He sat with me, not fully awake, looking out at that locomotive. It was the only thing lit up. There was a light above it, shining down, lighting up the engine and the snow, and beyond that there was very little. One or two smaller lights in station buildings, perhaps.

The locomotive had a distinctly American look to it, unlike those I’d been on between Petrograd and Mogilev. I told him as much. I thought back to my plans for American rolling stock coming to Russia, but I kept that to myself.

From out of the darkness – the Tsarevitch saw it first – some boys ran to the tender. The others hoisted the smallest one on board and he started throwing down coal by the handful, tossing it into sacks they had brought. There was a sudden shrill whistle, loud enough it came through the glass, and the boys on the ground dropped their sacks and ran to get out of the light. The one on top was slow getting down as the soldiers appeared. They shouted at him. They were holding rifles, but most of them by the barrel. He held up a piece of coal, to show them he still had it, and he ran. They chased after him, most of them, but not one. He stood still and raised his rifle.

I heard myself shout, ‘No!’ at the glass as the shot came. One shot. That was all it took. The boy dropped dead to the snow and the coal tumbled out of his hand.

I turned to the Tsarevitch. I wanted to find the right thing to say.

He stared out at the boy. At the soldier. At the other soldiers who had stopped running and had no idea what to make of it. But mostly at the boy.

‘For a lump of coal,’ the Tsarevitch said.

There was a banging on the door before we could exchange any further words. Derevenko and Nagorny attended to it, with pistols drawn.

‘Station guard,’ I told the Tsarevitch. ‘He’ll just be telling us we’re safe. But how about we get you away from the windows and into your sleeper compartment just in case?’

I had no idea what was out in the night, what the response might be to the shooting.

It was in fact a border guard at the door, the chief of the border post, not a station guard. It was me he wanted to speak to. I could see the sailors pointing me out, and then I heard him saying, ‘Secretary, please,’ over and over and beckoning to me.

I asked him why he needed me, but he kept saying, ‘Secretary, please,’ and signalling, and then he said, ‘telefon, telefon,’ signalling that too with his hands, as best he could.

Derevenko nodded and said, ‘Telefon, yes,’ signalling that I should go.