“After that we had our interview with a Bolshevik Intelligence Officer who tried to get information from us. But he got no information from us as we pleaded that we were soldiers of supply and were not familiar with the details of the scheme of defense. And it worked. He sent us away under guard, who escorted us in safety through the camp to a shack.
“Here we were billetted in a filthy room with a lot of Russian prisoners, some the survivors of the defense of Bolsheozerki and some the recalcitrants or suspected deserters from the Bolo ranks. We were given half of a salt fish, a lump of sour black bread and some water for our hunger. On the bread we had to use an ax as it was frozen. We managed to thaw some of it out and wash it down with water. After this we stretched in exhaustion on the floor and slept off the day and night in spite of the constant roar of Bolo guns and the bursting of shells that were coming from our camp at Verst 18. By that sign we knew the Bolo had not overpowered our comrades by his day’s fighting. It was the only comforting thought we had as we pulled the dirty old rags about us that the Reds had given us in exchange for our overcoats and blouses, and went to sleep.
“We woke up in the morning midst the roar of a redoubled fight. A fine April Fool’s Day we thought. We were stiff and sore and desperately hungry. But our breakfast was the remainder of the fish and sour bread. Later the guard relieved us of some of our trinkets and pocket money, after which they gave us our rations for the day, consisting of a half can of horse meat, a salt fish, and twelve ounces of black bread.
“Then we were taken to see the General commanding this huge force. He gave us a cigarette, which was very acceptable as we were quite unnerved, not knowing what would happen to us afterwards if we gave no more information than we had the day before. He tried to impress us by taking his pistol and pointing out on a map of the area just where his troops were that day surrounding our comrades in the beleagured camp in the woods at Verst 18 on the road, as well as many versts beyond them cutting a trail through the deep snow to the very railroad in rear of Obozerskaya. He boasted that his forces that day would crush the opposing force and he would move upon Obozerskaya and go up and down the railroad and clear away every obstacle as he had done in the Upper Vaga Valley, where he boasted he had driven the Allied troops from Shenkursk and pursued them for over sixty miles. Then he informed us that we were to be sent as prisoners to Moscow.
“Later in the morning we were started south toward Emtsa on foot. We could hear the distant cannonading on the 445 front as we marched along during the day on the winter trail which if it had been properly patrolled by the French and Russians would not have permitted the surprise flank march in force by this small army that menaced the whole Vologda force. Our thirty-five verst march that day and night—for we walked till 10:00 p. m.—was made more miserable by the thought that our comrades were up against a far greater force than they dreamed, as was evidenced to us by the hordes of men we had seen in Bolsheozerki and the transportation that filled every verst of the trail from the south. We made temporary camp in a log hut along the road, building a roaring fire outside. We would sleep a half hour and then go outside the hut to thaw out by the fire, and so on through the wretched night.
“At 4:00 a. m. we started again our footsore march, after a fragment of black bread and a swallow of water, and walked twenty-seven versts to Shelaxa, the Red concentration camp. Here we underwent a minute search. All papers were taken for examination. Our American money was returned to us, as was later a check on a London bank which one of my officers had given me. I secreted it and some money so well in a waist belt that later I had the satisfaction of cashing the check in Sweden into kronen in King Gustave’s Royal Bank in Stockholm. After a meal of salt fish and black bread fried in fish oil, and some hot water to drink, we were given an hour’s rest and then started on the road again to Emtsa, twenty-four versts away, reaching that railroad point at midnight. Here we were brought before the camp commandant who roughly stripped us of all our clothes except our breeches and gave us the Bolshevik underwear and ragged outer garments that they had discarded. And buddies who have seen Bolo prisoners come into our lines can imagine how bad a discarded Bolo coat or undershirt must be. After this we were locked up in a box car with no fire and three guards over us.
“Next morning, April 3rd, the car door was opened and the Bolshevik soldiers made angry demonstrations toward us and were kept out only by our guards’ bayonets. We were fed some barley wash and the rye bread which tasted wonderful after the previous food. I paid a British two-shilling piece which I had concealed in my shoe to a guard to get me a tin to put our food in, and we made wooden spoons. That night we were lined up against the car and asked if we knew that we were going to be shot. But this event, I am happy to say, never took place. We went by train to Plesetskaya that day. Father Roach was taken to the commandant’s quarters and we did not see him till the next day, when he told us he had enjoyed a fine night’s sleep and expected to be sent back across the lines and would take messages to our comrades to let them know we were alive and on our way to Moscow.”
It is interesting to note that the American Sergeant’s insistence that he and his companions be given bath and means to shave, won the respect and assistance of the guard and the Bolshevik officer. Of course in making the two day’s march in prisoner convoy from Bolsheozerki to Emtsa there had been severe hardship and privation and painful uncertainty and mental agony over their possible fate. And they had not stopped long enough in one place to enable them to make an appeal for fair treatment.
Imagine the three American soldiers and the “Y” man and the two British soldiers sitting disconsolately in a filthy taplooshka, hands and faces with three days and nights of grime and dirt, scratching themselves under their dirty rags, cussing the active cooties that had come with the shirts, and trying to soothe their itching bewhiskered faces. Here the resourceful old sergeant keenly picked out the cleanest one of the guards and approached him with signs and his limited Russki gavareet and made his protest at being left dirty. He won out. The soldier horoshawed several times and seechassed away to return a few minutes later with a long Russian blade and a tiny green cake of soap and a tin of hot water. Under the stimulation of a small silver coin from the sergeant’s store he assumed the role of barber and smoothed up the faces of the whole crowd of prisoners. And then followed the trip under guard to the steaming bath-house that is such a vivid memory to all soldiers who soldiered up there under the Arctic Circle. In this connection it may be related that later on at Moscow the obliging Commissar of the block in which they were quartered hunted up for them razors and soap and even found for them tooth brushes and tubes of toothpaste which had been made in Detroit, U. S. A., and sold to Moscow merchants in a happier time.
“On April 5th we left Plesetskaya, after saying good-bye to the English Chaplain who seemed greatly pleased that he was to get his freedom and had his pockets full of Bolshevik propaganda. We reached Naundoma after a night of terrible cold in the unheated car and during the next two days on the railway journey to Vologda had nothing to eat. On April 7th we reached that city and were locked up with about twenty Russians. Here we got some black bread that seemed to have sand in it and some sour cabbage soup which we all shared, Russians and all, from a single bucket. Next day we thought it a real improvement to have a separate tin and a single wooden spoon for the forlorn group of Americans and British.