Apologies for the lamentably predictable preamble about being a Sharpe fan: I’ve read four in three weeks and they’re hopelessly addictive. I love the rich historical detail: I can pretend they’re a part of my studies! As a 17 year- old girl this question may be a little predictable, but my friends and I (all avid readers/watchers) have been wondering – would it have been possible for a woman/girl to disguise herself as a rifleman and fight alongside the men, or would living in such conditions have meant inevitable discovery? You hear stories about similar cases with the female pirates, Mary Read and Ann Bonny: but were there similar occurrences in Sharpe’s period? We were also wondering which character would be the first to spot a disguised wench in army gear: and how they’d react…Jen