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Tommy
War fell painfully slow, tension and fear building in the hearts of young boys and weary men, approaching agonisingly like a tank breaking enemy lines. It was a dictators way of natural selection and yet the strongest, the men out on the trenches, were the ones to be slaughtered, leaving the weak behind. It was the men that were drowning in a wash of blood staining their mucky palms for decades to go, who's corpses would be a glow with red, rotting in the mud and rain, forgotten.
Thomas Shelby was determined to be a man that kept his promise. A promise to return home. To not be forgotten. But how many had, too, made that same promise? And, when the bombs falling from the skies above were as frequent as the falling of the shovel in his hand, what was the chance of the Shelby brothers all making it home safely?
For a tunneller, safety was a word that was not to be tossed around lightly. For safety was only hoped for in heaven, when the brutality was over. But religion, to Tommy, was out of the picture, when bullets were grazing the walls of the tunnels he dug relentlessly and German voices threatened to spill through a gap any second.
It was the days when they would encounter the enemies, the fire of anger kindling in their eyes and calloused hands reaching for the flimsy guns they had been left with. The day when his best friend had took a bullet that God's fate had intended for him. The day when he was taken a captive. It was the day that he was written down as a prisoner of war and forgotten by those who were supposed to care, that he, Thomas Shelby, held no place in his darkening heart for God.
It happened quickly. One minute the only sound to fill the tunnel was the repetitive crunch of the shovel against mud. The next, it was filled with harsh, angry shouts, words of red flying from every corner. Tommy was surprised he was still alive. He still remembered the sorry faces of Freddy and Danny, climbing up the whole as he was dragged away roughly. Why they had taken him, he didn't know, and perhaps he never would.
Days had gelled into one long sleepless night as a prisoner. Had they lost? With no English voice except his own, he was left to think of before the war that split the world in two. It was simpler, even though life had seemed so difficult then. He thought he had seen everything bad in the world, violence, poverty and prostitution, but it was nothing comparable.
And in his delirium, Tommy could faintly smell the comfort of the smoke and smog of Small Heath, the scent of cigarettes that were rolled in the kitchen. Oh, how he craved a cigarette.
Perhaps it had been months spent in a deafening solitude or mere weeks when he heard the reassuring sound of an English accent, even if it was more southern than his own. It grew louder and louder, shouts of threats and swearing, that Tommy knew would be unanswered for the camp was filled with Germans, able in their own language only and Frenchmen who were hidden away in groups, much like himself.
Sandy hair and dirtied skin appeared over the small hill of mud that initially separated them. The man held a face of a fighter, as he struggled against the soldiers, only to be dropped down, the weighted chain pulling him to the bottom of the slope. He sat up, dragging himself to sit beside Tommy before holding his hand out to shake.
"You are English aren't ya?" He asked, his voice rough and low.
"Yes, I am." He said, nodding his head and taking his hand, shaking it firmly. "Birmingham."
"London- ish. Names Dawson." He said, digging through the inner pocket of his padded jacket.
"Shelby." He replied, watching as the man pulled out a tattered box that had been through battles, the writing scraped off and edges missing.
Dawson's fingers trembled slightly as he worked with the flimsy lid, eventually pulling out a cigarette and a match. He looked up, noticing Tommy's careful eyes.
"Want one?"
"Go on then." He pulled out another, handing it over slowly, making sure he wouldn't drop it as his hand shook.
They lit their cigarettes, with eager hands. Smoke tickled at Tommy's nose as he exhaled, the scent feeling sadly comforting and warm, as if they were John's famous rollies, that the brothers had always loved.
"How long have you been here then?" Dawson asked, Smoke twirling round his fingers as he pulled his own cigarette from his face. He seemed rather chipper, despite having been thrown down a slope, weight on foot and plucked from battle.
There was a thick silence between the two. It wasn't awkward, but it held an air of understanding. An understanding that they both went through the same thing, and they both would be in the future, too, whether that be good or bad. And that was enough for any soldier to be able to throw normal etiquette out the door.
Tommy broke both his state and the silence, "I've been here long enough to notice the patterns."
Dawson chuckled, his lips pulling into a cheeky grin. He pulled his cigarette to his lips once more, fumbling slightly as it slipped to the muck. He raised his brows, "might have to put that knowledge to use."
"Thank fuck." Tommy muttered.
"We plan for escape tomorrow." Dawson said, shifting himself to lean against the mud slope, lifting the weight and throwing it down closer. "Don't fancy having a bullet in my chest any time soon. Let's not rush."
Tommy smirked, finishing the last of his smoke and turning to follow the man in doing the same thing, settling his head on his arm. The presence of another person hadn't truly settled in until that moment. Deep sounds of breathing finally seemed real, and with it the idea of escaping, bringing a comforting relief to his tense shoulders and heavy eyes.
A plan was already formulating in his mind. They were going to escape. Soon.
Not sure how I feel about this chapter but I'm posting it anyway. Think it's a bit slow? Not much happens but excited for this plot anyway!
