For Father’s Day, my son Axel gave me three books.

I had just finished The Magic Maker when, on July 4, I picked up David Grann’s The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.

I could not put it down.

For a week, I sailed with these men. I learned the language of the Age of Sail. I stopped constantly to look up words: gunwale, yawl, squall, gibbet, dead reckoning, pilfer, quell. Then, one morning, I woke up at 3:20 and read until 5:30 to finish the book.

It was gripping. Propulsive. Riveting.

But what stayed with me was not only the shipwreck. It was what the story taught me about leadership, power, and the stories we tell about ourselves.

A Short Story of The Wager

In 1740, during Britain’s war with Spain, Commodore George Anson led a squadron from Portsmouth on a secret imperial mission. One objective was to pursue Spanish interests and eventually capture a treasure galleon.

Among the ships was the Wager, commanded by Captain David Cheap.

After a brutal passage around Cape Horn, the Wager became separated from the squadron and wrecked off the coast of Patagonia. Its surviving crew became castaways.

Hunger, disease, cold, and desperation followed.

So there was a crisis of leadership.

Captain Cheap still had the title of captain. But John Bulkeley and other men began to question his judgment and authority. Eventually, the conflict became a mutiny.

The survivors split.

Those who lived eventually had to return to England, where another battle awaited them: Who would tell the story first?

Before the Shipwreck, There Was Power

One detail struck me before the men even reached the sea.

Britain needed sailors. Armed press gangs seized seamen, watermen, bargemen, fishermen, and others and forced them into service.

The state had a mission.

The state needed men.

And other men were sent to take them.

As a Haitian, I could not read this without thinking about Haiti today.

I am not saying that eighteenth-century British press gangs and armed gangs in Haiti are the same. They are not.

But history teaches us to examine the relationship between power and organized violence.

Who benefits?

Who provides the means?

Who gains when ordinary people are afraid?

Sometimes power does not commit violence with its own hands.

Sometimes it finds other hands.

A Title Does Not Guarantee Followers

The shipwreck also made me think deeply about leadership.

George Anson commanded the squadron. David Cheap commanded the Wager. John Bulkeley emerged as a leader among the men who rebelled against Cheap.

Different men. Different leadership.

When the ship disappeared, the structure of authority began to disappear with it.

Cheap had the title.

But a title cannot force desperate men to trust your judgment.

Under extreme conditions, leadership is stripped naked.

People begin asking a very simple question:

If I follow you, will I survive?

That question stayed with me.

Who Tells the Story?

Mary McCarthy wrote that we are the heroes of our own stories.

The survivors of the Wager understood this.

Cheap had his story.

Bulkeley had his.

Others had theirs.

They published accounts. They defended their decisions. They accused one another. They knew that when they returned to England, they could face court-martial.

The word mutineer itself could depend on who controlled the narrative.

One man’s mutiny was another man’s rebellion.

One man’s rebellion was another man’s fight for survival.

I spent more than thirty years in journalism, television, and radio. Today, I work in courtrooms, where I listen to competing stories almost every day.

The Wager reminded me of something important:

If you do not tell your story, someone else may tell it for you.

And in their version, you may not be the hero.

I finished The Wager at 5:30 that morning.

But I was not finished thinking about it.

Because another question remained:

What happens to civilized people when survival becomes the only objective?

That is my next story.