"Your left hand, and his, too!" Dave grated, and jerked his knife free. "You each wear a Nazi Staff ring. Your left hands, still wearing the ring, and the insignia from your tunics, will be evidence enough to convince our commanding officer that we have fulfilled our mission."
"Quite!" Freddy added in a brittle voice. "True, we may be killed as we race to reach our unit hiding in the woods. But that's the chance we take. They will reach our dead bodies, at least. And our commanding officer will see the severed hands, and the Staff rings, and the insignia from your tunics. He will know that we have performed our assignment."
"Why waste time?" Dave suddenly asked impatiently, and gestured with his Commando knife. "These two don't fear death that much. They'd never agree to the other way."
Dave was only making blind shots in the dark, but he prayed that Freddy wouldn't speak. And his prayer was answered. Freddy didn't say a word. He simply kept staring at the Germans and let the torment of silence do its stuff. And it did, right up to the hilt. Dave could almost look inside the skulls of the two Germans, and see the wheels spinning over. It was a case of the shoe being on the other foot, for those two. Hideous slaughter, and death, were part of their training. But it was something that they ordered, or performed. To torture and maim beyond the point of human endurance was fun for them. They loved it. It was a major part of their rotten lives; their vile existence on earth.
But the shoe was on the other foot now. They were to be on the receiving end of their own type of work. They weren't up against trained soldiers who killed, or captured, and sent their prisoners to a war camp. They were up against a new kind of enemy in this war. The Commando! The Commando trained to fight them at their own kind of battle, but with far, far more devastating effect. The Commando! The very name struck terror these days to any German's heart. Motionless shadows in the night who killed you before you could part your lips to cry out. Black phantoms who came and went like flashes of lightning. Tough men, hard as nails, who pressed triggers and then took a look to see what they'd bagged. And a good many times they didn't even bother to look. The Commando! The warrior who carried death in either hand, and could let it fly from any angle, and in any spot!
That's what Dave saw those two German high rankers thinking. He saw the fear mount in them. The first signs were a faint twitching of the lips, then throat muscles swallowing, and then fingers quivering slightly. And lastly, beads of sweat becoming too heavy, and trickling downward over the skin of their faces. Yes, the Germans were trained soldiers. They could not be classed as rank cowards. They did have a courage of their own. But this? The shoe was on the other foot, this time!
"What is the other way?" von Staube suddenly croaked at Dave.
The Yank let him stew a little longer, and then spoke to Freddy without turning his head.
"You tell him," he said. "You're in command here."
"Quite a simple way," Dave heard his English pal say. "You can come with us, if you don't wish us to take the evidence with us."