Every veteran at this point in the narrative thinks now of the wonderful nights when the Northern Lights held him in their spell. Always the sentry called to his mates to come and see. It cannot be pictured by brush or pen, this Aurora Borealis. It has action, it has color, sheets of light, spires, shafts, beams and broad finger-like spreadings, that come and go, filmy veils of light winding and drifting in, weaving in and out among the beams and shafts, now glowing, now fading. It may be low in the north or spread over more than half the heavens. It may shift from east to western quarter of the northern heaven. Never twice the same, never repeating the delicate pattern, nor staying a minute for the admirer, it brightens or glimmers, advances or retreats, dies out gradually or vanishes quickly. Always a phenomenon of wonder to the soldier who never found a zero night too cold for him to go and see, was the Aurora Borealis.
XV
MOURNFUL KODISH
Donoghue Brings Valuable Reinforcements—Bolshevik Orator On Emtsa Bridge—Conditions Detrimental To Morale—Preparations For Attack On Kodish—Savage Fighting Blade To Blade—Bolsheviks Would Not Give Way—Desperately Bitter Struggle—We Hold Kodish At Awful Cost—Under Constant And Severe Barrage—Half-Burned Shell-Gashed Houses Mark Scene Of Struggle—We Retire From Kodish—Again We Capture Kodish But Can Not Advance—Death Of Ballard—Counter Attack Of Reds Is Barely Stemmed—Both Sides See Futility Of Fighting For Kodish—“K” Means Kodish Where Heroic Blood Of Two Continents Stained Snows Richly.
We left “K” Company and Ballard’s platoon of machine gun men, heroes of the fall fighting at Kodish, resting in Archangel. We have seen that the early winter was devoted to building defenses against the Reds who showed a disposition to mass up forces for an attack. “K” Company had come back to the force in December and with “L” Company gone to reserve in Seletskoe. Captain Donoghue had become “Major Mike” for all time and Lt. Jahns commanded the old company. Donoghue had taken back to the Kodish Force valuable reinforcements in the shape of Smith’s and Tessin’s trench mortar sections of “Hq” Company.
It had been in the early weeks of winter during the time that Captain Heil with “E” Company and the first platoon machine gunners were holding the Emtsa bridge line, that the Bolsheviki almost daily tried out their post-armistice propaganda. The Bolo commander sent his pamphlets in great profusion; he raised a great bulletin board where the American troops and the Canadian artillery forward observers could read from their side of the river his messages in good old I. W. W. style and content; he sent an orator to stand on the bridge at midnight and harangue the Americans by the light of the Aurora Borealis.
He even went so far as to bring out to the bridge two prisoners whom the Bolos had had for many weeks. One was a Royal Scot lad, the other was Pvt. George Albers of “I” Company who had been taken prisoner one day on the railroad front. These two prisoners were permitted to stand near enough their comrades to tell them they were well treated.
Captain Heil was just about to complete negotiations for the exchange of prisoners one day when a patrol from another Allied force raided the Bolos in the rear and interrupted the close of the deal. The Bolos were occupied with their arms. And shortly afterward Donoghue heard of the negotiations and the wily propaganda of the Reds and put a stop to it. On another page is told the story of similar artifices resorted to by the Reds on the Toulgas Front to break into the morale of the American troops.
It was well that the American officer adopted firm measures.
To be sure the great rank and file of American soldiers like their people back home could not be fooled by propaganda. They could see through Red propaganda as well as they could see through the old German propaganda and British propaganda and American for that matter. Of course not always clearly. But it was wise to avoid the stuff if possible, and to discount it good-humoredly when it did contact with us. The black night and short, hazy days, the monotonous food, the great white, wolf-howling distances, and the endless succession of one d—- hardship after another was quite enough. Add to that the really pathetic letters from home telling of sickness and loneliness of those in the home circle so far away, and the uselessly sobful letters that carried clippings from the partisan papers that grossly exaggerated and distorted stories of the Arctic campaign and also carried suggestions of resistance to the military authorities, and you have a situation that makes us proud at this time of writing that our American men showed a real stamina and morale that needs no apology.
The story of this New Year’s Day battle with the Bolos proves the point. For six weeks “E” Company had been on the line. Part of “L” Company had been sent to reinforce Shred Makrenga and the remainder was at Seletskoe and split up into various side detachments. Now they came for the preparations for their part in the united push on Plesetskaya, mentioned before. “K” Company came up fresh from its rest in Archangel keen to knock the Bolo out of Kodish and square the November account. Major Donoghue was to command the attacking forces, which besides “E” and “K” consisted of one section of Canadian artillery, one platoon of the “M. G.” Company, one trench mortar section, a medical detachment and a detachment of 310th Engineers who could handle a rifle if necessary with right good will. Each unit caught a gleam of fire from the old Irishman’s eye as he looked them over on December 28th and 29th, while “L” Company came up to take over the front so as to relieve the men for their preparations for the shock of the battle.