Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Siege - The Winter Campaign, 1814

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.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

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London SE1 9GF

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Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1988

Reprinted five times

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1987

Copyright © Rifleman Productions Ltd 1987

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

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, down-loaded, 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 ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers 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: 9780007298600

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2011 ISBN: 9780007346813

Version: 2017-04-26

Sharpe’s Siege is dedicated to

Brenym McNight, Terry Farrand, Bryan Thorniley,

Diana Colbert, Ray Steele, and Stuart Wilkie;

with thanks

Title Page SHARPE’S SIEGE Richard Sharpe and the Winter Campaign, 1814 BERNARD CORNWELL

Copyright 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 author’s imagination. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1988 Reprinted five times First published in Great Britain by Collins 1987 Copyright © Rifleman Productions Ltd 1987 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 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, down-loaded, 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 ebooks HarperCollins Publishers 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: 9780007298600 Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2011 ISBN: 9780007346813 Version: 2017-04-26

Dedication Sharpe’s Siege is dedicated to Brenym McNight, Terry Farrand, Bryan Thorniley, Diana Colbert, Ray Steele, and Stuart Wilkie; with thanks

Epigraph ‘Cornwell has maintained a marvellously high standard throughout the series … brilliantly lucid and compellingly exciting’ Evening Standard

Map of The French Biscay Coast

Map of Bassin

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

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

‘Cornwell has maintained a marvellously high standard throughout the series … brilliantly lucid and compellingly exciting’

Evening Standard

It was ten days short of Candlemas, 1814, and an Atlantic wind carried shivers of cold rain that slapped on narrow cobbled alleys, spilt from the broken gutters of tangled roofs, and pitted the water of St Jean de Luz’s inner harbour. It was a winter wind, cruel as a bared sabre, that whirled chimney smoke into the low January clouds shrouding the corner of south-western France where the British Army had its small lodgement.

A British soldier, his horse tired and mud-stained, rode down a cobbled street in St Jean de Luz. He ducked his head beneath a baker’s wooden sign, edged his mare past a fish-cart, and dismounted at a corner where an iron bollard provided a tethering post for the horse. He patted the horse, then slung its saddle-bags over his shoulder. It was evident he had ridden a long way.

He walked into a narrow alley, searching for a house that he only knew by description; a house with a blue door and a line of cracked green tiles above the lintel. He shivered. At his left hip there hung a long, metal-scabbarded sword, and on his right shoulder was a rifle. He stepped aside for a woman, black-dressed and squat, who carried a basket of lobsters. She, grateful that this enemy soldier had shown her a small courtesy, smiled her thanks, but afterwards, when she was safely past him, she crossed herself. The soldier’s face had been bleak and scarred; darkly handsome, but still a killer’s face. She blessed her patron saint that her own son would not have to face such a man in battle, but had a secure, safe job in the French Customs service instead.

The soldier, oblivious of the effect his face had, found the blue door beneath the green tiles. The door, even though it was a cold day, stood ajar and, without knocking, he pushed his way into the front room. There he dropped his pack, rifle, and saddle-bags on to a threadbare carpet and found himself staring into the testy face of a British Army surgeon. ‘I know you,’ the Army surgeon, his shirt-cuffs thick with dried blood, said.

‘Sharpe, sir, Prince of Wales’s Own …’

‘I said I knew you,’ the surgeon interrupted. ‘I took a musket-ball out of you after Fuentes d’Onoro. Had to truffle around for it, I remember.’

‘Indeed, sir.’ Sharpe could hardly forget. The surgeon had been half drunk, cursing, and digging into Sharpe’s flesh by the light of a guttering candle. Now the two men had met in the outer room of Lieutenant Colonel Michael Hogan’s lodgings.

‘You can’t go in there.’ The surgeon’s clothes were drenched in prophylactic vinegar, filling the small room with its acrid scent. ‘Unless you want to die.’