Just Finished Reading: Sharpe’s Fortress by Bernard Cornwell

Newly promoted Ensign Richard Sharpe is starting to wonder if accepting being an officer was such a good idea. The men he served with no longer know how to treat him and his fellow officers ignore him as he is far from being a gentleman. Wanting only to fight – about the only thing he has discovered he’s good at – he is frustrated by the senior staff that seem keen on preventing him from doing so. Sent to investigate irregularities in the Supply Train he discovers a set up riddled through with corruption. At the heart of it is Sharpe’s old enemy Sergeant Hawkeswill who plots to kill Sharpe once and for all, but Sharpe is a hard man to kill as many have found out to their cost. Forced to run for his life Hawkeswill throws himself on Britain’s enemy in India and finds himself in the great fortress of Gawilghur, an apparently impregnable strongpoint held by the renegade British officer William Dodd. To face his enemies Sharpe must do the impossible – take a fortress that has never fallen.

This is my 12^th Sharpe novel. That fact alone should tell you how much I enjoy reading the adventures of Richard Sharpe. Sharpe is such a fantastic invention; he is a man who has had to fight every day of his life just to survive in an uncaring world. Yet he is a man of honour who makes a firm friend and a fearsome enemy. Almost despite himself he is rising through the ranks making many people he comes across deeply uncomfortable. He is, above all else, a fish out of water except in the one element where he excels – combat. Here he is without peer and the men who follow him into the carnage that was the combat experience of 19^th Century soldiering know it. Never asking men to do anything he would not do himself troops will follow him into Hell itself. Fortress is a cross-over novel in a way. It takes place before the original first novel in the series and explains – or at least strongly hints at – how he finally arrived in Europe as part of the nearly formed Rifle Regiment. Presently my plan is to fill in the chronological gaps in the story, so I will follow Sharpe to Europe (actually told in Sharpe’s Trafalgar which I read some time ago). It’s going to seem a little disjointed but you’re going to have to bear with me. If you’re a fan of military or historical fiction this is definitely a must read series – but I’d start at the beginning if I was you!