The Rat Patrol 2: Desert Danger Read Online Free PDF Page B

noose. The officer jerked and in the flickering of time when his arm about Moffitt's neck relaxed, Moffitt squirmed about chopping at the hand that held the pistol at the same time he was groining the man with his knee. Briefly the German's hands clutched at Moffitt's throat but then they reached back to struggle at his own. Moffitt smashed his knee into the German's groin again but he already had begun to slump. Hitch tumbled over the side of the halftrack and fell onto the ground atop the man. Moffitt heard Hitch grunt twice and then he was up on his knees, then standing, breathing hard, astride the officer. Although Moffitt could not see it in the dark, he knew a two-foot length of plaited nylon rope was dangling from one of Hitch's hands.
    "Good show," Moffitt said quietly. "As neat a job of garroting as ever I've lived through."
    "What do we do with the corpus delecti?" Hitch whispered.
    "Heave it over the side into the halftrack," Moffitt said.
    They propped the lifeless, sagging figure against the side and, supporting and tugging, boosted themselves and the corpse over and onto the bed. Moffitt bent over the limp form and swiftly began to undress it.
    "His cap and pistol," he said urgently. "They must be out there on the ground. We'll have to find them."
    Hitch clambered down and Moffitt removed the German's belt, tunic, shirt, boots and breeches. He laid the clothing carefully in a pile in one comer, rolled the body over and shoved it against the gun mount. Hitch climbed back with the cap and pistol which Moffitt placed on top of the other clothing.
    "Let's move," Hitch said. "I used to call this place home but it's getting crowded."
    "Rather," Moffitt said agreeable. "Shall we pop off?" 
    "Yeah, but wait a minute," Hitch said. He sounded puzzled. "Why'd you undress him? What are you going to do with his clothes?"
    "Nothing, I hope," Moffitt said cheerfully. "But they'll be here if I need them. If I have to go in to look for Wilson, they'll be checking for Arabs like Troy and Tully, not a German officer."
    "That I see, Doc," Hitch said. "Just one more thing. That chatter you gave out with when you brought him back. It sounded like you were sneezing, coughing and gargling all at once. Did it mean anything?"
    "Indeed it did," Moffitt said, laughing. "I was being choked to death. Just before that, to let you know which of us was which, I'd told him good night and goodbye in idiomatic Arabic."
    "Hey, that's pretty good, Doc," Hitch said and popped his gum appreciatively.
    "Stow the chicle, myte," Moffitt said in tight Cockney. "If you'd ha' busted that buble at the wrong time, there'd neither of us be on deck for the next show."
    "Yeah," Hitch said slowly. "It ought to be about time for the main event right soon."
     
    The hallway behind the stage at the tavern was long and cramped and draped with odors so evil they would not mingle but were suspended in separate nauseatingly distinctive streamers of harsh tobacco, cloying perfume, rancid food, diseased flesh and decayed filth. Jaundiced fingers of light from fat lamps poked feebly through brown beads that curtained the archways to two rooms at the left and one room at the end. No sound came from the two rooms off the hall but conversation jangled from the end room.
    Troy swallowed, tasting the bitter-sour spume of bile, and thought the last room must be a kitchen where all were dipping fingers in a communal pot. He and Tully stood furtively against the flaking rough walls a few feet back from the curtain, narrowly watching the German officer who stood in the front entrance. Lights from the building on the other side of the street outlined him clearly. The officer seemed uncertain whether or not to come in after them.
    "We can wait here and take him quiet," Tully murmured. He reached under his robe and pulled out his long, curving Bowie knife. Glancing over at Troy, he wrinkled his forehead and lifted his eyebrows questioningly as he pricked his thumb with the knife's