Sharpe's Gold (novel)

Infobox_Book |
name = Sharpe's Gold


image_caption = Recent UK edition cover
author = Bernard Cornwell
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series = Richard Sharpe stories
genre = Historical novels
publisher = HarperCollins
release_date = December, 1981
media_type = Print (Hardcover and Paperback) and audio-CD
pages = 252 pp (hardcover edition)) 256 pp (paperback edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-00-222129-2 (hardcover edition) ISBN 0-00-616545-1 (paperback edition)
preceded_by = Sharpe's Eagle
followed_by = Sharpe's Escape

Sharpe's Gold is a historical novel by Bernard Cornwell. Set in August 1810 during the Peninsular War and featuring the destruction of Almeida it is the 9th (chronologically) in the Richard Sharpe Series.

Plot introduction

This is Bernard Cornwell's second novel and according to the author the hardest to write.cite web | url =http://bernardcornwell.net/index.cfm?page=2&BookId=8 | title = Sharpe's Gold | accessdate = May 12 | accessdaymonth = | accessmonthday = | accessyear = 2008 | author = | last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | date = | year = | month = | format = | work = | publisher = bernardcornwell.net | pages = | language = English | doi = | archiveurl = | archivedate = | quote =It's always said that the second book is the most difficult to write, and I can remember finding it very hard, which is a reason why I've never re-read Sharpe's Gold either. I do remember a splendid scene with Sergeant Patrick Harper and a dungheap and that Sharpe meets the first of his wives while trying to rescue a great pile of Spanish gold. Watching the video is no help in reminding me what's in the plot because the story on the TV programme bears absolutely no resemblance to the story in the book - weird.] It was written as a warm-up for his "series of tales about the adventures of a British rifleman in the Napoleonic Wars."cite book |title=Sharpe's Eagle |last=Corwell |first=Bernard |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1994 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |location=London |isbn=978-0-00-780509-9 |pages=vi-vii]

Sharpe is sent on a secret mission behind French lines to locate gold that is badly needed to ensure the British can continue the fight against the French into the new year. At this time they hold a minor foothold in Portugal and are facing a major invasion in the new year.

Plot summary

Major Michael Hogan orders Sharpe to find out what happened to Claude Hardy, one of his exploring officers, who was sent to locate the gold thought to be in the fictional hamlet of Castejeda.

Sharpe sets off with the men of his small company as his sole military support and links up with Major Kearsey, another of Hogan's exploring officers. It becomes clear to Sharpe that Kearsey believes that the gold belongs to the Spanish and should only be returned to them, and that that is the purpose of the mission they are on. However Sharpe has secret orders that the gold must be taken to British lines and begins to doubt Kearsey is aware of them. We meet the local partisan commander El Catolico, who is engaged in a bitter struggle with local French cavalry.

Kearsey is captured by the French and Sharpe decides to go into the town and liberate him and ascertain the location of the gold. They succeed though suffer some losses in personnel but succeed in freeing not only Kearsey but also Teresa Moreno and her brother Ramon who were to be tortured by the French. The Spanish guerillas soon enter the town.

El Catolico is intensely suspicious of Sharpe being so far behind the French lines and suspects the British desire the gold so they can take it when they leave Portugal. We see Sharpe develop an attraction to Teresa who is betrothed to El Catolico. Her father is his second-in-command. Kearsey appears in awe of El Catolico and the Spanish generally. Sharpe decides to leave him out of future decisions. El Catolico claims there is no gold and that the French took it.

Having been escorted from the town by partisans Sharpe and the men double back later that night to undergo a further search of the town. Sharpe is captured by El Catolico but is freed by Patrick Harper who discovered the gold hidden in a manure patch. Sharpe's men surround the Spanish and they take Teresa as a hostage. Kearsey is utterly disapproving of what Sharpe has done but follows the other British soldiers. It seems Hardy was murdered by El Catolico.

They head for the fortress of Almeida and are harried by both the partisans and by French troops en route to the siege. Sharpe and Teresa consummate their relationship and fall in love. Sharpe and the men are saved from the French by a unit of German cavalry under Captain Lossow who was sent by Hogan to locate them and take them to Almeida. The officers meet with the commander of the fortress, the English Brigadier Cox. Cox has had no orders from General Wellington to let them pass unheeded and is suspicious of the lack of orders. Kearsey gives no help and it transpires that El Catolico and his men entered the fortress on the same night and lodged a claim on behalf of the Spanish government to take back the gold.

Efforts to contact Wellington are in vain as the telegraph is blown up. Cox orders the gold be returned and that Sharpe and his men enlist in the garrison to resist the siege. That night we have a showdown between Sharpe and El Catolico on the roof above Sharpe's bedroom window. Sharpe is victorious, but, realising that his opponent was superior, impaled his leg on the Spaniard's sword so he could render the coup de grace.

Demonstrating his ruthlessness, Sharpe and Harper, cause an explosion in the magazine of the fortress and cause a great deal of casualties and considerable damage to the fortress walls. It becomes clear that the fortress will fall much sooner than expected and Sharpe and Lossow are allowed take their men away.

Teresa returns to the partisans, taking the name La Aguja (the Needle). It transpires that the gold was needed to develop the enormous defensive Lines of Torres Vedras which held up the Franch invasion of Marshal André Masséna. Sharpe takes the opportunity of some leave to renew his acquanitance with Josefina, his love interest from Sharpe's Eagle, prompting the reader to speculate on the degree of attraction between himself and Teresa. The lines of Torres Vedras are better described in Sharpe's Escape.

Characters in Sharpe's Gold

*Richard Sharpe - Main character and officer of rifles
*Sergeant Patrick Harper - Sharpe's loyal right hand man
*Major Michael Hogan - Wellington's intelligence gathering officer
*Major Kearsey - one Major Hogan's exploring officers
*Colonel Joaquin 'El Catolico' Jovellanos - local partisan commander
*Teresa Moreno - Partisan leader
*Ramon Moreno - Teresa's brother

References or Allusions

References to actual history, geography and current science

Sharpe’s story continues to be "intimately linked" with the real life story of Sir Arthur Wellesley who appears again in this book. Here the Duke is suffering from money worries as Cornwell states he "knew that money kept an army efficient."cite book |title=Sharpe's Gold |last=Corwell |first=Bernard |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1993 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |location=London |isbn=978-0-00-780508-2 |pages=7-9]

Although El Catolico and his treasure trove are literary inventions the guerrillas and gold alluded to in this novel were also an important part of the war against France credited by Cornwell as "the twin allies of British victory" who admits that the "Sharpe books do not do justice to the guerillas".

The books tells a fictionalised account of the destruction of Almeida which, as Cornwell note "conveniently for a writer of fiction",cite book |title=Sharpe's Gold |last=Corwell |first=Bernard |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1993 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |location=London |isbn=978-0-00-780508-2 |pages=301-3] remains a mystery. The Lines of Torres Vedras mentioned at the end of the novel are also a historical reality. Both sites were visited by the author during his research for the novel.

The book also demonstrates the military etiquette followed by armies of the time. Sharpe's wounded are cared for by the French surgeons, as the British would do to the French but the guerrillas can only expect a gruesome death as they mete out to their French opponents.

References in other works

The character of Teresa Moreno who is introduced in this novel goes on to play an important role in the following books of the series. While the characters of Contessa Josefina and Claude Hardy were introduced in Cornwell's previous novel "Sharpe's Eagle".

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

A 1993 TV adaptation of the same name was produced by Central Independent Television for the ITV network in the UK starring Sean Bean, Daragh O'Malley and Assumpta Serna although this bore little resemblance to the novel.cite book | last=Murray| first=Andy | title=Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale |format=paperback|year=2006 | location=London|publisher=Headpress | id=ISBN 1-900486-50-4 | pages=p. 175]

Publication history

* 1981, UK, Harper Collins ISBN 0-00-222129-2, 1 Dec 1981, Hardback
* 1982, USA, Viking Press ISBN 0-67-063943-5, 1 Jan 1982, Hardback
* 1995, UK, Harper Collins ISBN 0-00-617314-4, 1 Dec 1995, Paperback
* 2004, USA, Signet ISBN 0-45-1213416, 3 August 2004, Paperback

References