November 1919 

As a kid in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Johnny Brandon loved riding trains. He loved everything about trains. Their windows opened a vista beyond the structured world of school, church, family, and neighborhood. He loved looking out the window of a moving train and listening to the clickety-clack of the wheels as they sped over rails that narrowed to nothingness behind, and opened to the future as it moved forward to new adventures. It was as near to time travel as you could find in 1910 in the Midwest.

Now, nine years later, he would be glad to travel back to the certainty of a life he could count on. Lieutenant John Brandon stared through the clear circle he had rubbed in the frosted window. Outside, the bleak, frozen, forested land of Siberia swept by as the train from Vladivostok, laden with supplies for the White Russian Army of General Kolchak, moved closer to Irkutsk. In another hour they would be there.

Lieutenant Brandon knew the area around Irkutsk was especially dangerous and he was making sure his platoon was ready for action. The platoon had drawn train-guarding duty for the last three months. Once back in Vladivostok, they were scheduled for a change in duty assignments.

 Lieutenant Brandon had volunteered for train-guarding duty. Big mistake. Endless cold, bad food, and long periods of boredom broken by sudden and deadly firefights when bands of Red Army Communist soldiers managed to tear up sections of the track and stop the train. His platoon and other units of the Polar Bears managed to fight off all the attacks and the trains eventually got through but not without costs to the Polar Bears, a self-appointed nickname for the regiment. Most of the men were from Wisconsin and Michigan with a small percentage from Minnesota. Some of them could speak some Russian, German, or Polish. Many had been too young to have served in France, but when President Wilson decided to support the democratic Kerensky revolutionaries in their struggle against the Bolshevik party of Lenin, John Brandon and thousands of others found themselves on troop ships going to fight an unknown war in a frigid environment they were not prepared to fight in.

Their mission from President Wilson was to protect and recover the significant amount of war materials the United States had sent to Russia when they were fighting on the Allied side against the Germans. Now that Russia, under Lenin, had withdrawn from the First World War, Allied soldiers from Britain, France and America were sent to prevent war supplies from America from falling into the hands of the Red Army or the Japanese. American sympathies were with the democratic Kerensky Russian White Army of General Kolchak. To protect the supplies they had to fight off the Red Army and keep the Trans Siberian Railroad open.

Most of the men in Brandon’s platoon felt they were being treated unfairly. The war they had been fighting was over. They had expected to go home, not to Siberia. Not even the field grade officers could explain why they were riding trains across Siberia’s frozen landscape. Their hearts and minds were not in this backwash of questionable American interests.

Lieutenant Brandon was halfway through checking his platoon of train guards when the engineers sounded the alarm and applied the emergency brakes. Brandon knew it would take a half-mile to bring this train to a full stop. By that time, they would hit whatever caused the engineers to try and bring the speeding train to a stop.

“Hang on, men!” he yelled. “Get ready for action!” Nothing could be seen outside. The blowing snow and the late afternoon darkness made it impossible to see.

Lieutenant Brandon felt the train derail. He estimated they were moving at least 40 miles an hour. At that speed, several cars behind the two locomotives would leave the track and overturn. The car carrying his platoon was two cars behind the coal tender.

Even before the car overturned he heard an explosion, followed by raking small-arms fire.

At least half of the members of the platoon were struggling to their feet and moving toward both ends of the car to get out and set up firing positions to protect the platoon first and then the train. Lieutenant Brandon and his platoon sergeant, Sam Reilly, managed to get firing points set up. Nearly all the platoon was in action. Only a few were too severely injured in the crash to make their way out. The railroad embankment provided good cover for the riflemen and the machine gunner. The overturning of the car might save all our lives, Brandon thought. Most of the firing is coming from the rear of train where the valuable equipment is carried.

The attackers were mounted and racing up and down the right-of-way. The Polar Bear riflemen were armed with bolt-action 1903 rifles and the boys from the Midwest could shoot. The Springfields were the best rifles they had ever been issued.

Several horses were down. In the light of the flares fired from the train, Lieutenant Brandon saw a mass of infantry emerge from the forest. He realized the cavalry was only a probing attack. “Reilly,” he yelled to his sergeant, pointing to the emerging infantry. “Bring up your men!” He wasn’t going to lose his entire platoon in a fight to the death over an overturned rail car. When the platoon was together, he moved them back into the forest.

The accurate fire from the platoon’s rifles from the cover of the forest turned back two waves of mass attacks. Lieutenant Brandon gave the order to fire one more magazine on the next attack and fall back into the forest and evade west down the tracks to Irkutsk. The next attack came after a new barrage from some horse-drawn field artillery. The wedge of attacking infantry broke through the thin line of Polar Bears. Only a few members of the platoon were able to fall back and escape to the west as a sudden heavy snowfall masked the battle area. Lieutenant Brandon saw Sergeant Reilly go down with a fatal wound. He turned to move deeper into the cover of the forest when he was knocked down by a blow to his right thigh. Scrambling on all fours, he managed to find a dead fall of two down trees and crawled under cover. The fight for the train was over. Surviving was the next mission.

 It was now snowing so hard he couldn’t see anything. The wind strengthened to a gale force. The whole battle area was obscured by a swirling, white cover. Lieutenant Brandon, lying between the two fallen trees, could hear the shouts of Red Army soldiers and an occasional gunshot and explosion. They will kill all the prisoners, wounded or not, he thought, I’ve got to lie still. I don’t think my leg is broken or any major arteries were severed. If the bleeding stops and I don’t freeze to death, I can live through this. I’m already covered with snow. My tracks and blood trail must also be under snow cover. The Red Army officers will call off the attack and use the soldiers to load up the supplies they want. There must be a trail or road close by for tractors and horses to pull wagonloads of supplies away from the ambush site. I won’t freeze. It’s 20 degrees Fahrenheit. My winter gear and this snow cover will keep the worst of the cold out.

Brandon was dozing when he was awakened by something moving in the snow near his hiding place. He lay still. Listening, he heard a snuffling sound and Russian voices, then he felt the snow being brushed away. He reached for his .45 Colt but couldn’t manage to get it out. As he struggled he heard a Russian voice saying, “Over here. This one is alive.”

Strong hands pulled him out of his snow-covered hiding place. He tried to stand but his leg wouldn’t hold him, and he sagged against the person who had pulled him out of the snow. He felt his .45 being taken away. He slowly raised a hand and brushed the snow from his face and eyes. The first thing he saw was a huge white dog sitting in the snow, watching him. He saw several armed figures bundled in fur clothing gathered around him. After a few tries he managed to say he was an American and pointed to the patch on his uniform.

One of the smaller fur-covered figures said, “We know that. We can tell by your weapons and uniform. You are a lieutenant.”

Brandon, using his limited Russian, said, “Speak slowly. I understand and can speak a little Russian.”

 “Good,” said the small figure in a female voice. “I speak some English. Better than your Russian. Now in English tell me about your injuries.”

“I was shot in the right leg last night. The leg is not broken and the bleeding has stopped. I feel weak and don’t believe I can walk on this leg. Who are you?”

“My name is Katrina. You don’t need to know any more now. Just do what you are told. We are bringing a sled up to carry you. The trip will be hard. We will reach a safe place with heat and food sometime late tonight, if we have no trouble. We can’t do anything with your wound now. If it starts to bleed again, tell someone. Not everyone will want to take you with us. They believe you will slow us down and they want to carry supplies on what sleds we have, not wounded soldiers. Do not worry. I will convince them to put you on a sled.”

All of Barry Kelly’s novels are available in print in digital formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. Visit www.factsandfictions.com for more by the author.