00:00:53.860And obviously, I suppose the first time we covered it, I wanted to begin with Sharp's Eagle, because not only was it the first Sharp novel ever written, but of course it was also the first historical novel that Cornwell had ever written.
00:01:08.400And so I just really wanted to begin there more than I could justify starting chronologically because I thought it just really made sense to start with him at the beginning of his journey as a writer, as someone who has just invented this character in order to try and do a bit of novel work in America so he can go there and live with his partner.
00:01:31.260And then since then, so this here, Sharpe's Tiger, is the 15th Sharpe novel that he actually wrote.
00:01:38.560And incidentally, it was actually written in 1997, just as the show was winding down, just as Sharpe's Waterloo was coming out.
00:01:48.660And then there was obviously that 10-year hiatus between that and the India episodes that Bean came back to do.
00:01:55.420So it's allowed me a great opportunity to see from where he started off, how he's honed his skills as a writer when it came to Sharpe's Tiger.
00:02:06.840And I just have to say, I could not put it down. I could not put it down.
00:02:12.040Well, the first thing to say, if anyone's not aware, why have we skipped to the 15th one?
00:02:18.700Because it's the first one chronologically in Sharpe's life. Let's just make that clear.
00:02:22.100so it's the earliest book Cornwall ever wrote in terms of like Sharp's only supposed to be 22 or
00:02:27.500so in it yeah doesn't know exactly doesn't quite know our audience does he no so it's but it is a
00:02:33.320prequel if you like though isn't it yeah um and uh the first thing I would want to say about it
00:02:39.760is um that it's it's pared down like because Sharp's almost fully formed in uh Sharp's Eagle
00:04:38.360One thing we were saying last time, and something that really shines through in the characterisation of Sharp in this particular novel, though, is how much you can tell that Cornwell is consciously writing the character of Sharp as if he is Sean Bean.
00:06:04.400And knowing the area of Sheffield, because it's something that impresses on Lawford in this novel when they're coming up with their alibis for desertion, that you need to pretend that you know Sheffield, as Sharp knows it.
00:06:18.360Yeah. But the other thing to say about something you touched on, Samson, about dramatic irony or something like references to things that if you've read the other 14 or so, you would already know it's already part of the sharp.
00:06:34.960It really is remarkable to me, despite all the inconsistencies,
00:06:39.400and I do want to talk about that in a moment,
00:06:41.320how few there are and how many things that are in the very first novel.
00:06:46.000Like in Sharp's Eagle, he talks about how he got flogged in India.
00:10:59.280And they're in India, and they are in southern India, that is, as well,
00:11:04.720and they are engaging themselves in the fourth Anglo-Mysore War.
00:11:09.440The Kingdom of Mysore was a power at the bottom of the subcontinent that had really risen to
00:11:18.160ascendancy in the early 17th century, in the early 1600s. Before then, it had been something
00:11:24.320of a vassal state. But as a Vijayanagara empire, this empire at the bottom of India that had been
00:11:34.240this great medieval empire for hundreds and hundreds of years. Well, eventually, Mysore is
00:11:38.960strong enough to take from them Syringapatam, which is a particular city. I think it was found0.98
00:11:49.840in the 8th century or something. It was a very old city, great amount of history. But the Vijayanagara
00:11:56.640Empire had basically promoted this to something that was actually a really prestigious city.
00:12:01.760It was one that became something of a viceroyalty for them, and it became a real centerpiece.
00:12:08.280And so when the Mysore kingdom took it over, it was far more impressive than their own capital of Mysore.
00:12:15.080And so they adopted it as a new capital of the Mysore kingdom.
00:12:20.500And so all of the efforts now are against wedging away the Tipu Sultan, who was a Muslim ruler, because only two generations prior, in about 1730, there was a coup against a Hindu ruler of the kingdom.
00:12:43.280by his commander-in-chief, Haider Ali,
00:12:48.120who went on to just amass enough power and enough support
00:12:52.340to basically stage a coup against him.
00:12:54.600And eventually the mass came off and then set up his own son,0.66
00:12:59.140Tipu Sultan, as the Muslim ruler over the Hindu majority population.
00:13:05.860And also what's more important for us is that Tipu Sultan,
00:13:10.880by his nature and by his past experiences, someone who hated the British.
00:13:17.200Someone who, given enough power, would want to force the British off of the subcontinent
00:13:22.740and back across the Indian Ocean to where they came.
00:13:26.460And so from a British standpoint and the East India Company's standpoint,
00:13:31.320people who were really only just settling in to the new realms that they found
00:13:37.500and all these new trading ports and this access that they've got to those markets of India,
00:13:42.940obviously we've got to fight the Tipu Sultan to displace him.
00:13:47.860Because in 1791, in the Third Mysore War,
00:13:52.440Cornwallis, who had been obviously infamous for surrendering at the Battle of Yorktown
00:13:57.720all the way back in America, he'd taken Syringapattam.
00:14:01.660He'd conquered it. He'd defeated the Sultan.
00:14:30.280correct me if I'm wrong, it's set in 1799
00:14:33.8601799, is that right? 1799. Okay, so a few things, say, if we're just going to set up like the real historical context of it all, the fourth Anglo-Mysel War. Yeah, yeah. So the Tipu, a real character from history, is Muslim. And we're in the bottom of India, though. So it's not like the Mughals of sort of more northern India, but he is Muslim.
00:14:57.220and as you say there's this uh there's a royal family that um because hydra ali is also a massive
00:15:04.360historical figure really really important historical figure i guess it's just all of
00:15:09.680that is just outside bernard cornwall and sharp's life it's not possible to write a sharp novel
00:15:14.040set in those times but okay all right but so but britain and france have been involved in india for
00:15:20.380a long time already really well depends what you consider a long time but like if you think about
00:15:24.240the Battle of Plassey, for example, under Clive, Clive of India.
00:17:40.780I was just going to ask. And even then, if I remember it right, even when he did begin to acquit himself and gain some victories in India, there was a bit of a stigma of it's like, well, yeah, but that's in India, though.
00:17:52.780It's not against a proper European army, which is, of course, where he really tests himself in the Peninsular War.
00:17:59.080Apparently, Cornwell says in this, in his notes at the end, that Napoleon used to refer to Wellington as the Sepoy general because that's what he was just, you know.
00:18:09.760The vast majority of his armies were Sepoy battalions.
00:19:09.760Great symbolism already because immediately it's just, we begin with death, we begin with rot and the corpses of battle, and at the moment obviously the battle has not been, but Sharp, the fact that the vultures are just always there waiting, almost just like waiting for the death to start stacking up on the battlefield so that they can swoop in and start scavenging from it.
00:19:32.760And we find Richard Sharp at the beginning of this novel in a really dispiriting place.
00:19:38.860Not only is he merely a private, he's at the absolute bottom of the bottom,
00:19:44.980but also as well within the mere first pages of the novel, his mind, he's already thinking about desertion.
00:19:52.920He's tired. He's fed up of being told to march on and then sitting around and doing nothing and then having to rush.
00:19:59.920And all of this, of course, is exacerbated and made into a living hell for him
00:20:05.260because he has to serve under Sergeant Obadiah Hagswell.0.99