SHARPE’S SIEGE
Richard Sharpe and the
Winter Campaign, 1814
BERNARD CORNWELL
This novel is a work of fiction. The incidents and some of the characters portrayed in it, while based on real historical events and figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1988
Reprinted five times
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1987
Copyright © Rifleman Productions Ltd 1987
Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007298600
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2011 ISBN: 9780007346813
Version: 2017-04-26
Sharpe’s Siege is dedicated to
Brenym McNight, Terry Farrand, Bryan Thorniley,
Diana Colbert, Ray Steele, and Stuart Wilkie;
with thanks
Contents
Map of The French Biscay Coast
The SHARPE Series (in chronological order)
The SHARPE Series (in order of publication)
‘Cornwell has maintained a marvellously high standard throughout the series … brilliantly lucid and compellingly exciting’
Evening Standard
CHAPTER ONE
It was ten days short of Candlemas, 1814, and an Atlantic wind carried shivers of cold rain that slapped on narrow cobbled alleys, spilt from the broken gutters of tangled roofs, and pitted the water of St Jean de Luz’s inner harbour. It was a winter wind, cruel as a bared sabre, that whirled chimney smoke into the low January clouds shrouding the corner of south-western France where the British Army had its small