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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserter, by Richard Harding Davis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Deserter
+
+Author: Richard Harding Davis
+
+Release Date: February 17, 2005 [EBook #15089]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Stephanie Tarnacki and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DESERTER
+
+ BY
+
+RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
+
+ WITH AN INTRODUCTION
+
+ BY
+
+JOHN T. MCCUTCHEON
+
+NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1918
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+When Mr. Davis wrote the story of "The Deserter," he could not
+possibly have foreseen that it was to be his last story--the last
+of those short stories which gave him such eminence as a
+short-story writer.
+
+He apparently was as rugged and as vigorous as ever.
+
+And yet, had he sat down to write a story which he knew was to be
+his last, I do not think he could have written one more fittingly
+designed to be the capstone of his literary monument. The theme is
+one in which he has unconsciously mirrored his own ideals of
+honorable obligation, as well as one which presents a wholesome
+lesson to young soldiers who have taken an oath to do faithful
+service to a nation.
+
+It is a story with a moral so subtly expressed that every soldier
+or sailor who reads it will think seriously of it if the
+temptation to such disloyalty should enter his mind. This story of
+the young man who tried to desert at Salonika may well have a
+heartening influence upon all men in uniforms who waver in the
+path of duty--especially in these days of vast military operations
+when a whole world is in arms. It belongs in patriotic literature
+by the side of Edward Everett Hale's "The Man Without a Country."
+The motif is the same--that of obligation and service and loyalty
+to a pledge.
+
+In "The Deserter" Mr. Davis does not reveal the young soldier's
+name, for obvious reasons, and the name of the hotel and ship in
+Salonika are likewise disguised. It is part of the art of the
+skilful story-writer to dress his narrative in such a way as to
+eliminate those matter-of-fact details which would be emphasized
+by one writing the story as a matter of news. For instance, the
+Hotel Hermes in Mr. Davis's story is the Olympos Palace Hotel, and
+the _Adriaticus_ is the Greek steamer _Helleni_. The name of the
+young soldier is given as "Hamlin," and under this literary
+"camouflage," to borrow a word born of the war, the story may be
+read without the thought that a certain definite young man will be
+humiliated by seeing his own name revealed as that of a potential
+deserter.
+
+But the essentials of the story are all true, and its value as a
+lasting influence for good is in no way impaired by the necessary
+fictions as to places and identities.
+
+It was my privilege to see the dramatic incidents of the story of
+"The Deserter" as they unfolded during the time included in Mr.
+Davis's story. The setting was in the huge room--chamber,
+living-room, workroom, clubroom, and sometimes dining-room that we
+occupied in the Olympos Palace Hotel in Salonika. William G.
+Shepherd, of the United Press, James H. Hare, the veteran war
+photographer, and I were the original occupants of this room,
+which owed its vast dimensions to the fact that it formerly had
+been the dining-room of the hotel, later the headquarters of the
+Austrian Club, and finally, under the stressful conditions of an
+overcrowded city, a bedroom. Mr. Davis joined us here in November
+of 1915, and for some days shared the room until he could secure
+another in the same hotel.
+
+The city was seething with huge activities. We lived from day to
+day, not knowing what moment some disaster might result as a
+consequence of an incongruous military and political situation, in
+which German and Austrian consular officials walked the streets
+side by side with French and British officers. Men who had lived
+through many strange situations declared that this motley of
+tongues and nationalities and conflicting interests to be found in
+Salonika during those last weeks of 1915 was without a parallel in
+their experiences.
+
+Into this atmosphere occasionally came the little human dramas
+that were a welcome novelty beside the big drama that dominated
+the picture, and it was thus that the drama of the young soldier
+who wished to desert came into our lives as a gripping, human
+document.
+
+To Mr. Davis the drama was more than a "news" story; it was
+something big and fundamental, involving a young man's whole
+future, and as such it revealed to his quick instinct for dramatic
+situations the theme for a big story.
+
+No sooner had "Hamlin" left our room, reclad in his dirty uniform
+and headed for certain punishment back at his camp, than Mr. Davis
+proclaimed his intention to write the story.
+
+"The best war story I ever knew!" he exclaimed.
+
+Of course the young soldier did not see it as a drama in real
+life, and he certainly did not comprehend that he might be playing
+a part in what would be a tragedy in his own life. To him the
+incident had no dramatic possibilities. He was merely a young man
+who had been racked by exposure and suffering to a point where he
+longed to escape a continuance of such hardship, and the easiest
+way out of it seemed by way of deserting.
+
+He was "fed up" on discomfort and dirt and cold, and harassed by
+the effects of an ill-healed wound received in Flanders some
+months before, and he wanted to go home.
+
+The story, as Mr. Davis tells it in the following pages, is
+complete as it stands. So far as he knew up to the time of his
+death, there was no sequel. He died thinking of "Hamlin" as a
+potential deserter who had been shamed out of his purpose to
+desert and who had left, ungrateful and bitter with resentment at
+his fellow Americans, who had persuaded him to go back to camp,
+"take his medicine," and "see it through."
+
+The Hotel "Hermes" is probably no more. Only a few days ago the
+news came that all of the water-front of Salonika, a district
+stretching in splendid array from the "White Tower" to the Customs
+House, had been wiped out by a tremendous fire. It was in this
+district that most of the finest buildings, including the Olympos
+Palace Hotel--the Hotel Hermes of Mr. Davis's story--were located,
+and there is little likelihood that any of this part of the city
+escaped. The magnitude of the fire is indicated by the estimated
+loss, which is $100,000,000, with about $26,000,000 insurance.
+
+The government has authorized the construction of barracks outside
+the burned zone, but has decided not to permit repairs or
+temporary construction within that area until plans for rebuilding
+the city are complete.
+
+Thus the setting of the story of "The Deserter" is gone, the
+author is gone, and who can tell at this moment whether "Hamlin,"
+fighting in the trenches on the British front in Prance, is not
+also gone.
+
+I hope it may not affect the interest or the moral of the story if
+I give the sequel. I know that Mr. Davis would have been glad to
+hear what became of the young man who left our room with an angry
+word of resentment against us. I hope, too, that the reader will
+feel a natural interest in knowing how he fared, and what
+punishment he received for having overstayed his leave, and for
+shaving his mustache as part of his plan to escape detection, both
+of which infractions made him subject to punishment.
+
+One day about three weeks after Davis had left Salonika homeward
+bound, a soldier brought us a note from "Hamlin." He was on a Red
+Cross lighter down at the pier, and we at once went down to see
+him. He was lying on a stretcher among scores of men. His face was
+thin and pale, and in answer to our eager questions he told how he
+had fared when he returned to camp.
+
+"Oh, they gave it to me good," he said. "But they still think I
+got drunk. They took away my stripes and made me a private. But I
+was sick the night I got back to camp and I've been laid up ever
+since. They say there is something the matter with my intestines
+and they're going to cut me open again. Gee, but the captain was
+surprised! He said he had always counted on me as a teetotaller
+and that he was grieved and disappointed in me. And just think,
+I've never taken a drink in my life!"
+
+We said good-by, and this time it was a friendly good-by. That
+night he left on a hospital ship for Alexandria.
+
+Once more the course of young Mr. "Hamlin's" life was swallowed up
+in the vast oblivion of army life, and we heard no more of him
+until, one day in London, three months later, Shepherd felt an arm
+thrown about his shoulder and turned to find the healthy and
+cheerful face of "Hamlin."
+
+A few minutes later, at a luncheon-table, Shepherd heard his
+story.
+
+After leaving Alexandria he was sent to a hospital in Manchester.
+On the day of his discharge he was asked to report to a certain
+major, who informed him that the government had conferred upon him
+the D.C.M.--the medal for Distinguished Conduct in the field--in
+recognition of his service in recovering a wounded man from No
+Man's land in Flanders ten months before. The following day,
+before a file of soldiers drawn up on the parade-ground, the honor
+was officially conferred and a little ribbon was pinned upon his
+coat to testify to the appreciative, though somewhat tardy,
+gratitude of the government.
+
+"Hamlin" pointed to the little ribbon on his lapel and proudly
+drew from his pocket an official paper in which his heroic
+achievement was duly recited.
+
+He had not heard of Davis's death, and was deeply touched when Mr.
+Shepherd told him of it. At once he expressed his endless
+gratitude to Davis and the rest of us for what we had done for him
+in Salonika.
+
+In a few days he was to return to France with his regiment. What
+has happened to him since then I have no means of knowing. His
+movements are again wrapped in that dense fog which veils the
+soldier's life to all the outside world except those to whom he
+writes.
+
+In view of what we now know of Hamlin's physical condition at the
+time his mind was obsessed with the idea of deserting, both Mr.
+Shepherd and I are glad to believe that his decision to desert was
+the consequence of physical rather than mental or moral weakness,
+for his stamina was at its lowest ebb because of a weakened body.
+
+JOHN T. McCUTCHEON.
+
+CHICAGO, ILLINOIS,
+September 15, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+THE DESERTER
+
+
+In Salonika, the American consul, the Standard Oil man, and the
+war correspondents formed the American colony. The correspondents
+were waiting to go to the front. Incidentally, as we waited, the
+front was coming rapidly toward us. There was "Uncle" Jim, the
+veteran of many wars, and of all the correspondents, in experience
+the oldest and in spirit the youngest, and there was the Kid, and
+the Artist. The Kid jeered at us, and proudly described himself as
+the only Boy Reporter who jumped from a City Hall assignment to
+cover a European War. "I don't know strategy," he would boast;
+"neither does the Man at Home. He wants 'human interest' stuff,
+and I give him what he wants. I write exclusively for the subway
+guard and the farmers in the wheat belt. When you fellows write
+about the 'Situation,' they don't understand it. Neither do you.
+Neither does Venizelos or the King. I don't understand it myself.
+So, I write my people heart-to-heart talks about refugees and
+wounded, and what kind of ploughs the Servian peasants use, and
+that St. Paul wrote his letters to the Thessalonians from the same
+hotel where I write mine; and I tell 'em to pronounce Salonika
+'eeka,' and _not_ put the accent on the 'on.' This morning at the
+refugee camp I found all the little Servians of the Frothingham
+unit in American Boy Scout uniforms. That's my meat. That's 'home
+week' stuff. You fellows write for the editorial page; and nobody
+reads it. I write for the man that turns first to Mutt and Jeff,
+and then looks to see where they are running the new Charlie
+Chaplin release. When that man has to choose between 'our military
+correspondent' and the City Hall Reporter, he chooses me!"
+
+The third man was John, "Our Special Artist." John could write a
+news story, too, but it was the cartoons that had made him famous.
+They were not comic page, but front page cartoons, and before
+making up their minds what they thought, people waited to see what
+their Artist thought. So, it was fortunate his thoughts were as
+brave and clean as they were clever. He was the original Little
+Brother to the Poor. He was always giving away money. When we
+caught him, he would prevaricate. He would say the man was a
+college chum, that he had borrowed the money from him, and that
+this was the first chance he had had to pay it back. The Kid
+suggested it was strange that so many of his college chums should
+at the same moment turn up, dead broke, in Salonika, and that half
+of them should be women.
+
+John smiled disarmingly. "It was a large college," he explained,
+"and coeducational." There were other Americans; Red Cross doctors
+and nurses just escaped through the snow from the Bulgars, and
+hyphenated Americans who said they had taken out their first
+papers. They thought hyphenated citizens were so popular with us,
+that we would pay their passage to New York. In Salonika they were
+transients. They had no local standing. They had no local
+lying-down place, either, or place to eat, or to wash, although
+they did not look as though that worried them, or place to change
+their clothes. Or clothes to change. It was because we had clothes
+to change, and a hotel bedroom, instead of a bench in a café, that
+we were ranked as residents and from the Greek police held a
+"permission to sojourn." Our American colony was a very close
+corporation. We were only six Americans against 300,000 British,
+French, Greek, and Servian soldiers, and 120,000 civilian Turks,
+Spanish Jews, Armenians, Persians, Egyptians, Albanians, and
+Arabs, and some twenty more other faces that are not listed. We
+had arrived in Salonika before the rush, and at the Hotel Hermes
+on the water-front had secured a vast room. The edge of the stone
+quay was not forty feet from us, the only landing steps directly
+opposite our balcony. Everybody who arrived on the Greek passenger
+boats from Naples or the Pirćus, or who had shore leave from a *
+man-of-war, transport, or hospital ship, was raked by our cameras.
+There were four windows--one for each of us and his worktable. It
+was not easy to work. What was the use? The pictures and stories
+outside the windows fascinated us, but when we sketched them or
+wrote about them, they only proved us inadequate. All day long the
+pinnaces, cutters, gigs, steam launches shoved and bumped against
+the stone steps, marines came ashore for the mail, stewards for
+fruit and fish, Red Cross nurses to shop, tiny midshipmen to visit
+the movies, and the sailors and officers of the Russian, French,
+British, Italian, and Greek war-ships to stretch their legs in the
+park of the Tour Blanche, or to cramp them under a café table.
+Sometimes the ambulances blocked the quay and the wounded and
+frostbitten were lifted into the motorboats, and sometimes a squad
+of marines lined the landing stage, and as a coffin under a French
+or English flag was borne up the stone steps stood at salute. So
+crowded was the harbor that the oars of the boatmen interlocked.
+
+Close to the stone quay, stretched along the three-mile circle,
+were the fishing smacks, beyond them, so near that the anchor
+chains fouled, were the passenger ships with gigantic Greek flags
+painted on their sides, and beyond them transports from
+Marseilles, Malta, and Suvla Bay, black colliers, white hospital
+ships, burning green electric lights, red-bellied tramps and
+freighters, and, hemming them in, the grim, mouse-colored
+destroyers, submarines, cruisers, dreadnaughts. At times, like a
+wall, the cold fog rose between us and the harbor, and again the
+curtain would suddenly be ripped asunder, and the sun would flash
+on the brass work of the fleet, on the white wings of the
+aeroplanes, on the snow-draped shoulders of Mount Olympus. We
+often speculated as to how in the early days the gods and
+goddesses, dressed as they were, or as they were not, survived the
+snows of Mount Olympus. Or was it only their resort for the
+summer?
+
+It got about that we had a vast room to ourselves, where one might
+obtain a drink, or a sofa for the night, or even money to cable
+for money. So, we had many strange visitors, some half starved,
+half frozen, with terrible tales of the Albanian trail, of the
+Austrian prisoners fallen by the wayside, of the mountain passes
+heaped with dead, of the doctors and nurses wading waist-high in
+snowdrifts and for food killing the ponies. Some of our visitors
+wanted to get their names in the American papers so that the folks
+at home would know they were still alive, others wanted us to keep
+their names out of the papers, hoping the police would think them
+dead; another, convinced it was of pressing news value, desired us
+to advertise the fact that he had invented a poisonous gas for use
+in the trenches. With difficulty we prevented him from casting it
+adrift in our room. Or, he had for sale a second-hand motorcycle,
+or he would accept a position as barkeeper, or for five francs
+would sell a state secret that, once made public, in a month would
+end the war. It seemed cheap at the price.
+
+Each of us had his "scouts" to bring him the bazaar rumor, the
+Turkish bath rumor, the café rumor. Some of our scouts journeyed
+as far afield as Monastir and Doiran, returning to drip snow on
+the floor, and to tell us tales, one-half of which we refused to
+believe, and the other half the censor refused to pass. With each
+other's visitors it was etiquette not to interfere. It would have
+been like tapping a private wire. When we found John sketching a
+giant stranger in a cap and coat of wolf skin we did not seek to
+know if he were an Albanian brigand, or a Servian prince
+_incognito_, and when a dark Levantine sat close to the Kid,
+whispering, and the Kid banged on his typewriter, we did not
+listen.
+
+So, when I came in one afternoon and found a strange American
+youth writing at John's table, and no one introduced us, I took it
+for granted he had sold the Artist an "exclusive" story, and asked
+no questions. But I could not help hearing what they said. Even
+though I tried to drown their voices by beating on the Kid's
+typewriter. I was taking my third lesson, and I had printed, "I
+Amm 5w writjng This, 5wjth my own lilly w?ite handS," when I heard
+the Kid saying:
+
+"You can beat the game this way. Let John buy you a ticket to the
+Pirćus. If you go from one Greek port to another you don't need a
+visé. But, if you book from here to Italy, you must get a permit
+from the Italian consul, and our consul, and the police. The plot
+is to get out of the war zone, isn't it? Well, then, my dope is to
+get out quick, and map the rest of your trip when you're safe in
+Athens."
+
+It was no business of mine, but I had to look up. The stranger was
+now pacing the floor. I noticed that while his face was almost
+black with tan, his upper lip was quite white. I noticed also that
+he had his hands in the pockets of one of John's blue serge suits,
+and that the pink silk shirt he wore was one that once had
+belonged to the Kid. Except for the pink shirt, in the appearance
+of the young man there was nothing unusual. He was of a familiar
+type. He looked like a young business man from our Middle West,
+matter-of-fact and unimaginative, but capable and self-reliant. If
+he had had a fountain pen in his upper waistcoat pocket, I would
+have guessed he was an insurance agent, or the publicity man for a
+new automobile. John picked up his hat, and said, "That's good
+advice. Give me your steamer ticket, Fred, and I'll have them
+change it." He went out; but he did not ask Fred to go with him.
+
+Uncle Jim rose, and murmured something about the Café Roma, and
+tea. But neither did he invite Fred to go with him. Instead, he
+told him to make himself at home, and if he wanted anything the
+waiter would bring it from the café downstairs. Then the Kid, as
+though he also was uncomfortable at being left alone with us,
+hurried to the door. "Going to get you a suitcase," he explained.
+"Back in five minutes."
+
+The stranger made no answer. Probably he did not hear him. Not a
+hundred feet from our windows three Greek steamers were huddled
+together, and the eyes of the American were fixed on them. The one
+for which John had gone to buy him a new ticket lay nearest. She
+was to sail in two hours. Impatiently, in short quick steps, the
+stranger paced the length of the room, but when he turned and so
+could see the harbor, he walked slowly, devouring it with his
+eyes. For some time, in silence, he repeated this manoeuvre; and
+then the complaints of the typewriter disturbed him. He halted and
+observed my struggles. Under his scornful eye, in my embarrassment
+I frequently hit the right letter. "You a newspaper man, too?" he
+asked. I boasted I was, but begged not to be judged by my
+typewriting.
+
+"I got some great stories to write when I get back to God's
+country," he announced. "I was a reporter for two years in Kansas
+City before the war, and now I'm going back to lecture and write.
+I got enough material to keep me at work for five years. All kinds
+of stuff--specials, fiction stories, personal experiences, maybe a
+novel."
+
+I regarded him with envy. For the correspondents in the greatest
+of all wars the pickings had been meagre. "You are to be
+congratulated," I said. He brushed aside my congratulations. "For
+what?" he demanded. "I didn't go after the stories; they came to
+me. The things I saw I had to see. Couldn't get away from them.
+I've been with the British, serving in the R.A.M.C. Been hospital
+steward, stretcher bearer, ambulance driver. I've been sixteen
+months at the front, and all the time on the firing-line. I was in
+the retreat from Mons, with French on the Marne, at Ypres, all
+through the winter fighting along the Canal, on the Gallipoli
+Peninsula, and, just lately, in Servia. I've seen more of this war
+than any soldier. Because, sometimes, they give the soldier a
+rest; they never give the medical corps a rest. The only rest I
+got was when I was wounded."
+
+He seemed no worse for his wounds, so again I tendered
+congratulations. This time he accepted them. The recollection of
+the things he had seen, things incredible, terrible, unique in
+human experience, had stirred him. He talked on, not boastfully,
+but in a tone, rather, of awe and disbelief, as though assuring
+himself that it was really he to whom such things had happened.
+
+"I don't believe there's any kind of fighting I haven't seen," he
+declared; "hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets, grenades, gun
+butts. I've seen 'em on their knees in the mud choking each other,
+beating each other with their bare fists. I've seen every kind of
+airship, bomb, shell, poison gas, every kind of wound. Seen whole
+villages turned into a brickyard in twenty minutes; in Servia seen
+bodies of women frozen to death, bodies of babies starved to
+death, seen men in Belgium swinging from trees; along the Yzer for
+three months I saw the bodies of men I'd known sticking out of the
+mud, or hung up on the barb wire, with the crows picking them.
+
+"I've seen some of the nerviest stunts that ever were pulled off
+in history. I've seen _real_ heroes. Time and time again I've seen
+a man throw away his life for his officer, or for a chap he didn't
+know, just as though it was a cigarette butt. I've seen the women
+nurses of our corps steer a car into a village and yank out a
+wounded man while shells were breaking under the wheels and the
+houses were pitching into the streets." He stopped and laughed
+consciously.
+
+"Understand," he warned me, "I'm not talking about myself, only of
+things I've seen. The things I'm going to put in my book. It ought
+to be a pretty good book--what?"
+
+My envy had been washed clean in admiration.
+
+"It will make a wonderful book," I agreed. "Are you going to
+syndicate it first?"
+
+Young Mr. Hamlin frowned importantly.
+
+"I was thinking," he said, "of asking John for letters to the
+magazine editors. So, they'll know I'm not faking, that I've
+really been through it all. Letters from John would help a lot."
+Then he asked anxiously: "They would, wouldn't they?"
+
+I reassured him. Remembering the Kid's gibes at John and his
+numerous dependents, I said: "You another college chum of John's?"
+The young man answered my question quite seriously. "No," he said;
+"John graduated before I entered; but we belong to the same
+fraternity. It was the luckiest chance in the world my finding him
+here. There was a month-old copy of the _Balkan News_ blowing
+around camp, and his name was in the list of arrivals. The moment
+I found he was in Salonika, I asked for twelve hours' leave, and
+came down in an ambulance. I made straight for John; gave him the
+grip, and put it up to him to help me."
+
+"I don't understand," I said. "I thought you were sailing on the
+_Adriaticus?_"
+
+The young man was again pacing the floor. He halted and faced the
+harbor.
+
+"You bet I'm sailing on the _Adriaticus_" he said. He looked out
+at that vessel, at the Blue Peter flying from her foremast, and
+grinned. "In just two hours!"
+
+It was stupid of me, but I still was unenlightened. "But your
+twelve hours' leave?" I asked.
+
+The young man laughed. "They can take my twelve hours' leave," he
+said deliberately, "and feed it to the chickens. I'm beating it."
+
+"What d'you mean, you're beating it?"
+
+"What do you suppose I mean?" he demanded. "What do you suppose
+I'm doing out of uniform, what do you suppose I'm lying low in the
+room for? So's I won't catch cold?"
+
+"If you're leaving the army without a discharge, and without
+permission," I said, "I suppose you know it's desertion."
+
+Mr. Hamlin laughed easily. "It's not _my_ army," he said. "I'm an
+American."
+
+"It's your desertion," I suggested.
+
+The door opened and closed noiselessly, and Billy, entering,
+placed a new travelling bag on the floor. He must have heard my
+last words, for he looked inquiringly at each of us. But he did
+not speak and, walking to the window, stood with his hands in his
+pockets, staring out at the harbor. His presence seemed to
+encourage the young man. "Who knows I'm deserting?" he demanded.
+"No one's ever seen me in Salonika before, and in these 'cits' I
+can get on board all right. And then they can't touch me. What do
+the folks at home care _how_ I left the British army? They'll be
+so darned glad to get me back alive that they won't ask if I
+walked out or was kicked out. I should worry!"
+
+"It's none of my business," I began, but I was interrupted. In his
+restless pacings the young man turned quickly.
+
+"As you say," he remarked icily, "it _is_ none of your business.
+It's none of your business whether I get shot as a deserter, or go
+home, or----"
+
+"You can go to the devil for all I care," I assured him. "I wasn't
+considering you at all. I was only sorry that I'll never be able
+to read your book."
+
+For a moment Mr. Hamlin remained silent, then he burst forth with
+a jeer.
+
+"No British firing squad," he boasted, "will ever stand _me_ up."
+
+"Maybe not," I agreed, "but you will never write that book."
+
+Again there was silence, and this time it was broken by the Kid.
+He turned from the window and looked toward Hamlin. "That's
+right!" he said.
+
+He sat down on the edge of the table, and at the deserter pointed
+his forefinger.
+
+"Son," he said, "this war is some war. It's the biggest war in
+history, and folks will be talking about nothing else for the next
+ninety years; folks that never were nearer it than Bay City, Mich.
+But you won't talk about it. And you've been all through it.
+You've been to hell and back again. Compared with what you know
+about hell, Dante is in the same class with Dr. Cook. But you
+won't be able to talk about this war, or lecture, or write a book
+about it."
+
+"I won't?" demanded Hamlin. "And why won't I?"
+
+"Because of what you're doing now," said Billy. "Because you're
+queering yourself. Now, you've got everything." The Kid was very
+much in earnest. His tone was intimate, kind, and friendly.
+"You've seen everything, done everything. We'd give our eye-teeth
+to see what you've seen, and to write the things you can write.
+You've got a record now that'll last you until you're dead, and
+your grandchildren are dead--and then some. When you talk the
+table will have to sit up and listen. You can say 'I was there.'
+'I was in it.' 'I saw.' 'I know.' When this war is over you'll
+have everything out of it that's worth getting--all the
+experiences, all the inside knowledge, all the 'nosebag' news;
+you'll have wounds, honors, medals, money, reputation. And you're
+throwing all that away!"
+
+Mr. Hamlin interrupted savagely.
+
+"To hell with their medals," he said. "They can take their medals
+and hang 'em on Christmas trees. I don't owe the British army
+anything. It owes me. I've done _my_ bit. I've earned what I've
+got, and there's no one can take it away from me."
+
+"_You_ can," said the Kid. Before Hamlin could reply the door
+opened and John came in, followed by Uncle Jim. The older man was
+looking very grave, and John very unhappy. Hamlin turned quickly
+to John.
+
+"I thought these men were friends of yours," he began, "and
+Americans. They're fine Americans. They're as full of human
+kindness and red blood as a kippered herring!"
+
+John looked inquiringly at the Kid.
+
+"He wants to hang himself," explained Billy, "and because we tried
+to cut him down, he's sore."
+
+"They talked to me," protested Hamlin, "as though I was a yellow
+dog. As though I was a quitter. I'm no quitter! But, if I'm ready
+to quit, who's got a better right? I'm not an Englishman, but
+there are several million Englishmen haven't done as much for
+England in this war as I have. What do you fellows know about it?
+You _write_ about it, about the 'brave lads in the trenches'; but
+what do you know about the trenches? What you've seen from
+automobiles. That's all. That's where _you_ get off! I've _lived_
+in the trenches for fifteen months, froze in 'em, starved in 'em,
+risked my life in 'em, and I've saved other lives, too, by hauling
+men out of the trenches. And that's no airy persiflage, either!"
+
+He ran to the wardrobe where John's clothes hung, and from the
+bottom of it dragged a khaki uniform. It was still so caked with
+mud and snow that when he flung it on the floor it splashed like a
+wet bathing suit. "How would you like to wear one of those?" he
+demanded. "Stinking with lice and sweat and blood; the blood of
+other men, the men you've helped off the field, and your own
+blood."
+
+As though committing hara-kiri, he slashed his hand across his
+stomach, and then drew it up from his waist to his chin. "I'm
+scraped with shrapnel from there to there," said Mr. Hamlin. "And
+another time I got a ball in the shoulder. That would have been a
+'blighty' for a fighting man--they're always giving _them_ leave--
+but all I got was six weeks at Havre in hospital. Then it was the
+Dardanelles, and sunstroke and sand; sleeping in sand, eating
+sand, sand in your boots, sand in your teeth; hiding in holes in
+the sand like a dirty prairie dog. And then, 'Off to Servia!' And
+the next act opens in the snow and the mud! Cold? God, how cold it
+was! And most of us in sun helmets."
+
+As though the cold still gnawed at his bones, he shivered.
+
+"It isn't the danger," he protested. "It isn't _that_ I'm getting
+away from. To hell with the danger! It's just the plain discomfort
+of it! It's the never being your own master, never being clean,
+never being warm." Again he shivered and rubbed one hand against
+the other. "There were no bridges over the streams," he went on,
+"and we had to break the ice and wade in, and then sleep in the
+open with the khaki frozen to us. There was no firewood; not
+enough to warm a pot of tea. There were no wounded; all our
+casualties were frost bite and pneumonia. When we take them out of
+the blankets their toes fall off. We've been in camp for a month
+now near Doiran, and it's worse there than on the march. It's a
+frozen swamp. You can't sleep for the cold; can't eat; the only
+ration we get is bully beef, and our insides are frozen so damn
+tight we can't digest it. The cold gets into your blood, gets into
+your brains. It won't let you think; or else, you think crazy
+things. It makes you afraid." He shook himself like a man coming
+out of a bad dream.
+
+"So, I'm through," he said. In turn he scowled at each of us, as
+though defying us to contradict him. "That's why I'm quitting," he
+added. "Because I've done my bit. Because I'm damn well fed up on
+it." He kicked viciously at the water-logged uniform on the floor.
+"Any one who wants my job can have it!" He walked to the window,
+turned his back on us, and fixed his eyes hungrily on the
+_Adriaticus_. There was a long pause. For guidance we looked at
+John, but he was staring down at the desk blotter, scratching on
+it marks that he did not see.
+
+Finally, where angels feared to tread, the Kid rushed in. "That's
+certainly a hard luck story," he said; "but," he added cheerfully,
+"it's nothing to the hard luck you'll strike when you can't tell
+why you left the army." Hamlin turned with an exclamation, but
+Billy held up his hand. "Now wait," he begged, "we haven't time to
+get mussy. At six o'clock your leave is up, and the troop train
+starts back to camp, and----"
+
+Mr. Hamlin interrupted sharply. "And the _Adriaticus_ starts at
+five."
+
+Billy did not heed him. "You've got two hours to change your
+mind," he said. "That's better than being sorry you didn't the
+rest of your life."
+
+Mr. Hamlin threw back his head and laughed. It was a most
+unpleasant laugh. "You're a fine body of men," he jeered. "America
+must be proud of you!"
+
+"If we _weren't_ Americans," explained Billy patiently, "we
+wouldn't give a damn whether you deserted or not. You're drowning
+and you don't know it, and we're throwing you a rope. Try to see
+it that way. We'll cut out the fact that you took an oath, and
+that you're breaking it. That's up to you. We'll get down to
+results. When you reach home, if you can't tell why you left the
+army, the folks will darned soon guess. And that will queer
+everything you've done. When you come to sell your stuff, it will
+queer you with the editors, queer you with the publishers. If they
+know you broke your word to the British army, how can they know
+you're keeping faith with them? How can they believe anything you
+tell them? Every 'story' you write, every statement of yours will
+make a noise like a fake. You won't come into court with clean
+hands. You'll be licked before you start.
+
+"Of course, you're for the Allies. Well, all the Germans at home
+will fear that; and when you want to lecture on your 'Fifteen
+Months at the British Front,' they'll look up your record; and
+what will they do to you? This is what they'll do to you. When
+you've shown 'em your moving pictures and say, 'Does any gentleman
+in the audience want to ask a question?' a German agent will get
+up and say, 'Yes, I want to ask a question. Is it true that you
+deserted from the British army, and that if you return to it, they
+will shoot you?'"
+
+I was scared. I expected the lean and muscular Mr. Hamlin to fall
+on Billy, and fling him where he had flung the soggy uniform. But
+instead he remained motionless, his arms pressed across his chest.
+His eyes, filled with anger and distress, returned to the
+_Adriaticus_.
+
+"I'm sorry," muttered the Kid.
+
+John rose and motioned to the door, and guiltily and only too
+gladly we escaped. John followed us into the hall. "Let _me_ talk
+to him," he whispered. "The boat sails in an hour. Please don't
+come back until she's gone."
+
+We went to the moving picture palace next door, but I doubt if the
+thoughts of any of us were on the pictures. For after an hour,
+when from across the quay there came the long-drawn warning of a
+steamer's whistle, we nudged each other and rose and went out.
+
+Not a hundred yards from us the propeller blades of the
+_Adriaticus_ were slowly churning, and the rowboats were falling
+away from her sides.
+
+"Good-by, Mr. Hamlin," called Billy. "You had everything and you
+chucked it away. I can spell your finish. It's 'check' for
+_yours_."
+
+But when we entered our room, in the centre of it, under the bunch
+of electric lights, stood the deserter. He wore the water-logged
+uniform. The sun helmet was on his head.
+
+"Good man!" shouted Billy.
+
+He advanced, eagerly holding out his hand.
+
+Mr. Hamlin brushed past him. At the door he turned and glared at
+us, even at John. He was not a good loser. "I hope you're
+satisfied," he snarled. He pointed at the four beds in a row. I
+felt guiltily conscious of them. At the moment they appeared so
+unnecessarily clean and warm and soft. The silk coverlets at the
+foot of each struck me as being disgracefully effeminate. They
+made me ashamed.
+
+"I hope," said Mr. Hamlin, speaking slowly and picking his words,
+"when you turn into those beds to-night you'll think of me in the
+mud. I hope when you're having your five-course dinner and your
+champagne you'll remember my bully beef. I hope when a shell or
+Mr. Pneumonia gets me, you'll write a nice little sob story about
+the 'brave lads in the trenches.'"
+
+He looked at us, standing like schoolboys, sheepish, embarrassed,
+and silent, and then threw open the door. "I hope," he added, "you
+all choke!"
+
+With an unconvincing imitation of the college chum manner, John
+cleared his throat and said: "Don't forget, Fred, if there's
+anything I can do----"
+
+Hamlin stood in the doorway smiling at us.
+
+"There's something you can all do," he said.
+
+"Yes?" asked John heartily
+
+"You can all go to hell!" said Mr. Hamlin.
+
+We heard the door slam, and his hobnailed boots pounding down the
+stairs. No one spoke. Instead, in unhappy silence, we stood
+staring at the floor. Where the uniform had lain was a pool of mud
+and melted snow and the darker stains of stale blood.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserter, by Richard Harding Davis
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserter, by Richard Harding Davis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Deserter
+
+Author: Richard Harding Davis
+
+Release Date: February 17, 2005 [EBook #15089]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Stephanie Tarnacki and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DESERTER
+
+ BY
+
+RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
+
+ WITH AN INTRODUCTION
+
+ BY
+
+JOHN T. MCCUTCHEON
+
+NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1918
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+When Mr. Davis wrote the story of "The Deserter," he could not
+possibly have foreseen that it was to be his last story--the last
+of those short stories which gave him such eminence as a
+short-story writer.
+
+He apparently was as rugged and as vigorous as ever.
+
+And yet, had he sat down to write a story which he knew was to be
+his last, I do not think he could have written one more fittingly
+designed to be the capstone of his literary monument. The theme is
+one in which he has unconsciously mirrored his own ideals of
+honorable obligation, as well as one which presents a wholesome
+lesson to young soldiers who have taken an oath to do faithful
+service to a nation.
+
+It is a story with a moral so subtly expressed that every soldier
+or sailor who reads it will think seriously of it if the
+temptation to such disloyalty should enter his mind. This story of
+the young man who tried to desert at Salonika may well have a
+heartening influence upon all men in uniforms who waver in the
+path of duty--especially in these days of vast military operations
+when a whole world is in arms. It belongs in patriotic literature
+by the side of Edward Everett Hale's "The Man Without a Country."
+The motif is the same--that of obligation and service and loyalty
+to a pledge.
+
+In "The Deserter" Mr. Davis does not reveal the young soldier's
+name, for obvious reasons, and the name of the hotel and ship in
+Salonika are likewise disguised. It is part of the art of the
+skilful story-writer to dress his narrative in such a way as to
+eliminate those matter-of-fact details which would be emphasized
+by one writing the story as a matter of news. For instance, the
+Hotel Hermes in Mr. Davis's story is the Olympos Palace Hotel, and
+the _Adriaticus_ is the Greek steamer _Helleni_. The name of the
+young soldier is given as "Hamlin," and under this literary
+"camouflage," to borrow a word born of the war, the story may be
+read without the thought that a certain definite young man will be
+humiliated by seeing his own name revealed as that of a potential
+deserter.
+
+But the essentials of the story are all true, and its value as a
+lasting influence for good is in no way impaired by the necessary
+fictions as to places and identities.
+
+It was my privilege to see the dramatic incidents of the story of
+"The Deserter" as they unfolded during the time included in Mr.
+Davis's story. The setting was in the huge room--chamber,
+living-room, workroom, clubroom, and sometimes dining-room that we
+occupied in the Olympos Palace Hotel in Salonika. William G.
+Shepherd, of the United Press, James H. Hare, the veteran war
+photographer, and I were the original occupants of this room,
+which owed its vast dimensions to the fact that it formerly had
+been the dining-room of the hotel, later the headquarters of the
+Austrian Club, and finally, under the stressful conditions of an
+overcrowded city, a bedroom. Mr. Davis joined us here in November
+of 1915, and for some days shared the room until he could secure
+another in the same hotel.
+
+The city was seething with huge activities. We lived from day to
+day, not knowing what moment some disaster might result as a
+consequence of an incongruous military and political situation, in
+which German and Austrian consular officials walked the streets
+side by side with French and British officers. Men who had lived
+through many strange situations declared that this motley of
+tongues and nationalities and conflicting interests to be found in
+Salonika during those last weeks of 1915 was without a parallel in
+their experiences.
+
+Into this atmosphere occasionally came the little human dramas
+that were a welcome novelty beside the big drama that dominated
+the picture, and it was thus that the drama of the young soldier
+who wished to desert came into our lives as a gripping, human
+document.
+
+To Mr. Davis the drama was more than a "news" story; it was
+something big and fundamental, involving a young man's whole
+future, and as such it revealed to his quick instinct for dramatic
+situations the theme for a big story.
+
+No sooner had "Hamlin" left our room, reclad in his dirty uniform
+and headed for certain punishment back at his camp, than Mr. Davis
+proclaimed his intention to write the story.
+
+"The best war story I ever knew!" he exclaimed.
+
+Of course the young soldier did not see it as a drama in real
+life, and he certainly did not comprehend that he might be playing
+a part in what would be a tragedy in his own life. To him the
+incident had no dramatic possibilities. He was merely a young man
+who had been racked by exposure and suffering to a point where he
+longed to escape a continuance of such hardship, and the easiest
+way out of it seemed by way of deserting.
+
+He was "fed up" on discomfort and dirt and cold, and harassed by
+the effects of an ill-healed wound received in Flanders some
+months before, and he wanted to go home.
+
+The story, as Mr. Davis tells it in the following pages, is
+complete as it stands. So far as he knew up to the time of his
+death, there was no sequel. He died thinking of "Hamlin" as a
+potential deserter who had been shamed out of his purpose to
+desert and who had left, ungrateful and bitter with resentment at
+his fellow Americans, who had persuaded him to go back to camp,
+"take his medicine," and "see it through."
+
+The Hotel "Hermes" is probably no more. Only a few days ago the
+news came that all of the water-front of Salonika, a district
+stretching in splendid array from the "White Tower" to the Customs
+House, had been wiped out by a tremendous fire. It was in this
+district that most of the finest buildings, including the Olympos
+Palace Hotel--the Hotel Hermes of Mr. Davis's story--were located,
+and there is little likelihood that any of this part of the city
+escaped. The magnitude of the fire is indicated by the estimated
+loss, which is $100,000,000, with about $26,000,000 insurance.
+
+The government has authorized the construction of barracks outside
+the burned zone, but has decided not to permit repairs or
+temporary construction within that area until plans for rebuilding
+the city are complete.
+
+Thus the setting of the story of "The Deserter" is gone, the
+author is gone, and who can tell at this moment whether "Hamlin,"
+fighting in the trenches on the British front in Prance, is not
+also gone.
+
+I hope it may not affect the interest or the moral of the story if
+I give the sequel. I know that Mr. Davis would have been glad to
+hear what became of the young man who left our room with an angry
+word of resentment against us. I hope, too, that the reader will
+feel a natural interest in knowing how he fared, and what
+punishment he received for having overstayed his leave, and for
+shaving his mustache as part of his plan to escape detection, both
+of which infractions made him subject to punishment.
+
+One day about three weeks after Davis had left Salonika homeward
+bound, a soldier brought us a note from "Hamlin." He was on a Red
+Cross lighter down at the pier, and we at once went down to see
+him. He was lying on a stretcher among scores of men. His face was
+thin and pale, and in answer to our eager questions he told how he
+had fared when he returned to camp.
+
+"Oh, they gave it to me good," he said. "But they still think I
+got drunk. They took away my stripes and made me a private. But I
+was sick the night I got back to camp and I've been laid up ever
+since. They say there is something the matter with my intestines
+and they're going to cut me open again. Gee, but the captain was
+surprised! He said he had always counted on me as a teetotaller
+and that he was grieved and disappointed in me. And just think,
+I've never taken a drink in my life!"
+
+We said good-by, and this time it was a friendly good-by. That
+night he left on a hospital ship for Alexandria.
+
+Once more the course of young Mr. "Hamlin's" life was swallowed up
+in the vast oblivion of army life, and we heard no more of him
+until, one day in London, three months later, Shepherd felt an arm
+thrown about his shoulder and turned to find the healthy and
+cheerful face of "Hamlin."
+
+A few minutes later, at a luncheon-table, Shepherd heard his
+story.
+
+After leaving Alexandria he was sent to a hospital in Manchester.
+On the day of his discharge he was asked to report to a certain
+major, who informed him that the government had conferred upon him
+the D.C.M.--the medal for Distinguished Conduct in the field--in
+recognition of his service in recovering a wounded man from No
+Man's land in Flanders ten months before. The following day,
+before a file of soldiers drawn up on the parade-ground, the honor
+was officially conferred and a little ribbon was pinned upon his
+coat to testify to the appreciative, though somewhat tardy,
+gratitude of the government.
+
+"Hamlin" pointed to the little ribbon on his lapel and proudly
+drew from his pocket an official paper in which his heroic
+achievement was duly recited.
+
+He had not heard of Davis's death, and was deeply touched when Mr.
+Shepherd told him of it. At once he expressed his endless
+gratitude to Davis and the rest of us for what we had done for him
+in Salonika.
+
+In a few days he was to return to France with his regiment. What
+has happened to him since then I have no means of knowing. His
+movements are again wrapped in that dense fog which veils the
+soldier's life to all the outside world except those to whom he
+writes.
+
+In view of what we now know of Hamlin's physical condition at the
+time his mind was obsessed with the idea of deserting, both Mr.
+Shepherd and I are glad to believe that his decision to desert was
+the consequence of physical rather than mental or moral weakness,
+for his stamina was at its lowest ebb because of a weakened body.
+
+JOHN T. McCUTCHEON.
+
+CHICAGO, ILLINOIS,
+September 15, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+THE DESERTER
+
+
+In Salonika, the American consul, the Standard Oil man, and the
+war correspondents formed the American colony. The correspondents
+were waiting to go to the front. Incidentally, as we waited, the
+front was coming rapidly toward us. There was "Uncle" Jim, the
+veteran of many wars, and of all the correspondents, in experience
+the oldest and in spirit the youngest, and there was the Kid, and
+the Artist. The Kid jeered at us, and proudly described himself as
+the only Boy Reporter who jumped from a City Hall assignment to
+cover a European War. "I don't know strategy," he would boast;
+"neither does the Man at Home. He wants 'human interest' stuff,
+and I give him what he wants. I write exclusively for the subway
+guard and the farmers in the wheat belt. When you fellows write
+about the 'Situation,' they don't understand it. Neither do you.
+Neither does Venizelos or the King. I don't understand it myself.
+So, I write my people heart-to-heart talks about refugees and
+wounded, and what kind of ploughs the Servian peasants use, and
+that St. Paul wrote his letters to the Thessalonians from the same
+hotel where I write mine; and I tell 'em to pronounce Salonika
+'eeka,' and _not_ put the accent on the 'on.' This morning at the
+refugee camp I found all the little Servians of the Frothingham
+unit in American Boy Scout uniforms. That's my meat. That's 'home
+week' stuff. You fellows write for the editorial page; and nobody
+reads it. I write for the man that turns first to Mutt and Jeff,
+and then looks to see where they are running the new Charlie
+Chaplin release. When that man has to choose between 'our military
+correspondent' and the City Hall Reporter, he chooses me!"
+
+The third man was John, "Our Special Artist." John could write a
+news story, too, but it was the cartoons that had made him famous.
+They were not comic page, but front page cartoons, and before
+making up their minds what they thought, people waited to see what
+their Artist thought. So, it was fortunate his thoughts were as
+brave and clean as they were clever. He was the original Little
+Brother to the Poor. He was always giving away money. When we
+caught him, he would prevaricate. He would say the man was a
+college chum, that he had borrowed the money from him, and that
+this was the first chance he had had to pay it back. The Kid
+suggested it was strange that so many of his college chums should
+at the same moment turn up, dead broke, in Salonika, and that half
+of them should be women.
+
+John smiled disarmingly. "It was a large college," he explained,
+"and coeducational." There were other Americans; Red Cross doctors
+and nurses just escaped through the snow from the Bulgars, and
+hyphenated Americans who said they had taken out their first
+papers. They thought hyphenated citizens were so popular with us,
+that we would pay their passage to New York. In Salonika they were
+transients. They had no local standing. They had no local
+lying-down place, either, or place to eat, or to wash, although
+they did not look as though that worried them, or place to change
+their clothes. Or clothes to change. It was because we had clothes
+to change, and a hotel bedroom, instead of a bench in a cafe, that
+we were ranked as residents and from the Greek police held a
+"permission to sojourn." Our American colony was a very close
+corporation. We were only six Americans against 300,000 British,
+French, Greek, and Servian soldiers, and 120,000 civilian Turks,
+Spanish Jews, Armenians, Persians, Egyptians, Albanians, and
+Arabs, and some twenty more other faces that are not listed. We
+had arrived in Salonika before the rush, and at the Hotel Hermes
+on the water-front had secured a vast room. The edge of the stone
+quay was not forty feet from us, the only landing steps directly
+opposite our balcony. Everybody who arrived on the Greek passenger
+boats from Naples or the Piraeus, or who had shore leave from a *
+man-of-war, transport, or hospital ship, was raked by our cameras.
+There were four windows--one for each of us and his worktable. It
+was not easy to work. What was the use? The pictures and stories
+outside the windows fascinated us, but when we sketched them or
+wrote about them, they only proved us inadequate. All day long the
+pinnaces, cutters, gigs, steam launches shoved and bumped against
+the stone steps, marines came ashore for the mail, stewards for
+fruit and fish, Red Cross nurses to shop, tiny midshipmen to visit
+the movies, and the sailors and officers of the Russian, French,
+British, Italian, and Greek war-ships to stretch their legs in the
+park of the Tour Blanche, or to cramp them under a cafe table.
+Sometimes the ambulances blocked the quay and the wounded and
+frostbitten were lifted into the motorboats, and sometimes a squad
+of marines lined the landing stage, and as a coffin under a French
+or English flag was borne up the stone steps stood at salute. So
+crowded was the harbor that the oars of the boatmen interlocked.
+
+Close to the stone quay, stretched along the three-mile circle,
+were the fishing smacks, beyond them, so near that the anchor
+chains fouled, were the passenger ships with gigantic Greek flags
+painted on their sides, and beyond them transports from
+Marseilles, Malta, and Suvla Bay, black colliers, white hospital
+ships, burning green electric lights, red-bellied tramps and
+freighters, and, hemming them in, the grim, mouse-colored
+destroyers, submarines, cruisers, dreadnaughts. At times, like a
+wall, the cold fog rose between us and the harbor, and again the
+curtain would suddenly be ripped asunder, and the sun would flash
+on the brass work of the fleet, on the white wings of the
+aeroplanes, on the snow-draped shoulders of Mount Olympus. We
+often speculated as to how in the early days the gods and
+goddesses, dressed as they were, or as they were not, survived the
+snows of Mount Olympus. Or was it only their resort for the
+summer?
+
+It got about that we had a vast room to ourselves, where one might
+obtain a drink, or a sofa for the night, or even money to cable
+for money. So, we had many strange visitors, some half starved,
+half frozen, with terrible tales of the Albanian trail, of the
+Austrian prisoners fallen by the wayside, of the mountain passes
+heaped with dead, of the doctors and nurses wading waist-high in
+snowdrifts and for food killing the ponies. Some of our visitors
+wanted to get their names in the American papers so that the folks
+at home would know they were still alive, others wanted us to keep
+their names out of the papers, hoping the police would think them
+dead; another, convinced it was of pressing news value, desired us
+to advertise the fact that he had invented a poisonous gas for use
+in the trenches. With difficulty we prevented him from casting it
+adrift in our room. Or, he had for sale a second-hand motorcycle,
+or he would accept a position as barkeeper, or for five francs
+would sell a state secret that, once made public, in a month would
+end the war. It seemed cheap at the price.
+
+Each of us had his "scouts" to bring him the bazaar rumor, the
+Turkish bath rumor, the cafe rumor. Some of our scouts journeyed
+as far afield as Monastir and Doiran, returning to drip snow on
+the floor, and to tell us tales, one-half of which we refused to
+believe, and the other half the censor refused to pass. With each
+other's visitors it was etiquette not to interfere. It would have
+been like tapping a private wire. When we found John sketching a
+giant stranger in a cap and coat of wolf skin we did not seek to
+know if he were an Albanian brigand, or a Servian prince
+_incognito_, and when a dark Levantine sat close to the Kid,
+whispering, and the Kid banged on his typewriter, we did not
+listen.
+
+So, when I came in one afternoon and found a strange American
+youth writing at John's table, and no one introduced us, I took it
+for granted he had sold the Artist an "exclusive" story, and asked
+no questions. But I could not help hearing what they said. Even
+though I tried to drown their voices by beating on the Kid's
+typewriter. I was taking my third lesson, and I had printed, "I
+Amm 5w writjng This, 5wjth my own lilly w?ite handS," when I heard
+the Kid saying:
+
+"You can beat the game this way. Let John buy you a ticket to the
+Piraeus. If you go from one Greek port to another you don't need a
+vise. But, if you book from here to Italy, you must get a permit
+from the Italian consul, and our consul, and the police. The plot
+is to get out of the war zone, isn't it? Well, then, my dope is to
+get out quick, and map the rest of your trip when you're safe in
+Athens."
+
+It was no business of mine, but I had to look up. The stranger was
+now pacing the floor. I noticed that while his face was almost
+black with tan, his upper lip was quite white. I noticed also that
+he had his hands in the pockets of one of John's blue serge suits,
+and that the pink silk shirt he wore was one that once had
+belonged to the Kid. Except for the pink shirt, in the appearance
+of the young man there was nothing unusual. He was of a familiar
+type. He looked like a young business man from our Middle West,
+matter-of-fact and unimaginative, but capable and self-reliant. If
+he had had a fountain pen in his upper waistcoat pocket, I would
+have guessed he was an insurance agent, or the publicity man for a
+new automobile. John picked up his hat, and said, "That's good
+advice. Give me your steamer ticket, Fred, and I'll have them
+change it." He went out; but he did not ask Fred to go with him.
+
+Uncle Jim rose, and murmured something about the Cafe Roma, and
+tea. But neither did he invite Fred to go with him. Instead, he
+told him to make himself at home, and if he wanted anything the
+waiter would bring it from the cafe downstairs. Then the Kid, as
+though he also was uncomfortable at being left alone with us,
+hurried to the door. "Going to get you a suitcase," he explained.
+"Back in five minutes."
+
+The stranger made no answer. Probably he did not hear him. Not a
+hundred feet from our windows three Greek steamers were huddled
+together, and the eyes of the American were fixed on them. The one
+for which John had gone to buy him a new ticket lay nearest. She
+was to sail in two hours. Impatiently, in short quick steps, the
+stranger paced the length of the room, but when he turned and so
+could see the harbor, he walked slowly, devouring it with his
+eyes. For some time, in silence, he repeated this manoeuvre; and
+then the complaints of the typewriter disturbed him. He halted and
+observed my struggles. Under his scornful eye, in my embarrassment
+I frequently hit the right letter. "You a newspaper man, too?" he
+asked. I boasted I was, but begged not to be judged by my
+typewriting.
+
+"I got some great stories to write when I get back to God's
+country," he announced. "I was a reporter for two years in Kansas
+City before the war, and now I'm going back to lecture and write.
+I got enough material to keep me at work for five years. All kinds
+of stuff--specials, fiction stories, personal experiences, maybe a
+novel."
+
+I regarded him with envy. For the correspondents in the greatest
+of all wars the pickings had been meagre. "You are to be
+congratulated," I said. He brushed aside my congratulations. "For
+what?" he demanded. "I didn't go after the stories; they came to
+me. The things I saw I had to see. Couldn't get away from them.
+I've been with the British, serving in the R.A.M.C. Been hospital
+steward, stretcher bearer, ambulance driver. I've been sixteen
+months at the front, and all the time on the firing-line. I was in
+the retreat from Mons, with French on the Marne, at Ypres, all
+through the winter fighting along the Canal, on the Gallipoli
+Peninsula, and, just lately, in Servia. I've seen more of this war
+than any soldier. Because, sometimes, they give the soldier a
+rest; they never give the medical corps a rest. The only rest I
+got was when I was wounded."
+
+He seemed no worse for his wounds, so again I tendered
+congratulations. This time he accepted them. The recollection of
+the things he had seen, things incredible, terrible, unique in
+human experience, had stirred him. He talked on, not boastfully,
+but in a tone, rather, of awe and disbelief, as though assuring
+himself that it was really he to whom such things had happened.
+
+"I don't believe there's any kind of fighting I haven't seen," he
+declared; "hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets, grenades, gun
+butts. I've seen 'em on their knees in the mud choking each other,
+beating each other with their bare fists. I've seen every kind of
+airship, bomb, shell, poison gas, every kind of wound. Seen whole
+villages turned into a brickyard in twenty minutes; in Servia seen
+bodies of women frozen to death, bodies of babies starved to
+death, seen men in Belgium swinging from trees; along the Yzer for
+three months I saw the bodies of men I'd known sticking out of the
+mud, or hung up on the barb wire, with the crows picking them.
+
+"I've seen some of the nerviest stunts that ever were pulled off
+in history. I've seen _real_ heroes. Time and time again I've seen
+a man throw away his life for his officer, or for a chap he didn't
+know, just as though it was a cigarette butt. I've seen the women
+nurses of our corps steer a car into a village and yank out a
+wounded man while shells were breaking under the wheels and the
+houses were pitching into the streets." He stopped and laughed
+consciously.
+
+"Understand," he warned me, "I'm not talking about myself, only of
+things I've seen. The things I'm going to put in my book. It ought
+to be a pretty good book--what?"
+
+My envy had been washed clean in admiration.
+
+"It will make a wonderful book," I agreed. "Are you going to
+syndicate it first?"
+
+Young Mr. Hamlin frowned importantly.
+
+"I was thinking," he said, "of asking John for letters to the
+magazine editors. So, they'll know I'm not faking, that I've
+really been through it all. Letters from John would help a lot."
+Then he asked anxiously: "They would, wouldn't they?"
+
+I reassured him. Remembering the Kid's gibes at John and his
+numerous dependents, I said: "You another college chum of John's?"
+The young man answered my question quite seriously. "No," he said;
+"John graduated before I entered; but we belong to the same
+fraternity. It was the luckiest chance in the world my finding him
+here. There was a month-old copy of the _Balkan News_ blowing
+around camp, and his name was in the list of arrivals. The moment
+I found he was in Salonika, I asked for twelve hours' leave, and
+came down in an ambulance. I made straight for John; gave him the
+grip, and put it up to him to help me."
+
+"I don't understand," I said. "I thought you were sailing on the
+_Adriaticus?_"
+
+The young man was again pacing the floor. He halted and faced the
+harbor.
+
+"You bet I'm sailing on the _Adriaticus_" he said. He looked out
+at that vessel, at the Blue Peter flying from her foremast, and
+grinned. "In just two hours!"
+
+It was stupid of me, but I still was unenlightened. "But your
+twelve hours' leave?" I asked.
+
+The young man laughed. "They can take my twelve hours' leave," he
+said deliberately, "and feed it to the chickens. I'm beating it."
+
+"What d'you mean, you're beating it?"
+
+"What do you suppose I mean?" he demanded. "What do you suppose
+I'm doing out of uniform, what do you suppose I'm lying low in the
+room for? So's I won't catch cold?"
+
+"If you're leaving the army without a discharge, and without
+permission," I said, "I suppose you know it's desertion."
+
+Mr. Hamlin laughed easily. "It's not _my_ army," he said. "I'm an
+American."
+
+"It's your desertion," I suggested.
+
+The door opened and closed noiselessly, and Billy, entering,
+placed a new travelling bag on the floor. He must have heard my
+last words, for he looked inquiringly at each of us. But he did
+not speak and, walking to the window, stood with his hands in his
+pockets, staring out at the harbor. His presence seemed to
+encourage the young man. "Who knows I'm deserting?" he demanded.
+"No one's ever seen me in Salonika before, and in these 'cits' I
+can get on board all right. And then they can't touch me. What do
+the folks at home care _how_ I left the British army? They'll be
+so darned glad to get me back alive that they won't ask if I
+walked out or was kicked out. I should worry!"
+
+"It's none of my business," I began, but I was interrupted. In his
+restless pacings the young man turned quickly.
+
+"As you say," he remarked icily, "it _is_ none of your business.
+It's none of your business whether I get shot as a deserter, or go
+home, or----"
+
+"You can go to the devil for all I care," I assured him. "I wasn't
+considering you at all. I was only sorry that I'll never be able
+to read your book."
+
+For a moment Mr. Hamlin remained silent, then he burst forth with
+a jeer.
+
+"No British firing squad," he boasted, "will ever stand _me_ up."
+
+"Maybe not," I agreed, "but you will never write that book."
+
+Again there was silence, and this time it was broken by the Kid.
+He turned from the window and looked toward Hamlin. "That's
+right!" he said.
+
+He sat down on the edge of the table, and at the deserter pointed
+his forefinger.
+
+"Son," he said, "this war is some war. It's the biggest war in
+history, and folks will be talking about nothing else for the next
+ninety years; folks that never were nearer it than Bay City, Mich.
+But you won't talk about it. And you've been all through it.
+You've been to hell and back again. Compared with what you know
+about hell, Dante is in the same class with Dr. Cook. But you
+won't be able to talk about this war, or lecture, or write a book
+about it."
+
+"I won't?" demanded Hamlin. "And why won't I?"
+
+"Because of what you're doing now," said Billy. "Because you're
+queering yourself. Now, you've got everything." The Kid was very
+much in earnest. His tone was intimate, kind, and friendly.
+"You've seen everything, done everything. We'd give our eye-teeth
+to see what you've seen, and to write the things you can write.
+You've got a record now that'll last you until you're dead, and
+your grandchildren are dead--and then some. When you talk the
+table will have to sit up and listen. You can say 'I was there.'
+'I was in it.' 'I saw.' 'I know.' When this war is over you'll
+have everything out of it that's worth getting--all the
+experiences, all the inside knowledge, all the 'nosebag' news;
+you'll have wounds, honors, medals, money, reputation. And you're
+throwing all that away!"
+
+Mr. Hamlin interrupted savagely.
+
+"To hell with their medals," he said. "They can take their medals
+and hang 'em on Christmas trees. I don't owe the British army
+anything. It owes me. I've done _my_ bit. I've earned what I've
+got, and there's no one can take it away from me."
+
+"_You_ can," said the Kid. Before Hamlin could reply the door
+opened and John came in, followed by Uncle Jim. The older man was
+looking very grave, and John very unhappy. Hamlin turned quickly
+to John.
+
+"I thought these men were friends of yours," he began, "and
+Americans. They're fine Americans. They're as full of human
+kindness and red blood as a kippered herring!"
+
+John looked inquiringly at the Kid.
+
+"He wants to hang himself," explained Billy, "and because we tried
+to cut him down, he's sore."
+
+"They talked to me," protested Hamlin, "as though I was a yellow
+dog. As though I was a quitter. I'm no quitter! But, if I'm ready
+to quit, who's got a better right? I'm not an Englishman, but
+there are several million Englishmen haven't done as much for
+England in this war as I have. What do you fellows know about it?
+You _write_ about it, about the 'brave lads in the trenches'; but
+what do you know about the trenches? What you've seen from
+automobiles. That's all. That's where _you_ get off! I've _lived_
+in the trenches for fifteen months, froze in 'em, starved in 'em,
+risked my life in 'em, and I've saved other lives, too, by hauling
+men out of the trenches. And that's no airy persiflage, either!"
+
+He ran to the wardrobe where John's clothes hung, and from the
+bottom of it dragged a khaki uniform. It was still so caked with
+mud and snow that when he flung it on the floor it splashed like a
+wet bathing suit. "How would you like to wear one of those?" he
+demanded. "Stinking with lice and sweat and blood; the blood of
+other men, the men you've helped off the field, and your own
+blood."
+
+As though committing hara-kiri, he slashed his hand across his
+stomach, and then drew it up from his waist to his chin. "I'm
+scraped with shrapnel from there to there," said Mr. Hamlin. "And
+another time I got a ball in the shoulder. That would have been a
+'blighty' for a fighting man--they're always giving _them_ leave--
+but all I got was six weeks at Havre in hospital. Then it was the
+Dardanelles, and sunstroke and sand; sleeping in sand, eating
+sand, sand in your boots, sand in your teeth; hiding in holes in
+the sand like a dirty prairie dog. And then, 'Off to Servia!' And
+the next act opens in the snow and the mud! Cold? God, how cold it
+was! And most of us in sun helmets."
+
+As though the cold still gnawed at his bones, he shivered.
+
+"It isn't the danger," he protested. "It isn't _that_ I'm getting
+away from. To hell with the danger! It's just the plain discomfort
+of it! It's the never being your own master, never being clean,
+never being warm." Again he shivered and rubbed one hand against
+the other. "There were no bridges over the streams," he went on,
+"and we had to break the ice and wade in, and then sleep in the
+open with the khaki frozen to us. There was no firewood; not
+enough to warm a pot of tea. There were no wounded; all our
+casualties were frost bite and pneumonia. When we take them out of
+the blankets their toes fall off. We've been in camp for a month
+now near Doiran, and it's worse there than on the march. It's a
+frozen swamp. You can't sleep for the cold; can't eat; the only
+ration we get is bully beef, and our insides are frozen so damn
+tight we can't digest it. The cold gets into your blood, gets into
+your brains. It won't let you think; or else, you think crazy
+things. It makes you afraid." He shook himself like a man coming
+out of a bad dream.
+
+"So, I'm through," he said. In turn he scowled at each of us, as
+though defying us to contradict him. "That's why I'm quitting," he
+added. "Because I've done my bit. Because I'm damn well fed up on
+it." He kicked viciously at the water-logged uniform on the floor.
+"Any one who wants my job can have it!" He walked to the window,
+turned his back on us, and fixed his eyes hungrily on the
+_Adriaticus_. There was a long pause. For guidance we looked at
+John, but he was staring down at the desk blotter, scratching on
+it marks that he did not see.
+
+Finally, where angels feared to tread, the Kid rushed in. "That's
+certainly a hard luck story," he said; "but," he added cheerfully,
+"it's nothing to the hard luck you'll strike when you can't tell
+why you left the army." Hamlin turned with an exclamation, but
+Billy held up his hand. "Now wait," he begged, "we haven't time to
+get mussy. At six o'clock your leave is up, and the troop train
+starts back to camp, and----"
+
+Mr. Hamlin interrupted sharply. "And the _Adriaticus_ starts at
+five."
+
+Billy did not heed him. "You've got two hours to change your
+mind," he said. "That's better than being sorry you didn't the
+rest of your life."
+
+Mr. Hamlin threw back his head and laughed. It was a most
+unpleasant laugh. "You're a fine body of men," he jeered. "America
+must be proud of you!"
+
+"If we _weren't_ Americans," explained Billy patiently, "we
+wouldn't give a damn whether you deserted or not. You're drowning
+and you don't know it, and we're throwing you a rope. Try to see
+it that way. We'll cut out the fact that you took an oath, and
+that you're breaking it. That's up to you. We'll get down to
+results. When you reach home, if you can't tell why you left the
+army, the folks will darned soon guess. And that will queer
+everything you've done. When you come to sell your stuff, it will
+queer you with the editors, queer you with the publishers. If they
+know you broke your word to the British army, how can they know
+you're keeping faith with them? How can they believe anything you
+tell them? Every 'story' you write, every statement of yours will
+make a noise like a fake. You won't come into court with clean
+hands. You'll be licked before you start.
+
+"Of course, you're for the Allies. Well, all the Germans at home
+will fear that; and when you want to lecture on your 'Fifteen
+Months at the British Front,' they'll look up your record; and
+what will they do to you? This is what they'll do to you. When
+you've shown 'em your moving pictures and say, 'Does any gentleman
+in the audience want to ask a question?' a German agent will get
+up and say, 'Yes, I want to ask a question. Is it true that you
+deserted from the British army, and that if you return to it, they
+will shoot you?'"
+
+I was scared. I expected the lean and muscular Mr. Hamlin to fall
+on Billy, and fling him where he had flung the soggy uniform. But
+instead he remained motionless, his arms pressed across his chest.
+His eyes, filled with anger and distress, returned to the
+_Adriaticus_.
+
+"I'm sorry," muttered the Kid.
+
+John rose and motioned to the door, and guiltily and only too
+gladly we escaped. John followed us into the hall. "Let _me_ talk
+to him," he whispered. "The boat sails in an hour. Please don't
+come back until she's gone."
+
+We went to the moving picture palace next door, but I doubt if the
+thoughts of any of us were on the pictures. For after an hour,
+when from across the quay there came the long-drawn warning of a
+steamer's whistle, we nudged each other and rose and went out.
+
+Not a hundred yards from us the propeller blades of the
+_Adriaticus_ were slowly churning, and the rowboats were falling
+away from her sides.
+
+"Good-by, Mr. Hamlin," called Billy. "You had everything and you
+chucked it away. I can spell your finish. It's 'check' for
+_yours_."
+
+But when we entered our room, in the centre of it, under the bunch
+of electric lights, stood the deserter. He wore the water-logged
+uniform. The sun helmet was on his head.
+
+"Good man!" shouted Billy.
+
+He advanced, eagerly holding out his hand.
+
+Mr. Hamlin brushed past him. At the door he turned and glared at
+us, even at John. He was not a good loser. "I hope you're
+satisfied," he snarled. He pointed at the four beds in a row. I
+felt guiltily conscious of them. At the moment they appeared so
+unnecessarily clean and warm and soft. The silk coverlets at the
+foot of each struck me as being disgracefully effeminate. They
+made me ashamed.
+
+"I hope," said Mr. Hamlin, speaking slowly and picking his words,
+"when you turn into those beds to-night you'll think of me in the
+mud. I hope when you're having your five-course dinner and your
+champagne you'll remember my bully beef. I hope when a shell or
+Mr. Pneumonia gets me, you'll write a nice little sob story about
+the 'brave lads in the trenches.'"
+
+He looked at us, standing like schoolboys, sheepish, embarrassed,
+and silent, and then threw open the door. "I hope," he added, "you
+all choke!"
+
+With an unconvincing imitation of the college chum manner, John
+cleared his throat and said: "Don't forget, Fred, if there's
+anything I can do----"
+
+Hamlin stood in the doorway smiling at us.
+
+"There's something you can all do," he said.
+
+"Yes?" asked John heartily
+
+"You can all go to hell!" said Mr. Hamlin.
+
+We heard the door slam, and his hobnailed boots pounding down the
+stairs. No one spoke. Instead, in unhappy silence, we stood
+staring at the floor. Where the uniform had lain was a pool of mud
+and melted snow and the darker stains of stale blood.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserter, by Richard Harding Davis
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