The mistake's simple. I hear we push into France soon enough. And I'm keen to cross the Pyrenees on my return. [ sharpe knows that discipline will be difficult. how tough will it be to hold control over troops who have learned how to hate a nation? but he understands that they can't do to the french what the french did to the spanish. ]

But order will be necessary. The moment our army makes an enemy of those enduring people? That is the moment that they, like the Spanish guerillos against French armies, raise and terrorize us. No -- Wellington would rather we arrive as heroes, cracking open the shell of tyranny and saving old France from Napoleon. Relieving the wheelwright and the baker and the farmer from conscription.

[ he picks up a strange mug with a lid. ] It's wishful thinking.