heir flat bottoms; there were baggage trains miles in
length, wherein the supply of regular army wagons was eked out with
nondescript vehicles--even family carriages and delivery vans gathered
up hastily, as the signs on their sides betrayed, from the tradespeople
of a dozen Northern German cities and towns, and now bearing chalk marks
on them to show in what division they belonged. And inevitably at the
tail of each regiment came its cook wagons, with fires kindled and food
cooking for supper in the big portable ranges, so that when these passed
the air would be charged with that pungent reek of burning wood which
makes an American think of a fire engine on its way to answer an alarm.

Once, as a cook perched on a step at the back of his wagon bent forward
to stir the stew with a spoon almost big enough for a spade, I saw under
his hiked-up coat-tails that at the back of his gray trousers there were
four suspender buttons in a row instead of two. The purpose of this was
plain: when his suspenders chafed him he might, by shifting the straps
to different buttons, shift the strain on his shoulders. All German
soldiers' trousers have this extra garnishment of buttons aft.

Somebody thought of that. Somebody thought of everything.

We in America are accustomed to think of the Germans as an obese race,
swinging big paunches in front of them; but in that army the only fat
men we saw were officers, and not so many of them. On occasion, some
colonel, beefy as a brisket and with rolls of fat on the back of his
close-shaved neck, would be seen bouncing by, balancing his tired
stomach on his saddle pommel; but, without exception, the men in the
ranks were trained down and fine drawn. They bent forward under the
weight of their knapsacks and blanket rolls; and their middles were
bulky with cartridge belts, and bulging pockets covered their flanks.

Inside the shapeless uniforms, however, their limbs swung with athletic
freedom, and even at the fag-end of a hard day's marching, with perhaps
several hours of marching yet ahead of them, they carried their heavy
guns as though those guns were toys. Their fair sunburned faces were
lined with sweat marks and masked under dust, and doubtless some were
desperately weary; but I did not see a straggler. To date I presume I
have seen upward of a million of these German soldiers on the march, and
I have yet to see a straggler.

For the most part the rank and file were stamped by thei