veral batteries of light field artillery in the dense forests and
begun an artillery bombardment of our entire line. Fortunately, however,
we soon located the position of their guns and our artillery horses were
immediately hitched to the guns, and supported by two platoons of "A"
Company under Captain Odjard and Lieut. Collar, swung into a position
from which they obtained direct fire upon the enemy guns with the result
that four guns were shortly thereafter put out of commission.

From this time on, there were continual skirmishes between the outposts
and patrols. The Bolo's favorite time for patrolling was at night and
during the early hours of the morning when everything was pitch dark.
They all wore white smocks over their uniforms and they could easily
advance within fifteen or twenty feet of our sentries and outposts
without being seen. They were not always so fortunate, however, in this
reconnoitering, as a picture on a following page proves which shows one
of their scouts clad in the white uniform and cap, who was shot down by
one of our sentries when he was less than fifteen feet away from the
sentry. Outside of the terrific cold and the natural hardships of the
expedition, the month of December was comparatively quiet on the Padenga
front.

However, in the neighborhood of Shenkursk there was a growing feeling
that a number of the enemy troops were in nearby villages and that the
enemy was constantly occupying more and more of them daily. In order to
break up this growing movement and to assure the natives of the
Shenkursk region that we would brook no such interference or happenings
within our lines, on the fifth of December, a strong detachment,
consisting of Company "C" under Lieut. Weeks, and Russian infantry,
mounted Cossacks, and a pom pom detachment, set out for Kodima about
fifty versts north and east of Shenkursk toward the Dvina River.

It was reported that there were about one hundred and fifty or two
hundred of the enemy located in this village, who were breaking a trail
through from the Dvina River in order that they could send across
supporting troops from the Dvina for the attack on Shenkursk. Our
detachment, after a day and a half's march, arrived in the vicinity of
Kodima and prepared to take the position. At about the moment when the
attack was to begin, it was found that the pom poms and the Vickers guns
were not working. The thermometer at this time stood at fifty below zero
and the inten