 Sharp's Prey by Bernard Cornwell, read by Paul McGahn, Mr. Brown and Mr. Belling, the one fat and the other thin, sat side by side and stared solemnly at the green-jacketed army officer across the table, and neither liked what they saw. Their visitor was a tall man with black hair, a hard face and a scar in his cheek. Mr. Brown's side, the officer glowed. Above a blackened hearth hung a cavalry sabre. The only decoration in the panelled office of Mrs. Belling and Brown of Cheapside, army agents. Alas! Mr. Brown sped his hands. Alas! It is the nature of your commission, Mr. Belling explained. It's as good as anyone else's commission, the officer said belligerently. Oh, better! Mr. Belling said enthusiastically. Far better! A battlefield commission, Mr. Sharp, upon my soul, but that's a rare thing, rare and admirable. But it is not, Mr. Brown spoke delicately, fungible. Fungible? Lieutenant Richard Sharp asked. The commission cannot be exchanged for cash, Mr. Belling explained. You did not buy it. What the king gives you may give back, but you cannot sell. It is not, he paused. Fungible. Lieutenant Sharp started forward in his chair as though to attack them and check himself. Sharp had saved Sir Arthur Wellesley's life in India, and this commission had been his reward. And all Sharp wanted was to sell the lieutenancy for the £550 it was worth and get out of the army. You're saying I'm buggered, Sharp asked angrily. We are saying, Mr. Sharp, that we cannot assist you, Mr. Brown said severely. It was not their fault he couldn't sell his commission. It was the rules. The rich could make more money and the poor could go to hell. Sharp stood, and the clatter of his sabre scabbard on the chair made Mr. Brown wince. Sharp draped a damp greatcoat round his shoulders, crammed a shackle into his unruly hair and picked up his pack. Good day, he said curtly, and ducked out of the door. Mr. Belling led out a sigh of relief. You know who that was, Mr. Brown. But he announced himself as Lieutenant Sharp of the 95th Rifle, Mr. Brown said. The very same officer who cohabited with Lady Grace Hale. Mr. Brown's eyes widened. Upon my soul, he said softly. The scandal had been whispered throughout London, how the widowed Lady Grace had moved into her house with a common soldier. True, the common soldier had earned a battlefield promotion which was entirely admirable, but even so. The daughter of the Earl of Selby living with a common soldier, and not just living with him, but having his baby. Though the Hale family claimed that dead husband had been the child's father, Grace, Sharp thought. Grace, God help me, Grace. The anger was welling inside him, thick and dark. Some snotty child with a rich father could sell his rank, but a real soldier who'd fought his way up could not. Bugger them. Sharp wanted to vent his desperate anger, to hurt someone, anyone, so he walked towards the tower, along a street that stank of the river, coal smoke, and horse dung. He turned down Tower Hill where a pair of red-coated centuries at the tower's gate pretended not to see him. But Sharp didn't care if they saluted him or not. He was a failure, a bloody quarter-master. He didn't care if he never saw the army again. He'd come from a red-coated regiment in India, and had been placed in the green jackets, the rifles. But then Grace had gone, and everything went wrong. Yet Sharp didn't understand why he had failed. The rifles were a new kind of regiment, prizing skill and intelligence up of blind discipline. They worked hard and encouraged the men to think for themselves. Officers trained with the men, and the hours other regiments wasted in pipe-claying the green jackets spent in rifle practice, and Sharp had been recommended to it. I hear you're just the sort of officer we want, Colonel Beckwith had greeted Sharp, and the welcomeers' heartfelt that Sharp brought a wealth of recent experience in battle. But in the end they didn't want him. He didn't fit. And after Grace he'd become bitter, so the Colonel had taken him from number three company, and put him in charge of the stores. Now the regiment had marched away to fight somewhere abroad, and Sharp had been left behind a damn barracks cleaner. So he'd run. Except he couldn't- Sample complete. Ready to continue?