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.
On April nineteenth the ice in the Vaga was heaving and cracking. Kitsa, the doomed Kitsa, where the Yanks and Scots and Canadians alternately had held on so many days, expecting any time another overwhelming attack, was at this time being held by “F” Company. But the British officer in command had delayed his order to evacuate till Captain Ramsay was barely able to lead his men across. One more foolhardy day of delay would have lost the British officer a company of much needed troops.