The Wager

David Grann The Wager ISBN: 9780385534277, 9780385534260 Kindle / ASIN: B0B6Z4SVTH Genre: Non-fiction Goodreads Rating: Hardcover, 352 pages Published: 2023 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire. On January 28, 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 the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that 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. The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound. 2023 - ePub verification and revisions by zardox Copyright © 2023 by David Grann All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. www.doubleday.com DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. Maps designed by Jeffrey L. Ward Cover painting: Ships in Distress in a Storm, circa 1720–30, by Peter Monamy © Tate, London / Art Resource, NY Cover design by John A. Fontana Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Grann, David, author. Title: The Wager: a tale of shipwreck, mutin,y and murder / David Grann. Description: First edition. | New York: Doubleday, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022028630 (print) | LCCN 2022028631 (ebook) | ISBN 9780385534260 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780385534277 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Wager (Ship) | Shipwrecks—Patagonia (Argentina and Chile) | Shipwreck victims—Patagonia (Argentina and Chile) | Shipwreck victims—Great Britain. | Mutiny—Great Britain. Classification: LCC G530.W25 G73 2023 (print) | LCC G530.W25 (ebook) | DDC 910.9164/1—dc23/eng20221202 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022028630 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022028631 Ebook ISBN 9780385534277 ep_prh_6.1_143280112_c0_r0 FOR KYRA, ZACHARY, AND ELLA Contents Map: The Route of HMS Wager Map: Passage Around Cape Horn Map: Location of Shipwreck Map: First Castaway Party's Escape Route Map: Second Castaway Part's Escape Route Author’s Note Prologue Part One: The Wooden World 1 The First Lieutenant 2 A Gentleman Volunteer 3 The Gunner Part Two: Into the Storm 4 Dead Reckoning 5 The Storm Within the Storm 6 Alone 7 The Gulf of Pain Part Three: Castaways 8 Wreckage 9 The Beast 10 Our New Town 11 Nomads of the Sea 12 The Lord of Mount Misery 13 Extremities 14 Affections of the People 15 The Ark 16 My Mutineers Part Four: Deliverance 17 Byron’s Choice 18 Port of God’s Mercy 19 The Haunting 20 The Day of Our Deliverance Part Five: Judgment 21 A Literary Rebellion 22 The Prize 23 Grub Street Hacks 24 The Docket 25 The Court-Martial 26 The Version That Won Epilogue Illustrations Acknowledgments About the Author Notes Selected Bibliography Index Illustration Credits _143280112_ Author’s Note I must confess that I did not witness the ship strike the rocks or the crew tie up the captain. Nor did I see firsthand the acts of deceit and murder. I have, however, spent years combing through the archival debris: the washed-out logbooks, the moldering correspondence, the half-truthful journals, the surviving records from the troubling court-martial. Most critically, I have studied the accounts published by those who were involved, who not We are the hero of our own story. —MARY McCARTHY Maybe there is a beast….Maybe it’s only us. —WILLIAM GOLDING, LORD OF THE FLIES Prologue The only impartial witness was the sun. For days, it watched as the strange object heaved up and down in the ocean, tossed mercilessly by the wind and the waves. Once or twice the vessel nearly smashed into a reef, which might have ended our story. Yet somehow—whether through