An odd mission. Easy enough, once you know a couple of secrets, and rather fun; but unusual in that it bears a considerable resemblance to the previous one. Usually H&D alternates or varies the pattern and setting of the missions. This time you've got two in a row in which you have to sneak up to a big house in the dark, eliminating sentries, and get inside and shoot up the bad guys in order to reach your target - though in this case the goal is much simpler.

MISSION: Enter the house and capture Colonel Steiner. (Who bears a startling resemblance to Major Mountbatten. Serious inbreeding in these old European families I'm afraid.) This time you are required to eliminate all the guards.

CONDITIONS: Another pleasant night, though without the big corny moon. Again, most of the action is indoors so visibility isn't a problem after the beginning.

THE OPPOSITION: Usual bunch of clowns, though better armed than the last lot. One guard walking outside the perimeter, one cruising around the yard. Rifleman up on the balcony - only rifleman around as far as I can tell. One bozo operating the searchlight. Two out at the front gate.

Everybody else indoors. Three or four in the front entry hall, two in the side corridor, one in the radio room, one in a room up at the front. That's all downstairs. Upstairs, you've got Steiner, who of course mustn't be harmed, and his bodyguard, who of course must. You've got one on the balcony around the central hall, one in the corridor on the other side, and four in various rooms. They're all spread out so in most cases you'll only be dealing with one at a time.

PERSONNEL: No real need to take four men. Actually this one could be lone-wolfed but it would be a big pain in the ass because you'd have to be running up and down stairs. Anyway, there's some pretty decent loot to be carried off, so go ahead and take four.

Any reasonably competent men can do this job. Fairly good endurance ratings are needed, though, because there's a good chance of being nicked.

EQUIPMENT: You'll need one rifle and a modest amount of ammo. Everybody gets an MP-40 and a fair number of clips. Everybody carries several Mills-type grenades. That's all.

AT THE START: You're all standing in a circle out in the woods, facing the wrong way and pointing guns at each other. I have no idea why. You're all wearing German uniforms. I don't know the reason for that either. It has absolutely no effect on the behavior of the Germans inside the house. You're the one in the natty little cap. Your underlings wear helmets.

PROCEDURE: Turn around and head south. As you approach the top of the hill turn a bit to your right and look for a small white warning sign on a metal post. This has no particular significance but it's a convenient rendezvous point; it's easy to get disoriented in the woods in the dark.

You're now on a hill overlooking the estate grounds. Before you do anything else you might want to look down at the foot of the hill, near the fence. There's a guard who walks a patrol around the whole place and he might be going by at this time. If so go ahead and shoot him. If not forget him for now. He's no threat; he's so useless he's a liability to the Wehrmacht.

There is also a guard walking around in the yard. He's considerably more dangerous and he's hard to spot. Look for him. If you can't find him then go ahead and turn your attention to the balcony. There is a rifleman out at the end of the balcony and he's extremely hard to see. Move around until you can see him, keeping an eye out for that son of a bitch down in the yard. If you can't see him either then shoot the searchlight operator. Shoot somebody, for God's sake, there's a war on after all.

(Don't burn up ammo, though, trying to shoot through the windows. You can't do it; they're bulletproof. Disappointing, innit?)

After you've eliminated all four - the rifleman, the searchlight jockey, the sentry outside the fence and the one in the yard - work your way around the west side of the premises, staying up on the hillside by the trees, until you can get a shot at the two sentries at the front gate. They're easy enough to pick off at a distance but dangerous if you get close to them, so use this opportunity to remove them.

Now bring your men up, and all of you go down into the yard. The nearest gate opens easily, if noisily; ignore the nonsense in the briefing about climbing over the fence. Watch out for that deep drainage ditch over to your right. Gather everybody together behind the house, next to the balcony.

Now go up to the big glass doors at the back of the house, where you see a long room with tables and chairs. (As the man said, it's deja vu all over again.) Station two men just outside the open door facing in, toward the closed wooden door on the other side of the room. Crouch down and run in through the open door and dodge over to one side so as to leave the guys outside a clear field of fire. Get your own MP-40 ready and aim it at the door.

What is happening is that you have tripped the trigger for some guards upstairs, who will come charging out of their quarters as soon as someone enters certain areas. In just a moment they're going to start coming through that door.

After you and your men have blown away the two stupid assholes who charged in through the doorway, move over into that little alcove next to the door, with the nice round-top table and chairs. There's a door opening onto the little hallway; from here you can see into the front entrance area. There's at least one guard out there, maybe two. Toss a grenade through the doorway into the entry hall and get back. This should take care of them.

Leave a man covering the door just in case and go back outside and up the steps to the balcony. Find the searchlight operator's remains and go through him. You will find a key. This is the key to the easy and successful completion of this mission. It unlocks the front door to the house, the side door, and the door to Steiner's office just in front of you.

Leave Steiner alone for right now and go back downstairs and around to the side door. Open it and shoot the guard standing in the hallway. He'll probably have his back to you.

Now have one of your men go through the kitchen (opening off the dining room, to the east) and turn to the right and open the door there and shoot the other guard in the other part of the hallway.

Having cleared the hallway, there are a couple of useful things you can do. On your right as you proceed up the hallway from the kitchen, there is a room containing various boxes and crates. It also contains a machine gun and some potato mashers. Have your third man come pick this stuff up. The MG only contains a modest amount of ammo but it's still very much worth scoring; it'll be very valuable in the last mission in this campaign.

On the left side of the corridor is a single door. This goes to the radio room, from which you will hear sounds of strange voices. Kick the door open and you will see before you, standing beneath a picture of the late A. Hitler, a German-type person with, if your luck is in, his back to you. Better use third-person to check on that last part. Shoot him if he's facing away from you, grenade him if he's ready. Go inside and admire the radio if you like, but don't open the door at the end of the room.

Note the map of Italy, in a villa supposedly located in Germany. Remember the map of Norway in the Rumanian bunker? It's becoming clear why they lost the war.

Now we come to an important problem. There is a man with an MP-40 standing on the balcony above the entry hall. He's over to one side so you can't see him or get at him from any of the downstairs doors you've accessed so far. He's covering the entry hall and the stairs.

There are several ways you can get him. Most involve daring moves, opening doors suddenly or jumping out where you can shoot him, hoping he doesn't shoot you first.

Easier and safer way: walk around the house and go up on the front porch. (Remember, only the man who has the key can open this door.) Standing well over to one side, open the front door and immediately step sidewise out of the doorway. Climb over the rail, don't try to go down the steps.

Now go out in the yard and circle around until you're more or less lined up on the front door, and get down and crawl in the direction of your target. He's on the right as you look in through the front door, and he's up on the balcony, right at the corner. Remember how you shot that evil son of a bitch off the catwalk in that building back in C1M2? This is pretty much the same thing, only this one isn't nearly as dangerous. You'll have plenty of time to line up on him; he's not looking your way or anything. I suppose you could keep going till you've got a view of his whole body, but I just crawl till I've got his legs and feet in view and then shoot them out from under him.

With him out of the way, the rest is pretty easy. Go back up the outside stairs to the balcony. Open the outside door to Steiner's office and shoot his bodyguard in the back, being careful not to hit Steiner.

Walk past the little bastard and ignore his snarled demand that you give yourself up. The door next to his desk should be open. Toss a grenade through and kill the occupant. Walk through the door and through the next room and open the door on the far side. It's a double door; open that one too. Back up to a safe distance and chuck a grenade in and step aside before it goes off.

You're nearly done. Go into the room you just grenaded. The next door opens onto the hallway. Go over and open it and step back quickly, just in case. There is a German in the hallway, somewhere to your left. There is another one in the open room across the hall, admiring the large painting of the lady with no clothes on. The one in the hallway is by far the more dangerous. Get into position to toss a grenade into the hallway where it will bounce off the wall and roll on down to where he's standing. The beauty of this is that if you miscalculate, the grenade will probably go into the room with the nude painting and kill the drooling geek in there, so either way you win. Careful, though, remember how glitchy H&D can be about grenades, be sure and save before throwing.

Once you've blown up the hallway guard, you can either try to grenade the one in the room with the painting or just go over and shoot him. All he's got is a pistol but still he's dangerous, so I advise blowing him up. It won't damage the naked lady, you'll see.

One more up here. Down the hallway to the north, there's a door on your left that opens into an office, and there's one clerical type in there. Just open the door and shoot him, or if you're still being cautious grenade him.

At this point you should have only one remaining enemy in the building, other than Steiner. Somebody downstairs can do this. There's a little door opening off the entrance hall, next to the front doorway. Open this and you'll be in a curious sort of short hallway with another door at the end. Open that and very quickly shoot the man inside. He'll be facing toward the other door so you can get him if you're fast.

At this point you should get a message saying you've completed the part about killing everybody. If you don't then you missed one somewhere. Have to do a room-by-room and that won't be fun.

On the other hand if you do get the message then take a minute and stroll around the place, particularly downstairs, and admire the Early Whorehouse decor in the various rooms. The designers really knocked themselves out with this set and the previous one. Enjoy; the missions ahead won't be in such gracious surroundings.

Scavenge up any ammo lying around - you've probably got plenty by now, but waste not, want not - and then go brace Steiner. I like to pick up a pistol off the corpse in the next room and go in and stick it in Steiner's face. As the voice begins threatening him I swing around and shoot the fat-faced woman in the painting beside his head. That'll show the little Nazi turd we mean business.