emselves the horse
"marines" and the name was quite an appropriate one as later events
proved.

About noon that day Capt. Odjard and Lieut. Mead with two platoons
arrived opposite a village named Gorka when suddenly without any warning
the enemy, concealed in the woods on both sides of the river, opened up
a heavy machine gun and rifle fire. Our fragile boat was no protection
from this fire. To attempt to run around and withdraw in the shallow
stream was next to impossible, so after a hasty consultation the
commander grasped the horns of the dilemma by running the boat as close
to the shore as possible, where the troops immediately swarmed overboard
in water up to their waists, quickly gained the protection of the shore
and spreading out in perfect skirmish order, poured a hot fire into the
enemy, who was soon on the run. This advance continued for some several
days until under the severe marching conditions, lack of food, clothing,
etc., a halt was made at Rovdinskaya, a village about ninety versts from
Shenkursk, and a few days later more reinforcements arrived under
Lieuts. McPhail and Saari.

A number of incidents on this advance clearly indicated that we were
operating in hostile and very dangerous country. Our only line of
communication with our headquarters was the single local telegraph line,
which was constantly being cut by the enemy. At one time a large force
of the enemy got in our rear and we were faced with the unpleasant
situation of having the enemy completely surrounding us. Capt. Odjard
determined upon a bold stroke. Figuring that by continuing the advance
and striking a quick blow at the enemy ahead of us, those in the rear
would anticipate the possibility of heavy reinforcements bringing up our
rear. On October 8th we engaged the enemy at the village of Puiya. We
inflicted heavy casualties upon him. He suffered no less than fifty
killed and several hundred wounded. As anticipated, the enemy in our
rear quickly withdrew and thus cleared the way for our retreat. We
retired to Rovdinskaya, which position we held for several weeks. The
situation was growing more desperate day by day. Our rations were at the
lowest ebb; cold weather had set in and the men were poorly and lightly
clad, in addition to which our tobacco ration had long since been
completely exhausted, which added much to the general dissatisfaction
and lowering of the morale of the troops.

With the approach of the Russian winter a new an