The New Path

Chapter Three

⋖~Choose Your Enemy~⋗

30th May, 1610

The bubbling of his stomach awoke him suddenly, making him lift his tired eyelids; the spring sun penetrated through the small windows of the house where he and other settlers and survivors had been lodged, and low, continuous moaning resounded in his ears, stunning him. He sat down wearily on the filthy, little bed he had made with his jacket, he ran a hand over his sleepy face. Since he had arrived in Jamestown, he couldn't close his eyes tranquilly.
The rumbling of his stomach never left him, not even for a moment, strong headaches tormented him day and night and, as if it were not already enough, he felt intimidated by his companions in misfortune: he had very well noticed how their dull eyes had looked at him greedily more than once, and certainly not in the ravenous way ladies in London looked at him now and then. No, there was a special light in their eyes, more animal, more disturbing, almost ... predatory.
People had disappeared during those seven days, and Rolfe had noticed how some of the most plaintive ones had not protested about food when the time had come; and although he had tried to believe that that possibility was unlikely, the looks he had received were beginning to change his mind.

He wrinkled his nose in perceiving that annoying layer of grease and dust on his hair, he snorted, desperately trying not to mind it. Due to the contamination of water, Admiral Somers had advised against bathing in the pool not too far from the center of the city, and he indeed hadn't been wrong. As soon as Rolfe had tried to lean out to see in what condition it was, he had well seen how much mud and slime there were in that foul-smelling mixture of decaying animals and rain that the citizens of Jamestown still insisted on calling water. Moreover, the food was now practically gone. They had done the impossible and more to get the better of it, giving privileges to pregnant women, sick old men and children, but it had been almost useless, since they were now barely in one hundred fifty, and those few provisions they had weren't enough for everyone. Thomas Gates and Admiral Somers had done their best to keep the city calm and sane, but to no avail. Horses had disappeared, as well as dogs and cats — and, luckily, also rats — children diminished day after day and, in the creepiest of cases, some found themselves without parts of their body as soon as they woke up. At that thought, John Rolfe touched his whole body to check if he was alright: ten toes, each hand had five fingers, his nose was still there, no ribs broken, he had both his ears ...

The door of the cottage was thrown open, making him jump on the cot; all the dark and thin faces of his companions lifted from the improved cushions, confused lamentations mingled in the air around them. Admiral Somers, on the threshold, all wrapped in his now dirty military uniform, peered carefully at the unfortunates inside the building, suddenly curling his nose and waving a hand in disgust.

«Take that thing out,» he mumbled, pointing to a cot. John Rolfe looked in the direction of the man's hand and, surprised, he noticed that he was addressing to someone. It was an old man with wrinkles on his whole skin, his eyes closed and his lips blue; twisted in an unnatural position, the elderly man hadn't part of his leg and no longer had his hands, his mouth was wide open and dirty with blood. Rolfe turned his head away, a retch of vomit forced him to cover his mouth.

One hundred forty-nine.

«Come out! All out! A rally will start soon. Sergeant General Gates and I need to announce you our decision,» Somers spoke again, «And may God be with us all.»

«Amen,» muttered some voices. Two young men grabbed the poor old man by the arms and, well, foot and, though laboriously, dragged him out of the hovel. Some women sighed as everyone stared at that awfully sad scene. Sooner or later, and now he knew it, all of them would have ended like that. There would have been no alternative as he had hoped at the beginning. He had tried to suggest to Somers to plant some tobacco of which he had the seeds, but he had the  realized that, although an excellent commodity in high society, the plant wasn't edible. Sure, it would have stimulated the workers, but would not have filled the stomachs, and everything would have turned out to be a mess. They couldn't even try to sow corn, for the natives had taken away all of their seeds, or so the citizens of Jamestown had said.