Sharpe's Trafalgar

Loved this adventure for Sharpe. Naval battles are so much more gruesome than their gunpowder equivalents on land. Can't handle the amount of resources used to build and sink warships. I'm going to feel so bad for Sharpe when this latest lady leaves him. #AtSea1805
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Afterward he would remember little of that fight, but he rarely remembered such brawls. They were too confused, too loud, too full of horror, so full of horror, indeed, that he was ashamed when he remembered the joy of it, but there was a joy there. It was the happiness of being released to the slaughter, of having every bond of civilization removed. It was also what Richard Sharpe was good at. It was why he wore an officer's sash instead of a private's belt, because in show more almost every battle the moment came when the disciplined ranks dissolved and a man simply had to claw and scratch and kill like a beast. You did not kill men at long range in this kind of fighting, but came as close as a lover before you slaughtered them.

To go into that kind of fighting needed a rage, or a madness or a desperation. Some men never found those qualities and they shrank from the danger, and Sharpe could not blame them, for there was little that was admirable in rage, insanity or despair. Yet they were the qualities that drove the fight, and they were fueled by a determination to win. Just that. To beat the bastards down, to prove that the enemy were lesser men. The good soldier was cock of a blood-soaked dunghill, and Richard Sharpe was good. show less

As I work my way chronologically through the Sharpe series, I find that this is my favorite so far. Sharpe always manages to land in the middle of the most dramatic historical events, rubbing elbows with the famous, despite his low station. After having served for years in India he is making his way home to join a new rifle unit. On the way he gets robbed, betrayed, engages in a transoceanic sea chase, manages a clandestine love affair with a real lady, gets invited to dinner with Lord Nelson and ends up in the Battle of Trafalgar. There he helps to save the day once again. Great fun.

OK, I'll admit, I've been putting off reading this one just because the very idea of it seemed ludicrous and forced to me. As has been very firmly established, our man Richard Sharpe is a daring, lucky and resourceful infantry officer. Infantry. The guy can barely ride a horse, but he's the devil in a red coat on foot. But see, Trafalgar was a naval battle. As in between ships. Admiral Nelson. Sailing maneuvers (or lack thereof: just go right at 'em). Ramming. Boarding parties. Being on the water.

So how could Sharpe have a Trafalgar that wasn't preposterous and contrived?

Answer: well, he can't: but the contriving minimizes the preposterousness and soon the reader forgets her pre-book scoffing altogether. After all, Richard does have to show more get from India back to England somehow, and we readers have already swallowed his just happening to be the unknown man who killed the Tippoo Sultan and the man who "really" found the way into Gawilgur.

Anyway, lesson well learned: always trust Uncle Bernard.

Speaking of things we learn, Sharpe's Trafalgar is also where we learn, not only that Sharpe has sea legs, but that he doesn't require the heat of battle to be a killer. Oh, we've had hints of this before, witness his attempt in the first book to feed his Wile E. Coyote nemesis to a tiger, but what we see in his shipboard relationship with his would-be blackmailer*, Mister Braithwaite, shows new depths of cold-bloodedness. Sharpe has never known an even-handed, just application of society's rules and laws, so he doesn't feel particularly bound by them. Dude.

And Sharpe has a lot to learn as well, here, for he has in the person of his friend Captain Chase (whom he rescued from a nasty crew on land in the novel's prologue) an example of leadership like he's not seen before. His Pucelle**, on which Sharpe finds himself after he's sort-of-rescued from a captured Indiaman, is a great big ship of the line, a floating artillery battery, and, that rarity of rarities, a happy ship. How does he do that?

"Sharpe watched Chase, for he reckoned he had still a lot to learn about the subtle business of leading men. He saw that the captain did not secure his authority by recourse to punishment, but rather by expecting high standards and rewarding them. He also hid his doubts."

From what I know about Sharpe's future with a rifle company in the Napoleonic wars (these novels have such cultural currency that it's almost as impossible not to know Sharpe's going to end up a lieutenant in Spain as it is not to know what Rosebud is), these are good lessons for him to be getting, very important for his transformation from a gutter rat whose first (chronological) scene in fiction is of him getting flogged to a man who inspires loyalty.

The scenes with Sharpe and Chase are also a nice antidote to the soap opera adultery plot that comprises more than half this book.*** Ugh.

But the real star here is the famous naval battle, into which the Pucelle more or less stumbles. Cornwell gives Patrick O'Brian a run for his ramming, gunning, sailing money here; one could fully imagine the Surprise being somewhere in the smoke (but of course we know it wasn't. Sillies. The Surprise was as real as... as the Pucelle!). The action is described in loving detail, with an emphasis on its chaotic nature, for we are seeing it from the perspective of an infantry soldier serving as an "honorary marine" who barely understands what's going on.

And yes, Cornwell succumbs to the temptation to substitute his fictional ship for the real one that rescued Admiral Nelson's flagship just as the French were about to board her, and also to the temptation to make Sharpe the person Nelson finds most interesting at his pre-battle breakfast. But I ask you: who wouldn't? Scenes such as those are a big part of why historical fiction is fun, if one isn't simply writing a fictionalized biography of an actual historical figure the way, say, Jean Plaidy does. But yes, I rolled my eyes a bit. But I was also smiling. It's a Sharpe book, after all.

It's just not the best Sharpe book. Hey, they can't all be.

Onward to Europe!

*Of course the blackmail is over a woman. Cornwell knows and respects the principle of Chekhov's Gun; if a pretty woman shows up in the first act of a Sharpe novel, Sharpe is going to become her lover, even if, as in this case, she is married to an obnoxious nobleman.

**"Pucelle" in English is "virgin." Ho ho!

**The other half, at least until the Pucelle stumbles across the battle at Trafalgar, is a chase plot. While Sharpe is schtupping the nobleman's wife in every unseen corner of the ship that isn't too disgusting, the ship is chasing a French one, the Revenant, to which Sharpe's frenemy and also a suspected spy jumped after it took the first ship that Sharpe and co embarked on, the Calliope. It's all very exciting and Patrick O'Brian-ish, and I would have much preferred it without all the tedious adultery, but I'm just sort of like that, you know? show less

Sharpe's Trafalgar puts a twist on the usual Sharpe formula by putting him at sea. I've not read the Hornblower series, which many people seem to compare this to, but while the plot does have its slightly slow moments, this entry still contains gripping and exhilarating action sequences showing the full brutality of gunpowder conflict, as Cornwell is known for crafting, which is paired with a host of equally likeable and dislikeable characters to keep Sharpe company. The resulting story gives a realistic taste of what a maritime voyage halfway around the world would have been like, and vividly brings to life one of the most famous naval battles in history. Nothing mind-blowing, but a solid entry in the series.

Sharpe goes to sea! Most entertaining of the Sharpe early chronology so far. Less slogging, more heroics and the blessedly welcome absence of the detestable Obadiah Hakeswill!

In spite of the Economist's claim that Bernard Cornwell is "the direct heir to Patrick O'Brian," this book has less substance, although it certainly kept my interest. I'm also not happy with all of Mr. Sharpe's moral choices. But I learned a lot about living conditions on a ship---I wouldn't want to travel on one even first class---and how to prepare for a sea battle. Reading historical fiction means that you know in advance that Nelson will not survive; his telling Sharpe that he (Nelson) will have completed his life's work gives you the feeling that there were no more important naval battles after Trafalgar. (Not so, says my husband.) Nelson is portrayed as a holy man: he is totally present when he interacts with someone.

The machinations of the plot to get Sharpe to Trafalgar were of course completely barmy but it was an OK listen. The insta lust plot was even more out there than Sharpe's usual way with women. I was eye rolling a few times.
But it was fun for the ship detail.