The story of a desperate struggle for survival on the high seas - and the gruesome fate met by a young cabin boy at the hands of his shipmates...

FACT followed fiction in a true story that shocked a nation.

In 1837 the quirky American writer Edgar Allan Poe published his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, in which the central character and two mariners set sail from Nantucket, but midway through their journey their boat overturned.

After several days, hunger and despair pushed Pym and another seaman to eat the third man on board. His name was Richard Parker.

Some 47 years later, a real-life Richard Parker suffered the same horrific fate.

The 17-year-old cabin boy was part of a crew who sailed for Australia from Southampton on the racing yacht Mignonette, which had been bought by flamboyant lawyer and politician Tom Want for £400 to enable him to join the racing set.

The weather looked fair until they rounded the Cape of Good Hope, but in the south Atlantic they ran into heavy seas. Wave after wave pounded the vessel until she broke apart and sank.

Captain, hand, mate and cabin boy scrambled aboard a dinghy but their rations were restricted to two cans of turnips. Gradually their plight grew worse, until 19 days adrift, starving and desperate, they resorted to cannibalism for self-preservation.

Parker had lapsed into unconsciousness after foolishly drinking mouthfuls of salt water. His crewmates knew he was dying but it was still the rule to draw lots to see who would be sacrificed. Electing Parker was tantamount to murder.

But his throat was slit and the men gorged on his body. Five days later, the trio were rescued by the German barque Moctzuma en route to Hamburg.

The boat dropped them off at Falmouth where the horrible truth of their survival was exposed and they were arrested for murder.

Until then, murder committed under duress because of absolute necessity was informally accepted as justifiable.

But with Mignonette, the establishment took a different view. Royal Navy reservist Ned Brooks, 27, who had opposed Parker's killing until his conviction waned because of the deprivation, was absolved of blame and turned Queen's Evidence.

The skipper, Tom Dudley, 32, from Colchester, and mate Ed Stephens, 37, who lived in Northumberland Avenue in Southampton, made no attempt to conceal their actions.

They were convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but this was overturned three weeks later and the defendants were jailed for six months.

Their case set a legal precedent - that men could only kill in self-defence.

Dudley emigrated to Australia where he died from bubonic plague 1894. Stephens returned to the sea but died a pauper, aged 66, in Hull.

Brooks died in 1919 in Southampton's Parish Infirmary, aged 73, riddled with guilt.

A gravestone dedicated to Parker's memory lies in Peartree Churchyard, Southampton.

'I PUT MY KNIFE TO HIS THROAT AND HE WAS DEAD' - CAPTAIN TOM DUDLEY

"We went from the 15th day to the 20th day without any food at all, or drink, and by that time we had begun to look each other in the face, very black. The boy, who had drunk some sea water, had said 'We shall all die' and I remarked 'We shall have to draw lots, boys'.

"This was ignored by all and they said 'We had better die together,' to which I replied 'So let it be, but it is hard for four to die when perhaps one might save the rest'.

"On either the 19th or 20th day the boy was lying in the bottom of the boat, gasping for breath and nearly dead. At about three o'clock in the morning I said to the mate 'What is to be done? I believe the boy is dying. You have a wife and five children, I have a wife and three children.'

I said that human flesh had been eaten before.

"Brooks said he could not do it and Stephens said we would see a ship the next day. We arranged, if nothing was in sight by sunrise and no rain came, to put the poor lad Parker out of his misery.

"At about 8am I had a last look round to see if there was anything in sight, but there was nothing. I offered up a prayer most fervently that God above might forgive us for such an act, and then I knelt down by the boy and said 'Now, Dick my boy, your time has come.'

"He murmured 'What, me sir?' I put the penknife into his throat and he was dead instantly.''