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Shenkursk Surrounded By Bolsheviki Enemy Artillery Outranged Ours British General At Beresnik Orders Retreat Taking Hidden Trail We Escape Shenkursk Battalion Of Russians Fails Us Description Of Terrible March Casting Away Their Shackletons Resting At Yemska Gora Making Stand At Shegovari Night Sees Retreat Resumed Cossacks Cover Rear Holding Ill-Selected Vistavka Toil, Vigilance And Valor Hold Village Many Days Red Heavy Artillery Blows Vistavka To Splinters In March Grand Assault Is Beaten Off For Two Days Lucky Cossacks Smash In And Save Us Heroic Deeds Performed Vistavka Is Abandoned.
Between our positions and Beresnik, our river base, more than a hundred miles distant, were but two occupied positions, the closest being Shegovari, forty-four miles in rear of us, with but two Russian platoons, and Kitsa, twenty miles further with but one platoon and a few Russian troops.
The column which made the terrible retreat from Shenkursk found the "Y" waiting for it at Shegovari, with hot cocoa and biscuit. Despite the congested transport, the service on this line was kept up all through the winter and spring, "Dad" Albertson, "Ken" Hollinshead and Brackett Lewis making themselves mighty effective in their service to the men on this sector.
This native shrewdness and spirit of barter is quite typical of the Russian peasant in all matters large or small and he greets the outcome of every such combat with stoical indifference, in typical fatalist fashion. The writer recalls one experience in the village of Shegovari on the occasion of our first occupation of this place.
At 5:00 p. m., under cover of darkness, we began assembling and once more plunged into the never-ending forest in full retreat, leaving Shegovari far behind. We left a small body of mounted Cossacks in the village to cover our retreat, but later that night we discovered a further reason for this delay here.
Shegovari being a large and prosperous community and there being a plentiful supply of horses there, we were accordingly dispatched to this place to take over the town and buy up as many horses as could be commandeered in this section. In company with a villainous looking detachment of Cossacks we set out from Shenkursk on board an enormous barge being towed by the river steamer "Tolstoy."
However, there was a single, little used, winter trail leading straight back into the forest in rear of us which, with devious turns and windings, would finally bring us back to the river trail leading to Shegovari, about twenty miles further down the river.
With him went out Comrades Walter Huston and Mike Haurlik of "C" Company, who had been taken prisoners in action on November 29th near Ust Padenga on the same day that gallant Cuff and his ten men were trapped and all were killed or captured. These two men survived. In this liberated party was also Comrade Anton Vanis, of Company "D" who was lost in the desperate rear guard action at Shegovari.
During the late fall and early winter, shortly after Company "A" had been relieved at Ust Padenga, we were stationed in the village of Shegovari. Here we had considerable leisure at our disposal and consequently the writer began devoting more time to his linguistic studies.
Hospital inspected by Major Fitzpatrick of American Red Cross. December 14th, 1918. Left Shenkursk for Shegovari where Lieut. Goodnight and 337th Ambulance men were running a detention hospital of eight beds and infirmary for American platoon, stationed at that place which is forty versts down Vaga river from Shenkursk toward Beresnik, where we arrived at 6:00 p.m.
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