Bernard Cornwell
Collected Edition:
Sharpe’s Havoc,
Sharpe’s Eagle and
Sharpe’s Gold
These novels are entirely works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
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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This Collected Ebook edition © NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007454686
Version: 2019-01-14
Individual Editions:
Sharpe’s Havoc: 9780007338689
Sharpe’s Eagle: 9780007338641
Sharpe’s Gold: 9780007338672
Contents
Sharpe’s Story
BERNARD CORNWELL
Sharpe’s Havoc
Richard Sharpe
and the campaign in northern Portugal,
spring 1809
Sharpe’s Havoc is for William T. Oughtred who knows why
Contents
Miss Savage was missing.
And the French were coming.
The approach of the French was the more urgent crisis. The splintering noise of sustained musket fire was sounding just outside the city and in the last ten minutes five or six cannonballs had battered through the roofs of the houses high on the river’s northern bank. The Savage house was a few yards down the slope and for the moment was protected from errant French cannon fire, but already the warm spring air hummed with spent musket balls that sometimes struck the thick roof tiles with a loud crack or else ripped through the dark glossy pines to shower needles over the garden. It was a large house, built of white-painted stone and with dark-green shutters closed over the windows. The front porch was crowned with a wooden board on which were gilded letters spelling out the name House Beautiful in English. It seemed an odd name for a building high on the steep hillside where the city of Oporto overlooked the River Douro in northern Portugal, especially as the big square house was not beautiful at all, but quite stark and ugly and angular, even if its harsh lines were softened by dark cedars which would offer welcome shade in summer. A bird was making a nest in one of the cedars and whenever a musket ball tore through the branches it would squawk in alarm and