The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Chronicles #51 ｜ Sharpe's Eagle w⧸ Beau & Samson： Part II

00:00:00.000 The attack on the bridge, and first of all, there is no need to cross the bridge.

00:00:24.000 They're only there to blow it up. 0.99

00:00:26.000 they're only there to blow it up but the spanish having been humiliated by the british and not 0.98

00:00:31.000 getting there first of their own damn fault decide that they're going to go across the bridge and you 0.90

00:00:37.480 know see if there are french to engage and there is like a small french and skirmish party but 0.96

00:00:42.200 obviously to keep up appearances simerson also has um his men sent across as well and before you know

00:00:50.540 it. The Spanish fire some panicking shots, the French cavalry come in and the Spanish

00:00:58.440 rout start falling back. That breaks the British column and the entire thing just turns into

00:01:07.200 an absolute disaster. Major Lennox, an old veteran soldier who Sharp knew from the Battle

00:01:16.760 of her say uh is fatally wounded in it of course and he and also as well there's a real tragedy

00:01:23.900 with his character as well because he was retired he'd retired he'd done it all he'd he got the

00:01:29.300 the medals and all of the the renown of being a good soldier he was regarded as a truly great

00:01:35.080 soldier but his wife passed away and life felt empty for him and so he thought well

00:01:39.800 why not just go and serve my country one last time and go and fight in the peninsula war

00:01:45.420 At a place called the sea, I saw a whole army ready to run, then a Major of the 78th took

00:01:59.320 a step to his front and steadied the line, that's him, Major Lennox, 78th Highlanders.

00:02:12.900 And obviously, due to the incompetence of many people around him, he ends up losing

00:02:19.900 his own life in this foray.

00:02:23.480 And Sharp obviously ends up leading a rescue mission to try and save as many people from

00:02:29.320 the other side of the bridge as he possibly can.

00:02:32.400 And this results in Simerson panicking, blowing up the bridge, defying it.

00:02:38.540 Hogan's telling him, no, we're going to leave all our men on the other side.

00:02:42.900 Simerson has a bridge blown up and so Sharp is stuck on the other side of the bridge with the

00:02:50.100 French bearing down on him and there's a second wave of the attack and they bring up that enormous

00:02:55.860 gun. I can't quite remember what it's described as but it's a big gun that's been dragged by horses.

00:03:02.420 I think it's only a four pounder. It's a small one but in between the two waves

00:03:08.740 the french officer comes down to speak with sharp yes and they're basically like yeah

00:03:13.540 these guys am i right yeah they do they have a really simple chat like yeah yeah unfortunately

00:03:20.820 we're stuck with these incompetent yeah it's like you've got a bad kernel yeah yeah we do

00:03:25.940 and they basically go yeah you can surrender or we're going to come and fight um so treat your

00:03:30.980 wounded as soon as possible and or get across back across the river yeah so a number of things about

00:03:36.260 this is uh i mean the whole book is called sharp's eagle right so it's the one bit that's

00:03:44.580 for and it's the crux of the whole story in a way but it's a little bit tenuous who am i to

00:03:51.140 criticize bernard cornwall's storytelling's ability but um the whole point of it is that

00:03:58.780 there's this officer called Lennox who, in some of the books

00:04:05.020 that are set before this, he's in them and stuff,

00:04:07.380 but you only meet him briefly in this book.

00:04:11.120 And he gets wounded or gets like a fatal wound in that first wave.

00:04:16.180 Yeah.

00:04:17.000 And as he's dying, he asks, and Sharp has lost the colour,

00:04:21.500 well, Simonson has lost the colour, the battle flag,

00:04:24.260 the British battle flag.

00:04:24.980 But Sharp managed to save the regiment's colours.

00:04:27.100 Yeah.

00:04:27.500 Yeah. 1.00

00:04:27.700 The French have made off with the king's colour, 0.99

00:04:30.860 which is like one of the most terrible possible fails imaginable.

00:04:36.500 The ultimate prize for the French cavalry is that as soon as they see what's happening,

00:04:40.320 they're like, okay, let's just get the colour and go.

00:04:42.180 So our battle standard would be the colour, the regimental and or king's colour.

00:04:46.060 Their version of that is an eagle, so a standard with an eagle on top of it.

00:04:50.880 Very, very reminiscent of a Roman eagle.

00:04:53.340 I mean, that was deliberately Napoleon did that.

00:04:55.280 Before the Napoleonic era, the French didn't have that.

00:04:57.700 They had a tricolor.

00:04:59.280 They would have a flag.

00:05:00.800 But Napoleon changed it after the imperial period to this eagle.

00:05:04.160 Right.

00:05:04.580 Right.

00:05:04.860 So, and as Lennox is dying, he says to Sharp, this is a little bit,

00:05:10.860 it takes you out of it a bit because it's kind of unbelievable.

00:05:15.360 It's a bit just, anyway, he says to Sharp, I want you to get me an eagle.

00:05:20.920 I'm dying.

00:05:21.540 I'm going to die.

00:05:22.500 And my dying wish is that you, Sharp, get a French eagle.

00:05:27.700 i mean and sharp's under no obligation to do that no he could easily just go yeah okay mate

00:05:36.620 yeah sure thing yeah you got it yeah right as if or just said no i can't do that that's a crazy

00:05:41.260 thing to ask of me but he's basically just said yeah all right i will yeah yeah i actually this

00:05:47.520 is one of those moments where i do really want to compare the novel to the tv film yeah because

00:05:53.680 They're very differently, Trey.

00:05:55.720 They're treated very, very differently.

00:05:57.620 First of all, in the film, Sharp doesn't make the promise to Major Lennox.

00:06:02.700 Yeah, he's very deliberate.

00:06:03.600 He just doesn't say anything.

00:06:04.540 He just sort of dies.

00:06:06.180 And then goes on to obviously see an opportunity to do it,

00:06:10.380 kind of has a window, and then ends up doing it,

00:06:13.120 and that's all very wholesome, and because Major Lennox was a great man,

00:06:16.540 he answered with his life, and he deserved it.

00:06:19.300 But on the other hand here, I really like how compelling and how obvious

00:06:25.740 Cornwall makes the stakes of this promise.

00:06:29.540 First of all, obviously, the thing is that it's the fact that, look, 0.76

00:06:35.380 it is obviously Simerson's fault and the fault of the Spanish.

00:06:39.540 But the fact of the matter is that the regiment lost the king's colours.

00:06:44.660 And so this is a stain on them.

00:06:46.340 This is a stain on Marxist as well, and this is one of the points about Sharp.

00:06:51.440 Sharp is not, actually, as a character, a very patriotic man.

00:06:56.060 He doesn't do all of this because he loves the king and he loves his country.

00:07:00.320 He loves home. He likes England for its homeliness.

00:07:04.080 But he doesn't have the same sort of patriotism that, say, Harper has for his country.

00:07:10.500 What is impassioned Sharp is not the pride for the country,

00:07:15.780 but the pride for the regiment, the pride for the South Essex,

00:07:20.040 the pride for the 95th Rifles, the pride for the men around him.

00:07:24.780 And in the men losing the colours,

00:07:27.320 this is such an act of disgrace against the regiment itself.

00:07:33.140 And so it's not just Sharp trying to gain an eagle

00:07:37.260 touched by the hand of Bonaparte himself

00:07:40.100 so that he can, you know, fulfil this promise to Major Lennox.

00:07:45.480 It's also about regaining the honour of the regiment itself.

00:07:49.480 Yeah, there's also the fact that post this battle,

00:07:55.480 the blame, Simerson attempts to shift the blame for this entire affair,

00:07:59.480 rather unsuccessfully I might add, onto Sharp.

00:08:02.480 But that blame is hanging over Sharp's head,

00:08:07.480 like the Sword of Damocles the entire film.

00:08:10.480 film, book, both.

00:08:13.200 So it's not only

00:08:14.440 him trying to regain honour,

00:08:16.160 his very position or

00:08:18.280 role in the army

00:08:20.220 is potentially in danger

00:08:22.580 as he keeps remarking being sent

00:08:24.660 to the West Indies. 0.99

00:08:26.340 To die. 0.98

00:08:28.180 It's basically, you'll go to the West Indies, you'll 0.87

00:08:30.340 capture a tropical disease and you'll die.

00:08:32.280 That's really what would happen.

00:08:34.080 It becomes, not only is he

00:08:36.240 saving his honour and his fellow

00:08:38.040 compatriots honour, it's about

00:08:39.520 also saving himself.

00:08:42.160 So this is a matter of life or death.

00:08:44.120 His own career.

00:08:44.940 Everything he's ever fought for.

00:08:46.640 The entire road to get to where he has now.

00:08:49.480 So there's two things.

00:08:51.000 There's one, this promise to Lennox

00:08:55.080 to get an eagle to make up for the loss of the King's Colours.

00:08:58.080 And secondly, that he wants a promotion

00:09:00.240 and the only way to realistically get that

00:09:01.900 is to do something insanely brave.

00:09:04.100 Because he's poor and can't afford the actual mission.

00:09:05.660 Because he can't afford it, yeah.

00:09:06.540 He has to get a promotion on merit,

00:09:07.920 which is insanely difficult for an enlisted man to get to captain.

00:09:13.140 But if he got an eagle, that would do it.

00:09:16.180 So, I mean, there's this one paragraph here, if I read it.

00:09:19.860 The first raised was the king's colour,

00:09:21.880 a great Union Jack with the regiment's number in the centre,

00:09:25.060 and the next, the South Essex's own standard,

00:09:27.900 a yellow flag emblazoned with the crest of the Union flag

00:09:31.060 stitched in the upper centre.

00:09:33.700 It was impossible to see the flags,

00:09:35.500 the morning sun shining through them,

00:09:37.920 and not be moved.

00:09:39.300 Impossible to see them and not be moved.

00:09:41.240 They were the regiment.

00:09:43.260 Should only a handful of men be left on a battlefield,

00:09:45.840 the rest slaughtered, the regiment still existed

00:09:48.040 if the colours flew and defied the enemy.

00:09:50.500 They were a rallying point in the smoke and chaos of battle.

00:09:53.700 But more than that, there were men who would hardly fight

00:09:56.920 for England's king and country, but they would fight for the colours,

00:10:00.080 for their regiment's honour, for the Gordie flags

00:10:02.500 that cost a few guineas and were carried in the centre of the line

00:10:05.520 by the youngest ensigns and guarded by veteran sergeants

00:10:09.040 armed with long, wicked bladed pikes.

00:10:12.440 Sharp had known as many as ten men to carry the colours in battle,

00:10:15.920 replacing the dead, picking up the flags,

00:10:18.240 even though they knew that they became the enemy's prime target.

00:10:21.700 Honour was all.

00:10:24.000 So, yeah, the colours, the flags, and again, like a French eagle

00:10:30.500 or a Roman eagle, it's difficult to underestimate, I think,

00:10:34.780 how important they were to some men there's lots of examples even from the ancient world where

00:10:39.980 uh loads and loads of men would fight and die almost hopelessly to to save or win an eagle

00:10:46.680 um or the king's colors there's a famous painting about in i think afghanistan like dying for the

00:10:53.180 king's colors um in some of the south african campaigns there's all sorts of actions and

00:10:57.720 encounters went on in and around the colors uh but in in loads and loads of battles and wars

00:11:03.180 There's like the enemy's battle standard.

00:11:05.360 If you can get that, sometimes that wins the battle.

00:11:08.080 Sometimes the other side's morale breaks

00:11:09.980 if you capture their colours or their eagle, whatever it is,

00:11:13.960 their battle standard of one type or another.

00:11:16.180 So it's that important.

00:11:18.140 They comment, don't they, on the fact that they know exactly,

00:11:21.380 after the French take the king's colours,

00:11:24.020 they know exactly what happens next.

00:11:26.340 Those king's colours get taken back to Paris,

00:11:28.940 they get paraded through the street,

00:11:30.340 and all the Parisians get to say,

00:11:32.300 oh, aren't we the greatest and basically have a good gloat

00:11:35.440 about how bad the English are, right? 0.54

00:11:37.900 That's what happens.

00:11:38.940 And that shame of it does really personally affect the men.

00:11:42.480 They've allowed that thing to happen, you know?

00:11:46.700 And so, yeah, it's really, really grievous.

00:11:50.000 And obviously we get to the point...

00:11:52.080 So, sorry, one more second.

00:11:53.480 Yeah.

00:11:53.740 So Sharp says to Lennox, basically, he doesn't actually promise him,

00:11:57.940 I don't think, even in the book, if I recall, but...

00:11:59.660 No, I think he does.

00:12:00.400 of says he sort of basically says yes all right i'll try and get an eagle for you which is a crazy

00:12:05.140 thing yeah to promise it's something you could you would never ever ever promise that because

00:12:10.200 it's just a million to one that you'd ever be in a position to even attempt it let alone

00:12:13.960 successfully do it yeah right so okay all that happens and then the french the noble french

00:12:19.600 officer gives him an hour to clean clean up because the gibbons shouts across the river

00:12:24.620 because charp and the survivors are on the wrong side of the river after simpson blew the 0.68

00:12:28.740 the bridge up

00:12:30.580 and Gibbons comes along

00:12:31.980 and says

00:12:32.180 you're under arrest

00:12:32.980 and hand over your sword

00:12:34.800 and Sharpe's like

00:12:35.360 what are you even

00:12:36.760 talking about?

00:12:37.860 He does.

00:12:38.400 What are you even

00:12:39.360 talking about?

00:12:40.280 Get lost. 1.00

00:12:41.440 And then so the French 0.65

00:12:42.360 bring a cannon up

00:12:43.760 and there's a second

00:12:44.400 engagement but

00:12:45.300 Brooke or Sharpe's

00:12:46.880 actually not just

00:12:48.100 a brave man

00:12:49.020 a brave fighter

00:12:49.680 a brave soldier

00:12:50.140 but also got an eye

00:12:51.260 he sort of understands

00:12:52.220 tactics and stuff

00:12:53.360 he puts Harper out

00:12:54.940 hires him

00:12:55.580 and they flank the cannon

00:12:57.300 and get the cannon

00:12:58.620 and defeat the French in that second attack. 0.51

00:13:02.380 Yes. 0.88

00:13:02.980 No, it's incredible.

00:13:04.660 I mean, again, it just goes to show what a natural intuition Sharp has.

00:13:10.340 He's a genuine, ingenious soldier, you know, in his own right.

00:13:15.180 And so we get to, obviously, the good dressing down by Arthur Wellesley,

00:13:22.980 where you've got Simerson and you've got Sharp and you've got Lawford

00:13:27.900 and they're all there.

00:13:29.660 Oh, yeah, Hogan's been arrested as well

00:13:32.300 because Hogan refused to blow up the bridge

00:13:34.620 when Simerson told him to.

00:13:37.100 But they did blow it up.

00:13:38.120 Yeah, they did.

00:13:38.940 Yeah, they just took it out of Hogan's hands.

00:13:42.640 And so they're all there having to answer before Wellington.

00:13:47.440 And naturally, this had to be one of the things

00:13:49.940 that I bookmarked to go through

00:13:52.720 because it's just such an exquisite chapter.

00:13:55.720 And it is a bit different to the TV.

00:13:57.900 It's one of the few bits where the TV screenwriters, I think,

00:14:01.940 are better than what Cornwall wrote.

00:14:04.180 He says you lost the King's colours.

00:14:07.800 The fault was not mine, sir.

00:14:09.880 Major Lennox must answer.

00:14:11.240 Major Lennox answered with his life,

00:14:13.320 as you should have done if you had any sense of honour.

00:14:16.720 You lost the colours of the King of England.

00:14:19.620 You disgraced us, sir.

00:14:21.300 You shamed us, sir.

00:14:22.720 I agree.

00:14:23.780 Yeah, no, I do agree.

00:14:24.880 Yeah, but this is very good where it says,

00:14:29.280 Simerson said nothing. He was aghast at the tumult and anger that had overwhelmed him.

00:14:34.240 Wellesley went on. First, Sir Henry, you had no business in taking your battalion over the bridge.

00:14:39.920 It was unnecessary, time-wasting and damned foolish. Secondly, he was ticking off on his 0.99

00:14:46.000 fingers. Only a fool, sir, deploys skirmishers against cavalry. Third, you have disgraced this 1.00

00:14:53.120 army, which I have spent a year in the making in the face of our foes and of our allies.

00:14:59.260 Fourthly, Wellesley's voice was biting hard. The only credit gained in this miserable engagement

00:15:05.960 was by Lieutenant Sharp. I understand, sir, that he regained one of your lost colours,

00:15:11.580 and moreover captured a French gun and used it with some effect on your attackers. Is that correct?

00:15:18.640 No one spoke.

00:15:20.000 Sharp stared rigidly ahead at a picture on the wall behind the general.

00:15:24.500 He heard a rustle of papers.

00:15:26.480 Wellesley had picked up the sheet from the desk.

00:15:28.980 His voice was lower.

00:15:30.660 You have lost, sir, as well as your colour,

00:15:34.020 two hundred and forty-two men either killed or injured.

00:15:37.660 You lost a major, three captains, five lieutenants, four ensigns and ten sergeants.

00:15:44.560 Are my figures correct?

00:15:46.520 Again, no one spoke.

00:15:48.880 Wellesley stood up. 1.00

00:15:50.280 Your orders, sir, were those of a fool. 0.99

00:15:54.040 The next time, Sir Henry, I suggest you fly a white flag and save the French the trouble of unsheathing their swords. 0.99

00:16:00.620 The job you had to do, sir, could have been done by a company. 0.88

00:16:04.300 I was forced by diplomacy to commit a battalion, and I sent yours, sir, so that your men would have a sight and taste of the French.

00:16:13.000 I was wrong.

00:16:14.060 As a result, one of our colours is now on its way to Paris to be paraded in front of the mob.

00:16:20.060 Tell me if I malign you.

00:16:22.460 Simerson had blanched white.

00:16:24.600 Sharp had never seen Wellesley so angry.

00:16:28.180 He seemed to have forgotten the presence of the others,

00:16:30.780 and he directed his words at Simerson with a vengeful force.

00:16:35.480 And then he goes on to talk about the fact that

00:16:37.820 that Sharp, as a result of all of this, is going to be gazetted as Captain Sharp in place.

00:16:46.320 Like, someone has to be rewarded for the one evidence of merit in this entire disaster.

00:16:54.800 Although it has to be said that, of course, this is merely Sharp being gazetted as Captain.

00:17:00.300 He is not officially a Captain. This is not from horse guards.

00:17:04.400 This is merely how he will be styled for now

00:17:07.920 until the decision and the dispatchers are sent back to the horse guards

00:17:11.680 and they either allow or dismiss it.

00:17:15.720 I think it's more like you're a brevet captain.

00:17:18.500 I might be wrong, but once you're gazetted, that is the formal one.

00:17:23.300 You're just a brevet captain.

00:17:25.300 In other words, yeah, horse guard.

00:17:28.060 Wellesley can make him a captain in sort of a de facto captain for now,

00:17:32.860 but it'll be up to London to actually confirm it.

00:17:35.820 And it's what Sharp believes, he needs to still win an eagle

00:17:39.540 in order to confirm that captaincy.

00:17:42.780 But, yeah, so just to recap then, what's happened 0.98

00:17:45.420 is that Simpson led his men over the bridge stupidly, 0.95

00:17:49.420 got loads of them killed, then blew the bridge up 1.00

00:17:52.020 to leave the Remainers there, and then tried to blame it all on Sharp.

00:17:56.000 Yeah.

00:17:56.700 And Sharp was the only one who did anything good,

00:17:59.120 but Hogan told Wellesley the real story.

00:18:01.740 And so when Simonson's there trying to basically lie about what happened,

00:18:07.040 Wellesley's not having any of it and gives him a dressing down

00:18:09.140 and turns the South Ethics into a battalion of detachments.

00:18:12.860 You're not really a proper battalion anymore.

00:18:15.400 We're just going to break you up and your command is,

00:18:18.060 you don't really have a command anymore, essentially.

00:18:20.140 And if anyone's getting a promotion out of this, it's sharp.

00:18:22.580 It was the most satisfying part of the entire book, I think.

00:18:25.860 as you spend the entire first half of the novel reviling this man, Simerson.

00:18:32.740 Every action he takes is just, yeah, I hate him. 0.98

00:18:35.720 I hate him. 0.97

00:18:36.420 Oh, he's done more hateful things. 0.96

00:18:39.220 And then as soon as he gets, he walks into that meeting going,

00:18:42.820 I'm going to try and one-up Sharp here.

00:18:45.820 Put all the blame on him.

00:18:47.120 But luckily, as you said, Hogan's already told Wellesley the truth.

00:18:51.920 Yeah, and they already have a rich history together.

00:18:54.380 So Wellesley actually trusts Hogan's character in all of this as well.

00:19:00.440 And the other thing to say is that Wellesley knows why Simerson is there,

00:19:05.980 which is to screw things up for him and for the war effort.

00:19:11.140 And so there is this constant feeling of, like,

00:19:13.580 the only reason you're here is to make sure that I go home.

00:19:17.800 And so Wellesley is determined to keep Simerson there,

00:19:21.040 But obviously Simerson has sent his dispatches back blabbering to horse guards and trying to make Sharp look as terrible as possible.

00:19:28.580 And the problem with all of this as well, as you were saying earlier, was the fact that this means that with all of that pressure being brought down because Sharp is a scapegoat,

00:19:39.320 that they're more than happy to force a blame onto in order to preserve the pride and dignity

00:19:46.820 of Sir Henry Simerson, who absolutely doesn't deserve it, of course.

00:19:52.760 But all of this is going to come to a head.

00:19:55.280 And now, all of a sudden, this sort of idealistic promise of gaining an eagle

00:20:01.140 is not just for the honour of Lennox anymore or the honour of the regiment.

00:20:06.320 It is, as we've said, so that Sharp can actually stay in the only world

00:20:11.880 that he actually cares about.

00:20:13.540 He's been in the army since he was 16.

00:20:15.020 He has no family.

00:20:15.980 He doesn't know anything else.

00:20:17.120 They are his family.

00:20:17.900 So at one point, and there are two quick things to say.

00:20:20.200 One, I think this scene in the TV series when Wellesley loses his temper

00:20:25.540 with Simmerton is the best bit of Sharp.

00:20:28.340 I agree.

00:20:29.000 It's the best bit of any episode of Sharp.

00:20:31.000 The best scene in all of Sharp.

00:20:32.620 And in fact, the screenwriters probably do it better than Cornwall.

00:20:35.460 one of the very, very few times when I can say that,

00:20:37.920 where he says, you shamed us, sir, you disgraced us, sir.

00:20:39.960 It's great. It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

00:20:42.180 The other thing I said earlier on,

00:20:43.840 I think there's a couple of sort of quintessential sort of liquid Sharp in this.

00:20:49.740 One of them was when he says,

00:20:51.840 we all know you can fire three rounds a minute, but can you stand?

00:20:54.060 The other one is just before Sharp goes into that meeting

00:20:59.000 where Wellesley loses his temper with Simonson,

00:21:01.880 is Harper says to him, well, what are you going to do?

00:21:04.480 and he turns to me says the same thing i always do pat i'll stand and fight

00:21:08.960 if you could boil sharp down to one line it's that if you enjoyed this piece of premium content

00:21:15.180 from the lotus eaters head to our website where you can find more

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - June 13, 2026

PREVIEW： Chronicles #51 ｜ Sharpe's Eagle w⧸ Beau & Samson： Part II

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