"In one sense I've undeveloped his character by going
back to India because he's much younger, so this
is a more callow Sharpe , but over the series as a whole, up to Waterloo, he becomes much
more
reluctant to fight with every passing book. He begins almost to resent the fact that this
is the one thing
he's good at.
"I also suspect that anybody who fought as long as Sharpe did – and there are
plenty of men who did –
in the end they didn't have anything to prove to themselves and they became ever more
regretful of the
necessity to go on beating the French. I'm sure it was a huge relief when the whole thing
was over and
they'd done their job. I think they were in it as much for personal satisfaction as they
were for the victory.
Of course they wanted victory, but above all they didn't want to let themselves or their
mates down."
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