Sharpe's Siege (Sharpe Series #18) Book

Once again Cornwell achieves a wonderful adventure focused on military action. This for me was perhaps the best of the six I've read from the 22 that feature Richard Sharpe, the brilliant and sardonic hero of a rifle brigade in Wellington's forces during the Napoleanic Wars. In this, the 18th, it is 1814, and Wellington's forces are bogged down in southeastern France. Sharpe, now a major, is tasked to accompany a naval captain and a peer officer with less than 200 army riflemen and marines to capture a fortress further north on the Bay of Arachon. The risky action is to serve as a feint to make the French believe the English intend to invade there by sea and take Bordeaux, thereby diverting French forces from Wellington's strategy to bridge a river near Bayonne with a raft of merchant ships.

Cornwell is masterful in portraying all the human and inhuman details of combat at the level of the common soldier. He does cover the big picture, but from Sharpe's jaundiced eye:
God only knows why politicians resorted to soldiers as a final instrument of policy; it was like wagering on a cockfight to decide the fate of empires.

As usual, Sharpe, now a major, succeeds with impossible tasks due to his ability to lead his men and to outsmart the enemy with his verve and unpredictable craft. So why read more than one? The glory of his loyal compadres in action is one recurring pleasure. Such as his gentle, giant Irish master sergeant Harper. So congenial and sweet most of the time, but when his righteous, volcanic anger is released, he becomes an unstoppable killing machine. The other pleasure is in the personalities of his foes. Some he respects, like a dashing American privateer captain captured with the fort. The French spymaster Ducos returns as a nemesis, but the featured opponent here is corpulent General Calvet, fresh from the Russian campaign where he brags he engaged in cannibalism and scalp collecting. Another joy is Cornwell's variation on the theme of the greed and perfidy among the aristocratic British officers. Here this role falls to pompous Captain Bampfylde, whose lust for glory leads him to repeatedly endanger Sharpe's men over attractive enemy ruses and to hog all the credit for any of his successes. We know he will ultimately get outfoxed by Sharpe and meet his just desserts, but that doesn't diminish the satisfaction of waiting for fulfillment of this destiny.

The main focus of action in this tale is not Sharpe's taking of a fortress, but a defense of it when he returns from an inland foray to find Bampfylde and his ships have abandoned him with minimal food and ammunition and with the fort's cannons all spiked. Calvet's division of 2,000 men is headed their way. Sharpe's mind is having trouble focusing because of his worry that his wife, ill when he left, is dying from a fever. Pretty compelling fix he's gotten into this time. Everyone deserves to read at least one from the Sharpe series, and there is no reason not to start with this. And if you get addicted, I recommend getting much the same pleasures by varying your fix with books from his Saxon Chronicles (set in 10th century Britain) or his Grail Quest series (set in 14th century France).