Gone With the Wind (50 page)

The state militia who had gone out so short a time before, resplendent in new uniforms, could hardly be distinguished from the seasoned troops, so dirty and unkempt were they. There was a new look in their eyes. Three years of apologizing, of explaining why they were not at the front was behind them now. They had traded security behind the lines for the hardships of battle. Many of their number had traded easy living for hard death. They were veterans now, veterans of brief service, but veterans just the same, and they had acquitted themselves well. They searched out the faces of friends in the crowd and stared at them proudly, defiantly. They could hold up their heads now.

The old men and boys of the Home Guard marched by, the graybeards almost too weary to lift their feet, the boys wearing the faces of tired children, confronted too early with adult problems. Scarlett caught sight of Phil Meade and hardly recognized him, so black was his face with powder and grime, so taut with strain and weariness. Uncle Henry went limping by, hatless in the rain, his head stuck through a hole in a piece of old oilcloth. Grandpa Merriwether rode in on a gun carriage, his bare feet tied in quilt scraps. But search though she might, she saw no sign of John Wilkes.

Johnston’s veterans, however, went by with the tireless, careless step which had carried them for three years, and they still had the energy to grin and wave at pretty girls and to call rude gibes to men not in uniform. They were on their way to the entrenchments that ringed the town—no shallow, hastily dug trenches, these, but earthworks, breast high, reinforced with sandbags and tipped with sharpened staves of wood. For mile after mile the trenches encircled the town, red gashes surmounted by red mounds, waiting for the men who would fill them.

The crowd cheered the troops as they would have cheered them in victory. There was fear in every heart but, now that they knew the truth, now that the worst had happened, now that the war was in their front yard, a change came over the town. There was no panic now, no hysteria. Whatever lay in hearts did not show on faces. Everyone looked cheerful even if the cheer was strained. Everyone tried to show brave, confident faces to the troops. Everyone repeated what Old Joe had said, just before he was relieved of command: “I can hold Atlanta forever.”

Now that Hood had had to retreat, quite a number wished, with the soldiers, that they had Old Joe back, but they forbore saying it and took courage from Old Joe’s remark:

“I can hold Atlanta forever!”

Not for Hood the cautious tactics of General Johnston. He assaulted the Yankees on the east, he assaulted them on the west. Sherman was circling the town like a wrestler seeking a fresh hold on an opponent’s body, and Hood did not remain behind his rifle pits waiting for the Yankees to attack. He went out boldly to meet them and savagely fell upon them. Within the space of a few days the battles of Atlanta and of Ezra Church were fought, and both of them were major engagements which made Peachtree Creek seem like a skirmish.

But the Yankees kept coming back for more. They had suffered heavy losses but they could afford to lose. And all the while their batteries poured shells into Atlanta, killing people in their homes, ripping roofs off buildings, tearing huge craters in the streets. The townsfolk sheltered as best they could in cellars, in holes in the ground and in shallow tunnels dug in railroad cuts. Atlanta was under siege.

Within eleven days after he had taken command, General Hood had lost almost as many men as Johnston had lost in seventy-four days of battle and retreat, and Atlanta was hemmed in on three sides.

The railroad from Atlanta to Tennessee was now in Sherman’s hands for its full length. His army was across the railroad to the east and he had cut the railroad running southwest to Alabama. Only the one railroad to the south, to Macon and Savannah, was still open. The town was crowded with soldiers, swamped with wounded, jammed with refugees, and this one line was inadequate for the crying needs of the stricken city. But as long as this railroad could be held, Atlanta could still stand.

Scarlett was terrified when she realized how important this line had become, how fiercely Sherman would fight to take it, how desperately Hood would fight to defend it. For this was the railroad which ran through the County, through Jonesboro. And Tara was only five miles from Jonesboro! Tara seemed like a haven of refuge by comparison with the screaming hell of Atlanta, but Tara was only five miles from Jonesboro!

Scarlett and many other ladies sat on the flat roofs of stores, shaded by their tiny parasols, and watched the fighting on the day of the battle of Atlanta. But when shells began falling in the streets for the first time, they fled to the cellars, and that night the exodus of women, children and old people from the city began. Macon was their destination and many of those who took the train that night had already refugeed five and six times before, as Johnston fell back from Dalton. They were traveling lighter now than when they arrived in Atlanta. Most of them carried only a carpetbag and a scanty lunch done up in a bandana handkerchief. Here and there, frightened servants carried silver pitchers, knives and forks and a family portrait or two which had been salvaged in the first fight.

Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing refused to leave. They were needed at the hospital and furthermore, they said proudly, they weren’t afraid and no Yankees were going to run them out of their homes. But Maybelle and her baby and Fanny Elsing went to Macon. Mrs. Meade was disobedient for the first time in her married life and flatly refused to yield to the doctor’s command that she take the train to safety. The doctor needed her, she said. Moreover, Phil was somewhere in the trenches and she wanted to be near by in case …

But Mrs. Whiting went and many other ladies of Scarlett’s circle. Aunt Pitty, who had been the first to denounce Old Joe for his policy of retreat, was among the first to pack her trunks. Her nerves, she said, were delicate and she could not endure noises. She feared she might faint at an explosion and not be able to reach the cellar. No, she was not afraid. Her baby mouth tried to set in martial lines but failed. She’d go to Macon and stay with her cousin, old Mrs. Burr, and the girls should come with her.

Scarlett did not want to go to Macon. Frightened as she was of the shells, she’d rather stay in Atlanta than go to Macon, for she hated old Mrs. Burr cordially. Years ago, Mrs. Burr had said she was “fast” after catching her kissing her son Willie at one of the Wilkes’ house parties. No, she told Aunt Pitty, I’ll go home to Tara and Melly can go to Macon with you.

At this Melanie began to cry in a frightened, heartbroken way. When Aunt Pitty fled to get Dr. Meade, Melanie caught Scarlett’s hand in hers, pleading:

“Dear, don’t go to Tara and leave me! I’ll be so lonely without you. Oh, Scarlett, I’d just die if you weren’t with me when the baby came! Yes— Yes, I know I’ve got Aunt Pitty and she is sweet But after all, she’s never had a baby, and sometimes she makes me so nervous I could scream. Don’t desert me, darling. You’ve been just like a sister to me, and besides,” she smiled wanly, “you promised Ashley you’d take care of me. He told me he was going to ask you.”

Scarlett stared down at her in wonderment. With her own dislike of this woman so strong she could barely conceal it, how could Melly love her so? How could Melly be so stupid as not to guess the secret of her love of Ashley? She had given herself away a hundred times during these months of torment, waiting for news of him. But Melanie saw nothing, Melanie who could see nothing but good in anyone she loved. … Yes, she had promised Ashley she would look out for Melanie. Oh, Ashley! Ashley! you must be dead, dead these many months! And now your promise reaches out and clutches me!

“Well,” she said shortly, “I did promise him that and I don’t go back on my promises. But I won’t go to Macon and stay with that old Burr cat. I’d claw her eyes out in five minutes. I’m going home to Tara and you can come with me. Mother would love to have you.”

“Oh, I’d like that! Your mother is so sweet. But you know Auntie would just die if she wasn’t with me when the baby came, and I know she won’t go to Tara. It’s too close to the fighting, and Auntie wants to be safe.”

Dr. Meade, who had arrived out of breath, expecting to find Melanie in premature labor at least, judging by Aunt Pitty’s alarmed summoning, was indignant and said as much. And upon learning the cause of the upset, he settled the matter with words that left no room for argument.

“It’s out of the question for you to go to Macon, Miss Melly. I won’t answer for you if you move. The trains are crowded and uncertain and the passengers are liable to be put off in the woods at any time, if the trains are needed for the wounded or troops and supplies. In your condition—”

“But if I went to Tara with Scarlett—”

“I tell you I won’t have you moved. The train to Tara is the train to Macon and the same conditions prevail. Moreover, no one knows just where the Yankees are now, but they are all over everywhere. Your train might even be captured. And even if you reached Jonesboro safely, there’d be a five-mile ride over a rough road before you ever reached Tara. It’s no trip for a woman in a delicate condition. Besides, there’s not a doctor in the County since old Dr. Fontaine joined the army.”

“But there are midwives—”

“I said a doctor,” he answered brusquely and his eyes unconsciously went over her tiny frame. “I won’t have you moved. It might be dangerous. You don’t want to have the baby on the train or in a buggy, do you?”

This medical frankness reduced the ladies to embarrassed blushes and silence.

“You’ve got to stay right here where I can watch you, and you must stay in bed. No running up and down stairs to cellars. No, not even if shells come right in the window. After all, there’s not so much danger here. We’ll have the Yankees beaten back in no time. … Now, Miss Pitty, you go right on to Macon and leave the young ladies here.”

“Unchaperoned?” she cried, aghast.

“They are matrons,” said the doctor testily. “And Mrs. Meade is just two houses away. They won’t be receiving any male company anyway with Miss Melly in her condition. Good Heavens, Miss Pitty! This is war time. We can’t think of the proprieties now. We must think of Miss Melly.”

He stamped out of the room and waited on the front porch until Scarlett joined him.

“I shall talk frankly to you, Miss Scarlett,” he began, jerking at his gray beard. “You seem to be a young woman of common sense, so spare me your blushes. I do not want to hear any further talk about Miss Melly being moved. I doubt if she could stand the trip. She is going to have a difficult time, even in the best of circumstances—very narrow in the hips, as you know, and probably will need forceps for her delivery, so I don’t want any ignorant darky midwife meddling with her. Women like her should never have children, but— Anyway, you pack Miss Pitty’s trunk and send her to Macon. She’s so scared she’ll upset Miss Melly and that won’t do any good. And now, Miss,” he fixed her with a piercing glance, “I don’t want to hear about you going home, either. You stay with Miss Melly till the baby comes. Not afraid, are you?”

“Oh, no!” lied Scarlett, stoutly.

“That’s a brave girl. Mrs. Meade will give you whatever chaperonage you need and I’ll send over old Betsy to cook for you, if Miss Pitty wants to take her servants with her. It won’t be for long. The baby ought to be here in another five weeks, but you never can tell with first babies and all this shelling going on. It may come any day.”

So Aunt Pittypat went to Macon, in floods of tears, taking Uncle Peter and Cookie with her. The carriage and horse she donated to the hospital in a burst of patriotism which she immediately regretted and that brought on more tears. And Scarlett and Melanie were left alone with Wade and Prissy in a house that was much quieter, even though the cannonading continued.

CHAPTER XIX

IN THOSE FIRST DAYS of the siege, when the Yankees crashed here and there against the defenses of the city, Scarlett was so frightened by the bursting shells she could only cower helplessly, her hands over her ears, expecting every moment to be blown into eternity. When she heard the whistling screams that heralded their approach, she rushed to Melanie’s room and flung herself on the bed beside her, and the two clutched each other, screaming “Oh! Oh!” as they buried their heads in the pillows. Prissy and Wade scurried for the cellar and crouched in the cob-webbed darkness, Prissy squalling at the top of her voice and Wade sobbing and hiccoughing.

Suffocating under feather pillows while death screamed overhead, Scarlett silently cursed Melanie for keeping her from the safer regions below stairs. But the doctor had forbidden Melanie to walk and Scarlett had to stay with her. Added to her terror of being blown to pieces was her equally active terror that Melanie’s baby might arrive at any moment. Sweat broke out on Scarlett with clammy dampness, whenever this thought entered her mind. What would she do if the baby started coming? She knew she’d rather let Melanie die than go out on the streets to hunt for the doctor when the shells were falling like April rain. And she knew Prissy could be beaten to death before she would venture forth. What would she do if the baby came?

These matters she discussed with Prissy in whispers one evening, as they prepared Melanie’s supper tray, and Prissy, surprisingly enough, calmed her fears.

“Miss Scarlett, effen we kain git de doctah w’en Miss Melly’s time come, doan you bodder. Ah kin manage. Ah knows all ‘bout birthin’. Ain’ mah ma a midwife? Ain’ she raise me ter be a midwife, too? Jes’ you leave it ter me.”

Scarlett breathed more easily knowing that experienced hands were near, but she nevertheless yearned to have the ordeal over and done with. Mad to be away from exploding shells, desperate to get home to the quiet of Tara, she prayed every night that the baby would arrive the next day, so she would be released from her promise and could leave Atlanta. Tara seemed so safe, so far away from all this misery.

Scarlett longed for home and her mother as she had never longed for anything in all her life. If she were just near Ellen she wouldn’t be afraid, no matter what happened. Every night after a day of screeching ear-splitting shells, she went to bed determined to tell Melanie the next morning that she could not stand Atlanta another day, that she would have to go home and Melanie would have to go to Mrs. Meade’s. But, as she lay on her pillow, there always rose the memory of Ashley’s face as it had looked when she last saw him, drawn as with an inner pain but with a little smile on his lips: “You’ll take care of Melanie, won’t you? You’re so strong. … Promise me.” And she had promised. Somewhere, Ashley lay dead. Wherever he was, he was watching her, holding her to that promise. Living or dead, she could not fail him, no matter what the cost. So she remained day after day.