The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-14
BRITISH NOVEL|STS DROP PENFOR SWORD
 A. w. E. Mason Lieutenant in Manchester Regiment
 OTHERS IN SERVICE
Charles G. D. Roberts Now a Captain. kipling Arrested for Spy-Bottle That Drifted Eleven Months and
 Covered Over 10000 Miles
By HAYDEN CHURCH

By HAYDEN CHURCH
 1 London, February 25.-(Specai.) )-What would be the value of a fighting force,
 one wonders, of a regiment entirely com. posed of authors? Would they one and
 all prove as valorous as their heroes?
 One isn't exactly sure. but certain it is
 that, since the war began, enough liter
 ary men, and famous ones, too have en-
 tered the service to constitute. if not
 regiment, at least a full company The
 1atest one to do so is A. E. W Mason
 ex-member of Parliament, as well as au-
 thor of many famous novels including The Four Feathers" One wonders, by
 the way, if Mason so much as dreamt, when he penned that romance about the
 tree friends and the sweetheart of q moral coward who bestowed white feath-
 CTS upon him (and thus goaded him into proving himself a hero) that, a compara- lively few years later. q famous British
 admiral would be urging patriotic Brit l ish girls to go and do likewise with 'slackers' of their acquaintance, and that some of the less intelligent of Britains fair ones would promptly act on the sug- gestion? They have, of course and in some cases, have thus unJunstly stigma 1 tized as towards really plucky young fel- | lows with invalid parents to keep, and | others whom physical unftness alone has
 kept from answering their countrys call l This, however, is by the way. To return to Mason. he has just been gazetted as l lieutenant in the Sixteenth battalion of l the famous Manchester regiment and will go to the front whenever it goes. 1 Another literary warrior of distinction is l W. B. Maxwell, whose famous motaer. I Miss Braddon," died this week. Max I Ia hpan pixf ,,f1aix. rt. in Tenth battalion of the Royal fusiliers and 1 is regularly quartered at the Assaye bar l racks, Colchester but has been on leave of late, of course as result of his
 mothers fatal illness. Ilfracombe, in Wales, was the favorite holiday resort I of Miss Braddon, and thence she was all
 most invariably accompanied by her old est son, the author of 'Vivien" and '"rhe l Ragged Messenger have been their 1 fellow guest there. In the mornings the 1 two would sit in the hotel gardens, fac l ing the sea, and read the London papers, and in the afternoon Maxwell would read aloud to his mother, to whim he was
 naturally devoted. He is going to the l front soon, by the way, and the vener-
 able authoress of Lady Audley's Secret
 undoubtedly worried much regarding his fety.
 CalthrOp in the Navy
 1 Then there is Dion Clayton Calthrop, l subject of costume Yesterday, while crossing Trafalgar Square, saw mar
 tial figure in naval commanders uniform | coming toward me from the direction of the admiralty and asked myself which of Jellicoe's sturdy henchmen it would prove to be- Then I saw it was Cal 1 throp, who beamed on me, but. as he
 was in earnest confab with a fellow of l ficer could not stop Calthrop is in the | Royal Naval Volunteer reserve the same i force to which the prime ministers third l son belongs, and I regretted not being | able to make him talk of his work at the
 admiralty. where they must be doing some
 deucedly hard thinking just now
 1 And what meanwhile of Charles G. D. l Roberts, the renowned Canadian writer, 1 who knows the kindred of the wild so well, and who, as I reported sometime | ago, became member of the Legion of l Frontiersmen Cor British Rough Riders), as soon as the war began? Well, Roberts l may speak for himself, for I had the | following letter from him this week. It
 is dated, "Officers' Mess, Stanmore, West | Kirby, Cheshire" and runs, in part, as 1 follows: Forgive my long delay in an- ! swering your note. I was waiting for | the news which am now able to give | you. I have been promoted to captain l in my battalion Sixteenth Imperial regi- ment. As you know. I was trooper in a 1 squadron of the Legion of Frontiersmen 1 helping the remount department a South ampton through October and November 1 Then I gazetted full lieutenant in 1 the Sixteenth Kings-December 9-and now I am captain. We don't know when 1 we will be sent off to the front. but ! fancy not till spring." And he adds. as a postscript, "The Kings, you doubtless l know is a very old Snd very historic regiment and our first battalion has much distinguished itself at the front in this l war;
 1 Ralph Stock who wrote .'rhe Recipe For Rubber and "The Pyjama Man" 1 has also joined the army and so has c. 1 E. Montague, the bright particular star | of the Manchester Guardians staff. who l gave us that really good romance of newspaper land, "The Hind Let Loose 1 Another name to be mentioned is that of Gerald Grogan, author of that much discussed book, "A Drop In Infinity." He l is at the front with the Honorable Ar l tillery company. And still another, that of H. H. Munro. who, like his fellow scribe, W. B. Maxwell, has thrown in his | lot with the Royal Fusiliers | This war; as was to be expected. has brought Rudyard Kipling out of his shell with a vengeance. Last week we had | him making an appeal for more bands 1 for the new armies, this week his news paper articles on "The New Army in Training have been published at the l pOpuldI pTice oI slApeutef dHu Sii1lullI- neousiy the French newspapers publish extracts from private letters which Kip 1 ling has addressed to a friend in that country. In one of them Kipling says: ''Let us take courage and rejoice that | it has been given us to live in such l times. The issue is beyond all doubt. and the recry ystallization of Europe will be something for the survivors to see. If we die. at any rate, our two countries will not, and they will recreate tfe I world"
 1 Kipling Takf for Spy
 l I have just heard, by the way, that the author of Soldiers. Three was a little while ago nearly arrested as spy, being in this respect more Fortunate than I Cecil Chesterton-G. Ks brother-who actually was arrested. A keenly inter- ested spectator was watching the march of a territorial battalion in Kent and | asked sergeant number of questions. I The sergeant became suspicious of the l"ordinary looking man." as he afterwards described him, and excusing himself, went off in search of major to whom bo ~aIo+o5 tho oopyersa finn The laffer