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West India Docks, Isle of Dogs, East London. 25 December 1963. Colonel James Sharpe, MC, DSO & Bar, felt the cold in every aching bone and was suddenly feeling every single one of his fifty seven years. This was not how he had planned to spend Christmas Day, but then he rarely had a choice in such matters. Such was the lot of a career soldier. The men of Sharpe’s family had been soldiers going back to the Napoleonic wars. His great-great grandfather had fought with Wellington at Waterloo, and before that throughout the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal. His great grandfather had migrated to America and fought for the Union in their Civil War, before eventually becoming a merchant and settling back in England. His grandfather served in Afghanistan; his father in South Africa and eventually France in 1914. Jim Sharpe had been a career soldier since the 1920s. His expertise with machines had seen him rise through the ranks of the Royal Engineers, before being sent to France with the