f the Polar Bears were getting ready to
sail.

Who will forget the day that the Cruiser "Des Moines" steamed in from
the Arctic? Every doughboy on the island rushed to the Dvina's edge.
They stood in great silent throat-aching groups, looking with blurred
eyes at the colors that grandly flew to the breeze. And then as the
jackies gave them a cheer those olive drab boys answered till their
throats were hoarse. That night they sat long in their tents--it was not
dusk even at midnight, and talked of home. A day or so later they spied
from the fire-house tower vessels that seemed to be jammed in a polar
ice floe which a north wind crowded into the throat of the White Sea.
Then to our joy a day or two later came the three transports, the long
deferred hope of a homeward voyage.

Everyone was merry those days. Even the daily practice march with
full-pack ordered by Colonel Stewart, five miles round and round on the
rough board walks of the sawdust port, was taken with good humor.
Preparations for departure included arrangements for carrying away our
brides and mascots.

Here and there in the Economia embarkation camp those days and nightless
nights in early June many a secret conclave of doughboys was held to
devise ways and means of getting their Russian mascots aboard ship. Of
these boys and youths they had become fond. They wanted to see them in
"civvies" in America and the mascots were anxiously waiting the outcome
at the gangplank.

At Chamova one winter night a little twelve-year old Russian boy
wandered into the "B" Company cook's quarters where he was fed and given
a blanket to sleep on. Welz, the cook, mothered him and taught him to
open bully cans and speak Amerikanski. This incident had its counterpart
everywhere. At Obozerskaya "M" Company picked up a boy whose father and
mother had been carried off by the Bolsheviks. He and his pony and
water-barrel cart became part of the company. At Pinega the "G" Company
boys adopted a former Russian Army youth who for weeks was the only man
who could handle their single Colt machine gun. In trying to get him on
board the "Von Stenben" in Brest--it had been simple in Economia--they
got their commanding officer into trouble. Lt. Birkett was arrested,
compelled to remain at Brest but later released and permitted to bring
the youth to America with him where he lives in Wisconsin. And out on a
ranch in Wyoming a Russian boy who unofficially enlisted with the
American doughboy