Recapturing the Flag

By Philip Herrera

RULE BRITANNIA by DAPHNE DU MAURIER 335 pages. Doubleday. $6.95.

She still writes with Victorian verve, and each of her chapters ends with an upbeat sentence that impels the reader on. But Miss du Maurier's latest novel lacks the suspense, pageantry and ro mantic insight of Rebecca, French man's Creek or even the recent best-selling House on the Strand.

The scene is her beloved Cornwall again, but the matter, this time, is xeno phobia-- slick anti-Americanism to be precise. It is the near future. Britain's entry into the Common Market has proved an economic disaster. In order to save the nation from bankruptcy, Her Majesty's government joins the U.S. in a partnership called USUK. The Union Jack is blended with the Star-Spangled Banner to form one flag. With the Queen as coruler, the President of the U.S. will govern from the White House and Buckingham Palace. Minor injury follows major insult. When gum-chewing, libidinous Marines land to ensure "an orderly transition of power," they shoot a farm dog and rough up farm lads -- unforgivable! But worse is yet to come. A toothy American matron out lines a "Cultural Get Together": good Cornish men will be decked out in folk costume, and the Cornish hills will be turned into a "miniature Switzerland"-- all for the pleasure of culture-avid, free-spending Midwestern tourists.

A situation to be borne with stiff upper lips and all that? Not at all. A Cornish counterattack is mounted by an aged but indomitable exactress who runs a sort of orphanage. Her rustic crew of local stalwarts prevails by deploying the hackneyed virtues of the English character: sly eccentricity, calculated insult, a modicum of violence.

In the end, Prince Andrew lands in Scot land and Prince Charles in Wales to lead true Britons back to independence. The United Kingdom, one feels assured, will recapture its flag and muddle through the economic crisis. Pretty thin treacle, and, as another Victorian said, we are not amused.

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