title: The North Irish Horse: A Hundred Years of Service
author:  Richard Doherty 
description: (Location: Londonderry) Richard Doherty is a military historian, writer and broadcaster whose father served in Eighth Army in North Africa. The North Irish Horse is his ninth book.
zlib_text: **Sharpe's Company**  
  
    
  
   **by Bernard Cornwell**  
  
  for the Harper family,
  
  Charlie and Marie, Patrick, Donna and Terry,
  
  with affection and gratitude
  
    
  
  'Now thou art come unto a feast of death. '
  
  William Shakespeare
  
  Henry VI, Part I, Act 4, Scene 5.
  
   **CHAPTER 1**  
  
   **January 1812**
  
  A pale horse seen a mile away at sunrise means the night is over. Sentries can
  relax, battalions stand down, because the moment for a surprise dawn attack
  has passed.
  
  But not on this day. A grey horse would hardly have been visible at a hundred
  paces, let alone a mile, and the dawn was shredded with dirty cannon smoke
  that melded with the snow-clouds. Only one living thing moved in the grey
  space between the British and French lines; a small, dark bird that hopped
  busily in the snow. Captain Richard Sharpe, huddled in his greatcoat, watched
  the bird and willed it to fly away. Move, you bastard! Fly! He hated the
  superstition in himself. He had spotted the tiny bird and, quite suddenly and
  unb