litary Cross there and, as he put it, "was just settling inside his
skin," the authorities realised his Russian knowledge, and decided to
transfer him to the British Military Mission in Petrograd. His anger
when he was sent back to London and informed of this was extreme. He
hadn't the least desire to return to Russia, he was very happy where he
was, he had forgotten all his Russian; I can see him, saying very
little, looking like a sulky child and kicking his heel up and down
across the carpet.
"Just the man we want out there, Lawrence," he told me somebody said to
him; "keep them in order."
"Keep them in order!" That tickled his sense of humour. He was to laugh
frequently, afterwards, when he thought of it. He always chewed a joke
as a cow chews the cud.
So that he was in no pleasant temper when he met Bohun on the decks of
the _Jupiter_. That journey must have had its humours for any observer
who knew the two men. During the first half of it I imagine that Bohun
talked and Lawrence slumbered. Bohun patronised, was kind and indulgent,
and showed very plainly that he thought his companion the dullest and
heaviest of mortals. Then he told Lawrence about Russia; he explained
everything to him, the morals, psychology, fighting qualities,
strengths, and weaknesses. The climax arrived when he announced: "But
it's the mysticism of the Russian peasant which will save the world.
That adoration of God...."
"Rot!" interrupted Lawrence.
Bohun was indignant. "Of course if you know better--" he said.
"I do," said Lawrence, "I lived there for fifteen years. Ask my old
governor about the mysticism of the Russian peasant. He'll tell you."
Bohun felt that he was justified in his annoyance. As he said to me
afterwards: "The fellow had simply been laughing at me. He might have
told me about his having been there." At that time, to Bohun, the most
terrible thing in the world was to be laughed at.
After that Bohun asked Jerry questions. But Jerry refused to give
himself away. "I don't know," he said, "I've forgotten it all. I don't
suppose I ever did know much about it."
At Haparanda, most unfortunately, Bohun was insulted. The Swedish
Customs Officer there, tired at the constant appearance of
self-satisfied gentlemen with Red Passports, decided that Bohun was
carrying medicine in his private bags. Bohun refused to open his
portmanteau, simply because he "was a Courier and wasn't going to be
insulted by a dirty foreigne
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