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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 their faces and
their limbs as being of peasant blood or of the petty artisan type; but
here and there, along with the butcher and the baker and the candlestick
maker, passed one of a slenderer build, usually spectacled and wearing,
even in this employment, the unmistakable look of the cultured,
scholarly man.


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