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 of Germany had met near Contalmaison the light-hearted boys I had seen drilling in Hyde Park last year, and in a furious counter-attack, in which they had attempted to regain the village, had been wiped out. These were not merely wounded, but dejected wounded. The whole atmosphere of the scene was that of intense surprise and depression. Tradition going back to Frederick the Great, nearly two hundred years ago, had been smashed--by amateur soldiers. The callow youth of sixteen who served my lunch was muttering something to the barmaid, who replied that he was lucky to be in a class that was not likely to be called up yet.