When the series begins, Sharpe is 32 years old, and he's still in trouble. This time, from the victorious armies of Napoleon, who have defeated Sir John Moore's army and are driving the survivors across Spain.
Sharpe is in the rearguard under the command of an incompetent martinet.
But suddenly Dragoons from hell fall upon the battalion, launching Sharpe on a Quixotic chase for a symbolic victory, a Methodist miss, and the respect of Patrick Harper, a giant Irish private. Here, in the filthy stench of powder smoke, he felt at home. This had been his life for sixteen years. Other men learned how to flough fields or to shape wood, but Sharpe had learned how to use a muskeet or rifle, sword or bayonet, and how to turn an enemy's flank or assault a fortress. He knew fear, which was every soldier's familiar companion, but Sharpe also knew how to turn the enermy's own fear to his advantage.