None of this was true—the British were at this stage entirely ignorant of the Afghan mission to the Tsar—but in order to safeguard the mission Vitkevitch was provided by the Embassy with a Cossack escort to look after him as he headed on to Nishapur and hence to the Shah’s camp at Herat. It was this escort that did finally alert British intelligence—in the person of Rawlinson—to the existence of Vitkevitch’s mission.
