Some had small wooden sign-boards
bearing the word Zeitung, which they would lift and swing across the
path of an approaching automobile. I began to believe after a while
that if a man had enough newspapers in stock he could bribe his way
through the German troops clear into France.
These fellows who gathered about us now were of the Landsturm, men in
their late thirties and early forties, with long, shaggy mustaches.
Their kind forms the handle of the mighty hammer whose steel nose is
battering at France. Every third one of them wore spectacles, showing
that the back lines of the army are extensively addicted to the favorite
Teutonic sport of being nearsighted. Also, their coat sleeves
invariably were too long for them, and hid their big hands almost to the
knuckles. This is a characteristic I have everywhere noted among the
German privates. If the French soldier's coat is over-lengthy in the
skirt the German's is ultra-generous with cloth in the sleeves. I saw
that their hair was beginning to get shaggy, showing that they had been
in the field some weeks, since every German soldier--officer and private
alike--leaves the barracks so close-cropped that his skin shows pinky
through the bristles.
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