He talked more broadly then, offering me an opinion on the Russian mind, which he told me moved quickly from exultation to despair, while never lacking for kindness nor hospitality. A Russian with little food would still share it, he said. A Bolshevik – a poor version of a Russian, given to overthrowing order for brutal misrule – would not, perhaps not even with another Bolshevik. And this despite the Bolsheviks’ claim to represent the worker and peasant.

What sort of man was he, the general?

Was he? Is he. He still is, Mr Purbrick, as you know. I am happy to say that. He is a very fine sort of man. The finest. He is strong of character, deep of thought and warm of heart. Why, he showed me all of that the following day.

At breakfast, I received a note offering me a meeting time with General Gurko and Admiral Rusin, the Assistant Minister of Sea Forces and ranking naval officer at Stavka. General Hanbury-Williams suggested we walk together, as he had an earlier meeting at the Governor’s Palace, which was nearby.

He knew we would once again meet the Tsarevitch, about to begin his lessons for the day and, as we approached the palace, the general said, ‘Watch this,’ and undid a button on his coat.

As we walked in, the Tsarevitch noticed us and approached shaking his head. Without so much as a greeting, he reached out and buttoned the general up, saying, ‘Untidy again, Sir Hanbury?’ with a theatrical sigh. It was a game the two of them were in the habit of playing. The Tsarevitch straightened the general’s lapels, stood back and gave a look of reluctant approval, before signalling to him that he could now go into his meeting.

Through its open door I could see the Tsarevitch’s classroom, and he invited me in to take a look at it. As much as half the room was taken up by a group of tables fitted together, with canvas across them and a battle being fought upon it in miniature. A river had been marked, along with some smaller streams, and there were trees denoting wooded areas, and some elevated land and redoubts. Representing the fighting battalions was a quite magnificent set of painted lead soldiers, each one standing in for perhaps a thousand troops – infantry, cavalry, artillery pieces, all of them beautifully finished. They had been his father’s, he later told me, made for his father when the Emperor had been a boy.

He explained to me that he and his tutor were re-enacting the Battle of Borodino from the Patriotic War of 1812. It was only the way he pronounced Borodino – in purest Russian – that reminded me I was not talking with an English boy. I told him we Americans had had our own war of 1812, but that had been before my time.