LITERARY WARRIORS

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about 

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is the series protagonist, a British soldier who fought in India, the Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo. His tale begins in Sharpe's Tiger as a private in the 33rd Regiment of Foot. He earns the rank of Sergeant by the end of the book. Throughout his career, he is gradually promoted through the ranks, finally becoming a lieutenant colonel in Sharpe's Waterloo. He is described as being six feet tall, having an angular, tanned face, black hair, and blue eyes. He has "a slash of a scar on his cheek that gave him a broodingly savage face."

Personality

Sharpe is an intelligent, driven, and fiercely ambitious man, rising through the ranks by courage, determination, and luck. He is most comfortable on the battlefield; and being a soldier is the life he excels at.

His best friends and only real family are the soldiers he serves with. On the battlefield, he is confident, highly skilled, instinctual, and ingenious. Off the battlefield he is often insecure and somewhat naive, never really fitting into the world of the gentlemen of privilege, means, and education who are his fellow officers.

Although he has a towering and somewhat brittle pride, a man too proud to ever fail, he has a remarkably little ego. He never really understands the loyalty of his men was to him personally, more than to any unit. He marvelled at their confidence in taking on numbers ten times their own, he did not understand, as Patrick Harper did, that it was because of him, that he could make his men feel that "the impossible was just a little troublesome and that victory was the common place where he led." (Sharpe's Gold) He is a born leader, a natural soldier.

Sharpe is also cunning and humorous, making jokes and insults to people at various times. He does it not only out of humor but also to fool others, particularly the resentful gentlemanly officers, to underestimate him.

Childhood

Richard Sharpe was born in June or July of 1777 or 1778, to a prostitute residing in Cat Lane, London and an unknown father. Sharpe remembers only dark hair and a voice in the darkness of his mother. When Sharpe was about three, his mother was killed, leaving him an orphan. With no other known relatives to claim him, he was eventually deposited in a foundling home at Brewhouse Lane, Wapping. 

There, the children under six were assigned to pick apart old tar coated ships cables which left their fingers bloody and abused. Each child would work a seven foot length every day which was then sold to caulkers and upholsterers. He said it was better than working the bone room where bones were pounded to powder to make paste which was sold as imitation ivory. 

They liked Christmas because it was one day a year that there was no work, the one day the home was heated, and they were given minced tripe and hard boiled eggs to eat. (Sharpe's Enemy). At about the age of eight or nine, when he was sold to a chimney sweep, he ran away. He was found by Maggie Joyce in the Rookery of St Giles, London, who found work for a nimble child, he becomes a thief and house breaker. 

St Giles was grim and dark, a place of desperation where kill or be killed was an everyday occurrence. Maggie was the first woman he slept with, and the first he killed for, both before his thirteenth birthday.

After killing one of the lords of St Giles for beating Maggie, she sent him away and he fled to Yorkshire. He worked at a coaching inn in Yorkshire for over two years where he assisted the innkeeper in snaffling luggage, and dealing in stolen goods. He called the man a right bastard, and he eventually killed him in a knife fight over a local girl. To avoid arrest, he accepted the King's shilling from Sgt. Hakeswell and joined the 33rd Regiment of Foot.

India

Sharpe sees his first action at the age of 16 in Flanders. He then serves in India and it was in India where his nemesis, Sergeant Obediah Hakeswill, had him flogged. In 1799, Sharpe is sentenced to 2,000 lashes for striking the sergeant, but is released after receiving 202. Using the flogging as a cover, he is assigned to accompany Lieutenant William Lawford on a secret mission to rescue Lawford's uncle, Hector McCandless, head of British East India Company intelligence. 

They join the Tippoo Sultan's army posing as British deserters, which is fortunate for his healing back, since the Indian doctor is far more skilled than the army surgeon. Sharpe is ordered to shoot McCandless and after surreptitiously asking if the man had a message for the General, does so without hesitation. The powder, however, is made without saltpeter, and couldn't fire, a fact a line soldier such as he picks up on immediately. McCandless was impressed by the soldier, Lawford stunned. They were later exposed by Hakeswill and imprisoned. Lawford and McCandless teach Sharpe to read and write while they are in the Tippoo's dungeon (Sharpe's Tiger).

At the successful conclusion of their mission, he is promoted to sergeant. He serves four years as sergeant in the Armoury in Seringapatam. He then survived the massacre at Chasalgaon, perpetrated by renegade East India Company officer William Dodd, in 1803. Sharpe's servant boy, Davi Lal, and his six men died, however, and Sharpe wanted revenge.

Sharpe proves himself an excellent soldier, when the dragoon orderly attached to Sir Arthur Wellesley is killed in the early stages at the Battle of Assaye, Sharpe takes his place, and so is at hand when Wellesley is unhorsed among the enemy. Sharpe defends Wellesley against Maratha horsemen and saves the general's life, receiving a battlefield commission for this act of bravery. He joins the 74th Regiment as an Ensign, and it is he who leads the force that breeches Dodd's fortress, and destroys the renegade while at the same time collecting a defining scar to his cheek (Sharpe's Fortress).

Never quite fitting in with the clanish 74th, he applies for and is accepted to the newly formed 95th Rifles. He returns to England to join his new regiment as a second lieutenant (Sharpe's Trafalgar).

Sharpe's Career

1793 Joined the ranks of the King's 33rd Foot. Fought a brief engagement in Flanders the following year.

1795 Sailed for India with the 33rd. Made Corporal of the 33rd but was broken back to private. Becomes bored and contemplates desertion.

1799 Flogged for striking a superior. Accepted mission behind enemy lines. Met William Lawford and Hector McCandless who taught him how to read and write while they were prisoners of the Mysore Sultan. Promoted to Sergeant in the 33rd Foot for the services he provided during the siege of Seringapatam.

1803 Commissioned Ensign after saving the life of Sir Arthur Wellesley at the Battle of Assaye he was assigned to the 78th Highlanders. Stayed in India until late 1805 when he was accepted on exchange into the Experimental Corps of Riflemen as a Second Lieutenant of the 1st Battalion.

1806 Transferred into the 2nd Battalion of the 95th Rifles.

1808 Went with the army into Spain and was part of the Corunna Retreat, where he served in the rearguard action with the 95th on the Vigo route with Crauford's Light Brigade.

1809 Moved into Spain once more, served as escort to the Engineers until attached to a regular Army Regiment, the South Essex. Gazetted Captain of the Light Company by Wellington.

1812 After Salamanca and Garcia Hernandez, recovering from wounds, Sharpe was promoted to Major by the Prince Regent and given his first independent command.

1815 Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel 5th Belgian Light Dragoons and served on the staff of the Prince of Orange, participating in the Battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. Sharpe spent a final month in service as the Commander of the South Essex Regiment, thereby confirming his regimental rank of Colonel.

And as always have a chilled day from the Viking