Medium

8 very dead Germans

Two undone

Helmet head

Offers to let Troy escape, so medium

Jan's Notes: The Two Against Time Raid, A.k.a. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again
11 May 1999

This is another one of those bad days at the office for Dietrich. He really should ask for a transfer. Anywhere would be less hazardous than having to deal with the Patrol over and over again. This time the Patrol blows up not only his office but his super secret ammo dump. And his pants get ripped to boot.

The Germans have a secret ammo dump but aerial reconnaissance have been unable to spot the location. So the patrol get the task of finding out where the dump is and destroying it. Moffitt and Troy figure the easiest way to locate the dump would be to visit Dietrich at his office and take a picture of the humongous map which obligingly has the dump marked with both a X and a big arrow pointing to the spot (the X wasn't obvious enough). Moffitt and Troy creep over the rooftops and climb down a rope to the balcony outside Dietrich's office. Poor Troy, being compact does have its disadvantages. He had a bit of a problem finding the balcony. Moffitt on the other hand with his long legs just swung himself over and voilá was on the balcony. He barely had to use the rope at all. Moffitt also is carrying the biggest camera he could find ­- guess he needed a big honking camera to take a big honking picture of the big honking map.

Dietrich is in his office along with one of his officers. This officer just happens to be standing right in front of the map so in order for Moffitt to take his picture, Troy shoots the German -- sending the German splattering all across the map plus putting a few holes in the map for good measure. They were sure lucky that one of those holes didn't take out the location of the ammo dump.

Moffitt then very quickly takes a shot of the map, and Troy throws a grenade into Dietrich's office. Moffitt and Troy quickly scurry off to be picked up by Tully and Hitch. Tully and Hitch were just hanging about comparing bubble-gum chewing to matchstick sucking. After picking up Moffitt and Troy, they make a quick getaway, shooting all the Germans who offer themselves up as sacrifice to the Fatherland. They also drive through the local marketplace and destroy that too!

Meanwhile Dietrich picks himself off the floor and examines his poor map. He then calls another one of this men on the phone to tell him what happened. The soldier must have been asleep on the job 'cause he doesn't understand when Dietrich tells him that the super secret map had just been photographed. Dietrich, already frustrated with how his day is unfolding, loses his patience. However, he quickly regains it and makes arrangements for a convoy to head out to the ammo dump to get the supplies there. Also, realizing that the Patrol moves very, very fast, he gathers a few of his "finest and brightest" and heads out the ammo dump right away, hoping to prevent the Patrol from doing what they do best: destroy, destroy, destroy.

Hitch develops the picture that Moffitt took. I'm assuming that the camera was some early version of the Polaroid unless the Patrol has a darkroom hidden out on the desert somewhere. And though the picture quality is poor, it is definitely good enough to see the big arrow pointing towards the super, secret ammo dump. Why the Germans would mark their super secret ammo dump on a map the size of a blackboard, I have no idea. Anyway the patrol hightail it out to the ammo dump.

The ammo dump turns out to be a cave in the side of a hill, which is why the Allied planes could not find it. Tully and Hitch get sent in to check whether there really are ammo and explosives inside, which there are. And they figure they are at least three hours ahead of any convoy Dietrich might have on the way. Troy gathers explosives and wires and heads into the cave to set up the explosives. Moffitt, Tully, and Hitch move the jeeps away from the cave and prepare the firing mechanism.

Unbeknownst to Patrol, though, Dietrich has arrived with his chosen few. While Moffitt, Tully and Hitch are moving the jeeps back, Dietrich and one of his chosen run toward the cave. But for some reason, when they are running, they keep looking back over their shoulder as if they are being chased by giant jumping spidies. Or maybe they just want to make sure that the rest of the chosen are staying put and not following them like a pack of disobedient puppies.

Dietrich sneaks up on Troy and cries Boo! Troy of course tells Dietrich that he wouldn't fire out of fear of hitting one of the cases in the ammo and setting the whole thing off. This of course makes Dietrich's companion extremely nervous and trigger happy. In the meantime, the rest of the chosen are trying to sneak up on Moffitt, Tully, and Hitch. However, they look just like a bunch of jackrabbits bouncing up and down behind the rocks and are spotted immediately by Hitch. A short gun battle ensues with all the Germans being killed, naturally. As soon as the patrol starts shooting at them, the Germans immediately run out to make easier targets.

In the cave, Dietrich and Troy have a stand off and they can hear the gunfire. Then the gunfire stops. Dietrich is extremely optimistic about the success of his chosen. Given his past history, he is practically delusional, but, hey, a guy has got to keep the faith. The nervous soldier is twitching uncontrollably by now. Maybe he knows something Dietrich doesn't.

Tully and Moffitt finish preparing the firing mechanism and decide to see what is keeping Troy.

Meanwhile, back in the cave, Troy decides to send nervous soldier over the edge and reaches for his pistol. Nervous soldier shoots and misses (of course) and Troy shoots and scores. Dietrich then shoots at Troy and misses. But the vibration causes a stack of boxes to fall on Dietrich which pins him to the ground and injures his leg.

Troy figures that it is time to vamoose but he hesitates 'cause he doesn't like the idea of leaving Dietrich there. (Troy, Troy, Troy -- yes, Dietrich can be a nice guy, but there is a war on, you know.) This hesitation is costly 'cause the cave is extremely unstable. And before Troy can leave, the entrance caves in.

Questions regarding the cave: Where did all the timber used to shore up the entrance come from? And why didn't they use enough to make sure cave-ins didn't occur? And if they didn't have any more timber, surely their engineers could have come up with an alternate method of stabilizing the cave. They were using this for an ammo dump and would want to have unrestricted access to it, I should have thought. Anyway, there Troy is caught with Dietrich inside this cave with a bunch of ammo and his guys on the outside hopefully trying to blow the thing up.

Tully and Moffitt are on their way in when the entrance caves in. Moffitt decides that the only thing to do is to finish the mission and blow the dump. Tully and Hitch don't like this. In fact, they dislike this so much they call Moffitt Sarge. Hitch pushes Tully out of the way and gets real close to Moffitt telling him that the least they could do is try to dig Troy out. They have at least 45 minutes before the convoy arrives. I just hope that Hitch doesn't spit when he talks 'cause Moffitt would have had a real shower. Good thing Caesar Salad wasn't a K ration. Moffitt agrees to try to dig Troy out 'cause he's afraid Hitch will breathe in his face again. So Moffitt and Hitch go to try to dig Troy out while Tully gets to stand watch for the convoy.

Back in the cave, Troy and Dietrich are exchanging pleasantries -- talking about the weather and how the Dodgers are doing this year and whether or not they are going to get out of this cave alive. Troy suddenly notices that the wires leading to the explosives have been cut. Troy starts to reconnect the wires doing some nifty splicing. Dietrich tries to convince him of the futility of his efforts. Troy basically says, "The opera isn't over until the fat lady sings." Dietrich, who I'm sure has been exposed to Wagnerian opera understands this.

Moffitt and Hitch don't make much progress in digging Troy out before Tully comes running in with the report that convoy with major escort power is only 10 minutes away. The guys realize that if they want to blow the dump, they are going to have to do it now. So they leave the cave and head over to the firing mechanism. Tully goes and stands on the hill watching the convoy draw closer while Hitch and Moffitt stare remorsefully at the plunger.

Meanwhile Troy is still splicing the wires together and Dietrich is still telling him it is fruitless because Troy's men are dead, killed by the chosen. Outside, Tully comes running up again and says the convoy is now only five minutes away. Like, let's blow this popsicle stand and get out of here. Moffitt grimly takes hold of the plunger, looks at Tully and Hitch, and then pushes it in. Nothing happens. So he checks all the contact points, re-tightens the screws and tries again. Nothing! Then he pushes and pulls the plunger again, and again, and again, and again.

Troy is still splicing the wires together. Fortunately, he doesn't get them spliced in time. And Moffitt has given up plunging just as Troy joins the final two wires together. Moffitt is quite despondent by this time. As far as he is concerned, they have lost Troy and failed to blow the dump. A totally bad day. Tully reminds the guys that if they don't leave real soon, their bad day is going to get a lot worse. So reluctantly Moffitt and Hitch climb into the jeeps and they start to drive off.

Meanwhile, back in the cave, Dietrich announces that he knows a way out of the cave. That there is a back entrance. Guess he got tired of watching Troy play with his wires. Dietrich's leg is injured so he will require Troy's assistance. Troy, figuring that once he gets out he can still try to blow up the dump, agrees to help Dietrich. He lifts the stuff off of Dietrich and helps Dietrich up. At this point, we see that Dietrich wears white boxer shorts because there is a monstrous rip in his pants. (Must know a good Arab laundry service.) He also has a bad rip in his knee. Dietrich points the way out to Troy and they both make their way out of the cave. Once out of the cave, Dietrich offers to let Troy go if he runs to the hills. Troy says he still has a mission to accomplish. He then sees his men driving off. He knocks Dietrich down, grabs his pistol and fires it. Moffitt, Tully, and Hitch, having exceptional hearing, hear the report over the sound of their jeeps and the approaching convoy and return to pick up Troy. They then race over to the plunger and Troy blows up the dump.

Dietrich picks himself up again and limps towards the approaching convoy which now has nothing to transport. If I were Dietrich, I would have limped off in the opposite direction and kept walking until I hit the Atlantic Ocean. We get to see the patented Dietrich "I'm the unluckiest guy on the face of the earth" look.

Later, Moffitt asks Troy if he had the opportunity to kill Dietrich. Troy responds that he did but didn't even try. Moffitt and Tully exchange looks as if to say "Troy likes Dietrich, Troy likes Dietrich!" Hitch just smirks at Troy.

The Patrol managed to ruin Dietrich's his office, ammo dump, and his favourite pair of pants, plus kill off another twenty or so of his men. I certainly would like to see Dietrich's report on this. Maybe he can blame it on the giant jumping spidies.

Jan, Rhonda, and Cindy
The West Coast Rats
At their V-E Day Marathon Weekend

Further commentary from Anne:

A BTMM is a Blood-Thirsty Moffitt Moment.

Jan describes: "Later, Moffitt asks Troy if he had the opportunity to kill Dietrich."

As I recall, Moffitt is kinda looking gloomy and Troy asks what's eating him. The first time I saw this episode I was so sure that Moffitt was going to say, "Troy, I feel bad that I was trying so hard to blow you up and almost succeeded!" Or something to that effect.

Nope, he says, "You could've killed Dietrich, couldn't you, and you didn't, you puddle of mush!" only more elegantly. Not the slightest regret for having tried his darnedest to reduce his C.O. to disintegrated atoms.

That's our blood-thirsty Moffitt! Gotta love him.

previous	table of contents	next
return to the briefing room by jeep return to the briefing room by tank

Logomancy is based in Riverdale, NYC, and Austin, TX. Questions or Comments? Don't hesitate to let us know!