by Pete Hamill
“Quaco helped me know them,” Kongo said. “They will be of great help.”
Cormac didn’t mention the contact between Kongo and the Spanish blacks to Mr. Partridge, who would have understood that the Spanish blacks could serve as messengers to the fleets of Spain. Any Englishman involved in such a conspiracy could be hanged for treason. The Africans were not Englishmen, and in his heart, neither was Cormac, in spite of the English flags that billowed over Belfast. He would take his own risks. But he didn’t want to draw Mr. Partridge into the conspiracy. What Mr. Partridge did not know would protect him if the conspiracy failed.
But as he passed brief outings in Hughson’s, whispering with Mary Burton, wary of spies among the Africans and redcoats, and as he wandered in his free time down by the markets, Cormac understood that the Spanish blacks were to play a major part in the larger plan. Their leader was named Juan Alvarado. Lean, intelligent, with greenish highlights in his angry eyes. He was fluent in Spanish and could read and write that language, but he spoke Yoruba to Kongo. Cormac had heard them talking, sensed the hardness behind the words, even though he did not know their exact meaning.
He also learned that the arrival of Kongo had made the Africans believe that a rising could be victorious. Quaco told him all of this, a revelation confirmed by the attitudes of the other Africans. Now Cormac finally understood the meaning of babalawo.
“Prince of spirits,” Quaco said one freezing Sunday morning near the Fly Market. “Kongo have magic. White magic and black magic. He speak to gods and they speak through him. They give him gift of tongues too, so he can speak many African language, and now English.”
After a few weeks with Juan Alvarado, Kongo spoke Spanish too.
“Kongo can lead us all to freedom,” Quaco said. “My people. You people, Irish people. Not alone. Kongo can no say magic words and English go away. Men have to do that. And men can no win if bad people too big. Men need help.” He paused, glancing around the empty streets. “That why we try to reach the Spaniards,” Quaco went on. “With English, you need big guns.”
In one quick meeting on the street, Kongo told Cormac almost nothing, as if trying to keep Cormac out of the conspiracy.
“Wait,” he said. “You have your own task. The man who killed your father.”
But the plan was emerging. If the African and Irish rebels could wound the English forces in New York, if they could seize arms, if they could panic the civilian population, then Spain could take the city with a handful of ships. Timing was everything. And it was not just talk. One Saturday night, a Spanish-speaking slave named Morales disappeared. His name appeared Monday morning on a poster offering a reward. But the gossip of revolt provided a motive: Morales was already heading south, to find the Spanish in Savannah or Florida.
For Cormac, the conspiracy was like a novel read in glimpses, with many chapters missing. The falling snow provided the continuity. And one February night he went to Hughson’s at the invitation of Quaco. Irishmen and Africans arrived with snow melting on their hats and shoulders, their faces glistening as they stamped their feet and accepted hot tea or strong coffee. On this night, at Kongo’s order, there would be neither porter nor strong liquor. Mary Burton, Sarah Hughson, and Peggy were absent, and off-duty soldiers were kept out by the posting of a sign that said “Private Party.” In the street, lounging in doorways out of the snow, lone men watched for redcoats or constables. Finally Hughson tapped a spoon on the side of a metal tankard and the room hushed.
“Hear ye, hear ye,” Hughson said, and laughed in an ironical way. Cormac was deep in the crowd. Kongo stood before the blue door, while Alvarado lolled with folded arms against the back door. Quaco was at the bar, his face tense. There was an odd glint in Hughson’s eyes. Cormac noted that his face trembled, as if he were trying to decide which mask to wear.
“We’ve met here often as friends,” he said. “Tonight, we meet as allies. All here share a common condition: the lack of freedom. Many of you are slaves. Many are indentured servants. You are both—Irish and African—the property of others. That situation has become intolerable. Sinful. Criminal. We believe it’s time to do something about it.”
“Like what?” someone shouted. Cormac thought: Like freeing Mary Burton.
“This is neither the time nor the place to discuss details,” Hughson said. “The bloody British are masters of bribery, of informing, of spies. Some here might indeed be spies, and they have our warning: Betray us and you will be sorry.” Cormac glanced at Kongo. His face was skeptical, as if he too sensed that Hughson might be a prince of horseshit. “But the worry is real,” Hughson went on. “And so before we proceed, there must first be a swearing. An oath, binding us all to silence.”
“Good,” came a shout, and a murmured chorus of approval.
Hughson continued, “If any of yiz can’t swear such an oath, please leave now.”
Nobody moved. Cormac’s flesh tingled.
“Then, gentlemen, the oath.”
He cleared a space on the hard earthen floor, gesturing for men to move backward. Then, with a long-bladed knife, he cut a wide circle into the packed dirt. The men closest to the circle placed feet inside the line, then grasped hands, pushing deeper inside, while Hughson extended the border to make room for others. Cormac hesitated, thinking: What am I about to do? My only oath was sworn above the body of my father….
But he shared the feelings of these men, African and Irish, even if he felt no confidence about Hughson. He loved that thrilling word freedom. And he felt too that in some small way he was being admitted to the secret world of men. This was an American version of the men bound together in the Sacred Grove of Ireland.
He grasped the hands of a Spanish black named Torres and the young African named Sandy. He saw Quaco, his head bowed, holding the hands of two other Africans. Three men watched the full group: Kongo, Hughson, and Alvarado.
Hughson bowed his head and began speaking in a solemn voice, the others echoing his phrases.
“We swear (we swear) to hold secret (to hold secret) all that is spoken of here (all that is spoken of here) and to maintain (and to maintain) our faith in each other (our faith in each other) under punishment in Heaven or Hell (under punishment in Heaven or Hell) or here on the earth (or here on the earth), so help me God (so help me God).”
Kongo stepped into the center of the circle (with Cormac seeing him now as a prince of spirits) and spoke the oath in Yoruba, and the blacks responded. Alvarado did it in Spanish, and his men answered. There was a small cheer. Then Kongo assumed command of the room. He spoke in English and Yoruba, choosing words in a careful, direct way, and made the case for revolt. “Men are not horses,” he said in English. “Men have souls.” Now Cormac saw uncertainty in Hughson’s eyes. If he thought of himself an hour earlier as the leader of the revolt, that role had now been lost to Kongo. He did not look happy as Kongo used his fingers to enumerate his points. He separated the men into units of three. He reiterated the need for secrecy. Near the end, repeating this in Yoruba, he pulled one long finger across his throat, and about half the Africans laughed. Then he stepped out of the circle.
Hughson stepped forward, trying to assert again his own role. Cormac felt oddly isolated. Kongo had not assigned him to a three-man unit.
“As far as you Irish are concerned, the word is wait,” Hughson said. “Wait for word from us, from the high command. We’ll be in touch as the hour draws near. We’ll know our roles, what must be done. I’ll coordinate with the Africans. But the purpose is clear: to end these intolerable conditions.” Then he smiled. “As for now, gentlemen, the bar is open.”
A murmur. Scattered calls of “Hear, hear.” A pushing toward the bar. Some faces were flushed, as if the saying were as good as the doing. Kongo nodded at Cormac, placed fingers to his mouth, indicating they would speak later, and then went with his men out the back door into the falling snow.
Then Sarah came in from the kitchen, and the talk became politer, more guarded, less fl
ushed with the possibility of rebellion. She laid plates on the bar piled with herrings, potatoes, hard-boiled eggs. Peggy showed up too, bursting with Caesar’s child. Cormac realized that Caesar had not been part of the group of oath-takers. And Mary Burton was nowhere in sight.
After a while, Cormac went out the back door to piss against a wall. The snow was falling more heavily, whipped by a wind. Cormac finished. Then heard his name. Mary Burton was at a top-floor window, her hair wild, a shawl upon her shoulders and neck.
“Be careful of that lot inside,” she said. “They’re going to cause a lot of trouble.”
“How are you, Mary?”
“Still in prison.”
“It can’t last.”
“Wait there.”
In a few minutes, she arrived at his side, in the deep shadows beside the building. She was bundled against the cold. They embraced and he could feel the warmth coming from her body.
“You must be wary,” she said. “I’ve heard John Hughson talking to his brother, that thieving lecher from Poughkeepsie. And what he’s saying here is not what he’s sayin’ to his brother.”
“What is it they’re saying?”
“It depends on how much drink is taken,” she said. “Sometimes he brags that he’ll soon be king of New York, the ruler of all he surveys, so to speak. Then he’s to be a viceroy for the Spanish crown, with the Spanish fleet in the harbor to fight off the bloody English. Then he’s to search the whole town, while the British get organized, and take everything of value, ship it off to the south somewhere, to bloody Cuba or Mexico or some such, with him and his brother in the ship. Or he’ll make a separate peace with the British, betray everybody, have them all hanged or burned, and then get the British to make him a lord, for services rendered to the Crown, and become governor.”
“He sounds as if he doesn’t know what he wants to do.”
“Whatever the feck it is, it’ll be for to serve John Hughson, not the Africans or the Irish or anyone else, includin’ his wife.”
With that, she brushed his face with her lips and went to the back door and was gone. Through the falling snow Cormac could see a red smear of torches on the ramparts of the fort.
56.
For two days, Cormac searched for Kongo. He must be warned. They all must be warned about the slippery secrets of John Hughson. Kongo seemed to have vanished. Finally he saw Quaco near the Slave Market and learned that Kongo had gone with his master to someplace in New Jersey. At night, Cormac tried to sort out the boxes in his type case, opening and shutting the drawers until he fell into sleep.
Then, early one Sunday morning, after another heavy snowfall, he saw Kongo in the yard behind the print shop. He was holding the reins of a horse. Cormac dressed and went out. Kongo explained that he’d been ordered north to pick up messages for his owner, Wilson the painter. He showed Cormac a signed pass allowing him to travel on horseback. Both men smiled.
“But I want to show you something,” Kongo said. “Come.” Cormac climbed on the horse’s back directly behind Kongo and began telling him what he had heard about John Hughson. He never mentioned Mary Burton, but he outlined all of Hughson’s possible ambitions.
“Thank you,” Kongo said.
“Don’t trust him,” Cormac said.
“We don’t.”
He waited a bit.
“He thinks he is using us, all of us,” Kongo said. “But we are using him.”
They rode north for hours, avoiding the few churchgoers out in the snow. That is, avoiding anyone who might be alarmed by an African and a white man sharing a horse. They went beyond those parts of the lower island that Cormac already knew. They rode beyond rocky promontories, frozen streams, open fields dotted with snug Dutch farmhouses with smoke rising from chimneys. Some land was cleared and fenced. Most remained wild. Kongo pulled his fur hat down over his face to hide his black skin. He said almost nothing, and never mentioned the rebellion or his reasons for keeping Cormac out of a three-man unit. He did nod in a conspiratorial way at a group of six Indians walking south, dressed in English clothes and heavy English boots. He pointed out two redcoats lounging outside a tavern, smoking seegars, and seeing them, he nudged the horse into dense forest, moving west across the spine of the island. The wind off the North River assaulted them, icy and hard.
They came to a small road cutting away to the west through the Bloomingdale properties, a section where virgin forests stood like walls protecting cleared land, now brilliant with snow. Kongo was cautious, alert. Animal tracks were cut all over the snow, but the animals were hidden. Kongo slowed the horse and moved into a hilly forest of dark evergreens. And then stopped and pointed. Off in the distance, on a cliff above the river, was the house of the Earl of Warren.
Cormac knew it belonged to the earl because from that distance it was an exact duplicate of the ruined house in Ireland. They moved closer, the horse snorting, steam billowing from his mouth. They saw black men off to the right taking their ease at the entrance to a stable. Just inside the stable doors was the cream-colored carriage. On the great porch of the house, facing inland, its back to the river, two white men moved back and forth on the steps. One held a musket. Over the main doorway there was an elaborate W emblazoned in gold leaf that glittered in the hard noon sun. They moved again, very quietly, maintaining a safe distance, and saw well-tramped paths through the snow from the front stairs to a kind of deck on the river side of the house. Three men were talking on the deck. Each had a musket. Cormac longed for his sword but saw that the earl had defended himself against any sort of direct assault. What had happened in Ireland would not happen here. Only a fool would charge this small fortress alone.
“This is the place you were looking for?” Kongo said.
“This is the place.”
“Good. We come back.”
57.
For months, the earl had existed for the young man as a kind of ghost, a specter made of anger and memory, and now he was everywhere. Cormac saw the earl walking through the empty square of the Slave Market, glancing at the vacant piers and surely cursing the War of Jenkins’s Ear. He saw him on another day leaving the expensive shop of Edwards the bootmaker, the usual fence of bodyguards behind him, to be engulfed swiftly by the Pearl Street crowd. His body was thicker, face fleshier, but he was the same man who had traveled the wet roads of Ireland.
The following afternoon, he passed the earl in a crowd near Hanover Square. The earl glanced at Cormac’s bearded face but saw nothing. He was comforted by the simple fact that the earl was in New York. Perhaps he had been away while his fine new mansion was being built. The Carolinas. Distant Georgia. Boston or Philadelphia, those larger, grander towns. But here he was. Cormac thought about carrying his sword, to hurl himself at the earl when next he saw him. But he discarded such a plan as foolish. He would be hanged in an hour and never find out what happened to the other stories unfolding in his life. The story of Mary Burton. The story of Kongo and John Hughson and the whispers of revolt. No, he must wait until the moment was right.
A week later, while making an evening delivery of posters, Cormac saw the earl again, entering one of the storehouses on Beaver Street, leaving his bodyguards at the door. Cormac dawdled, brushing dust from his coat, ambling toward the river. Other men arrived, alone or in pairs. Not a woman among them. No wife. No mistress. They walked in with masculine swagger. They didn’t come out. A frail snow was falling on the town.
An hour later, behind the locked front door of the print shop, Cormac related news of his sightings to Mr. Partridge. His hands were busy cleaning punches and sorting type, but his mind was jumbled. Mr. Partridge urged the young man to be careful, to avoid being obvious. ���This earl… such men have power,” he said. “The power of money, of a willingness to hurt others. Which means they have the ability to do great harm. Once they get power, they’ll do anything to preserve it. Watch yourself, lad.” He seemed exhausted. “Whatever you do, no matter how strong the motive, do nothing rash.”
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Mr. Partridge retired early, hauling his weary bones to the second floor. Cormac removed his shoes, hearing boards squeaking above his head for a while, and then silence. As he lay down to sleep, glancing out at the falling snow, his head was swimming with words he was learning from Mr. Partridge, including the word republic, and what Niccolò Machiavelli had written about it two hundred years earlier. Then he heard a soft knock on the back door. Could he have been spotted by the earl? Seen as a threat? Followed to the shop? No, such men would knock much harder, if they knocked at all. He took a candle in one hand and the sword in the other and opened the door an inch.
Mary Burton stood there, shivering in the cold. Snow had gathered on the shawl she wore over her head.
“I’ve come to warn you, Cormac,” she said.
He blew out the candle. “Of what?”
“It’s about to happen.”
“Come in.”
She shook the snow off her shawl and sat on the edge of the fireplace while Cormac planted himself on a stool. In strings of nervous whispers, leaning forward with her hands clenched, she told him what she knew: The rising would begin on Saint Patrick’s Night. Five days hence. The fort would be set afire, Quaco’s wife liberated, the armory looted of guns, which would then be dispersed to the rebels. Others would rob the major shops and haul away all valuables and weapons from private homes. There was a list of good masters and bad. The loot would be taken to the brewery building at the foot of Stone Street. Then John Hughson’s brother would cart everything away in a sloop to exchange it upstate for more guns. While the fort was burning, certain whites would be attacked and, if necessary, killed. All bad masters. All arrogant whites, including women. Many buildings would be torched. And the Spanish fleet would then sweep into the town.
