But the shabby prisoners, first living sign of real battle, sent a thrill up and down the spines of these young men, who were so ardent for war and knew so little about it. They sniffed the air of conflict, yearned to give the "Bolos" a taste of their quality, and promised themselves that the folks back home would have nothing to be ashamed of when they came under fire. The next morning the depressing aspect of the dirty, unkempt group of huts where the soldiers detrained almost passed unnoticed alongside the captivating spectacle that stood on the track nearby, a ferocious war monster, with massive plates of steel like dragon's scales, huge funneled naval guns, and locomotive set in rear of trucks which were piled with sand bag barricades where Lewis automatics poked out murderously, manned by a hodge-podge Polish-Russian crew, who were themselves manned by competent appearing, war-weathered British N.C.O's. A narrow threadlike swath trailed through the stunted starveling forest to the lowering gloom of dull, laden skies, and the hearts of the fresh, battle eager soldiers swelled big as they gazed far down the gleaming rails to the murky mystery of No Man's Land. There was in the air a peculiar, dispiriting quality, a brooding, pensive, Russian note that cannot be made known except to those who have felt it. Stillness, heavy almost to the point of suffocation, the shroud of skies that hover mourning on the trees, and the shadow of unlifted gloom that reaches out from the forest and bears down upon the spirit with deep intangible melancholy. Suddenly the quiet was broken by the distant boom of a heavy gun. Then an ominous whine circled from the ground, approached snarling stridently high in air, and fell with a crumbling roar seemingly very near the new soldiers, who, on command, scampered to cover from their erect column of twos on the naked embankment. A cordon of strongpoints had been constructed around the village, Obozerskaya, and these the Americans took over, tensed for the impending battle. But inexplicable days passed, and the Bolo did not come. There was not even a feint of attack, and the Allied Command, with short memory for the hazardous nature of its extended position, the apprehension it had felt only a little while before, began to chafe for action, became impatient; again the military fetish of an "offensive campaign" grew, waxed strong, became assertive once more, and again the ambitious vision arose to take Vologda before the snow. "All patrols must be aggressive," directed a secret order of the officer in command, "and it must be impressed on all ranks that we are fighting an offensive war and not a defensive one."