My name is Gustav Volger and I am an honest, God-fearing tailor of New Jerusalem which in no way disqualifies me from being an honest, God fearing Gentleman Adventurer as well. On the 27th of July in this year of our Lord 1640 I was going about my lawful business in the town, when together with all others who had ears to hear, I heard a rattle of musketry from beyond the walls.
Being apprehensive of the descent of some enemy upon us, I at once began to hurry down the street to fetch my armour but scarcely had I taken three steps when there came a discharge of firearms far closer to hand, with the fearsome thundering of Captain Gerhardt's infernal machine clearly discernable amongst them.
Accordingly I at once made haste in that direction and shortly came upon a most bloody spectacle for there, in the very street of the town, stood the Captain and the redoubtable Luther Brock valiantly defending themselves from the frantic assaults of a wild-eyed Calvinist Guardsman. About their feet were heaped three of the fellow's companions in a most mortiferous condition and there too lay our worthy master-gunner, Felix van der Lubbe, wounded near to death.
When first I beheld this scene of devastation I formed the opinion that the entire world had gone mad but the gallant Captain Gerhardt corrected me. Turning from his now insensible opponent he informed me that the Calvinist Guard alone had gone mad and thereafter proceeded to acquaint me with those events familiar to him that had culminated in the sanguinary episode the ending of which I had just witnessed.
The Captain, for so he told me, together with his companion, had been hard at work in his office, seeking to ameliorate the condition of his fellow townspeople. In upon this scene of virtuous industry there had burst with appalling suddenness a most insistent distraction for the door was broken down and there entered a hideous pack of ruffians who positively frothed about the lips as they shrieked their murderous intentions at the astonished public servants. Seeing that no good could come of having dealings with such fellows, the Captain and Brock wisely departed with the intention of gathering some force of honest citizenry to quell this riotous mob. Scarcely had they made good their escape when they came on a scene of yet more sinister import.
There, before their very eyes, in a public street of the town, four men of the Calvinist Guard were dragging along the Master-Gunner Felix van der Lubbe, manhandling him most brutally as though he were some execrable heretic and not the upright civic officer whom the Council had but recently invested with full authority over the affairs of the town. As they paused a moment, shocked to the core by this outrageous behavior, it came to the Captain and Brock that the villains they had but a moment before evaded had also worn the uniform of the Calvinist Guard and had in addition been armed and armoured in a far more extensive fashion than was customary since the fire. Clearly some work of deviltry was afoot amongst the very men charged with its suppression.
Gerhardt and Brock had then sought to challenge and arrest the four loutish captors of the unfortunate Master Gunner but these at once offered them violence with both gun and sword. Set upon four to two their plight might well have been dire had they not been stout-hearted, valiant men who, having a righteous cause and the Captain's infernal machine, soon utterly vanquished their opponents. Alas one of that crew, persisting in wickedness to the bitter end, murderously discharged his caliver into the body of the helpless van der Lubbe even as he himself was slain.
Thus the Captain finished his account, and it was plain to me that with van der Lubbe in such a condition his authority must needfully descend upon Beren Gerhardt and that it was nothing less than my duty as an honest, God-fearing citizen to assist him in the suppression of this rampant brigandage. Deeming our present position a disadvantageous one we made shift to depart, bearing with us the Master Gunner and, less gently, our dazed and bleeding prisoner. Before we had taken a step however, there came the sound of shots from an adjoining street and into sight came our good friend Henryk Wolff, hotly pursued by two Calvinist Guardsmen of a savage demeanour whom he held at bay with his pistols. We supported him then with a discharge of bullets which greatly discomforted his pursuers and as they slunk away he joined us, regaling our company with a most instructive account of what had befallen him 'ere we met.
Henryk, for so he told us, had been going peacefully about his business, noting some unease amongst the Town Guard but thinking nothing of it. His arrest at the South Gate was therefore a great surprise to him, with two hulking soldiers of the Calvinist Guard presenting matchlocks to his back and roughly demanding that he accompany them to the Temple. Outraged at their behavior and stoutly protesting this infringement of his liberty, Henryk refused to give up his arms without a properly written receipt and so there developed an impasse whereby he retained his weapons but this captors compelled him to accompany them for the short space of time that he needed to baffle their feeble wits and elude them in the manner we had just seen.
Marvelling at Henryk's ingenuity we made our way to the South Gate where Captain Gerhardt purposed to rally the Town Guard and Militia. We found no little confusion there, it being now plain that the Calvinist Guard were seeking, by a policy of kidnapping and murder, to overthrow the lawful authorities of the town. Voices were heard on every side recalling the dreadful affair of Captain Adam Hoerne and bewailing the folly of permitting such a force to exist when it must necessarily fall into corruption. A desultory firing could still be heard coming from a point beyond the walls as Captain Gerhardt strode about, assembling what reliable men were to be found.
At that very moment, whom should we see approaching from outside the town but our good friend Kurt Schneider. As he came up he informed us that the shots were coming from Wolff's barn where a gang of Calvinist Guardsmen had laid siege to the place. He had, he explained, been out in the fields when the firing had attracted his attention, and himself, to the barn where he observed a motley band of ruffians assailing it against stout resistance from those inside who had already accounted for three of the scoundrels by the excellent device of dropping a grenade in their midst when they sought to carry the door with axes. It had come as a considerable shock to our friend that the marauding band appeared to consist solely of Calvinist Guardsmen but, resolved to learn more, he had calmly approached the nearest of these and having first placed him in a state of fear and alarm, made him prisoner.
Under Kurt's steely gaze the wretch babbled all he knew, and a sorry tale it was, interspersed with pleas for mercy and futile attempts to bribe his incorruptible interrogator. The Council of the Faith, he gibbered, had long held the town in the iron in the iron grip of tyranny, cynically exploiting the guise of true religion to increase their wealth and power. Alas for their schemes. The Lord had chastised New Jerusalem with fire and righteous men had began to appear in positions of influence so that they feared an end to their rule. In terror of the Judgement of God therefore, they had unleashed the Calvinist Guard, long ago corrupted to their purpose, upon those whom they feared. In quavering tones, the scoundrel went on to say that his comrades' purpose at the barn was not only to murder those within regardless of age or sex but also to plunder the large store of gold which he fondly imagined to be hidden there.
Disgusted at such wickedness, Kurt broke the blackguard's head with his own gun and strode off in search of reinforcements, nor did the rogue's companions suspect his presence among them.
After congratulating our friend on his boldness and intelligence we prepared to go and aid our hard pressed fellows at Wolff's barn, undistracted by our prisoner who at that very moment was seized with a black apoplexy and fell dead on the spot. May his soul burn in hell for all eternity.
Four of us set out from the gate, myself, Henryk Wolff, Kurt Schneider and our armourer friend Ebebeezer Wolf. We came swiftly against our enemy and as swiftly all were slain or put to flight for though these much vaunted Calvinist Guards were strong men in body and armed to the teeth with sword or gun, once they were confronted with bold, resolute men who did not meekly surrender themselves but rather banded together and gave back blow for blow, then indeed were they found wanting. Outmanoeuvred, outshot and outmatched in every soldierly quality it was but the work of minutes to deal with them as they deserved.
As the evening drew in we were all gathered at the gate, taking council as to what course of action should be taken for the good of the town. From the tower came the tolling of the Temple bell which sound, though normally associated with the calling of the faithful to prayer, was invested with a sinister quality for, now it was plain what diabolical wickedness festered in the hearts of the self-styled `Council of Faith', it seemed certain that these evil men would commit some dreadful outrage against the souls and bodies of those townspeople who innocently came at their summons.
With all haste therefore and with what men of the Town Guard and militia we could assemble, we set off for the Temple. A light cannon from the walls was dragged behind us. Captain Gerhardt rode at our head while iron-lunged guardsmen warned the townsfolk to remain in their homes and bar their doors against mischief, In such manner we arrived in the square as dusk settled, amid a great throng of citizens who had either failed to hear, or in obdurate foolishness failed to heed, our warnings.
Out onto the balcony of the Temple stepped the arch-fiend Rheinholt Richter, who at once began to rant and blaspheme in a manner hideous to hear as he appealed for aid from his satanic master and called down all the curses of all the denizens of all the pits of hell upon our heads. The clear, authoritive voice of Captain Gerhardt cut across his ravings, demanding the immediate freeing of those councilors of the town who had earlier been seized by the infamous Calvinist Guard.
The Crowd of citizenry took up this cry and surged forward to the bottom of the Temple steps. At once a murderous fire was opened from the windows on the upper floors and men and women, young and old fell dying upon the cobblestones. Some few in the square, being faint of heart or unused to arms, gave back in fear but we who were stalwart Christian men charged forward.
It was here that I last saw my friend Kurt Schneider among the living, for the crowd came between us and his shattered body was later discovered behind the Temple gate where he had fallen in a lone valiant effort to force entrance. Henryk, myself and Elijah Richter rushed up the steps to the doors of the tower and sought to break them down but they were stoutly made of good German oak and nothing we did could breach them.
As we pounded on the doors there came a thunderous crash and a great gout of flame from atop the Tower. Oh infamy! Those black hearted scoundrels of the Council of the Faith had caused to be pointed down into the square a cannon that they had, and now discharged this substantial ordnance upon those below so that grapeshot swept through the crowd and scores were flung broken to the ground. Doddering elders and babes at their mother's breast lay murdered in their blood.
Righteous fury filled us and we redoubled our efforts to lay hands on the murderous dastards who cringed within the Temple. Abandoning the doors we overturned wagons against the walls and mounted ladders on these by which it was possible to gain the courtyard to the rear of the building. Men of the Guard and Militia clambered over behind us and it was then that Elijah Richter fell to a sniping shot. Friend though he was we had no time to tend him for already we had forced a way into the Temple and opened the way for others to follow.
Here was harsh and sanguinary work for although the defenders were craven brutes at heart, yet they were trapped and knew it, so that desperation leant them a semblance of that quality that might in other men be called courage. None the less we drove them back through the rooms and corridors and at last up the steps of the tower itself, now shaking under the fire of our own cannon which Captain Gerhardt had deployed in the square. Men fell dead of gunshots and hacked with swords until at last we had the remnant of them trapped at the very summit of the tower, whence they barricaded themselves and vainly sought to sue for quarter. v God's wrath is not so lightly turned aside. Soon they fell to blaming each other and came to blows amongst themselves, and so intent were they on this that Henryk and I forced their barricade. One of the villains the black-hearted preacher Krause stood with flint and steel by a barrel of gunpowder, which he sought to explode as I rushed upon him. Henryk meanwhile set upon the others, several of whom fell to their deaths in terror of his approach.
By the design of Satan, my foot slipped and I fell, overturning the powderbarrel as I did so. Krause still struck sparks like a madman and in desperation I discharged a pistol into his body, to his great injury but not his alone alas, for the flash of the discharge ignited the powder and the top of the tower was wrapped in flame. By the Grace of God I survived, crawling through the flames to the stairway. On the way I killed the villainous councillor Oldenburg, but none came off that roof alive save myself and a wretched gunner, for at the foot of the tower I found the body of my dear friend Henryk Wolff, mangled and broken from the explosion and the fall.
After that I am told that I did for a while lose my reason and rush about in a frenzy seeking vengeance for my comrade's death.
It is to be hoped that the town will long remember this bloody business as a dreadful warning of what befalls when a small number of ambitious men are permitted to appoint themselves the guardians of true religion, and to secure their position by means of armed force.
Gustav Volger