When Great Britain declared war in 1939, Evelyn Waugh enlisted in the Royal Marines and later became a major in the Commandos, fighting in Crete, North Africa, and Yugoslavia. There, as he hid in a cave, important documents were air-dropped for his review.

The important documents in question? The galley proofs of Brideshead Revisited.

[During his Oxford days, Waugh experimented with homosexuality and drank heavily, ignoring his studies until at last he was asked to leave. After a brief stint as an art student, he took a teaching job at Arnold House in North Wales. He was promptly fired from this and two similar positions in as many years. "I have," he explained, "always been a dud."]