The two had placed their caps on a low wall nearby, the general’s with its laurels and the Tsarevitch’s the cap of a simple soldier. The general’s cane was also placed upon the wall. McCully said we should meet them, as the general would be my best opportunity in Mogilev for a conversation in good English, outside the Imperial Family, who were fluent in it. As we approached, a sailor, who had been standing by the wall, moved to intercept us. McCully took out his diplomatic papers and instructed me to find my visiting card and, after the briefest of conversations, we were allowed to continue. The sailor, I soon learned, was one of two assigned to the Tsarevitch for his protection. This was Seaman Nagorny, though the boy called him Dyad’ka, which means uncle. By then the kicking of the ball had stopped and the two players were watching to see who was coming their way.

What were your first impressions of the Tsarevitch?

That he was a pleasant child leading a most unusual life. There were no outward signs of his illness – the royal disease of the blood – nor of the delicacy I had anticipated. He was twelve years old, you understand, but dressed in the uniform of an army corporal – a khaki greatcoat, shoulder boards with badges of rank and several medals in the middle of his chest, with their ribbons folded in the Russian style. His coat buttoned to the right, allowing the medals to sit in a row in the centre. Unlike most army corporals, and indeed most twelve-year-olds, he had a gold watch chain reaching across his chest to a watch in his coat pocket. I learned later that it was common for his father, the Emperor, to take him to meetings about the war with ministers and generals.

We had been there only a minute when two other men joined us. One was a butler in a white suit with brass buttons and a gold lanyard. He was carrying a silver platter with a china plate upon it holding two slices of black bread, pickles and a piece of pale cheese. It was not a meal a person might expect to see delivered in such a fashion, but I subsequently learned it was at the Tsarevitch’s insistence that, when in uniform, he would eat what a corporal would eat. His butler would obtain a ration from the barracks and bring it to him.

The other man, though addressed by the Tsarevitch in the Russian style as Sydney Ivanovich, was an Englishman, Sydney Gibbes, tutor to the young Romanovs.

The Tsarevitch asked me about myself and, as he was standing in uniform before me, I told him I had been in the navy at a young age, though not as young as he. I explained that I was a visitor from America, about to make my arrival known to General Gurko.