Bibliography

Date first published	1998
ISBN Number	0 00225630 1
Page Count	293 h/b
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

India, 1803. It is four years since Richard Sharpe earned his sergeant's stripes at the siege of Seringpatam, and four years in which Sharpe seems to have discovered the easiest billet in the British army. Bu that comfort is rudely shattered when he witnesses a murderous act of treachery by an English officer who has defected to join the mercenary army of the Mahratta Confederation commanded by the flamboyant Hanoverian, Anthony Pohlmann.

Share is ordered to join the hunt for the renegade Englishman, a hunt that will take him deep into the enemy's territory where he will face temptations more subtle than he has ever dreamed of. And behind him, relentlessly stalking him, comes his worst enemy, the baleful, twitching Obadiah Hakeswill who is determined to break Sharpe once and for all.

The paths of treachery all lead to the small village of Assaye where Sir Arthur Wellesley, with a tiny British Army, faces the Mahratta horde. Outnumbered and outgunned, Wellesley decides to fight, and Sergeant Richard Sharpe is plunged into the white heat of a battle that will make Wellesley's reputation. It will make Sharpe's name too, but only if he can survive the carnage and killing frenzy, for it is at Assaye that he last realizes his ambition and has a chance to seize it.

Review

This is the story that really sets Sharpe onto his path to Waterloo as an officer. It also for the first time offers a full backstop to Sharpe's Rifles, which was originally the first story in the series. It also introduces a villain for pursuit, not quite in the same depth as Pierre Ducos, but a man that is harder and as happy with violence as Sharpe is. Dodd is a great character, full of malevolence, and a ladies man, but whereas Sharpe has the redeeming feature of doing things for honour - and treating the ladies with kindness, Dodd does it all for power and his own glory.

The other central character, that Sharpe faces is Hakeswill, who has survived Sharpe's last attempt to kill him. Hakeswill attempts to entrap Sharpe in a heavy handed plot of him having assaulted an officer - with a jakes pot - "solids and all". The enmity that these two have for each other is great reading. Although you can understand why Hakeswill hates Sharpe. Sharpe is again remiss in not ensuring that his enemy is finally finished off.

Through all this Sharpe emerges unscathed, and has his first taste of a real battle, a battle which the future Duke of Wellington reckoned to be his finest achievement.

The story is very well written, all the hallmarks of a typical Cornwell novel, plenty of action, but in the lulls, enough going on that it never drops its pace. There is also a fair amount ao background filled for those that don't know the actual events. That an army of a little over 5000, can destroy a well ordered army of over 20,000 says a lot.

So if you want to know how and why Sharpe, and Wellington are so inextricably linked, this is the story that will reveal all. You won't be disappointed.

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