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You can make whatever choices you want, you can eat whoever you want, but I'm not going to be part of it. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to what to Carry, what to Burn. I'm your host, Blair Braverman. I'm a writer, an adventurer, and a long distance dog sledder. And today's story is definitely an adventure. You do not need to have heard the last episode, the Wreck of the Grafton, in order to enjoy this one. But I think the stories add to each other a little bit and I'm going to mention that one slightly, so you can totally listen to this as a standalone. But if you want the full experience, go back to episode three. Listen to the Wreck of the Grafton first and I don't think you'll regret it because that story is amazing in its own right. For this episode, like the last one, I don't have a guest. I'm just going to be telling you the story directly. I think what I'll do in the future is a combination, so it'll often be just me, but when there's a story and a guest that I think are a really good fit together, then I'll have them come along. Thank you so much for joining me around the campfire today. Let's jump right in. Our story starts in 1840 in England with a little boy who's the son of a gamekeeper. His name is Robert holding, but everyone calls him Bob. And from the time he's really young, like six years old, he's helping his dad at work. Being a gamekeeper basically means that you're responsible for protecting a private forest. Rich people, especially in England at that time were big hunting enthusiasts. They would own land for hunting. They would keep that land stocked with wildlife. And the gamekeeper had to make sure that no one else hunted there. They would live in the woods and guard against poachers. And so this little boy, Bob, his earliest memories are patrolling the woods with his dad, who is tough as nails. It's early in the morning. They're tromping through the freezing rain and they are just scaring away people who are trying to come in there for food. This involves some scary confrontations. There's at least one guy who Bob's dad sends to prison for poaching. And when he gets out, he runs into Bob's house. Bob's dad fights back and the guy runs away out the door. So it ends up being okay, but it's a terrifying experience and some of these guys are threatening Bob and his siblings too. Being the son of a gamekeeper is kind of a rough life. One night, Bob is in town with his friends and they meet a sailor. And the sailor starts telling them all these wild stories about the places he's been and the. The cultures he's encountered and people he's met. And Bob and his friends are completely entranced. They stay there for hours asking a million questions. And by the end of the evening, Bob's decided, like, this is what he's gonna do. He's gonna see the world. The next day, Bob and his friends pack their backpacks because they're still kids. And they just start walking. They're like, we're gonna see what we see. We're gonna get where we get. They make it a couple miles down the road and then, you know, one of them starts to have mixed feelings and looks back over his shoulder and. And they see that all of their dads have just been walking behind them this entire time, just going for a stroll, seeing where the kids end up, just making sure they're safe. And when the kids legs get tired, their dads carry them home. It's a sweet day. I think it speaks to Bob and his friends having good parents, good dads. And even though he ends up going back home into the woods, Bob is still determined that when the time comes, he's going to really go out into the world. He's going to have adventures at sea. He has a couple other memories that stick with him from childhood too. And I think these are interesting. I'm curious what you notice about them, because there's something that stands out to me. The first memory is that he's playing marbles with the other kids, and a boy takes his marbles and won't return them. And Bob's asking for him back, and the boy says, well, we should fight about it. So they go to a field to have a fight, and the boy picks up like a pretty big rock and chucks it at Bob and it hits him. It hurts. So Bob picks up the same rock and throws it back, but it hits the other kid in the head. And the other kid just drops unconscious. A constable ends up coming and he carries the other boy home. And then he pulls Bob aside and he's like, look, you know, this kid's going to be okay, but you could have killed him. He could have died. I just want you to know that. That's memory one. Memory two is that a man stops by the house and Bob sees a pheasant's tail sticking out of his back pocket. And he's like this guy Poached a pheasant, and he tattles on him, and the guy ends up getting in serious trouble. He gets six months in prison for poaching. The third and final memory is when Bob's a little bit older and he's working at a hotel. He's driving bulls for the innkeepers. And in exchange for this work, his employer is supposed to feed him meals. But they're not. They're just giving him pieces of bread, even though they have other food. And one night he gets into a fight with them about it. He's like, you're not compensating me fairly. This isn't the agreement. And he ends up quitting and walking right out. He leaves the bulls still in their yoke. He's like, this is the owner's responsibility. They can take care of it. And he later learns that one of the bulls went to a water hole and fell in and died because it was stuck in its yoke. And Bob feels horrible about this for a long, long time. We know these stories because Bob wrote them in a journal that his family ended up inheriting. It's not like a memoir he wrote for publication. And what's striking to me about what he remembers from his childhood is that these are all things he regrets. And what he regrets specifically is causing harm to others, even when he didn't mean to. It was never because he set out to hurt someone. He threw a rock at someone who had thrown the same rock at him first. He tattled. Like, who hasn't tattled a million times as a kid? He walked out on a bad boss. These are all stories that someone could tell in a way that's defensive. But instead, Bob is the opposite. He's torn up by the knowledge of having caused harm. It tells us that Bob is someone who's self questioning. He doesn't always feel that he's in the right. And he has a pretty powerful sense of responsibility toward others, which is definitely going to come to play in the rest of this story. Bob gets older, and sure enough, when he's 16, he becomes a sailor. He sets out in the world, and he makes his way to Australia, where he starts doing a bunch of odd jobs. He's like this really small guy, but he's strong and he's in good shape. And he has what he calls a roving disposition. So he'll work in one place for a few months and then another. And he's happiest in the country. He gets claustrophobic in cities, which I totally understand. So he's always trying to get jobs where he's out in nature. When Bob's 23, he makes his way to Melbourne, and he's just sort of poking around, exploring. He checks out the waterfront, and he sees on one of the ships a sailor he knows. He starts waving his arm and calling the guy's name. He's really excited, and the other guy doesn't recognize him at all. So poor Bob is very embarrassed. He's trying to play it off. He walks away. He's distracting himself with other things. And he sees another ship, a really beautiful ship that's brand new. She's called the Invercaud. And there's a sign on the Invercauld saying that they're hiring men to leave tomorrow. They want new sailors. So Bob, you know, he's still trying to walk off his embarrassment, and he. He goes on board and he starts talking, and he's a little worried they won't be interested in him because he left his last ship as a deserter. But luckily, the guys on the Invercald are not asking a lot of questions, and they. They tell Bob he can have the job. And sure enough, they set off. It's kind of a weird trip because the ship is so new, it's so high tech that it doesn't require a lot of active work to sail. So instead of working together, the sailors are basically just rotating through watch positions on the deck. They're not really getting to know each other, and they also have a lot of downtime. The first mate and the captain, whose names are Andrew Smith and Captain Delgarno, are absolutely on a power trip. They hate to see the crew relaxing, so they decide to do something about it. And remember, the ship is brand new. It's sparkling clean. But they decide that all the men have to polish every single inch of it, even though it's about to pick up a shipment of bird guano. Bird poop for fertilizer, which is like the most smelly, disgusting thing they could be carrying. So it makes no sense to be painstakingly polishing a hold that's about to be full of poop. But legally, if the men don't follow orders, they can be locked up and then imprisoned when they get to shore. So they keep doing these tasks that they know are unnecessary, and they're getting more and more and more resentful. And the mood on the ship is getting worse and worse. One night in early May, it's pitch black outside, and a watch on deck calls out that he sees land so all of the men spring into action. They're trying to steer away from this land because they do not want to be heading toward it. But no matter what they do and where they turn the ship, there's just more land emerging from the darkness around them. They look down and they see these dark shapes in the water, which are these rocks that are coming up to within a few feet of the surface. It's incredibly dangerous, and everyone is panicking. And no matter what they do, they just keep seeing more land and more rocks. After two hours of fighting as hard as they can to steer the ship, they finally think that they've made it out into deep water. And they come around a point and the wind hits them sideways. And all of a sudden, they're just drifting broadside toward rocks with these huge waves all around them. People are freaking out. They're sobbing, they're screaming. The water has this unnatural, surreal glow because it's phosphorescent. And Captain Dalgarno just starts giving nonsensical orders, like just saying things that don't make sense at all. And at that moment, the mood shifts. The crew just gives up. There's no sense of teamwork. There's no sense of loyalty. The cook goes and puts on his fanciest suit so that he can die looking nice, like it is every person for themselves. The ship is now sinking. It's split in two. The deck is angled at this incredibly steep slope, and the guys are all clinging to the rigging. One guy, Tom, is screaming again and again that his arm is wrapped in the rope and it's broken. It's tangled. He can't get it out. Bob hears this, and he manages to grab his knife and cut through the rope to save Tom. But by the time he does it, the whole deck is underwater. Only the railing is above the waves. Bob looks around and he realizes that all the other men are gone. And in the next moment, he's hit again by a wave so hard that he loses all sense of up and down. He can't hold onto anything. And the next thing he knows, he's slammed against a rock. The wind is knocked out of him and but he's able to grab onto it and climb up. Bob starts yelling, and he's hearing other guys yelling. He realizes that a number of them have made it onto the shore. They find each other in the darkness, and they huddle up. They're all curled together between these boulders. The waves are still splashing over them. They're soaked. It's freezing cold, and in this way, they barely make it through the night. In the morning, when the sun rises, Bob finally gets to look around. He sees that they're at the bottom of this like ring of cliffs that are extending hundreds of feet straight up. The rocks that they're on are boulders that have been tumbling down from the cliffs. The water is churning, it's full of pieces of wood. And Bob realizes that the invercauld is completely gone. There's nothing left of it at all. There's 19 of them on the shore. So three people are missing. And they start poking around in the rocks just looking for any survivors or any supplies they can find. The cook is like, I have matches. And he pulls a box out of his pocket and starts lighting it and he accidentally sets the whole box on fire and burns all of his matches. But thank goodness someone else has matches too. And they're able to make this tiny little fire out of wet wood. It's just this little flame that they're all huddled around as close as they can. When the tide starts to go out. They see the body of one of their shipmates hanging in some wreckage. But they can't get out there, they can't even tell who it is. Bob is completely overwhelmed. He starts crying and he's ashamed to be crying. He writes in his journal, when I was young, I was always of a tender hearted nature. As if you would need to be tender hearted to cry in this situation, or as if being tender hearted is bad at all. And also remember, these guys on the shore are not friends. They don't trust each other without that companionship. It's kind of like every one of them is there alone. The next two days are just a blur. People are crying and yelling and screaming, they're fighting. They're so close to the waves that there's just constantly salt spray crashing over them. So they're shivering, their clothes are soaking wet, their skin is getting raw from the salt. Some of the guys are trying to find a way up the cliffs, like a route they can climb. And one of them falls and the other ones don't even look for him. They're just like, well, another guy down. Eventually Bob just decides he's going to find his own way up. And the problem is that the boulders are so big that they have these crevices between them, like canyons that he can't get across. So he's climbing around foraging and he finds this 18 foot long narrow plank from the ship and he manages to balance it across one of these canyons to make A bridge, but it's totally terrifying. It's barely wide enough to balance on. It's slippery, it's wobbly, it's. He manages to just hold his breath and make it across. And then he finds another crevice and he has to move the bridge again and cross it again. And in this way, he finally finds a way to climb up the cliffs and onto the island. When he climbs back down to report to the rest of the group, he discovers that the man who fell off a cliff earlier, whose name is Tate, was actually alive the whole time and has now crawled back to the rest of the men and is in a terrible state. He's clearly dying. His bones are broken. He has bruises all over his skin. He has no sense of where he is. He keeps asking for tea and cigarettes. Bob is like, here's my proposal. Somebody needs to stay with Tate. He shouldn't have to die alone. And it can't be me because I need to show you guys how to get up into the cliffs. And I think that most of us should be up there looking for food. One guy volunteers to stay behind with Tate and the others start following Bob up the cliffs. They are terrified to cross the plank bridge, and I don't blame them for a second for that. So they tie their wool scarves end to end and they make this extremely ineffective belay system that would not save anyone if they fell. But at least it's something psychologically. They're attached to some kind of rope. They finally pull themselves over the top of the cliffs and they're on this strange, muddy, rocky plain and they hear footsteps behind them. And it's the guy they left with, Tate. He just was too scared to be left alone. This is one of those moments that I think is so sad because clearly this guy meant well. He volunteered to stay behind, but I think even the fact that he's the only one who volunteered shows that this group is already evolving into a kind of self focused behavior that is affecting their decisions, even on Bob's part. Like, he's definitely trying to help everyone, but as far as we know, he doesn't go back down to help Tate. Meanwhile, up on the cliffs over the next few days, the vibe is completely surreal and chaotic at the same time. The guys are constantly splitting up. There's no central plan or order at all. They start exploring more of the island and there's like these jungles of tussocks, like clumps of grass that are taller than they are, and there's these thickets of dense gnarled trees that are completely bizarre. A survivor of a later shipwreck on that same island described the trees like this. I fear that some of my readers may not believe me, but I assure you I am telling the truth. The forest was so thick that we could not walk through it. We absolutely walked on top of the trees. So thick, so dense and so interwoven were the branches and creepers that although they gave beneath the feet like a spring mattress, we could walk or more often roll over them without falling through. So this island they've landed on is strange. It feels alien. It's foggy and it's rainy and the mountains are black above them. There's bogs everywhere that just suck the men in when they try to get across. Bob and the crew are trying to push through this landscape. They're looking for any kind of food and shelter and people are just dropping. Like the cook who put on his fancy suit so he would die looking good, is now having trouble getting around because he's wearing a fancy suit and he just drops away. The cook's just gone now. It's now May 15th. It's been five days since the shipwreck and none of them have really slept at all. They build, like a shelter out of sticks, but the ground beneath it is really waterlogged and they're just lying on each other like stacked firewood. Whoever's on the bottom, which ends up being the lower ranked members of the crew, including Bob, are just pushed into the cold mud. Even so, Bob is doing better than just about anyone. And partly this is because he has shoes on. A lot of them lost their shoes in the wreck. But it's also psychological because a lot of the guys who have the best clothes and shoes, like Captain Dalgarno and the first mate, are refusing to move. They're just lying on top of this pile of men, not doing anything at all for hour after hour after hour. Bob is disgusted by this. He knows that anyone who's not moving is just waiting to die. And it really bothers him also that they're still bossing each other around based on their rank on the ship. Like, there's this kid, Lansfield, he's 17, he's really likable. But he was the bottom of the barrel on the ship. And now on the island, the other guys are making him do everything for them. They're telling him to fetch them water to try to find berries. This poor kid is walking barefoot. It's now starting to snow. So he's walking barefoot in the snow and they're sending him for water again and again, and then one of these times, he just doesn't come back. It starts to get dark, and Bob goes to look for him, and he finds Lansfield just collapsed in the snow. So he carries Lansfield back, and he is like, something's gotta give. This is not gonna work. He decides to climb back down the cliffs to the wreck and see if anything else has washed up, any other supplies. And he brings a couple of the more vigorous guys with him. On the way down, they find the body of the cook in his fancy suit. And also they find Tate, the guy who is too weak to make the climb. And the ground is so cold and rocky, they're not able to bury them, but they cover them with grass and they. They have a little ceremony. They try to pay their respects down on the shore. Bob finds a couple pieces of meat from the wreck. They're so rotten, he can't even, like, put them on a stick to roast them. They'll just sort of dissolve off of it. He also finds the body of a pig that they had on board. And he starts trying to pull it by its back legs, and the legs just rip off. But they're starving, so they try to eat this rotten pig anyway. And of this experience, Bob later writes, the rest can be imagined. Even now, when I think about it, it gives me the horrors. So probably food poisoning. I'm going to try not to imagine it, but if you want to, go right ahead. The crew has now divided into two groups. There's Bob and five other guys that are down by the wreck looking for supplies. And there's 10 guys with the captain and the first mate way up in the highlands, which is a really weird place to be because it's so exposed they have no protection. But their idea is that they'll be able to see a ship, that if they just wait there passively, they'll see a ship and the ship will come to save them. Meanwhile, Bob's group is being more proactive. They really start hunting for shellfish, limpets and snails. Everything they get, they're dividing equally among them. But they're still starving. And one night, the bosun comes to Bob with a proposal. He's like, bob, I. I think we should draw lots. And Bob's like, excuse me. And the bosun's like, yeah, we'll take some straws or sticks and we'll hide the ends of them. And everyone will pick one. And whoever gets the short one, that's the person we're going to murder. And eat. And the bosun, when he's saying this, he is not hesitating. He is not asking. He is speaking. Like this is a decision he has come to, and Bob's blood just runs cold because he has a feeling that he doesn't really get to say no to this. Like, whoever tries to stop this from happening is going to be the first one killed. Bob's thinking really fast. He is trying to think of any way to talk his way out of this. He's like, okay, okay. He pretends he's okay with it. He says, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I. I see your point there. That seems like a good plan. Let's. Let's talk about it. Let's figure it out. But maybe we can delay it for a moment. Like, there's this bay I've been wanting to check out tomorrow. Do you think you could, like, table the murder plan for one night just in case we find food in this bay? The bosun seems a little sketched out by this. Like, his eyes are narrowing, but he agrees. And they go to bed, and Bob does not sleep for one second. He thinks if the bosun is planning to murder and eat someone, which he literally already is, he's going to go for me first. He's not going to want to draw lots. He knows that I'm the strongest. I'm the only one who could stop him. And without me around, the bosun would be the one in charge. All that night, Bob has one eye open, and his ears are straining for any sound of the bosun moving. But all he can hear are the waves crashing over the rocks and the. The gravel being swept around by the water and everything else is still. In the morning, Bob and the bosun are ostensibly getting ready to check out that little bay. And the biggest guy there, who everyone calls Dutch Peter, comes up and he's like, I'm going with you. But Bob knows that the bosun and Dutch Peter are friends. They've been whispering to each other a lot. He's like, no, I don't trust you. You don't get to come along. The boatswain gets really pissy. He's like, if Peter can't come, I'm not going either. Which totally confirms Bob's suspicions. He's like, oh, hell no. These two guys were plotting to get me alone so they could murder me and eat me. So now Bob knows, like, he has to get out of here. He has to get away from these guys. And he tells the men in his group, you all can do whatever you want. You can make whatever choices you want. You can eat whoever you want, but I'm not going to be part of it. He takes off running with only the belongings on his back. It's just his clothes and his knife and a few matches. That's it. But he's running as fast as he can because he's terrified. He's looking over his shoulder. He knows that the bosun and Peter now have nothing to hide. They're going to stalk him and hunt him and try to eat him. And the only thing he can do is put as much distance as possible between himself and them. Eventually, Bob has to stop running. He's tired, he's sore, he's out of breath. And he realizes he's in a place on the island that he's never been before. He's pushing through tall grass. It's taller than he is, and he's shoving it aside with his arms. And the grass opens up onto a beautiful sandy beach. There's some rocks, some driftwood. It's really idyllic. And lying on the sand are two seals. Obviously, he wants to hunt the seals, but he really hasn't encountered seals ever before, and he doesn't know how to do it. He decides that rather than scare them away, he's just gonna poke around the beach for a while. He's gonna observe them, get to know their habits. The ocean, of course, is very cold, but it's calm here. It's a really sheltered area. So he takes off his shoes and he rolls up his pants and he wades in. He starts finding some limpets he can eat. And while he's foraging, even though he's made it to safety and he's in this really beautiful, calm place, he keeps thinking about the cap and the other men, the men from the other group who are up on the headland. He's worried about them. He hasn't seen them in 12 days, and they were doing really badly 12 days ago. So the more he thinks about them, the more he gets scared that they might really need his help. Bob thinks the best bet would be if he could convince the captain and the first mate and their group of men to come down to this beach. And so he gathers a bunch of limpets and he's stuffing them into his pockets and wrapping them in his shirt. And he thinks if he brings them the limpets, they'll believe him, that this is a good place, that they should follow him and get food. But as he's walking uphill with these pockets full of rattling shells, he's Feeling sicker and sicker, maybe the limpets have made him sick. He starts puking, he has to lie down. And finally he realizes it's not that he's sick to his stomach from the limpets, it's that he's so scared. He doesn't want to walk up and see these men because he's afraid he's going to find just a pile of bodies lying on top of each other. And once he identifies this fear, he's able to sort of step back and breathe through it and stand back up and he starts walking back uphill. Even though his limbs feel like they're hundreds of pounds each, it's so hard to be moving closer to whatever he's going to discover. He makes it up to the headland and he's not hearing anything, he's not hearing voices. But he comes up to the shelter and miraculously, everyone is still alive. The captain, the first mate, even the 17 year old kid Landsfield. They're all there. And they look like they literally haven't move, move since he left. Like they've just been lying down in exactly the same positions for 12 days. They're emaciated, but they're alive. And they see him and they smile. And he starts telling them about this beach he found and how he thinks they'll be able to hunt seals the next day, even though the men are all so weak from weeks without food. They make their way down to the beach and they just start gobbling up limpets. They're so excited. Bob kills a bird with a throwing stick and they roast the bird over the fire. And literally the men are screaming because they're so happy. They start roasting shellfish. They're joking around. It is by far the best day they've had since they got marooned. And also Bob is still experimenting. Like he's wading around in the water and he sees fish and he's like, how am I going to get these fish? I don't have a line or a hook or a net. So he starts trying to hit them with sticks, which you wouldn't think would work very well. Like you can't just carry a stick above the water and just sort of hit a fish with it. But Bob figures out this technique where you hold the stick underwater and then very slowly you move it like an inch away from the fish's head. And then you just bop the fish on the head and that little tap, it's enough to stun the fish long enough for you to grab it. So Bob is now Catching fish, too, that he's bringing on shore, and all the men are eating them. There is no question in anyone's mind that Bob is now the leader of this group. Like, technically, the captain and the first mate are still in charge. But everyone is looking to Bob for decision making. It's obvious that he's the one with the most competence and he's the one keeping them all alive. The men are asking him what they should do, and he's like, what we have to do is find more seals. That's going to be our major source of calories. And so I think we should keep exploring the beach. Interestingly, by the way, he's not really telling them about the other group that he had to escape from, the cannibal group. Like, maybe he doesn't want to give them ideas. Maybe he doesn't want to scare them. Who knows? But they're walking down the beach, and suddenly the first mate, Andrew, who's the tallest, yells that he sees a chimney. They all start running toward it, and sure enough, there's a house. It's completely dilapidated. It's missing walls, but it has a frame and a roof and a fireplace and a kitchen. It's like a slice of heaven that's landed in front of them. Like, this is something that was so clearly built by human hands. The men, of course, do not know this, but it turns out that, like 30 years earlier, there had been a group of 100 people who tried to form a settlement on this island. And this settlement was very unsuccessful. They thought it would be good agriculture, which it was not. The whole project only lasted two years before everyone bailed and sailed home. But for that brief moment, there was a town there. And now the men have found it. And even better, right near the town, Bob sees another seal. And this time he doesn't hold back. He's been watching for a few days, so he runs at it. He manages to kill the seal with a knife, even though he also stabs his own hand in the process. But, like, whatever, suddenly he has a seal. He has that much meat, and they all get to have full bellies. They eat a huge meal of roast seal, and then they fall asleep in the little house tucked under a real roof. Anyone walking into this situation from normal life would be horrified by the conditions, but for these men, it represents such a change in luck. Also, when they're in the house, they see something moving in the grasses, and a cat walks out and approaches them, just like a normal cat. They all think it's so sweet, and they're luring it closer. They're pss, psst, you know, trying to call it over. But it doesn't work because the mate wants to eat it and throws a brick at it. But he misses. The cat has no trouble dodging the brick, but it's just like peace, I'm out of here. And they never see it again. Their situation is way better than before. But Bob still feels like it could be better. Like they got one seal, but there aren't a lot of seals around. So he starts scouting again and he finds a better beach nearby with more seals and more shellfish. He's trying to convince the other guys to come out there, but they do not want to leave the house. They're sort of getting into the same habit here at the house that they were doing back at the shelter. Like they seem to default into this kind of passivity, just sitting and waiting and staring at a fire, which is a pretty natural response to starvation. But it's still an instinct they need to fight if they want to stay alive. Especially because the food they're eating now just isn't enough. They're still starving and they start dying. They start lying down and just not getting back up. At one point they're all sitting cross legged around the fire in the house and the captain comes in and demands that two of the men move aside so he can sit down. And when he tries to move them, he discovers that one of them has just died sitting upright by the fire. Bob is trying so hard to convince them to go hunting with him, but there's only seven of them left and the only ones who will come with him are the first mate and these two guys whose names are Harvey and Fritz. They walk all day along the beach and they manage to find and hunt a seal, which seems like fantastic news. They divide it up into big pieces of meat and they're each carrying these chunks back. But things are getting weird. Like Fritz disappears and they start looking for him and they find him hiding in a bush, kneeling on the ground, eating the seal's raw head like he's a dog. And the other meat he was carrying is missing. He left it behind and they go find it and it's already been eaten by birds. He is so far into starvation that he's behaving illogically. He's doing things that don't make sense, like leaving meat behind. And maybe Harvey is too, because that night they all camp out. They haven't made their way back to the house. It's pretty far away. And during the night Harvey and Fritz get into a fight. And Harvey knocks Fritz out and Fritz dies. And then Harvey starts to eat him. Bob discovers this and starts burying him. And then the first mate and Harvey dig him up and start eating him again. And then Harvey dies anyway. This whole thing is happening really fast, like in a matter of, like, a day. Like someone's dead and someone's trying to eat someone else. And in his journal, Bob describes it very briefly, but he doesn't go into the details. It's just like people are dying. People are trying to eat each other. He's becoming almost immune to these horrors. Like, he's not interested in the details of them. The only details he's interested in are how to care for the people who are still alive. Bob and the mate get back to the house. There's now only four of them. And Bob's like, we're all going to die unless we find somewhere on this island with more food. And the captain and the first mate basically sit down in front of the fire in this little house, and they say, we're officers. We're higher rank. Will you just fetch food and water for us forever? Bob is like, screw that. I'm leaving. You can come with me or not. The captain and the mate, as much as they want to act all important, know that they have no chance without Bob. So they agree to come along. But the last guy, whose name is James, decides to stay behind. And in fact, after they leave, Bob ends up coming back to check on this guy a couple days later. And he's died, too. So Bob makes him sort of a plaque out of a piece of slate. A way to memorialize him and honor him. He writes the guy's name, James, on it, and then Bob leaves and apologies. Now, if you haven't listened to the Wreck of the Grafton episode yet. But James body lies there until it's discovered by some guys from another shipwreck that, it turns out has been trapped on the same island the whole time without the groups knowing about each other. And none of them will realize until the survivors make it back home and read about each other in the newspaper. Can you imagine how much that article would blow your mind? Okay, anyway, sorry. It is very sad. James died. There's only three people left in Bob's group. It's him. It's the captain and the first mate. And by the way, the other group that Bob left that he escaped from, the cannibals. Nobody ever hears from them ever again. Bob doesn't rest for a moment. He is building Fish traps out of seal skin. He's making moccasins. He's hustling. And the captain and the first mate are not helping him at all. Like, one day, Bob is inventing this new way of fishing where he, like, ties seal guts around his ankles and is, like, wading around in the shallow water. And. And then the fish start trying to nibble the seal guts, and he reaches down and grabs them, and the fish are really tiny, but it's working well. He catches 26 of them. And he calls over to the first mate, and he's like, hey, Andrew, can you help me out? I caught 26 little fish, but I keep dropping them. And the first mate yells back at him, you don't get to give me orders. I'm the first mate. In my opinion, Bob has exhibited an extraordinary amount of patience already. But this is too much. They get in a big fight, and they basically have a breakup. Like, Bob goes and he sits on one end of the beach, and the captain and the first mate sit on the other end of the beach, and they don't talk to each other for weeks. But Bob doesn't want them to die. So this whole time, he's bringing them food every day. He's like desert island doordash. Like, he'll just bring him a piece of meat, and then he'll bring him some fish. And every time he puts it in front of them, he tries to shame them. He's like, you guys should have been helping me. He wants them to be embarrassed for not contributing. But the first mate and the captain cannot be shamed. It just doesn't work. They're like, well, you should be bringing us meat. This seems appropriate. There's also getting to be a huge problem with flies at this point in the season because they've been on the island for months now, and it's getting warmer. It's coming towards summer. Whenever Bob has any meat, it is getting maggots almost instantly. He tries smoking the meat, he tries drying it, he tries burying it, but there is nothing he can do. Whenever he gets meat, they have to gorge themselves, because the most efficient way to hold onto calories for later is on your own body. We have very effective bodies that way. The warmer weather is also bringing a bunch of seagulls, which Bob is really happy about because he's alone on his side of the beach. He's all by himself, but now he can sit back and he can watch the seagulls, and it's kind of like they're becoming his friends. He's watching him catch crabs and carry them back to their nests. And just sitting there, getting to watch these birds, it feels like one of the only nice things he's gotten to experience in a very long time. He also notices as these birds start coming in, that there's a little island nearby that's having a lot of birds congregate on it. They're always flying in the sky above. And Bob gets curious. He wonders if maybe there's seal there, maybe there's other food. Bob decides to build a boat to see if he can get out to this island. He ends up making kind of a wooden frame with seal skin wrapped around it. No sooner has he completed this boat than the captain comes over from the other end of the beach, where he's just been reclining and watching the show. And he's like, as the captain on the island, I'm going to christen this boat. Bob is like, are you kidding me? You're kidding me, right? But the captain gives it a name in this sort of fancy ceremony. And in his diaries later, Bob makes a big deal of being like, I actually don't remember what the captain called the boat, which I don't totally believe. I bet he does remember. But I think it's hilarious that he is refusing to acknowledge it or write it down. Bob starts testing at the boat, and he's sort of using it near shore, poking around by the beach. And after he's gotten the hang of things with the boat, he decides he's going to try to get to that island. He thinks it's entirely possible that he's going to die trying to get there, because the island is kind of a ways away, and his boat just might fall apart into pieces. But he decides that if he's gonna die, it'll be sooner or later, and he might as well do it trying to survive. And sure enough, he almost does drown, because as soon as he gets the little boat into the middle of the channel, he gets caught in a tidal current. And the boat starts taking on water faster than he can scoop it out. And as he's rowing furiously, one of the oars snaps in half. So he has to sort of pull paddle with one oar against this current, and he barely makes it back to shore. But when he does, the boat is destroyed. It is clearly not up for going back in the water. He takes the skins off the frame and he gets a new skin and attaches it in a way that he thinks is stronger this time, and he decides to give it another go. This time he is way more careful about the tides. He watches the tides carefully. He waits until they're in a good place and then he rows out to the island, which is about two miles away. He gets there, he pulls up on the rocky shore. He drags the boat up after him so it won't wash away. And the island is covered with rabbits, like literally full of rabbits. There are so many rabbits just hopping around that there are almost no plants on the island. They have eaten every blade of grass. They're all starving because of how many there are. And Bob is able to just walk over and start picking them up and, and he's like, amazing. Great. I'm going to move to Rabbit island. This is a no brainer. So he makes his way back to the captain and the mate and he's like, you guys, I found the most amazing place. And they're excited. They believe him. He gives them rabbits and they're psyched. But the boat he built is not big enough for the three of them. So they decide that they're going to try to build something a little bit bigger. They go back to the settlement in the house and they're gathering all the pieces of wood they can find. And they manage to build a dinghy and also kind of a raft that they can pull behind it because that way they'll be able to bring more of their supplies. This takes a couple weeks and they're working really hard. They're so excited when they're done and the captain and the first mate decide to take it for a spin. They get in the dinghy, they wave to Bob who's just waiting on shore, they row away. And then it gets dark, the sun sets and they still haven't come back. Bob's reassuring himself, he's like, okay, whatever. They probably just found a place to sleep until the next day when the captain and the first mate come back on foot. They come walking up the beach and Bob's like, where's the boat? And the captain and the first mate are like, oh no, we just got caught in some kelp. So we, we left it there, we'll go back for it. Bob is like, did you pull it really high on the beach so the tide wouldn't carry it away? And they're like, yeah, duh, obviously we pulled it high on the beach. And Bob's like, really? Did you really? And they're like, yeah, of course we did. And Bob takes off running and he follows their footprints. He finds the place they left it and the boat is gone. They hadn't Pulled it up the beach and the tide came in and washed it all away. By the way, this accounting of events is from Bob's journal, which he did not publish. But the captain, who did end up publishing an account of his time on the island, described it totally differently. The captain's version is that they built this boat and they took very good care of it. But then at night there was a huge storm and it was so sad. It just somehow carried the boat off the beach and into the water and. And all their supplies were lost. No one could have predicted it. So sad. No one could have imagined. Bob now is unimaginably sick of their bs, but he literally cannot get away from them because he's not willing to leave them to die. So Bob, very exhausted, takes the rest of the planks he can find from the house and builds a new boat painstakingly. And he puts the captain and the mate in the boat and they all row to Rabbit Island. And once they get there, Bob on his own builds them a little house out of sod and wood. And he later says of it very proudly, quote, I believe this was the only house ever built with only one nail, it being the only one we had. Rabbit island is pretty steep. It's just jutting straight out of the water. And once they're settled in, the captain and the mate just hang out in the house. And Bob spends all his time looking for food. He's catching rabbits, obviously, a ton of rabbits. And he's getting better at hunting seals when he gets a chance, which isn't always, but he learns that these seals all have worms in them. So he starts doing this process where he's slowly pulling the live worms out of the seals. And then he uses the seal worms as bait to catch fish and seagulls. There are also these other birds that start coming into roost, and they're called widgeons. They're kind of like a duck, and they have this really high pitched whistling sound. And there's like a million robins that start singing early in the morning. This island is noisy. There is bird noise all the time. And it smells like birds too. There's just bird poop everywhere. Out of the three of them, Bob is the only one taking any responsibility for getting the food. And he is getting increasingly petty. Like one day he and the captain are rowing around in the dinghy and the captain looks over the side and he's like, wow, there's so many fish here. And Bob has been waiting for this moment. He's like, huh? Yeah, I Bet there are. I'm sure I could see them, too, if I weren't always doing all the rowing. But he stops rowing for a moment, and he looks over the edge of the boat, and he looks in the water, and sure enough, there's a lot of fish. And then he looks back at the island to see how far out they are. And the house is on fire. They left the first mate alone for half an hour, and he set the house on fire. So Bob rows back, and Bob stamps out the fire. And then Bob gathers sticks to build a whole new house for his lazy, incompetent companions. And while he's carrying these armloads of sticks, he hears the captain yelling. And he's like, oh, my God, what could it possibly be that you need from me now? And he drops the sticks and starts running back. And as he gets closer, he hears that the captain is yelling, a ship. A ship. Sure enough, there's a ship in the distance. Bob runs back and he grabs the sticks, and they start building up a huge fire. He's pouring seal fat on the flames, and he's piling it up with green plants. So the fire is jumping and crackling and sending up this thick, greasy, black smoke. It smells like burned meat and rancid seal. And they think the ship is gone. But then they hear a gunshot, and they freeze. And finally, in the flickering light on the water, they make out a rowboat coming toward them. They are so scared and excited and tense. And while they're holding their breath for this boat to arrive, the captain starts giving instructions, like he's telling Bob that Bob's not allowed to talk to these guys because he's the captain. Sure enough, finally the rowboat pulls up on shore, and there's five guys inside. They look at the men on the island who have been there now for over a year. Just imagine how skinny and dirty and smelly they are. How greasy their hair is. And the men in the dinghy say, well, my friends, our ship is leaking, but I promise you we're going to take you with us. That night, the rescuers stay on shore, and they all sit there by the fire, just talking all night long. The men have bread that they're giving them, and Bob discovers he doesn't even want the bread. What he's really hungry for is conversation. He's so happy to be talking to anyone who isn't the captain and the first mate. And also, by the way, the men who rescue them have fleas. And Bob finds that the fleas are now jumping on him. And he asks about it. And the men are like, yeah, our ship is full of them. It's really a problem. And Bob, who has now sort of like gone full circle into being the pettiest, crabbiest human alive, because who could possibly blame him, is like, figures their ship has fleas. In the morning, Bob catches three rabbits and he feeds their guests. And then they all get into the rowboat and they start rowing, except for of course, the captain who's just sitting there being rowed. And as they're getting out into the deep water, they don't see the ship. There's obviously supposed to be a ship waiting for them, but where did it go? And the men are like, yeah, we were worried this would happen. Looks like our ship left us. Bob is like, what is wrong with people? They start rowing as hard as they possibly can in the direction they think the ship went. Their arm muscles feel like they're going to give out. Their hands are blistered. The rowboat starts leaking and the waves are getting bigger because they're out in such deep water now. And the first mate has this little container that he's in charge of bailing with. And he just sort of sighs and puts down the container and gives up. They can't even see land anymore. They're fully at sea. And finally, in between the waves, they catch a glimpse of the ship in the distance. And they're all sobbing and screaming and waving. They cannot row fast enough to catch it. They have some seal skins with them. And Bob starts just chucking the seal skins overboard to try to lighten the load. And the other guys are trying to stop him. They're like, seal skins are valuable. And Bob is like, yeah, so are our lives. I have put too much on the line for everybody to die now he keeps throwing things overboard. And finally, finally the ship seems to be getting closer and they row up to it and yell as loud as they can until someone throws down a rope. When they get on the new ship, the captain and the first mate are invited into the officers quarters, into the cabin, because, you know, they're officers and they deserve the best. Meanwhile, Bob gets sent down into some random corner with a bottle of rum. And the other low ranking guys are being super generous and they're giving Bob their clothes. And Bob appreciates it, but he also kind of doesn't because the clothes are full of lice. He's also talking to them and like getting the gossip. He's trying to figure out what happened. Why on earth would the ship have left it turned out that this ship had like, a steward and a bosun who were best friends, and they had written wills where they said the other person could have all their belongings if they died. But then they had a falling out and they became enemies. The bosun was on the rowboat that went to shore and once he was gone, the steward had been like, oh, so sad. I guess they all drowned. And now I get all the steward's stuff and then he'd like talked the ship into leaving. Also, this ship is a mess because it turns out that, like, the interpreter and the doctor on board have been poisoned. And before they make it to land again, the steward gets poisoned and dies. So it's like, okay, the bosun definitely murdered him, but also, nobody liked the steward, so they just sort of throw him overboard and keep going. Bob has now dealt with more human drama than anyone should be expected to deal with in a lifetime. And he just wants to go home. When the rescue ship finally gets to port, sure enough, the captain and the first mate are arranged free passage back to England because, say it with me, they're officers. And Bob has to work a series of jobs on other ships in order to finally make it home after this ordeal. But he does. He makes it home. He works his way back to England and he gets back to his mom and his dad and his siblings and the woods where he grew up. And he just tries to leave this entire awful experience behind. He leaves the ocean behind. Even later, once he starts a family, he doesn't really tell them about what he went through. They don't know that he lives on an island, that he was marooned there until many, many years later after he dies. When his great granddaughter finds his diary, she starts tracking down what really happened, comparing his account to the captain's account. And she eventually goes to Auckland island and retraces his steps. She's able to figure out what beaches he was talking about, where he got stranded, where the bird island is that he ended up on. She wrote about this in a book called the Wake of the Invercald, which was one of my main sources for this episode. It's really a lovely book and there's one detail in particular that I love, which is that in her research, she finds a single seal skin boot, handmade seal skin boot that had belonged to Bob and somehow made its way to the collections of a museum in Canada. And she sees this boot. It's very small. He was a small man, and whoever worked at the museum had attached just a one line note to this boot explaining where it came from, it says it smells. If you, like me, are dying to tease out the overlap between this shipwreck and the last one, the Grafton, we can go through the timeline a little bit. The Grafton wrecked on Auckland island in January 1864 on the south end of the island. And the invercalled today's Story wrecked on the north end four months later. So the groups of survivors were all trapped together on the same island for a year. They were all about 20 miles apart this whole time. Obviously there's luck that comes to play here, but it makes sense to me that they wouldn't have encountered each other because this island has really treacherous terrain. There's stormy weather, there's cliffs, there's no way sound would carry that far. They wouldn't have been able to see smoke. And obviously just when people are trying to survive, they're not like launching expeditions to map the whole island. They're just looking for where they can find the resources, where they are located. Of course, the obvious question is what if, what if they had encountered each other? I, I have my own theories about this. I think that the Grafton guys were so caring and they were working together so well. I am positive that they would have tried to help anyone they encountered. And I also think that Bob, who was ultimately really resourceful and hard working and also generous, like kind of despite himself, would have been a real asset to the grafting crew and vice versa. I think they would have gotten along great. Like if you put Bob and Reynal in the same camp, who knows what's going to happen. But what about the captain and the first mate who expected to be served the whole time they were there? The wild card would be them meeting another ship's captain, Captain Musgrave, who was high ranked like them, but had a fundamentally different understanding of what authority entailed. Musgrave felt that being captain meant he had a responsibility to, to care for his crew rather than thinking it was the opposite way around and the crew had a responsibility to do everything for him. I'm just saying somebody has to write this fanfiction and when you do, send it my way. I also want to throw out there that the guys from the invercald, all of them, the big group before they started dying off, I don't think that most of them meant harm to each other. I'm sure individually they would have all preferred for everyone to do well. It's just that there was a complete lack of trust and a complete lack of leadership. And as people become more self centered in their own survival. It's a self reinforcing system. The more the people around you are focusing on themselves, the more you have to focus on yourself if you want any chance at all. It's a really hard cycle to break out of, even in the best possible circumstances, let alone when you're starving and you're not thinking clearly and you're feeling feet are bloody and throbbing and you're sleeping one hour a night. I'm not saying that with better teamwork everyone on the Invercal would have survived. They had too much against them. They started out with almost no supplies from the wreck, but I think that more of them could have lived and the ones who did live could have lived better. They could have suffered less, which is ultimately what we're all just trying to do. My main sources are the Wake of the Invercog by Madeline Ferguson Allen, who is the great granddaughter of Bob, and his diaries which are included in that same book, and also the book island of the Lost by Joan Druitt, which tells the stories of the Invercault and the Grafton together. Research, writing, narration and editing are by me, Blair Braverman. Audio production and music is by Brandon Chabell. As before, thank you so much to everyone who has spread the word about this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and or the other ones. It would really help me if you would leave a rating and a review if you feel inspired. Thank you so much for spending this time with me and I'll be back in two weeks with another true story. Take care and talk to you then.