The Shadow of the Eagle

Beneath his lacerating, lucid, amusing, and tragic tone, Arturo Pérez-Reverte unveils a stark and biting vision of war and the human condition.

The Shadow of the Eagle tells a fictional story based on a real event: during the 1812 Russian campaign, in an adverse battle for Napoleon's troops, a battalion of former Spanish prisoners, forcibly conscripted into the French army, attempts to desert and join the Russians. Misinterpreting their movement, the Emperor takes it for an act of heroism and orders a cavalry charge to their aid, which will have unpredictable consequences.

This short story was published in the newspaper El País in August 1993, while Arturo Pérez-Reverte was covering the Bosnian conflict as a reporter.