Here in these little churchyards, tragic death seemed robed in sorrow more sacred with the brown, barren embankments like a shroud of mourning, the grave skies drooping and disconsolate and the sombre recesses of the forest where taps trailed in grieving cadences and echoed within the soldier's spirit long after its last note had been lost in the gloom. Laden with inarticulate depression and confused melancholy, thoughts of life's crazy theatre, the crushing power and immensity of fate, the tragedy of all, these men fresh from the fields and shops of Michigan and Wisconsin groped their dazed way back to the barges where dark shadows with ominous fingers reached over the waters and death, in this haunting, melodramatic land waited, suspended in the alien air like a pestilential vapor. The first stop was five days out from Archangel at Bereznik, near the junction of the Dvina and its main tributary, the Vaga. Here there was a group of commodious, well constructed log buildings, which had served as hunting lodges for the Tsar Nicholas and his retinue during the days of the Romanoff dynasty. It was decided to make use of these buildings for storage purposes, and to have Bereznik as the subsidiary base of the Dvina expedition until progress was made so far up the river that practical considerations would impel the movement of the subsidiary base to a more advanced position. So from the time of the arrival of the Americans on the 13th September, until the close of water at the end of October, rations, munitions, clothing and other accouterments of war, in value over one million pounds sterling, which had been brought all the way from England, were loaded on every craft that could be commandeered at Archangel and transported the one hundred and fifty miles to Bereznik. One of the American companies was left to guard these precious supplies and the others hurried on to take up the gage of offensive campaign. There was a brush at Chamova, but the enemy did not make his first stand until he came to Seltzo, nearly thirty miles further upstream, and now well over two hundred miles from far away Archangel. Except on the Vaga, this was the furthermost south achieved by the Allied troops. At Seltzo, it became clear that the Soviets had no intention of running further, and that the foreigners would be fortunate if they held the ground already gained. The tactical abandonment of Archangel having accomplished the effective seizure and retention of everything of value in that port and extended the invader far into the interior, revealing with obliging frankness his numerical weakness, had realized the ends sought by the Bolsheviks, and the signs were now many that they intended to strike back and strike back hard. Why did not Poole retire to Archangel? The futility of the attempt to reach the distant Siberian railway with the ridiculously small force at the disposal of the Allied Commander was glaringly apparent to every common soldier.