Faulkner

But he was not a coward.. not so much to the idea of pouring out human blood and life, but at the idea of waste of wearing out and eating up and shooting away material in any cause whatever.

By William Faulkner, 1936.

“The Leopard Hunter” (from William the Conqueror) was published in 1926.

1955 William Faulkner asked “Does America deserve to survive?”

In 1926, Faulkner had just published his debut novel Soldier's Pay.

After the war broke, 1939 (a war that had been brewing for quite some time.. lets say 1919), Crompton often referenced the war in her work. She might had found a Mississippi pacifist and friend of Sherwood Anderson a coward.