Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/23

 the order was absurd. We were not fit to attack. It was enough if the Russians did not attack us. They simply kept playing at us with their rifles and machine guns. We were three days, to begin with, in those shallow trenches, hardly daring to move! The order was repeated to attack, and my men tried. Forty men of the company fell as soon as it showed itself!

We were three weeks, till Dec. 5, in those wretched trenches. Our feet and hands got frozen. Several of my men had to have their limbs amputated afterwards. The barrels of our rifles were frozen. Out of 200 men only fourteen had rifles that could be used. I longed for the Russians to come and “take“ us. But, alas! they never came. Our men became frozen to the ground. In the morning it was necessary for two men to pull up a third, and then half his clothes stuck to the ice. The great battle of Lodz was then being fought, and that was why the Russians did not attack us. They had orders simply to stop our advance.

I had been lying thirteen days without moving out of my trench. On Dec. 5 the order came to take the Russian positions. The Russians, we were told, had fallen back. We doubted it. But when we got to their positions we found it was true. Whither had they gone? It seemed incredible! For fifteen days we had been face to face with them. Their trenches were only 120 yards from ours. Yet they had succeeded in getting away bag and baggage without our seeing it! During that time my men vere probably frozen to the ground. They told me afterwards that they had found the Russians good fellows. My patrols several times spent evenings with them! One night a patrol of mine got to a little house. They found the door open, and walked upstairs.

While two men were upstairs, two others opened a back door down below and found a group of Russians. There was nothing to do but salute them politely. There was a moment’s hesitation between the two groups. The Russians were cooking potatoes, and my men thought they smelt fine. The Russians saw it, and invited them to come in. The two men upstairs came down and also joined. They shared the potatoes and the fire with the Russians. When they had eaten the Russians told them they were free to go. “No; we are your prisoners,“ said my men.“ We are your prisoners,“ said the Russians. Finally both sides yielded the point, and my men came away thinking the Russians were fine fellows. My Ruthenians understood the Russians very well, and could speak to them in their language.

We passed the Russian positions, and found traces of their retreat all along the country. They left little behind them. We marched nearly