Gone With the Wind (55 page)

Spurred to speed, Prissy hurried toward the back of the house while Scarlett scratched a hasty note on the margin of Gerald’s last letter to her—the only bit of paper in the house. As she folded it, so that her note was uppermost, she caught Gerald’s words, “Your mother—typhoid—under no condition—to come home—” She almost sobbed. If it wasn’t for Melanie, she’d start home, right this minute, if she had to walk every step of the way.

Prissy went off at a trot, the letter gripped in her hand, and Scarlett went back upstairs, trying to think of some plausible lie to explain Mrs. Elsing’s failure to appear. But Melanie asked no questions. She lay upon her back, her face tranquil and sweet, and the sight of her quieted Scarlett for a while.

She sat down and tried to talk of inconsequential things, but the thoughts of Tara and a possible defeat by the Yankees, prodded cruelly. She thought of Ellen dying and of the Yankees coming into Atlanta, burning everything, killing everybody. Through it all, the dull far-off thundering persisted, rolling into her ears in waves of fear. Finally, she could not talk at all and only stared out of the window at the hot still street and the dusty leaves hanging motionless on the trees. Melanie was silent too, but at intervals her quiet face was wrenched with pain.

She said, after each pain: “It wasn’t very bad, really,” and Scarlett knew she was lying. She would have preferred a loud scream to silent endurance. She knew she should feel sorry for Melanie, but somehow she could not muster a spark of sympathy. Her mind was too torn with her own anguish. Once she looked sharply at the pain-twisted face and wondered why it should be that she, of all people in the world, should be here with Melanie at this particular time—she who had nothing in common with her, who hated her, who would gladly have seen her dead. Well, maybe she’d have her wish, and before the day was over too. A cold superstitious fear swept her at this thought. It was bad luck to wish that someone were dead, almost as bad luck as to curse someone. Curses came home to roost, Mammy said. She hastily prayed that Melanie wouldn’t die and broke into feverish small talk, hardly aware of what she said. At last, Melanie put a hot hand on her wrist.

“Don’t bother about talking, dear. I know how worried you are. I’m so sorry I’m so much trouble.”

Scarlett relapsed into silence but she could not sit still. What would she do if neither the doctor nor Prissy got there in time? She walked to the window and looked down the street and came back and sat down again. Then she rose and looked out of the window on the other side of the room.

An hour went by and then another. Noon came and the sun was high and hot and not a breath of air stirred the dusty leaves. Melanie’s pains were harder now. Her long hair was drenched in sweat and her gown stuck in wet spots to her body. Scarlett sponged her face in silence but fear was gnawing at her. God in Heaven, suppose the baby came before the doctor arrived! What would she do? She knew less than nothing of midwifery. This was exactly the emergency she had been dreading for weeks. She had been counting on Prissy to handle the situation if no doctor should be available. Prissy knew all about midwifery. She’d said so time and again. But where was Prissy? Why didn’t she come? Why didn’t the doctor come? She went to the window and looked again. She listened hard and suddenly she wondered if it were only her imagination or if the sound of cannon in the distance had died away. If it were farther away it would mean that the fighting was nearer Jonesboro and that would mean—

At last she saw Prissy coming down the street at a quick trot and she leaned out of the window. Prissy, looking up, saw her and her mouth opened to yell. Seeing the panic written on the little black face and fearing she might alarm Melanie by crying out evil tidings, Scarlett hastily put her finger to her lips and left the window.

“I’ll get some cooler water,” she said, looking down into Melanie’s dark, deep-circled eyes and trying to smile. Then she hastily left the room, closing the door carefully behind her.

Prissy was sitting on the bottom step in the hall, panting.

“Dey’s fightin’ at Jonesboro, Miss Scarlett! Dey say our gempmums is gittin’ beat. Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll happen ter Maw an’ Poke? Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll happen ter us effen de Yankees gits hyah? Oh, Gawd—”

Scarlett clapped a hand over the blubbery mouth.

“For God’s sake, hush!”

Yes, what would happen to them if the Yankees came—what would happen to Tara? She pushed the thought firmly back into her mind and grappled with the more pressing emergency. If she thought of these things, she’d begin to scream and bawl like Prissy.

“Where’s Dr. Meade? When’s he coming?”

“Ah ain’ nebber seed him, Miss Scarlett.”

“What!”

“No’m, he ain’ at de horsepittle. Miss Merriwether an’ Miss Elsing ain’ dar needer. A man he tole me de doctah down by de car shed wid the wounded sojers jes’ come in frum Jonesboro, but Miss Scarlett, Ah wuz sceered ter go down dar ter de shed—dey’s folkses dyin’ down dar. Ah’s sceered of daid folkses—”

“What about the other doctors?”

“Miss Scarlett, fo’ Gawd, Ah couldn’ sceercely git one of dem ter read yo’ note. Dey wukin’ in de horsepittle lak dey all done gone crazy. One doctah he say ter me, ‘Damn yo’ hide! Doan you come roun’ hyah bodderin’ me ‘bout babies w’en we got a mess of men dyin’ hyah. Git some woman ter he’p you.’ An’ den Ah went aroun’ an’ about an’ ask fer news lak you done tole me an’ dey all say ‘fightin’ at Jonesboro’ an’ Ah—”

“You say Dr. Meade’s at the depot?”

“Yas’m. He—”

“Now, listen sharp to me. I’m going to get Dr. Meade and I want you to sit by Miss Melanie and do anything she says. And if you so much as breathe to her where the fighting is, I’ll sell you South as sure as gun’s iron. And don’t you tell her that the other doctors wouldn’t come either. Do you hear?”

“Yas’m.”

“Wipe your eyes and get a fresh pitcher of water and go on up. Sponge her off. Tell her I’ve gone for Dr. Meade.”

“Is her time nigh, Miss Scarlett?”

“I don’t know. I’m afraid it is but I don’t know. You should know. Go on up.”

Scarlett caught up her wide straw bonnet from the console table and jammed it on her head. She looked in the mirror and automatically pushed up loose strands of hair but she did not see her own reflection. Cold little ripples of fear that started in the pit of her stomach were radiating outward until the fingers that touched her cheeks were cold, though the rest of her body streamed perspiration. She hurried out of the house and into the heat of the sun. It was blindingly, glaring hot and as she hurried down Peachtree Street her temples began to throb from the heat. From far down the street she could hear the rise and fall and roar of many voices. By the time she caught sight of the Leyden house, she was beginning to pant, for her stays were tightly laced, but she did not slow her gait. The roar of noise grew louder.

From the Leyden house down to Five Points, the street seethed with activity, the activity of an anthill just destroyed. Negroes were running up and down the street, panic in their faces; and on porches, white children sat crying untended. The street was crowded with army wagons and ambulances filled with wounded and carriages piled high with valises and pieces of furniture. Men on horseback dashed out of side streets pell-mell down Peachtree toward Hood’s headquarters. In front of the Bonnell house, old Amos stood holding the head of the carriage horse and he greeted Scarlett with rolling eyes.

“Ain’t you gone yit, Miss Scarlett? We is goin’ now. Ole Miss packin’ her bag.”

“Going? Where?”

“Gawd knows, Miss. Somewheres. De Yankees is comin’!”

She hurried on, not even saying good-by. The Yankees were coming! At Wesley Chapel, she paused to catch her breath and wait for her hammering heart to subside. If she did not quiet herself she would certainly faint As she stood clutching a lamp post for support, she saw an officer on horseback come charging up the street from Five Points and, on an impulse, she ran out into the street and waved at him.

“Oh, stop! Please, stop!”

He reined in so suddenly the horse went back on its haunches, pawing the air. There were harsh lines of fatigue and urgency in his face but his tattered gray hat was off with a sweep.

“Madam?”

“Tell me, is it true? Are the Yankees coming?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Do you know so?”

“Yes, Ma’m. I know so. A dispatch came in to headquarters half an hour ago from the fighting at Jonesboro.”

“At Jonesboro? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. There’s no use telling pretty lies, Madam. The message was from General Hardee and it said: ‘I have lost the battle and am in full retreat.’ ”

“Oh, my God!”

The dark face of the tired man looked down without emotion. He gathered the reins again and put on his hat.

“Oh, sir, please, just a minute. What shall we do?”

“Madam, I can’t say. The army is evacuating Atlanta soon.”

“Going off and leaving us to the Yankees?”

“I’m afraid so.”

The spurred horse went off as though on springs and Scarlett was left standing in the middle of the street with the red dust thick upon her ankles.

The Yankees were coming. The army was leaving. The Yankees were coming. What should she do? Where should she run? No, she couldn’t run. There was Melanie back there in the bed expecting that baby. Oh, why did women have babies? If it wasn’t for Melanie she could take Wade and Prissy and hide in the woods where the Yankees could never find them. But she couldn’t take Melanie to the woods. No, not now. Oh, if she’d only had the baby sooner, yesterday even, perhaps they could get an ambulance and take her away and hide her somewhere. But now—she must find Dr. Meade and make him come home with her. Perhaps he could hurry the baby.

She gathered up her skirts and ran down the street, and the rhythm of her feet was “The Yankees are coming! The Yankees are coming!” Five Points was crowded with people who rushed here and there with unseeing eyes, jammed with wagons, ambulances, ox carts, carriages loaded with wounded. A roaring sound like the breaking of surf rose from the crowd.

Then a strangely incongruous sight struck her eyes. Throngs of women were coming up from the direction of the railroad tracks carrying hams across their shoulders. Little children hurried by their sides, staggering under buckets of steaming molasses. Young boys dragged sacks of corn and potatoes. One old man struggled along with a small barrel of flour on a wheelbarrow. Men, women and children, black and white, hurried, hurried with straining faces, lugging packages and sacks and boxes of food—more food than she had seen in a year. The crowd suddenly gave a lane for a careening carriage and through the lane came the frail and elegant Mrs. Elsing, standing up in the front of her victoria, reins in one hand, whip in the other. She was hatless and white faced and her long gray hair streamed down her back as she lashed the horse like a Fury. Jouncing on the back seat of the carriage was her black mammy, Melissy, clutching a greasy side of bacon to her with one hand, while with the other and both feet she attempted to hold the boxes and bags piled all about her. One bag of dried peas had burst and the peas strewed themselves into the street Scarlett screamed to her, but the tumult of the crowd drowned her voice and the carriage rocked madly by.

For a moment she could not understand what it all meant and then, remembering that the commissary warehouses were down by the railroad tracks, she realized that the army had thrown them open to the people to salvage what they could before the Yankees came.

She pushed her way swiftly through the crowds, past the packed, hysterical mob surging in the open space of Five Points, and hurried as fast as she could down the short block toward the depot. Through the tangle of ambulances and the clouds of dust, she could see doctors and stretcher bearers bending, lifting, hurrying. Thank God, she’d find Dr. Meade soon. As she rounded the corner of the Atlanta Hotel and came in full view of the depot and the tracks, she halted appalled.

Lying in the pitiless sun, shoulder to shoulder, head to feet, were hundreds of wounded men, lining the tracks, the sidewalks, stretched out in endless rows under the car shed. Some lay stiff and still but many writhed under the hot sun, moaning. Everywhere, swarms of flies hovered over the men, crawling and buzzing in their faces, everywhere was blood, dirty bandages, groans, screamed curses of pain as stretcher bearers lifted men. The smell of sweat, of blood, of unwashed bodies, of excrement rose up in waves of blistering heat until the fetid stench almost nauseated her. The ambulance men hurrying here and there among the prostrate forms frequently stepped on wounded men, so thickly packed were the rows, and those trodden upon stared stolidly up, waiting their turn.

She shrank back, clapping her hand to her mouth feeling that she was going to vomit. She couldn’t go on. She had seen wounded men in the hospitals, wounded men on Aunt Pitty’s lawn after the fighting at the creek, but never anything like this. Never anything like these stinking, bleeding bodies broiling under the glaring sun. This was an inferno of pain and smell and noise and hurry—hurry—hurry! The Yankees are coming! The Yankees are coming! She braced her shoulders and went down among them, straining her eyes among the upright figures to distinguish Dr. Meade. But she discovered she could not look for him, for if she did not step carefully she would tread on some poor soldier. She raised her skirts and tried to pick her way among them toward a knot of men who were directing the stretcher bearers.

As she walked, feverish hands plucked at her skirt and voices croaked: “Lady—water! Please, lady, water! For Christ’s sake, water!”

Perspiration came down her face in streams as she pulled her skirts from clutching hands. If she stepped on one of these men, she’d scream and faint. She stepped over dead men, over men who lay dull eyed with hands clutched to bellies where dried blood had glued torn uniforms to wounds, over men whose beards were stiff with blood and from whose broken jaws came sounds which must mean:

“Water! Water!”

If she did not find Dr. Meade soon, she would begin screaming with hysteria. She looked toward the group of men under the car shed and cried as loudly as she could: “Dr. Meade! Is Dr. Meade there?”