Hearts of Ash

Hearts of Ash

The men in the park huddled, their breath mingling in a smoky haze
around their heads. In the chilly November twilight, they appeared to
be gathered around a fire for warmth. Had a passerby gotten a close
look, he would have seen them peering at a heap of rags. But the men
stood in a shallow vale, surrounded by boulders and trees, not on a
stretch of lawn. They did not want to be seen.

"We've been humbugged by that chemist," said Ezra. He turned his head
away from the circle and spat.

Rob held up his hand, as though to signal stop while keeping his eyes
on the watch in his other hand. Another thirty seconds passed before
the rags burst into flame. "Ha," Rob shouted. "Just short of six
minutes," he said as they backed away from the blaze.

"Six? Seemed like twice that," said Ezra. He tugged a handkerchief out
of his jacket pocket and blew his nose.

"That's no humbug," said James, punching Ezra's shoulder. "Gives us
time to get away."

"Exactly," Rob said.

Ezra held his hands over the fire while another of the group said,
"That's enough of that," and poured a scoop of dirt over the rags.
James added double handfuls of dirt and the two men stamped out the
fire. Seven minutes had passed since they wet the rags with "Greek
fire," a mixture similar to the explosives used in hand grenades. Then
the rags seemed to combust spontaneously. The test had worked. The
stuff was good.

"Tomorrow, we'll get the rest of the stuff," Rob said. "I'm still
aiming for Friday night. If the weather cooperates."

"See y'all at noon then," said James. He turned up his coat collar
against the rain that had just started. It had rained nearly every day
they had been in the city. "Sonofabitchin' New York weather," muttered
Ezra as he walked away.

The weather turned colder and drier. Thanksgiving was a sparkler,
chilly enough that you were glad to go inside but not cold enough to
make being outside miserable. Late Thursday afternoon, Ezra checked
into a hotel and said he'd need a room until Sunday morning. The others
in the group did the same at other hotels. At the Belmont, Ezra signed
the register as Lewis Reynolds from Pittsburgh. He knew he revealed
himself as a Southerner when he spoke, but it wasn't a crime to be from
the South and there were plenty of other accents in New York.

When the man behind the counter handed a key to Ezra, he glanced at the
new guest's coat a few moments too long. Ezra did not look like he
could afford the Belmont. He caught the dismissal in the man's eyes and
smiled. A porter bent down to pick up Ezra's valise. "I'll show you to
your room, sir."

Ezra's smile disappeared as he grabbed the bag's handle. "I'll carry
it."

The clerk and porter exchanged a smirk. Let them think he was too cheap
to tip the porter. As he crossed the lobby, his shoulder sagged from
the weight of the valise.

He followed the porter upstairs, impatient with the ritual. Hell's
bells, if the key said 325, he could figure out that it was on the
third floor by himself. Alone in the room, Ezra locked the door. Now
what? The waiting was wearying. So much of army life was waiting.
Fighting was the thing. No time to worry or think. Planning was fine,
but it guaranteed nothing. He sat on the bed. It was too early to
sleep, but he craved it. Not the rest. He wasn't tired. Ezra wanted the
oblivion, the escape of the night, so different from the day. There was
safety and danger in the dark. Here it was Thanksgiving and he'd hardly
eaten all day. No appetite. He could use a drink though. He had a
bottle in the valise. The thought made him grin. No, he'd go out, see
if he could find someplace open. Ezra locked the valise in the closet
and went out.

Hours later, when he got into bed, the sheets chilled his feet. He
wanted to forget about tomorrow for a while, when he would be busy all
night. Everything would be different after tomorrow night. His feet
failed to warm up; he put on socks. His beard itched; he scratched it.
He heard the traffic of carriages, wagons, and horses on the street; he
got up and looked out his window. Yellow light from a tall pair of
glass doors fell on a pair of Morgans. Their manes were braided and
their chestnut coasts gleamed. They reminded Ezra of Hunter, the horse
that had carried him through the first two years of the war. A handsome
animal, fearless, shot out from under him near Lookout Mountain.

One more drink; that should do the job. Ezra found a bottle with a few
inches of bourbon in his valise. The dark liquid and the bottle were
unlike the other bottles in his valise. Still, he sniffed the bottle
after he pulled out the stopper, making sure it was bourbon, before
drinking. The alcohol scalded his throat. Like everything else, the war
had corroded a simple pleasure and made it counterfeit. Canada was only
a day away. Ezra could celebrate with decent whiskey then. New York was
damn cold, and Canada would be worse. Well, it would be worth it. He'd
fill his valise with bottles of Canadian whiskey, sell a few at a
pretty price. Ezra pulled the covers over him, but with the luxury of
clean linen and the novelty of having an entire bed to himself, he
couldn't sleep more than an hour at a time.

After Johnson's Island in Ohio, Ezra had figured he could sleep
anywhere; if it was warm and dry, so much the better. He'd slept many
nights in an icy barracks thick with other war prisoners, where the
beds weren't much more than boards and blankets, and you had to share
the blankets with the bugs. That's where he'd met Rob Kennedy. All the
prisoners there were Confederate officers. To supplement their rations
of bread and salt pork, they hunted the camp's rats and anything else
edible. When the prison commandant's Newfoundland went missing, an
inmate sent the man a note: "For want of bread/Your dog is dead./For
want of meat/Your dog is eat." Ezra thought that was the best poem he'd
ever heard.

The Friday meeting was set for the room Rob and Martin shared at the
Imperial, a narrow boarding house off lower Broadway. As Ezra climbed
the dim, uncarpeted stairs at noon, smells of boiled cabbage and fried
bacon faded. He knocked on the door of 5C: three raps, a pause, then
one. Rob's idea. He liked Rob; at Johnson's Island, he'd shown he
wasn't a belly-acher, but a secret knock was plain silly to Ezra. They
sat in a circle on the floor and reported on their assignments. Hotels
were the target, big ones to ensure maximum impact. Unlike federal
buildings, hotels provided easy access. They were public places, signs
of the city's prosperity, and vulnerable. The plan matched the target.
Rent a room under a false name, start a fire in the room, move on to
the next hotel. A few men could destroy a dozen hotels in a couple of
hours. The fires would spread from the hotels and devour entire blocks.
Firefighters wouldn't be able to do anything but watch. Show the
Yankees they weren't the only ones who could burn down a city. See how
they liked it. The Rebels had been waiting for days of rain to
pass.

"Today's a holiday," said James.

"How you figure that?" Ezra asked. "Thanksgiving was yesterday."

"It's the day the last British troops left New York. Back in 1783. Some
Yank I was talking to in a bar told me so."

"Don't believe everything y'all hear in saloons," said Martin. The
men
laughed.

"After tonight, they'll be remembering the day for another reason," Rob
said.

Ezra had Lovejoy's, the St. Nicholas, the Belmont, and if possible, the
Howard. Just before eight o'clock on Friday, Ezra entered the lobby of
the St. Nicholas Hotel, passing from the dark into the light: from
sidewalks slick with tobacco juice, streets of mud and manure churned
by carriage wheels, shouts of show barkers and vendors of roasted
chestnuts, through heavy glass-paneled doors into a high-ceilinged
lobby, scents of wax, polish, and gardenias, murmured conversations,
massive chandeliers. Why did hotels show off with these huge, useless
parlors? Tried to make you feel small. So much of the city was for
show. People with money thought they could do anything. Didn't they
know how easily it could vanish, for bank notes to become good for
nothing but wiping yourself?

"I'd like a room for tonight and tomorrow," Ezra said at the front
desk. The fact that he would be in Canada tomorrow night made him grin.
He felt the appraisal of the clerk, who had more hair in his eyebrows
than on his head. Although Ezra was wearing his best clothes, he knew
that his scuffed valise and stained coat suggested streets of boarding
houses and emigrants. Well, if the fellow asked for a deposit, Ezra had
money and what did the hotel care as long as the guests paid for their
rooms? Guests. Ha. Fools was more like it to spend so much to lay in a
bed. Clean sheets were no insurance of a good night's sleep.

At each of the three hotels where he'd registered for a room, Ezra had
used a different alias, borrowing the names of schoolteachers he'd had.
They were here to teach the North a lesson, right? He got his room key
from the front desk and went upstairs. His beard itched something
fierce, as it always did when he first went indoors from the cold. Rob
had thought they should use disguises: false whiskers, Union uniforms,
an arm in a sling, an eye patch. James and Martin agreed with Rob, but
then, James always backed Rob's ideas. More things to go wrong, Ezra
thought. Strange for Rob to talk of disguises-the limp from his wound
at Shiloh marked him clearly. Ezra had grown out his beard for this;
his sisters in Kentucky would laugh to see how it aged him. The first
thing he'd do tomorrow was shave.

He laid the valise on the bed. It held 18 other bottles of the fire
mix, plus matches, and four vials of turpentine. He removed two small
bottles of Greek fire. Then he lifted a pair of upholstered chairs onto
the bed, threw a rug over them, and emptied the bottles, wincing from
the odor. The clear liquid smelled like spoiled meat. That was it. In a
few minutes, a fire would erupt in the room, giving him just enough
time to get out of the hotel. He wanted to laugh. Finally. He grabbed
the bag, closed the door, and hurried down the corridor toward the
stairs. His next hotel was four blocks away.

But by the time Ezra unlocked room 314 at Lovejoy's Hotel, he had not
yet
heard an alarm. Probably take a while for the fire to spread and be
noticed. The adjoining rooms were most likely empty, people at dinner
or the theater, too early to be sleeping. No, the delay was a good
sign. The longer the hotel took to discover the fire, the more damage
it could do.

He set the bag down on the floor. Ezra had wrapped the bottles in his
scarf and newspaper to keep them from clanking or breaking. This time
when he made a bonfire on the bed, he added the curtains and used three
bottles of the phosphorous mix; then he poured turpentine on the floor
and tossed a handful of unlit matches like confetti. When he stepped
into the hall, he almost bumped into a chambermaid; he was halfway down
the corridor before he remembered he'd left his bag in the room. Ezra
turned back. As he tried to unlock the room, he dropped the key. The
chambermaid was watching him.

"Is anything wrong, sir?"

"No, no," he said as the lock clicked. He hoped she didn't notice the
smell as he opened the door. Quick. The bag. Lock the door. Hugging the
bag to his chest with one arm, he sprinted down the hall. The maid was
still staring after him when, a minute later, the explosion in room 314
knocked her to the floor.

Maybe it was the dead rat he saw in the gutter along Fulton Street. A
fine fat fellow. Rob Kennedy thought of how he once would have been
happy to dine on such fare. On Johnson's Island, he'd convinced himself
that it wasn't much of a stretch from squirrel to rat. Bushy tail or
not, what did it matter? Now the memory of eating rats brought the
taste of bile to his throat.

Nothing in the plan said burn Barnum's American Museum. First the
hotels, then the wharves. Yankee ships if possible. But as Rob walked
along Broadway as fast as his limp allowed, he ran into Ezra.

"Where's the alarms?" Rob asked when he realized that between the two
of them, they'd set fires in four hotels already and hadn't heard the
massive bell. During the weeks they'd been in the city, they had heard
the bell announce a fire at least once a day. Ezra tugged Rob's sleeve.
"In here," he said, nodding toward the five-story building near them.
"There's so many strange things in here, no one will notice us."

Rob studied a poster beside the entrance. "A seven-foot tall woman.
I'd like to see that." They paid their admission fees and went into
Barnum's Museum. But instead of heading for the rooms with the giantess
and dwarfs, they climbed the stairs to the top floor, bypassing tanks
of tropical fish, cases of mineral specimens, an auditorium with a play
in progress, wax figures, shoes from Turkey and Egypt. Rob pushed open
a window and they leaned out, looking up and down Broadway. Behind them
was Barnum's Happy Family, a collection of dogs, cats, monkeys, birds,
and porcupines that lived together. The boa constrictors dwelled in
separate cages.

Rob peered at his pocket watch and shook his head. He looked at Ezra
and then heard it. The alarm bell.

Ezra pointed up the street. "Looks like smoke." He heard another
alarm, a longer one, and laughed. The number of times the bell tolled
announced the location of a fire. "Back to work," he said and started
down the stairs. Along a passage where no museum visitors were in
sight, he opened his valise and took out three bottles. Ezra pulled out
the stoppers and splashed the liquid against velvet curtains.

Rob grabbed Ezra's arm as they ran down the steps. "What are you
doing?"

Ezra grinned. "Those bells are going to ring all night."
The plan was to hit the hotels before they would be full of sleeping
guests. The goal was to damage property, not to kill civilians. Killing
could work against them. Not that they were trying to win favor among
the Yanks. But dead children could really rile the hornet's nest. No,
they wanted to scare the Yankees, kick them in their moneybags, leave
them with a reminder of Rebel spirit.

Burning Barnum's meant families might die. Well, maybe they needed to
raise the stakes. Hell, why not? Caution was for cowards. Ezra left Rob
outside the museum. They'd meet again in the morning. As he headed up
Broadway to Lovejoy's Hotel, Ezra heard a child squeal and then a
scream. He turned around. The giant woman was moving through a crowd
like a spider among ants.

He pushed past clusters of people, huddling like pigeons. Carriage
drivers shouted about fires lower on Broadway. The alarm bell rang
again. Ahead, Ezra saw a fire engine pulled by men instead of horses.
Flames lit up a row of rooms in the LaFarge Hotel. The black satchel he
gripped no longer felt heavy. He ducked his head as he passed a quartet
of policemen. More shouts. More bells. People were discovering that
there were fires all over the city. They were starting to panic.
Good.

Investigating the fires at 13 hotels, along the wharf, and other sites,
Fire Marshal Baker had collected ample evidence. At several sites,
firemen had found unopened bottles of the chemical mix, which Baker had
analyzed: two parts phosphorous dissolved in four parts sulphuret of
carbon.

What had happened was clear, but what should he tell the newspaper
reporters? He didn't want to provide instructions on how to commit
arson successfully. It wasn't difficult to obtain and concoct the
chemical mix that self-ignited. It wasn't easy either, thank God. If
you didn't know what you were doing, you could blow yourself up. These
arsonists had been smart enough to avoid that, but not smart enough. So
he told the reporters that the swift response of the firemen and police
had saved the city. With a confidence he did not feel, Baker said he
did not expect any similar attacks. Arson was not as simple as it
appeared. He did not like to lie, but it would do no good to further
alarm the public by admitting that he was stunned by the attack's
scope, the arsonists' planning, the fires' potential magnitude.

At his desk, Baker stared at a bottle of ink, then got up and stood at
the window. From it, he could see both Madison Square and Union Square.
Just last year, more than 100 people had died in riots over the draft.
He shook his head. The things men would do. He clenched his hands, then
relaxed them. No one had died last Friday and only one of the hotels
had significant damage. But what might have happened weighed on his
mind. The targeted hotels were large-the Astor alone had 1,000 rooms.
If serious fires had developed at half of the hotels, they would have
overwhelmed the city's firefighters. Looters would have kept the police
busy.

He was certain that the arson was the work of Southerners, yet he had
no proof to support this belief. Why target New York? Lincoln had lost
badly here in the election a few weeks ago. The city was full of
Copperheads. The fire marshal told the police superintendent that he
suspected more than 50 Rebels had been involved in the arson.

Baker sat down and blinked slowly, trying to focus on a stack of white
paper. He had a report to write for the mayor. Since the night of the
fires, Baker had not slept well. He outlined what had happened, when
and where. Who remained unknown. How was clear. Ignorance of chemistry
was the arsonists' undoing: "The chemist had done his work
sagaciously," Baker wrote, "but in carrying out the plan a blunder was
committed which defeated the anticipated results. In each case the
doors and windows of the room were left closed, so that when the
phosphorous ignited, the fire only smoldered from the want of oxygen
necessary to give it activity, thus affording an opportunity for its
detection before much harm was done."

A simple mistake had saved the city from a disaster. Baker added,
"This fiendish plan was defeated by one of those slight miscalculations
which so often interpose to frustrate the designs of evil-minded men."
He turned up the flame on his desk lamp. Dusk was dying into night. A
window mirrored the gleam of the lamp, and Baker caught his reflection.
The glass distorted his face. He shivered, blew out the lamp, and left
the room.