When the incompetent Sir Henry Simmerson (Cochrane) loses most of his men and his regimental flag during battle, Sharpe (Bean), spurred by the memory of a friend who was recently killed sets out for revenge. He is determined to capture the French mascot, a carved golden eagle which is carried into combat. Sharpe is also looking to settle a personal score with two arrogant officers who have angered him at their mistreatment of the elegant widow Josefina...

Sharpe (Bean) is sent to protect El Mirador, Wellington's best spy, and finds himself a target of Colonel Leroux (Fierry), a ferocious French swordsman who has been commanded to capture El Mirador. When Sharpe is wounded in battle, a mute French convent girl (Mortimer) comes to his aid.

Sharpe returns to England and is ordered to the North where he is to command the local militia in a troubled town. It is here that Sharpe faces an agonizing decision - whether to side with the town's corrupt gentry or to support his own kind, the rough and tough of the world who are abused by their superiors.

Hunting for lost Aztec gold, Sharpe runs afoul of a local partisan leader (Folk); Wellington's cousin Bess (Linehan), searching for her lost gold-prospecting husband, shows up with her daughter (Ashbourne) and gets mixed up in the mess.

A compilation episode of the British television program, Sharpe, made for video release in 1997.

Not long after the battle of Waterloo, dispatchers from India warn that a local Maharaja is threatening British interests there. Wellington sends Sharpe to investigate on what turns out to be his most dangerous mission to date. When an Indian warlord kidnaps a local general's daughter, Sharpe must go deep into enemy territory to save not only the girl but the fate of an empire.