Sharpe’s Regiment: The Invasion of France, June to November 1813

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1987

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1986

Copyright © Rifleman Productions Ltd 1986

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

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 author’s imagination.

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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007298655

Ebook Edition © July 2009 ISBN: 9780007338719 Version: 2017-05-06

Sharpe’s Regiment is respectfully dedicated to the men of The Royal Green Jackets, Sharpe’s successors

‘The same combination of thorough research and narrative drive that distinguished its predecessors. It is a gripping read’

Independent

‘… if any ’prentices have severe masters, any children have undutiful parents, if any servants have too little wages, or any husband too much wife, let them repair to the noble Sergeant Kite, at the sign of the Raven in this good town of Shrewsbury, and they shall receive present relief and entertainment. Gentlemen, I don’t beat my drum here to ensnare or inveigle any man, for you must know, gentlemen, that I am a man of honour!’

From The Recruiting Sergeant by George Farquhar (1678–1707)

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue: Spain June 1813

Prologue

Part One: England July – August 1813

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue: France November 1813

Epilogue

Keep Reading

Historical Note

Sharpe’s Story

About the Author

The SHARPE Series (in chronological order)

The SHARPE Series (in order of publication)

Also by Bernard Cornwell

About the Publisher

Regimental Sergeant Major MacLaird was a powerful man and the pressure of his fingers, where they gripped Major Richard Sharpe’s left hand, was painful. The RSM’s eyes opened slowly. ‘I’ll not cry, sir.’

‘No.’

‘They’ll not say they saw me cry, sir.’

‘No.’

A tear rolled down the side of the RSM’s face. His shako had fallen. It lay a foot from his head.

Sharpe, leaving his left hand in the Sergeant Major’s grip, gently pulled back the red jacket.

‘Our Father, which art in heaven.’ MacLaird’s voice choked suddenly. He lay on the hard flints of the roadway. Some of the dark flints were flecked with his blood. ‘Oh, Christ!’

Sharpe was staring into the ruin of the Sergeant Major’s belly. MacLaird’s filthy shirt had been driven into the wound that welled with gleaming, bright blood. Sharpe let the jacket fall gently onto the horror. There was nothing to be done.

‘Sir,’ the RSM’s voice was weak, ‘please sir?’ Sharpe was embarrassed. He knew what this hard man, who had bullied and whored and done his duty, wanted. Sharpe saw the struggle on the strong man’s face not to show weakness in death and he gripped MacLaird’s hand as if he could help this last moment of a soldier’s pride. MacLaird stared at the officer. ‘Sir?’

‘Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,’ the words came uncertainly to Sharpe’s lips. He did not know if he could remember the whole prayer. ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Sharpe had no belief, but perhaps when he died then he too would want the comfort of old phrases. ‘Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ One pound of twice-baked bread a day and it had been the bastard French who had trespassed. What were the next words? The flints dug into his knee where he knelt. ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, Amen.’ He thought he had remembered it all, but it did not matter now. MacLaird was dead, killed by a piece of stone the size of a bayonet that had been driven from a rock by the strike of a French cannon-ball. The blood had stopped flowing and there was no pulse in his neck.