The Finger of Fate

Sapper was the pseudonym of Herman Cyril McNeile, whose father was Malcolm McNeile, a Captain in the Royal Navy and, who was at the time, governor of the naval prison at Bodmin, the town where Herman was born. McNeile was educated at Cheltenham College and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers (the Sappers), in 1907. He went to France, in 1914, when World War I broke out. He saw action at both the First and the Second Battle of Ypres where he displayed considerable bravery, was awarded the Military Cross and was mentioned in dispatches.His first known published work was a series of short war stories based on his own experiences, and published under the name "Sapper" in the Daily Mail and in the magazine The War Illustrated. These stories were immediately successful and later sold over 200,000 copies within a year when subsequently republished in book-form.He began the series for which he now best remembered, that of Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond, in 1920, and thereafter he wrote 10 novels featuring his eponymous hero. The public took to Drummond, and McNeile had great financial success. He died on 14 August 1937 at his home in Pulborough, West Sussex. His good friend and collaborator Gerard Fairlie, continued the Bulldog Drummond series, after McNeile’s death, with seven further books.