Sharpe's Battle (novel)

Infobox_Book |
name = Sharpe's Battle


image_caption = Recent UK edition cover
author = Bernard Cornwell
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series = Richard Sharpe stories
genre = Historical novels
publisher = HarperCollins
release_date = 8 May, 1995
media_type = Print (Hardcover and Paperback) and audio-CD
pages = 288 pp (hardcover edition)) 368 pp (paperback edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-00-224307-5 (hardcover edition) ISBN 0-00-647324-5 (paperback edition)
preceded_by = Sharpe's Fury
followed_by = Sharpe's Company

Sharpe's Battle is a novel of historical fiction, a component of the Sharpe series written by Bernard Cornwell. The book is set during the Peninsular War in Spain in the spring of 1811.

Plot summary

The book begins with Sharpe and his company on patrol near the Spanish Portuguese border where they encounter a group of soldiers in grey uniforms raping a young girl in a small village. The soldiers are French but wear grey uniforms and are part of the Loup brigade (French for wolf), commanded by Brigadier Guy Loup. Sharpe is appalled by the rape and that all the other villagers are dead and most have been raped, including children. He orders the French prisoners to be shot. Loup pleads for their lives, but to no avail and Sharpe makes a bitter enemy.fn|1.

Back at headquarters, Sharpe is informed by Major Hogan that the Real Compania Irlandesa, the royal bodyguard of the captive King of Spain are being allowed through the French lines to enlist with the native Spanish armies. As the British wish for Wellesley to be made Generalissimo of the Spanish Armies, it is imperative that they be allowed enlist as a test case. However, suspicions are raised that French agents are rife within the regiment. Sharpe is ordered to take them to a far away fort and drill them mercilessly to encourage desertion. In an aside, we see Pierre Ducos the French intelligence officer in concert with Dona Juanita de Elia a Spanish noblewoman who is a French supporter and Ducos' contact with the agent in the Compania Irlandesa. Juanita is currently the lover of Lord Kiely the regiment's commander. We learn that she takes a uniform off the regiment of every man she sleeps with.

Sharpe's direct commander is the Wagonmaster-General Colonel Claude Runciman, a monstrously fat man, who is increasingly genial when referred to as General. The French plan appears to be working, as there are desertions from the Real Compania, though Sharpe feels sympathy for some of the Spanish officers who want to fight for Spain and are not French sympathisers. He persuades Runciman to divert some ammunition wagons to the fort. Sharpe then meets El Castrador, the local partisan commander, who, in exchange for rifles, Sharpe persuades to capture and castrate some of the deserters as an example to others. El Castrador has lost a number of encounters with Loup, who has created a unit specifically to fight partisans, composed of mixed cavalry and infantry. Loup also castrates prisoners in retaliation, but with a blunter knife. The Spanish desertions end after three mutilated prisoners are discovered outside the fort.

In the interim, faked American newspapers carry stories of massacres of Irish peasants who are apparently rebelling against British rule. These reports cause concern among the Irish soldiers, but are soon exposed as French inventions when new recruits from Ireland in other regiments know nothing of these events. Soon after, a Portuguese infantry battalion arrives at the fort, and during a dinner, Sharpe admits killing the French prisoners in front of the Battalion's Commander. The following night, Loup attacks the fort. The Spanish and British hole up in the barracks, but the Portuguese infantry are butchered. Sharpe fears they are all doomed, but a massive explosion kills dozens of Loup's attackers and he departs from the fort quickly. Sharpe and Harper discover that Tom Garrard blew up some ammunition carts, causing the explosion, but sacrificing himself in the process.fn|2.

The Spanish and Portuguese demand an inquiry into the assault and Sharpe and Runciman are set up as a political sacrifice. To avoid this fate, Sharpe attacks Loup's hideout, but Loup's Battalion is away and instead, Sharpe captures the Dona Juanita. She is exposed as a traitor, but Sharpe lets her go after taking the incriminating evidence. After engaging in a scuffle in Loup's bedroom, Sharpe and Juanita have sex. Later, we discover that Perkins has lost his rifleman's jacketfn|3.

His reputation ruined, Kiely kills himself in a church. His sparsely attended funeral is presided over by the Regiment's chaplain, Father Sarsfield. He and Major Hogan engage in discussion, and Hogan names Sarsfield as the French agent within the Regiment. Sarsfield conspired with the Dona Juanita to distribute the falsified newspaper reports, written by Ducos, through the Regiment. Sarsfield is likely a Father Mallin, a confidante of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen. When Sarsfield pulls a gun on Hogan, Sharpe shoots him dead from a hiding place.

A French attack is now imminent from Marshal André Masséna, who is using the resupply of Alameida as a feint to draw Wellington into battle. Wellington concentrates his forces on the village of Fuentes de Onoro. At his back is the sole ford by which his troops can safely retreat back to Portugal. Should he lose the battle, then the English and Spanish armies are finished. Still in disgrace, Sharpe, Runciman and the Real Compania Irlandese are left guarding the ammunition wagons. Concentrated French assaults push the British out of the village and back steadily up the hill. Wellington releases his reserves, the 79th Highlanders and the 88th Connaught Rangers, who beat back the French into the village. However, the British are in turn counter-attacked by the Loup Brigade. With Sharpe's encouragement, Runciman "offers" to lead the Spanish Regiment to reinforce the Highlanders and the Rangers. They are successful, and as the Loup Brigade falters, so does the French will to fight and Wellington sends the line forward.

As Sharpe is about to kill Loup, he is shot by the Dona Juanita, who is then shot by Harper, Sharpe then finishes killing Loup. The Real Compania Irlandese are sent to the Spanish Junta in Cadiz with honour and Wellington becomes Generalissimo of the Spanish armies. The case against Sharpe and Runcimanfn|4 is dropped, in light of their bravery, and the lack of any witnesses. Wellington's new Spanish liaison, Alava, becomes one of his greatest friends and is present at Waterloo. With Portugal safe from French attacks, the British liberation of Spain can continue.

Notes

*fn|1 It is interesting to note that Loup pleaded for the lives of his men in much the same way that Sharpe has done in previous novels. Vengeance is not a characteristic lacking in Sharpe.
*fn|2 Garrard and Sharpe met in Sharpe's Tiger in the ranks. They both stayed in the army, but Garrard enlisted in the Portuguese Army where he was promoted to Captain. We see the contrast between the reluctance of the British Army to have commissioned officers from the ranks, while the Portuguese army encourages the practice. Had Sharpe enlisted in the Portuguese army, he would likely have been a Major, instead of a Captain. As it was Sharpe and Harper who blew up the magazine in Almeida in Sharpe's Gold, Garrard's selfless act is an interesting twist.
*fn|3 After engaging in a scuffle in Loup's bedroom, Sharpe and Juanita have sex. She steals Perkins' jacket before she leaves the hideout. Perkins is featured in the television series but this is the second novel in which he appears. In Sharpe's Eagle the character, Pendleton, who Perkins is friends with, dies at Talavera.
*fn|4 Runciman never appears in any subsequent book and we are told was sent to England to become commander of the Militia.

Film & TV Adaptations

This novel was dramatised on ITV in 1995 and is a relatively faithful adaptation of the novel. Pierre Ducos and Fr. Sarsfield do not appear in the film and Lord Kiely had no wife in the novel. The plot remains largely the same with regard to the French circulating newsapers describing massacres in Ireland by British troops in the hope that Irish soldiers will desert. Major Munro clearly reprises the role of Major Hogan in the novel. The film ends with the destruction of the Loup Brigade and does not deal with the events of Fuentes de Onoro. Kiely is taken from behind by Loup and fatally stabbed in contrast to commiting suicide in the book; also Rifleman Perkins is given a poignant death while in the book he survives.

External links

* [http://bernardcornwell.net/index.cfm?page=2&BookId=9 Section from Bernard Cornwell's website on "Sharpe's Battle"]