Sharpe’s Rifles: The French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809
Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and a detachment of riflemen join the assault of a strong French force holding the Holy City of Santiago de Compostela.Cut off from the rest of the army and surrounded, their only hope of escape is to accept the help of the Spanish, but this assistance comes at a price: to join the assault on the holy city of Santiago de Compostela, held by a strong French force. There is little Sharpe would enjoy more.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
RIFLES
Richard Sharpe and the French Invasion
of Galicia, January 1809
BERNARD CORNWELL
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 Collins 1988
Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1989
Copyright © Rifleman Productions Ltd 1988
Map © John Gilkes 2011
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: 9780006176978
Ebook Edition © JULY 2009 ISBN: 9780007338733
Version: 2017-05-06
Sharpeâs Rifles is for Carolyn Ryan
âSharpe is the epitome of a nineteenth-century, romantic working-class hero. Cool, flash and fragrant ⦠Escape and enjoyâ
Daily Express
Table of Contents
The SHARPE Series (in chronological order)
PROLOGUE
The prize was a strongbox.
A Spanish Major was struggling to save the box, while a chasseur Colonel of Napoleonâs Imperial Guard had been ordered to capture it. The Frenchman had been unleashed to the task; told that he could destroy or kill whatever or whoever tried to obstruct him.
The strongbox itself was a chest made of a wood so old that it appeared as black and shiny as coal. The wood was bound with two iron bands that, though pitted with ancient rust, were still strong. The old chest was two feet long, eighteen inches wide, and as many inches high. It was locked with two hasps that were fastened with brass padlocks. The joint between the humped lid and the chest was sealed with red seals, some of them so old that they were now little more than wisps of wax imbedded in the grain of the ancient wood. An oilcloth had been sewn around the strong box to protect it from the weather, or rather to protect the fate of Spain that lay hidden inside.
On the second day of 1809 the chasseur Colonel almost captured the strongbox. He had been given a Regiment of French Dragoons and those horsemen caught up with the Spaniards close to the city of Leon. The Spaniards only escaped by climbing into the high mountains where they were forced to abandon their horses, for no horse could climb the steep, ice-slicked tracks where Major Blas Vivar sought refuge.
It was winter, the worst winter in Spanish memory, and the very worst time to be in the northern Spanish mountains, but the French had given Major Vivar no choice. Napoleonâs armies had taken Madrid in December, and Blas Vivar had fled with the strongbox just one hour before the enemy horsemen had entered the capital. He had ridden with one hundred and ten Cazadores; the mounted âhuntersâ who carried a straight-bladed sword and a short-barrelled carbine. But the hunters had become the hunted as, in a nightmare journey across Spain, Vivar had twisted and turned to avoid his French pursuers. He had hoped to find safety in General Romanaâs northern army, but, only two days before the Dragoons forced them into the hills, Romana was defeated. Vivar was alone now, stranded in the mountains, with just ninety of his men left. The others had died.
They had died for the strongbox which the survivors carried through a frozen countryside. Snow thickened in the passes. When there was a thaw it only came in the form of rain; a pelting, relentless rain that turned the mountain paths into mud which froze hard in the long nights. Frostbite decimated the Cazadores. In the worst of the cold the survivors sheltered in caves or in high deserted farmsteads.
On one such day, when the wind drove a bitter snowfall from the west, Vivarâs men hunched in the miserable shelter of a narrow gully high on a mountainâs crest. Blas Vivar himself lay at the gullyâs rim and stared into the valley through a long-barrelled telescope. He stared at the enemy.
