s training in the blood-
and-iron school of Bismarck and Von Moltke of which the other two must
have been brag-scholars. Both of them, I think, were Prussians, but
this general was a Saxon from the South. Indeed, as I now recall, he
said his home in peace times was in Dresden. He seemed less simple of
manner than they; they in turn lacked a certain flexibility and grace of
bearing which were his. But two things in common they all three had and
radiated from them--a superb efficiency in the trade at which they
worked and a superb confidence in the tools with which they did the
work. This was rather a small man, quick and supple in his movements.
He had a limited command of English, and he appeared deeply desirous
that we Americans should have a good opinion of the behavior of his
troops and that we should say as much in what we wrote for our fellow
Americans to read.

Coming out of the house to reenter our automobile I saw, across the
small square of the town, which by now was quite in darkness, the flare
of a camp kitchen. I wanted very much to examine one of these wheeled
cook wagons at close range. An officer--the same who had first
approached us to examine our papers--accompanied me to explain its
workings and to point out the various compartments where the coal was
kept and the fuel, and the two big sunken pots where the stew was cooked
and the coffee was brewed. The thing proved to be cumbersome, which was
German, but it was most complete in detail, and that, take it, was
German too. While the officer rattled the steel lids the cook himself
stood rigidly alongside, with his fingers touching the seams of his
trousers. Seen by the glare of his own fire he seemed a clod, fit only
to make soups and feed a fire box. But by that same flickery light I
saw something. On the breast of his grease-spattered blouse dangled a
black-and-white ribbon with a black-and-white Maltese cross fastened to
it. I marveled that a company cook should wear the Iron Cross of the
second class and I asked the captain about it. He laughed at the wonder
that was evident in my tones.

"If you will look more closely," he said, "you will see that a good many
of our cooks already have won the Iron Cross since this war began, and a
good many others will yet win it--if they live. We have no braver men
in our army than these fellows. They go into the trenches at least
twice a day, under the hottest fire sometimes, to carry hot coffee an