For each of these contingencies, and many more, there were procedures and protocols, all devised by Fitcher himself: he was not a man to provide lengthy explanations of his methods and for the most part Paulette had to learn by watching and imitating. But sometimes, as he was working, he would begin to mumble to himself – and there was much to be learnt, Paulette discovered, from these near-inaudible disquisitions.

On the subject of soils for example: Fitcher would take a look at a plant that was wilting, even in the shade, and he would trace its ills back to the composition of the matter in which it was planted. Some soils were ‘hot’, he said, and some were ‘cold’, by which he meant that some types of earth heated up quicker than others and some tended to retain their heat over long periods. To redress the balance, as necessary, he kept several barrels of soil in reserve, some marked ‘cool’ and some ‘hot’: the former tended to be lighter in colour, being of a chalky composition, while the latter were generally darker, being peaty, with a greater amount of vegetal matter. When one or the other was needed he would send Paulette down to fetch him some, and then he would apply the remedy in carefully judged amounts.

Paulette was inclined at first to dismiss these notions of hot and cold soils as a far-fetched fancy – but there was certainly no denying that Fitcher’s methods sometimes effected miraculous resuscitations.

Manure was another matter which Fitcher had studied in great depth. He was not by any means dismissive of some of the conventional materials that were used to enrich the soil – the Redruth’s holds contained many barrels of rape-cake, malt dust and ground linseed – but the fertilizers that interested him most were those that could be harvested or generated while under sail. Seaweed for instance: he believed that certain varieties of it could be turned, through a process of soaking, drying and pulverizing, into matter that was extremely beneficial for plants. Whenever the Redruth encountered a patch of seaweed, he would lower nets and buckets into the water to haul up some fronds: then, after picking out the undesirable varieties, he would soak the rest in fresh water and hang them up on the after-shrouds and the rigging. When dry, he would grind them in a mortar and apply the powder in pinches, as though it were a rare remedy.

The Redruth’s flock of chickens was another important source of plant food. One of Paulette’s duties was to clear the droppings out of the coop every morning; this, said Fitcher, could be turned into a powerful fertilizer if mixed with water and fermented. The bird’s carcasses were not neglected either: when a chicken was slaughtered for the table, every part of it was put to use, including the feathers and bones which were cut up into tiny bits before being added to the compost barrels that hung from the Redruth’s stern. Stray seabirds, Fitcher claimed, were even more useful in this regard since they could be chopped up whole. Whenever an exhausted auk or gull came down to the brig to rest there would be a furious scramble among the sailors – for Fitcher offered a small reward for captured birds.