"I beg your pardon," said Rhett with mock humility. "I meant those thousands on furlough who forgot to rejoin their regiments and those who have been over their wounds for six months but who remain at home, going about their usual business or doing the spring plowing."
His eyes gleamed and Mrs. Meade bit her lip in a huff. Scarlett wanted to giggle at her discomfiture, for Rhett had caught her fairly. There were hundreds of men skulking in the swamps and the mountains, defying the provost guard to drag them back to the army. They were the ones who declared it was a "rich man's war and a poor man's fight" and they had had enough of it. But outnumbering these by far were men who, though carried on company rolls as deserters, had no intention of deserting permanently. They were the ones who had waited three years in vain for furloughs and while they waited received ill-spelled letters from home: "We air hungry." "There won't be no crop this year -- there ain't nobody to plow." "We air hungry." "The commissary took the shoats, and we ain't had no money from you in months. We air livin' on dried peas."
Always the rising chorus swelled: "We are hungry, your wife, your babies, your parents. When will it be over? When will you come home? We are hungry, hungry." When furloughs from the rapidly thinning army were denied, these soldiers went home without them, to plow their land and plant their crops, repair their houses and build up their fences. When regimental officers, understanding the situation, saw a hard fight ahead, they wrote these men, telling them to rejoin their companies and no questions would be asked. Usually the men returned when they saw that hunger at home would be held at bay for a few months longer. "Plow furloughs" were not looked upon in the same light as desertion in the face of the enemy, but they weakened the army just the same.
Dr. Meade hastily bridged over the uncomfortable pause, his voice cold: "Captain Butler, the numerical difference between our troops and those of the Yankees has never mattered. One Confederate is worth a dozen Yankees."
The ladies nodded. Everyone knew that.
"That was true at the first of the war," said Rhett. "Perhaps it's still true, provided the Confederate soldier has bullets for his gun and shoes on his feet and food in his stomach. Eh, Captain Ashburn?"
His voice was still soft and filled with specious humility. Carey Ashburn looked unhappy, for it was obvious that he, too, disliked Rhett intensely. He gladly would have sided with the doctor but he could not lie. The reason he had applied for transfer to the front, despite his useless arm, was that he realized, as the civilian population did not, the seriousness of the situation. There were many other men, stumping on wooden pegs, blind in one eye, fingers blown away, one arm gone, who were quietly transferring from, the commissariat, hospital duties, mail and railroad service back to their old fighting units. They knew Old Joe needed every man.
He did not speak and Dr. Meade thundered, losing his temper: "Our men have fought without shoes before and without food and won victories. And they will fight again and win! I tell you General Johnston cannot be dislodged! The mountain fastnesses have always been the refuge and the strong forts of invaded peoples from ancient times. Think of -- think of Thermopylae!"
Scarlett thought hard but Thermopylae meant nothing to her.
"They died to the last man at Thermopylae, didn't they, Doctor?" Rhett asked, and his lips twitched with suppressed laughter.
"Are you being insulting, young man?"
"Doctor! I beg of you! You misunderstood me! I merely asked for information. My memory of ancient history is poor."
"If need be, our army will die to the last man before they permit the Yankees to advance farther into Georgia," snapped the doctor. "But it will not be. They will drive them out of Georgia in one skirmish."
Aunt Pittypat rose hastily and asked Scarlett to favor them with a piano selection and a song. She saw that the conversation was rapidly getting into deep and stormy water. She had known very well there would be trouble if she invited Rhett to supper. There was always trouble when he was present. Just how he started it, she never exactly understood. Dear! Dear! What did Scarlett see in the man? And how could dear Melly defend him?
As Scarlett went obediently into the parlor, a silence fell on the porch, a silence that pulsed with resentment toward Rhett How could anyone not believe with heart and soul in the invincibility of General Johnston and his men? Believing was a sacred duty. And those who were so traitorous as not to believe should, at least, have the decency to keep their mouths shut.
Scarlett struck a few chords and her voice floated out to them from the parlor, sweetly, sadly, in the words of a popular song:
"Into a ward of whitewashed walls
Where the dead and dying lay --
Wounded with bayone
ts, shells and balls--
Somebody's darling was borne one day.
"Somebody's darling! so young and so brave!
Wearing still on his pale, sweet face --
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave--
The lingering light of his boyhood's grace."
"Matted and damp are the curls of gold," mourned Scarlett's faulty soprano, and Fanny half rose and said in a faint, strangled voice: "Sing something else!"
The piano was suddenly silent as Scarlett was overtaken with surprise and embarrassment. Then she hastily blundered into the opening bars of "Jacket of Gray" and stopped with a discord as she remembered how heartrending that selection was too. The piano was silent again for she was utterly at a loss. All the songs had to do with death and parting and sorrow.
Rhett rose swiftly, deposited Wade in Fanny's lap, and went into the parlor.
"Play 'My Old Kentucky Home,' " he suggested smoothly, and Scarlett gratefully plunged into it. Her voice was joined by Rhett's excellent bass, and as they went into the second verse those on the porch breathed more easily, though Heaven knew it was none too cheery a song, either.
"Just a few more days for to tote the weary load!