Читать книгу Sharpe’s Christmas - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 5

Sharpe’s Christmas was written for the Daily Mail who needed to fill their pages over the holiday season. American readers should understand that British newspapers regard the whole of Christmas week as a vacation. Some news will make its way into the paper, but most of the staff will be at home, filling themselves with turkey, stuffing, plum pudding and brandy, and so the pages must be filled with something else. The Daily Mail was very specific; they wanted a story of 12,000 words, neatly divided into three, so they could run 4,000 words each day, and I took immense pride in delivering that requirement to a tolerance of plus or minus two words. The story is now much longer because, free of the restraints, I have taken the chance to rewrite it.

Even at the time the request seemed a bit odd to me. Sharpe, bless him, is not a man of peace. Goodwill? Yes, to those he likes, but he and Christmas are not a natural fit. It is a season, after all, when we enjoin peace on earth, it is about shepherds and babies, angels and wonder, gifts and feasting, while Sharpe is about struggle. The mismatch is almost total, but I was intrigued by the request and tried to write a tale which, while not ignoring Sharpe’s belligerent nature, nevertheless acknowledged the Christmas spirit.

For those who like to know where these stories fit into the larger scheme of Sharpe’s career, Sharpe’s Christmas falls after Sharpe’s Regiment. It is set in 1813, towards the end of the Peninsular War, but the story was written shortly after I had finished Sharpe’s Tiger, which tells of the Mysore War in India in 1799. Many of the references in Sharpe’s Christmas hark back to the events of 1799 when Sharpe briefly (and with official blessing) served in the small French force that was attempting to repel the British attack on Seringapatam, and one of the pleasures of writing it was to reintroduce Colonel Gudin, the Frenchman who was one of the first officers to spot the young Richard Sharpe’s potential.

I am most grateful to CeCe Motz, my irreplaceable assistant, who had the tiresome task of converting old newspaper pages into computer files so I could rewrite them. And I am also grateful to the Daily Mail, ever a lively newspaper, who commissioned this tale in the first place. The printed book, Sharpe’s Christmas, is available via www.bernardcornwell.net. It contains an additional story, Sharpe’s Ransom, which will be available as an ebook in 2012.