How Rudyard Kipling narrowly escaped arrest on a charge of espionage
is told in the following letter written by Cycle Sergeant Callis of
the Fifth (Loyal North Lancashire) Territorials, now training at
Sevenoaks:
"Our battalion turned out in full marching order and proceeded to
our usual practice ground, Knole Park. The cycle section marched in
the rear of the column and an ordinary looking man came to me and
asked me a lot of particulars about the battalion. He told me he had
seen a lot of soldiering in his time and said he must confess our
men struck him as being about the smartest on the march he had ever
seen outside the regulars.
"He asked me for so many particulars about them, and also about
their billets, that I thought I should detain him as a sort of spy.
"I excused myself and rode off to the head of the column and
informed one of our majors as to the nature of the conversation,
etc., and later took the man to said major.
"The officer stopped me to-day and laughingly asked me if I knew
whom I had tried to put under arrest. I answered in the negative and
he told me it was no less than Rudyard Kipling."