Nissen News - 15.12.1941, Blaðsíða 9

NISSEN NEWS
7
biscuit. A quantity of these old rations
has been discovered during the excava-
tion and is now on view in the Q.M. Sto-
res. (Naturally, the biscuits have become
rather hard with the passing of time.)
Copies of the documents concerning the
scheme were addressed to “Imperata Dir-
ectoria Medica Servicus at the Imperata’s
Office, Tenfen Way”. Another copy was
addressed to Anthony and Cleopatra at
their summer quarters.
A quaint list of returns was also found
in what appears to have been a Roman
Director’s office. It was marked “Most
Urgent” and when found was unopened.
W.
The Raids Came
Berlin was silent to-night. Why hadn’t
the British bombers come? People hurri-
ed home, wondering, and not a little re-
lieved. The only pedestrians were those
who h a d to be out. Firewatchers, mili-
tary, and police.
A clock chimed somewhere in Unter
den Linden. Gott in HimmelH Would
the British dogs never arrive? Fritz Hau-
ben gazed hopefully out of his darken-
ed shop, watching the starlit sky. Fritz
had kept the old pawnshop at the corn-
er of Friedrichstrasse and Gartenstrasse
for many years. He had been lucky. The
bombs had not touched his shop .... yet.
Suddenly an ear-piercing siren hroke
the silence. At last! “I thought they would
come.” Fritz hurriedly shut the door of
his shop and went down into the cellar.
The crack of anti-aircraft fire was now
plainly heard and searchlights tore
through the sky in an effort to find the
British ’planes. Then it started. A bomb
dropped in the Park which Fritz had so
often visited, and where he had listen-
ed to the German military hand.
Would they get him to-night? As he
crouched in the cellar his thoughts turn-
ed to his boyhood days. Days when he
had played in the Park with his German
nurse. When one could walk the streets
without the fear of hearing the bombs
falling and the far greater fear of Death.
He had been told by his father, that
one day the Germans would rule the
World. That the British race and all like
races would be ground into the dust to
make way for the magnificent German
nation. He wasn’t quite so confident of
this great victory as he heard the ’planes
of the enemy soar overhead and the deaf-
ening blast of the big bombs. Fritz re-
called too, the songs his mother used
to sing to him when he was a little boy.
How she used to play the music-box for
him, and tell him sweet things about the
birds and the trees. He began to sing
one of those songs now. It was called
“Die Fliigel sind Schön”, (The Birds are
Beautiful), and as he sang, his voice
trembled — trembled with the ever-in-
creasing fear that he would be killed.
He was in the middle of the song, and
then ......
A heap of smouldering rubble was .all
that remained of Fritz’s shop. No one
ever found him. A British heavy boml)
had hit the premises direct. You may
say, “Poor fellow, he didn’t want war;
all he wanted was to hear his mother
sing the old songs once again, and to
walk in the Park and listen to the band.”
Ah yes, my friends, but just remember
this. In a recent raid on London, a dir-
ect hit was made on a block of shops,
at the corner of which lived a pawnbrok-
er and his family. All were killed. So
while you think of giving sympathy to
Fritz Hauben, consider also the Solomon
family who used to keep the little shop
on that corner in Cheapside.
Robert Yale.