January Picture Prompt
I thought I'd better do something for this time round, seeing as I missed December's challenge.
Title: "Keepsakes"
Rating: PG
Pairings: Sharpe/Wellington
Summary: Everyone has an insignificant little item which is insignificant to anyone but them.
Author's Notes: For the look_sharpe January picture Challenge.
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Anyone who has spent any amount of time in the company of soldiers will know that, like magpies or squirrels, they have a habit of collecting things. Not just valuable things at that; odd little things, strange things, unusual things that hold a particular fascination only to the man that picked it up.
In this the small band of Rifles under Lieutenant Sharpe’s command were no different from the rest. Perkins had a stone that he kept in his pocket; a smooth flat thing, pale grey in colour and about the size of a chicken’s egg. He had picked it up one day and liked the feel of it - cold, smooth, hard and weighty - and had kept it in his pocket ever since. Tongue had a vulture’s feather stuck in a button of his jacket below his crossbelt. It had a fine shape to its dark form and he wore it with pride; said that one of their own feathers would keep vultures away from his bones.
Hagman had a paisley scarf which he wore under his shako; once a colourful affair, now faded, it had been a present from a gypsy girl he’d met years ago at home in Cheshire who’d sung a song and danced for him. Cooper had a piece of string which he kept wrapped around his powder horn. You never knew when you’d be in need a piece of string, Cooper said… Harris had an ancient coin that he’d picked up off the ground one afternoon which he swore was from the reign of the emperor Constantine, and nobody disagreed with him because nobody else particularly cared. Harper had a cork from the last bottle of whisky he’d ever drunk in Ireland before taking the shilling and joining up. He said that whenever he wanted to remember home the smell of drink that had suffused itself into the cork would bring back the memories clearer than ever. Perkins had sniffed it once and said it smelt of gunpowder and sweat. Harper had cuffed him round the head.
But oddest of all was Sharpe’s keepsake. It was a button; a plain, silver button the like of which could be found on any officer’s coat. On nights when they were away from the army on some errand or other the men had often seen Sharpe sitting by the campfire, turning the button over in his fingers and gazing at it with a strange, distant expression on his face. Once Harris had dared to ask where the button had come from, and Mr. Sharpe had merely replied in his usual taciturn way that it had belonged to a friend. From that the men assumed the friend must be dead.
Yet it was not the memory of a dead man that came to Sharpe’s mind whenever he examined the button; no face of a fallen comrade-in-arms came back to haunt him. No, what Sharpe remembered as he regarded the small keepsake was a sweltering night of a hot Indian summer, the scent of cologne, the feel of soft sheets and the taste of sweet wine, and the short peal of laughter that had sounded when the button came away in his eager hands as they sought to undo a uniform coat far finer than his ever would be.
Title: "Keepsakes"
Rating: PG
Pairings: Sharpe/Wellington
Summary: Everyone has an insignificant little item which is insignificant to anyone but them.
Author's Notes: For the look_sharpe January picture Challenge.
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Anyone who has spent any amount of time in the company of soldiers will know that, like magpies or squirrels, they have a habit of collecting things. Not just valuable things at that; odd little things, strange things, unusual things that hold a particular fascination only to the man that picked it up.
In this the small band of Rifles under Lieutenant Sharpe’s command were no different from the rest. Perkins had a stone that he kept in his pocket; a smooth flat thing, pale grey in colour and about the size of a chicken’s egg. He had picked it up one day and liked the feel of it - cold, smooth, hard and weighty - and had kept it in his pocket ever since. Tongue had a vulture’s feather stuck in a button of his jacket below his crossbelt. It had a fine shape to its dark form and he wore it with pride; said that one of their own feathers would keep vultures away from his bones.
Hagman had a paisley scarf which he wore under his shako; once a colourful affair, now faded, it had been a present from a gypsy girl he’d met years ago at home in Cheshire who’d sung a song and danced for him. Cooper had a piece of string which he kept wrapped around his powder horn. You never knew when you’d be in need a piece of string, Cooper said… Harris had an ancient coin that he’d picked up off the ground one afternoon which he swore was from the reign of the emperor Constantine, and nobody disagreed with him because nobody else particularly cared. Harper had a cork from the last bottle of whisky he’d ever drunk in Ireland before taking the shilling and joining up. He said that whenever he wanted to remember home the smell of drink that had suffused itself into the cork would bring back the memories clearer than ever. Perkins had sniffed it once and said it smelt of gunpowder and sweat. Harper had cuffed him round the head.
But oddest of all was Sharpe’s keepsake. It was a button; a plain, silver button the like of which could be found on any officer’s coat. On nights when they were away from the army on some errand or other the men had often seen Sharpe sitting by the campfire, turning the button over in his fingers and gazing at it with a strange, distant expression on his face. Once Harris had dared to ask where the button had come from, and Mr. Sharpe had merely replied in his usual taciturn way that it had belonged to a friend. From that the men assumed the friend must be dead.
Yet it was not the memory of a dead man that came to Sharpe’s mind whenever he examined the button; no face of a fallen comrade-in-arms came back to haunt him. No, what Sharpe remembered as he regarded the small keepsake was a sweltering night of a hot Indian summer, the scent of cologne, the feel of soft sheets and the taste of sweet wine, and the short peal of laughter that had sounded when the button came away in his eager hands as they sought to undo a uniform coat far finer than his ever would be.