as shells screamed

　Quiet, drowsy afternoon siestas had ceased to be, for though the clamor of battle might lull from time to time, Peachtree Street was alive, and noisy at all hours, cannon and ambulances rumbling by, wounded stumbling in from the rifle pits, regiments hurrying past at double-quick, ordered from the ditches on one side of town to the defense of some hard-pressed earthworks on the other, and couriers dashing headlong down the street toward headquarters as though the fate of the Confederacy hung on them. 　The hot nights brought a measure of quiet but it was a sinister quiet. When the night was still, it was too still—as though the tree frogs, katydids and sleepy mockingbirds were too frightened to raise their voices in the usual summer-night chorus. Now and again, the quiet was broken sharply by the crack-cracking of musket fire in the last line of defenses. 　Often in the late night hours, when the lamps were out and Melanie asleep and deathly silence pressed over the town, Scarlett, lying awake, heard the latch of the front gate click and soft urgent tappings on the front door. 　Always, faceless soldiers stood on the dark porch and from the darkness many different voices spoke to her. Sometimes a cultured voice came from the shadows: “Madam, my abject apologies for disturbing you, but could I have water for myself and my horse?” Sometimes it was the hard burring of a mountain voice, sometimes the odd nasals of the flat Wiregrass country to the far south, occasionally the lulling drawl of the Coast that caught at her heart, reminding her of Ellen’s voice. 　“Missy, I got a pardner here who I wuz aimin’ ter git ter the horsepittle but looks like he ain’t goin’ ter last that fer. Kin you take him in?” 　“Lady, I shore could do with some vittles. I’d shore relish a corn pone if it didn’t deprive you none.” 　“Madam, forgive my intrusion but—could I spend the night on your porch? I saw the roses and smelled the honeysuckle and it was so much like home that I was emboldened—” 　No, these nights were not real! They were a nightmare and the men were part of that nightmare, men without bodies or faces, only tired voices speaking to her from the warm dark. Draw water, serve food, lay pillows on the front porch, bind wounds, hold the dirty heads of the dying. No, this could not be happening to her! 　Once, late in July, it was Uncle Henry Hamilton who came tapping in the night. Uncle Henry was minus his umbrella and carpetbag now, and his fat stomach as well. The skin of his pink fat face hung down in loose folds like the dewlaps of a bulldog and his long white hair was indescribably dirty. He was almost barefoot, crawling with lice, and he was hungry, but his irascible spirit was unimpaired. 　Despite his remark: “It’s a foolish war when old fools like me are out toting guns,” the girls received the impression that Uncle Henry was enjoying himself. He was needed, like the young men, and he was doing a young man’s work. Moreover, he could keep up with the young men, which was more than Grandpa Merriwether could do, he told them gleefully. Grandpa’s lumbago was troubling him greatly and the Captain wanted to discharge him. But Grandpa wouldn’t go home. He said frankly that he preferred the Captain’s swearing and bullying to his daughter-in-law’s coddling, and her incessant demands that he give up chewing tobacco and launder his beard every day.