The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserter, by Richard Harding Davis

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Title: The Deserter

Author: Richard Harding Davis

Release Date: February 17, 2005 [EBook #15089]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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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. Fo