Herman Cyril McNeile was born 28 September 1888 in Bodmin, Cornwall, England, the son of Malcolm McNeile and Christiana Mary Sloggett. His father was a captain in the Royal Navy and, later, governor of the Royal Naval Prison at Lewes. McNeile was educated at Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire and at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. At the age of nineteen he joined the royal Engineers, from whose nickname (the sappers) he later derived his pseudonym. McNeile was promoted to the rank of captain in 1914, served with distinction in World War I, and was awarded the Military Cross. In 1914 he married Violet Baird Douglas, the daughter of a lieutenant colonel in the Cameron Highlanders. They had two sons. McNeile retired from the Army in 1919 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He and his family moved to Sussex in 1922, where McNeile spent most of the rest of his life, and the...