There was only one thing to do: abandon Jamestown.

They would take everyone. They would sail in four small pinnaces—the Bermuda-built Deliverance and Patience, and the Virginia-based Discovery and Virginia, parceling out their precious store of meal aboard each vessel. Barrels of water they could get from the well at Jamestown, one of the fort’s few remaining amenities.

They would sail 40 miles downriver to Chesapeake Bay and then set their courses northward. They would hug the Atlantic coast and make for Newfoundland, where the fishing season had begun. There they would seek out the English ships and plead to be taken aboard as passengers (along with cargoes of salted codfish) when they sailed for home.

At least, that is what they thought.

Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Gates had another plan in mind. He knew that there was another expedition from London bound for Virginia with food and supplies, but he had no idea when it had left England, or when it would reach Virginia. With that in mind, he secretly intended to “stay some ten days at Cape Comfort [Fort Algernon]” in case the relief ships should arrive. And he did not tell the colonists—nearly 250 of them, including Captain Davis and the men at the fort—that he was planning to use up ten precious days’ worth of food waiting for rescue.

What if ten days passed, and no relief ships came?