yal Scots in this position in the woods for the
balance of the month, during which there was constant shelling and
sniping but with few casualties among our ranks. The latter part of
March "F" Company was relieved for a short time, but the first week in
April were again sent back to the Kitsa position. By this time the
spring thaws were setting in and the snow began disappearing. Our plans
now were to hold these positions at Kitsa and Maximovskaya until the
river ice began to move out and then burn all behind us and make a
speedy getaway, but how to do this and not reveal our plans to the enemy
a few hundred yards across No Man's Land was the problem.

XVIII

DEFENSE OF PINEGA

Kulikoff And Smelkoff Lead Heavy Force Against Pinega--Reinforcements
Hastened Up To Pinega--Reds Win Early Victories Against Small Force Of
Defenders--Value Of Pinega Area--Desperate Game Of Bluffing--Captain
Akutin Reorganizes White Guards--Russians Fought Well In Many
Engagements--Defensive Positions Hold Against Heavy Red
Attack--Voluntary Draft Of Russians Of Pinega Area--American Troops "G"
And "M" Made Shining Page--Military-Political Relations Eminently
Successful.

The flying column of Americans up the Pinega River in late fall we
remember retired to Pinega in face of a surprisingly large force. The
commander of the Bolshevik Northern Army had determined to make use of
the winter roads across the forests to send guns and ammunition and food
and supplies to the area in the upper valley of the Pinega. He would
jolt the Allies in January with five pieces of artillery, two 75's and
three pom poms, brought up from Kotlas where their stores had been taken
in the fall retreat before the Allies. One of his prominent commanders,
Smelkoff, who had fought on the railroad in the fall, went over to the
distant Pinega front to assist a rising young local commander, Kulikoff.
These two ambitious soldiers of fortune had both been natives and bad
actors of the Pinega Valley, one being a noted horse thief of the old
Czar's day.

With food, new uniforms and rifles and common and lots of nice crisp
Bolshevik money and with boastful stories of how they had whipped the
invading foreigners on other fields in the fall and with invective
against the invaders these leaders soon excited quite a large following
of fighting men from the numerous villages. With growing power they
rounded up unwilling men and drafted them into the Red Army just as they
had