1944 (Part V)

Again a few days passed and despite the fact that I continued to feel like Lieutenant Skrzetuski, about my horse I was starting to forget, or maybe rather I was trying not to think about. 

Still every new day brought me some next adventure and something interesting always happened. 

Unfortunately one night unexpectedly Russian bombers flew in, and loudly for such a small town the sirens blared in alarm. 

The entire building, as well as the neighbors from nearby homes, ran down to the LSR shelter in our cellar and where somewhere near, and in this town really everywhere was close, the bombs began to drop and explode, everyone in the shelter like at the races fervently and very loudly began to pray from fear, and the mood became so unbearable that I stealthily broke out onto the street. 

My mother, who at the last moment oriented herself to what I did best, and wanting to run after me, was caught and held down by a few of the stronger neighbors, and I was already for a long time not there. 

I scurried down some streets, backyard and gardens, as long as it was further from the shelter. From the fear the feeling of indescribable excitement was much stronger, as if I had suddenly found myself at the very least at the Bohemian Prater or Tivoli Gardens. 

Beyond this I wanted to also prove myself as Lieutenant Skrzetuski, on whom such a bombardment for sure would not make any great impression. I saw, from several points of luminescence, colorful bullets flying from the anti-aircraft artillery, but despite this the bombs fell relatively densely. 

I knew well that when such a bomb approached, which was easily recognizable by the characteristic whistle, then immediately you had to throw yourself flat on the ground, and just after the explosion calmly stand and run onward. 

Once I almost couldn’t get up, and each time it came to me with great trouble, because laying just at the wall of some home, in which inside, or rather on the other side, the bomb blew up, I was thoroughly covered in a thick layer of plaster which fell from the wall. By the time the alarm was called off, hearing that the airplanes were flying away, with haste I ran home, where everyone was still praying in the shelter. 

The crowd with my crying and completely broken mother caught me in the cellar corridor. Feigning great embarrassment, I told my mom that out of fright I really had to take a dump, which was why I ran to the free standing outhouse in the backyard, to deposit it there, and then soon, even before the bombs began to drop, I returned, and the whole time stood by the door in the cellar corridor and quietly prayed. 

Just at the break of dawn, I ran into town to see the destruction and corpses. The next night passed quietly, because no airplanes came, and afterwards night after night there were airplanes and bombardment, and I night after night ran from the LSR shelter with a conscious purpose, pretending to go to the backyard outhouse, and I told my poor mother that I always then quietly prayed at the door. 

Once it hit so close that I was injured by an entire large triple window and parapet, curtain rod, curtains and several potted nasturtiums and pelargoniums. My mom began to suspect something, and more someone helpful had told on me, that a few times he saw me, as I ran around town during the bombardments. 

My mother made a quick decision and thus ended my city life. The next day we were back with ours, in this eighteen-person farm house. And what was funniest, up to the end of our stay in the area there were no more bombing runs.