Having graduated from artillery school and becoming a student at the Leningrad Voenmekh, Sasha Polukhin could not even imagine that the theoretical knowledge acquired there would be useful to him in practice. In the very first battle in the fall of 1941, his unit was defeated by superior forces of the Nazis, and Sasha himself survived only by a miracle. What should a young Red Army soldier do if he was left alone on the side of the road along which a steel roller of German motorized units was rushing toward his hometown? Step aside to save your life? Or lead a handful of surviving soldiers, form them into a crew for the old regimental cannon and give battle to the arrogant invaders?