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 which the Germans awaited them, sheltered by the banks. From their covered position the Germans were able to shoot down the forward rushing Danes like defenceless game. We children had heard about this, and also about the despair of the colonel who was quartered on a neighbouring family. Father had been told how confidently and proudly he had ridden off in the early morning to seek the Germans, only to return late the same night to lock himself in his rooms, silent, and refusing food. Now it is the next morning, and the long train of the wounded is beginning to arrive. Slowly and mournfully, like a funeral, the carts come through the streets, and on spread-out straw lie the wounded. Some have bandages round their heads, others on arms and legs. Often the bandages are stained with blood, and the faces are whiter than the bandages. Not one of the wounded look to the windows, all are staring straight in front with lifeless, hopeless eyes. At the time I could scarcely have thought of it, but later it seemed to me that these wounded Danish soldiers aroused less pity for their physical pain than for the despair and shame of the defeat, clearly to be read in their tortured faces.

I walk along without thinking of the road I am taking. It is twenty years since I walked through these streets, for twenty years I have not had their names in my thoughts, yet without reflection, without hesitation, as though by an invisible hand, I am led exactly whither I wish. I am in my child-