The Deserter by Richard Harding Davis
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page 6 of 26 (23%)
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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 |
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