Bernard Cornwell · 1998 · overland

Bernard Cornwell's novel of the Battle of Assaye, September 1803. Sergeant Sharpe is the only survivor of a massacre at an isolated Company fort, carried out by a renegade British officer who has gone over to the Mahrattas. He is attached to a Scottish colonel hunting the man, and ends the campaign by saving General Wellesley's life in the middle of a battle nobody expected to win.

1. 1
   Seringapatam

   Sharpe is a sergeant in the armoury at Seringapatam, and the sole survivor when Lieutenant William Dodd massacres the garrison of an outlying fort and deserts to the Mahrattas with the ammunition.

2. 2
   Ahmednuggur

   The army pushes north into Mahratta country and storms the walls of Ahmednuggur - and in the confusion Sharpe pulls General Wellesley clear when his horse is piked from under him, which is the making of his career.

3. 3
   Assaye

   At Assaye, Wellesley attacks an army of fifty thousand with fewer than seven thousand men and a river at his back - and wins the battle he would call, all his life afterwards, the best thing he ever did.