intention of keeping awake in future when high dignitaries of the
Church were about.

Swords, it may here be mentioned, were a regular nuisance to British
officers visiting the dominions of the Emperor Nicholas during all the
earlier months of the war. The Russians had not, like the French,
Belgians and Italians, copied our practice, acquired during the South
African War, of putting away these symbols of commissioned authority
for the time being. They were not worn actually at the front; but
officers were supposed to appear in them elsewhere just as used to be
the invariable practice on the Continent in pre-war days. That our
airmen should not possess swords took the Russians quite aback, a
sabre being about as appropriate in an aeroplane as are spurs on a
destroyer. Transporting a sword through Sweden was apt to stamp you as
a belligerent officer, so that all sorts of dodges had to be contrived
to camouflage an article of baggage that, owing to its dimensions,
refuses to lend itself to operations of concealment. Wigram's absurd
weapon gave us away as a matter of course, although no harm befell. I
was all right on the journey, because General Wolfe-Murray, who had
recently been out on a visit to present decorations, had left his at
the Embassy at Petrograd for the use of any other general who might
come along later. It, however, was one of the full-dress,
scimitar-shaped variety that has been affected by our general officers
ever since one of them brought back a richly jewelled sample, the gift
of Soliman the Magnificent or some other Grand Turk for a service at
Belgrade. It is not a pattern of sabre designed to fit readily into
the frog of a Sam Brown belt, and it used to be a regular business
getting my borrowed one off and on when one went to a meal in a club
or a restaurant in Petrograd.

Most cordial invitations had been extended to us to visit the front.
But this must have involved several days' delay. It was not always
easy to get a move on in Russia, and no great value was set upon the
element of time; so that, although such a trip would assuredly have
been interesting and it might have been instructive, we were obliged
to decline. Instructions ran that I was to return to London as soon as
possible after visiting the Stavka. We consequently spent only
twenty-four hours in Petrograd before taking the train back for
Tornea, and thence via Stockholm and Christiania to Bergen; we,
however, stayed for a few hours i