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.