o Morjegorskaya, fifty-five versts south of
company headquarters in Yemetskoe. And it was common occurrence for a
sergeant of "F" Company with a "handful of doughboys" to escort a mob of
Bolshevik prisoners of war to distant Archangel.

XIII

WINTER DEFENSE OF TOULGAS

General Ironside Makes Expedition Aim Defensive--Bolsheviki Help Give It
Character--Toulgas--Surprise Attack Nov. 11th By Reds--Canadian
Artillery Escapes Capture--We Win Back Our Positions--"Lady Olga" Saves
Wounded Men--Heroic Wallace--Cudahy And Derham Carry Upper Toulgas By
Assault--Foukes--A Jubilant Bonfire--Many Prisoners--Ivan Puzzled By Our
War--Bolo Attack In January Fails--Dresing Nearly Takes
Prisoner--Winter Patrolling--Corporal Prince's Patrol Ambushed--We Hold
Toulgas.

General Ironside had now taken over command of the expedition and
changed its character more to accord with the stated purpose of it. We
were on the defensive. The Bolshevik whose frantic rear-guard actions
during the fall campaign had often been given up, even when he was
really having the best of it, merely because he always interpreted the
persistence of American attack or stubbornness of defense to mean
superior force. He had learned that the North Russian Expeditionary
Force was really a pitifully small force, and that there was so much
fussing at home in England and France and America about the justice and
the methods of the expedition, that no large reinforcements need be
expected. So the Bolsheviks on Armistice Day, November 11, began their
counter offensive movement which was to merge with their heavy winter
campaign. So the battle of November 11th is included in the narrative of
the winter defense of Toulgas.

Toulgas was the duplicate of thousands of similar villages throughout
this province. It consisted of a group of low, dirty log houses huddled
together on a hill, sloping down to a broad plain, where was located
another group of houses, known as Upper Toulgas. A small stream flowed
between the two villages and nearly a mile to the rear was another group
of buildings which was used for a hospital and where first aid was given
to the wounded before evacuating them to Bereznik, forty or fifty miles
down the river.

The forces engaged in the defense of this position consisted of several
batteries of Canadian artillery, posted midway between the hospital and
the main village. In addition to this "B" Company, American troops, and
another company of Royal