Confined with a shattered shoulder, Captain David Cheap hears the hull grind on rocks and understands the Wager is lost. Midshipmen John Byron and Campbell report an island nearby. Cheap orders the boats launched and the sick saved, refusing to leave before his men, even as seawater rises.

On deck, John Bulkeley helps lower the lighter boats—the barge, yawl, and cutter—since the longboat is ruined. Amid panic, non-swimmers debate jumping or staying. Purser Thomas Harvey oversees salvaging meager supplies: a little flour, arms, tools, charts and chronicles, a compass, a medicine chest, and a Bible. Discipline collapses as the boatswain, King, carpenter’s mate Mitchell, and others break into liquor and refuse to depart. Bulkeley discovers many official records missing or destroyed.

Byron fails to recover his belongings, then returns with officers to extract Cheap. Assured only the drunken holdouts remain aboard, Cheap relents and is ferried ashore with his sea chest. About 145 survivors gather on a storm-battered beach. Seeking shelter, they find an empty native wigwam, armaments inside heightening fears. Cheap is placed within; most others sleep exposed, and by morning three men are dead from the cold.

Determined to recover the stragglers, Cheap sends Campbell back to the wreck. Campbell finds chaos—drinking, fighting, and corpses—and flees when threatened. Later, cannon signals summon rescue; the renegades arrive ashore wearing officers’ silks plundered from sea chests.

Cheap confronts Boatswain King before the assembled survivors, beating him with a cane and forcing the group, including Mitchell, to strip off the stolen finery. By this public chastisement, Cheap reasserts command, establishing hard-line discipline as the castaways face a perilous fight to survive.