to Karachi en route south to spend a few days there, and that’s where this story really begins.

The first night there I did what one always does in the East—I went down to the club bar to pass the time of day with any old acquaintances that might be there. I had known Karachi fair to middling well in the old pre-war days, and I thought I was pretty sure to find friends, but, as a matter of fact, the club was rather deserted.

So I lit a cheroot and sat down, feeling rather lonesome, as one does in a place where one has spent many cheery evenings with a crowd of good fellows, most of whom have gone west. I was thinking about going across to the Sind Club[6] when a man entered the bar. I looked twice to make quite sure, and then walked over to him.

[6]

“Long time since we shared a flask in the Jordan Valley, John,” said I, tapping him on the shoulder.

He spun round.

“Hulloa, Harry! D——d glad to see you, old bird! What on earth are you doing here? I saw your push only last week, and they said you’d chucked it and gone home. Family acres and all that sort of thing.”

“First part’s true; for the rest, you see me here, large as life, very much at a loose end, and contemplating trying for a tiger in the C.P. before I go home. They tell me England hasn’t quite recovered from the war yet, and when it isn’t coal-striking it’s doing something equally unpleasant, so I thought I’d give it a miss for a few months.”

“Funny thing running into you here; I was just writing to your home address. I’ve been up on a globe trot Kashgar way. I’m demobbed now, too. Good thing to be one’s own master once more.”

Being on his own was a thing that would appeal to John Wrexham, independent by nature. An engineer by trade, swept up in the vortex of the war as an Indian Army reserve officer, I first met him in a particularly offensive trench Givenchy way. I met him frequently after that, always cheery, always busy, beloved of every battalion commander, to whose needs he ministered in the capacity of subaltern of a sapper-and-miner field company.

A brave soul, too, John, of the most heroic, despite his inclination to stoutness. He amassed some very pretty ribbons before the war was out, and a reputation among those who knew him worth more than all the ribbons in the world.

 Prev. P 8/283 next