Captain Harry Luttrell is a soldier who is not happy where he's currently stationed - in England, where he's grown fat with boredom and fears that he will do nothing with his life - and so he's requested a transfer to Cairo, Egypt. The Olympic Games are currently being held in Cairo and if he transferred, he would have much to do.
Alfred Edward Woodley Mason (1865 1948) was an English author and politician. He is best remembered for his 1902 novel of courage and cowardice in wartime, The Four Feathers and is also known as the creator of Inspector Hanaud, a French detective who was an early template for Agatha Christie's famous Hercule Poirot. His prolific output in short stories and novels were frequently made and remade into films during his lifetime; though many of the silent versions have been lost or forgotten, the Korda productions of Fire Over England (1937) and The Four Feathers (1939) remain enduring classics of British cinema.