Byron briefly finds solace in a stray Kawésqar dog, but deepening winter and shrinking rations drive men to seize and eat it. Captain Cheap cuts allowances further as food vanishes, while Bulkeley records brutal weather and starvation. Mitchell’s seceders range armed, and a forager is found stabbed on Mount Misery, heightening terror.

Dissent builds against Cheap. Marine captain Robert Pemberton asserts separate authority over his soldiers, enthroned in his hut beneath a tattered flag. Byron withdraws to a solitary hut, while Bulkeley thrives amid scarcity, trading salvaged goods, caching arms, and drawing followers; Pemberton confides disdain for Cheap and Lieutenant Baynes to Bulkeley.

Persistent thefts from the store tent threaten survival. Cheap orders officers and marines to stand night watches. Byron captures a thief inside the tent. Soon after, purser Thomas Harvey seizes marine Rowland Crusset laden with flour and beef; Crusset’s messmate, Thomas Smith, is arrested as an accomplice.

Cheap convenes courts-martial to uphold the Articles of War. The accused are found guilty; the offense “did not touch life,” so each receives six hundred lashes in three installments. At Bulkeley’s urging, Cheap adds banishment to a nearby islet. The company witnesses savage floggings before the bleeding men are marooned with minimal means.

The punishments do not halt plunder. More brandy and flour disappear; nine marines are implicated, five flee to the seceders, and four are flogged and exiled. After another thief is whipped, Byron escorts him to the islet, secretly builds him a hut and fire, then later finds him dead. Cheap’s terror regime cannot overcome famine, and anarchy deepens.