The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

by David Grann

Each time the Wager went over a wave, Bulkeley felt the ship hurtling on an avalanche of water, cascading into a chasm devoid of light. All he could discern behind him was a looming mountain of water; in front of him nothing but another terrifying mountain. The hull rocked from gunwale to gunwale, tipping so far over that the yards sometimes dipped underwater as the topmen aloft clung spiderlike to the web of ropes.