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.
[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Russian Masonry Stove—American Convalescent Hospital._]
[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Pvt. Allikas Finds His Mother in Archangel._]
[Illustration: 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.