Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!

I encourage you to read these books in order of the chronology of the events, rather than the order in which they are written. If you've been doing that, you've probably wondered whatever happened to Sergeant Obadiah ("I can't be killed") Hakeswill who we last read about in India. In Sharpe's Company, this spawn of the underworld returns to cause lots of mischief.

Viscount Wellington is still leading the allied forces in the Peninsula, having secured Portugal. In Sharpe's Company, two fortresses bar the way into Napoleon's Spain, Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. Naturally, Sharpe plays a key role in both battles. In this book, you get two sieges for the price of one.

The love story is much stronger here than usual in the series as the female partisan leader from Sharpe's Gold, Teresa, makes an important return appearance. In the process, Sharpe learns he has become a father . . . and his daughter is being cared for in Badajoz.

Sharpe's career also takes a turn for the worse. The temporary captaincy comes to an end, and he's reduced in rank to lieutenant reporting to a new captain who isn't as decisive as he might be. Hakeswill is soon undermining everyone to put himself to an advantage, and Sharpe's morale plummets while his hatred of Hakeswill grows.

Sharpe also comes to resent that he cannot become a permanent captain and toys with the idea of leading a Forlorn Hope into the breach to gain such a promotion.

The story's ending may turn your stomach more than a little as Mr. Cornwell treats us to a pretty graphic description of the sack of Badajoz by the British and Portuguese. It may be more historical realism than you really want to know about. Before that, the blood and guts get to be pretty strong as suicidal charge after suicidal charge is led into Badajoz's breaches.

It's an exciting book that you won't soon forget. I happen to like fiendish villains, and Hakeswill is a fine example to my taste. I love to wonder what horrible trick he will pull next.

This was the third novel written in the Richard Sharpe Napoleonic Wars series, though by internal chronology it's about halfway through Sharpe's recorded career. It's early 1812 and the comparatively small British-Portuguese army under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, now Lord Wellington, is about to undertake the invasion of Spain. But first, they have to take the fortified Ciudad Rodrigo, guarding the principal highway in the north. Sharpe has a part in that, naturally -- and then he's reunited with Teresa, the Partisan leader from _Sharpe's Gold,_ and finds out he's a father. Now the army will move south to attempt (for the third time) to take the much larger and much more formidable city of Badajoz. Things appear to be looking up. But Sharpe is never lucky for very long, and when his badly wounded colonel (his old friend from India, Lawford) is shipped back home, the replacement is a fox-hunting countryman with no patience for Sharpe's somewhat eccentric ways. More than that, Sharpe's temporary promotion has been rejected back in London and he finds himself replaced in command of the Light Company by a young officer with the funds to have purchased the position. Sharpe is back to being a lieutenant, at least until a vacancy opens up. To retrieve his command, and in a way that no one can deprive him of it again, he's determined to be the first man through the breach when they assault Badajoz. But, worst of all, Sgt. Obediah Hakeswill has joined the battalion. Hakeswill is a thief, blackmailer, inveterate liar, and the man who not only recruited Sharpe nearly twenty years before but also got him unjustly flogged when he was just a private. He's also increasingly insane, believing (with some justification) that he cannot be killed -- and he harbors a passionate hatred for Sharpe. The reader can sort of see where all this melodrama is going, but it's the journey that Cornwell makes fascinating. Badajoz was one of Wellington's greatest challenges in the Peninsular Campaign and taking it cost him thousands of casualties. Cornwell takes his time telling of the siege, the assault, and the sack that followed, and does it all with his usual attention to the gritty, bloody details.

Since I've already reviewed the television adaptation on Sharpe's Company, I'll only briefly give my praise for the Bernard Cornwell novel.

The film adaptation keeps true to the written word, but the battle scenes on the page are much more detailed and complex. Cornwell finds historical niches for Richard Sharpe to appear, and the siege of Badajoz is lengthy, rough, deadly, and dirty. Several failed siege attempts are also in the book-unlike the film-raising the stakes for Sharpe-who of course has to deal with army politics, enemies within, and the rescue of his wife and daughter.

Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill makes just as much trouble for the written Sharpe as he does onscreen. It's morbidly delightful to read the twisted thoughts of this madman, and Pete Postlehwaite does a fine job of bringing the character to the screen. Of course, on film characters are dropped or combined and dismissed, but in the Sharpe's Company novel, all the supporting officers and soldiers are given plenty of time to develop themselves and their relationship to Sharpe. Hard core friendships and army loyalty between Harper and Sharpe are almost more of a delight to read than see.

Historical fans will love any Sharpe novel. I'm not really reading them in order, more as I find them, but it's easy to jump into the series-especially for Hornblower fans. As realistic as C.S. Forester's books are on naval warfare, Sharpe is their equal on the battlefield. The British-ness may take a few folks some getting used to, but Sharpe's Company is well worth the journey.