Bernard Cornwell · 1995 · overland

Bernard Cornwell's novel of Fuentes de Onoro, May 1811. Sharpe finds a village massacred by a French brigadier who fights a war without rules, and makes an enemy of him. Saddled with a ceremonial Spanish guard unit nobody wants, he is training them when Massena comes back to relieve Almeida and the two armies meet in a village street.

1. 1
   The frontier

   In the hills on the Portuguese frontier Sharpe finds a village whose people have been killed to the last child by Brigadier Loup's grey-coated troops - and shoots two of Loup's men in front of him, which begins a private war.

2. 2
   Almeida

   Almeida is held by a French garrison and Massena is coming to relieve it, so Wellington has to stand somewhere in front of it - and Sharpe is meanwhile handed the Real Compania Irlandesa, a palace guard unit that has never fought.

3. 3
   Fuentes de Onoro

   The battle is fought through the streets and gardens of one village, changing hands all day, with the British right flank hanging in the air - and Wellington afterwards admits that if Boney had been there he would have beaten them.