"Might I not see the wounded taken from the train?" I requested.
He very courteously replied that I might not, unless I had a
special pass for that purpose from the _Kriegsministerium_ in
Berlin.

I hit upon a plan.

I regretfully sighed that I would go back to Berlin and get a pass,
and retracing my steps to the station I bought a ticket.

A soldier and an Unteroffizier were stationed near the box in which
stood the uniformed woman who punches tickets.

The Unteroffizier looked at me sharply, "No train for an hour and a
half," he said.

"That doesn't disturb me in the least when I have plenty to read,"
I answered pleasantly, at the same time pointing to the bundle of
morning papers which I carried, the _Norddeutsche Allgemeine
Zeitung_ of the Foreign Office, on the outside.

I knew Potsdam thoroughly, and was perfectly familiar with every
foot of the station. I knew that there was a large window in the
first and second-class dining-room which was even closer to the
ambulances in the square than were the exit steps.

I did not go directly to the dining-room, but sat on one of the
high-backed benches on the platform and began to read the papers.
The Unteroffizier looked out and found me fairly buried in them.
He returned a little later and saw me asleep--or thought he did.

When he had gone I sauntered along the platform into the
dining-room, to find it vacant save for a youthful waiter and a
barmaid. I walked straight to the window--where the light would be
better for reading--and ordered bread and Edam cheese, tearing off
a fifty gram amount from my Berlin bread ticket, which was
fortunately good in Potsdam.

My position enabled me to look right out upon the square below, but
rendered me inconspicuous from the street.

By this time the wounded were being moved from the train. The
slightly wounded were drawn up in double ranks, their clean white
arm- and head-bandages gleaming in the noonday light. They stood
dazed and dejected, looking on at the real work which was just
beginning--the removal of the severely wounded.

Then it was that I learned the use of those mammoth furniture vans.
Then it was I realised that these vans are part of Germany's plans
by which her wounded are carried--I will not say secretly, but as
unobtrusively as possible. In some of the mammoths were put
twelve, into others fourteen; others held as many as twenty.

The Prussian Guard had come home. The steel corps of the army