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