Napoleonic Wars veteran Richard Sharpe returns for new adventure behind enemy lines

Actor Sean Bean brought Napoleonic Wars veteran Richard Sharpe to life on the small screen. Now Sharpe is back in a new book by Bernard Cornwell. Read the excerpt.

Hard-bitten Napoleonic Wars veteran Richard Sharpe is one of historical fiction king BERNARD CORNWELL’s most popular characters – played on TV by Sean Bean. He returns for a gripping new adventure behind enemy lines in Sharpe’s Command.

French-occupied Spain, 1812: Richard Sharpe was thinking about breakfast when he was hit. The choice was between salt pork or salt beef, neither with any bread and both tough as boiled boot-leather. He was about to choose the pork when the shot sounded, but so far away that he thought it unimportant. He dismissed it as a hunter in the distant hills, and almost immediately the hunter’s shot hit him.

It struck his upper left thigh, glanced harmlessly onto the metal scabbard of his heavy cavalry sword and dropped to the ground. He stumbled from the impact, cursed and rubbed his thigh.

Sergeant Harper stooped to recover the ball. ‘Bloody fine shot, sir,’ he said.

‘Bloody stupid shot,’ Sharpe retorted. He was gazing north east and could just see a puff of smoke drifting in the almost still air. The smoke came from the rocky crest of a hill that had to be half a mile away.

Actor Sean Bean in the 1993 TV film "Sharpe's Rifles".

He knew he was lucky, indeed his men called him ‘Lucky Sharpe’, but still shooting a musket at a target a half mile away was stupid. The ball had been slowed by the air until it was almost spent and lacked the power to pierce even the cloth of his overalls. It had smarted and would leave a bruise, but that was a lot better than a lump of lead deep in his muscles. ‘Bloody Crapaud,’ he said angrily. ‘I’ll have some pork.’

‘Wasn’t a Frenchman,’ Harper said. He tossed the musket ball to Sharpe, who caught it one-handed. ‘That’s one of ours.’

The ball was still warm. It was smaller than a rifle bullet, but larger than the ball fired by a French musket. The difference in sizes was minute, but Sharpe had been a soldier in the British Army for nineteen years. He had enlisted in the 33rd Regiment when he was sixteen and since then he had fought in Flanders, India, Portugal and now Spain. He had been promoted to Sergeant in 1799 and four years later had been commissioned as an officer. Now, in the spring of 1812 he was a Major and wore the green jacket of a rifleman. Nineteen years of battle and every one of them as an infantryman, Sharpe knew that Harper was right. The spent musket ball, fired at such a ridiculous range, was British.

‘Here comes Cupid,’ Harper said in warning.

‘Don’t call him that,’ Sharpe said irritably.

‘Everyone else does,’ Harper responded, ‘you do!’

‘Sir! Sir!’ Lieutenant Love stumbled in his hurry to reach Sharpe. ‘Are you hurt, sir? Is it serious?’

‘It’s nothing, Lieutenant,’ Sharpe said dismissively. ‘A spent round.’

‘So the French are barring the road,’ Lieutenant Love said, gazing at the distant skyline, ‘that is grievous news, sir.’

‘It’s not the bloody Crapauds,’ Sharpe said, ‘that was fired by a partida.’ He used the Spanish word for the guerrilla fighters who dogged the French all across Spain. He tossed the musket ball away and turned back to the trees where his men had spent the night. ‘Dan! See anything up there?’

Sharpe's Command by Bernard Cornwell.

Daniel Hagman gazed at the distant crest where the puff of smoke had thinned, then suddenly a dozen eruptions of smoke showed along the rocky skyline. The volley’s ragged sound arrived an instant later. ‘They don’t like us, Mister Sharpe,’ Hagman said, amused.

‘Oh my Lord almighty!’ Lieutenant Love had dived behind the nearest tree trunk. ‘Partidas? Really?’

‘Really,’ Sharpe said flatly, then looked back to Hagman. ‘Say hello back to them, Dan.’

‘A pleasure,’ Hagman said. He lay on his back, propped his rifle barrel between his feet and sighted along the barrel. ‘Want the bugger dead, Mister Sharpe?’

‘I want them scared.’

‘Scared it is,’ Hagman said and pulled the trigger. The rifle’s sound was crisper than a musket and, unlike a musket, its bullet would be lethal at a half mile. ‘I reckon he needs new britches, Mister Sharpe,’ Hagman said, standing and fishing a new cartridge from his pouch. ‘But aren’t the partidas on our side?’ Lieutenant Love had crept out from his sheltering tree.

‘They are, Lieutenant, but those buggers don’t know which side we’re on.’

Actor Sean Bean in the 1993 TV film "Sharpe's Rifles".

Lieutenant Love peered anxiously at the distant skyline. ‘They suspect we may be French?’ Love sounded disbelieving. ‘That’s what the buggers think, Lieutenant.’

‘Then we’re in a pickle, sir,’ Love said. ‘There’s no cover between us and that hilltop! How can we approach without being slaughtered? Oh, if only I had a nine-pounder!’

‘You don’t,’ Sharpe said with a deal more asperity than he had intended, but in truth Lieutenant Courtney deVere Love of the Royal Artillery was wearing Sharpe’s patience thin, a patience already scraped almost bare by this journey deep into enemy-held Spain.

Another fusillade of musketry sounded.

‘I have a spare white shirt, sir,’ Love said eagerly. ‘Allow me to fix it to my sabre’s tip and it will serve as a flag of truce.’

‘Lieutenant,’ Sharpe forced himself to sound patient, ‘If you walk out there waving a white flag they’ll take it as a sign of weakness, wait for you to get in range and then use you for target practice.’

This is an edited extract from Sharpe’s Command, by Bernard Cornwell. It is available now, published by HarperCollins.

Originally published as Napoleonic Wars veteran Richard Sharpe returns for new adventure behind enemy lines