And in that van I met another Russian naval officer and deepened my obligations to the Russian navy. He sat down beside me on one of the boxes, a tall, broad-shouldered, fair man who looked like a Viking with his moustache shaved off. I found to my joy he spoke English, and I confided to him my difficulties with regard to breakfast. I was so old a traveller by now I had learned the wisdom of considering carefully the commissariat. He was going to the forts on the Finnish border of which he was in command, but before he left the train we would arrive at a refreshment-room, and he undertook to arrange matters for me. And so he did.
Petrograd does not get up early, at least the Hotel Astoria did not, and the most I could manage before I left was a cup of coffee, but I made up for it at that first refreshment-room. The naval officer took entire charge and, revelling in his importance, I not only had a very good breakfast but made the most of my chances and, filling up my basket with a view to future comforts, bought good things so that I might be able to exchange civilities with my fellow-passengers on the way to Raumo. I had eggs and sausages and new bread and scones and a plentiful supply of fruit, to say nothing of sugar and lemons and cream and meat for Buehanan—the naval man looking on smiling—and when I had really done myself well I turned to him and demanded what I ought to pay.
“Nothing, Madame. In Russia when a gentleman takes a lady for refreshment he pays!”
Imagine my horror! And I had stocked my basket so lavishly!
My protests were useless. I was escorted back to our luggage-van and my thoughts led gently from the coffee and eggs I had consumed and the sausages and bread I had stowed away in my basket to the state of the war as it struck the Russian naval mind.
Had I heard about the sea fight in the Mediterranean? Not heard about the little Gloucester attacking the Goeben, the little Gloucester that the big German battleship could have eaten! A dwarf and a giant! Madame! Madame! It was a sea fight that will go down through the ages! Russia was ringing with it!
“Do you know anyone in the English navy?”
I said I had two brothers in the senior service, a little later and I might have said three.
“Then tell them,” said he earnestly, “we Russian sailors are proud to be Allies of a nation that breeds such men as manned the Gloucester!”
The Finnish border was soon reached and he left us, and the day went on and discipline I suppose relaxed, for I brought Buchanan into the carriage and made friends with the people who surrounded me. And then once again did I bless the foresight of the Polish Jewess in Kharbin who had impressed upon me the necessity for two kettles. They were a godsend in that carriage. We commandeered glasses, we got hot water at wayside stations and I made tea for all within reach, and a cup of tea to a thirsty traveller, especially if that traveller be a woman, is certainly a road to that traveller's good graces.