“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. 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, 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. “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.”