I know Sharpe will be with me forever... even if I don't write about him again

As he publishes his 24th novel featuring the roguish rifleman made famous on TV by Sean Bean, Bernard Cornwell admits it may be their last campaign together. Luckily, Sharpe's Storm is as brilliant as ever and fans have something else exciting to look forward to

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Master of historical fiction Bernard Cornwell

SINCE Sharpe's Eagle introduced the “tall, black-haired lieutenant with the slung rifle and the scar” in 1981, Bernard Cornwell's bestselling Napoleonic Wars-era novels have invariably ended with the promise of further adventures.

The latest in the mind-blowingly popular series, brought to life on TV starring Sean Bean as the roguish rifleman, ends slightly more equivocally however. Rather than promising in his afterword that Richard Sharpe and Sergeant Patrick Harper will “march again” as has been his custom, Cornwell writes: “I hope they do, but can make no promises.”

Visiting London to launch his new book, Sharpe's Storm, the 24th in the series, of which more shortly, the author wryly admits he's running out of stories and, possibly, time.

“I suspect that is the last, although who knows,” he tells me.

“If I'm still alive, I might decide to fill in another gap. I haven't taken him to Flanders yet, which would be a very young Private Sharpe pre-India. But he’s been with me for almost 50 years and he’s in my head.

“When I'm walking the dog, I occasionally hear Sharpe. So even if I don't write another one, I'm sure he'll accompany me to the end.”

Fans can take solace in the fact Cornwell remains a hale and hearty 81-year-old and I wouldn't bet against him writing more Sharpe when the urge takes him.

Indeed, he adds with a chuckle: “I can't say that three years from now I won't suddenly think, ‘Oh, God, let's let the bugger loose again.’”

We can only hope but, at present, post-Sharpe's Storm, set in the winter of 1813 and featuring the Battle of St Pierre, the rifleman who came up from the ranks, saved the future Duke of Wellington's life to earn a battlefield commission, and proved an ongoing thorn in the side of the French appears all but retired from soldiering.