip of South America. While rounding Cape Horn, and battling an outbreak of scurvy, the weather
…more conditions turned atrocious, and the Wager became separated from the rest of the squadron. Shipwrecked on a desolated island, the surviving crew struggles against the elements, splitting into two groups: one that mutinied against their Captain, David Cheap, and a smaller group that remained loyal to him. Five months after the shipwreck, self-elected Captain Bulkeley and his mutinous group of 80 members set off in a schooner, losing and abandoning more than half of its crew on their on their way to Brazil, eventually arriving back in England at the beginning of 1943.
Here their troubles continued, as the survivors made it back with conflicting stories, knowing that they were guilty of some crime or another that would earn them the death sentence. To justify his actions, John Bulkeley even published his story based on his personal log as a way of justifying their actions. Five and a half years after setting out from England, Captain Cheap arrived back in England along with two of his loyal men, ready to defend his honor. In an attempt to determine the truth, the English admirals start a trial to investigate these contradicting versions of the truth, and a way to contain the catastrophic results and costs of this expedition.
Based on personal and detailed diaries of the captains and seamen, this book has elements of true crime and history. It gives you a true sense of daily life on a ship, the crowded conditions, the dangerous work, deaths due to typhoid fever and scurvy, the starvation when supplies run low, and what struggling to survive in an inhospitable land does to your psyche, all described in chilling detail. (less)
