WAGNER
Mejinovsky—Near Kodish.
MCKEE
Bolo General Under Flag Truce Near 445—April 1919.
U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
After a Prisoner Exchange Parley.
Only on the Pinega front did the American medical officer enjoy free action. An interesting story could be told of the American hospital and the two Russian Red Cross (local) hospitals and the city civil hospital which were all under control of Capt. C. R. Laird, the red-haired, where he had any, unexcitable old doctor from Nebraska, who treated one hundred and fourteen wounded Russian soldiers in one night.
And a romantic thread in the narrative would be the story of Sistra Lebideva, the alleged Bolshevik female spy, who was released from prison in Pinega by the American commanding officer and given duty as nurse in the Russian receiving hospital. She was a trained nurse in an apron, and a Russian beauty in her fine clothes. The Russian lieutenant who acted as intelligence officer on the American commander’s staff in investigating the nurse’s case, fell hopelessly in love with her. An American lieutenant, out of friendship for the Russian officer, several weeks later took the nurse to Archangel disguised as a soldier. Then the Russian lieutenant was ordered to Archangel to explain his conduct. He had risked his commission and involved himself in appearances of pro-Bolshevism by disobeying an order to send the suspected nurse in as a spy. He had connived at her escape from her enemies in Pinega, who, when the Americans left, would have ousted her from the hospital and thrust her back into prison. He was saved by the intercession of the American officer and she was set free upon explanations. But the romance ended abruptly when Sistra Lebideva threw the Russian lieutenant over and went to nurse on another front where later the Russians turned traitor.