He had also had at the back of his mind the idea that one day the triumphant ship would put into port in one of those places he had heard so often mentioned – Charleston, Williamsburg. He was convinced that it must have been to ports like that that his father was bound when he was ‘lost’, and he had promised himself that if it was at all possible he would leave the Shenandoah there and start the search he had always spoken of. Now it seemed that if he was ever to reach any of those places it would be as a prisoner.

As they continued to sail south, the general conclusion was that the captain intended to round Cape Horn and take them back into the Atlantic.

‘If you ask me,’ Gus heard Mason say, ‘he just wants to be able to say that we’ve circumnavigated the globe, which is more than any of the other raiders have done.’

‘All I wish,’ Lieutenant Chew said, ‘is that we might come across another ship – not to take as a prize but just to get some firm news of how things stand at home.’

On July 24th he got his wish. They sighted a bark, the Barracouta, and gave chase. The ship was flying the British flag and a prize party going aboard was disappointed to discover that this was not merely a ruse to avoid being taken. Worse followed; the bark was carrying newspapers dated as recently as July 20th, which confirmed beyond doubt that the Confederates had been defeated and that their president, Jefferson Davis, and vice-president, Alexander Stephens, were prisoners of the Union government.

Gus could not help sharing the mood of despondency that gripped the ship. It was not his country that had been defeated, but he had lived with these people for almost a year and they were the nearest thing to a family he had ever known.

The first practical effect of the news came in an order from Captain Waddell. The guns were dismounted and stored away below decks and the gun ports, which had been cut into the hull nine months earlier as they sailed from Las Desertas, were boarded over. And to further disguise her, the black funnel was painted white. By the end of the day the Shenandoah had been transformed from a ship of war into a harmless merchant vessel. But the same question hung over every member of her crew: ‘Where, in this vast globe, are we going to find a port that will give us refuge?’

Eleven

May had been at Freeman’s for almost nine months. In that time she had not only mastered the basic millinery techniques but had built up a reputation for her eye for colour and design and was beginning to acquire her own clientele.