Unlike Stanley, Capstick died relatively recently. That means there are a lot of living "witnesses" to what he did or did not do. Writers are, to a certain extent, public personalities. (That would even include you and me, Small Bore--although with significantly smaller audiences than people like Hemingway or Captstick.) We therefore open ourselves to charges of "bull hockey!" if, for example, you describe a driven shoot during which you had 4 birds dead in the air at once when your loader saw no such thing, or I talk about how my bird dog never lost a crippled pheasant when various hunting companions remember otherwise.
On this side of the pond, among those of my generation who served in the military, some claim to be Vietnam vets when they are not. Living off "stolen valor"--now that Vietnam service is seen as something honorable rather than a subject best left undiscussed. When I was attending a course at the US Air Force Special Operations School, one of the guest lecturers was Dr. Larry Cable. Cable was a university political science professor with a record that included a couple of tours in Vietnam as a Marine, and was a recognized expert on unconventional warfare. And I must say he was an impressive lecturer. Unfortunately, at least some of his academic background and most or all of his military service--particularly having served in Vietnam--turned out to be phony. Worse than fooling the Air Force, he'd even succeeded in fooling the Marines, and had also lectured at Quantico! I can't recall that any of us would have quarreled much with what he had to say about guerrilla wars etc, but the fact that he had not done most of what he claimed made him a fraud.
Hemingway wrote great fiction about hunting in Africa. I'd have no quarrel with Capstick and his legacy if he'd done the same, attributing the adventures he describes to someone named Alan Quatermain or Francis Macomber. No question he spent time in Africa, and he could have used that experience to make his stories real without making himself the center of them and presenting them as nonfiction.
