We quickly consolidated the new position with our old ones and patiently sat tight, awaiting the coming of the new British reinforcements, which had by this time landed in Archangel. From this time on our fighting was practically at an end on the Vaga River.
Over on the Dvina during the months of March and April, “B” and “C” Company were still holding forth at Toulgas and Kurgomin far up the river. They were daily employed in patrol and defensive duty. The Bolo had acquired a healthy respect for these positions after his terrible repulses on this front during the winter.
In fact, so strong was this position here that by April we had gradually begun relieving American troops at Toulgas and supplanting them, about five to one, by fresh Russian troops from Archangel, who subsequently fell before the most vicious and deadly of all the enemy weapons—Bolshevik Propaganda.
During the night of April 25 and 26, these Russian troops who had been secretly conniving with the Red spies and agents, suddenly revolted, turned their guns on their own as well as the British officers there, and allowed the enemy lurking in the woods to walk unmolested into the positions that months of shelling and storm attacks had failed to shake. True, some of the Russians, especially the artillery men, remained loyal and by superhuman efforts succeeded in withdrawing with some equipment and guns to Shushuga on the same side of the river. Yorkshire troops and machine gunners were quickly rushed up to bolster up these loyal men and a few days later retribution swift and terrible was visited upon the deserters and their newly made comrades.
Shortly prior to the defection of the troops in Toulgas, and unknown to them, a battery of large six-inch guns had been brought up to the artillery position at Kurgomin on the opposite side of the river, which, with the guns already in position there, made it one of our strongest artillery positions. The enemy was given ample time in which to fully occupy the position at Toulgas, which he at once proceeded to do.
On the 26th day of April our artillery suddenly opened fire on Toulgas and at the same time dropped a curtain barrage on the far side of the village, making retreat practically impossible. During this time thousands of shells of high explosive gas and shrapnel were placed in the village proper with telling effect. Unable to go forward or back, we inflicted enormous losses upon the enemy, and shortly thereafter the loyal Russians, supported by English infantrymen, entered the village, putting the remaining numbers to flight and once again Toulgas was ours.
With the settling of the roads and trails the enemy was able to mass up forces and continue his harrying tactics but could make no impression on the Allied lines. Americans were gradually withdrawn from the front lines and Russians served along with the Liverpools and Yorks, who were now looking every week for the promised volunteers from England who were to relieve not only the Americans but the Liverpools and Yorks and other British troops in North Russia. “F” Company was active in patrolling during the month of May and reported last combat patrol with enemy near Kitsa on May twentieth. This company of Americans had been the last one to get into action in the fall and enjoyed the distinction of being the last one to leave the front, leaving on June 5 for Archangel.
Meanwhile the spring drive of the Red Guards who had massed up near Trufanagora on the Pinega River was menacing Pinega. After the Americans had been withdrawn from that area in March for duty on another front, Pinega forces under command of Colonel Deliktorski were augmented by the previously mentioned “Charlie” Tschaplan, now a Russian colonel with three companies, and supported by another section of Russian artillery. Also an old British veteran of the Mesopotamian campaign, personal friend of General Ironside, was sent out to Leunova to take command of a joint drive at the Bolsheviki. He had with him the well-known Colonel Edwards with his Asiatic troops, the Chinese coolies who had put on the S. B. A. L. uniform, and a valorous company of British troops equipped with skiis and sleds to make the great adventurous forest march across the broad base of the big inverted V so as to cut the Reds off far in their rear near Karpogora.
But that British-Russian adventure resulted disastrously. Two British officers lost their lives and their troops were nearly frozen in the woods and badly cut up by the Reds who had been all set for them with a murderous battery of machine guns. Too late the British-Russian command of the Pinega Valley found that the Americans had been right in their strategy which had not failed to properly estimate the Bolo strength and to properly measure the enormous labor and hardship of the cross-forest snows. Again the enthusiastic and fearless but woefully reckless Russian Colonel and English Colonel threw their men into death traps as they had done previously on other fronts. With success in defense the Reds gained their nerve back and again, as in December, January and February, began a drive on Pinega.
Then the stoutness of the city’s White Guard defenses and their morale was put to the test. “K” Company men at Kholmogori waited with anxiety for the decision, for if Pinega fell then, Red troops would press down the river to threaten Kholmogori, which, though safe from winter attack because of the blockhouses built by American Engineers and doughboys, would be at the mercy of the gunboats the Reds were reported to have rigged up with guns sent over from Kotlas. But the Pinega artillery and machine guns and the stout barricades of the Pelegor and Kuligor infantrymen held out, though one of the gallant Russian officers, who had won the admiration of the Americans in the winter by continuing daily on duty with his machine gun company after he had been wounded severely in the arm, now fell among his men.