Bernard,
Have you ever come across the Charles Dickens short story entitled ‘The Story of Richard Doubledick’? Despite the dubious name of the title character (no worse than Hornblower), it is an account that resonates of the Napoleonic period. India, Badajoz, Quatre Bras and Waterloo all feature among what is, at times, cloying sentimentality. But then Dickens was writing for an audience whose collective memory of that era was relatively immediate.
Even the title character, who rises through the ranks from drunken squaddie to officer, is a noble man. Sharpe would hate him, or at least curse him for his devotion to duty.
Have a look if you haven’t read it.
Btw, I know you’re fed up with people asking, but what about Nate Starbuck?
Thanks for hours of escapism,
Colm.