Sharpe's Triumph

He had always thought there was an answer to all life's mysteries in the stars, yet whenever he stared at them the answer slipped out of his grasp... But he had to think now, and he stared at the smoke-dimmed stars in the hope that they would help him, but all they did was go on shining.

The square would end with a huddle of bloodied men around the colors and the enemy would fall on them and for a few moments it would be steel against steel, and the sergeant reckoned he would give the flag to a wounded man and do what harm he could with the heavy, long-shafted axe. It was a pity to die, but he was a soldier, and no one had yet devised a way a man could live for ever, not even those clever bastards in Edinburgh.

a fool and his money are easily parted.

And you look bloody young to be a sergeant.” “I was born late, sir,” Sharpe said. He

So sanity is not a requisite of soldiering,’ Wellesley said quietly.

A sad, plangent music. In the British camp, Sharpe thought, they would be singing, but no one was singing here.