every detail.  He answered:  “What would you think in England if the Commander-in-Chief told the Minister for War that these matters had nothing to do with him, that he would be allowed to keep a small office with two clerks but no staff, as it was the Minister for War’s name only that was of any use to the Directorate (or in your case Cabinet), and the less he interfered with the affairs of his department the better for all concerned?” I answered:  “If I were the Minister I should claim to have absolute control of my department, or resign.”  He thought a minute and said:  “That is what I have done,” or “what I intend to do,” I forget which.  From what followed I think it must have been the former, because I asked him what General Bolderoff said in answer to his claim, to which he replied:  “General Bolderoff is a very good man, and though he does not see everything as I wish, I think he understands the situation, and will himself ask that greater power should be given to enable me to save the new Russian army, that it may be able to resurrect the Russian State.”  I well remember that word “resurrect”; it was so pregnant with truth.  The State was dead, Russia was no more; resurrection was necessary.

We arrived at Omsk town station at 5.30 on the evening of November 17, 1918.  The admiral thanked me for my help and my guard and for the kindness and protection I had afforded him.  I promised him my continued help and sympathy in his patriotic attempt to revive the spirit of his people.  He went straight to his lodgings and remained there.

The Times correspondent in a message to his newspaper has suggested that the admiral had prior knowledge of what was to happen that night in Omsk.  I do not think that was the case.  He may have guessed that something very unpleasant was in the wind—­the least sensitive amongst those behind the scenes knew that—­but what it was, from which direction it would come or on whom it would fall was a secret known to but very few, and I am convinced that the admiral, except in a second degree, was not one of them.  Colonel (soon to be General) Lebediff could tell the whole story, though his name was not even mentioned during the coup d’etat.  A young and able Cossack officer, he was on the Staff of Korniloff when Kerensky invited the great Cossack general to march his army to Petrograd to save the newly-elected National Assembly.  It is well known how, when Korniloff obeyed Kerensky’s order, he treacherously turned and rent to pieces the only force which was moving at his own request and could have saved Russia.  He, in turn, became the victim of the ghouls who urged him to this act of destruction.  Lebediff escaped, but one can be certain that he retained a lasting hate towards the Social Revolutionaries who had betrayed his great leader.