Pentapolitan Kyrene wrote:Name: John Giles
Appearance: A man of contradiction by looks, John combines a careffully kempt, delicate face and fair moustache with a rough, soldier's body and an infantryman's cloak, bearing the insignia of the nascent red cross. His face, at first look, is eminently gentle, his eyes carrying a light warmth, but after more than a moment the scars can more easily be spotted, along with the boxed ear and the three silver-teeth. He carries a sad aspect about him, seeming to wander like a great, oddly lost bear in the snow.
Nationality: Giles was an Englishman, but very much a citizen of the world. Born to colonial administrators in Ceylon and having lived for years in Port Arthur.
Trade: Giles was, when the sun went, a military medic. Before that, he'd been an adventurer and a medical student.
Expedition: Refugees.
Biography: To be elaborated, but in brief John was raised in Ceylon before returning to England and attending Cambridge (Corpus Christi) to learn biology and medicine. Half way through his time there his roystering temper and love of port and cider ran him afoul of the dean and had him sent packing. He spent 1900-1904 touring Europe and East Asia, making pilgrimages between the churches of the East and the great cities of the Orient. He joined up in 1904 with the humanitarian effort in the Russo-Japanese War, hoping to find himself a purpose, and spent the war witnessing horrors unlike any he'd dreamt. For years after he tended to the wounded veterans and made his way as a travelling medic, even taking work on an expedition up the Nile, before returning to England when the war began and signing up as a medic with the Red Cross. When the sun died, he tried in vain to keep his fellows together in one hospital, but was overwhelmed by patients, and forced to try to take those who could walk back home. He got as far as Surrey before the last man died, leaving him alone in the snow.
Excellent, most excellent. Perhaps I could tie your story in with that of Alexander?