sition
Untenable--Escaping From Trap--Retreating With Constant Rear-Guard
Actions--We Lose Our Last Gun--"A" Company Has Miraculous Escape But
Suffers Heavy Losses.

Outside of routine patrolling, outpost duties and intermittent shelling
and sniping, the early part of the month of January, 1919, was
comparatively quiet on the Ust Padenga front. The troops now engaged in
the defense of this sector were Company "A," 339th Infantry, a platoon
of "A" Company, 310th Engineers, Canadian Artillery, English Signal
Detachment and several companies of Russians and Cossacks.

It will be recalled that the main positions of our troops was in
Netsvetiafskaya, on a high bluff overlooking Ust Padenga and Nijni
Gora--the former about a thousand yards to our left front on the bank of
the Vaga, and the latter about a mile to our right front located on
another hill entirely surrounded by a deep ravine and valleys. In other
words our troops were in a V-shaped position with Netsvetiafskaya as the
base of the V, Ust Padenga as the left fork, and Nijni Gora as the right
fork of same. The Cossack troops refused to occupy the position of Nijni
Gora, claiming that it was too dangerous a position and almost
impossible to withdraw from in case they were hard pressed.
Consequently, orders were issued from British headquarters at Shenkursk,
ordering an American platoon to occupy Nijni Gora and the Cossacks to
occupy Ust Padenga.

On the afternoon of January 18, the fourth platoon of Company "A," with
forty-six men under command of Lieut. Mead, relieved the second platoon
and took over the defense of Nijni Gora. The weather at this time was
fearfully cold, the thermometer standing about forty-five degrees below
zero. Rumors after rumors were constantly coming in to our intelligence
section that the enemy was preparing to make a desperate drive on our
positions at this front. His patrols were getting bolder and bolder. A
few nights before, one of the members of such a patrol had been shot
down within a few feet of Pvt. George Moses, one of our sentinels, who,
single handed, stood his post and held off the patrol until assistance
arrived. We had orders to hold this front at all cost. By the use of
field glasses we could see considerable activity in the villages in
front of us and on our flanks, and during the night the inky blackness
was constantly being illuminated by flares and rockets from many
different points. It is the writer's opinion that the