midnight
And five minutes later he went out to seek the Minister . I was horrified at my position , compelled as I was to convey the means of death to the hands of the German spy Tchernine , who had been placed as servant to the Russian commander . I saw that I must leave Petrograd for Minsk that night ; therefore I set about preparing for my adventurous journey . Indeed , shortly before midnight I left the Gorokhovaya with the box of Swedish matches in my inner pocket . The journey from Petrograd due south to Polotzk , where I had to change , proved an interminable one and occupied nearly two days , so congested was the line by military traffic and ambulance trains . At last on arrival there I joined a troop-train with reinforcements going to Minsk , where I duly alighted , to discover that General Brusiloff 's headquarters were out at a village called Gorodok , about five miles distant , in the direction of Vilna . The evening was bitterly cold , and as I drove along I became filled with ineffable disgust of Rasputin and the disgraceful camarilla who were slowly but surely hurling the nation to its doom .