"The Wager" by David Grann

 

A gripping true story of shipwreck and its aftermath set during the 1740s.

In 1740 a squadron of eight Royal Navy ships led by Commodore George Anson set off to attack Spanish shipping during the War of Jenkin's Ear. The plan was to cross the Atlantic, go round Cape Horn into the Pacific, and capture the Spanish treasure ship somewhere near the Philippines. Almost immediately, disease (including scurvy) began to deplete the crew. The seas at Cape Horn were atrocious: two ships turned back. HMS Wager, captained by David Cheap, rounded the Horn but turned north to early and was wrecked off the coast of Chile. The survivors were stuck on a island and began to starve. They began to split into factions. One group, under the command of the gunner, built a boat and sailed through the Straits of Magellan to the coast of Brazil from where they eventually made it back to England. The captain and some officers were rescued by native Americans and some of them also returned, even later, to England. Once back home, accusations of mutiny and counter-accusations of murder were made and best-selling books published to justify points of view.

The rest of Anson's expedition were eventually reduced to a single ship with a skeleton crew; nevertheless, they successfully captured the Spanish treasure galleon and completed the circumnavigation of the globe to return home.

This is not so much a tale of derring do and heroic survival against all odds as a chronicle of what can happen when men are in extremis: there is mutiny and murder, theft of supplies, tyranny and rebellion. It's like a real-life version of William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Above all there is death, repeated death, usually from sickness. The ship had a complement of 120 men when it left England; ten returned (of Anson's command, 188 out of 1854 survived). As with Grann's previous history also set in South America, The Lost City of Z, I wondered why anyone who had any choice would embark on a voyage when death from drowning, exposure, disease, starvation and enemy action were all more likely than survival. 

One of the naval officers was the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron who refers to his grand-dad's exploits in his poetry. In his subsequent career (yes, he went back to sea!) he achieved notoriety as a  commander who always seemed to attract dreadful storms and received the nickname 'Foul Weather Jack'. 

It's a ripping yarn. The history is thoroughly researched and well-explained; the well-written story keeps you reading to the end. I read it in two days.

There was one error I noted. When discussing naval slang, the author repeats the oft-repeated assertion that the phrase 'piping hot' derives from the fact that a pipe was sounded to call the crew to meals. This seems unlikely given that Chaucer uses the phrase in Canterbury Tales, published in the 14th Century, two centuries before Henry VIII founded the Royal Navy. 

Selected quotes:

• "A diplomat later quipped that Anson was so unknowing about the world that he'd been 'round it, but never in it'." (Ch 1)
• "When ailing seamen were shielded belowdecks from the adverse elements outside, they were said to be 'under the weather'" (Ch 3)
• "To keep warm they [the Native American Kawesqar who wore almost no clothing despite the chilly climate] oiled their skin with insulating seal blubber." (Ch 11)

Also by David Grann:

• The Devil and Sherlock Holmes

Links to my reviews of other travel and exploration books may be found by clicking here.

March 2025; 257 pages

• First published in 2023 in the US by Doubleday
• My Simon and Schuster paperback edition was issued in the UK in 2024

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Nelson" by Carola Oman

This is a traditional biography written in 1947 and marred by the unconscious racism of the time. This aside it is a well written narrative which never stops to interrogate its sources and provides a comprehensive account of the life of its hero. It is clear that to this author he is a hero. She is as discreet as possible about Nelson's jettisoning of a wife in favour of the wife of an older man with whom he lived in a menage a trois. She is clearly annoyed that Nelson was never promoted beyond Vice-Admiral of the White.

I realised two things when reading the book. The first was that most of Nelson's life was very boring. He wasn't at sea that much. He spent long periods when he was at sea cruising without seeing any enemy ships. During his long chase after Villeneuve shortly before Trafalgar h never saw French ships and England was saved by an indecisive action with another Captain (who was subsequently court-martialled). Many of the times that Nelson did see action were disasters or, at best, honourable draws. His reputation rests on three battles: the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar. Three days in his life. Each battle was a matter of getting up close to the enemy and then fighting as hard as he could. The getting up close was brave and twice involved going through shallows in which he might have run aground, and was tactically clever (going shore side of the Nile ships and using two lines of attack at Trafalgar) but one cannot avoid thinking that Nelson was really rather lucky.

A lot of lives seem to boil down to one or two magic moments.

Well written but rather long-winded. May 2014; 574 pages

"The Battle of Quiberon Bay 1759" by Nicholas Tracy

Three star: despite the nautical language I really enjoyed this book.

I began life in the little-known town of Sunbury-on-Thames. One of the few historic buildings was Hawke House, where Admiral Sir Edward Hawke had lived and died. I used to drink in the pub opposite, called the Admiral Hawke in his honour. (It had begun life as The Railway although the railway had been built over a mile away due to a last minute diversion; after a hundred years of having the wrong name in the wrong place it changed title; I wonder if it still exists?)

Quiberon Bay is a battle that, like Hawke and like Sunbury, deserves to be better known. It was the culmination of the 'Year of Victories' in which the English, led by William Pitt the Elder, with their allies Prussia, comprehensively defeated the French on land and particularly sea during the Seven Years War. 1759 led directly to the establishment of Canada and to the British Raj in India; the Seven Years War saw the establishment of British Sea Power and the first stirrings of the British Empire. And Quiberon Bay was the equivalent of Trafalgar, a do-or-die battle that prevented a French invasion by decisively smashing the French fleet.

Tracy tells this story well. Despite the fact that I really don't understand most of the nautical terms. I can just about construct some sort of, possibly inaccurate, picture from "dropped her best bower anchor, and rounded to in twelve fathoms" but I get confused with leeward, starboard and windward. I am not even certain whether a 'westerly' wind blows towards or away from the west! As for , or 'haul his wind', "line of bearing and wedge" and "warping" ships, I can guess but I guess my guesses are probably wrong.

It might as well be French to me. So Tracy throws in the occasional passage of untranslated French. This, as readers of my blog will know, is a particular 'bete noire' (black beast) for me. Writers are supposed to communicate with their readers. So don't use jargon or, worse, foreign languages without translations!

I can forgive the naval terms. Most of Tracy's readership will be fans of naval history and will understand the sailing expressions. But a glossary would certainly help the general reader.

Having said this, I really enjoyed this book. He writes well so that the bulk of the book which explains the context to the battle and the political aftermath fairly zips along. He opened my eyes to difficulties I had never really considered before. For example, you need speed to either escape from or catch up with your enemy. Besides ship design and sails and seamanship to deploy the right amount of sails for the right winds, your hull needs to be clean or barnacles (this was just before copper sheathing of hulls made they stayed clean longer). Clean hulls equal fast ships. So Hawke was obliged to rotate his ships back to dock for regular cleaning. This, together with the vagaries of poor weather, the difficulty of provision supply, and the fact that Plymouth was not yet a major and Portsmouth was too far away, made his blockade of Brest all but impossible. He was remarkable in that he kept it up for so long. Perhaps the British Empire was founded on Hawke's ability to defeat the barnacle!

One little quibble. I think that on page 32 Professor Tracy meant Robert Walpole, British Prime Minister, rather than Horace (his son who was only 9 at the time and probably incapable of sending a fleet to the West Indies).

Hawke should be better known! January 2014; 189 pages

"The Admiral Benbow" by Sam Willis

The Admiral Benbow is the name of the pub owned by Jim Hawkins and his mother where Billy Bones comes to stay before being found by Blind Pew in Treasure Island. John Benbow was also a naval legend.

Born around 1652 during the Commonwealth, there is little of certainty about John Benbow's early life. He may have worked on merchant boats on the Severn. He certainly saw some service in the Navy, fighting the corsairs of Algiers and defending the English colony of Tangiers (with Bombay, part of the dowry of Charles II's queen) becoming a skilled pilot. He may have been on of the unnamed pilots who guided William of Orange's invasion fleet through the Straits of Dover to land at Torbay at the start of the last successful naval invasion of England. Certainly his first patron, under whom he had served in the Navy, was Admiral Herbert who carried the letter signed by the seven conspirators inviting William to England.

Benbow's subsequent career was as a fighting captain who aggressively raided the French coast in 1693 and 1694 during the Nine Years' War before the Treaty of Ryswick of . He was also a skilled manager of both the Chatham dockyard and subsequently the Deptford dockyard. While at Deptford he leased John Evelyn's house at Sayes Court for three years during which period he was persuaded to sub-let it to Czar Peter the Great of Russia who was studying British dockyards as part of his grand tour of Europe. Also at this time Benbow was fast-tracked to become an Elder Brethren of Trinity House and served on the committee overseeing the construction of the great Naval Hospital at Greenwich by Christopher Wren; Newton was also on the committee and the bricks were supplied by factory owner Daniel Foe who later became famous for writing the great maritime romance of Robinson Crusoe.

Later he was sent on a reconnoitring voyage of the inadequately charted West Indies. On the outbound voyage he escorted Edmund Halley  who was himself mapping magnetic variations. Whilst cruising the Caribbean he searched for pirate Captain Kidd who was subsequently apprehended in New York and negotiated with the colonists of the doomed Scottish colony of Darien which bankrupted that country, forcing it into union with England so the Bank of England would pay their debts. (Strange how history repeats itself differently; the Scots banks have now again done their best to bankrupt England and they want their independence on the back of it!). Finally Benbow received mortal injuries in the first naval engagement of the Anglo-French War of Spanish Succession whilst his captains mutinied. The subsequent court martial became the first naval trial to be published in the newspapers, appearing a few months after the launch of the first English language regular newspaper the Daily Courant.

This was a rattling good yarn despite the frankly speculative nature of Benbow's early life and presents the story of a consummate sailor who was one of the first of a great tradition. It also mentions Hawke House in Sunbury-on-Thames!

March 2012; 318 pages