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The nearest friendly troops, including their artillery, were back at Seletskoe, thirty versts away. On October 29th the Reds returned to Avda. The noise from that village and reports brought by patrols indicated that this enemy who erstwhile was on the run, and whom our high command now held lightly, was determined to regain Kodish.
"K" Company Hurries To Save Force "B" Importance Of Kodish Front Hazelden's Force Destroyed First Fight At Seletskoe Both Sides Burn Bridges Desperate Fighting At Emtsa River Capture Of Kodish Digging In We Lose Village After Days Of Hard Fighting Trenches And Blockhouses.
One of "Captain Mike's" nervy sergeants protested against being sent back to Seletskoe to get him a new pair of shoes, for he hated the ill-fitting British army shoe, as all Americans did, and prevailed upon Donoghue to let him wait a few days till after a battle when he sure enough helped himself to a fine pair of boots.
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.
Droskies needed for transportation of supplies and ammunition had to be used to take back the wounded and sick from exposure to Seletskoe. No "K" or "L" or "M. G." man who was there will ever forget those days. It was obvious that the Kodish force must be augmented. English marines and a section of Canadian artillery came up.
He gallantly held it but only temporarily, for soon he and the Canadians and trench mortar and machine gun men and the Dyer's Battalion men were back under Major Donoghue holding the old Emtsa river line and its two supporting blockhouse lines. Our badly shattered "E" Company and "K" Company went to reserve in Seletskoe.
The Supply Company of the 339th used one truck, and the British transport staff borrowed the other one. Major Ely, Quartermaster of the American forces, got one of the Fords, and another one went to the American Red Cross. "By the middle of November the "Y" had secretaries on the river fronts near Seletskoe and Beresnik at the railroad front and with the Pinega detachment.
The railroad front sectors would be cut off, Seletskoe would be pinched, and the River Fronts taken in rear if Obozerskaya with its stores, munitions and transportation fell into the hands of the Bolsheviki. General Ironside hastened to Obozerskaya to take personal command.
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.
The trail junction point Volshenitsa, between Seletskoe and Obozerskaya, was fitted up with quarters for soldiers and vigilantly guarded against surprise attacks by the Reds from 443, or Emtsa. Sometimes it was held by British and Russians from Seletskoe and sometimes by Americans from Obozerskaya. It sounds easy to say "Guarding lines of communication."
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