Bernard Cornwell · 1983 · overland

Bernard Cornwell's novel of the Salamanca campaign, summer 1812. A French colonel called Leroux is hunting down Wellington's Spanish intelligence network one name at a time, and is very much better with a sword than Sharpe is. The armies march parallel for weeks in the heat before Wellington turns on Marmont and destroys an army in forty minutes.

1. 1
   Ciudad Rodrigo

   The army moves east from Ciudad Rodrigo into Spain, and with it comes an order to find and stop Colonel Leroux, who is systematically killing the informants that keep Wellington better briefed than the French.

2. 2
   Salamanca

   At Salamanca the French hold three fortified convents in the middle of the city and the siege of them is slow and expensive - and Sharpe, badly wounded by Leroux's sword, spends weeks not expected to live.

3. 3
   The Arapiles

   For weeks the two armies march within sight of each other, and then Marmont stretches his line a fraction too far near the Arapiles hills - and Wellington, who has been waiting all summer, beats forty thousand men in forty minutes.