readied it. The door burst open, and I fired into the fray. My first shot, I figured was conclusive, for about half a dozen men had stormed in and it was nearly impossible to miss. I then quickly discarded my rifle in a place I could remember it, and I then pulled my handaxe. I back stepped, tripped over a hay bale. I muttered curses beneath my breath, for I could feel the pounding feet of the French and the screams of pain as men fought and died. I rolled to my left, recovered, and rose to the call to arms once more. A Frenchman had spotted me as I fell, and was waiting on the other side of the haybail. Unfortunately for me, he was armed with a musket, fastened with a bayonet. I sidestepped as he thrust forth to me, I then swung my handaxe towards his collarbone... Pressing it deep until I felt the crackling of bone under my mighty handaxe. "Oh, mon Dieu!" spilt from the bleeding Frenchman.
I took this moment to curse in my own tongue, cursing the Frenchman to hell for what he had done to my beautiful country. I then braced the back of the bastard's knee against a wooden hold, and struck forth, breaking his leg so it bent forth, not back. The Frenchman cried out in pain, cursing, if I was correct, until he slumped to the ground and held his wounds. I then stepped forwards, moving to the fray. "Votre temps est maintenant!" called a French sapper, a man who carried a large axe and built field holds for his own, ran forth to me. I stumbled back, frightened by this brutes appearance, as well as the great axe he wielded like a bull. The Frenchman slammed the wooden stock of the axe into my chin, and sent me stumbling back, blood in my saliva, to land once more on the ground. Shortly afterwards, the French attackers left. I rose, wiping blood from my mouth with my sleeve.
"Still alive, yeah?" chuckled a more veteran soldier who passed me, on his way to his prior position.
I nodded, yet refrained from speech for respect out of this fine soldier. I looked towards my prior position, and noticed a man already seated. I turned to the Frenchman I had broken the knee of, and found him dead, presumably from a loss of blood. I rose, and strode up the staircase that led to the upper walls of the farmhouse. I moved to a position facing the French, where a man lay dead from gunshot. The French must have grand sharpshooters to hit and kill a man from such a distance. A song began to be sung amongst my brigade, a song of our home back in Austria. This song was once our anthem. This brought back hope.