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