Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill.
Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill is a supporting antagonist in Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novel series and its subsequent television adaptations. He is a completely insane British Army sergeant who recruited Richard Sharpe to the British Army when he was living in Yorkshire, and has a fearsome reputation for abusing his men, whilst presenting himself as a model soldier to his commanding officers, giving him free reign over the men who have him as their sergeant.
In the TV series, he was portrayed by the late Pete Postlethwaite, who also played Mr. Jones in the 1999 version of Animal Farm and Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects.
Backstory[]
Hakeswill is known to have been born somewhere in England, in a settlement whose name ends in "-dale". His mother's name was Biddy Hakeswill, whilst his father is unknown. Biddy died when Obadiah was eleven. It is stated repeatedly in the novels that he worships her; however, she may have been abusive to him.
Obadiah was villainous right from the start. At the age of twelve, he tried to rape the daughter of a reverend, by threatening the girl with a snake. At the trial, however, he was convicted with stealing a sheep, in order to protect the victim, and subsequently received the death penalty, fated to die by hanging. On the day of execution, he was hanged with several other men. Obadiah should have died, but a rainstorm occurred, and the crowd was dispersed. One man in the crowd was his uncle, who cut his nephew down from the gallows, and told him to flee. Although he survived, the noose damaged Obadiah irreparably; his neck was scarred from the rope, and he was left with a severe facial tick. Psychologically, he was left with an overinflated opinion of himself, thinking that he was immortal, unable to die, chosen by God.
Having survived death, Obadiah did as his uncle suggested, and fled south. Sometime after, he enlisted in the British Army's 33rd Regiment of Foot, initially serving as a drummer boy. He eventually rose to the rank of sergeant, in part thanks to his dedication to foot drill and military duties in sight of officers. Away from officers, however, he was, in essence, a holy terror, bullying the men under his command, threatening to have them flogged for imaginary infractions if they didn't let him sleep with their wives, or surrender their possessions to him.
First contact with Sharpe[]
In the 1790s, Hakeswill was serving as a recruiting sergeant for the 33rd. One of the soldiers he recruited was then sixteen-year-old Richard Sharpe. Unlike every other soldier under his command, Sharpe actually stood up to Hakeswill, and consequently became a thorn in the sadistic sergeant's side, in every campaign they served in.
Early novel story[]
Sharpe's Tiger[]
By 1799, serving in India, Hakeswill can no longer take Sharpe's insubordination. He conspires with the commanding officer of their company, Captain Charles Morris, to have Sharpe framed for a very serious crime, and then executed for it. Sharpe was sentenced to 2,000 lashes of the whip, which would have killed him, if not for the army commander, then Colonel Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington, halting the whipping after 200 lashes. Wellesley had a plan for Sharpe, using him and a commissioned officer, Lieutenant William Lawford, to pretend to be defectors enlisting in the army of their enemy, the Sultan of Mysore, and rescue a senior British officer, Colonel Hector McCandless, the intelligence chief in the British East India Trading Company.
Following this, Hakeswill nurses a grudge against Sharpe, even going so far as to betray him and Lawford to the Sultan when he is captured. His execution at the hands of the Sultan's bodyguards is stopped, after he reveals that Sharpe and Lawford are spies. He is consequently locked up with Sharpe, McCandless and Lawford, soon to be sacrificed as offerings to the gods to ensure victory, and leading the British forces into a trap. Sharpe, McCandless and Lawford escape, and leave Hakeswill to be eaten by the Sultan's tigers. Unfortunately for them, the tigers had already eaten, so Hakeswill escaped.
Sharpe's Triumph[]
Four years later, Hakeswill resurfaces, hunting for Sharpe, who has been promoted straight to the rank of sergeant following his mission in Mysore. Hakeswill and Morris again plan to have Sharpe killed, this time by beating up Morris and receiving an arrest warrant for Sharpe. Hakeswill then receives the warrant, and recruits six privates (three are named Lowe, Flaherty and Kendal, the other three are left unnamed) to help him.
Joining the army under the command of now Major General Wellesy, Hakeswill is incensed by the future Duke's rapid promotion through the ranks, and by the fact that Sharpe is on a mission in enemy territory; even worse, Hakeswill himself and his crew have been assigned to the baggage train. When Sharpe and McCandless return, Hakeswill presents the warrant to the colonel, who alters it, making it appear that Sharpe's name has been spelled wrong, and then making the psychopathic sergeant return for a new warrant. Wellesley intervenes, letting Hakeswill stay with his army, but in charge of the baggage train. McCandless later confronts Hakeswill about the warrant, revealing that he knows that the date on which the attack took place was after Sharpe had been moved to elsewhere. In the midst of battle, Hakeswill stabs and kills McCandless with a bayonet.
At the end of the battle, Sharpe receives a battlefield commission, holding the rank of ensign, in the 74th Regiment, much to Hakeswill's horror, refusing to recognize that his enemy is ranked above him. Sharpe then leaves him in the enclosure of an elephant.
Sharpe's Fortress[]
Hakeswill, having survived his encounter with the elephant by stabbing it in the foot, ends up attached to the corrupt Captain Torrance, running scams out of the supply chain. Sharpe also ends up assigned to them and threatens to expose their schemes. Hakeswill and Torrance attempt to sell Sharpe as a slave but he escapes and kills Torrance, as well as Hakeswill's two sidekicks. In order to escape his wrath, Hakeswill deserts to the Mahratta force based in the apparently impregnable fortress of Gawilghur.
There, Hakeswill becomes the right-hand man of another old enemy of Sharpe's, William Dodd, who is planning to gain control of the fortress and the region. To this end, Dodd deviates from the battle plan, sealing the inner fortress against his superiors and leaving them stranded outside to be slaughtered, while Hakeswill personally kills the fortress' official Beny Singh. However, Sharpe foils the coup by leading the British in scaling the fortress' wall. Dodd is killed and Hakeswill tries to change sides again only for Sharpe to force him into a snake pit.
Classic Era novels[]
Sharpe's Company[]
Having survived once again, Hakeswill ended up joining the South Essex Regiment with a group of new recruits. One of his first acts was to try and rape Sharpe's lover Teresa Moreno (it is revealed at this point that he frequently rapes and kills women before framing their husbands, getting them hanged), only to find himself looking at the wrong end of her knife, and be humiliated by Sharpe and his loyal sergeant, Patrick Harper. Briefly under Sharpe's command in the light company, Hakeswill saw his old enemy downgraded to lieutenant and the company be given to the inexperienced and easily influenced Captain Rymer.
Hakeswill framed Harper for looting the baggage train, having him flogged and stripped of rank. He tried to kill Sharpe with Harper's volley gun and made plans to once more assault Teresa, learning which house she was in at Badajoz. When the British attack on the fortress succeeded, Hakeswill tracked Teresa down, killed Sharpe's friend Captain Robert Knowles when he tried to protect her, and threatened Teresa and Sharpe's daughter Antonia in an attempt to force her to give herself to him. He was interrupted by Sharpe and Harper, the latter playing on Hakeswill's delusion that a portrait stolen in the looting was his dead mother to drive him off. Hakeswill fled, knowing his crimes had finally been exposed.
Sharpe's Enemy[]
Hakeswill became a leading member of an enclave of deserters based in the town of Adradas, led by Pot-au-Feu. They captured a group of women including Sarah Dubreton, the English wife of a French colonel, and Sharpe's former love Josefina Lacosta, now the mistress of an English colonel. Hakeswill encountered Sharpe, now a major, again when he delivered a ransom but refused to release the hostages, saying the money merely bought their virtue.
Sharpe led a successful attack on the fort and although Hakeswill initially escaped, he was captured as the British and the French worked together to track down the deserters. The French later launched an attack on the British-held fort and Hakeswill escaped in the confusion, planning to desert to the French. When Teresa saw him and tried to stop him, Hakeswill shot her dead. However, he was handed back over to Sharpe and taken back to the British lines, where he was executed as a deserter by a firing squad from the South Essex, with Sharpe finishing him off with a shot from point blank range. He was buried in an unmarked grave.
Television[]
Sharpe's Company[]
Hakeswill was an old enemy of Sharpe's from his service in India. He and Morris had beaten a native worker and, when Sharpe stepped in, blamed him for it and had him flogged. (This was the original back story in the novels, later retconned.) He and Sharpe were reunited in Spain, where Sharpe had received a field commission and was now a captain. When he was downgraded to lieutenant, Hakeswill made a point of reminding him of his new rank. He tried to have Perkins punished for losing a belt but was stopped by Harper. He also targeted Clayton, a soldier whose wife Sally he desired. He framed Harper for looting the baggage train, where he stole a portrait of Colonel Windham's wife.
During the assault on the breach of Badajoz, he hid from the fighting under the corpses before managing to enter the city after the attack and locate the house of Teresa's uncle, killing Sharpe's friend Harry Price. He was stopped from raping her by Sharpe and Harper but managed to escape, raping and murdering Sally in order to take her small amount of money.
Sharpe's Enemy[]
Styling himself as a colonel, Hakeswill led a group of deserters alongside Pot-au-Feu who took possession of Adradas on the Spanish-Portuguese border. They captured Sarah Dubreton, the wife of the French Colonel Dubreton, and Lady Isabella Farthingdale, the wife of the English Sir Augustus Farthingdale and a former lover of Sharpe's. After nearly tricking Sharpe and Dubreton into fighting each other, having mistaken each other for deserters, Hakeswill and Pot-au-Feu collected ransom from them to keep the two women unharmed.
Sharpe led a group of riflemen in capturing the fortress, taking Pot-au-Feu prisoner and capturing or killing most of the deserters, but Hakeswill escaped with Isabella as a hostage. He encountered Teresa and pointed a gun at Isabella to force her to lower her weapon, then shot Teresa and mortally wounded her. He was promptly captured by Dubreton who brought him back to Sharpe along with Isabella and the dying Teresa. Looking at his old enemy tied up, Sharpe declared "A liar. A thief. A rapist. A murderer. That's not a man. Take it away."
Sharpe later watched from a distance as Hakeswill was executed by firing squad, continuing to desperately insist he couldn't die as the officer in charge finished him off with a pistol.
