Sometimes the way brought the soldiers through the phantom glade of a fairy forest, where delicately spun aigrettes and fragile, filmy plumes held by doubtful tenure on a limb would wave precariously in the wind and be lost in shapeless, irretrievable chaos of crumpled snow, but tens of thousands of others would fill their places, and inconceivable, bizarre festoons would spring to magic life, countless balloons and garlands and wreaths, and massive, ponderous globes, all shaped by the infinite artistry of the frost in an endless profusion of enchanting wonderment.
Sometimes their canopy would be a lilac sea, with islands of suave saffron, and slender, garish emerald reefs, which could never escape the tristful quality of the haunting Russian skies, where tragedy and melodrama ever unfolded till night clasped in blackness the brief twilight of those doleful winter days.
Under their humble roofs, the patient people revealed a hospitality that was moving in its utter absence of guile. The cherished samovar would be brought forth from a covert trove to kindle the uninvited guests with steaming tea, and in the evening all the villagers would troop to the crowded huts to doff their hats and cross themselves with pious orisons, and gaze with never wearying gaze at the strangers from the far fabled land of miracle and hope. Years from now moujik grandmothers will group rapt children around the oven stoves to tell them of the strange Americanskis who once came so many miles in the dread winter cold to help afflicted Russia.
Out in the frigid night, the aurora of the north swung swaying evanescent curtains, now fluttering with faint ethereal light, now springing to flowing, colorful life again, and one could fancy that Thalia signaled from the night heavens a playful spectral heliograph, mocking these silly little men so far below, that strove to conquer the dread elements of that gaunt Northland.
But, if in the whole campaign the somber veil of tragedy was ever lifted, it was at this front where the altruistic intention of the Allies seemed to have caught the consciousness of the people (whether or not this intent was in fact altruistic), they bore not only benevolence, but even humble touching gratitude towards their deliverers, and even undertook the burden of their own battles. Many Russians were lost in these battles for Pinega, but after the first expeditionary engagements not one American fell.
In January there was a massed assault, and when the fall of the city seemed almost sure, the Bolsheviks slackened and fell back, with their blade poised for the heart thrust.
But in March the defenses were safe in the competent hands of a regiment of White Russians, who were the defenders of their own towns, and the "Allied Legion" of no nation. Likewise there were two field guns with a Russian personnel of artillery, a unit of Russian machine gunners, carefully trained in the service of these rapid, death-dealing instruments of specialized modern war, and all these soldiers of Russia raised their heads high and proud as eagles, wearing no man's collar.
So it came that the Americans were free to take their leave for more pressing fronts and were given "Farewell and come again" from the hearts of the Pinega people, with generous, overflowing good will, abounding grateful acknowledgment of their genuine, upbuilding service. Perhaps this was more the conceived purpose of the Expedition to sustain the foundling democracy of Russia, to strengthen and instill solidarity and faith in the hearts and counsels of the Russian people, and to achieve such end by unsanguinary means. Perhaps the means might have been different and the melodrama never enacted if a college professor, with methods of applied humanity, had directed from the outset. But it is to offend the military to consider thus, and to be guilty of shameful heterodoxy.