Set in the harsh winter of 1809 (in the Napoleonic wars), British Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and his riflemen are retreating from the French forces. His troops are ambushed in the French mountains and decrease from 1000 men to just 200. They find a Spanish cavalry unit led by Vivar, who are trying to get a box containing an unknown artefact.
The riflemen dislike Sharpe, as he rose through the ranks to lieutenant, and wasn’t automatically ‘born’ as one. The unrest shows as the men lose morale,and even try to kill him at one point.
It is a gruelling novel about the gritty reality of the Napoleonic wars with every excruciating detail of the injuries and deaths of the riflemen. Cornwell makes us feel part of the unit as we are invested in particular and unique characters, from the strong Irishman Harper, to the devout Catholic Vivar. He also includes
civilians in the story and shows us how disgusted they are by the soldiers’ daily lives, which tells us how alienated they are from ‘normal’ life.
Despite the dire circumstances Sharpe finds himself in, he always manages to pull victory from a seemingly inevitable defeat. Although Richard Sharp himself wasn’t real, the battles in the book did actually happen.
James Naylor
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