Major J. B. Nichols was at this Railway Front, a civilian officer, and the only one of the Americans in senior authority who appeared to possess a heart, and courage, and unfogged discernment. He early grasped the vain futility of the whole campaign and no cajoling or flattery or threats from Archangel could sway his refusal to engage a single man in unavailing patrols through the ambushed forests or in hazardous "blow-offs" between the contested lines, that accomplished nothing save the sacrifice of life. So for the most part the winter defense was a routine of work on the defenses, the dugouts and the fortifications, and necessary reconnaissance parties over the trails, to watch the flank approaches and to keep an eye on dangerous Bolshie Ozerki. With ready methods of quick transportation, and an increase in the garrison by the coming of the King's Own Liverpools, it became possible to arrange spells of relief, and in March the Americans went back to Archangel. At the front it was different. There was a tautness, a hushed, dread expectancy in the air, and life, an uncertain thing, was to be lived, like the Hedonist, for the day; there was no time to analyze the causes of one's misery or even to be more than dully conscious of it; pressing urgencies, actual or imaginary, were always occurring, and they crowded out all opportunities for contemplation and introspection. But there was no pressure in careless Archangel, where harrowing care and disgusting, swinelike filth vanished with a wave of fairy wand and lo, the war with Russia became a magical heroic pageant. Large numbers of unemployed officers strolled the Troitsky Prospect, very merry and bright, an array of bright, varicolored ribbons, like flower gardens, flourishing on their well-arched military chests. There was the American Supply Company at full strength, which looked very sleek and smug, and groomed well, and well fortified to withstand the rigors of the Arctic winter, who displayed extraordinary capacity for trading with the natives and astounding dexterity in the acquisition of an affluent wealth of Russian rubles. It made a soldier sick at heart to see the good things stacked high at Bakaritza, the sweets and dainties and tobacco that would have meant so much to the homesick Vaga men and the far Dvina men who were never relieved--the cases and cases of whisky piled in mountainous piles in the warehouses at Bakaritza!