John Drinkall’s life as a diplomat reads more like an account of a swashbuckling Victorian adventurer, never far from where the action was. During the Second World War, he was enlisted in the Poona Horse Regiment at the age of 20 — and was probably one of the last survivors of the Indian cavalry during the days of the Raj. Two years later, he was behind the Japanese lines in China, teaching Chinese guerrilla fighters espionage and sabotage.
After the war he was posted as a young diplomat to Nanking, and was the last Briton to escape from the city during the fighting when Mao’s communist forces overcame the nationalists. He was based in Cairo when Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956 and briefly