Sharpe's Enemy, by Bernard Cornwell - Richard Sharpe Adv enture Series

Sharpe's Enemy

Bernard Cornwell

Richard Sharpe Adv enture Series

Nothing like the cover image being from the last page of the book. Sharpe’s Enemy is one Sharpe novel that is not actually based on a real battle. It is far more personal for Our Hero, as it involves good old Obadiah Hakeswell and also a terrible loss for Sharpe. Cornwell used the novel to introduce two real groups, bands of deserters from all the armies at war in the Iberian Peninsula of Christmas 1813 and the first deployment of a rocket corps, though there were in fact no instances where the two coincided.

Shape is sent to try to rescue a British lieutenant colonel's wife who is being held prisoner along with a French officer's wife by a band of deserters at a convent hidden up in the mountains. of Spain. The historical Marshall Pot au Feu, a sergeant and former chef who deserted and elevated himself as leader of such a band, is the commander there, and his second in command is Sharpe's enemy -- get it? -- the odious and un-killable Obadiah Hakeswell who has dogged his steps since India, it seems. The ransom negotiations fall as flat as one of Pot ay Feu's failed soufflés, so Sharpe has to go back and sneak the women out. It turns out Lt. Col. Farthingale’s wife is no lady, not his wife either. She is Sharpe's own old main squeeze from Sharpe's Eagle, Josefina. It also turns out that once they have rescued the women, the French are planning a massive offensive to retake all of Spain and Portugal once and for all. So Sharpe is stuck there, responsible for turning the French back with a tiny army of rifles, Spanish soldiers, and rocketeers.

While his wife Teresa takes a message back to headquarters of Sharpe's army's peril, Our Hero sets about several tricky maneuvers to block the French. All this time the odious Hakeswell is twitching and scheming naked with the other deserters in the dungeon. It seems touch and go at times, but Sharpe and Harper pull off the various sneaky tricks Sharpe, now a major, cooked up. What happens to him, to Harper, to Hakeswell, to Lord and Lady Farthingale, the rocketeers and to Teresa are what leads to a rare moment in Sharpe's and Wellington’s relationship.. a genuine moment of understanding and appreciation.

One welcome aspect of this novel is a new character, "Sweet William" Frederickson, a thoroughly quirky fellow with an eye parch and false teeth who removes both in battle and who has an artistic and intellectual inclination that is quite a surprise when it pops up. Sharpe quite likes him, likes how he thinks, fights, and behaves, and from the movies, if they can be believed, I know he stays in the stories for several more novels.

There is also a French colonel, Alexandre Dubreton, the husband of the other woman being held for ransom, who respects and likes Sharpe, for whom the sentiment is mutual, and though having to fight him takes every honorable opportunity to show Sharpe some support.

The battles, being entirely made up, are more inventive than in the other books, and quite pleasantly entertaining, with the usual dead ensign, fear for a regular character's fate, and Sharpe's angst over the possibility of losing.

I am grateful to have seen the last of Hakeswell. He was about as unpleasant a character as he could be.

My husband read this novel to me. On to Sharpe's Honor.