and ease their feet and ankles. We draw our rations of food, forage and
cigarettes. It is bitterly cold and we dread the morrow. The Madam
Botchkoreva, leader of the famous women’s Battalion of Death, comes to
call on us. She excites only mild interest among the soldiers.
To UST PINEGA—SIXTH DAY, DECEMBER 23RD
Zero is here on the edge of a cutting wind. But we dash around and
reorganize our convoy. Five sleds and company property are left at the
monastery in charge of two privates who are not fit to march further.
Five horses are unfit to go. Billeting party leaves about 8:00 a. m.
The convoy starts at 8:40. Along the river’s edge we move. A big
twelve-verst horseshoe takes us till noon. Men suffer from cold but do
not complain. We put up in village. People are friendly. Officers are
quartered with a good-natured peasant. Call up Pinega on long distance
phone. We are needed badly. Officer will try to get sleighs to come to
meet us forty versts out of Pinega. Maj. Williams, Red Cross, came in
to see us after we had gone to bed, on his way to Pinega.
To VERKHNE PALENGA—SEVENTH DAY, DECEMBER 24TH
At breakfast telegram came from Pinega promising one hundred horses and
Red Cross Christmas dinners. Get away at 7:50 a. m. The lane is full of
snow but the winding road through the pines is a wonderfully fine road.
For thirteen versts there is hardly a drift. The hills are very
moderate. Wood haulers are dotting the river. Stores are evidently
collecting for scow transport in the summer. No, do not take to the
ice. Keep on to the left, along the river. This hill is not so bad. We
lost our point on a tortuous road, but find that we have avoided a
ravine. The fourteenth verst takes us across the river—follow the
telephone wires there. Come back, you point, and take the road to the
left that climbs that steep bluff yonder. What a sight from the top!
The whole convoy lies extended from advance guard on the hill to rear
guard on the river.
Up and down our winding pine-flanked road takes us. It is hard going
but the goal is only a few versts away. Now we are in sight of the
village and see many little fields. Oh boy! see that ravine. This town
is in two parts. Hospitable is the true word. Men turn out and cut
notches in the ice to help the ponies draw the sleds up the hill. It is
some show. Several of the ponies are barely able to make the grade. The
big man of the village is Cukov. We stay in his home—fine home. Headman
Zelenian comes to see us. Opened our Red Cross Christmas stockings and
doughboys share their meagre sweets with Russki children.
To LEUNOVO—EIGHTH DAY, DECEMBER 25TH
Up at 6:00 for a Merry Christmas march. Away at 8:05. Good road for
thirteen versts, to Uzinga. Here we stop and call for the headman who
gets his men to help us down the hill to the river. Not cold. Holes in
the river for washing clothes. Officer reported seeing women actually
washing clothes. Found out what the high fences are for. Hang their
flax up to dry. The twenty-fourth verst into Leunovo is a hard drag.
Quarters are soon found. People sullen. Forester, Polish man who lives
in house apart at north end of village, tells me there are many
Bolsheviki sympathizers in the town. Also that Ostrov and Kuzomen are
affected similarly. This place will have to be garrisoned by American
soldiers to protect our rear from treachery.
TO GBACH—NINTH DAY, DECEMBER 26TH
Delay in starting due to necessity for telephoning to Pinega in regard
to rations and sleighs. Some error in calculations. They had sleighs
waiting us at Gbach this morning instead of tomorrow morning. Snow
falling as we start on the river road at 8:25. We find it _glada_
(level) nearly all the way but drifty and hard walking. Nevertheless we
arrive at end of our twenty-one verst march at 1:25. Met by friendly
villagers and well quartered. These people need phone and a guard the
same as at Verkne Palenga. Find that people here view the villages of
Ostrov and Kuzomen with distrust. Kulikoff, a prominent leader in the
Bolo Northern army, hails from one of these villages. Spent an hour
with the village schoolmaster. Had a big audience of men and boys. Sgt.
Young and interpreter came through from Pinega to untangle the sleigh
situation. We find that it is again all set here for an early start
with one hundred sleighs. A spoiled can of M. & V. makes headquarters
party desperately sick.
TO PINEGA—TENTH DAY, DECEMBER 27TH
Hard to get up this morning. Horses and sleighs came early as promised.
Put one man and his barrack bag and equipment into each sleigh and in
many sleighs added a light piece of freight to lighten our regular
convoy sleds. Got away at 9:00 a. m. Nice day for driving. The Russian
sleigh runs smoothly and takes the bumps gracefully. It is the first
time these solders have ridden in sleighs. Urgency impels us. Light
ball snow falls. Much hay cut along this valley. We meet the genial Red
Cross man who passes out cigarettes and good cheer to all the men.
Arrive at Soyla at noon. Some mistake made. The hundred horses left
yesterday and the headman goes out to get them again for us to go on
this evening. Seventeen sleighs got away at 3:00 p. m. Twenty-five more
at 7:00 p. m. At 9:30 we got away with the remainder of company. Have a
good sleigh and can sleep. Here is Yural and I must awake and telephone
to Pinega to see how situation stands. Loafer in telegraph office
informs us of the battle today resulting in defeat of White Guards, the
volunteers of Pinega who were supporting the hundred Americans. Bad
news. It is desperately cold. No more sleeping. The river road is
bleak. We arrive at last—3:00 a. m. In the frosty night the hulks of
boats and the bluffs of Pinega loom large. So endeth diary of the
remarkable march.
No group of healthy men anywhere in the world, no matter what the
danger and hardships, will long forego play. It is the safety valve. It
may be expressed in outdoor sports, or indoor games, or in hunting,
fishing or in some simple diversion. It may be in a tramp or a ride
into some new scenery to drink in beauty, or what not, even to getting
the view-points of strange peoples. What soldier will ever forget the
ride up to the old three-hundred-year-old monastery and the simple feed
that the monks set out for them. Or who will forget the dark night at
Kodish when the orator called out to the Americans and they joshed him
back with great merriment.
Often the soldier on the great line of communication duty whiled away
an hour helping some native with her chores. “Her” is the right word,
for in that area nearly every able-bodied man was either in the army,
driving transport, working in warehouses, or working on construction,
or old and disabled. Practically never was a strong man found at home
except on furlough or connected with the common job of the peasants,
keeping the Bolo out of the district.
For a matter of several weeks in weather averaging twenty-four degrees
below zero three American soldiers were responsible for the patrol of
seven versts of trail leading out from a village on the line of
communication toward a Bolo position which was threatening it. One or
all of them made this patrol by sleigh every six or eight hours,
inspecting a cross-trail and a rest shack which Bolo patrols might use.
Their plan was never to disturb the snow except on the path taken by
themselves, so that any other tracks could be easily detected. One day
there were suspicious signs and one of the men tramped a circle around
the shack inspecting it from all sides before entering it.
Next morning, before daylight, another one of the trio made the patrol
and being informed of the circle about the shack, saw what he took to
be additional tracks leading out and into the shack and proceeded to
burn the shack as his orders were, if the shack were ever visited and
promised to be of use to the enemy. Later by daylight a comrade making
the patrol came back with the joke on his buddie who in the darkness
had mistaken a huge snowshoe rabbit’s tracks, made out of curiosity
smelling out the man’s tracks. Often the patrol sled would travel for
hours through a fairy land. The snow-laden trees would be interlaced
over the trail, so that the sled travelled in a wonderful crystal,
grey, green and golden tunnel. Filtering beams of sunlight ahead of it.
A mist of disturbed snow behind it. No sound save from the lightly
galloping pony, the ooh-chee-chee of the driver or the bump of the
sleigh against a tree or a root, or the occasional thunder of a
_rabchik_ or wild turkey in partridge-like flight. Beside the trail or
crossing might be seen the tracks of fox and wolf and in rare instances
of reindeer.
Or on the open road in the night: solemn again the mood of the doughboy
as he recollects some of those lonely night rides. Here on his back in
the hay of the little sled he reclines muffled in blankets and robes,
his driver hidden in his great bearskin _parki_, or greatcoat, hidden
all but his two piercing eyes, his nose and whiskers that turned up to
shield his face. With a jerk the fiery little pony pulls out, sending
the two gleaming sled tracks to running rearward in distant meeting
points, the woods to flying past the sleigh and the snow to squealing
faintly under the runners; sending the great starry heavens to sweep
through the tops of the pine forest and sending the doughboy to long
thoughts and solemn as he looks up at the North Star right above him
and thinks of what his father said when he left home:
“Son, you look at the North Star and I’ll look at it and every time we
will think of one another while you are away, and if you never come
back, I’ll look at the North Star and know that it is looking down at
your grave where you went with a purpose as fixed as the great star and
a motive as pure as its white light.” Oh, those wonderful night heavens
to the thoughtful man!
Every veteran at this point in the narrative thinks now of the
wonderful nights when the Northern Lights held him in their spell.
Always the sentry called to his mates to come and see. It cannot be
pictured by brush or pen, this Aurora Borealis. It has action, it has
color, sheets of light, spires, shafts, beams and broad finger-like
spreadings, that come and go, filmy veils of light winding and drifting
in, weaving in and out among the beams and shafts, now glowing, now
fading. It may be low in the north or spread over more than half the
heavens. It may shift from east to western quarter of the northern
heaven. Never twice the same, never repeating the delicate pattern, nor
staying a minute for the admirer, it brightens or glimmers, advances or
retreats, dies out gradually or vanishes quickly. Always a phenomenon
of wonder to the soldier who never found a zero night too cold for him
to go and see, was the Aurora Borealis.
XV
MOURNFUL KODISH
Donoghue Brings Valuable Reinforcements—Bolshevik Orator On Emtsa
Bridge—Conditions Detrimental To Morale—Preparations For Attack On
Kodish—Savage Fighting Blade To Blade—Bolsheviks Would Not Give
Way—Desperately Bitter Struggle—We Hold Kodish At Awful Cost—Under
Constant And Severe Barrage—Half-Burned Shell-Gashed Houses Mark Scene
Of Struggle—We Retire From Kodish—Again We Capture Kodish But Can Not
Advance—Death Of Ballard—Counter Attack Of Reds Is Barely Stemmed—Both
Sides See Futility Of Fighting For Kodish—“K” Means Kodish Where Heroic
Blood Of Two Continents Stained Snows Richly.
We left “K” Company and Ballard’s platoon of machine gun men, heroes of
the fall fighting at Kodish, resting in Archangel. We have seen that
the early winter was devoted to building defenses against the Reds who
showed a disposition to mass up forces for an attack. “K” Company had
come back to the force in December and with “L” Company gone to reserve
in Seletskoe. Captain Donoghue had become “Major Mike” for all time and
Lt. Jahns commanded the old company. Donoghue had taken back to the
Kodish Force valuable reinforcements in the shape of Smith’s and
Tessin’s trench mortar sections of “Hq” Company.
It had been in the early weeks of winter during the time that Captain
Heil with “E” Company and the first platoon machine gunners were
holding the Emtsa bridge line, that the Bolsheviki almost daily tried
out their post-armistice propaganda. The Bolo commander sent his
pamphlets in great profusion; he raised a great bulletin board where
the American troops and the Canadian artillery forward observers could
read from their side of the river his messages in good old I. W. W.
style and content; he sent an orator to stand on the bridge at midnight
and harangue the Americans by the light of the Aurora Borealis.
He even went so far as to bring out to the bridge two prisoners whom
the Bolos had had for many weeks. One was a Royal Scot lad, the other
was Pvt. George Albers of “I” Company who had been taken prisoner one
day on the railroad front. These two prisoners were permitted to stand
near enough their comrades to tell them they were well treated.
Captain Heil was just about to complete negotiations for the exchange
of prisoners one day when a patrol from another Allied force raided the
Bolos in the rear and interrupted the close of the deal. The Bolos were
occupied with their arms. And shortly afterward Donoghue heard of the
negotiations and the wily propaganda of the Reds and put a stop to it.
On another page is told the story of similar artifices resorted to by
the Reds on the Toulgas Front to break into the morale of the American
troops.
It was well that the American officer adopted firm measures.
To be sure the great rank and file of American soldiers like their
people back home could not be fooled by propaganda. They could see
through Red propaganda as well as they could see through the old German
propaganda and British propaganda and American for that matter. Of
course not always clearly. But it was wise to avoid the stuff if
possible, and to discount it good-humoredly when it did contact with
us. The black night and short, hazy days, the monotonous food, the
great white, wolf-howling distances, and the endless succession of one
d—- hardship after another was quite enough. Add to that the really
pathetic letters from home telling of sickness and loneliness of those
in the home circle so far away, and the uselessly sobful letters that
carried clippings from the partisan papers that grossly exaggerated and
distorted stories of the Arctic campaign and also carried suggestions
of resistance to the military authorities, and you have a situation
that makes us proud at this time of writing that our American men
showed a real stamina and morale that needs no apology.
The story of this New Year’s Day battle with the Bolos proves the
point. For six weeks “E” Company had been on the line. Part of “L”
Company had been sent to reinforce Shred Makrenga and the remainder was
at Seletskoe and split up into various side detachments. Now they came
for the preparations for their part in the united push on Plesetskaya,
mentioned before. “K” Company came up fresh from its rest in Archangel
keen to knock the Bolo out of Kodish and square the November account.
Major Donoghue was to command the attacking forces, which besides “E”
and “K” consisted of one section of Canadian artillery, one platoon of
the “M. G.” Company, one trench mortar section, a medical detachment
and a detachment of 310th Engineers who could handle a rifle if
necessary with right good will. Each unit caught a gleam of fire from
the old Irishman’s eye as he looked them over on December 28th and
29th, while “L” Company came up to take over the front so as to relieve
the men for their preparations for the shock of the battle.
The enemy was holding Kodish with two thousand seven hundred men,
supported by four pieces of artillery and a reserve of seven hundred
men. Donoghue had four hundred fifty men. At 6:00 a. m. “E” and “K”
Companies were on the east bank of the Emtsa moving toward the right
flank of the Bolos and firing red flares at intervals with Very pistol
to inform Donoghue of their progress.
Meanwhile the seven Stokes mortars were putting a fifteen-minute
barrage of shells, a great 1000-shell burst, on the Bolo trenches,
which added to the 20-gun machine and Lewis gun barrage, demoralized
the Red front line and gave the two infantry companies fifteen minutes
later an easy victory as they swung in and on either side of the road
advanced rapidly toward Kodish village. Meanwhile the Canadian
artillery pounded the Bolo reserves in Kodish.
[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_By Reindeer Jitney to Bakaritza._]
[Illustration: PRIMM
_Russian Eskimos at Home, Near Pinega._]
[Illustration: WAGNER
_Fortified House, Toulgas._]
[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL
_To Bolskeozerki._]
[Illustration: WAGNER
_Colonel Morris—at Right._]
[Illustration: RED CROSS
_Russian Eskimo Idol._]
[Illustration: DOUD
_Ambulance Men._]
[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Practising Rifle and Pistol Fire Oil Onega Front._]
[Illustration: WAGNER
_French Machine Gun Men at Kodish._]
[Illustration: U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Allied Plane Carrying Bombs._]
The Reds tried to rally at a ridge of ground a verst in front of Kodish
but the dreadful trench mortars again showered them at eight hundred
yards with this new kind of hell and they were easily dislodged by the
infantry and machine gun fire. At 1:00 p. m. after seven hours hard
fighting the Americans were again in possession of Kodish. An
interesting side incident of this recapture of Kodish was the defeat of
a company of Reds occupying a Kodish flank position at the church on
the river two versts away. The Reds disputed but Sergeant Masterson and
fifteen men of “E” Company dislodged them. But time was valuable.
Donoghue’s battle order that day called for his force to take Kodish
and its defenses, Avda and its defenses and to occupy Kochmas. Only a
matter of twenty miles of deep snow and hard fighting.
So the enemy was attacked again vigorously at one of the old fighting
spots of the fall campaign, at Verst 12. As in the previous fighting
the Red Guards, realizing the strategic value of this road fought
tenaciously for every verst of it. They had been prepared for the loss
of Kodish village itself; it was untenable. But they refused to budge
from Verst 12. The trench mortars could not reach their dugout line.
And the Red machine guns poured a hot fire into the village of Kodish
as well as into the two platoons that forced their way a half a verst
from the village toward this stubborn stronghold of the Reds.
Darkness fell on the combatants locked in desperate fight. All the
American forces were brought up into Kodish for they had expected to
get on to Avda as their order directed. Out in front the night was made
lurid by flares and shell fire and gun fire where the two devoted
platoons of “K” and “E” Companies with two machine guns of the first
platoon of “M. G.” Company hung on. Lts. Jahns, Shillson and Berger
were everywhere among their men and met nothing but looks of resolution
from them, for if this little force of less than a hundred men gave way
the whole American force would be routed from Kodish. There could be no
orderly retreat from the village under such desperate conditions in the
face of such numbers. They had to stick on. Half their number were
killed and wounded, among whom was the gallant Lt. Berger of “E”
Company who had charged across the bridge in the morning in face of
machine gun fire. Sergeants Kenney and Grewe of “K” Company gave their
lives that night in moving courageously among their men. Frost bites
cruelly added to the miseries of those long night hours after the
fighting lulled at eleven o’clock.
Morning discovered the force digging in. The odds were all against
them. Again they were standing in Kodish where after personal
reconnaisance Col. Lucas, their nominal superior officer, commanding
Vologda Force, had said no troops should be stationed as it was
strategically untenable. But a new British officer had come into
command of the Seletskoe detachment, and perhaps that accounts for the
foolhardy order that the doughty old Donoghue received; “Hold what you
have got and advance no further south; prepare defenses of Kodish.”
What an irony of fate. His force had been the only one of the various
forces that had actually put any jab into the push on Plesetskaya. Now
they were to be penalized for their very desperately won success.
The casualties had been costly and had been aggravated by the rapid
attacks of the frost upon hands and feet. In temperature way below zero
the men lay in the snow on the outskirts and in that lowly village
under machine gun fire and shrapnel. They undermined the houses to get
warmth and protection in the dugouts thus constructed under them.
Barricades they built; and chipped out shallow trenches in the frozen
ground. Again the trench mortar came into good use. A platoon of “K”
and a platoon of “E” found themselves partly encircled by a strong
force of Reds, with a single mortar near them to support. This mortar
although clogged repeatedly with snow and ice worked off two hundred
fifty shells on the Reds and finally spotted the enemy machine gun
positions and silenced them, contributing greatly to the silencing of
the enemy fire and to his discouragement.
The firer of this mortar, Pvt. Barone of “Hq” Company, who worked
constantly, a standing target for the Bolos, near the end of the fight
fell with a bullet in his leg. And so the Americans scrapped on. And
they did hold Kodish. Seven were killed and thirty-five wounded, two
mortally, in this useless fight. Lt. O’Brien of “E” Company was
severely wounded and at this writing is still in hospital. “The
memories of these brave fellows,” says Lt. Jack Commons, “who went as
the price exacted, Lt. Berger of “E” Company, Sgts. Kenney and Grewe
and many other steady and courageous and loyal pals through the months
of hardship that had preceded, made Kodish a place horrible, detested,
and unnerving to the small detachment that held it.”
Meanwhile their fellows at the river bank with the engineers were
slashing down the trees on the Bolo side clearing the bank to prevent
surprise of the Allied position over the seven foot ice that now made
the river into a winding roadway. More blockhouses and gun positions
were put in. It was only a matter of time till they would have to
retreat to the old position on the river.
On January 4th Donoghue sent “E” Company back to occupy and help
strengthen the old position at the river, from where they sent
detachments forward to help “K” and “M.G.” and trench mortar hold the
shell-shattered village of Kodish. The enemy confined himself chiefly
to artillery shelling, always replied to vigorously by our gallant
Canadian section who, though outgunned, sought to draw part of the
enemy fire their way to lighten the barrage on their American comrades
caught like rats in the exposed village. From their three hills about
the doomed village of Kodish the Reds kept up a continuous
sharpshooting which fortunately was too long range to be effective. And
the enormous losses which the Reds had suffered on their side that
bloody New Year’s Day made them hesitate to move on the village with
infantry to be mowed down by those dreadful Amerikanski fighters, when
a few days of steady battering with artillery would perhaps do just as
well.