The Dangerous Crimes Of Thomas Shelby

Chapter 1: July 1918,ww1: the tunnelers.

The tunnel caved in, the tunnelers had to flee. Thomas Shelby rushed through the battlefield , his helmet barely fitting on his head. The sleeves of his jacket covering his bloody, arthritis filled hands. He was barely Dodging the bullets that were being flung at him and his gun only had one round left in it. He had to turn back soon for more, Soldiers were trampling all around him, he had to get through to the tunnels, it shouldn't be that hard right? Well yes.  As he was about to turn back around for another round, A shadow of raining ash and a loud bang stopped him in his tracks, he couldn't find his feet and crashed into the mud. It was so quiet on the western front, the ringing of the bomb still rung in his ears, making them bleed internally. He couldn't feel his legs as the rubble began to  cover them. This was to the point he couldn't see his legs and the ringing in his head continued to irritate his ears. As some of his fellow soldiers started to run back to the Trenches to take cover, some rushed to the Germans to fight. Without there fucking guns which had been dropped due to the bomb impact. Thomas held his breath as the ash began to fill up his lungs causing him to cough and leaving him barely being able to breathe. 

Then unexpectedly someone grabbed his arms, pulling him up off the mud. Thomas was stunned for a few moments, his eyes trying to focus on something within the thick, black smoke, but he almost fell back to the mud. 

"KEEP UP THOMAS!!" Said his mate, Arnold, who pulled him up again, holding Thomas through his arms and began to drag the semi-conscious boy back to the trenches. As Thomas felt his eyes closing, something in the distance caught his eye. The small figure of a boy came into the clearing, whatever he was wearing was too big for him, the folds of the jacket overlapped on his body. The dirt was covering his entire face, to the point the only thing on his body that was visible was his crystal brown eyes. Thomas turned his head feeling the sludge dripping down from his ear causing his mouth to clench feeling the pain shoot down his jaw. Arnold gasped as he felt Thomas release himself from his arms, despite the agonising pain that now started to shoot down his body, Thomas rushed through the battlefield. He uncovered his side and ripped a piece of his shirt off, quickly grabbing a piece of fallen off barbed wire to tie it up into a small white flag, though it wasn't that white anymore. It was covered all over in blood and mud from the field that hadn't seen green grass in a while.

"THOMAS!! THOMAS!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!! DON'T SURRENDER, DON'T SURRENDER!!" Arnold called after him, but he just kept running. "THOMAS THE CORPORAL WILL REFUSE YOU BACK!!"

"English man. English man." Called a German voice, speaking quite fluently in english.  Thomas felt all the eyes on him as he neared the young boy, who was disheartened and frightened, his eyes frantically darting around to find a sense of comfort, then his eyes locked onto Thomas.

"Young boy..." Thomas started, stumbling and struggling to grip onto the hill due to the large amounts of muddy ash. "What are you doing here? How old are you? What language do you speak...." He slowly began to reach his hand out to the young boy. "Êtes-vous un garçon français?. (Are you a french boy?)" The boy resisted for a while, not a word came from his mouth, it had almost seemed that the whole battlefield had stopped to watch, not even the Germans made a sound. But Thomas was too busy to notice. His whole mind was too founded on the frightened young boy infront of him.

"Qui es-tu..? (Who are you..?)" The boy finally spoke. His voice was so gentle yet the tremble behind his voice showed his true fear, he gripped the ends of his bagging shirt as he slowly began to step away from the soldier, knowing all eyes were on him.

"Je suis Thomas Shelby....soldat britannique. (I'm Thomas Shelby... British soldier)" Thomas said, not wanting to scare the boy. The boy nodded, his eyes falling onto The soldier's medal on his side, The royal britannica, 1914. The boy looked calm for a moment then the fear returned in the boy's eyes. Thomas heard something in the distance that finally managed to catch his attention.