Ring of Fire III

“Not anymore.”

  “What?”

  “I have put myself into God’s hands, and I have stopped drinking.”

  “Come to think of it,” Georg said, “We haven’t been to a tavern together in quite some time. What do you mean, you have put yourself into God’s hands?”

  Doorn looked directly at Georg.

  “I have found some help, and I am living one day at a time,” he said quietly.

  “What help?”

  “I have been going to a meeting in the basement of St. James,’ ” Doorn said.

  Georg looked at him and sneered. “How can going to a meeting in a church make you stop drinking?”

  “I have had to look at my life and see that it wasn’t working,” Doorn said.

  “And you do this at a meeting?”

  “No, I do it in my life. I am doing it now. But I learn how at the meeting.”

  “So some priest preaches at you until you stop drinking, eh? I thought you Hollanders were all Calvinists anyway. I’ve never had a priest tell me anything that made me better. All they do is tell me how I am going to go to Hell.”

  “The priest isn’t even there most of the time. There are a group of us.”

  “Well, I don’t understand how this would make you quit drinking,” Georg said.

  “I could explain it to you, Georg, but I won’t. When you are ready, let me know and I will bring you to a meeting. You will understand better there.”

  Doorn levered himself upright. He stretched his shoulder muscles.

  “Time to go back to working,” he said as he walked off.

  Georg stood staring at Doorn’s back.

  * * *

  Georg turned. He was back in the house in Magdeburg. The woman was keening, holding her blood-spurting wrist. But strangely, the little girl was standing, staring at him, holding her body together with one hand. He was holding the bloody hanger. The little girl said, “Why?” and blood came out of her mouth in a gush. “Why?” Her eyes stayed on Georg’s as her body fell away in two pieces.

  As always, Georg woke shaking. His eyes were wide open and gradually, he became aware of his real surroundings.

  He went to work that morning as if nothing had happened. He was shaky, though, and his friend Doorn noticed quickly.

  “Georg, are you all right?” Doorn said.

  “Ja, of course... No, I...am not all right.”

  “Can I be of help?”

  “I...I would like to hear more about this meeting you were talking about.”

  “Of course. There is likely to be one tonight. We use a program that the up-timers knew about. It is called ‘twelve steps.’ ”

  “What are the steps?” Georg asked.

  “In the first step,” Doorn said, “we admit that we are powerless over alcohol.”

  “Well, that’s certainly true enough,” Georg said.

  “There are eleven more steps,” Doorn said, “that lead us to recovery and the ability to live a good and sober life.”

  * * *

  There were chairs in a circle. The meeting had started already when Doorn and Georg came in. After a few people stood up and spoke, it was obvious how to participate. After one of the speakers paused and sat down, there were some people who were looking at Georg expectantly. He stood up.

  “My name is Georg Schuler. And I am a drunk.”

  * * *

  “Schuler, come in, come in!” Friedrich Wahlberg said, rising from behind his desk and coming around with his hand extended. “Thanks for coming in!”

  “What can I do for you, Herr Wahlberg?” Georg was concerned and a little nervous.

  “You’ve been doing well, now, for a couple of months, Schuler,” Wahlberg said. “And we need steady workers. I’m going to put you on permanently, if you wish.”

  “No more day labor?” Georg said.

  “No more day labor.”

  “When do I start?” Georg said.

  The word got around quickly on the jobsite. Georg kept getting congratulations on his good fortune all day long. At quitting time, his workmates suggested that he come to the Bierstube with them to celebrate his new status.

  “Georg! It is time to go, my friend,” Pieter Doorn said, coming up to the group.

  “I’m sorry, fellows,” Georg said, “I have a meeting to go to.”

  At the meeting, the leader said, “Tonight we are going to look at steps two and three. ‘We have come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity’ and ‘made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand him.’ ”

  Georg raised his hand. “What does that mean? Is this a church? Are we Catholic or Protestant?”

  “Neither, Georg. We are not a church, either Catholic or Lutheran or Calvinist. We are open to all. That’s what it means to give ourselves over to the care of God as we understand him.”

  “This is something that came from the up-timers?”

  “Yes, but you do not see any up-timers here. Anyone can use these steps, anyone. We just call it the meeting. But up-time, they called this thing of ours Alcoholics Anonymous.”

  One of the other attendees chimed in. “It’s like that new army that they are organizing. The Salvation Army.”

  “The what?” Doorn said, eyebrows raised.

  “That’s what they call it. It is an army aimed at doing good, while all the other armies are aimed at doing harm. It was started by a woman named Wahlberg. Both the Lutherans and the Catholics are in favor of it.”

  “Both?” Georg said, unbelieving.

  “Both. The Lutherans are supplying funds, and the Catholics are as well. The cardinal and Father Spee both have been seen singing with the Salvation Army on streetcorners.”

  “Oh,” Georg said, “I think I have seen the Salvation Army. There were some people in uniforms playing music and singing ‘Ein feste Burg’ the other day on the corner across from the Bierstube.”

  “Ja! That was them, or some of them anyway,” a middle-aged man, who looked like he’d been through a lot, said.

  “So it doesn’t matter what faith we follow,” said the leader, “as long as we turn our lives over to the higher power.”

  “Well, it is certainly true that I cannot control my drinking on my own,” Georg said.

  * * *

  Georg continued to attend meetings, stay sober and work through the steps. One day, Wahlberg called him in again.

  “I wish to promote you to being a work-gang boss. You have shown that you are responsible and we have need of reliable supervisors. Do you accept?”

  “Of course,” Georg said, “and thank you, Herr Wahlberg!”

  Georg’s friends were waiting for him and they carried him, protesting, all the way to the ale house and pressed a jack of beer into his hands. Before he knew it, he’d downed the beer and was on his second and then his third. He’d fallen off the wagon, and by the time he stumbled out of the Bierstube and headed home, he’d fallen hard.

  That night, the nightmare returned for the first time in several weeks.

  In the morning, he went looking for Pieter Doorn, who was not only his friend, but had been serving as his sponsor in AA.

  “I got drunk last night, Pieter,” Georg said. “I fell off the cart, hard.”

  “That was last night,” Doorn said. “Today is a new day. We have to live our lives one day at a time. Sometimes it winds up being one minute at a time.”

  “But I...”

  “What?”

  “I have done some horrible things. I do not think God wants me to give him my life.”

  “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?”
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  “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

  Kim Mackey

  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. “Süngü tak! Süngü 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.”

  Mustafa smiled. “Of course not. But we are almost out of ammunition, and at least the sight of the bayonets will put fear into our enemies. How many rounds left for
your pistol?”

  “Two cylinders. Twelve rounds.”

  Mustafa shrugged. “Use them well. We surprised these rebels. They will be more organized with the next attack. It is obvious they are not simple bandits or brigands. That has to be why we have seen no reinforcements from the orta in the new training grounds.”

  Sampson could hear men shouting off in the forest.

  “What are they saying?”

  “Officers exhorting their men.” Mustafa tilted his head to listen, then laughed. “Calling them shit-eating sons of motherless donkeys. If they have any courage left, they will be shamed into another attack soon. Make ready.”

  “Mustafa! Look!” An armorer pointed back toward the factory.

  MacGregor!

  The senior-sergeant pulled up his horse and saluted Mustafa.

  “Bash Cebeci, we have two cannon, at your service.”

  “Essen cannon?”

  MacGregor smiled. “Of course. The fifteen pounders. With fifty rounds of canister each. The Chorbaci sends his regards and says reinforcements will be here in fifteen minutes. A diversionary attack hit the encampment.”

  Mustafa nodded and turned his head to look at the outer wall, then pointed at a bend in the wall a hundred yards away. “There. Put your cannon there. You’ll have good enfilade fire.”

  “As you command.” MacGregor winked at Sampson and galloped off.

  Once again Mustafa moved down the line of his men. He clapped one on the shoulder and shook him. When he reached Sampson he fixed the bayonet on his own rifle.

  “They are coming, Sampson. If Allah wills, we will be victorious. If not...” Mustafa shrugged, then smiled. “We will meet each other in Paradise.”

  Sampson took a breath. “I’m not ready for Paradise just yet, Mustafa.”

  Mustafa laughed. “Then victory it is. A good slogan.” He turned to the men along the wall. “For the sultan. Victory or death!”

  “Victory or death!” the men shouted.

  Sampson grabbed Mustafa’s arm. “Here they come!”

  A wave of riders and infantry charged from the forest.

  * * *

  “Close, Ismail, too close indeed. If the rebels had reached the magazines...”

  Melek Ahmed Pasha, governor-general of the new expanded sançak of Salonica, closed his eyes and imagined the battle that had taken place at the gunpowder factory. He had been too young to see the end of the Habsburg war in 1606, but there had been plenty of wars with the Persians over the past thirty years.