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Show 1-4 to the ground by the conductor. We were silent, waiting for something I did not understand. "Mother, where is Father?," I whispered, trying to see her eyes under the shadow of her hat. "He'll be here soon," she told me, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the now-frightening silence. "Hush, now." She almost hissed the last words at me and I, startled by her voice, looked again at her face under the broad-brimmed hat. I saw her face change, her lips tighten, her chin tremble. And I looked at what was coming off the train. I saw only men in uniform, supporting other men also in uniform and in bandages, around heads and eyes, around arms and legs. They marched by us, as if in a parade, and none of them looked at us. We all moved back, the crowd dividing, pressing against the train and the green wall. I clutched my mother's dress and she gripped my shoulder. The men passed on and entered the depot. Then men in wheelchairs were rolled down the ramp and out onto the pavement by nurses pushing!them from behind. Again they passed us silently, only more slowly still. These men too were bandaged and wrapped, heads, eyes, arms, feet. Some slumped into their chairs, blankets wrapped high under their chins. The nurses looked down, avoiding the eyes in the crowd. The people around us began to stir, to detach themselves, almost unwillingly, from our group. They moved singly and in pairs toward the nurses and the chairs, but seemed unwilling to greet the men. One old woman, as old as my grandmother, tears running down her face and splashing onto her blue coat, finally knelt by one of the wheelchairs. She put her arms around the silent man who sat there and kissed his swollen face. |