The Rifle barrel came slowly up.
‘You can’t kill me!’ And this time the voice collapsed into sobs, sobs that were child-like because Obadiah knew that he was lying. ‘You can’t kill me.’
The bullet killed him. It twitched his head for the very last time, killing him instantly, killing the man who could not be killed. Sharpe had dreamed of this moment for nigh on twenty years, but there was none of the pleasure he had expected.
Behind him, unseen, the evening star was showing pale against a winter sky. A small wind stirred the hornbeam twigs.
Two bodies marked this winter. The one whose hair had been spread on the snows of the Gateway of God, and now this one. Obadiah Hakeswill, being lifted into his coffin, dead. Sharpe’s enemy.
HISTORICAL NOTE
The idea that a private ‘army’ of deserters, drawn from every . nationality fought in the Peninsular War, may stretch credulity too far. Not as far, perhaps, as the idea of a ’Rocket Troop‘. Yet both existed.
Pot-au-Feu lived, a renegade French Sergeant who promoted himself to Marshal, and who survived by terrorising a wide patch of Spanish countryside. His followers included French, British, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers, and his crimes included kidnapping, rape, and murder. I fear I have made him into a man pleasanter than he really was. The French General de Marbot tells how the French destroyed him and then handed the allied deserters over to Wellington’s forces. Sharpe, I fear, has taken credit for a French success.
In another distortion of history I have brought the Rocket Troop to Spain a few months early. Wellington first saw a demonstration of Sir William Congreve’s Rocket System in 1810 when a Naval detachment brought some weapons ashore in Portugal. Wellington was unimpressed. By 1813, however, a Rocket Troop had joined his army and it enjoyed the enthusiastic patronage of the Prince Regent. In its workings I have stayed close to the Instruction Book written by Sir William Congreve himself (even down to the detachable lance-heads, surely a triumph of inventor’s hope over judgment). It was an extraordinary system that had, at its most ambitious, a ‘Light-Ball’ rocket that delivered a parachute flare for night fighting. And this in 1813! The Rocket Corps itself came into formal existence on January 1st, 1814, though it had already been deployed in the Peninsula and, indeed, Congreve’s system had been sold in 1808 to the Austrian army where it was known as the Feuerwerkscorps. Wellington continued to mistrust it, though he used it at the crossing of the Adour, while in Northern Europe, it had its most successful day at the Battle of Leipzig where foreign observers were much impressed. A rocket battery was present at Waterloo and in some pictures of that engagement the rocket trails can be seen over the battlefield.
Though it was never a great success, the Rocket Corps has enshrined itself in history thanks to one of the enemies against whom it was so ineffectively employed (the problem was simply accuracy, which is why Sharpe chose to wait until they could hardly avoid hitting the enemy). Rockets were deployed in the war of 1812 against the United States, used by the British in their siege of Fort McHenry. A song was written about that siege and then put to the music of a drinking song used by the Anacreon Club in London. Those words and that tune now comprise, of course, the American National Anthem. It is strange to think that whenever ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is sung, before every baseball and football game, Britain’s erstwhile enemies recall Sir William Congreve’s invention in the line ’the rockets’ red glare‘. Thus did Britain’s secret weapon find lasting fame!
Sir Augustus Farthingdale plagiarized his book mainly from Major Chamberlin’s book, and now I must confess to a plagiarism. Sharpe’s Christmas meal, and the hare stew that Pot-au-Feu ate in the Convent, all came from Elizabeth David’s magnificent French Provincial Cooking, a book that has given me more pleasure than most. If any reader would like to recreate Sharpe’s Christmas meal (a rewarding experience!) then I refer to them to Mrs David’s magnificent work. Potage de marron Dauphinois (Chestnut soup), Perdreau Roti au Four (Roast Partridge), and the Cassoulet de Toulouse a la Menagère, to which I added roast potatoes for Sharpe’s sake, and changed the recipe to fit the foods which might have been available in winter Spain. The hare stew exalts in the name Le Civet de Lievre de Diane de Chateaumorand. Strictly speaking it is not a stew, but I will not attempt the impossible and try to rival Elizabeth David as a cookery writer. My thanks to her.
Beyond the army of deserters and the rocket system, all else in Sharpe’s Enemy is fiction. There is no Gateway of God, nor was any battle fought over the Christmas of 1812. The 6oth existed, the Royal American Rifles, but all other Regiments are fictitious. I wanted to write one story that reflected the last winter when the British would be pinned back again in Portugal. Despite Napoleon’s crushing defeat in Russia it must still have seemed to many soldiers that the war could last forever, yet within months Wellington’s strategy changed the whole Peninsular War and never again were the British to retreat. Sharpe and Harper will march again.
About the Author
BERNARD CORNWELL is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling Richard Sharpe series; the Thomas of Hookton series, featuring The Archer’s Tale, Vagabond, and Heretic; the Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles; the Warlord Trilogy; and the novels Redcoat, Stonehenge 2000 B.C., and Gallows Thief. Bernard Cornwell lives with his wife in Cape Cod.
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OTHER BOOKS BY BERNARD CORNWELL
(The Sharpe Novels (in chronological order)
SHARPE’S TIGER*
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Seringapatam, 1799
SHARPE’S TRIUMPH*
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803
SHARPE’S FORTRESS*
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803
SHARPE’S TRAFALGAR*
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805
SHARPE’S PREY*
Richard Sharpe and the Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807
SHARPE’S RIFLES
Richard Sharpe and the French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809
SHARPE’S HAVOC*
Richard Sharpe and the Campaign in Northern Portugal, Spring 1809
SHARPE’S EAGLE
Richard Sharpe and the Talavera Campaign, July 1809
SHARPE’S GOLD
Richard Sharpe and the Destruction of Almeida, August 1810
SHARPE’S ESCAPE*
Richard Sharpe and the Bussaco Campaign, September to October 1810
SHARPE’S BATTLE*
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, May 1811
SHARPE’S COMPANY
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Badajoz, January to April 1812
SHARPE’S SWORD
Richard Sharpe and the Salamanca Campaign, June and July 1812
SHARPE’S ENEMY
Richard Sharpe and the Defense of Portugal, Christmas 1812
SHARPE’S HONOUR
Richard Sharpe and the Vitoria Campaign, February to June 1813
SHARPE’S REGIMENT
Richard Sharpe and the Invasion of France, June to November 1813
SHARPE’S SIEGE
Richard Sharpe and the Winter Campaign, 1814
SHARPE’S REVENGE
Richard Sharpe and the Peace of 1814
SHARPE’S WATERLOO
Richard Sharpe and the Waterloo Campaign, 15 June to 18 June, 1815
SHARPE’S DEVIL*
Richard Sharpe and the Emperor, 1820-21
THE THOMAS OF HOOKTON SERIES
The Archer’s Tale*
Vagabond*
Heretic*
THE NATHANIEL STARBUCK CHRONICLES
Rebel*
Copperhead*
Battle Flag*
The Bloody Ground*
THE WARLORD CHRONICLES
The Winter King
The Enemy of God
Excalibur
OTHER NOVELS
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br /> Redcoat*
Gallows Thief*
Stonehenge, 2000 B.C.: A Novel*
*Published by HarperCollinsPublishers
Bernard Cornwell On:
I. The Origin of Richard Sharpe (Memo to the Sharpe Appreciation Society, http://www.southessex.co.uk)
Richard Sharpe was born on a winter’s night in 1980. It was in London, in a basement flat in Courtnell Street, not far from Westbourne Grove. I had decided to marry an American and, for a myriad of reasons, it was going to be easier if I lived in America, but I could not get a work permit and so, airily, I decided to earn a living as a writer. Love makes us into idiots.
But at least I knew what I wanted to write. It was going to be a land-based version of C.S. Forester’s Hornblower books. I wasted hours trying to find my hero’s name. I wanted a name as dramatic as Horatio Hornblower, but I couldn’t think of one (Trumpetwhistler? Cornetpuffer?), so eventually I decided to give him a temporary name and, once I had found his real name, I would simply go back and change it. So I named him after Richard Sharp, the great rugby player, and of course the name stuck. I added an “e” – that was all.
The book was finished in New Jersey. Now, eighteen years, innumerable battles and well over a million words later, he’s still going strong, and there are yet more books to write. I thought I had finished with Sharpe after Waterloo, but so many people wrote wanting more stories that he had to put on his green jacket and march again. Being a hero, of course, he has more lives than a basketful of cats, but maybe Sharpe’s greatest stroke of good fortune was meeting Sean Bean.
He has also been outrageously lucky in his other friends who, collectively, are the Sharpe Appreciation Society. He would not think there was that much to appreciate (“Bloody daft, really”), but on his behalf, I can thank you for being his friends and assure you that, so long as I have anything to do with him, he will not let you down.
And, finally, time for confession: Years and years ago I was a journalist in Belfast and I remember a night just before Christmas when a group of us were sitting in a city-centre pub getting drunk and maudlin, and discussing, as journalists are wont to do, how much easier life would be if only we were novelists. No more hard work, just storytelling, and somehow we invented the name of an author and a bet was laid. The bet was a bottle of Jameson Whiskey from everyone about the table to be given to whichever one of us first wrote the book with the author’s name. Years later I collected the winnings (long drunk) which is why, in second-hand shops, you might find the following: A Crowning Mercy; The Fallen Angels;Coat of Arms – all by Bernard Cornwell, writing as Susannah Kells.
II. Sharpe’s Adventures
I thought, when I began writing Sharpe, that there could not possibly be more than ten novels in him, but there are now eighteen and more are on the way.
So who and what is he?
Richard Sharpe is a soldier, one of the thousands of Britons who fought against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France between 1793 and 1815. He shadows the career of Sir Arthur Wellesley, who becomes the first Duke of Wellington, and in so doing he takes part in some of the most extraordinary exploits of the era – from the storming of Seringapatam in 1799 to the bloodbath at Waterloo in 1815.
By 1814, when Napoleon is first defeated and sent into exile, the Duke of Wellington leads what is arguably the finest army that Britain ever raised. About one in twenty of its officers had come up from the ranks, and Richard Sharpe is one of them. Is he real? No, there was no Rifle officer called Sharpe, though there was a cavalryman whose rise from trooper to Lieutenant Colonel took the same amount of time that it takes Sharpe to be promoted from private to Lieutenant Colonel. Sharpe is also a Rifleman, a new breed of soldier in the British army who fought, not with a smoothbore musket, but with the much more accurate rifle. Above everything, though, Sharpe has adventures. That is the point of the poor man’s existence.
— Bernard Cornwell
(Material culled from http://www.bernardcornwellbooks.com and from The Sharpe Appreciation Society website, http://www.southessex.co.uk.)
The Sharpe Appreciation Society
The Sharpe Appreciation Society was formed in 1996 amid growing demands from fans wanting more information about the books, television series, the people involved in making the series, the Napoleonic period, weaponry – in fact anything remotely connected with Sharpe.
After finding there was no central point of contact for fans, Chris Clarke, now secretary, made contact with Richard Rutherford-Moore (historical and technical advisor to the television series) and wrote to the author Bernard Cornwell as well as to Malcolm Craddock, one of the producers.
With Richard Moore’s help, Chris started the fan club in July 1996, expecting fifty to 100 fans to join her. We now have over 1,500 fans across the world and they are still joining! In May 1998, we held our first convention, where we were joined by Bernard Cornwell, Malcolm Craddock, Muir Sutherland and some of the actors involved in bringing the world of Sharpe to life.
We are the official fan club, approved by the author, producers, Carlton Television and Central Television. For more information, please write to Chris who will be pleased to send you an application form.
The Sharpe Appreciation Society
P.O. Box 14
Lowdham
Nottingham
NG14 7HU
England
Sharpe Query Line:
Tel: 0(044) 115 966 5405
Secretary: Christine Clarke
[email protected]
http://www.southessex.co.uk
About the Publisher
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Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy Page 89
