Sharpe's Eagle

Sharpe's Eagle came out in 1981. It was the first Sharpe novel to be published, although in the series' internal chronology it comes eighth, and it was written before Cornwell had any idea how long the series would run.

Wellesley's army has crossed into Spain to meet Marshal Victor. Sharpe and his thirty riflemen, who were separated from their own regiment during the retreat to Corunna, have been attached to the newly raised South Essex, a battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Simmerson, a bullying incompetent whom Cornwell uses to show what the British army could do to itself.

The novel's set piece is the capture of a French imperial eagle, the kind of trophy that could make a regiment's reputation overnight, and the plot is arranged so that Sharpe's chances of taking one are tangled up with his need to survive the people on his own side. It is a story about rank and about who gets the credit, and it established the pattern that the rest of the series follows.