Ploof

THE GENERAL'S WENCH (244 pp.) -- Rosamond Marshall -- Prentice-Hall ($3.50).

"What were men made of, that they could gaze at one girl with their souls in their eyes one moment--and turn as he was turning now, to the call of a blonde trollop?" Sabrina Home's bosom (a prominent feature of this novel) was agitated by this question whenever she saw Sir John Templar, in a bedroom across the street, "take a running jump and land ploof" alongside Molly Quin, his doxy. To make matters worse, Sabrina was married to old Sir William Wakefield, "a spent candle." How, Sabrina wondered, could she escape from Sir William and join ardent Sir John?

So much of The General's Wench is devoted to bedroom doings that it easily gives the impression of being just one more piece of execrably written pornography. It says on the jacket, however, that Rosamond (Kitty) Marshall's real intention is to portray "the fabulously rich 18th century days of the East India Company . . . one of the most stimulating periods in all history."

Sabrina's worst troubles begin when she tells her husband that his impotence is quite intolerable. Sir William has been told this by two previous wives and has a rich 18th century answer ready: he locks complainers in a garret until they waste away. Then he buries them in the garden. Luckily, Sabrina does not waste away easily. She is still in fine shape when she is rescued by Sir John Templar's lawyer, who has forethoughtedly dropped poison in Sir William's rum. Indeed, the lawyer is so inflamed by Sabrina that he abducts her to Belgium, where he ties her daily to a bedpost and flogs her. Author Marshall's descriptions of these whippings seem almost pathological--until it is recalled that she is trying to portray the rich 18th century days of the East India Company, and is bound to take the rough with the smooth.

The General's Wench has a happy ending. Sir John arrives at the whipping post with his usual ploof. The lawyer falls through a trap door; his accomplice is dropped into a pit of lime. There was "an awful sizzling as Alfy began to cook."

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