Sharpe's Revenge (novel)
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Sharpe's Revenge is chronilogically the twenty-first novel in the series.
Unusually for a Sharpe novel the majority of its events take place during peacetime, with the Peninsular War ending (as true to historical events) less than a third of the way into the book.
The novel would mark the last time Patrick Harper fights as an actual member of the British Army, as he receives his discharge, signed personally by the Duke of Wellington, at the book's end (although he would of course be by Sharpe's side subsequently during the Hundred Days, and later in South America during the event's depicted in Sharpe's Devil).
Interestingly, the book also features the departure of one key character from the series, with Captain William Fredrickson and Sharpe's falling out at the novel's end, and also the introduction of a new principal character - Sharpe's third (and, so far as is known from the novels, final) wife, Lucille de Castineau.
[edit] Plot Details
It is Easter 1814, and Napoleon Bonaparte's imperial rule in France is nearly at an end. In the north, the Emperor and the last remnants of his Grande Armee are steadily being closed in on by the combined forces of Prussia, Austria, and Russia, whilst in Southern France, the Duke of Wellington and his victorious Anglo-Spanish/Portuguese Peninsular army have crossed the Pyrenees, and are now threatening the fortified city of Toulouse, the last major impediment to their advance.
With that invading army is Richard Sharpe, late of the 95th Rifles, but now serving as Brigade Major to a redcoat infantry battalion, commanded by the irascible Nairn, the former intelligence officer who has finally gotten his chance to command in battle. As the novel opens, we see Sharpe preparing for a duel against Horace Bampfylde, the Royal Navy officer from [[Sharpe's Siege]], who has impugned the rifleman's honour by suggesting that Sharpe and his men abandoned their positions during the French siege of the Teste de Buch fortress (for further information, please see the preceding Sharpe novel - [[Sharpe's Siege]]). The illegal duel proceeds, with Captain William Fredrickson acting as Sharpe's second; however rather than killing Bampfylde after the naval captain's pistol shot misses, Sharpe contents himself with injuring the man by firing a ball straight through his buttocks.
Returning to the army, which is preparing for the inevitable assault on the city of Toulouse, Sharpe is beset both by marital difficulties with his wife, Jane, and a growing morbid fear that his luck may be finally running out, and that he his marked to die in this coming battle. Eventually, the attack on Toulouse proceeds, ironically (and historically accurately) after Napoleon's abdication has already been signed. Despite his previous terror, Sharpe survives the bloody assault unscathed, although Nairn is mortally wounded in the battle's final moments.
Victorious, Wellington's forces receive the news that a peace has been signed, and Bonaparte has abdicated to the island of Elba - for the first time since 1802, Britain is no longer at war with France. Incredulous, but delighted, Sharpe and his companions turn their thoughts to the post-war world, and home. Harper, his service done, is determined to leave the army as soon as possible, and return to his beloved Donegal, whilst Fredickson, with his love of art and architecture, professes a desire to travel Europe now that peace has finally arrived. Sharpe, on the other hand, has more pressing worries. Jane has decamped back to England, ostensibly to purchase a house, and prepare things for the couple to settle down in peace and tranquility. The rifle-officer, however has heard no word from his impetuous wife since, and even more ominously, having signed power of attorney over to Jane before the Battle of Toulouse, she now has complete access to his considerable wealth.
However, before any of the riflemen even have a chance to properly contemplate this future, they find themselves suddenly plunged back into the controversy over the battle for Teste de Buch. Arrested by provosts before they can embark for home at the port of Bordeaux, the trio are called before a British military tribunal, and accused of deliberately prolonging the siege, at the expense of their men's casualties, in order to loot the fort of a quantity of Napoleon's wealth which had been stored there. Unbeknownst to the soldiers, the groundless accusations have been engineered by Pierre Ducos, a renegade French spy, and bitter enemy of Sharpe's ever since the events described in Sharpe's Enemy, who was himself responsible for the theft of the Emperor's treasure.
Realising correctly that Ducos' clever plot will almost certainly result in a guilty verdict, Sharpe and his companions resolve to escape, and find Henri Lassan, the erstwhile commander of the Teste de Buch fort, an honest and pious former soldier, who will almost certainly be able to clear their names. However, before the riflemen can reach Lassan's home in the Normandy countryside, Ducos strikes first, to ensure there are no contradictory witnesses left alive. Having allied himself with a group of former dragoons from Napoleon's defeated army, he arranges the brutal murder of Lassan at his family chateau, a crime committed in front of his horrified sister, Lucille.
When Sharpe, Fredrick, and Harper eventually succeed in reaching the Lassan chateau, it is to find a distressed and bereaved Lucille, who, having heard from her brother before his death of the British soldiers who captured his command, and mistaking the riflemen's distinctive green jackets for the green dragoon coats of Henri's killers, promptly shoots Sharpe at almost point blank range with a horse pistol.
While the severely injured rifle officer recuperates at the chateau, Fredrickson, angry at having a clumsy proposal of marriage turned down by Lucille, leaves for Paris in order to try and discover the origin of the accusations leveled against the three soldiers. Harper, meanwhile, travels at Sharpe's behest to England, to try and reach Jane. Arriving in London, the Irish sergeant discovers to his shock that the Sharpe's pretty wife has been conducting an affair with the urbane royal courtier Lord John Rossendale, and has nearly exhausted her husband's savings in her efforts to fit into the capital's high society.
By this time, however, Sharpe, initially distrustful and angry at the Frenchwoman for attacking him, has recovered, and has steadily fallen for Lucille's charms, even going so far as to learn French. When Harper delivers his unhappy news about Jane, the pair have consummated their romance, and Sharpe, although deeply hurt by his wife's betrayal, accepts the ending of his marriage, and concentrates on tracking down Ducos in order to clear his name.
Having learned through Fredickson's investigations that the French spy has holed himself up in a villa in the Kingdom of Naples, where he is extravagantly frittering away Napoleon's stolen riches, the riflemen embark for Italy, and prepare to go to war once again.
Sharpe, Fredrickson, and Harper soon find themselves in a highly strange alliance with General Calvet, a tough and veteran French soldier, and one of the Emperor's most devoted followers. Having been dispatched by Napoleon from Elba to recover his lost treasure, along with a group of the Emperor's Grenadiers of the Old Guard, Calvet recognises that his task is roughly the same as that of his former enemies - swift revenge on Ducos.
Combining forces, the riflemen and their elite French opposite numbers storm Ducos' hilltop villa in the dead of night, rapidly overcoming the Frenchman's mercenary guards, with Sharpe himself capturing and disdainfully knocking unconscious the terrified spymaster.
As the unusual Anglo-French force prepares to withdraw from the fortified villa with the treasure and their captive, they face one final challenge. In the faint dawn light, they realise they are surrounded and heavily outnumbered by a battalion of Neapolitan infantry, sent by the kingdom's corrupt ruler to keep Napoleon,s riches for himself. The experienced Sharpe and Calvet, grasping that the discipline of the Italian infantrymen is likely to be atrocious, decide to use a cannon purchased by Ducos for the villa's defence to bombard the surrounding troops with a shower of golden coins from the Emperor's hoard. When the Neapolitan soldiers break ranks to seize the spoils, Calvet, Sharpe, and their men are able to make good their escape to a waiting boat. As the two officers from different countries take their leave, Calvet, acknowledging the grudging respect each has for one another as a tough professional soldier, leaves Sharpe with one gift from the treasure he is returning to its owner in Elba; a deep red ruby for Lucille.
Back in France, with their honour restored and the scheming Ducos executed by a French firing squad for treason, the three riflemen finally go their separate ways - Fredrickson, disgusted and angry at Sharpe for succeeding with Madame Castineau where he had failed, back to England, and presumably the 60th Rifles; Harper to his home in Ireland; and Sharpe back to Normandy, and Lucille.
