The Deathly Silence I’d Heard About

But the buzz bombs were coming over England, buzz bombs we called them, they called them doodlebugs then and then they got the name doodlebugs and buzz bombs. They were the V-1's. And when I got to my hotel, I was at the Park Lannigan (sp) and I asked for a room and ya they gave me one on the top floor. I didn’t realize the significance of that but it was a hot summer evening and I heard, I could hear them in the distance, coming every few minutes and hear an explosion or so on, and then I heard one that sounded a little deeper and what it was, I was in line, pretty close to the line of it and it came along. I remember it got loud, starts like a motorcycle and louder and louder and finally the ground shakes almost and it went along and then a deathly silence that I had heard about and it felt as if a giant had kicked the whole hotel with his boot. I don’t know how far away we were, but it certainly shook that hotel. By the way, the plaster, you could see cracks in the plaster. A few minutes later another one came but I could see a flaming light because with my window with curtains drawn aside and everything, I could see the light, a thing in the distance. I could see the reflection from light, it was the engine, of course, and it came along thunderous force and then blackness, deathly silence again and then another just like a giant, you know, same shock to the whole hotel. And then they didn’t, none were close after that so I got some sleep.