Sergeant Laurence Charles Villebois Bathurst was a well-known sportsman whose cricketing career was not dissimilar to that of the fictional "Raffles". A slow left-hand bowler, Bathurst was an Oxford Blue in 1893 and 1894, in the teams captained by C.B. Fry, and played for Middlesex from 1894 to 1895. He also appeared for the "Gentlemen" against the "Players" under W.G. Grace's captaincy in 1894 and toured America with Lord Hawke's team in the same year. (Further details can be found in The Wisden Book of Cricketers' Lives.) The major difference, of course, is that E.W. Hornung had Raffles killed in action on the veldt (The Knees of Gods refers) while serving in the Imperial Yeomanry and Bathurst lived until 1939.