Mr. Chmarsky was tired and a little inattentive. On our side of the field a big transport plane, again a C-47, warmed up and people got into it, and we asked if it was our plane, and we were told that it was not. And it took off. In an hour we inquired again about our plane. Now it seemed it was our plane that had taken off. The Kremlin gremlin was at work again. We complained a little bitterly. No one had told us we were to go on that plane. Even Chmarsky became indignant, and he had a long and explosive conversation with the commandant of the airport, a conversation that had a great many hand gestures, and the use of those Russian words that have consonants we cannot pronounce. It sounds like a series of firecrackers. Mr. Chmarsky threatened to report the whole incident to whatever place you report such incidents, and the commandant was sad. And then his face lighted up and he said, “You will go in a special plane. It is being readied now.”

And we were properly impressed and very happy about it, because we’d never gone anyplace in a special plane in our lives, and we rather imagined we could stretch out on the floor and go to sleep. The plane was to leave in one hour. It would take that long to be made ready. Back to the restaurant we went, and had more tea, and more big biscuits.

At the end of an hour we made another inquiry. And it seemed that an engine needed a little work, and it might just possibly be thirty-five minutes more before we took off in our “special plane.”

Our hosts meanwhile were wilting and dying on the vine. We tried to get them to go back to Tiflis and go to bed, but they were very courteous and they would not. They would see us off to Moscow. Two more glasses of tea, and forty-five minutes, and we inquired again. It seemed, said the commandant, that a delegation of Turks, representing the Turkish government, were on their way to Moscow to take part in the celebration of the eight-hundredth anniversary of that city. And they were going to go on the plane with us, if we did not mind; they were to share our special plane, if we would permit it. Now we have no great liking for the Turkish government, but when it was put to us that way, we couldn’t refuse a whole sovereign nation’s representatives the right to go on our little special plane to Moscow. We were very big about it, we granted the permission.

“Let them board the plane, and they can go with us,” we said.

There was just one bit of trouble, they were not here yet. They were still in Tiflis, they would be out in half an hour.

Back to the restaurant we went, and had two more glasses of tea, and more big biscuits. The sun rose, and the air became hot, and the Russian patrol craft took off and came in. We had that sandy feeling under the eyes that comes from complete and overwhelming fatigue. And at the end of an hour we went back to the commandant, and even Mr. Chmarsky was getting quite excited by now. Where were the Turks?