Leutnant Hans Pfeffer ordered the family into the basement of their home when the shooting started. Mortar rounds landed outside the home. One round impacted with the barn, punching a hole in the roof. A second round, white phosphorus hit the barn and set it ablaze. The platoon sergent, Sergent Guy Demille headed out to walk the line. He avoided the barn, checking first squad and then making his way toward second squad. He caught a machine gun round in his shoulder which flipped him a few times in the air and dropping him on his face ten meters behind the position where Gefreiter Hans Dietrich Amsel lost his head. Sergent Demille groaned, regained his composure and crawled toward a ditch. The bullet struck him in the shoulder. He would survive, but was taken out of action for the next five minutes.

Herr Leutnant Pfeffer attempted to reach the Company Commander. A mortar round had severed the wire to the field expedient antenna. He tried to raise Kompanie on the field phone and found that either the line had never been completed or a mortar round severed that one as well. "Where the hell is Demille?" der Leutnant whispered to himself. He picked up his helmet, placed it on his head and headed outside. From the doorway he looked at the Radio Telephone Operator, "(Gefreiter) Lachance, monitor the phone and the radio. Let me know..." Before the Leutnant had a chance to finish his sentence, an eighty-one millimeter round landed in the courtyard ten meters from the front door. The resulting blast and shrapnel ripped through Hans Pfeffer's body turning it into Swiss cheese. The Gefreiter sat at the phone paralyzed staring at the bloody corpse.

Korporal Krebs looked down his line. Everyone was engaging the enemy when they could. He spotted Sergent Demille heading their way. 'That damn fool,' Manfred figured he was going to get killed. 'There are too many small pieces of hot lead flying around this place. Get your ass down,' he wanted to yell. In that split second, he witnessed Gefreiter Amsel's head turn into a reddish pink mist and another round from undoubtedly the same machine gun strike the platoon sergeant in the shoulder and sent him flying about thirty feet behind the line.

The Korporal crawled out of the hole and yelled at Halliger and Aldo, "KEEP SHOOTING! I'M GOING TO CHECK ON SERGEANT DEMILLE!" Manny sprinted about ten meters and then slid into the dirt. He rolled to his right, jumped up and sprinted a short distance again. He repeated this process of sprinting, diving, crawling briefly and sprinting again, until he reached the ditch the Platoon sergeant was in.

"GUY! Are you all right!?" He yelled at the platoon sergeant. 

Surprised, the older NCO looked up, "What in the name of flaming fuckholes are you doing here?"

"I heard you had the best schnapps in town," Bullets pinged near them, kicking up dirt. Korporal Krebs noticed the Sergent's shoulder. He tore at the man's blouse exposing the wound. He then pulled out his first aid kit and applied a gauze to the wound. He took a roll of dressing and wrapped it around his shoulder. "Hold still, you grumpy old fart! It's just a flesh wound. I think you're going to live."

"Damn it!" the 34-year old NCO exclaimed. "Here I was just starting to enjoy your company."

"Wo ist Herr Leutnant?" Manny asked his friend. [Where is the Lieutenant?]

"At the CP. He's trying to raise Kompanie. The antenna was hit and most likely the wire also." The Sergent regained his senses and yelled above the din of the occasional explosions and gun fire around them, "why don't you get back to your squad. I'll find Herr Leutnant and tell him what its like up here. He may want us to withdraw."

"Jawohl, Herr Sergent!" Manny yelled before double timing and diving back to squad. He could see the half tracks slowly closing in on their position. Holtish infantry dismounted four hundred meters from them. Machine gun fire and mortar fire were coming from the woodline. They had no radio contact to call in artillery and the Holtish force both outmanned and outgunned them. Korporal Krebs raised his submachine gun, aimed and squeezed the trigger. A three-round burst scattered into nothingness, causing no damage. 'Well that's fucking useless, Manny,' he thought to himself.

"Manny!" He heard a yell and turned to look. It was the platoon sergeant. "Manny, Leutnant Pfeffer is dead! Get out of there! Pull back! I'll get third squad! First is already displacing."

As the Platoon sergent ran off to warn third squad, Manny Krebs yelled at the soldiers of second squad. "LET'S GO! WE'RE OUT OF HERE! FALL BACK! FALL BACK!" The squad began to run back past the burning barn avoiding that area where mortar rounds were landing. They followed the other soldiers of their platoon past the farm house and barn which were both on fire. Everyone of them could see the Leutnant's bloody corpse on the ground. No one considered checking on Gefreiter Lachance who remained motionless inside the house, gripped by fear and unable to control his legs. He may have wanted to leave, but the fear of dying held him with the inability to do anything but sit there and stare at the Leutnant's bloody corpse.

 Another grouping of trees or small forest about seven hundred meters beyond the farm offered some protection. The survivors made it into the woodline, before the enemy were able to swarm over the house. Whether they killed Gefreiter Lachance or took him prisoners, his platoon mates would never know. They forgot about him. Sergent Demille would berate himself for allowing Lachance to be taken like that for the rest of his life. The Holtish halftracks were able to use the farm's lane to access the primary road. Nothing would stop them now.