Point of View

The story is told, officially, mainly from the point of view of Richard Sharpe, a veteran British army officer, who has been seconded to the staff of the Prince of Wales because of ramifications of the Alliance between Britain and the Netherlands. Having said that, a large portion of the story is in the third person omniscient point of view. The main character Sharpe does not appear until Chapter 3 while his protagonist, Lord John Rossendale, enters the tale in Chapter 2. However, there is foreshadowing of Sharpe, his reputation, and the background to his enmity for Rossendale which makes the delayed identification of the lone horseman described in Chapter 3 all the more dramatic.

The story changes to the third person point of view of each character who appears in the story with the initial introduction of a character usually accompanied by a short summary of their background...