The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki | Page 8

to put the limited
American medical personnel of enlisted men to digging latrines for the
British officers' quarters.
Many a man discharged from the British 53rd Stationary Hospital as fit
for duty, was examined by American medical officers and put either
into our own Red Cross Hospital or into the American Convalescent
Hospital for proper treatment and nourishment back to fighting
condition. It was openly charged by the Americans that several
Americans in the British hospital were neglected till they were bedsore
and their lives endangered. Sick and wounded men were required to do
orderly work. When a sturdy American corporal refused to do work or
to supervise work of that nature in the hospital, he was court-martialed
by order of the American colonel commanding the American forces in
North Russia. Of course it must needs be said that there were many fine
men among the British medical officers and enlisted personnel. But
what they did to serve the American doughboys was overborne by the
mistreatment of the others.
Finally no more wounded Americans were sent to the British hospital
and no sick except those sick under G. O. 45. These latter found
themselves cooped up in an old Russian prison, partially cleaned up for
a hospital ward. This was a real chamber of horrors to many an
unfortunate soldier who was buffetted from hospital to Major Young's
summary court to hospital or back to the guardhouse, all the while
worrying about the ineffectiveness of his treatment.
So the American soldiers at last got their own receiving hospital and

their own convalescent hospital. Of course at the fighting fronts they
were nearly always in the hands of their own American medical
officers and enlisted men. The bright story of the Convalescent
Hospital appears in another place. This receiving hospital was a fine
old building which one time had been a meteorological institute, a
Russian imperial educational institution. Its great stone exterior had
gathered a venerable look in its two hundred years. The Americans
were to give its interior a sanitary improvement by way of a set of
modern plumbing. But the thing that pleased the wounded doughboy
most was to find himself, when in dreadful need of the probe or knife,
under the familiar and understanding and sympathetic eyes of Majors
Henry or Longley or some other American officer, to find his wants
answered by an enlisted man who knew the slang of Broadway and
Hamtramck and the small town slang of "back home in Michigan,
down on the farm," and to find his food cooked and served as near as
possible like it was "back home" to a sick man. Blessings on the
medical men!

II
FALL OFFENSIVE ON THE RAILROAD
Third Battalion Hurries From Troopship To Troop-Train Bound For
Obozerskaya--We Relieve Wearied French Battalion--"We Are
Fighting An Offensive War"--First Engagement--Memorable Night
March Ends At Edge Of Lake--Our Enemy Compels Respect At Verst
458--American Major Hangs On--Successful Flank March Takes Verst
455--Front Line Is Set At 445 By Dashing Attack--We Hold It Despite
Severe Bombardments And Heavy Assaults.
On the afternoon of September the fifth the 3rd Battalion of the 339th
Infantry debarked hurriedly at Bakaritza. Doughboys marched down
the gangplank with their full field equipment ready for movement to
the fighting front. Somewhere deep in the forest beyond that skyline of
pine tree tops a handful of French and Scots and American sailors were
battling the Bolos for their lives. The anxiety of the British staff

officer--we know it was one of General Poole's staff, for we remember
the red band on his cap, was evidenced by his impatience to get the
Americans aboard the string of tiny freight cars.
Doughboys stretched their sea legs comfortably and formed in column
of squads under the empty supply shed on the quay, to escape the cold
drizzle of rain, while Major Young explained in detail how Captain
Donoghue was to conduct the second train.
All night long the two troop trains rattled along the Russki railway or
stood interminably at strange-looking stations. The bare box cars were
corded deep with sitting and curled up soldiers fitfully sleeping and
starting to consciousness at the jerking and swaying of the train. Once
at a weird log station by the flaring torchlights they had stood for a few
minutes beside a northbound train loaded with Bolshevik prisoners and
deserters gathered in that day after the successful Allied engagement.
Morning found them at a big bridge that had been destroyed by artillery
fire of the Red Guards the afternoon before, not far from the important
village of Obozerskaya, a vital keypoint which just now we were to
endeavor to organize the defense of, and use as a depot and junction
point for other forces.
No one who was there will forget the initial scene at