Chapter 30

The meeting with the two of the men who had invested in turning the April May and what many called "Pretty June" into privateers went well, and both Anne and Philip were pleased with the decision to let the young woman keep the log and all of the hard money and currency and give her a note for a seven hundred pounds with no interest, due six months after the treaty of peace. It was, they agreed, as fifty-fifty as they could make it. Both sides were well aware that the rented ships were a total and uninsured loss, a loss born by Anne's father, by his estate, except for the considerable cost of the armament and ammunition.

Anne figured that the gold guineas and other money now in Mr. Maguire's safe would be plenty to meet her needs and some of her wants for several years, perhaps a decade. There were handshakes all around and a promise that a signed and sealed paper would be delivered to Queenstown within a week if all went well. Evidently other men were involved as investors and had to sign off on the agreement.

From the back room of the busy factor's place, they walked toward the dock and heard the rat-a-tatting of a drum. "Come," Anne pulled on Philip's arm. "Let's see if that's Billy. He told me he was going to be recruiting."

It was. He sat at a small table in his old uniform, his empty sleeve with its new stripes pinned up, and behind him a drummer boy in full regalia played from time to time under a flapping banner of yellow and black, a grin on his young face, the drum almost as big as he was, the sticks as long as his arms. Billy looked up when Anne stood in front of him and jumped to his feet.

"Philip, Anne, b'damn, never 'spected to see you here. M'gaw, surprised me, you did. How are ye, both a'you?"

"How's business?" she asked sweetly. "Signing up a lot of fools? Hard for me to believe there are any other Marylander's as thick headed as you are."

He laughed. "You certainly haven't changed but it looks like a harvester's been at your head with a scythe or something. What made you do that, best part about you? An' I 'member that green dress, I do; up in Philadelphia." He blinked and shook his head, confused.

"Such flattery," she said as Philip shook his hand. "I hear that there have been some changes in your life." Anne looked at him closely and saw that his usually pink skin was gray and that his cheek was distended with chewing tobacco. He was hardly the handsome boy she had known; even his curly black hair had lost its luster, and his eyes was sunken and bloodshot.