Okay, here we go! Read, review, make some evil suggestions!!
Crossover One: Sharpe (BBC) / Pride And Prejudice (BBC)
"'Ere now, what's this?" Sargeant Patrick Harper asked his commanding officer quietly, looming as usual over the Major's shoulder.
"Northern regiment." Major Richard Sharpe replied succinctly. The veteran pair watched as the latest batch of squeaky clean innocents marched into Lord Wellington's camp. The commander of His Majesty's Forces in Spain and France had certainly caused a stir in his last visit back to London, and lately a number of regiments that might have spent the entire war drilling in the shires were now flooding into the French camps. And as usual, one after another were assigned to be drilled and knocked into shape by the famous, or infamous, Major Sharpe.
Loud hoofbeats caused both officers to turn.
"Great," muttered Sharpe, before pasting a non-committal expression on his face.
"Hello, Sharpe! Still alive, I see!" Major 'Mungo' Munroe, Lord Wellington's chief of spies, or Exploring Officers, as His Lordship preferred to call them, dragged his horse to a dancing stop in the Major's usually showy fashion. Harper politely took the horse's reins as the incorrigible Scotsman dismounted. "Well, and good, good. Here's the latest batch, you see. Fresh from the North."
"I see," Sharpe agreed, warily. "Am I to take this unit too?"
"You are indeed," Munroe replied cheerfully. "But we have a special task for you as well." Sidling close to Sharpe, Munroe indicated a particular Lieutenant, mounted and waiting just beyond the column. "That one there? One Leftenant George Wickham."
"What of 'im?" Sharpe asked. He eyed the officer speculatively. The man had a good seat on his mount, a really gentlemanly air. But a former street rat like Sharpe could practically smell the insincerity about the man.
"Front line that one, Sharpe, every engagement."
Both Sharpe and Harper turned to stare disbelievingly at the Exploring Officer. Those orders were just short of murder.
Munroe's left brow climbed his forehead, silently challenging the two before him to question the orders.
Pat broke first. "Well?" Nothing pleased Major Munroe more than to answer questions.
Smugly smiling, Munroe explained, "He's a right scalawag, that one. Libertine, gambler, thief. Raised a gentleman, but never behaves like one. Took a commission in the militia, promptly ran up debts, and when he snuck off in the night like a dog, he took a young lady with him."
Sharpe frowned. He hated men who took advantage of women.
"Well, sure they didn't make it to Gretna Green. Not that the lady is a gem herself, but she had some pretty influential connections, it turned out. The marriage went off at swordpoint, a commission in the regulars bought, and here he is, our problem. Word is, he'll desert at the first opportune moment. And certain people would not be at all heartbroken should the lady find herself a young widow, if you catch my meaning."
Sharpe and Harper exchanged a look. Sharpe was of the philosophy that those inclined to desert deserved their lot. He didn't want a single man not willing to do the job of soldiering marching in his company. Deserters were only slightly less rotten than rapists in Sharpe's book. Of course, officers who took the coward's route usually managed to buy their way out of trouble, but this particular fellow had enemies enough to trigger some very unusual interest.
Seeing that they understood the point of his tales, Munroe gave the two men a jaunty smile. "Well, enough gossip. I'm off to freshen up. Perhaps get in a bit of bagpipes practice, eh Sharpe? You'll dine with us tonight of course." And with that the Major wandered away.
Sharpe groaned at the tacit order to eat in the officers' mess tent. He hated the occasions when he had to put in an appearance. Turning back to the column, he watched as the ill-fated Lieutenant interacted, falsely cheerful, with the other officers of his regiment. Sharpe felt the big Irish sergeant lean in over his shoulder.
"Welladay, now that was an interesting tale, was it not?" Pat's soft voice was full of irony.
"Aye. I don't like it, Pat. Not at all. He's tellin' us to make sure that dandy don't have the chance to run. And that he do have the chance to die proper. An' who's to say that he don't deserve it, or does?"
"He does. He's a right bastard, that one is." Sharpe glanced up at Pat, surprised at the Irishman's instant condemnation. "You'll see. One like that, he cheats as easy as he breathes."
As it turned out, Harper's predictions were correct.
And I leave it to the reader, to imagine the sort of trouble Mr. Wickham gets into, and what wonderful come-uppance he gets at the hands of Sharpe and Harper.