Then came the great tragedy for those gallant companies. Something went wrong with the liaison service. It was such a thing as is always likely to happen where two forces of men, speaking different languages, are working in co-operation. An officer suddenly woke to the fact that there were no French troops on the flanks of his command. The same realization was forced home to each of the four companies. The now famous "yielding defense" of the French had operated and their forces had fallen back in the face of the impetuous German onslaught. Four companies of Pennsylvanians alone faced the army of the German Crown Prince. In the midst of that Gehenna of fighting, no man has clearly fixed in his mind just what happened to cause the separation of the line. Certainly the French must have sent word that they were about to fall back. Certainly the companies, as such, never received it. Possibly the runners conveying the orders never got through. Maybe the message was delivered to an officer who was killed before he could pass it on. Whatever the reason, the French fell back, and there were left in that fore-field of heroic endeavor only little milling, twisting groups, at intervals of several thousand feet, where our valiant Pennsylvania lads fought on still for very dear life. The Boche hordes swept onward, pressing the French. The Americans were surrounded. Captain Cousart and a handful of his men were severed completely from the rest and taken prisoners. Lieutenant William R. Dyer, of Carney's Point, N. J., and Lieutenant Bateman, of Wayne, Pa., at the other flank of Company L, and almost half a platoon met a similar fate. Lieutenant Maurice J. McGuire was wounded. Lieutenant James R. Schoch, of Philadelphia, was next in command of Company L. Not far from him, Sergeant Frank Benjamin, also of Philadelphia, was still on his feet and pumping his rifle at top speed. From forty to fifty men of the company were within reach. The lieutenant and the sergeant managed to consolidate them and pass the word to fall back, fighting. Part of the time they formed something like a circle, fighting outward in every direction, but always edging back to where they knew the support lines were. They literally fought their way through that part of the Prussian army that had gotten between them and the regimental lines. At times they fought from tree to tree, exactly as they had read of Indians doing. When they were pressed so closely that they had to have more room, they used their bayonets, and every time the Hun gave way before the "cold steel." Here and there they met, singly or in small groups, other men of the company who had become separated. These joined the party, so that when, after hours of this dauntless struggle, Lieutenant Schoch stood in front of headquarters, saluted and said: "Sir, I have brought back what was left of L Company," he had sixty-seven men in the little column.