Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Battle - The Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, May 1811

‘Christ,’ Sharpe said, ‘no wonder your boys are deserting. Jesus! I would too. If I take a man into battle, my Lord, I like to offer him a better than evens chance that he’ll march away with his skin intact. If I wanted to kill the buggers I’d just strangle them in their sleep. It’s kinder.’ He turned and watched the Real Compañía Irlandesa. The men were taking it in turns to use the forty or so serviceable muskets and, with a handful of exceptions, they were virtually useless. A good soldier could shoot a smoothbore musket every twenty seconds, but these men were lucky to get a shot away every forty seconds. The guards had spent too long wearing powdered wigs and standing outside gilded doors, and not long enough learning the simple habits of priming, ramming, firing and loading. ‘But I’ll train them,’ Sharpe said when the echo of another straggling volley had faded across the fort, ‘and I’ll stop the buggers deserting.’ He knew he was undermining Hogan’s stratagem, but Sharpe liked the rank and file of the Real Compañía Irlandesa. They were soldiers like any others, not so well trained maybe, and with more confused loyalties than most, but the majority of the men were willing enough. There was no mischief there, and it cut against Sharpe’s grain to betray good men. He wanted to train them. He wanted to make the company into a unit of which any army could be proud.

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