In my last espionage blog I began a three-part interview with Bernard Cornwell, the author of the Sharpe series and other historical novels. We discussed Richard Sharpe, a British army officer up from the ranks in the in the Napoleonic era. Here is part 2.

Davis: Espionage plays an important part in your series, as you have Sharpe undertake intelligence and espionage missions for Major Michael Hogan, an exploring officer. What was an exploring officer and what role did Hogan play for Wellington in your novels?

Cornwell: The exploring officers were just that – officers who, mounted on very good horses, rode behind enemy lines to explore their dispositions. They wore uniforms so that, if captured, they could not be considered as spies. Colquhoun Grant was the most famous, of course, but Wellington had several. Hogan really is not an exploring officer;  he’s based more on George Scovell. Read The Man Who Broke Napoleon’s Codes by Mark Urban. Hogan probably had more responsibility than Scovell. If Wellington didn’t have a Hogan, he should have, so I invented him.

My favorite tale of Colquhoun Grant is that after his capture, the French refused to parole him. He escaped their custody and fled to Paris where he lived for three months, openly wearing his British uniform! When asked what uniform it was, he replied that it was the United States Army! He got away with it too.

Davis: Why do you often pull Sharpe from the battlefield and send him on intelligence missions?

Cornwell: I tell adventure stories and espionage offers plenty of scope for betrayal, murder and mayhem.

Davis: Your books have so many vivid characters in addition to Sharpe. I particularly like your villain Sgt. Hakeswill. He was a great character.

Cornwell: It was a stupid thing to kill him off.

Davis: During the Napoleonic era the British were very good at spying, were they not?

Cornwell: The British ran a very sophisticated secret service that stretched right across Europe, quite apart from Wellington’s military intelligence.

Davis: Did it help Wellington that the French were hated by the Spanish and the Portuguese and they provided him intelligence?

Cornwell: Definitely, the entire population was on his side. If anything there was simply too much intelligence coming in.

Davis: How important was intelligence to Wellington and his successes?

Cornwell: Huge! He had spies throughout occupied Spain. The partisans brought him captured dispatches, often still blood-stained, and he had sources inside France. The intelligence network was amazing, and it has never been adequately described. There was a tailor who worked at Irun, the town through which all French troops passed on their way to the war. The tailor worked on his doorstep, counted every man, horse and gun that passed his house, which was on the main road, and within days his reports were in Wellington’s hands. Wellington probably knew more about the French than they did themselves.

Part III of this interview will be in my next blog.

Paul Davis also writes an American crime blog. Visit his Web site. He can be reached at daviswrite@aol.com.

About the Author: Paul Davis has been a student of crime and espionage since he was a 12-year-old aspiring writer growing up in South Philadelphia. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy when he was 17 in 1970 and served on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War. He performed security work as a young sailor and later as a Defense Department civilian employee. As a writer he has covered crime, espionage, terrorism and the military for newspapers, magazines and Internet publications.

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