Rifleman Tarrant appeared in Sharpe's Havoc. Described as a sullen man from Hertfordshire who never lost a chance to become drunk.
He was a vicious drunk, but when sober was a good marksman who stayed calm in battle. During the first Battle of Oporto, he and Williamson broke ranks as the Rifles were retreating and Sharpe saw them vanish into a tavern. Sharpe followed, and Tarrant turned to defy him, but was too slow. Sharpe hit him in the belly and then knocked his and Williamson's heads together, slapped Tarrant's face before dragging both men back into the street. Sharpe said not a word as he booted them onward.
Sharpe told Harper that Tarrant and Williamson were on a charge, to which Harper responded "Again?" Sharpe wondered about the idiocy it took to want to snatch a drink rather than escape a city even if that drink meant spending the rest of the war as a prisoner.
As the Rifles ran from the advancing French, a ricochet shot took Tarrant in the hip. Sharpe grabbed the downed man's collar and dragged him into some trees for cover. Hagman inspected the wound and informed Sharpe that he reckoned the joint was lost, and he'd never use the leg again. He told Tarrant that he would live.
Tarrant asked his friend Williamson to carry him, but Sharpe reluctantly ordered he be left, that the French could care for him better than they, and he'd be sent to a French Army hospital. He assumed Tarrant, should he survive, would eventually be exchanged, and go home a cripple.
Harper said he would not miss Tarrant, but prior to his promotion, he had been one of the troublemakers himself, among whom Tarrant had been a ringleader.