Bernard Cornwell · 1987 · sea
Bernard Cornwell's novel of the winter campaign of 1814. A joint army and navy raid goes a hundred miles up the French coast to take a fort in the Bay of Arcachon - officially to raise a royalist rising in Bordeaux, actually to seize boats for a bridge. Then the navy sails away, burns the fort behind it and leaves Sharpe on the wrong side of France.
- 1St Jean de Luz
From the British foothold on the French coast, Sharpe is put under a naval captain he loathes and told to take a fortress a hundred miles north - with a secret second purpose he is forbidden to reveal to anyone in the expedition.
- 2The Bay of Arcachon
The squadron works up the Biscay coast to the Bassin d'Arcachon, where three dozen coasters shelter under the fort's guns - the boats Wellington needs to bridge the Adour, which is what the raid is actually for.
- 3The Teste de Buch
The fort is taken by a ruse and then abandoned by the navy, burned and left - and Sharpe holds the ruins against a French brigade with two hundred men, eighteen rounds apiece and an American privateer for an ally.