Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Regiment: Sharpe Goes Home to Fight for His Life, His Command, and the Love of a Beautiful Woman

Summer 1813. The Duke of Wellington's Anglo-Allied Army has finally thrown the French out of Spain. Now they stand poised to cross the Pyrennes and invade France. One of the regiments in that army is the weary but battle tested 1st Battalion South Essex Regiment, and their equally battle hardened commander, Major Richard Sharpe.

Sharpe is now the acting commander, after the death of Colonel Leroy at Vitoria. It has been a phenomenal rise to this position from overage passed over Quartermaster Lieutenant. Only five years earlier when the campaign commenced.

At his side is Regimental Sergeant Major Patrick Harper. Harper's rise in the ranks has also been meteoric. In just over five years he has gone from Private to the highest non commissioned rank in the army.

Sharpe is eager for the coming campaign to begin. It will be a tough one, but it will allow him the command the regiment he has inherited. Sharpe has already had a taste of command and liked it. Should he do well, perhaps further promotion will be his. To be a brevet Colonel was once well beyond his hopes, now it is almost within his grasp.

There is one problem. The campaign has been long and hard on the South Essex. They have been reduced to almost half their original strength, and as such are too few to take part in any further actions.

Sharpe is not worried though. He is sure that a detachment of replacements from the 2nd Battalion in England will soon arrive to bring the unit up to strength. Even though they will be new and unbloodied, there are enough veterans left to stiffen the ranks and defeat the whatever the French can throw at them.

Then word arrives from England. There will be no replacements. Wellington is ordered to break up the South Essex and use the men as replacements for other under strength battalions. The officers including Sharpe are to be assigned other duties throughout the army.

Sharpe cannot believe this. He has received correspondence from England assuring him that a full battalion of recruits has been raised and trained. Wellington for his part is loathe to lose even one veteran battalion for the coming campaign. Especially one commanded by the ruthless Richard Sharpe. The campaign is still a few months off, so Sharpe and Harper are given orders to sail to England and find their missing recruits.

On arrival in England Sharpe is forced to deal with the British Army Bureaucracy at Whitehall. Here he is again informed that there are no recruits and that his regiment's 2nd Battalion is no more. Fortunately and old comrade appears, Sir William Lawford his old commander, friend and fellow prisoner in the Sultan Tippo's cells. Lawford promises to look into the matter for Sharpe.

Sharpe and Harper then venture to the Regimental Depot in Chelmsford. Here they find barracks all but abandoned. A handful of old crippled soldiers and a few uncaring officers are all that exist of the missing 2nd Battalion.

The officers have no idea where the missing men are, and to be honest not too concerned. A day spent administrating, and training hundreds odd soldiers would severely hamper the idyllic lifestyle they have adapted. That is until Sharpe and Harper have a few words with them.

There is one old soldier in the barracks who does have information for Sharpe. A wounded veteran of Talavera, he swears that the barracks was full of troops only months previously, but they were marched away under mysterious circumstances. In addition he has seen recruiting parties scouring the countryside and signing on eager young soldiers. None of these recruits however have shown up at Chelmsford.

Before Sharpe can investigate further, he is called back to London. It appears the slightly insane Prince of Wales the Prince Regent, the same man who promoted Sharpe to Major, has learned he is England. The Prince desires an audience with Sharpe, and the former urchin is once again thrust into the midst of high society with all of its forks and place setting and other trappings. This time of the British variety.

While dining with the Prince, Sharpe realises that he may be a valuable ally in his search for the missing soldiers. Then it becomes evident that the Prince may not be very helpful. He may rule the nation, but he is deluded. He soon convinces himself that he too was present at Talavera and helped Sharpe capture the French Eagle. While at court Sharpe does meet another potential ally, Anne the dowager Countess Camoynes. He also meets a potential enemy, Lord Fenner who appears to know more about the mislaid soldiers than he lets on.

Sharpe soon flees the rich trappings for more familiar ground. In a tavern in the slums of London's East End he and Harper plot their next moves. Sharpe has another reason for visiting this part of town. Both he ad Harper have a fortune in jewels plundered from the battlefield of Vitoria. It needs to be converted to cash, and Sharpe trusts the back room fences he grew up with more than the fancy bankers and estate agents.

While in this part of town, the duo are attacked. There is nothing out of the ordinary in this. Life is cheap on these streets and two fancy lost soldier boys should be easy pickings. Unfortunately for the attackers Richard Sharpe grew up and thrived on these same streets. In addition he and Harper have perfected their deadly skills on countless foreign battlefields. It is the attackers who are killed , and then a very out of the ordinary discovery is made.

This was no simple robbery attempt, but a deliberate assassination attempt. One of the dead attackers is wearing a British Army uniform, and the badges on it denote he was a member of the South Essex Regiment. It appears someone is trying very hard to stop Sharpe from solving this mystery.

Sharpe and Harper now fake their deaths and go undercover. Disguised as unemployed citizens they roam the English countryside searching for one thing, a South Essex Regiment recruiting party. Soon they are successful and eventually are inducted into the British Army, and into the very regiment they command.

Sharpe, Harper and the other recruits are marched to the desolate Camp Foulness on the Essex coast. Here they finally find the missing 2nd Battalion and it's corrupt and cowardly commander, Colonel Girdwood. Here too Sharpe uncovers the secret that many people have tried to hide from him.

A nefarious plot has been developed by Colonel Girdwood, Lord Fenner and Sharpe's old nemesis, Sir Henry Simmerson. Simmerson was the man who originally raised the South Essex and then disgraced them with his cowardice before and at Talavera. A disgrace that was erased by Sharpe and Harper.

Now Sharpe and Harper must escape Camp Foulness with the evidence to stop Simmerson and his minions. They are aided in this by Jane Gibbons, Simmerson's niece. Betrayed by enemies in all corners Sharpe is forced to develop an audacious plan and gain the support of an unquestionable ally. Success will allow him to return to Spain with the needed reinforcements and save "his" regiment. Failure may well result in his demise.

Bernard Cornwell again goes off on a slightly different tangent with this volume. Fans of the series won't be disappointed though, Sharpe's Regiment does contain some battlefield exploits. There are two battle scenes one at the opening of the tale, and the other at it's conclusion.

The balance of the novel though is set in England. Here Cornwell again shows his meticulous research and attention to historical details. We are given an extensive overview of 19th Century English society. From the tap houses and alleys of urban slums to the ballrooms and salons of the Royal Palace, we get a glimpse of all levels of the socio economic strata.

Cornwell also provides us with a the detailed workings of the British Army's regimental system as it existed in the 18th and 19th Century. Each infantry regiment consisted of two or more battalions, one of which served as the depot battalion. This battalion remained at the regiments home depot in England and served as a holding unit.

Recruits were brought here and trained and then despatched to the operational battalion(s) serving abroad. Old and injured soldiers from the operational battalion(s) overseas in turn were transferred back to the depot, when they could no longer perform their duties. Here gainful employment was found for them in administrative, or training roles or as recruiters.

This efficient system allowed England to retain a small but powerful and well trained standing army throughout this period. It was these redcoats that would meet and beat Napoleon 's troops on the battlefields of Europe. Later these infantry would help win and hold the largest empire the world has ever seen.

The recruiting techniques of the army re also shown. England had no conscription, and her Navy and Army required entirely on volunteers. Usually these came form the lower ends of social classes the poor, petty criminals, and the hungry.

The navy employed "press gangs" to keep the ships of the line manned. These were packs of sailors who frequented coastal towns and kidnapped their recruits, usually after a night of heavy drinking. The unlucky souls would often awaken and find themselves ship bound and far from shore. It goes without saying who the generous persons who provided the drink in the first place were.

The Army was prohibited from this practice and had to develop more subtle techniques. Several of these are shown in the book The scenes where Sharpe and Harper are "conned" into joining their own Regiment by Sergeant Havercamp,who regales them with the exploits of the infamous Major Sharpe and Sergeant Harper fighting in Spain are humorous. Mind they are not as humorous as when that unscrupulous Recruiting Sergeant finds out later who he has conned.

There was fierce competition for the paltry few available recruits and not all regiments fared equally. Some of the more famous or elite regiments had no problems meeting their quotas. Young men wished to belong to such illustrious units for a variety of reasons. Unemployed Welsh, Irish and Scots tramping the roads of England seeking work were more than likely to join one the famous ethnic regiments and serve with their own countrymen if at all possible.

Other regiments attracted recruits based on where they were serving, or bound for. Bored, under employed young men looked forward to a chance to see the exotic far off lands like India, or to seek fame and fortune on the battlefields of Portugal and Spain as had Sharpe and Harper had done.

Other regiments bound for duty in certain areas had a hard time meeting their quotas. Few wished to serve as prison guards in Australia, or isolated garrisons in frozen Canada or the sweltering West Indies. Long separations from family and friends were the plight of soldiers serving in these locations. In addition for those unlucky enough to be posted to the Caribbean, the fatality rate from fever and other diseases ran at between 60 and 80 %.

Desperate and unscrupulous commanders, resorted to a process known as "crimping" to solve this problem. Commanders who had a surplus of trained soldiers would literally sell them to other officers who were short of men. A soldier who joined the fictitious South Essex regiment to seek glory in Spain inspired by the exploits of our literary heroes, might very well find himself unwillingly on a transport ship bound for a penal colony in New South Wales, or an isolated fort in Upper Canada or Barbados.

Crimping was an illegal activity. However, it was a necessary, accepted and for some profitable part of Army life in the early part of the 19th century.

Sharpe's Regiment like the remainder of the series is an enjoyable read. It also serves as a natural pause in the exploits of our heroes, between those books set in Spain, and the final volumes that detail the end of the war, and the road to Waterloo.