Los Náufragos del Wager / The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

On January 28, 1742, a rickety boat with patched wood and sails washed ashore in Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive and with an extraordinary story to tell. They were the survivors of the Wager, His Majesty the King's British ship, which departed England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war against Spain. While pursuing a Spanish galleon laden with treasure, known as 'the prize of all the ocean, ' the Wager was wrecked on a deserted island off the coast of Patagonia. After months marooned and facing starvation, they built the flimsy craft and sailed for over one hundred days, crossing 2,500 miles of stormy seas. They were greeted as heroes. But then... six months later, another boat, even more decrepit, washed ashore in Chile. This boat held only three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who reached Brazil were not heroes... but mutineers. The first group responded by striking back in their own way against the tyrannical and homicidal captain and his henchmen. It became clear that, while stranded on the island, the crew had descended into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominance of this inhospitable land. As accusations of treason and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court-martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were lives: whoever the court found guilty could end up hanging"--