"It's the horns of the cootie and beg-bug, The herring and mud-colored crows, My strongest impression of Russia, Gets into my head through my nose."

Bathing is a strenuous sport pursued by almost every individual with avidity. It is carried on in special bath-houses of two or more rooms, found in the yard of almost every peasant family. The outer door leads to the entry, the next door to a hot undressing-room, and the inner door to a steaming inferno in which is a small masonry stove, a cauldron of hot water, a barrel of ice-water, a bench, several platforms of various altitudes, several beaten copper or brass basins, a dipper and a lot of aromatic twigs bound in small bunches. With these he flails the dead cuticle much to the same effect as our scouring it off with a rough towel. Such is the grandfather of the "Russian Bath" found in some of our own cities. After scrubbing thoroughly, and steaming almost to the point of dissolution on one of the higher platforms, a Russian will dash on cold water from the barrel and dry himself and put on his clothes and feel tip-top. An American would make his will and call the undertaker before following suit. In the summer there is considerable open-air river bathing, and the absence of bathing-suits other than nature's own is never given a thought.

The people of this north country are shorter and stockier than the average American. The prevailing color of hair is dark brown. Their faces and hands are weather-beaten and wrinkle early. Despite their general cleanliness, they often look greasy and smell to high heaven because of their habit of anointing hair and skin with fats and oils, especially fish-oil. Not all do this, but the practice is prevalent enough so that the fish-oil and old-fur odors are inescapable in any peasant community and cling for a long time to the clothing of any traveler who sojourns there, be it ever so briefly. American soldiers in 1918-1919 became so accustomed to it that they felt something intangible was missing when they left the country and it was some time before a clever Yank thought of the reason.

Before the great world war, a young peasant who was unmarried at twenty-two was a teacher, a nun, or an old maid. The birth-rate is high, and the death-rate among babies not what it is in our proud America. Young families often remain under the grandfather's rooftree until another house or two becomes absolutely necessary to accommodate the overflow. If through some natural series of events a young woman has a child without having been married by the priest, no great stir is made over it. The fact that she is not thrown out of her family home is not consciously ascribed to charity of spirit, nor are the villagers conscious of anything broad or praiseworthy in their kindly attitude. The result is that the baby is loved and the mother is usually happily wed to the father of her child. The North Russian villager is an assiduous gossip, but an incident of this kind receives no more attention as an item of news that if its chronology had been thoroughly conventional by American standards.

Marriages are occasions of great feasting and rejoicing; funerals likewise stir the whole community, but the noise of the occasion is far more terrifying and nerve-wracking. Births are quiet affairs; but the christening is quite a function, attended with a musical service, and the "name-day" anniversary is often celebrated in preference to the birthday anniversary by the adult Russian peasant. Everybody was born, but not everybody received such a fine name from such a fine family at such a fine service under the leadership of such a fine priest; and not everybody has such fine god-parents. The larger religious festivals are also occasions for enjoyable community gatherings, and especially during the winter the little dances held in a large room of some patient man's house until the wee small hours are something not to be missed by young or old. Yes, the North Russian peasant plays as well as works, and so keen is his enjoyment that he puts far more energy into the play. Because of his simple mode of existence it is not necessary to overwork in normal times to obtain all the food, clothing, houses and utensils he cares to use. Ordinarily he is a quiet easy-going human.

Perhaps there is more of sense of humor in the apparently phlegmatic passivity of the Russian nitchevo than is suspected by those not acquainted with him. There is also a great timidity in it; for the Russian moujik or christianik (peasant farmer) has scarcely been sure his soul is his own, since time immemorable. But his sense of humor has been his salvation, for it has enabled him to be patient and pleasant under conditions beyond his power to change. Courtesy to an extent unknown in America marks his daily life. He is intelligent, and is resourceful to a degree, although not well educated.

The average North Russian is not dishonest in a personal way. That is, he has no personal animus in his deviousness unless someone has directly offended him. He will haul a load of small articles unguarded for many versts and deliver every piece safely, in spite of his own great hunger, because he is in charge of the shipment. But he will charge a commission at both ends of a business deal, and will accept a "gift" almost any time for any purpose and then mayhap not "deliver." Only a certain small class, however, and that practically confined to Archangel and environs, will admit even most privately that any gift or advantage is payment for a given favor which would not be extended in the ordinary course of business. This class is not the national back-bone, but rather the tinsel trimmings in the national show-window.

One time a passing British convoy commandeered some hay at Bolsheozerki. Upon advice of the American officer the starosta accepted a paper due bill from the British officer for the hay. Weeks afterward the American officer found that the Russian had been up to that time unable to get cash on his due bill. Naturally he looked to the American for aid. The officer took it up with the British and was assured that the due bill would be honored. But to quiet the feeling of the starosta he advanced him the 92 roubles, giving the headman his address so that he could return the 92 roubles to the American officer when the British due bill came cash. Brother officers ridiculed the Yank officer for trusting the Russian peasant, who was himself waiting doubtfully on the British. But his judgment was vindicated later and the honesty of the starosta demonstrated when a letter travelled hundreds of miles to Pinega with 92 roubles for the American officer.



XX

HOLDING THE ONEGA VALLEY

December Fighting—Drawn Struggle Near Turchesova—Fighting Near Khala In February—Corporal Collins And Men Are Ambushed Near Bolsheozerki—"H" Company In Two Savage Battles—Lieuts. Collins And Phillips Both Mortally Wounded.

The enemy, who was massing up forces in the upper Pinega valley and, as we have seen, caused British G. H. Q. to send one company of Americans hurrying up the valley for a 150-mile march Christmas week, was also fixing up a surprise for the G. H. Q. on the other end of the great line of defense. That same Christmas week "H" Company found itself again up against greatly superior forces who, as they boasted, were commencing their winter campaign to drive the invaders of Russia to the depths of the White Sea.

On December 20th one squad of "H" men were in a patrol fight with the enemy which drove the Reds from the village of Kleshevo. On the following day Lt. Ketcham with twenty Americans and a platoon of R. A. N. B., Russian Allied Naval Brigade, proceeded south for reconnaissance in force and engaged a strong enemy patrol in Priluk, driving the Reds out, killing one, wounding one, and taking one prisoner. On December 22nd Lt. Carlson's platoon occupied Kleshevo and Lt. Ketcham's platoon occupied the village on the opposite side of the river. The next day at a village near Priluk Lt. Carlson's men on patrol encountered a Bolo combat patrol and inflicted severe losses and took five prisoners.

Christmas Day and several other days were occupied with these patrol combats by the two opposing forces, each of which thought the other had gone into winter quarters.

In conformity with the general advance planned on all fronts by the British Command to beat the enemy to the attack and to reach a position which would nullify the enemy's tremendous advantage of position with his base at Plesetskaya, the British Officer in command of the Onega Valley Detachment, planned an attack on Turchesova. Lt. E. R. Collins with the second fourth platoons left Pogashitche at 4:00 a. m. December 29, proceeding up the Schmokee River in an attempt to get around Turchesova and strike the enemy in the flank. It was found, however, that the woods on this side were impassable and so the force left the river by a winter trail for Pertema, proceeding thence to Goglova, to reinforce the Polish company of Allies who had captured that village on the same morning.

This was wise. The next morning the enemy counter-attacked Goglova in great force, but, fortunately, was repulsed without any casualties on our side. He had, however, a threatening position in the village of Zelyese, about a mile to the left flank and rear of our position and was discovered to be preparing to renew the battle the next day. Lt. Collins was obliged to divide his force just as again and again the American officers all along that great Russian winter front again and again were compelled to divide in the face of greatly superior and encircling forces.

Taking Lt. Ketcham's platoon early the next morning, he boldly struck at the enemy force in his rear and after an hour's fighting the "H" men had possession of the village. But the enemy was at once reinforced from Turchesova and delivered a counter-attack that the "H" men repulsed with severe losses. Our wounded in the action were two; none killed. Horseshoes again. The enemy dead and wounded were over fifty. The enemy continued firing at long range next day, New Years of 1919, and wounded one "H."

Indications pointed toward an inclination of the enemy to evacuate Turchesova. Therefore, a message received by Lt. Collins at 5:00 p. m., January 1, from British O. C. Onega Det., ordering a withdrawal within two hours to Kleshevo, came as a surprise to the American soldiers. In this hasty retreat much confusion arose among the excited Russian drivers of sleighs. Some horses and drivers were injured; much ammunition, equipment, and supplies were lost.

The enemy did not follow and for the remainder of January and up to February 9th the "H" Company men performed the routine duties of patrol and garrison duties in the Onega Valley in the vicinity of Kleshevo without any engagement with the enemy who seemed content to rest in quarters and keep out of the way of the Americans and Allies.

On February 10th Lt. Ketcham with a combat patrol drove the enemy from Khala whom he encountered with a pair of machine guns on patrol. He defeated the Reds without any casualties, inflicting a loss on the enemy of one killed and two wounded.

For more than a month the sector of defense was quiet except for an occasional rise of the "wind." Active patrols were kept out. Captain Ballensinger assumed command of the company and moved his headquarters from Onega to Chekuevo. As the mail from and to Archangel from the outside world as well as supplies and reinforcements of men were now obliged to use the road from Obozerskaya to Bolsheozerki to Chekuevo to Onega to Kem and so on to Kola and return, it became part of the duty of "H" Company to patrol the road from Chekuevo to Obozerskaya; taking two days coming and two days going with night stops at Chinova or Bolsheozerki.

The last of these patrols left Chekuevo on Sunday, March 16, fell into the hands of the advance patrols of the Bolo General who had executed a long flank march, annihilated the Franco-Russian force at Bolsheozerki, and occupied the area with a great force of infantry, mounted men, skii troops, and both light and heavy artillery, as related elsewhere in connection with the story of the defense of the railroad.

The next day Lt. Collins with thirty men and a Lewis gun started toward Bolsheozerki to discover the situation with orders to report at Chinova to Col. Lucas, the French officer in command of the Vologda Force. Travelling all night, he reached Col. Lucas in the morning and the latter determined to push on under escort of the Americans and attempt to reach Bolsheozerki and Oborzerskaya, being at that time ignorant of the real strength of the force of Reds that had interrupted the communications.

About noon, March 18th, the detachment in escort formation left Chinova and proceeded without signs of enemy till within four versts of Bolsheozerki, where they were met by sudden burst of a battery of machine guns. Luckily the range was wrong. The horses bolted upsetting the sleighs and throwing Col. Lucas into the neck-deep snow. The Americans returned the fire and slowly retired with the loss of but one man killed. Crawling in the snow for a great distance gave many of them severe frost bites, one of the most acute sufferers being the French Col. Lucas. The detachment returned to Chinova to report by telephone to Chekuevo and to organize a defensive position in case the enemy should advance toward Chekuevo. The enemy did not pursue. He was crafty. That would have indicated his great strength.

By order of Col. Lawrie, British O. C. Onega Det., Lt. Phillips was sent with about forty "H" Company men to reinforce Lt. Collins. It was the British Colonel's idea that only a large raiding party of Bolos were at Bolsheozerki for the purpose of raiding the supply trains of food that were coming from Archangel to Chekuevo. Phillips reached Chinova before daybreak of the twentieth. Lt. Collins was joined at the little village of Chinova by three companies of Yorks, enroute from Murmansk to Obozerskaya, a U. S. Medical corps officer, Lt. Springer, and four men joined the force and an attack was ordered on Bolsheozerki by these seventy Americans and three hundred Yorks. They did not know that they were going up against ten times their number.

At 2:00 a. m. the movement started and at nine in the morning the American advance guard drew fire from the enemy. Deploying as planned on the left of the road the "H" men moved forward in line of battle. One company of Yorks moved off to the right to attack from the woods and one on the left of the Americans. One York company was in reserve. After advancing over five hundred yards in face of the enemy machine gun fire, the Americans were exhausted by the deep snow and held on to a line within one hundred yards of the enemy. The Yorks on the right and left advanced just as gallantly and were also held back by the deep snow and the severity of the enemy machine gun fire.

The fight continued for five hours. Lovable old Lt. Collins fell mortally wounded by a Bolo bullet while cheering his men on the desperate line of battle. At last Lt. Phillips was obliged to report his ammunition exhausted and appealed for reinforcements and ammunition. Major Monday passed on the appeal to Col. Lawrie who gave up the attack and ordered the forces to withdraw under cover of darkness, which they all did in good order. Losses had not been as heavy as the fury of the fight promised. One American enlisted man was killed and Lt. Collins died of hemorrhage on the way to Chekuevo. Eight American enlisted men were severely wounded. The Yorks lost two officers and two enlisted men killed, and ten enlisted men wounded. Many of the American and British soldiers were frostbitten.

During the next week the enemy, we learned later, greatly augmented his forces and strengthened his defenses of Bolsheozerki with German wire, machine guns, and artillery. He was evidently bent on exploiting his patrol action success and aimed to cut the railroad at Obozerskaya and later deal with the Onega detachment at leisure. Our troops made use of the lull in the activities to make thorough patrols to discover enemy positions and to send all wounded and sick to Onega for safety, bringing up every available man for the next drive to knock the Bolo out of Bolsheozerki. This was under the command of Lt.-Col. Morrison (British army).

Meanwhile the Bolo General had launched a vicious drive at the Americans and Russians who stood between him and his railway objective, encircling them with three regiments, and on April 2, after two days of continuous assault was threatening to overpower them. In this extremity Col. Lawrie answered the appeal of the British officer commanding at Obozerskaya by ordering another attack on the west by his forces. Captain Ballensinger reports in substance as follows:

In compliance with orders he detailed April 1, one N. C. O. and ten privates to man two Stokes mortars, also one N. C. O. and seven privates for a Vickers gun. Both these details reported to a Russian trench mortar officer and remained under his command during the engagement. The balance of the available men at the advance base Usolia was divided into two platoons, the first under Lt. Phillips and the other under the First Sergeant. These platoons under Capt. Ballensinger's command, as part of the reserve, joined the column on the road at the appointed time.

They arrived at their position on the road about four versts from Bolsheozerki about 1:00 a. m. April 2. Zero hour was set at daybreak, 3:00 a. m. The first firing began about thirty minutes later, "A" Company of the Yorks drawing fire from the northern or right flank of the enemy. They reported afterward that the Bolos had tied dogs in the woods whose barking had given the alarm. That company advanced in the face of strong machine gun fire and Capt. Bailey, a British officer went to his death gallantly leading his men in a rush at the guns on a ridge. But floundering in the snow, with their second officer wounded, they were repulsed and forced to retire.

At 5:00 a. m. Lt. Pellegrom, having hurried out from Archangel, reported for duty and was put in command of a platoon.

At 6:00 a. m. "A" Company Yorks was in desperate straits and by verbal order of Col. Lund one platoon of Americans was sent to support their retirement. Lt. Phillips soon found himself hotly engaged.

The original plan had been to send the Polish Company in to attack the southern villages or the extreme left of the Bolo line, but owing to their lateness of arrival they were not able to go in there and were held for a frontal attack, supported by the American trench mortars. They were met by a severe machine gun fire and after twenty minutes of hot fire and heavy losses retired from action.

Meanwhile "C" Company Yorks which had been sent around to attack on the north of Bolsheozerki got lost in the woods in the dark, trying to follow an old trail made by a Russian officer and a few men who had come around the north end of the Bolsheozerki area a few days previously with messages from Obozerskaya. The company did not get into action and had to return. Thus the attack had failed, and the force found itself on a desperate defensive.

The "A" Yorks, who had suffered severely, retired from action immediately after the first counter-attack of the Bolo had been repulsed. Then the whole defense of this messed-up attacking force fell upon the American platoon and a dozen Yorks with a doughty British officer. Phillips, through the superb control of his men, kept them all in line and his Lewis guns going with great effectiveness and gave ground slowly and grudgingly, in spite of casualties and great severity of cold.

When Phillips fell with the wound which was later to prove fatal, Pellegrom came up with his platoon to relieve the exhausted platoon, and "C" Company Yorks arrived on the line from their futile flank march just in time to join the Americans at 9:00 a. m. in checking the redoubled counterattack of the hordes of Bolos.

Meanwhile the Polish troops refused to go back into the fighting line to help stem the Bolo attack. Peremptory order brought two of their Colt automatics up to the line where for forty-five minutes they engaged the enemy, but again retired to the rear and assisted only by firing their machine gun over the heads of the Americans and British battling for their very lives all that afternoon in the long thin line of American O. D. and British Khaki.

The Bolo was held in check and at dusk the Americans and British and Poles withdrew in good order.

This ill-fated attack had met with a savage repulse but no doubt it had a great effect upon the Bolshevik General at Bolsheozerki. On his right he had himself met bloody disaster from a company of Americans who had fought his attacking battalions to a standstill for sixty hours and here on his left flank was another Company of Americans who had twice attacked him and seemed never to stay defeated. April sun was likely to soften his winter road to mush very soon and then these Americans and their allies would have him at their mercy.

The losses of the enemy were not known but later accounts from prisoners and from natives of the village, who were there, placed them very high. In this last attack "H" lost one officer, who died of wounds later, also one man killed, one mortally wounded and seven others wounded. The British lost one officer killed, one wounded, two privates killed, two missing and ten wounded. The Polish Company lost five killed, eight missing and ten wounded.

Of the gallant Phillips who fell at Bolsheozerki we are pleased to include the following from his company commander:

"But when he went forward something made me look him over again, and the look I saw on his face and especially in his eyes, I shall never forget.

"I have never seen a look like it before or since. It was by no means the look of a man being afraid (I have seen those looks) nor was it a look of 'I don't care what happens.' It was a look that made me watch him all the way out. It made me hunt him up with my glasses, while I was watching the enemy. The latter was pressing us awfully hard that day, and when I observed our troops slowly giving ground, I went out in person to see if the look on Phillip's face had something to do with it. But I soon changed my mind. He was all along the line encouraging his men to hold on, he helped to put new Lewis guns in position. In short, he was everywhere without apparent thought of the bullets flying all around him. He pulled back wounded men to be carried back behind the lines. I know that his men would have held every bit of ground, had the British who were holding the flanks not fallen way back behind them.

"When the fateful bullet struck him, it knocked him down as if a ton of brick had fallen on him. He said to me, 'My God, I got it. Captain, don't bother with me, I am done for, just look after the boys'."

Let us here relate the story of his plucky fight for life after a Bolo bullet tore through his breast.

Borne tenderly in the arms of his own men to a sleigh which was gently drawn to Chanova and thence to Chekuevo, he rallied from his great loss of blood. Apparently his chances for recovery were good. He sat up in bed, ate with relish and exchanged greetings with his devoted "H" company men who to a man would gladly have changed places with him—what a fine comradeship there was between citizen-officer and citizen-soldier. Contrary to expectations Phillips was soon moved from Chekuevo to Onega for safety and for better care. But very soon after reaching Onega hemmorhage began again. Then followed weeks of struggle for life. Everything possible was done for him with the means at hand. Although the hospital afforded no X-ray to discern the location of the fatal arterial lesion through which his life was secretly spurting away, the post mortem revealed the fact that the Bolshevik rifle bullet had severed a tiny artery in his lung.

Care-worn American medical men wept in despair. Wireless messages throbbed disheartening reports on his condition to anxious regimental comrades on other fronts and at Archangel. At last the heroic struggle ended. On the tenth of May Phillips bled to death of his wound.

The valiant company had done its best in the fall and winter fighting. The company retired to Chekuevo and Onega, doing guard duty and patrols during the spring. The only event of note was the midnight game of baseball between the medics and doughboys. The medics could not hit the pills as hard as the doughboys. They left Onega June 5th, by steamboat for Economia Island and left Russia June 15th.



XXI

ICE-BOUND ARCHANGEL

Ferry Boat Fights Ice—Archangel Cosmopolitan—Bartering For Eats—Strange Wood Famine—Entertainment At American Headquarters—Doughboy Minstrelsy—Reindeer Teams—Russian Eskimo—Bolshevik Prisoners—S. B. A. L. Mutiny—Major Young's Scare At Smolny—Shakleton Boots—British Rations For Yank Soldiers—Corporal Knight Writes Humorous Sketch Of Ice-Bound Archangel.

On the ferry boat the troops speculated whether or not we would get stuck in the ice before we could cross the river to Archangel Preestin. It was November 22nd, 1918. The Dvina ran under glass. On the streets of Archangel sleighs were slipping. Winter was on and Archangel in a few days would be ice-bound. For a few days more the ice-breakers would keep the ferry going across the Dvina and would cut for the steamships a way out to sea. Then the White Sea would freeze solid for six months. In a few days the Archangel-Economia winter railroad would be running. Icebreakers would for a while brave the Arctic gales that swept the north coast. Then they would surrender and the great white silence would begin.

Varied and interesting are the tales that are told of that winter in Archangel. They are descriptive as well as narrative but there is not much coherence to the chapter. However, to the soldiers who were there, or who were out and in Archangel during the winter of 1918-19 this chapter will be pleasing.

In from a far-off front for a few days rest, or in on some mission such as the bringing of Bolshevik prisoners or to get some of the company property which had been left behind when in the fall the troops left troopships so hurriedly, these groups of American soldiers from the fighting fronts always found Archangel of interest. They found that it was a half-modern, half-oriental city, half-simple, half-wicked, with the gay along with the drab, with bright lights along with the gloom.

In Archangel were all kinds of people—whiskered moujiks beating their ponies along the snow-covered streets, sleek-looking people of the official class, well-dressed men and women of cultured appearance, young women whose faces were pretty and who did not wear boots and shawls but dressed attractively and seemed to enjoy the attention of doughboys, and soldiers of several nations, veterans of war and adventure in many climes. What a cosmopolitan crowd it was in that frozen-in city of the North!

The doughboy from the front soon learned that the city had its several national centers—the British quarters, French, Italian, and so forth, where their flags denoted their headquarters and in vicinity of which would be found their barracks and quarters and clubs. The Yank found himself welcome in every quarter of the city but hailed with most camaraderie in the French quarter. With the Russian night patrols he soon came to an amicable understanding and Russian cafes soon found out that the Yanks were the freest spenders and treated them accordingly. Woe to the luckless "Limmey" who tried to edge in on a Yank party in a Russian place.

When the doughboy returned to his company at the front he had a few great tales to tell of the eats he had found at some places. Some companies had done well. On the market-place and elsewhere the resourceful Amerikanski looking for food, especially vegetables, to supplement his mess, learned his first word of Russian—Skulka rouble. In spite of the watchful British M. P.'s, Ruby Queens and Scissors cigarettes were soon bringing in small driblets of cabbage and onions and potatoes. Happy the old mess sergeant who got his buddies expert at this game. And much more contented were the men with the mess. In another chapter read the wonderful menu of the convalescent hospital.

In the city the doughboy found the steaming bahnya or bathhouse, and at the "cootie mill" turned in his shirt to rid himself of the "seam squirrels." All cleaned up, with little gifts and cheery words he sought his buddies who were in hospital sick or wounded. He got books and records and gramaphones and other things at the Red Cross and "Y" to take back to the company. He accumulated a thousand rumors about the expedition and about happenings back home. He tired of the gloom and magnified fears of Archangel's being overpowered by the Bolos and usually returned to the front twice glad—once that he had seen Archangel and second that he was back among his comrades at the front.

During those weary ice-bound months it was a problem to keep warm. Poor management by high American and British officers at one time, to the writer's knowledge, suffered American soldiers at Smolny to be actually endangered in health. As far as proper heating of quarters was concerned men at the front provided better for themselves than did the commander at Smolny, Major Young, provide for those fighters in from the fighting front for rest. And that might be said too for his battalion mess. No wonder the doughboy set out to help himself in these things.

Strange to the American soldiers was the fact that at Archangel, a city of saw-mills, sitting in a nick of a great forest that extended for hundreds of miles south, east and west, there was such difficulty in getting supplies of fuel. A desperate sergeant took a detail of men and salvaged a lot of logs lying near the river's edge, borrowed some Russki saws with a few cigarettes, commandeered some carts and brought to the cook's kitchen and to the big stoves in the barracks a fine supply of wood. But the joke of it was that the watchful Russian owner of the logs sent in his bill for the wood to the British G. H. Q. And a ream of correspondence was started between Major Young and G. H. Q., the typewriter controversy continuing long, like Katy-did and Katy-didn't, long after the sergeant with diplomacy, partial restoration, and sugar had appeased the complaining Russian.

At American headquarters in the Technical Institute was held many a pleasant entertainment to while away the winter hours. The auditorium possessed a stage and a good dance floor. The moving picture machine and the band were there. Seated on the backless wooden benches soldiers looked at the pictures or listened to the orchestra or to their own doughboy talent showing his art at vaudeville or minstrelsy.

Or on officers' entertainment night they and their guests chosen from charming Russian families, joyfully danced or watched the antics of Douglas Fairbanks, Fatty Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, and even our dear deceased old John Bunnie. Not a silver lining but has its cloudy surface, and many were the uncomfortable moments when the American officer found himself wishing he could explain to his fair guest the meaning of the scene. More than rumor spread through that North country, attributing wonderful powers to the Americans based on some Douglas Fairbanks exploit. Can it be that the enemy heard some of these rumors and were unwilling at times to go against the Americans?

Enlisted men's entertainments by the "Y" and their own efforts to battle ennui with minstrel show and burlesque and dances have already been mentioned. The great high Gorka built by the American engineers in the heart of the city afforded a half-verst slide, a rush of clinging men and women as their toboggan coursed laughing and screaming in merriment down to the river where it pitched swiftly again down to the ice. Here at the Gorka as at "the merry-go-round," the promenade near Sabornya, the doughboy learned how to put the right persuasion into his voice as he said Mozhna, barishna, meaning: Will you take a slide or walk with me, little girl? At Christmas, New Year's and St. Patrick's Day, they had special entertainments. Late in March "I" Company three times repeated its grand minstrel show.

Many a doughboy in Archangel, Kholmogora, Yemetskoe, Onega or Pinega, at one time or another during the long winter, got a chance to ride with the Russian Eskimo and his reindeer. Doughboys who were supporting the artillery the day that the enemy moved on Chertkva and threatened Peligorskaya, can recall seeing the double sled teams of reindeer that came flashing up through the lines with the American commanding officer who had been urgently called for by the Russian officer at Peligorskaya. Sergeant Kant will never forget that wild ride. He sat on the rear sled, or rather he clung to the top of it during that hour's ride of twelve miles. The wise old buck reindeer who was hitched as a rudder to the rear of his sled would brace and pull back to keep the sergeant's sled from snapping the whip at the turns, and that would lift the sled clear from the surface. And when the old buck was not steering the sled but trotting with leaping strides behind the sled then the bumps in the road bounced the sled high. Out in front the reindeer team of three strained against their simple harness and supplied the rapid succession of jerks that flew the sleds along toward the embattled artillery. The reindeer travelled with tongues hanging out as if in distress; they panted; they steamed and coated with frost; they thrust their muzzles into the cooling snow to slake their thirst; but they were enjoying the wild run; they fairly skimmed over the snow trail. The Eskimo driver called his peculiar moaning cry to urge them on, slapped his lead reindeer with the single rein that was fastened to his left antler, or prodded his team on the haunches with the long pole which he carried for that purpose and for steering his light sled, and with surprising nimbleness leaped on and off his sled as he guided the sled past or over obstructions. A snow-covered log across the trail caused no delay. A leap of three antlered forms, twelve grey legs flashing in the air, a bump of the light sled that volplanes an instant in a shower of snow, a quick leap and a grab for position back on the sled, the thrilling act is over, and the Eskimo has not shown a sign of excitement in his Indian-like stoic face. On we skim at unbroken pace. We soon reach the place.

One of the views shown in this volume is that of a characteristic reindeer team and sled. Another shows the home of the North Russian branch of the Eskimo family. The writer vividly recalls the sight of a semi-wild herd of reindeer feeding in the dense pine and spruce woods. They were digging down through the deep snow to get the succulent reindeer moss. We approached on our Russian ponies with our, to them, strange-looking dress. What a thrill it gave us to see them, as if at signal of some sentry, raise their heads in one concerted, obedient look for signal of some leader, and then with great bounds go leaping away to safety, flashing through the dark stems of the trees like a flight of grey arrows discharged from a single bow. Further on we came upon the tented domiciles of the owners of this herd. Our red-headed Russian guide appeased the clamors of the innumerable dogs who bow-wowed out from all sides of the wigwam-like tents of these North Russian nomad homes, while we Americans looked on in wonder. Here was the very counterpart of the American Indian buck and squaw home that our grandads had seen in Michigan. The women at last appeared and rebuked the ragged half-dressed children for their precipitate rushing out to see the strangers. For a little tobacco they became somewhat talkative and willingly enough gave our guide information about the location of the hidden still we were going to visit, where pine pitch was baked out and barrelled for use in repairing the steamboats and many fishing boats of the area. We studied this aborigine woman and questioned our guide later about these people. Like our Indians they are. Pagans they are and in this volume is a picture of one of their totem poles. Untouched by the progress of civilization, they live in the great Slavic ocean of people that has rolled over them in wave after wave, but has not changed them a bit. Space can not be afforded for the numerous interesting anecdotes that are now in the mind of the writer and the doughboy reader who so many times saw the reindeer and their Russian Eskimo owners in their wilds or in Archangel or other cities and villages where they appear in their annual winter migrations.

Probably the one most interesting spot in the frozen port city was the American expeditionary post-office. Here at irregular intervals, at first via ice-breaker, which battled its way up to the edge of the ice crusted coast north of Economia, came our mail bags from home. Later those bags came in hundreds of miles over the winter snow roads, hauled by shaggy ponies driven by hairy, weather-beaten moujiks. Mail-letters, papers, little things from home, the word still connotes pleasure to us. Mail days were boon days, and at the mail-place a detail always arrived early and cheerful.



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO Russian Masonry Stove—American Convalescent Hospital



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO Pvt. Allikas Finds His Mother in Archangel



U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO Printing "The American Sentinel"

Familiar sights in the streets of winter Archangel were the working parties composed of Bolshevik prisoners of war. Except for the doughboy guard it might have been difficult to tell them from a free working party. They all looked alike. In fact, many a scowling face on a passing sled would have matched the Bolo clothes better than some of those boyish faces under guard. And how the prisoners came to depend on the doughboy. Several times it was known and laughingly told about that Bolo prisoners individually managed to escape, sneak home or to a confederate's home, get food, money and clean clothes, and then report back to the American guards. They preferred to be prisoners rather than to remain at large. Once a worried corporal of a prisoner guard detail at the convalescent hospital was inventing a story to account to the sergeant for his A. W. O. L. prisoner when to his mingled feeling of relief and disgust, in walked the lost prisoner, nitchevo, khorashaw.

The corporal felt about as sheepish as a sergeant and corporal of another company had felt one night when they had spent an hour and a half outmaneuvering the sentries, carrying off a big heavy case to a dark spot, and quietly opening the case found that instead of Scotch "influenza cure" it was a box of horseshoes. In that case horseshoes meant no luck.

Is war cruel? In that city of Archangel with nowhere to retreat, nervous times were bound to come. "The wind up their back," that is, cold shivers, made kind-hearted, level-headed men do harsh things. Comrade Danny Anderson of "Hq" Company could tell a blood-curdling story of the execution he witnessed. Six alleged agents of the German war office, Russian Bolo spies, in one "windy" moment were brutally put away by British officers. Their brains spattered on the stone wall. Sherman said it. We are glad to say that such incidents were remarkably rare in North Russia. The Allied officers and troops have a record of which they may be justly proud.

Here we may as well tell of the S. B. A. L. mutiny in Archangel in early winter. It is the story of an occurrence both pitiful and aggravating. After weeks of feeding and pampering and drilling and equipping and shining of brass buttons and showing off, when the order came for them to prepare to march off to the fighting front, the S. B. A. L. held a soviet in their big grey-stone barracks and refused to get ready to go out because they had grievances against their British officers. This was aggravatingly unreasonable and utterly unmilitary. Severe measures would have to be used. They were given till 2:00 p. m. to reconsider their soviet resolution.

Meanwhile G. H. Q. had ordered out the American "Hq" Company trench mortar section and a section of the American Machine Gun Company to try bomb and bullet argument on the S. B. A. L.'s who were barricading their barracks and pointing machine guns from their windows. Promptly on the minute, according to orders, the nasty, and to the Americans pitifully disagreeable job, was begun. In a short time a white flag fluttered a sign of submission. But several had been killed and the populace that swarmed weeping about the American soldiers reproachfully cried: "Amerikanski nit dobra." And they did not feel at all glorious.

A few minutes later to the immense disgust of the doughboys, a company of English Tommies who by all rules of right and reason should have been the ones to clean up the mutinous mess into which the British officers had gotten the S. B. A. L.'s, now hove into sight, coming up the recently bullet-whistling but now deadly quiet street, with rifles slung on their shoulders, crawling along slowly at sixty to the minute pace—instead of a riot-call double time, and singing their insulting version of "Over There the Yanks are Running, Running, everywhere, etc." And their old fishmonger reserve officer—he wore Colonel's insignia, wiped off his whiskey sweat in unconcealed relief. His battle of Archangel had been cut short by the Americans who had eagerly watched for the first sign of surrender by the foolish Russian soldiers. The finishing touch was added to the short-lived S. B. A. L. mutiny when the tender-hearted but severe old General Maroushevsky punished the thirteen ring-leaders of the S. B. A. L. soviet with death before a Russian firing squad. This mutiny was described in various ways and use was made of it by agitators in Archangel. The writer has followed the account given to him by a machine gun sergeant who was handling one of the guns that day. His story seemed to contain the facts and feelings most commonly expressed by American officers and enlisted men who were in Archangel when the unfortunate incident took place.

We are bound to comment that we believe it never would have occurred if a tactful, honest American officer had been in charge of the S. B. A. L. Americans know how tactless and bull-dozing some British orders—not many to be sure—could be. We fortunately had bluffs enough to offset the bull-dozings. A stormy threat by a sneering, drunken officer to turn his Canadian artillery on the bloomin' Yanks could be met by a cold-as-steel rejoiner that the British officer would please realize his drunken condition, and take back the sneering threat and come across with a reasonable order or suffer the immediate consequences. And then usually the two could cooperate. Such is a partnership war incident.

Late in winter, after the success of the enemy in the Shenkursk area had given the secret sympathizers in Archangel renewed hope that Trotsky's army would at last crush the Allies before Archangel, rumor persistently followed rumor that Archangel was being honeycombed with spies. The sailors at Solombola wore darker scowls and strange faces began to appear at Smolny where the city's power station lay. In the Allied intelligence staff, that is secret information service, there was redoubled effort. We smile as we think of it. About the time of the Bolo General's brilliant smash through our line and capture of Bolsheozerki, menacing Obozerskaya, a few little outbursts were put down in Archangel. A few dozen rusty rifles were confiscated. Major Young laid elaborate plans for the, to him, imminent riot at Smolny. Soldiers who had learned from experience how difficult it was for their enemy to keep a skirmish line even when his officers were behind with pistol and machine gun persuasion, now grew sick of this imaginary war in Archangel. One company going out to the front on March 27th, was actually singing in very jubilation because they were getting away from battalion mess and "stand-to" for riot-scare.

A distinguished citizen of the world, Sir Ernest Shakleton, visited the city of Archangel in the winter. But no one ever saw him try to navigate Troitsky Prospect in his own invention, the Shakleton boot. How dear to his heart are the thoughts of that boot, as the doughboy recalls his first attempts to walk in them. The writer's one and only experience with them resulted in his taking all the road for steering his course and calling for the assistance of two brother officers—and "Chi" was the strongest he had drunk, too. Of course the doughboy mastered the art of navigating in them. For downright laughableness and ludicrity the Charlie Chaplin walk has nothing on the Shakleton gliding-wabble. The shimmy and the cheek dance would not draw a second look while a stranger could grin audibly at the doughboy shuffle-hip-screwing along in Shakleton's. Many a fair barishna on Troitsky Prospect held her furs up to conceal her irrepressible mirth at the sight. Aw, Shakletons.

Allusion has been made to the battalion mess of bully and "M. and V." Another part of the British issue ration was dried vegetables, which the soldiers nicknamed "grass stew," much to the annoyance of one Lt. Blease, our American censor who read all our letters in England to see that we did not criticise our Allies. One day at Soyla grass stew was on the menu, says a corporal. One of the men offered his Russian hostess a taste of it. She spat it out on the hay before the cow. The cow was insulted and refused either stew or hay. Much was done to improve the ration by General Ironside who accepted with sympathy the suggestions of Major Nichols. Coffee finally took the place of tea. More bread and less hard tack was issued. Occasionally fresh meat was provided. But on the whole the British ration did not satisfy the American soldier.

This leads to a good story. One day during the Smolny riot-scare the writer with a group of non-commissioned officers in going all over the area to discover its possibilities for tactics and strategy, visited the Russian Veterinarian School. Here we saw the poor Russki pony in all stages of dissection, from spurting throat to disembowelment and horse-steaks. "Me for the good old bully," muttered a corporal devoutly, as he turned his head away. Here we remember the query of a corporal of Headquarters Company who said: "Where is that half million dogs that were in Archangel when we landed last September?" The Russians had no meat market windows offering wieners and bologny but it sure was a tough winter for food in that city congested with a large refugee population. And dogs disappeared.

Of the purely military life in Archangel in the long winter little can be said. The real work was done far out at the fronts anyway. No commander of a company of troops fighting for his sector of the line ever got any real assistance from Archangel except of the routine kind. Many a commendatory message and many a cheering visit was paid the troops by General Ironside but we can not record the same for Colonel Stewart. He was not a success as a commanding officer. He fell down weakly under his great responsibility. Before the long winter was over General Richardson was sent up to Archangel to take command.

During the early winter a doughboy in Archangel in this spirit of good humor wrote a letter published later in The Stars and Stripes in France. It is so good that we include it here.

"Sometimes, about once or twice every now and then, copies of The Stars and Stripes find their way up here to No Woman's Land and are instantly devoured by the news-hungry gang, searching for information regarding their comrades and general conditions in France, where we belong, but through Fate were sent up to this part of the world to quell Bolshevism and guard the Northern Lights.

"We are so far north that the doggone sun works only when it feels inclined to do so, and in that way it is like everything else in Russia. The moon isn't so particular, and comes up, usually backwards, at any time of the day or night, in any part of the sky, it having no set schedule, and often it will get lost and still be on the job at noon. Yes, we are so far north that 30 degrees below will soon be tropical weather to us, and they will have to build fires around both cows before they can milk them. Probably about next month at this time some one will come around and say we will be pulling out of here in a day or so, but then, the days will be six months long.

"In our issue of your very popular paper we noticed a cartoon, "Pity the boys in Siberia," but what about us, Ed? Now, up here in this tough town there are 269,83l. inhabitants, of which 61,329 are human beings and 208,502 are dogs. Dogs of every description from the poodle to the St. Bernard and from the wolfhound to the half-breed dachshund, which is half German and half Bolshevik and looks the part.

"The wind whistles across the Dvina River like the Twentieth Century Limited passing Podunk, and snowflakes are as numerous as retreating Germans were in France a few weeks ago. We have good quarters when we are here, thank fortune for that, and good food, when it comes up. If we can stand the winter we will be all jake, for a Yank can accustom himself to anything if he wants to. But just the same, we would like to see your artists busy on "The Boys in Northern Russia" and tell them not to leave out the word "Northern."

"We also read in The Stars and Stripes that the boys in Italy had some tongue twisters and brain worriers, but listen to this: Centimes and sous and francs may be hard to count, but did you ever hear of a rouble or a kopec? A kopec is worth a tenth of a cent and there are a hundred of them in a rouble. As you will see, that makes a rouble worth a dime, and to make matters worse all the money is paper, coins having gone out of circulation since the beginning of the mix-up. A kopec is the size of a postage stamp, a rouble looks like a United Cigar Store's Certificate, a 25-rouble note resembles a porous plaster and a 100-rouble note the Declaration of Independence.

"When a soldier in search of a meal enters a restaurant, he says to the waitress, 'Barishna, kakajectyeh bifstek, pozhalysta,' which means 'An order of beefsteak, lady, please: You see, you always say to a woman 'barishna' and she is always addressed in that manner. She will answer the hungry customer with, 'Yah ochen sojalaylu, shto unaus nyet yestnik prepasov siechas' (a simple home cure for lockjaw), meaning, "I am very sorry, but we are right out of food today.' He will try several other places, and if he is lucky he is apt to stumble across a place where he can get something to eat, but when he looks at the bill of fare and learns that it cost him about $7.50 for a sandwich and a cup of coffee, he beats it back to the barracks.

"Every time you get on a street car ('dramvay') you have to count out 60 kopecs for your fare, and most of us would rather walk than be jammed in the two-by-four buses and fish for the money. Before boarding a car each passenger usually hunts up a couple of five gallon milk cans, a market basket or two and a bag of smoked herring, so they will get their kopec's worth out of the ride, besides making the atmosphere nice and pleasant for the rest of the passengers. If you should see a soldier walking down the street with his nose turned up and his mouth puckered in apparent contempt, you would be wrong in thinking he was conceited, for if the truth be known he has probably just got his shirt back from the washwoman, and she has used fish-oil instead of soap and he is trying to escape the fumes. When you take your clothes to have them laundered and tell the woman to please omit the odor, she'll tell you that she has no soap and if you want them washed to your satisfaction please send in a cake. Anything in the world to keep your clothes from smelling of fish-oil, so you double-time back and get her the soap, and then she gives the kids a bath, and that's the end of your soap.

"When a Russian meets another man he knows on the street, both lift hats and flirt with each other. If they stop to talk, they always shake hands, even if they haven't seen each other for fully twenty minutes. Then they simply must shake hands again when they leave. When a man meets a lady friend he usually kisses her hand and shows her how far he can bend over without breaking his suspenders. 'Ah,' he will say, 'yah ochen rrad vasveedyat, kak vui pazhavaetye?' which in the United States means 'How do you do?' to which she will reply, 'Blogadaru vas, yah ochen korosho,' or 'very well, thank you.' It is the knockout. A fellow has to shake hands so much that some of them are getting the habit around the company.

"And another thing, Ed, are they really holding a separate war up here for our benefit? Just because we weren't in on the big doings in France is no reason why they should run a post-season series especially for us. We appreciate the kindness and honor and all that, but what we want to know is where everybody gets that stuff. Believe me, after all the dope we got on the trenches, about pianos and wooden floors, steam heat, and other conveniences, when we see ourselves on outpost duty with one blanket and a poncho, sleeping (not on duty, of course) in twenty-eight inches of pure ooooozy mud, which before we awaken turns into thin, fine ice, it makes us want to cry out and ask the universe what we have done to deserve this exile.

"Now don't think, dear old Ed. that we are kicking. American soldiers never do. We just wanted to have something to write you about, to remind you that we ARE a part of the American E. F., although 'isolated.'

"With best wishes to your paper and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the boys, I'll close with the consoling assurance in my heart that we'll meet you back on Broadway, anyway.

C. B. KNIGHT, Corp. "Hq" Co., 339th Inf., American E. F., Archangel, Russia."



XXII

WINTER ON THE RAILROAD

We Come Under French Flag—Thanksgiving Day At Verst 455—Exploration And Blockhouse Building—First Occupation Of Bolsheozerki—Airplane Bombs Our Own Front Line Troops—Year's End Push On Plesetskaya Fiasco—Nichols Makes Railroad Sector Impregnable—Bolo Patrol Blows Up Our Big Six—Heavy Drive By Reds At Winter's End—"I" Company Relieves French-Russian Force—Valorous Conduct Of Men Gives Lie To Charges Of Loss Of Morale.

In the narrative telling of the fighting on the Vaga and Dvina, we have already seen that the Red Guards had disillusioned us in regard to the quiet winter campaign we hoped and expected. Now we shall resume the story of the Railroad, or Vologda Force, as it had become known, and tell of the attempted Allied push on Plesetskaya to relieve the pressure on the River Fronts.

After our digging in at Verst 445 in early November, a Company of Liverpools came from Economia to aid the French infantry and American and French machine gunners, supported by French artillery, to hold that winter front. The American units who had fought on the railroad in the fall were all given ten days rest in Archangel. Soon the Americans were once more back on the front. And it started off uneventful. A French officer, Colonel Lucas, had come into command of the Vologda Force. American units were generously supplied with the French Chauchat automatic rifles, and ammunition for them, and with French rifles and tromblons to throw the rifle grenades. Earnest business of learning to use them.

Those who were stationed at field headquarters of the Front Sector of the Vologda Force, which was at Verst 455, will recollect with great pleasure the Thanksgiving Day half-holiday and program arranged by Major Nichols, commanding the American forces. He gave us Miss Ogden, the Y. W. C. A. woman from d. o. U. S. A. to read President Wilson's proclamation. How strange it seemed to us soldiers standing there under arms. And Major Moodie the old veteran of many a British campaign, and friend of Kitchener, the good old story teller praised the boys and prayed with them. Major Nichols and Major Alabernarde spoke cheering and bracing words to the assembled American and French soldiers. It was an occasion that raised fighting morale.

The President's Thanksgiving proclamation was transmitted to the American troops in Russia through the office of the American Embassy. The soldiers listened intently to the words of Mr. De Witt C. Poole, Jr., the American Charge d'Affaires who since the departure of Ambassador Francis, was the American diplomatic representative in European Russia. His message was as follows:

"The military Command has been asked to make this day a holiday for the troops, so far as military requirements permit, and to communicate to them upon an occasion fraught with tradition and historical memories, the hearty greetings of all Americans who are working with them in Northern Russia.

"The American Embassy desires the troops to know that both here and at Washington there is a full understanding of the difficulties of the work which they are being called upon to do and a desire no less ardent than their own that they should realize as soon as possible the blessings of the peace which is foreshadowed by the armistice on the Western Front."

The chief note in the President's proclamation which lingered on the doughboy's ear was as follows:

"Our gallant armies have participated in a triumph which is not marred or stained by any purpose of selfish aggression. In a righteous cause they have won immortal glory and have nobly served their nation in serving mankind."

Work of building blockhouses went rapidly forward under the steady work of the 310th Engineers and the cheerful labor of the infantrymen who found the occupation of swinging axes and hauling logs through the snow to be not unpleasant exercise in the stinging winter weather that was closing down. A commodious building began to go up at 455 for the Y. M. C. A. French-Russian force under a terrific bombardment and barrage of machine to use for winter entertainments for the men stationed in that stronghold.

Exploration of the now more available winter swamp trails went on carefully. The chain of lakes and swamps several miles to the west ran north from Sheleksa concentration camp of the Bolos to Bolsheozerki, parallel to the Railroad line of operations. This Bolsheozerki was an important point on the government road which went from Obozerskaya to Onega. It was thought wise to protect this village as in winter mail would have to be sent out of Archangel by way of Obozerskaya, via Onega, via Kem, via Kola, the open winter port on the Murmansk coast hundreds of miles away to the west and north. And troops might be brought in, too. A look at the map will discover the strategic value of this point Bolsheozerki. American and French troops now began to alternate in the occupation of that cluster of villages.

A sergeant of "M" Company might tell about the neat villages, about the evidences of a higher type than usual of agriculture in the broad clearing, about the fishing nets and wood cutters' tools, and last, but not least about the big schoolhouse and the winsome barishna who taught the primary room.

Nothing more than an occasional patrol or artillery exchange took place on the railroad although there was an occasional flurry when the British intelligence officers found out that the Reds were plotting a raid or a general attack. It was known that they had begun to augment their forces on our front. Sound of their axes had been as constant on the other side of No Man's Land as it had on our side. They were erecting blockhouses for the winter. Occasionally their airplanes exchanged visits with ours, always dropping a present for us. No casualties resulted from their bombs directed at us. Unfortunately one day our bombing plane mistook our front line for the Red front line and dropped two big bombs on our own position and caused one death and one severe wound.

The accident happened just as an American company was being relieved by a French company. And it was a good thing the commander of the company consumed the remainder of the day in getting his excited and enraged men back to Obozerskaya because by that time the men were cooled off and the nervous Royal Air Force had no occasion to use its rifles in self-defense as it had prepared to do. They wisely stayed inside, as in fact did the few other English sergeants and enlisted men at Obozerskaya that ticklish night. The few wild Yanks who roamed the dark, without pass, had all the room and road. There was a particularly good mission at once found for this American company on another front, whether by design or by coincidence. A board of officers whitewashed the Canadian flyers of the Royal Air Force and the incident was closed.

Of course all the accidents did not happen to Americans. During the winter on the Railroad, a sad one happened to a fine British officer. A brooding enlisted man of the American medical corps went insane one dark night and craftily securing a rifle held up the first Englishman he found. He roundly berated the British officer with being the cause of the North Russian War on the Bolsheviki, told the puzzled but patiently listening officer to say a prayer and then suddenly blew off the poor man's head and himself went off his nut completely.

With the beginning of the winter campaign Pletsetskaya's importance to the Red Army began to loom up. Trotsky's forces could be readily supplied from that city and his forces could be swiftly shifted from front to front to attack the widely dispersed forces of the Allied Expedition. It was seen now clearly that the fall offensive should have been pushed through to Plesetskaya by the converging Onega, Railroad and Kodish Forces. And plans were made to retrieve the error by putting on a determined push late in December to take Plesetskaya and reverse the strategic situation so as to favor the Allied Expeditionary Forces.

The Onega Force was to make a strong diversion toward the Bolo extreme left; the Kodish Force was to smash through Kodish to Kochmas assisted by a heavy force of Russians and English operating on and through Gora and Taresevo, and thence to Plesetskaya; the French-trained company of Russian Courier-du-Bois were to go on snow shoes through the snow from Obozerskaya to the rear of Emtsa for a surprise attack; and timed with all these was the drive of the Americans and British Liverpools on the Railroad straight at the Bolo fortifications at Verst 443 and Emtsa. Study of the big map will show that the plan had its merits.

There were one or two things wrong with the plan. One was that it underestimated the increased strength of the Bolshevik forces both in numbers and in morale and discipline. The other was the erroneous estimate of the time required to make the distances in the deep snow. Of course it was not the fault of the plan that the information leaked out and disaffected men deserted the Allied Russian auxiliaries' ranks and tipped off the push to the Bolsheviki.

The story of the New Year's battles by "H" on the one hand and "K" on the other have been told. It remains to relate here the "railroad push" fiasco. The Courier-du-Bois got stuck in the deep snow, exhausted and beaten before they were anywhere near Emtsa. American Machine Gun men at Verst 445 front reported that S. B. A. L. deserters had gone over to the Bolo lines. The Reds on December 29th and 30th became very active with their artillery. Reports came in of the failure of the Russian-British force that was to attack Tarsevo, and of the counter attack of the Reds in the Onega Valley. So the Liverpools and the French company and Winslow's "I" Company and Lt. Donovan's combination company of two platoons of "G" and "M" who were all set for the smash toward Emtsa and Plesetskaya found their orders suddenly countermanded on December 31st and settled down to the routine winter defensive.

In order to facilitate troop movements and to make command more compact, the French Colonel in command of the railroad force arranged that the Americans should man the sectors of defense during the month of February all alone and that the French battalion should occupy in March. This worked out fairly satisfactory. "L" Company and half of "E" Company, after rest at Archangel from their desperate work at Kodish, joined "I" Company and half of "G" Company on the railroad under Major Nichols, where an uneventful but busy month was passed in patrolling, instruction and so forth.

Every sector of the railroad front was made practically impregnable to infantry attack by the energetic work of "A" and "B" Company engineers and the Pioneer platoon of Headquarters Company. And the dugouts which they constructed at Verst 445 proved during the intermittent artillery shelling of January-March to be proof against the biggest H. E. the Bolo threw. Major Nichols sure drove the job of fortification through with thoroughness and secured a very formidable array of all sorts of weapons of defense. A great naval gun that could shoot twenty versts was mounted on an American flat car and taken to his popular field headquarters at Verst 455, where it was the pet of the crew of Russian sailors. And constant instruction and practice with the various weapons of the British, French and Russian types, which were in the hands of the Americans gave them occupation during the many days of tension on this winter front, where they daily expected the same thing to happen that was overpowering their comrades on the River Fronts. And when at the very end of the winter and the break of spring, the Reds did come in great force the defenses were so strong and well manned that they held at every point.

In March the French had a little excitement while the battalion of Americans were at rest in Archangel. A daring Bolshevik patrol in force circumnavigated through the deep snow of the pine woods on skiis and surprised the poilu defenders of their favorite howitzer on the railway track, killing several and capturing the big six-inch trouble maker. They destroyed it by feeding it a German hand grenade and then made their getaway. Successes on other fronts seemed to stimulate the Bolos to try out the defenses on this hitherto very quiet front. They gave the Frenchies lots of trouble with their raiding parties. Whether the fact that the French had local Russian troops with them had anything to do with the renewal of activity is not provable, but it seems probable, judging from the hatred seen expressed between Bolos and anti-Bolsheviks on other fronts that winter.

And before the month of March was gone, Major Nichols was hurried back to the Railroad Front, taking "L" and "E" Companies with him. The French-Russian forces were in trouble. They had lost the strategic Bolsheozerki, story of the severe fighting about which will form a separate chapter. Rumor has it that the Russian troops on the front were demoralized and that the enemy would strike before the Americans could get there to relieve the French-Russian force.

General Ironside himself went to the railroad and the new Bolsheozerki front and saw that quick action only could save the situation. He gave Major Nichols free hand with his battalion and released "E" Company which was on the Bolsheozerki front by sending "M" Company to the desperate spot. Nichols with characteristic decisiveness determined to make the relief before the set time and have his own men meet the attack. It worked at all points. At Verst 445, the very front, "I" Company gallantly went in to relieve the French and Russian under artillery barrage and a heavy machine gun barrage together with a heavy infantry attack on one flank. This company which has been unjustly accused of having mutinied the day before at Archangel, was on this day and three succeeding days subjected to all the fury of attack that the Red Army commander had been mustering up for so many days to crush the French-Russian force. And "I" Company supported by the French artillery, by machine gun and trench mortar men, stood the Reds off with great resolution and inflicted terrible losses. The railroad front line was saved. The flank position gained by the Reds at Bolsheozerki would be of doubtful value to them as long as the railroad sectors held. The stoutness of the American defenses and the stoutness of their morale had both been vindicated in terrific battle action.

And hereafter any veteran of the winter campaign fighting the Bolsheviki, who still meets the false story of alleged mutiny of one of the companies of the 339th Infantry in Archangel, a false story that will not down even after emphatic denial by high army authorities who investigated the reports that slipped out to the world over the British cables, may ignore the charges as distortions which partisans who are pro-Bolshevik are in the habit of giving currency with the vain idea of trying to show that the Bolshevik propaganda convinced the American soldier. They may refer to this valorous battle action of the alleged mutinous company and to shining examples of its morale and valor in the long fall and winter campaign fighting the Bolsheviki. The story of the discontent which gave rise to the false story is told elsewhere.

In this connection the editors wish to add further that in their estimation the morale of this fighting company and of the other American units was remarkably good. And the story of this "I" Company going in to relieve the French-Russian force under a terrific bombardment and barrage of machine guns, the distant roar of which was heard for three days and nights by the writer who was on an adjoining front, has not been told with complete emphasis to the good fighting spirit of Captain Winslow's men. We would like to make it stronger.

The winter drive of the Reds on the Railroad merged into their spring raids and threats. The French soldiers did not return again to the front and the Americans stayed on. Major Nichols began breaking in units of the new Archangel government troops who served alongside the Yanks and were in the spring to relieve the American entirely.



XXIII

BOLSHEOZERKI

Bolsheozerki One-Reel Thriller—Brilliant Strategy Of Trotsky's Northern Army Commander—General Ironside And Major Nichols Take Personal Command Of Critical Situation—Twelve Miles Out In Woods With Five Pieces Of Artillery—"M" Company Relieves "E"—Little Force Beleaguered For Days—Three Invincible Days And Nights—Reds Ambush Several Parties—Enemy Baffled And Punished Dreadfully—American Pluck And Luck Triumph.

Bolsheozerki was a one reel thriller. Kodish had been a repetition of nightmares both for the Reds and the Yanks. Shenkursk had been a five act drama the tragic end of which had been destined when the Americans were ordered to dig in so far forward, isolated from the supporting forces. This last front, Bolsheozerki, sprang suddenly into acute importance in March just at the end of winter and was savagely fought.

The brilliant strategy of the Bolo Northern Army commander, General Kuropatkin, in sending a Bolo general with a great flying wedge between the Onega Force and the Railroad Force was executed with a surprisingly swift flank movement that caught the French napping at the lightly held Bolsheozerki position, March 16-17. Their force was annihilated, a convoy was captured, and the old priest of the area came fleeing to Obozerskaya with news of this enemy drive that would soon, unless checked, capture Obozerskaya, and thus pierce a vital point of the whole Archangel defense. The railroad front sectors would be cut off, Seletskoe would be pinched, and the River Fronts taken in rear if Obozerskaya with its stores, munitions and transportation fell into the hands of the Bolsheviki.

General Ironside hastened to Obozerskaya to take personal command. The French Colonel commanding there had himself been cut off at Chinova on the west side of Bolsheozerki and had failed to fight his way through the next day, March 18th, with an escort of "H" Company men, story of which is related elsewhere. Ironside ordered up three Companies of Yorks and a Polish Company, who had been on the road from Onega to Bolsheozerki to join the Americans at Chinova for a smash at the gathering Reds in Bolsheozerki. Their gallant but futile fight with its hard losses on March 23rd, from the enemy fire and winter frost has been told. Meanwhile General Ironside hurried out an American company from Archangel together with an Archangel Regiment Company and eighty Yorks and some of the French Legion Courier du Bois to make an attack on the Reds at the same time on their other flank. But the Reds had their artillery all set to command the road at Verst 19 and threw the Russian troops into confusion with severe losses. "E" Company of Americans resolutely floundered for hours through the five-foot snow to reach a distant viewpoint of the village of Bolsheozerki where they could hear the furious action between "H" and the Reds on the farther side, but by field telephone, were ordered by Colonel Guard to return to Verst 18 on the road and dig in.

For a few days both sides used the winter sleigh roads for all they were worth in bringing up artillery and supplies and men and wire, and so forth. The Reds had sixty versts to haul their loads but they had the most horses, which they used without mercy. An American soldier who was ambushed and taken prisoner during this fighting says that he never saw before nor since so many dead horses, starved and overdriven, as he saw on the winter trail south from Bolsheozerki. The Reds brought up artillery enough to cover approaches to both their west and east fronts where the Allied forces were menacing them.

Ironside ordered out five pieces of French-Russian artillery, a hazardous but necessary move. These guns were set along the snowpacked broad corduroy highway near Verst 18, twelve miles from Obozerskaya, and four miles from the overwhelming force of Bolsheviks. Day and night the old howitzer, with airplane observation, roared defiance at Bolsheozerki and the Russian 75's barked viciously first at the village positions of the Reds and then at their wood's artillery and infantry positions which the Reds were pushing forward at this devoted Allied force that stood resolutely between them and Obozerskaya.

Fresh companies of Americans and Russians relieved those who were shivering and exhausted in the snow camp at Verst 18. Company "C," 310th Engineers platoon, hastily threw up barricades of logs for the doughboys and before the day of attack, had completed two of the several projected blockhouses. Part of them, who had not been sent back to build the second defense position that now seemed inevitable, were found with the doughboys, rifle in hand, during the desperate days that followed. The company of Yanks who now took over the active defense of this camp, "M" Company, was a resourceful outfit which soon improved its barricades and built brush shelters within which they could conceal their warm fires. By their reputation as fighters and by their optimism they won the spirited support of the green Russian supporting company. And the machine gun crews of Russians who stood with the Americans at the critical front and rear road positions did themselves proud.

Every day made the Verst 18 position less hazardous. The Reds made a mistake in waiting to mass up a huge force, seven thousand—their prisoners and their own newspapers afterward admitted. If they had struck quickly after March 23rd the Allied force would have soon been out of ammunition and been compelled to retire. But during the days devoted to massing up the Red forces and working around through the deep snow to attack the rear of the Verst 18 camp, the Allied force of two hundred Americans and four hundred Allied troops, mostly Russians, were stocked up with food and munitions and artillery shells sufficient to stand against a desperate, continuous onslaught. And they did.

Came then the three days' continuous attack by the enemy in his determined attempt to gain possession of the road so as to be able to move his artillery over it to attack Obozerskaya. His men could travel light through the woods on skiis but to get artillery and the heavy munitions across he must have that one road. He must first dispose of the stubborn force in the road at Verst 18. For this attack, he used three regiments. The 2nd Moscow, whose Commissar we took prisoner the first day; the 90th Saratov whose commanding officer was shot from his white horse the second day; and the 2nd Kasan.

The first day's fight began, on the morning of the last day of March with a surprise attack at the rear, cutting our communications off, ambushing two parties of officers and men, and threatening to capture the two 75's which were guarded by a single platoon of "M" Company and two Russian machine guns. The artillery officer reversed his guns and gave the enemy direct fire, shrapnel set for muzzle burst. Another platoon reinforced the one and a Lewis gun Corporal distinguished himself by engaging the two Bolo machine guns that had been set in the road to the rear. The guns were held.

Meanwhile under cover of this attack at the rear a heavy assault was delivered against the forward blockhouses and barricades. Fortunately the Reds directed their attack at the points held by the Americans rather than at the four flank positions held by the green Archangel troops. The shooting was good that day for the veteran Yanks and they repulsed all attacks at front and rear with terrible losses to the enemy. Night found the Americans shaking hands with themselves for being in a tightly fortified place and carrying plenty more ammunition to every firing point where the enemy was expected to appear again the next day. According to the prisoners taken this was only a preliminary attack to develop our lines of fire. The next day he would envelop the little force in great numbers.

He did. At day-break, 3:30 a. m., April 1st, he threw his weight into three waves of assault on the front line and attacked later in the rear. The stoutly fortified men did not budge but worked every death dealing weapon with great severity. Rifle grenades came into use as the enemy by sheer weight of masses surged within their 200-yard range. The machine guns faltered only once and then a Yankee Corporal, William Russell, Company "M" 339th Infantry, won for himself a posthumous American citation and D. S. C. for his heroic deed in regaining fire control by engaging the enemy machine gun which crawled up to short range in the thick woods with his Lewis gun. The Russian artillery observer distinguished himself by his accuracy in covering the enemy assaulting lines with shrapnel. As on the preceding day every attacking line of the enemy was repulsed. And darkness closed the scene at 9:00 p. m. with the little force still intact but standing to arms all night, front, flanks and rear.

The cold was severe but the Bolsheviki lying on their arms out in the snow where their assaulting lines faltered and dug in, suffered even more and many crawled in to give themselves up rather than freeze. Back to their camp they could not go for they had been promised the usual machine gun reception if they retired from the fight. That probably accounts for their commanding officer's riding up on his white horse to his death. He thought his men had won their objective when fire ceased for an hour in the middle of the day, and he rode almost to our barricade.

This was the fiercest fighting. The all night's vigil did not bring a renewal of the attack till after the Bolo artillery gave the position two thorough rakings which destroyed one of the barricades and drove everyone to shelter behind the pine trees. Then the infantry attack petered out before noon. This was the day that "H" Company and the Yorks again attacked on the other side of Bolsheozerki, with the severe losses mentioned elsewhere. But their attack helped the badly wearied "M" Company who stood bearing the brunt of attack in the Bolo's road to Obozerskaya. Their artillery vigorously shelled the Reds in Bolsheozerki and felt out his advance lines with patrols but were content mainly to stand fast to their works and congratulate themselves that their losses had been so slight after so terrific a struggle. The horse shoes had again been with that outfit of Americans. Three dead, three missing in action, one wounded and three shell shocked. The Yorks and Russians suffered no casualties. The ground was covered with Bolshevik dead.

On the night of April 4th the American Company was relieved by a company of Yorks and an additional company of Russians, and for a few more days the Bolos occupied Bolsheozerki but they had shot their bolt. They made no more attempts to break through to the railroad and take Obozerskaya. Savagely the Red Guards had three times resisted attempts to dislodge them from Bolsheozerki. Just as stubbornly and with terrible deadliness the little force at Verst 18 had held the Reds in Bolsheozerki when they tried to move upon Obozerskaya. And when the April sun began to soften the winter roads into slush he had to feint an attack on Volshenitsa and escape between two days from Bolsheozerki, returning to Shelaxa.

The Americans had never had such shooting. They knew the enemy losses were great from the numbers of bodies found and from statements of prisoners and deserters. Later accounts of our American soldiers who were ambushed and captured, together with statements that appeared in Bolshevik newspapers placed the losses very high. The old Russian general massed up in all over seven thousand men in this spectacular and well-nigh successful thrust. And his losses from killed in action, wounded, missing and frost-bitten were admitted by the Bolshevik reports to be over two thousand.

It was in this fighting that Bolshevik prisoners were taken in almost frozen condition to the American Y. M. C. A. man's tent for a drink of hot chocolate which he was serving to the Americans, Yorks, Russians and all during those tight days. And the genial Frank Olmstead was recognized by the prisoners as a "Y" man who had been in the interior of Russia in the days when Russians were not fighting Americans but Germans.

To the doughboy or medic or engineer who stood there at bay those three invincible days, Bolsheozerki means deep snow, bitter cold, cheerless tents, whiz-bangs, high explosive, shrap, rat-tat-tat interminable, roar and crash, and zipp and pop of explosive bullet, with catch-as-catch-can at eats, arms lugged off with cases of ammunition, constant tension, that all ended up with luck to the plucky.



RED CROSS PHOTO Flashlight of a Doughboy Outpost at Verst 455



U.S. Official Photo Bolo Commander's Sword Taken in Battle of Bolsheozerki



U.S. Official Photo 158853 After Eight Days—Near Bolsheozerki



U.S. Official Photo Wood Pile Strong Point—Verst 445



U.S. Official Photo 161108 Verst 455—"Fort Nichols"



WAGNER Back from Patrol



U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO Our Shell Bursts Near Bolo Skirmish Line



WAGNER Blockhouse, Shred Makrenga



XXIV

LETTING GO THE TAIL-HOLT

Preparing For Spring Defensive—River Situation Ticklish—Must Hold Till Our Gunboats Can Get Up—"F" Company Crosses River On Cracking Ice—Canadian Artillery Well Placed And Effectively Handled Holds Off Red Flotilla—Engineers Help Clear Dvina With Dynamite—Joyful Arrival Of British Gunboat "Glow Worm"—We Retake Ignatavskaya—Amusing Yet Dangerous Fishing Party—British Relief Forces Arrive On Vaga—Toulgas Is Lost And Retaken—British-Russian Drive At Karpogora Fails—Old White Guard Pinega Troops Hold Their City Against Red Drive Again—Kodish And Onega Fronts Quiet—Railroad Front Active But No Heavy Fighting— General Richardson Helps Us Let Go Tail-Holt.

Many an uncomfortable hour in the winter General Ironside and his staff spent studying over the spring defense against the Reds. It was well known that the snows would melt and ice would loosen on the distant southern river valley heights and as customary the river from Kotlas to Toulgas would be open to the Red gunboats several days before the ice would be released in the lower river stretches, necessary to permit the Allied fleets of gunboats to come in from the Arctic Ocean and go up to help defend the advanced positions on the Dvina and Vaga upper river fronts. It was feared that Red heavy artillery would blow our fortified positions into bits, force our evacuation at a time when there was no such thing as transportation except by the rivers. These would be for a few days in control of the Reds. Thus our Americans and Allies who had so gallantly reddened the snows with their stern defense in the winter might find themselves at the mercy of the Reds.

Every effort was made to improve the shell-proof dugouts. Engineers and doughboys slaved at the toil. Wire was hurried for the double apron defenses on which to catch the mass attacks of the Bolsheviki. Supplies were stored at every point for sixty days so that a siege could be stood. And an Allied fleet was arranged to come as soon as the icebreakers could get them through the choked-up neck of the White Sea. And meanwhile the Canadian artillery was strengthened with the hope that they could oppose the Red fleets and delay them till the river opened to passage of the Allied fleets coming to save the troops.

The battle-worn veterans of "A" and "D" were strengthened by the men of "F" Company who had come into the front lines in March and now were bearing their full share and then some of the winter's end defense against the Red pressure. Cossack allies and Archangel regiments also were added to the Russian quotas that had done service on those fronts in the winter. Russian artillery units also were sent to Toulgas. In every way possible these desperate fronts were prepared to meet the heralded spring drive of the Red Guards.

As the ice and snow daily disappeared more and more Americans began arranging "booby traps" and dummy machine gun posts in the woods. These machine gun posts were prepared by fastening a bucket of water with a small hole punched in the bottom above another bucket which was tied to the trigger of a machine gun or rifle. The amount of water could be regulated so as to cause the gun to fire at regular intervals of from thirty minutes to an hour. Through the woods we strung concealed wires and sticks attached to hand grenades, the slightest touch of which would cause them to explode. Meanwhile in the rear, "B" Company Engineers, who had relieved "A" Company Engineers, were busily engaged in stuffing gun cotton, explosives and inflammable material in every building and shed at Kitsa and Maximovskaya.