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?”
From the group one man detached himself and looked toward her.It was the doctor.He was coatless and his sleeves were rolled up to his shoulders.His shirt and trousers were as red as a butcher's and even the end of his iron-gray beard was matted with blood.His face was the face of a man drunk with fatigue and impotent rage and burning pity.It was gray and dusty,and sweat had streaked long rivulets across his cheeks.But his voice was calm and decisive as he called to her.
“Thank God,you are here.I can use every pair of hands.”
