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Part Two: Into the Storm

Part Two: Into the Storm opens with David Cheap’s welcome onto the Wager as its new captain, but much of the crew, which includes John Bulkeley and John Byron, is uneasy about his new leadership role. Over the course of this section, the weather worsens as the book’s narrative follows the journey of the ship from its furious preparation for Cape Horn to a disastrous scurvy outbreak to a shipwreck on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. Along the way, Grann takes care to position the journey of the Wager in a long tradition of seafaring stories and real-life expeditions, pointing out each time the ship passes by a famous location. These literary and historical references also describe the difficulties faced by the Wager by way of comparison and range from Robinson Crusoe, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the works of Herman Melville and Rudyard Kipling, or the real accounts of explorers Ferdinand Magellan and Francis Drake. Meanwhile, tensions begin to stir between Cheap and some of his crew, foreshadowing possible reasons for more dramatic future rifts under increasingly desperate circumstances.

Read about Main Idea #1: The official chain of command does not always reflect natural leadership.

Nothing about the journey of the Wager is easy, which Grann highlights with an explanation of 18th-century navigation methods. Even the basic question of the ship’s location at any given time is nearly impossible to answer. Latitudinal lines provide the only straightforward points of reference, while measures of longitude are woefully inaccurate in the ship’s era. The best method of navigation involves a process called dead reckoning, which is barely more reliable than guesswork. Despite that, by the end of Chapter 4: Dead Reckoning, Cheap has successfully steered the Wager through a sudden and terrible storm around Cape Horn. With this impressive feat, Cheap gains pride in his own abilities and, more importantly, the respect of his new crew. Grann emphasizes that the ship has to operate like a well-oiled machine in order to make the treacherous turn, which shows Cheap’s abilities as a sailor and captain. This early success highlights Cheap’s potential leadership savvy and the crew’s good teamwork. This is a high point of cooperation on the Wager, but Cheap isn’t capable of the humility he needs to understand the value of teamwork.

Read an explanation of a key quote from Chapter 4.

Having survived Cape Horn and the accompanying extreme weather, the Wager must now face an entirely different challenge beginning in Chapter 5: The Storm Within the Storm. A scurvy outbreak kills over 900 of the squadron’s total crew of 2,000 men. Cheap, too, comes down with the illness, though he attributes his symptoms to rheumatism and asthma. Grann credits this to a desire not to be associated with the stigma of scurvy, which hints again not only at Cheap’s arrogance, but also at his fixation with differentiating himself from his crew. While the crew in question is decimated by disease, it also becomes evident that the navigators have gotten their dead reckoning wrong. The fleet has been heading in the wrong direction and is hundreds of miles away from its expected location, yet another dangerous setback.  Repeated emphasis on the struggles of the Wager and its fleet is necessary to show how ill-prepared the squadron was for its assigned mission. Though the men of the squadron’s crew are prepared to die for the honor of their country, their country has very little regard for their sacrifice.

Read answers to eight key questions about The Wager.

As the ship’s travails continue in Chapter 6: Alone, this time at the mercy of immense waves and nonstop wind, Grann spotlights Bulkeley’s journals to reveal the discontent that has been simmering beneath the surface. While Bulkeley complains about most of his superiors, he singles out Cheap for neither consulting with his officers nor listening to their concerns. In contrast, Bulkeley never criticizes Commodore Anson, whose disregard for naval hierarchy allows him to work side by side with his entire crew. With his unconventional, generous leadership, as well as his demonstration of unity with his crew, Anson boosts morale onboard the Centurion in ways that Cheap never considers doing on the Wager. This contrast becomes all the more important as Chapter 6 ends with the Wager separated from the rest of its fleet. Chapter 7: The Gulf of Pain opens with an explicit conflict between Cheap’s dreams of personal glory and the safety and wellbeing of his ship and its crew. Although the Wager is now alone on the open sea, Cheap refuses to turn back or alter his course away from the agreed-upon rendezvous with Anson in Chile. 

Many of Cheap’s officers, including Bulkeley and Lieutenant Baynes, try to dissuade him from this dangerous plan, but Cheap refuses to listen to reason because of his pride and drive for heroism. Even when multiple crew members warn him that the ship is dangerously close to land, he continues stubbornly on. Grann argues that this hardheaded arrogance, which soon leads to the wrecking of the Wager, is representative of the greater British empire that fuels Cheap’s ambition. Part Two of The Wager hints at the centrality of the hubris and brutality characterizing European imperialism as Grann describes the reasons for Patagonia’s name. The explorer Magellan named the area after the allegedly large size of its native inhabitants’ feet, and Grann condemns this dehumanization of non-Europeans, blaming it on the explorers’ belief that “their brutal mission of conquest was somehow righteous and heroic.” In Chapter 7, Cheap leads the Wager to its doom for similar reasons: to maintain the fiction that his own personal story is also one of righteous and heroic conquest. Even as the Wager is dashed on the breakers surrounding what will become Wager Island, Cheap will stubbornly refuse to take the blame, or anyone else’s advice.

Read an in-depth analysis of David Cheap.

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