Dear Sir,
Thanks for all your work. It is a long time since I marched with Sharpe but I came across this riddle and it inspired me to rekindle my acquaintance with the warrior. Anyway here is my attempt at you riddle:
“Take you out, put me in and a horse appears in this happy person.”
1. ‘Take you out’ = Could be ‘U’ as one would think. However if one takes it as a homophone it could be the ‘Y’ (yuh).
2. ‘Put me in’ = Either the definitive ‘me’ or as more likely ‘me’ as in ‘I’.
3. A horse appears = More on this anon.
4. This Happy Person = Joyous in middle English is ‘Blithe’, or more commonly ‘BLYTHE’.
Applying clues 1& 2. One removes the ‘Y’ and replaces it with ‘I’. One gets BLITHE, also pronounced BLIGH (not sure what happens to the ‘E’).
Clue 3. From BLITH it is not a great leap to get to Noel COWARD’s 1940s play ‘BLYTHE SPIRIT’. In the early part of this century (when this riddle was set) there was a horse by the name of ‘BLYTHE SPIRIT’ hammering the tracks of the USA (where, Sir, you have set up your home). It is now the name of yet another horse doing the rounds within the UK.
Argument.
I believe that Richard Sharpe’s father is one Vice Admiral William BLIGH (of the Bounty fame). It is believed that Richard was born on 26th June 1777, thereby making his conception in September 1776. However, it could be argued that a women of such free morals could well have got her ‘dates’ wrong.
On 20th March 1776, Bligh signed on as ‘master ‘ of HMS Resolution, which sailed on James COOKE’s final voyage on 12th July 1776. It is quite conceivable that the young BLIGH (then single and 22 years) travelled to ‘the smoke’ for a last hurrah before embarking to the other side of the world. This most probably being the weekend before sailing and thus on 5/6/7JUL1776. This gives Sharpe’s conception as being at a time of great military tumult and quite possibly on the day of the ‘Declaration of Independence’.
Conclusion.
Sir, I therefore respectfully submit that Vice Admiral William BLIGH is the father of Lt. Col. Richard ‘Dick’ Sharpe.
Thank you again for the hours of pleasure and the relief of my kin having to think too hard about presents for me.
Yours,
Bob H-I