Swords, it may here be mentioned, were a regular nuisance to British officers visiting the dominions of the Emperor Nicholas during all the earlier months of the war. The Russians had not, like the French, Belgians and Italians, copied our practice, acquired during the South African War, of putting away these symbols of commissioned authority for the time being. They were not worn actually at the front; but officers were supposed to appear in them elsewhere just as used to be the invariable practice on the Continent in pre-war days. That our airmen should not possess swords took the Russians quite aback, a sabre being about as appropriate in an aeroplane as are spurs on a destroyer. Transporting a sword through Sweden was apt to stamp you as a belligerent officer, so that all sorts of dodges had to be contrived to camouflage an article of baggage that, owing to its dimensions, refuses to lend itself to operations of concealment. Wigram's absurd weapon gave us away as a matter of course, although no harm befell. I was all right on the journey, because General Wolfe-Murray, who had recently been out on a visit to present decorations, had left his at the Embassy at Petrograd for the use of any other general who might come along later. It, however, was one of the full-dress, scimitar-shaped variety that has been affected by our general officers ever since one of them brought back a richly jewelled sample, the gift of Soliman the Magnificent or some other Grand Turk for a service at Belgrade. It is not a pattern of sabre designed to fit readily into the frog of a Sam Brown belt, and it used to be a regular business getting my borrowed one off and on when one went to a meal in a club or a restaurant in Petrograd. Most cordial invitations had been extended to us to visit the front. But this must have involved several days' delay. It was not always easy to get a move on in Russia, and no great value was set upon the element of time; so that, although such a trip would assuredly have been interesting and it might have been instructive, we were obliged to decline. Instructions ran that I was to return to London as soon as possible after visiting the Stavka. We consequently spent only twenty-four hours in Petrograd before taking the train back for Tornea, and thence via Stockholm and Christiania to Bergen; we, however, stayed for a few hours in each of the Scandinavian capitals. Since quitting Bergen about three weeks earlier a sore misfortune had befallen the place, for a great part of the best quarter of the town had been destroyed in a disastrous conflagration which had obliterated whole streets. But the flames fortunately had not reached the railway station, nor yet the quays on the side of the harbour where the steamers berthed, so that transit was not appreciably interfered with. We were back at the War Office within four weeks of setting out, having only passed ten days actually within the Russian Empire. CHAPTER XIV