Sir, I much enjoyed your SHARPE series … but was fairly flummoxed with your … or the TV description ..of Sgt Hakeswell (spelling ???). Back in l948 I was called up … conscription … and joined the DORSETS in Austria. The battalion chief Provost was Sgt. (sorry, but I’ve forgotten his name)with supposedly the M.M. who, too, used to shake his head just like Hakeswell. Rumour had it that he had a schrapnel wound and a piece was still there! I just couldn’t get over that uncanny ‘resemblance’ ! His understudy was a typical lance corporal who didn’t like me. Reciprocated ! Lance Corporal Nash of, obviously, an Etonian background who used to say ‘Yew, soljer, hits hagainst harmy regulayshuns ter smoke wiv a cigarrete ‘older’ Yours truly, Freeman Newton, White Rock, B.C.