This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batch from visiting with Eric J. Dolan. His new book is

Left for Dead, Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World. We're in the Falklands.

It's 1812, 1813. There's a shipwreck coming from Australia, and women and children and men are scattered on

the shore of a bleak part of the Falklands. Fortunately for them, there's a ceiling, experienced sealing crew

led by Charles Barnard, and they are about to see the burning grass, which suggests to them somebody's there.

And here they come across the shipwreck, and the shipwreck people believe they're rescued.

Except, well, they are rescued in a way, Eric, except for it's going to be a long way around rescue.

Who knows there's a war on, and who doesn't?

Yeah, when Charles Bernard and his other sealers come upon the erect ship and the castaways,

they are aware that war is broken out because a few months earlier, an American stealing ship

came by and told them that the war had broken out.

The people on board the Isabella, however,

were not aware that word broken out. So Charles Bernard and his men offer the castaways a great deal,

a humanitarian deal. They say, we're going to save you. We're going to take you back to South

American port so you can go back to London. And all that we ask in return is the right to salvage

the wrecked Isabella

and the cargo on board minus personal possessions. The British agree to this, but then Barnard

realizes they don't know the war is broken out, and he knows that they can overpower the Americans

at any moment. So he feels that it's incumbent upon him to let them know that the war has commenced.

He does. They take another vote. And the British, all except for one or two, say, no, no, it's fine. We understand there's a war broken out. We're enemies technically. But you're doing the right thing. You're saving us. You're giving us a lifeline. We accept it. Thank you very much. Importantly, Brooks, the captain of

responsibility, had set a long chance to reach the mainland in an open boat. Nobody expects him

to be successful in those seas. It's wintertime coming on. So Brooks has reached Montevideo and then he's steered to Buenos Aires.

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