Sharpes Fortress

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Manu Bappoo, the younger brother of the Rajah of Berar, decides to turn around and fight the British again, with his best unit, composed of Arab mercenaries, leading the charge, but he is again routed. During the fighting, Sharpe is impressed by the bravery of a teenage Arab boy, Ahmed, and saves his life when the boy is surrounded. Ahmed becomes his servant.

In the third installment in the series, Richard Sharpe struggles as a young officer in the Army. His heart still lies in the Frontline, a theme continually brought up to his detriment throughout the book. Forget the enemy in front of him, Sharpe is constantly put to the trash by his own peers before our old buddy Hakeswill and other officers cook up a plot and get him sold to the Indians and Colonel Dord inside of Gawilghur; A supposedly impregnable fortress. The story suffered from quite a bit of repetition at times. For instance, the area they assaulted must have been described half a dozen times until it not only bored, but confused me. There were several other points & motivations that were hammered half to death, too. When two of Hakeswill's henchmen are killed, Hakeswill realises Sharpe is responsible, so he deserts and finds service with the renegade Englishman William Dodd in Gawilghur. It is said that whoever rules in Gawilghur, rules India, and Dodd intends for it to be him. When the Outer Fort falls, Dodd keeps the gates of the Inner Fort closed, trapping Manu Bappoo outside to be killed by the British. Dodd also has Hakeswill murder Beny Singh, the weak, pleasure-loving commander of Gawilghur. Retrieving and restoring the Imperial Family's treasure (in his note, Cornwell notes that several chests of personal belongings and riches did get lost in the chaos of the French defeat of 1814, but how this happened and their final fate are unknown) After the battle, Urquhart recommends Sharpe transfer to the 95th Rifles, an experimental unit, though nothing can be done while the war rages on. For the moment, he assigns Sharpe to assist Captain Torrance, in command of the baggage train. The army is short of many desperately needed supplies, and Sharpe soon discovers why. Lazy and deeply in debt, Torrance has been selling them to the merchant Naig, with the assistance of Sharpe's old nemesis, Sergeant Hakeswill. When Sharpe finds many of the stolen supplies in Naig's tent, Torrance has his associate hanged immediately to avoid being implicated. Jama, Naig's brother, is not pleased, so Torrance agrees to betray Sharpe into his hands. Hakeswill is only too glad to waylay Sharpe; besides their mutual hatred, he rightly suspects that Sharpe has a fortune in jewels looted from a dead enemy ruler.Sharpe is often portrayed as the driving force in a number of pivotal historical events. Cornwell admits to taking license with history, placing Sharpe in the place of another man whose identity is lost to history or sometimes "stealing another man's thunder." Such accomplishments include: Once again, Bernard Cornwell description of the battle that was the taking of Gawilghur makes you feel like your are right there in the midst of everything. All the horror that is war is laid bare for the reader.

During the earliest (chronological) books Sharpe is a private and later sergeant, and so his uniform and weapons largely are in line with Army regulations. His first sword and officer's sash are taken from the dead in the wake of the Battle of Assaye, although no specifics are given on the weapon.

Further Reading

There is some minor use of adult language. The main character will swear from time to time but as a rule he tends to avoid it. To avoid arrest, Sharpe takes the " King's shilling", joining the 33rd Foot, as a result of the blandishments of recruiting sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill. The regiment is first sent to Flanders in 1794, where Sharpe fights in his first battle, at Boxtel. The next year, he and his regiment are posted to India, under the command of the British East India Company. Sharpe's Fortress was published in 1998, and describes the first adventure of Richard Sharpe as an officer of the British Army.