THE SANDMAN

They sat together in a bunker, hunkered down at Padua, Italy, and the allied bombers flew overhead. Explosions could be heard nearby and they shrank back and shivered and moved closer to each other.
A little group comprised of soldiers, some officers and girl army staff assistants. waited for the air raid to come to an end. But it intensified,. and seemed to move ever closer. It was January 1945.
To take the mind off, and soothe the nerves, the Major began relating a story, and here is what he said:

“I was on leave of absence in Salzburg and saw a play at the Festival House,. Field Marshal Hermann Goering,- who had taken his little girl to the play was in the audience, and sat in a special loge. Although the play was officially for children, the theater was packed with soldiers on leave from the front, nuns and priests, and many Austrian families with their children who gazed with wide open eyes..

The play’s Title was “Little Peter’s trip to the Moon” - the exploits and adventures of a little boy and his sister, and the Sandman guiding them through many adventures, in wonderland. There were delightful scenes from the Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales In one scene the Sandman guided the children into fairy-land, sitting on a big bear and guiding it. The vastness of the festival house stage lent it self ideally for the production of the play. The culminating moment came when the Sandman shot the children through a cannon up to the moon, . Many stage hands worked feverishly behind the wings to keep things going smoothly...
.
The Star of the show was a young actress, who played the Sandman. She was very good, very comic , full of pranks and stunts as she commanded the stars and planets, and comets, making them dance with a wave of her hand bidding the stars to move apart, or to cluster together. And at the sandman’s wink the stars started flitting across the stage horizon, and the children squealed with delight, and everyone was lifted into another world. The children’s ballet was splendid and the soldiers roared with laughter at the sandman’s stunts. Then the Sandman with the children rode across the stage on a polar bear. Uproarious laughter. This play made everyone forget the horror of war for a while. During intermissions the audience had an uneasy peek up at the special loge where Hermann Goering sat.

The major stopped his narrative now, as several explosion now resounded near the bunker, and after things had quieted down, and then resumed it again. Everyone hung on his lips, grateful for the soothing distraction during an intensive air raid. They all listened intently and smiled sympathetically. One of the army staff assistants was profoundly moved by the narrative . And as the major once again spoke of the antics the sandman had performed on stage , and how they had delighted him, the army staff assistant got up from her chair, and imitated the words and actions in the play, and gestrure even anticipating the cue words, in the most minute detail..

The Major’s mouth dropped wide open, too stunned to speak aright - then he stuttered: “ impossible, impossible, simply impossible, - but yet, - nobody else could do this,- but you.. “You were the Sandman.” He had tears in his eyes, so had the army staff assistant. The young army staff assistant smiled in tears and said:” Ja Herr Major, I played the star role of the sandman“.

A siren sounded outside the All Clear and the troop staggered out of the bunker.

Copyright Elizabeth Dandy