And besides, the tension in the streets told Cormac another story. Something was coming that was much larger than the Earl of Warren.
Around three o’clock he hurried down to the waterfront to look for Kongo. He lolled behind the empty Slave Market, trying to look casual, and watched the two ships that would depart at four. The Carolina and the Arcadia. All cargo had been loaded, and the stevedores on the piers were smoking and laughing, waiting for the ships to sail. A few passengers appeared on the deck of each ship, but the flags showed the stiffening of the wind, blowing north from the harbor. Most passengers were in cabins or the cheap bunks belowdecks. Captains and company men chatted, examined documents, smoked seegars. Cormac stretched, as if tired after a hard day of work, gazed into the windows of a ship chandler, hoping for the sight of Kongo. One lonely redcoat leaned against the side of the deserted Slave Market, huddling out of the wind.
Then a black unmarked coach, with trunks lashed to its roof, galloped up in front of the Carolina. An African in livery, his face familiar from the earl’s stable, leaped down, called to some stevedores for help in unloading the trunks. He opened the door and offered a hand to Bridget Riley.
She gazed around, near and far, her face still marked by fear, and then saw Cormac.
She stopped. The African followed her gaze. It was too late for Cormac to back away. Bridget’s head turned toward the lone redcoat. Cormac thought: I must want to be caught, to be hanged for the death of the earl. Then the African whispered to Bridget Riley, and she threw Cormac a chilling glance and turned to board the ship.
The gangplank was raised an instant after she stepped on deck. She turned one final time, looking directly at Cormac, and then vanished into a cabin on the poop. The Carolina eased into the river, bound for Charleston. Officers barked orders. Seamen scrambled in rigging. The African watched for a while, then turned and walked toward Cormac, taking his hat from his graying head. Cormac glanced at the redcoat, saw him stretching his arms over his bored head, and moved to meet the African.
“She ask me to tell you some words,” the man said.
“Yes?”
“She ask me to tell you: Thank you very much.”
He glanced out at the departing ship, and then at some flags on the rooftops of warehouses. “She tell the constables someone hit her,” he said, “and she saw nothing that happen to her husband.”
“Much obliged,” Cormac said.
The African looked at Cormac now. “Tell Kongo,” he said. “We are with him.”
He moved to the carriage, climbed to his seat, and flicked his whip as if punctuating his brief conversation, and the horses started off, heading north.
61.
They worked across the day into the night. Around seven, Mr. Partridge was joking about the contents of a marital document asking for a legal separation, and musing on the folly of man. Then from the street they heard a shout followed by an excited response. Someone ran past the front of the shop. They went out together, locking the shop door behind them, and turned the corner. There was a red glow in the sky above Fort George. The wind was now blowing hard off the harbor. The rising had begun.
They were hurrying now, Mr. Partridge huffing with his exertions but alert to his surroundings. Citizens were running toward the fort, and they heard the word “fire” over and over again: shouted, called, bellowed. They neared the fort and then there was a surge of people, and scattered redcoats, and the sound of bells ringing. Mr. Partridge went one way, Cormac another.
Great orange tongues of flame roared and twisted angrily against the inky sky. The air was grainy with the odor of burning wood. Firemen arrived with their two new engines, but the water came in useless dribbles. The fire roared and Cormac could see now that it was also consuming the mansion of the governor, beyond the burning ramparts. Redcoats watched with muskets pointed toward the fort but with nobody to shoot. Tongues of fire were aimed at the houses on lower Broadway, and the crowd backed away. Sparks scattered into the sky, and Cormac’s mind flashed on sparks from a lost forge scattering across the Irish sky, aspiring to be stars.
He cut into an alley behind the Lutheran church, trying to see the fort from the river side. The alley was piled high with barrels and crates, and reeked of garbage. Then two other people rushed into the alley. Cormac flattened himself against the wall and saw Quaco running, holding the hand of his wife. An African woman, hair piled high, struggling to run in long skirts, panting. Behind them were two redcoats. Quaco’s eyes were alarmed and furious. He saw Cormac. Started to say something. But pulled his wife’s hand and kept running. Cormac saw a redcoat drop to a knee and take aim. And he stepped away from the wall, placing himself between the aimed musket and the fleeing African couple.
An enraged British voice: What are. Who is. Stop now.
Then Cormac jerked at the barrels and they came tumbling down with a great bumping clatter, filling the width of the alley, and Cormac ran too.
He made a wide circle to the north, crossing Broadway, and found Mr. Partridge in the crowd.
“Where did you go?” he said. “I’ve been worried sick.”
“First I was looking for you. Then I wanted a better view.”
Mr. Partridge gestured toward the burning fort.
“This could be a right disaster.”
Buckets were being passed from man to man. A portly constable named Michaels burst into the crowd, announcing another fire to the east, on the near end of Pearl Street. He asked for help and men followed him away from the glow of the burning fort. Suddenly four ferocious detonations split the air and rocked the ground, one immediately followed by the next, as the ammunition in the fort exploded. Cormac was knocked to his back. Mr. Partridge hit the wall of a house and slid down to a sitting position. Behind them, splintered windowpanes fell upon the streets. Missiles of stone and broken timber hurtled through the air. Cormac got up and hauled Mr. Partridge to his feet. Women were screaming and men shouting, and everybody was running, including Cormac and Mr. Partridge. They ran directly into Peter Zenger. He was thin, harried, trembling with excitement.
“Is zis your boy, Partridge?” Zenger said, his reedy voice thick with a German accent.
“My man, sir.”
“Can he zet type?”
“Yes.”
“Can I borrow him tonight? I have a man out zick und—”
“It’s up to him.”
“I’d be glad to help, Mister Zenger.”
“Gut. Go to my zhop now. I’ll be along in a vile.”
All night, Cormac worked for Peter Zenger. His first newspaper job. Setting type for the Weekly Journal. Correcting Zenger’s mangled English copy. Writing two brief stories himself. The reports kept coming in, gathered by Zenger himself or delivered by citizens exploding with gossip and outrage. Reports of Irishmen laughing, Africans running away from the fires (for there were four fires now, including the fort and the mansion). Quaco and his wife were among those who ran, but Cormac wrote nothing about them. As the night went on and on, there were scarier reports: Some of the Irish and the Africans were seen with guns. Did you see zem mit guns? No, but I heard—Zank you very much. Cormac knew it was a rising, and he wanted to be part of it. But they had not asked him to join, had not assigned him a part to play. He set type. He absorbed information.