Battles, cavalry charges and attacks

Bernard Cornwell has been gradually filling in the blank pages of Richard Sharpe's service record: this latest entry, Sharpe's Havoc, covers the spring of 1809, when Marshal Soult invaded Portugal with an army of 22,000 men and took Oporto.

Sharpe and his riflemen unfortunately find themselves on the north bank of the Duoro, cut off by the French from the British army, soon to come under the command of Sharpe's old India acquaintance, Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington.

Together with a small party of Portuguese infantry Sharpe circles east, hoping to cross the river higher up, but his plans are frustrated by the mysterious and sinister, if handsome, Colonel Christopher, and Sharpe finds himself guarding the beautiful Kate Savage, daughter of a wealthy port merchant, and her estate of Quinta do Zedes.

A few skirmishes, sieges, forced marches, plots and counter-plots later, after Christopher has persuaded Kate to don a hussar's uniform with extremely tight trousers, much to the delight of the lascivious French officers on Soult's staff, while Sharpe aids the British army to cross the Duoro and throw the French out of Oporto, the narrative comes to a satisfactorily bloody and violent end.

The Peninsular war brings out the best both in Sharpe and his creator: Sharpe's Havoc is the best Sharpe novel for a long time, and may even be the best of all. Villains are not incredibly villainous, romantic dalliance is kept to a minimum, history is not overly interrupted by plot, and there is a great deal of military action.

And no one is better than Bernard Cornwell in describing battles large and small, howitzer fire, cavalry charges, or bayonet attacks.