12- starvation (underground caverns / cannibalism / just a little more)
Carlos had had surgery on his leg for two weeks, and was beginning to wonder whether he shouldn't have lied about his job.
Following the operation, he had been sent to a hangar where he had found Adam. Adam had explained to him that he had arrived a day before him in what he had described as a farm worse than those of the plantation days. In the morning, before dawn, a bell would ring and they'd be assigned to tasks: the fields, the cows, fishing or camp maintenance. They would spend the whole day on this task, with only a thirty-minute break at midday to eat, until the evening. There, they could use the water from the cisterns to rinse off, but they had no soap, no towel or change of clothes. The hangar lights remained on until a clear broth was distributed, and then they had to lie down on the floor where a thin layer of straw had been spread out. All they had was a thin blanket to protect them from the November cold and humidity.
In two weeks, Carlos had already lost more than a quarter of his body weight, and like everyone else, he was exhausted and hungry. His body was still resistant to the diseases circulating in the hangar, but he had no illusions that it would not last. Of the two hundred something farmers enslaved with them, some twenty were already dead.
The policeman wondered whether they were treated like this to keep them under control, as in concentration camps, or because there was a famine following the coup d'état. He and Adam were often assigned to work with the cows, whether it was milking them, caring for them, feeding them _they ate better than they did, or slaughtering them when one of them ran out of milk or was injured. Not a sip of milk or a mouthful of meat ever reached the prisoners' plates.
The alarm sounded in the hangar after a particularly cold night. Carlos, under his thin blanket, had shivered all night and hardly slept at all. The Texan, unaccustomed to this cold, but especially to this humidity, was dreading the days and hours ahead. The drums played by the rain on the roof promised a day of soaking and freezing. Despite his fatigue, Carlos forced himself to get up. He knew what awaited those who didn't get up fast enough; every morning, the cries of those who didn't would accompany the distribution of tasks. He turned to Adam, who was still lying down. Despite his strong build, the farmer had been quite dry before the coup and was losing weight at a rapid rate. His strength was declining just as fast, and getting up every day to expend energy he no longer had was increasingly difficult.
"Adam." he called, holding out his hand.
The man he now considered his friend looked up at him with empty eyes.
"Come on, don't give up, you can do it," Carlos encouraged him, refusing to accept what he saw taking shape.
He heard the dispatch begin outside the hangar doors and his concern grew.
"Adam, you've got to get up, you know what they'll do to you if you don't. Come on!"
As the sound of the guards' rangers began to be heard, Adam pushed on his arms to sit up.
"That's it don't give up, we're going together." encouraged Carlos, holding out his hand again.
This time Adam grasped it and the policeman pulled him to his feet. He put an arm under his armpits and forced him to walk to the dispatch. The heat against him made him realize that the farmer had a fever. He prayed for him. There was little more he could do to help.
As so often, they were sent out together to look after the cows, but for once Carlos took this as good news: they'd be out of the rain most of the time, and it was warmer in the barn than anywhere else.
Still supporting his friend, and counting on doing so as much as possible, the Texan headed for their post with a dozen other men, silently praying for their survival.