A chilling note in my family history mentions Captain John Fraser, who met his end off the coast of Holy Isle, Scotland, in the winter of 1863, simply stating he "died at sea."

Captain Fraser was my great-great-great-grandfather. Given that Fraser is a prevalent surname in Scotland and family records do not specify his ship, I can only theorize about the circumstances of his demise.

Since Great Britain was not engaged in war at that time, it’s unlikely he fell victim to an enemy attack. The proximity of Holy Isle to Glasgow suggests he probably didn’t succumb to diseases like scurvy, which often plague sailors after extended voyages. Did he fall overboard and drown, or did he succumb to the icy waters? Was he the victim of mutiny? Did his crew face shipwreck on Holy Isle or a nearby uninhabited isle?

While reading The Wager, a nonfiction bestseller by David Grann that is being adapted into a film by Martin Scorsese starring Leonardo DiCaprio, I realized my imagination had barely scratched the surface.

Grann's maritime thriller catalogs the terrifying possibilities that could have confronted a mariner such as my ancestor: ferocious winds capable of breaking bones, towering waves dwarfing even the tallest masts, and a lost tiller rendering a ship uncontrollable.

However, The Wager is not solely a suspenseful narrative about maritime disaster and survival. Grann elevates the well-known saga of the HMS Wager, a man-of-war that met its end on a desolate island off the coast of Chile on May 14, 1741, during the harsh Patagonian winter.

The Wager departed England nine months prior under the command of Captain George Anson, seeking a treasure-laden Spanish galleon in the Pacific during the oddly named War of Jenkins' Ear—a conflict ignited by the reported mutilation of a Welsh captain’s ear by Spaniards, prompting Britain to seek retribution.

The notion that such a trivial incident could ignite a war between empires seems unbelievable, yet Grann’s narrative becomes even more extraordinary.

Historically, children learned that significant stories revolve around three core conflicts: “man against man, man against nature, or man against himself.” The Wager encapsulates all three.

This comprehensive approach distinguishes Grann's account from works like Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm, which primarily focuses on “man against nature.” In certain respects, The Wager shares more in common with William Golding’s satirical Lord of the Flies, which illustrates a descent into chaos among British schoolboys stranded on an island.

Yet, The Wager is anything but a satire. Calamities began long before the ship left Plymouth, England, without any comprehension of longitude—a peril eloquently described by Dava Sobel in Longitude.

Due to a lack of sufficient able-bodied sailors for the mission, the Admiralty resorted to forcibly enlisting the elderly, the unfit, or those unwilling: “effectively, kidnapping them,” as Grann notes.

At sea, the crew faced epidemics of typhus and the madness brought on by scurvy, which a medical professional likened to “the complete collapse of the soul.” Both afflictions were rampant by the time the squadron reached Cape Horn, forcing sailors to perform the grim task of burying their comrades at sea. Grann writes:

> “Traditionally, a body buried at sea was wrapped in a hammock, accompanied by at least one cannonball. (To ensure the individual was deceased, the final thread was often sewn through the nose.) The stiffened body was placed on a plank with a Union Jack draped over it, giving it a less morbid appearance.”

The Wager became separated from its squadron, and when a storm shattered it, the survivors found themselves on a desolate island off present-day Chile. The worst was yet to come.

Kind indigenous people, the Kawésqar, soon arrived by canoe, offering the castaways sea urchins for sustenance and trading for other goods. However, the Kawésqar retreated, deterred by the British crew's inappropriate behavior, which may have included attempts to seduce their women.

> “Confronted with starvation and frigid conditions, they constructed a makeshift outpost and attempted to restore naval order,” Grann recounts. “But as their circumstances worsened, the officers and crew of the Wager—those so-called champions of the Enlightenment—plunged into a Hobbesian state of depravity, marked by factional violence, pillaging, betrayal, and even murder. Some resorted to cannibalism.”

Facing starvation and little hope for rescue, some survivors directed their anger towards their captain, David Cheap, a Scot determined to fulfill the Admiralty's directive to locate the coveted Spanish galleon. Others, weary of the ordeal, yearned to return home.

Cheap incited a mutiny on the island when he shot a midshipman who attempted to voice his crew's concerns, an act perceived by his men as cold-blooded murder.

> “On that island, it transformed into a laboratory, testing human nature under extreme conditions,” Grann aptly remarked to the New York Times. “This tale illustrates the disintegration of a floating civilization.”

After their mate's death, some of the marooned men embarked on a desperate journey to Brazil in smaller boats salvaged from the wreck of the Wager.

The fleeing crew, ostensibly led by an officer, Lt. Robert Baynes, were incited by an enraged gunner, John Bulkeley. Those who remained faced such grim realities that Cheap eventually escaped with his teenage shipmate John Byron, whose grandson would later become a renowned poet.

Miraculously, thirty survivors from one group reached Brazil, while three others made it to Chile, both in poorly constructed boats. However, the conflicting accounts led the Admiralty to convene a court-martial to ascertain the truth.

Both factions attempted to support their claims with worn and water-damaged logbooks, which Grann skillfully analyzes in The Wager, revealing their potentially self-serving narratives. The court-martial yielded no clear conclusions, and barring a few exceptions—most notably John Byron—the men largely vanished from the public eye thereafter.

Nevertheless, The Wager remains captivating despite the lack of clear resolution typical of disaster stories and legal dramas.

Grann emphasizes the broader implications of the men's disputes: the contrasts between sanity and madness, indigenous peoples and outsiders, and the ideals of empires versus those they govern. He adheres to historical facts without attempting to connect the dynamics of the Wager insurrection to contemporary events like the January 6 Capitol riot.

Yet, parallels are available for those who seek them. The central theme of the Wager disaster is that, as Grann observes: “Just as individuals mold their narratives to serve their interests—altering, omitting, embellishing—so do nations.” In the tangled and conflicting accounts of the Wager disaster, he argues, the British Empire ultimately discovered “its mythic tale of the sea.”

Whether Britain and the world have gleaned wisdom from that tale—or whether similar myths continue to unfold—is a different question. So is whether individuals like my great-great-great-grandfather drew inspiration from those legends to venture into the sea.

Janice Harayda is an acclaimed journalist and critic with experience at Glamour, as Ohio’s largest newspaper’s book critic, and as a vice president of the National Book Critics Circle. Her work has been featured in numerous prestigious publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, and Salon.

You may also enjoy another of my stories about a calamity in the Pacific:

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