Here was mystery and paradox in copious confusion. "Obliged by circumstances to leave me—to conceal the place of her retirement"—yet commanding not only pecuniary resources for herself, but offering me any sum I might require! I retired to my bed; but sleep forsook me, nor did I want it. I had too much to think of, and no clue to solve my doubts. I prayed to Heaven for her welfare, vowed eternal constancy, and at length fell asleep. The next morning I took leave of my quondam associates, and returned to Portsmouth, neither wishing to see my father, my family, or even the sweet Emily. It however occurred to me that the same agent who could advance money could forward a letter; and a letter I wrote, expressing all I felt. No answer was returned; but as the letter never came back, I was convinced it was received, and occasionally sent others, the contents of which my readers will, no doubt, feel obliged to me for suppressing, love-letters being of all things in the world the most stupid, except to the parties concerned.
As I was not to see my Eugenia, I was delighted to hear that we were again to be sent on active service. The Scheldt expedition was preparing, and our frigate was to be in the advance; but our gallant and favourite captain was not to go with us; an acting captain was appointed, and every exertion was used to have the ship ready. The town in the meantime was as crowded with soldiers as Spithead and the harbour was with transports. Late in July, we sailed, having two gunboats in tow, which we were ordered to man. I applied for, and obtained the command of one of them, quite certain that I should see more service, and consequently have more amusement, than if I remained on board the frigate. We convoyed forty or fifty transports, containing the cavalry, and brought them all safe to an anchor off Cadsand.
The weather was fine, and the water smooth; not a moment was lost in disembarking the troops and horses; and I do not recollect ever having seen, either before or since, a more pleasing sight. The men were first sent on shore with their saddles and bridles: the horses were then lowered into the water in running slings, which were slipped clear off them in a moment; and as soon as they found themselves free, they swam away for the shore, which they saluted with a loud neigh as soon as they landed. In the space of a quarter of a mile we had three or four hundred horses in the water, all swimming for the shore at the same time; while their anxious riders stood on the beach waiting their arrival. I never saw so novel or picturesque a sight.
I found the gun-boat service very hard. We were stationed off Batz, and obliged to be constantly on the alert; but when Flushing surrendered we had more leisure, and we employed it in procuring some articles for our table, to which we had been too long strangers. Our money had been expended in the purchase of champagne and claret, in which articles we were no economists, consequently few florins could be spared for the purchase of poultry and butcher meat; but then these articles were to be procured, by the same means which had given us the island of Walcheren, namely powder and shot. The country people were very churlish, and not at all inclined to barter; and as we had nothing to give in exchange, we avoided useless discussion. Turkeys, by us short-sighted mortals, were often mistaken for pheasants; cocks and hens, for partridges; tame ducks and geese for wild; in short, such was our hurry and confusion—leaping ditches, climbing dykes, and fording swamps—that Buffon himself would never have known the difference between a goose and a peacock. Our game-bags were as capacious as our consciences, and our aim as good as our appetites.
The peasants shut all their poultry up in their barns, and very liberally bestowed all their curses upon us. Thus all our supplies were cut off, and foraging became at least a source of difficulty, if not of danger. I went on shore with our party, put a bullet into my fowling-piece, and, as I thought, shot a deer; but on more minute inspection, it proved to be a four months' calf. This was an accident that might have happened to any man. The carcass was too heavy to carry home, so we cut it in halves, not fore and aft down the backbone, as your stupid butchers do, but made a short cut across the loins, a far more compendious and portable method than the other. We marched off with the hind legs, loins, and kidney, having first of all buried the head and shoulders in the field, determined to call and take it away the following night.
We were partly seen, and severely scrutinized in our action by a neighbouring gun-boat, whose crew were no doubt as hungry as ourselves; they got hold of one of our men, who, like a fool, let the cat out of the bag, when a pint of grog got into it. The fellow hinted where the other half lay, and these unprincipled rascals went after it, fully resolved to appropriate it to themselves; but they were outwitted, as they deserved to be for their roguery. The farmer to whom the calf belonged had got a hint of what was done, and finding that we had buried one half of the calf, procured a party of soldiers ready to take possession of us when we should come to fetch it away; accordingly, the party who went from the other gun-boat after dark, having found out the spot, were very busy disinterring their prey, when they were surprised, taken prisoners, and marched away to the British camp, leaving the dead body behind.
We, quite unconscious of what was done, came soon after, found our veal, and marched off with it. The prisoners were in the meantime sent on board the flag ship, with the charge of robbery strongly preferred against them; indeed, flagrante delicto was proved. In vain they protested that they were not the slayers, but only went in search of what others had killed: the admiral, who was a kind-hearted man, said, that that was a very good story, but desired them "not to tell lies to old rogues," and ordered them all under arrest: at the same time giving directions for a most rigid scrutiny into the larder of the other gun-boat, with a view, if possible, to discover the remains of the calf. This we had foreseen would happen, so we put it into one of the sailor's bags, and sank it with a lead-line in three fathoms water, where it lay till the inspection was over, when we dressed it, and made an excellent dinner, drinking success to His Majesty's arms by land and sea.
Whether I had been intemperate in food or libation I know not, but I was attacked with the Walchèren fever, and was sent home in a line-of-battle ship; and, perhaps, as Pangloss says, it was all for the best; for I knew I could not have left off my inveterate habits, and it would have been very inconvenient to me, and distressing to my friends, to have ended my brilliant career, and stopped these memoirs, at the beginning of the second and most interesting volume, by hanging the Author up, like a scarecrow, under the superintendence of the rascally provost-marshal, merely for catering on the land of a Walcheren farmer. Moreover, the Dutch were unworthy of liberty, as their actions proved, to begrudge a few fowls, or a fillet of veal, to the very men who came to rescue them from bondage;—and then their water, too, who ever drank such stuff? for my part, I never tasted it when I could get anything better. As to their nasty swamps and fogs, quite good enough for such croaking fellows as they are, what could induce an Englishman to live among them, except the pleasure of killing Frenchmen, or shooting game? Deprive us of these pursuits, which the surrender of Flushing effectually did, and Walcheren, with its ophthalmia and its agues, was no longer a place for a gentleman. Besides, I plainly saw that if there ever had been any intention of advancing to Antwerp, the time was now gone by; and as the French were laughing at us, and I never liked to be made a butt of, particularly by such chaps as these, I left the scene of our sorrows and disgraces without regret.
The farewell of Voltaire came into my mind. "Adieu, Canaux, Canardes, et Canaille," which might be rendered into English thus:—"Good-bye, Dykes, Ducks, and Dutchmen." So I returned to my father's house to be nursed by my sister, and to astonish the neighbours with the history of our wonderful achievements.