From Failing Hands
Spoilers: There are no spoilers. This is set before the series opens.
Word count: 1000
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Sharpe, Wellesley, Garrard
Author's Note: Two in as many days! I'm spoiling you! This one is a remix of latin_cat's In Flanders' Fields.

Latin, thanks for letting me remix an amazing story. I hope I've done it justice.

~~~~~

From Failing Hands (a remix of In Flanders Fields by latin_cat)

To you from failing hands we throw the torch,
Be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' fields (In Flanders Fields, John McCrae)

It was bitter cold. Sharpe couldn't believe the strength of the icy wind as it swept across the flattest terrain he'd ever seen in his life. He shivered as he pulled his greatcoat more tightly around himself. It was too small, but Sharpe had shot up by several inches since it was issued to him. He blew on his hands; the sleeves of his greatcoat were too short for him to pull them down and he had no gloves.

It was still snowing. It had, in fact, been snowing for most of the past three days, and Sharpe could barely remember a time before the world was covered in a blanket of white. Trees, grass, houses, all covered in white. The snow shrouded the bodies of those who had fallen, unable to keep going on the meagre rations. They could not bury them, the ground was iron-hard, and the bodies were left where they had fallen. At first, the red-jacketed bodies looked like puddles of blood on the pure white snow, but as the snow continued falling, each one was gradually shrouded from sight.

Some of the new recruits hadn't even received their proper uniform coats before leaving England, and more than one of the bodies was only wearing the thin white canvas drill jacket of a recruit. Sharpe, shivering in his greatcoat, had been one of the lucky few to get issued with the red jacket of a trained soldier, though it was little comfort. There had been a small issue of food earlier, but not nearly enough to satisfy the appetite of any of the soldiers, and more than one of the local farms had been looted for food by men driven mad from hunger. The colonel had tried to stop it, of course, had even attempted to subsidise the rations by paying for food from his own pocket, but nothing could help an army so far gone.

Sharpe had been on picquet by the river, where the wind was strongest, and had spent the entire time staring at the dark, ice-cold water, wondering stupidly how long it would be before it froze over and the French could march straight across to finish off an army half-defeated by the cold.

Captain Hughes had come round with a canteen, from which he poured a tot of rum for every soldier on picket. The drink had gone a little way to warming Sharpe and his fellow soldiers, but it wasn't enough for men turned savage by the weather. Many of them, like Sharpe, had enlisted to escape trouble with the law, or because some recruiting sergeant had got them drunk and slipped a shilling into their hand while they were too fuddled by drink to realise what had happened. And now they were freezing to death while others stole their rations, blankets and uniforms and did not care. The soldiers were well aware of the depredations the Commissary and others practised on them, raiding their stores and supplies at will.

Somehow some of the older soldiers had managed to light fires, but the need was so great and the fuel so scarce that Sharpe had not been able to find space by any of them when he finally came off picquet. He had found a small hollow where the wind wasn't so strong, and sat down, trying not to mind the snow and the cold.

He watched a blanket-shrouded figure pick its way down towards the river. Although he couldn't see its face, he recognised the walk as belonging to the Colonel. He was too cold and miserable to wonder why the Colonel was wandering around in the snow, instead of being with the other officers, gathered around the fire some of their servants had managed to light.

The snow seemed to be falling harder now, and Sharpe pulled the worn greatcoat tighter, pulling the cape up over his head. Not that it helped much. He shivered, wondering how he was going to last the night out. His best mate, Garrard, was on picquet for another hour or so at least. He lay down. He was so tired, yet so cold that he did not know how he was going to sleep. At the moment, it was going to be a toss-up between getting to sleep and freezing to death. And Sharpe did not want to die out here.

There was a motion through the wind-driven snow. Sudden warmth; a blanket draped over him, brushing his face. “Mmm...” Realisation filtered into his fuddled mind. “Can't take it, sir.”

“Sssh.” Hands tucking it round him. “Keep it, Private.”

He blinked his eyes against the whirling snow. That was an officer's voice...

"But what about you, sir?"

"I have another." Of course he did. He was an officer. "No point in me having two when you don't even have one." There was a pause, and then Sharpe felt the other man slip a pair of gloves onto his hands.

A smooth hand brushed a strand of hair from his face and he blinked up, trying to see the officer's face. “Thank you, sir,” he said, trying to understand what had just happened. “Thank you.”

A nod and the other turned away, heading back towards the officers' fire, his figure rapidly blurring in the snow. Sharpe curled up under the blanket, grateful for the added warmth. And the gloves. Nice gloves, they were, made of fine, expensive wool. Too good for someone like him, really. He'd keep them safe. Have to hide them from the others... but that would be a problem for later.

Garrard joined him, and somehow Sharpe knew he'd seen what had happened. "Who was that, Tom?" he asked, needing confirmation that it was the person he'd thought it was.

"Only the bleedin' Colonel," Garrard said, in a voice of wonder, tucking the blanket more firmly around Sharpe and curling up next to him. Sharpe smiled to himself and finally slept, at peace.