The Confusion

“I HAVE SEEN altogether too many men in my day, living as I have in Vagabond-camps and Regimental quarters. And so it could be that my memory has been overfilled and is now playing tricks on me. But I think that I have seen that man before,” Bob said.

“Flail-arm? You mentioned you’d noticed him in Cherbourg, spying or gawking.”

“Aye, but even the first time I saw him there, I phant’sied I’d seen his face elsewhere.”

“If he was spying on me there, perhaps he had been doing the same in St.-Malo, and you’d noticed him on one of your visits,” said Eliza, and was immediately sorry that she had raised this topic; for her bowels were in an uproar, she’d spent more time at the head than all others on the boat summed, and Bob had conspicuously refrained from saying anything about it, but only squinted at her knowingly. It was late afternoon. The sun was slicing down across the northwestern sky, making England into a rubble of black lumps in the foreground, and casting golden light on Bob’s face.

“I phant’sied I’d make the return voyage, you know.”

“You mean, back to Normandy tomorrow? But are you not absent without leave from your Irish regiment? Would you not be flogged for it, or something?”

“I got leave, on a pretext. It is still not too late.”

“But it sounds as though you are having second thoughts.”

“The closer we draw to England, the better she suits me. I went to France for diverse reasons, none of which have turned out to be any good.”

“You hoped it would bring you within reach of Abigail.”

“Aye. But instead I was marooned in Brest nigh on half a year, then Cherbourg for three months. And so serving France has brought me no nearer to Paris than if I’d been posted in London. Who knows where they’ll have us go next?”

“If what I have heard means anything,” Eliza said, “the fighting will be very hot in the Spanish Netherlands this summer. They are probably laying siege to Namur as we speak. That is most likely where Count Sheerness is-”

“And so probably Abigail as well,” said Bob, “for if he means to spend the whole summer in those parts, he has brought his household with him. Very well. My most expedient way of reaching that part of the world shall be to re-join the Black Torrent Guards and be shipped thither at King William’s expense.”

“Don’t you suppose your nine months’ absence will have been noted? What kind of flogging will they award you for that!?”

“I was conducting military espionage in the enemy camp for the Earl of Marlborough,” Bob retorted; though the look on his face, and the lilt in his voice, suggested that this had only just come into his head.

“The Earl of Marlborough has been dismissed from all offices, stripped of command. His colonelcy of the Black Torrent Guards will have been sold off to some Tory hack.”

“But nine months ago when my mission of espionage began, none of that was true.”

“Your idea still seems risky to me,” said Eliza, eager to draw the exchange to a curt finish because the rioting had started up in her belly once more.

“Then I shall test the waters first, with Marlborough, before presenting myself to the Regiment,” Bob said. “You’re going to London! I don’t suppose you’d be willing to bring him a private note from me-?”

“Since you cannot read or write, I suppose you’d like me to pen the note as well?” said Eliza, and turned her back on Bob, the better to search for a convenient scupper. She did not feel as though she would have time to trudge all the way to the head; besides which, a French sailor was already sitting up there, taking a lengthy shit into the English Channel and singing.

“Your offer is well received,” Bob returned. “And as I am unfit to frame a proper letter to an Earl, perhaps I could interest you in composing it as well-?”

“I’ll just talk to him,” said Eliza, dropping to her hands and knees. The next thing that emerged from her mouth, however, was altogether unfit for presentation to an Earl; a fact Bob was discreet enough not to point out.

London 4 JUNE (N.S.)/25 MAY (O.S.), 1692

Where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruin.

–HOBBES,

Leviathan