The sandy-haired man put a hand on his comrade's shoulder. "Easy now, David. Don't be so hard on the boy. We'll need every able-bodied man we can get."
David threw Wendell to the ground. "My apologies, Reverend for letting my temper get the best of me." David snatched the watch from the ground and then glared at Wendell. "Get back to work, boy. Don't let me catch you stealing again."
The older man with the reverend stared at Wendell throughout this exchange. "I've got my eye on you," he growled and then went to join the other two. Wendell gulped, wondering what kind of terrible place he'd ended up in.
The older man stared at him again as Wendell dragged a piece of mast over to the pile. "You're certain," David said.
"Jonas saw their heathen village," the reverend said. He borrowed David's walking stick to draw a circle in the sand. "It's through the forest, near a stream with plentiful drinking water. We won't find a better site." He marked a spot near the edge of the circle with an X.
"How big of a village?" David asked.
The older man-Jonas, Wendell assumed-growled something Wendell couldn't make out. "That's too many with our present numbers. The elders won't agree-"
"We must persuade them," the reverend said. The reverend noticed Wendell standing nearby for the first time and wiped away his drawing in the sand. "Go on now and get something to eat, my boy."
"Yes, sir." Wendell dragged the piece of mast over to the pile and then hurried away towards the cluster of ramshackle buildings and tents. On the way, a piece of parchment blew onto his foot. On it were a list of names: Applegate, Robert and Rebecca; Baker, Phyllis; Bloom, John and Helena; Brigham, Molly; Davenport, Mark and Annabelle; Gooddell, Rodney and Prudence. The rest of the page had smeared. He squinted at the swirls of ink in a vain attempt to make out his own name. Maybe I am a stowaway, he thought.
He sits on the end of the wharf, gnawing on the rotted corpse of an apple. His stomach rumbles its displeasure at this meager offering. He can't remember not being hungry anymore. The pain has become a constant companion spurring him on from place to place in search of food: an apple from a vendor's cart, a pie left on a windowsill, a bit of moldy bread rotting in an alley. Like a mindless animal his days revolve entirely around finding enough food to survive.
He's tried to find work. None of the ship captains will hire him even for a cabin boy. When he gives them his proper age-twenty-they scoff. "I have a son half your age bigger than you," one tells him.