The Red Guards, however, meant to punish us for the capture of this position. He thoroughly and savagely shelled the position repeatedly and the British artillery moved up as the Yankee engineers restored the destroyed railroad track and duelled daily with the very efficient Red artillery. We have to admit that with his knowledge of the area the Red artillery officer had the best of the strategy and the shooting. He had the most guns too.
Major Nichols was heard to remark the day after he had been through the severe six gun barrage of the Reds who poured their wrath on the Americans at 445 before they could but more than get slight shrapnel shelters made, and had suffered four casualties, and the Royal Scots had lost a fine Scotch lieutenant and two Russian soldiers. “This shelling of course would be small peanuts to the French and British soldiers who were on the Western Front, but to us Americans fresh from the fields and city offices and shops of Michigan it is a little hell.” And so the digging was good at 445 during the last of October and the first of November while Major Nichols with “M” and “I” and French and American machine gun sections held this front.
On the fourth of November “I” Company supported by the French machine gunners sustained a terrific attack by the Reds in powerful force, repulsed them finally after several hours, with great losses, and gained from General Ironside a telegram of congratulations. “I” Co. lost one killed, one missing, two wounded, one of which was Lieut. Reese. After that big attack the enemy left us in possession and we began to fear winter as much as we did the enemy. The only event that broke the routine of patrols and artillery duels was the accidental bombing by our Allied airplane of our position instead of the half-mile distant enemy trenches, one of the two 112-lb. bombs taking the life of Floyd Sickles, “M” Company’s barber and wounding another soldier.
Amusing things also are recalled. The American medical officer at the front line one morning looked at a French soldier who seemed to be coming down with a heavy cold and generously doped him up with hot water and whiskey. Next morning the whole machine gun section of French were on sick call. But Collins was wise, and perhaps his bottle was empty.
One day a big, husky Yank in “I” Company was brokenly “parlevooing” with a little French gunner, who was seen to leap excitedly into the air and drape himself about the doughboy’s neck exclaiming with joy, “My son, my son, my dear sister’s son.” This is the truth. And he took the Yank over to his dugout for a celebration of this strange family meeting, filled him up with sour wine, and his pockets with pictures of dancing girls.
Of course we were to learn to our discomfort and peril that winter was the time chosen by Trotsky for his counter-offensive against the Allied forces in the North. Of that winter campaign we shall tell in later chapters. We leave the Americans now on the railroad associated with their French comrades and 310th Engineers building blockhouses for defense and quarters to keep warm.
III
RIVER PUSH FOR KOTLAS
First Battalion Hurries Up The River—We Take Chamova—The Lay Of The River Land—Battling For Seltso—Retire To Yakovlevskoe—That Most Wonderful Smoke—Incidents Of The March—Sudden Shift To Shenkursk Area—The Battalion Splits—Again At Seltso—Bolos Attack—Edvyinson A Hero.
That dismal, gloomy day—September 6, 1915—the first battalion, under Lt.-Col. James Corbley, spent on board transport, watching the third battalion disembark and getting on board the freight cars that were to carry them down to the Railroad Front. Each man on board was aching to set foot on dry land once more and would gladly have marched to any front in order to avoid the dull monotony aboard ship, with nothing of interest to view but the gleaming spires of the cathedrals or the cold, gray northern sky, but there is an end to all such trials, and late that evening we received word that our battalion was to embark on several river barges to proceed up the Dvina River.
The following day all hands turned to bright and early and from early dawn until late that afternoon every man that was able to stand, and some that were not, were busily engaged in making up packs, issuing ammunition and loading up the barges. By six o’clock that evening they had marched on board the barges—some of the men in the first stages of “flu” had to be assisted on board with their packs. These barges, as we afterward learned, were a good example of the Russian idea of sanitation and cleanliness. They had been previously used for hauling coal, cattle, produce, flax, and a thousand-and-one other things, and in their years of usage had accumulated an unbelievable amount of filth and dirt. In addition to all this, they were leaky, and the lower holds, where hundreds of men had to sleep that week, were cold, dismal and damp. Small wonder that our little force was daily decreased by sickness and death. After five days of this slow, monotonous means of travel, we finally arrived at the town of Beresnik, which afterward became the base for the river column troops.