Hello Mr. Cornwell. Thank you for your excellent books and the many hour of enjoyment they have given me. My brother has been recommending your Sharpe novels to me for years, but as I was not much interested in the Napoleonic Wars I resisted. Then I stumbled upon your Warlord Chronicles. I’ve been a fan of Arthurian literature since I was a teen, so I dived in. Yours is easily the best of any modern retelling of Arthur’s story I have read. Now I am working my way through all the rest of your books and am halfway through the Sharpe series which has me hooked. As I am reading them in published order, I recently read Sharpe’s Siege which addresses the issue of Sharpe’s regimental rank. In it Colonel Wigram explicitly states “Your regimental rank, Major, is that of Captain.” And that Captains, however ambitious they may be, do not command battalions. So the Lieutenant’s half pay that Sharpe is forced to live on before Waterloo is still a mystery, unless Wigram is wrong. In any case, I don’t intend to let it impair my continued enjoyment of your work. Thanks again. -James