The Unknown Shore

'The Unknown Shore', Patrick O'Brian's second novel about the sea and a worthy ancestor of the Aubrey-Maturin novels, tells the tale of the "Wager", an ill-fated ship on Anson's expedition round the world. Parted from her squadron, the "Wager" is driven on to rocks and sinks off the coast of Chile. The survivors include Jack Byron, a midshipman, and his eccentric protege Toby, an alarmingly naive surgeon's mate with a single-minded devotion to zoology. Faced with a surplus of rum, a disappearing stock of food, and a hard, detested captain, the survivors soon descend into trouble of every kind including drunkenness, mutiny and bloodshed.