preceded, made Kodish a place horrible, detested, and unnerving to the
small detachment that held it."

Meanwhile their fellows at the river bank with the engineers were
slashing down the trees on the Bolo side clearing the bank to prevent
surprise of the Allied position over the seven foot ice that now made
the river into a winding roadway. More blockhouses and gun positions
were put in. It was only a matter of time till they would have to
retreat to the old position on the river.

On January 4th Donoghue sent "E" Company back to occupy and help
strengthen the old position at the river, from where they sent
detachments forward to help "K" and "M.G." and trench mortar hold the
shell-shattered village of Kodish. The enemy confined himself chiefly to
artillery shelling, always replied to vigorously by our gallant Canadian
section who, though outgunned, sought to draw part of the enemy fire
their way to lighten the barrage on their American comrades caught like
rats in the exposed village. From their three hills about the doomed
village of Kodish the Reds kept up a continuous sharpshooting which
fortunately was too long range to be effective. And the enormous losses
which the Reds had suffered on their side that bloody New Year's Day
made them hesitate to move on the village with infantry to be mowed down
by those dreadful Amerikanski fighters, when a few days of steady
battering with artillery would perhaps do just as well.

Flesh and blood can stand only so much. Terrible was the strain. No
wonder that on the seventh day of this hell a lieutenant with a single
platoon holding the village after receiving magnified reports from his
patrols of strong Bolo flanking forces, imagined a general attack on
Kodish. The French Colonel, V. O. C. O., had said Kodish should not be
held. And in the night he set fire to the ill-fated village and
retreated to the river. Swift came the command from the fiery old
Donoghue: "Back to that village with me, the Reds shall not have it."
And his men reoccupied it before dawn. But no one but they can ever know
how they suffered. The cold twenty below zero stung them in the village
half burned. Their beloved old commander's words stung them. Hateful to
them was the certainty that he was grimly carrying out a written order
superior indeed to the French Colonel's V. O. but which was not based on
a true knowledge of the situation by the far-distant British officer who
went over Col. Lucas' head an