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With about two hundred men composed of French soldiers, a few English soldiers, American sailors from the Olympic, and some local Russian volunteers, he had pushed up the Dvina and Vaga to Seletskoe and operating from there had sent a party of French even as far as Emtsa River, a few miles north of Kodish.
I was ordered by the British General, Finlayson, to take the duties of S. M. O. and sanitary officer of Vaga Column, that all medical and sanitary questions, including distribution of American personnel would be under the British S. M. O. Dvina forces right at the time the American soldiers were needing medical attention most.
Especially frequent and severe was the gunfire which the Germans directed against the Dvina sector of the Russian positions. But, just as in the past weeks, the result, though not at all negligible as far as the damage inflicted on men, material, and fortifications was concerned, was practically nil in regard to any change in the location of the front.
CAPTAIN ROBERT P. BOYD, "B" CO., 339th Inf. Commanding officer American and Allied troops left bank of Dvina, fall offensive and winter defensive campaigns of Dvina-Kotlas Force. LIEUT.-COL. P. S. MORRIS, JR., 310th Engineers. Chief Engineer A. E. F., North Russia, during fall offensive and winter and spring campaigns. Military Cross CAPT. OTTO A. ODJARD, Commanding Officer "A" Co., 339th Inf.
The Germans had not planned a march on Moscow, but they had hoped to overrun the Russian armies and occupy the winter quarters of their choice. These were denied them on the Dvina, and they had not secured the coveted Riga-Rovno line. They were indeed left farther from it in the south than in the north.
We swung on the swift current of the Dvina, studied the shoreline and the skyline of the city of Archangel, saw the Allied cruisers, bulldogs of the sea, and turned our eyes southward toward the boundless pine forest where our American and Allied forces were somewhere beset by the Bolsheviki, or we turned our eyes northward and westward whence we had come and wondered what the folks back home would say to hear of our fighting in North Russia.
There was rejoicing in the French camp, but on the morning of the 19th we heard that General Steinghel with 14,000 Russians had just crossed the Dvina above Disna and was moving up the left bank to get behind Polotsk, seize the bridges and trap Saint-Cyr's force between his own and Wittgenstein's.
From this time on the fighting in the Upper Dvina was limited to the mere patrol activities. There to be sure was always a strain on the men. Remembering their comrades who had been ambushed before, it took the sturdiest brand of courage for small parties to go out day and night on the hard packed trails, to pass like deer along a marked runway with hunter ready with cocked rifle.
It was also plainly apparent that in case the Vaga River force was driven back to the Dvina it would necessitate the withdrawal of the forces on the Dvina from their strongly fortified position at Toulgas consequently, we received orders that this position at Ust Padenga must be held at all cost.
Indeed it was seen in the fall by General Poole that a Red column from Plesetskaya up the Kodish road was a wedge between the railroad forces and the river forces, always imperiling the Vaga and Dvina forces with being cut off if the Reds came strong enough. The first movement on Kodish by the Allied troops had been made by "B" force under the command of Col. Hazelden of the British army.
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