1988; 304 pages. Book # 6 (story-wise)
out of 24 in the “Sharpe”
series; Book #9 (published date-wise).
New Author? : Yes. Genre : Historical
Fiction. Overall Rating : 9*/10.
Nothing is worse when you’re in the army than
to have to retreat across a foreign country with the enemy nipping at your
heels. That’s what Sir John Moore’s
British troops are doing in the opening months of 1809. They’re trudging through northwest Spain (Galicia province), trying to stay ahead of Napoleon’s dreaded dragoons, and hoping they
make it to Portugal before the French catch up to them.
It’s
even worse if you have the bad luck to be part of the rearguard of Moore's army. You have to turn around, give
token resistance to the French dragoons chasing you, then turn tail yet again,
and hope that not too many of your comrades (including yourself) get killed carrying
out the delaying action.
And even worse than that is if you’re a lieutenant in that ragtag rearguard
group, lacking the loyalty and support of the soldiers you’re giving orders
to. After all, you’ve been promoted from
within the ranks, and everyone knows that leadership skills are something that
only highbred men from the upper classes possess. And you aren't one of those.
So
they've made you a quartermaster to keep you from mucking things up. Procuring food, clothing, and other supplies
for the honest-to-goodness fighting men.
Let’s just hope the other officers stay alive so that you don’t have to
be put into any meaningful command.
Welcome
to Lieutenant Richard Sharpe’s daily hell, quartermaster for the British 95th
Rifles unit.
What’s To Like...
Sharpe’s Rifles is set in what is known as the
“Peninsular War” (the Wikipedia article on it is here), which, quite
frankly, I’d never heard of. This is
embarrassing since I’m a history buff. There’s
lots of action, and it starts immediately.
The brutality is vivid, with plenty of blood and gore, but hey, war is
dirty, and this one was especially nasty.
There
are two main story lines: Sharpe (British) and his crew trying to escape the
French, and Vivar (Spanish) and his crew trying to safeguard a
mysterious trunk (which I thought was a macguffin at first). while also being pursued by the French Vivar's and Sharpe’s paths cross pretty quickly, which is not a spoiler, then continue as an on-again/off-again alliance.
The character studies are as fascinating as the warfare. Sharpe is a great anti-hero: hated by his men
and inferior in leadership skills to both Vivar and Rifleman Harper. Heck, even Sgt. Williams commands more
respect than Sharpe. And the chief bad
guy, the French Colonel Pierre de l’Eclin, is a worthy enemy, outthinking and
outfoxing Sharpe every step of the way.
I like it when an antagonist is on equal footing with the hero.
The story is written in “English” as opposed to “American”, so you get
words like waggon, sabre, ageing, picquets, grey, foetid, and doxie. That's always a plus for me. There’s also some cussing, but hey, war is
hell.
There is also a secondary religious motif throughout the story.
Catholic France is brutalizing Catholic Spain, and Protestant England
finds itself an uneasy Spanish ally. Sharpe
himself can best be called an Unbeliever, and some of his Irish underlings are
Catholic to boot. Bernard Cornwell
treats all these religious viewpoints with remarkable balance, something you
rarely see in novels nowadays.
The ending has some nice twists, including the revealing of the contents
of the strongbox, and everything ends with a climactic battle. Despite being part of a 24-book series, this
is a standalone novel.
Kewlest New Word...
Doxie (n.)
: floozy
Others : byre (n.); rumbustious
(adj.).
Excerpts...
They were the
sting in the army’s tail. If they were
lucky this day no Frenchman would bother them, but the probability was that,
sometime in the next hour, the enemy vanguard would appear. That vanguard would be cavalry on tired
horses. The French would make a token
attack, the Riflemen would fire a couple volleys; then, because neither side
had an advantage, the French would let the greenjackets trudge on. It was soldiering; boring, cold, dispiriting,
and one or two Riflemen and one or two Frenchmen would die because of it. (pg. 16)
“Mind you, I knew
an officer in India who converted the heathen to Christianity,” Sharpe said
helpfully, “and he was most successful.”
“Truly?” Mr.
Parker was pleased to hear this evidence of God’s grace. “A godly man?”
“Mad as a hatter,
sir. One of the Royal Irish, and they’ve
all got wormscrew wits.”
“But you say he
was successful?”
“He threatened to
blow their heads off with a musket unless they were baptized, sir. That queue went twice around the armoury and
clear back to the guardhouse.” (pg.
111)
“I’m sure God did his best, but where was the sense in putting
Ireland plum next to England?” (pg.
262)
For
some reason, I thought this was the opening book in the series, but instead I
wallowed into the storyline at Book 6.
Bernard Cornwell gives bits and pieces of the backstory, mostly Sharpe’s
prior wartime activities in India, and his unwanted promotion to lieutenant. It was also obvious that several of Sharpe’s
Riflemen comrades had been introduced in earlier books. But I never felt like I was missing crucial background information, and that was a real plus.
It
should also be mentioned that Cornwell didn’t pen this series in
chronological order, so even those who have read the books in the series as soon as they were published have had to do some jumping around timeline-wise. Wikipedia gives the chronological and
literary order of the books here). Since I plan to read some more of the series,
it is nice to know that I don’t have to worry about which order I read them in.
9 Stars. I’ve been meaning to check out Bernard
Cornwell for quite some time, and it was a real treat to finally get acquainted with his works. He is a
prolific writer of Historical Fiction, and I have two more of his books, set in
England during the Dark Ages, awaiting my attention on my Kindle. I doubt it will be long before the next
review of one of his books appears on this blog.
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