On January 28, 1742, a half-destroyed boat, with tattered sails and a broken mast, was washed ashore on the coasts of Brazil. Its passengers were thirty men, almost entirely emaciated. What they recounted seemed unbelievable.

The men belonged to the crew of His Majesty's Ship Wager. The Wager, which had set sail two years earlier from England to carry out a secret mission, was wrecked on a deserted island off the coast of Patagonia. After months on the inhospitable island, those men managed to construct a miserable vessel and cross over 3,000 miles of wild sea. They were welcomed as heroes.

Six months later, another, even more wretched boat was washed ashore on the coasts of Chile. Aboard it were only three men, who recounted a very different story: the thirty sailors who had reached Brazil were not heroes ― they were mutineers.

The ensuing conflict, with mutual accusations of mutiny, betrayal, and murder, forced the Admiralty to order a trial to determine who was telling the truth. The guilty party faced the gallows.

The result of years of research in unpublished archives and sources, as well as on-site verification, The Wager speaks of what humans are capable of in truly extreme conditions: the magnificent and the wretched alike.