Later I picked him up again in Palestine, commanding a field company this time, in the most professional manner. I remember well our first encounter in Palestine, where I ran into him superintending a working party under close fire. It was such a typical picture of John. Sucking a pipe, methodical,[7] cheerful, and utterly devoid of fear, his helmet on one side of his rather bullet head, his shrewd grey eyes taking in everything, quick and caustic comments for those who weren’t putting their backs into it, a woman’s touch and a woman’s kindly word for any one who had “taken it,” red knees over blue puttees, ruddy face with the chin puckered over a long white gash picked up in an argument with a Hun near Festubert—very much a man all over is John Wrexham.

[7]

“What were you writing about, John? It’s not like you.”

John’s inability to put pen to paper except under direct necessity was as well known as his practical efficiency at every point of his trade, or as his personal courage. In Palestine he was the despair of his C.R.E., a ponderous soul, and a lover of paper.

“Wanted to find out what you were doing. I’ve got a stunt on, and I want company. I’ve got one fellow coming along, but I want another, and I thought you might be at a loose end. Come under the fan and I’ll show you something.”

When we had installed ourselves under the electric fan in two armchairs, he pulled out his pipe, filled it methodically, lit it, and then proceeded. One never hurries John when he has something to say. It’s always worth waiting for.

“Did you ever trek into Kashgar, Harry?” he asked at last.

“No, I never got as far as that. Why?”

“I was up that way last year, and found one or two things rather interesting.”

“What were you doing? I didn’t know you were keen on Central Asia.”

“I am to a certain extent. I had a great-great-uncle who was a bit of a rolling stone. He wandered a bit in those parts, and he left a diary, written rather like I write, but you could follow it in parts. I’ll show it you later on. There’s some quaint stuff in it. But it interested me, and last year when I was demobbed after the Armistice, I toddled up there to[8] have a look-see. I was not keen on going back to my old job in Bengal, and, as I’d saved a bit of cash, I thought I’d take a holiday, which I hadn’t really 

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