Sharpe’s Devil: Napoleon and South America, 1820–1821
Richard Sharpe, asked to help an old friend, meets, at last, the greatest enemy.Five years after the Battle of Waterloo, Sharpe’s peaceful retirement in Normandy is shattered. An old friend, Don Blas Vivar, is missing in Chile, reported dead at rebel hands – a report his wife refuses to believe. She appeals to Sharpe to find out the truth.Sharpe, along with Patrick Harper, find themselves bound for Chile via St. Helena, where they have a fateful meeting with the fallen Emperor Napoleon. Convinced that they are on their way to collect a corpse, neither man can imagine that dangers that await them in Chile…Soldier, hero, rogue – Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.
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SHARPEâS
DEVIL
Richard Sharpe and the Emperor, 1820-21
BERNARD CORNWELL
Copyright
This novel is a work of fiction. The incidents and some of the characters portrayed in it, while based on real historical events and figures, are the work of the authorâs imagination.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1992
Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 1992
Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007235179
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007334544 Version: 2017-05-06
Sharpeâs Devil is for Toby and Isabel Eady
âSharpe and his creator are national treasuresâ
Sunday Telegraph
Table of Contents
The SHARPE Series (in chronological order)
PROLOGUE
There were sixteen men and only twelve mules. None of the men was willing to abandon the journey, so tempers were edgy and not made any better by the dayâs oppressive and steamy heat. The sixteen men were waiting by the shore, where the black basalt cliffs edged the small port and where there was no wind to relieve the humidity. Somewhere in the hills there sounded a grumble of thunder.
All but one of the sixteen men were uniformed. They stood sweltering and impatient in the shade of heavily branched evergreen trees while the twelve mules, attended by black slaves, drooped beside a briar hedge that was brilliant with small white roses. The sun, climbing towards noon, shimmered in an atmosphere that smelt of roses, pomegranates, seaweed, myrtle and sewage.
Two warships, their square-cut sails turned dirty grey by the long usage of wind and rain, patrolled far offshore. Closer, in the anchorage itself, a large Spanish frigate lay to twin anchors. It was not a good anchorage, for the oceanâs swells were scarcely vitiated by the embracing shore, nor was the water at the quayside deep enough to allow a great ship to moor alongside, and so the sixteen men had come ashore in the Spanish frigateâs longboats. Now they waited in the oppressive windless heat. In one of the houses just beyond the rose-bright hedge a baby cried.
âMore mules are being fetched. If you gentlemen will do us the honour of patience? And accept our sincerest apologies.â The speaker, a very young red-coated British Lieutenant whose face was running with sweat, displayed too much contrition. âWe didnât expect sixteen gentlemen, you understand, only fourteen, though of course there would still have been insufficient transport, but I have spoken with the adjutant, and he assures me that extra mules are being saddled, and we do apologize for the confusion.â The Lieutenant had spoken in a rush of words, but now abruptly stopped as it dawned on him that most of the sixteen travellers would not have understood a word he had spoken. The Lieutenant blushed, then turned to a tall, scarred and dark-haired man who wore a faded uniform jacket of the British 95th Rifles. âCan you translate for me, sir?â
âMore mules are coming,â the Rifleman said in laconic, but fluent Spanish. It had been nearly six years since the Rifleman had last used the language regularly, yet thirty-eight days on a Spanish ship had made him fluent again. He turned again to the Lieutenant. âWhy canât we walk to the house?â
âItâs all of five miles, sir, uphill, and very steep.â The Lieutenant pointed to the hillside above the trees where a narrow road could just be seen zig-zagging perilously up the flax-covered slope. âYou really are best advised to wait for the mules, sir.â
The tall Rifle officer made a grunting noise, which the young Lieutenant took for acceptance of his wise advice. âSir?â The Lieutenant, emboldened by the grunting noise, took a step closer to the Rifleman.
