Bernard Cornwell · 1981 · overland

The first Sharpe novel published, set during the Talavera campaign of July 1809. Sharpe and thirty stranded riflemen are attached to a raw regiment under a bullying fool who loses its colours at the first contact. To redeem it, Sharpe sets out to take the one thing that will wipe the disgrace out - a French Imperial Eagle, touched by Napoleon's own hand.

1. 1
   Abrantes

   The army concentrates on the Tagus, and Sharpe's riflemen - separated from their regiment in the retreat to Corunna - are attached to the raw South Essex under Sir Henry Simmerson, who has flogged it into uselessness.

2. 2
   Plasencia

   Wellesley crosses into Spain to join Cuesta, and at a bridge on the march the South Essex is broken and loses its King's Colour - a disgrace that in that army is close to unsurvivable.

3. 3
   Talavera

   At Talavera the French come on three times across burning fields, the Spanish run, and the line holds - and Sharpe and Harper go into the middle of a French column to take an Eagle back for a regiment that has nothing else left.