“I think,” said Doorn, “that God forgives us our sins. But, as the steps say, there are some things we must do, in order to make ourselves worthy of forgiveness.”
“What should I do?”
“What religion are you?”
“I was a Catholic, but now I don’t know. We did vicious things in the name of the Catholic Church.”
“You know what the next steps are?”
“Not really,” Georg said.
“Well, next, you have to make a searching and fearless moral inventory.”
“Oh, I know what I’ve done, and what a horrible mess I’ve made of my life.”
“Have you admitted to God, to yourself, and to somebody else, the exact nature of your wrongs?” Doorn said.
“I…no. I’ve never told anyone else what happened. God knows, of course, and I do.”
“What did you do?”
“It was during the sack. I was in Pappenheim’s troop, and we had a sector of the city to loot. I…I killed some people.”
“You were a soldier.”
“Not like that. I…” Georg stopped.
“What? You have to spit it out, Georg. Tell me.”
“I killed a woman and I killed a little girl. They haunt me and I have been drinking to forget what I did.” Georg sagged with relief that he had finally been able to tell someone what he’d done.
“I cannot judge you for what you did during the sack, Georg,” Doorn said. What you did is between you and the people you injured and God. Have you tried to make amends?”
“How? They’re both dead, and I don’t think I can even find the house again since the sack. I quit the army. I’ve been drunk most of the time since. Things are very different now. Nothing is the same, except for the Dom and St. James’ church, you know.”
“Then you are going to have to figure out how to make amends indirectly,” Doorn said. “You will be in deep danger of losing your sobriety, and maybe your soul.”
“I think I’ve lost my soul already, Pieter,” Georg said.
“Can you sing?” that night’s meeting leader, who went by the name of Hans, asked Georg on the way out of the basement of St. James’ church.
“Loudly,” Georg said.
“But not well, then.”
“Nobody has asked me to be a soloist at the new Opera House, if that’s what you mean,” Georg said. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, the woman who is in charge of that new Salvation Army is looking for some singers. Some bandsmen, too. Do you play an instrument?”
“No.”
“You might talk to the Army, anyway, Georg. You need to start taking care of the eighth and ninth steps.”
“I…”
“Just think about it. You have shared about your background in the meeting, Georg, and I think it might be what you need.”
“I don’t know,” Georg said. “I feel like I’m being pushed around. I don’t have control, and I don’t know when I will slip off the cart and fall into the mud again. And for me, it isn’t mud. It is always horse shit.” He laughed bitterly.
Hans held out his hand. “You take care on the way home. There are footpads now, I hear. Magdeburg is the very model of a modern city now.”
“I will,” Georg said.
“Just remember, trust God, Georg.”
“Here, Georg, have a beer.”
Herr Wahlberg had taken to having a dinner for his supervisors every month or so, and Georg had finally gotten invited.
The men milled around in the Wahlbergs’ front room. There were some finger snacks, and there was, of course, beer.
“ Nein, danke,” Georg said. “I don’t drink anymore.”
“How did you do that?” Wahlberg asked him, “if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I have placed my life in God’s hands, Herr Wahlberg, and I live one day at a time,” Georg said.
“I’ve heard that before, somewhere,” Wahlberg said. “Ah, yes. One of the people that my wife works with in her Army of Salvation says it.”
“Your wife started the Salvation Army?”
“Yes. She did. It keeps her busy, praise God!”
Georg felt as though he was on the receiving end of a message from God. He had been seeing the Salvation Army musicians playing on street corners for a while now. Hans had told him that he should talk to the Army. Now, his boss’s wife was the actual creator of the Army of Salvation.
“I…Herr Wahlberg, I thank you for inviting me to your home. I must be going now,” Georg stuttered, “I have a meeting to go to.”
Georg walked up and down across the street from the nondescript storefront. The sign on the building said “Die Heilsarmee”-the Salvation Army. He kept stepping off the sidewalk and stopping, going back to pacing. He knew that he was making an important decision. He didn’t know what he was going to do. Now that it had come, he was having trouble committing to doing it.
He recited the first steps to himself. “I have realized that I am powerless over alcohol-and that my life is unmanageable. I have come to believe that a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. I have made a decision to turn my will and my life over to God…”
He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and marched across the street to the storefront. He put his hand on the door.
“I have made a list of all the people I have harmed, and I am willing to make amends to them all.”
He turned the doorknob, and went inside.
Pieter Doorn watched as the Heilsarmee Marching Band played its first concert on the steps of St. James’ church. For months now, they had been playing on streetcorners and in their storefront mission. Today, they were playing selections from Guys and Dolls as well as the hymns, both traditional and up-timer, that they were becoming famous for.
When they got to “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat,” Doorn heard Georg Schuler’s voice. Georg was certainly the loudest, if not the most melodious, he thought to himself. But then they did “Amazing Grace,” and Schuler sang with tears streaming down his face.
“Amazing Grace,” Georg sang as the band played, “how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.”
Salonica
Salonica, Ottoman Empire
Spring 1635
“Atesh!”
Once again the volley of rifle fire tore into the ranks of the bandits. It was more ragged this time. The defenders had taken casualties of their own since the attack on the inner walls of the gunpowder factory.
“To the wall! Forward!” Mustafa bin Kemal shouted. He looked at Sampson and grinned. “Well done, my friend. Those wonderful grenades saved us. Any left?”
Sampson Gideon reached over his shoulder into the grenade pack and held up a “potato masher.” “Last one, Mustafa. We’ll have to use dynamite from now on.”
If we had any dynamite, Sampson thought. He’d sent the last batch to the Sidrekapsi silver mine yesterday. Opening up new shafts at the mine took priority over grenades, by order of Melek Ahmed Pasha himself.
He and Mustafa were at the wall now.
Unlike the inner walls, the outer wall was incomplete and stood less than three feet high. The forest around the factory had been cut back, but it was still less than a hundred yards away.
“What now?” Sampson asked.
“Now we prepare for their next attack, my friend.” Mustafa said.
The bash cebeci- head armorer-turned to his men along the wall. “ Sungu tak! Sungu tak! ”
Sampson felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Fix bayonets? Oh, God, we’re going to die.
The words from the head enlisted man of the Essen military team, Senior-sergeant Duncan MacGregor, came back to him. “Better pray these Turks never need to use their rifles with the new bayonets, Mr. Gideon. They’ll carve you up like a chicken right quick with the bayonets in their hands, but they get too excited to use them on the rifles and just turn it into a club in the heat of battle.”
Sampson stopped Mustafa as he came down the line of men. “Fix bayonets? Mustafa, they don’t know how to use the bayonets.”