Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Gold

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1981

Copyright © Rifleman Productions Ltd 1981

Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Cover image © Hoberman/UIG/Bridgeman Images

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 entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © July 2009 ISBN: 9780007338672

Version: 2019-12-13

This book is for

Andrew Gardner

with much gratitude

‘The insubordinate, sarcastic and oversexed Sharpe returns … Cornwell delivers the usual mix of strategy and strength – classic battle scenes and plenty of fisticuffs’

Daily Mirror

For a soldier I listed, to grow great in fame.

And be shot at for sixpence a day.

CHARLES DIBDIN 1745 – 1814

Contents

Cover

Title Page SHARPE’S GOLD Richard Sharpe and the Destruction of Almeida, August 1810 BERNARD CORNWELL

Copyright Copyright An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Collins 1981 Copyright © Rifleman Productions Ltd 1981 Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019 Cover image © Hoberman/UIG/Bridgeman Images 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 entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © July 2009 ISBN: 9780007338672 Version: 2019-12-13

Dedication This book is for Andrew Gardner with much gratitude

Epigraph ‘The insubordinate, sarcastic and oversexed Sharpe returns … Cornwell delivers the usual mix of strategy and strength – classic battle scenes and plenty of fisticuffs’ Daily Mirror For a soldier I listed, to grow great in fame. And be shot at for sixpence a day. CHARLES DIBDIN 1745 – 1814

Map

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

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

Historical Note

Sharpe’s Story

Keep Reading …

About the Author

The SHARPE Series (in chronological order)

The SHARPE Series (in order of publication)

Also by Bernard Cornwell

About the Publisher

The war was lost; not finished, but lost. Everyone knew it, from Generals of Division to the whores of Lisbon: that the British were trapped, trussed, ready for cooking, and all Europe waited for the master chef himself, Bonaparte, to cross the mountains and put his finishing touch to the roast. Then, to add insult to imminent defeat, it seemed that the small British army was not worthy of the great Bonaparte’s attention. The war was lost.

Spain had fallen. The last Spanish armies had gone, butchered into the history books, and all that was left was the fortress harbour of Cádiz and the peasants who fought the guerrilla , the ‘little war’. They fought with Spanish knives and British guns, with ambush and terror, till the French troops loathed and feared the Spanish people. But the little war was not the war, and that, everyone said, was lost.

Captain Richard Sharpe, once of His Majesty’s 95th Rifles, now Captain of the Light Company of the South Essex Regiment, did not think that the war was lost, although, despite that, he was in a foul mood, morose and irritable. Rain had fallen since dawn and had turned the dust of the road’s surface into slick, slippery mud and made his Rifleman’s uniform clammy and uncomfortable. He marched in solitary silence, listening to his men chatter, and Lieutenant Robert Knowles and Sergeant Patrick Harper, who both would normally have sought his company, let him alone. Lieutenant Knowles had commented on Sharpe’s mood, but the huge Irish Sergeant had shaken his head.

‘There’s no chance of cheering him up, sir. He likes being miserable, so he does, and the bastard will get over it.’

Knowles shrugged. He rather disapproved of a Sergeant calling a Captain a ‘bastard’, but there was no point in protesting. The Sergeant would look innocent and assure Knowles that the Captain’s parents had never married, which was true, and anyway Patrick Harper had fought beside Sharpe for years and had a friendship with the Captain that Knowles rather envied. It had taken Knowles months to understand the friendship, which was not, as many officers thought, based on the fact that Sharpe had once been a private soldier, marching and fighting in the ranks, and now, elevated to the glories of the officers’ mess, still sought out the company of the lower ranks. ‘Once a peasant, always a peasant,’ an officer had sneered, and Sharpe had heard, looked at the man, and Knowles had seen the fear come under the impact of those chilling, mocking eyes. Besides, Sharpe and Harper did not spend off-duty time together; the difference in rank made that impossible. But still, behind the formal relationship, Knowles saw the friendship. Both were big men, the Irishman hugely strong, and both confident in their abilities. Knowles could never imagine either out of uniform. It was as if they had been born to the job and it was on the battlefield, where most men thought nervously of their own survival, that Sharpe and Harper came together in an uncanny understanding. It was almost, Knowles thought, as if they were at home on a battlefield, and he envied them.