Tillinghast's first work of fiction, The Cobble Valley Golf Yarns and Other Sketches was published in 1915. The King's Men is one of the sketches from this book, which was also published in the U.S. Golf Illustrated in October of 1915 and first published by Harold Hilton in England's Golf Illusrated. It is a tragic tale of an Irish golfer, Vincent O'Hara and his caddie Terry Malone, who strode the fair links of Port Ellen together, but found their fate serving in the same regiment of the King's (British) army in the trenches on the German front in World War I.