“He had thought the army would pay for the voyage, but the army had refused, saying that Sharpe was accepting an invitation to join the 95th Rifles and if the 95th Rifles refused to pay his passage then damn them, damn their badly colored coats, and damn Sharpe. […] Britain had sent Sharpe to India, and Britain, Sharpe reckoned, should fetch him back.”

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 11
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Trafalgar (2000)

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Bernard Cornwell175

British writer 1944

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“It's a real language lesson', said Sarah after a while.
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“Nathaniel Hawthorne says, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” I try to pull the language into such a sharpness that it jumps off the page. It must look easy, but it takes me forever to get it to look so easy.”

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