CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
eye for an eye
"But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." —Amos 5:24
For every battlefield there is a line drawn in the sand. Four years ago, General Hopkins had sat the Shelby boys down and handed out their shovels. You think that you are on one side, and the Germans the other, but no. For every battlefield there is a line drawn in the sand between life and death. Approach that line. Do not be afraid of seeing the other side. You cannot win if you don't look across. But never cross—not even a hand, the toe of your boot, your nose. Nothing.
For every battlefield there is a line drawn in the sand. Tommy Shelby straightened his shoulders, gathered his men, and imagined it tracing the cobblestones of Garrison Court. Men were only as good as the things that tethered them to their side: he had his family to look out for, Ada's new baby. Beatrice. Her name burned in his mouth with hot shame.
"Alright, men." Today was not the day for guilt. Tommy had returned to exactly where he had fucking always been: surviving by the skin of his teeth. Just once, he wanted to win something, instead of scraping by. "You were mostly in the war, so you know that battle plans always change and get fucked up. Well, here it is. Things have changed. We fight them here. Today. Alone."
At the edge of the crowd, Tommy's eyes found Beatrice skirting around some of the men. Christ. Was that blood on her shirt? Was it hers?
"They're gonna come for the pub. They're gonna try and break us up for good. We have no help from the law today." He lifted his hand and gestured at the Garrison over his shoulder with his gun. In the back of the crowd, someone was handing Beatrice a rifle. Tommy dropped his arms. "What the fuck are you doing, Bill?"
The man blinked stupidly, as if he had no idea what he was doing. Trixie smiled at him thinly, like she had enough knowledge for the both of them. "She asked for a rifle."
"Give that back, Beatrice," he instructed. "She has no idea how to handle that."
"Are you short on men or not?" she hollered back at him. "John has two rifles. How the fuck do you suppose he's going to fire both?"
"Oi!" John shouted.
"You don't have time to argue with me," Beatrice insisted. She looked proud of herself. Tommy wanted to shut that pretty mouth of hers up, but they had to live to the end of the day first. "Are you going to carry on, or what?"
He flattened his mouth into a line. Fucking Beatrice. Lifting his gun back up towards the pub, he called out, "That Pub back there is called the Garrison. Well, now it really is one. And it belongs to us. Right?"
John lifted one of his rifles, and Tommy began to understand Beatrice's criticism of the weapon distribution. "Right!" shouted his brothers, and soon their other men joined in. Not his wife, though. She was toying with the bullets in the chamber of her gun.
"How many are there?" Beatrice asked. Her voice seemed to carry even without her shouting.
"Jeremiah says two Riley vans," Tommy replied. "So I reckon we're outnumbered three to one." He watched her as she did the math on her own, concluding the equations with a shrug. "Do you disagree?"
"Oh, no," she said, in a way that meant she absolutely did. "It's negligible, really."
"What do you reckon?"
Beatrice shrugged again. "I would've said five to two. They're bringing weapons, I assume. Have to account for the space that'll take up in the vans."
"Right," said Tommy. "Well, either way, we're significantly outnumbered. But we're used to that, aren't we, gentlemen? We started off with nothing. We started off fighting with our fists in the schoolyard. But by the end of today, we will be owners of a legal racecourse. We just have to do what we've always done." He dropped his arms. "It's us, boys. It's us. The Small Heath Rifles. We never lost a fight yet, did we?"
His eyes found Beatrice again while his men clamored to agree. Marriage was a sort of fight, or maybe that was just the two of them. He didn't yet know if he'd won or lost. He didn't even know if she was still in the ring. Again, she was quiet, just watching him carefully.
It took more effort than it should've to tear his eyes from her. "All right. Jeremiah," he said. "I know you vowed to God to never pick up a weapon again." The priest nodded. Tommy felt a ghost of guilt in his stomach, a phantom pain from his missing heart. "Can you ask him from me if you can help us today?"
Jeremiah saluted. "God says he don't deal with Small Heath, sir."
"Good man." Tommy nodded, and gestured to John. "Hand over one of those guns, John." To his other brother, he said, "Arthur, Scudboat. You'll take the flanks. Just like at St. Marie." There is a line in the sand— "Curly!"
"Here, Mr. Shelby, sir," the stout man called.
"Yes," said Tommy. "Curly, if any Shelby man dies here today, you bury us side by side. Got it?" Do not be afraid of seeing the other side—
"Yes, sir!" Curly replied.
"Alright," Tommy called. "We have about ten minutes. Make your peace with whoever. Now, gentlemen, I need a moment alone with my wife."
The group split, assuming position. Now it was just him and Beatrice, and ten meters of concrete between them. You cannot win if you don't look across—
"I thought I told you to go."
Beatrice tilted her head to the side. "You did. And then I said no." She moved towards him, and he stepped off of his makeshift stage. "You should know by now what kind of woman I am, Tommy. I'm not easily persuaded."
"But you've shown a willingness to yield."
"I have shown a willingness to negotiate," she corrected. "Unfortunately, this is non-negotiable."
Closer to her, he could tell that her eyes were puffy, and her makeup haphazardly smeared away. "Grace?" he asked.
"Gone," she confirmed.
He reached out to brush his thumb over the scar on her cheek before he could help himself. She'd done so much for his family and he still barely understood why. "Her blood or yours?"
She didn't even have to glance down. "Hers. Look, Tommy—I understand that this was a variable I should've spent more time accounting for. It was my error. But you have to let me fix it. It's not like I can make this particular mistake again."
"I'm not asking you to leave because I don't trust you," Tommy burst out, sure he looked like he was in immense pain from the burden of his confession. "I'm asking you to leave because I want you safe. I need you safe. Please."
Trixie dropped back onto her heels. "Oh," she said, blinking at him. "You—" Trixie shook her head, reaching into her pocket for bullets to put in her gun. "I'm not a coward, Tommy. And I'm not going to become one just because you're getting squeamish."
"Squeamish?" he repeated, dubious.
"You didn't give me a gun just for me not to use it."
"You don't know how to use this gun," he corrected. He wrapped his fingers around the barrel and pulled it away from her, twisting when she wouldn't yield. Beatrice looked ready to protest, and Tommy reached out for her jaw before she could speak. One thumb on her lip, he mumbled, "It would be irresponsible for me to let you hold this without knowing how it works."
"So you're taking it from me," she surmised, moving to back away. Tommy dropped a hand to the small of her back and pulled her closer.
"No," he disagreed. "I'm gonna show you."
Her dark eyes darted down to his lips. If he were a better man, he would drag her out of the line of fire himself, or at the very least, teach her the gun without using it as an excuse to touch her. But Beatrice was not a frail damsel, and he was hardly a gentleman. There was something about her willingness to stay; her willingness to bleed. "I doubt ten minutes is enough time to set up beer bottles on a tree stump."
"Aim is easier with these." Tommy replaced the gun in her hands and pulled her back to his chest, bracketing her hands firmly. "You line your eye up with the barrel and shoot. It's instinct, Beatrice. You have that."
She hmphed from her spot in his arms, as if she wanted to argue.
"Line up to the target," he instructed. "Keep your eye close, but leave a gap so that the gun won't hit you if you fire." She was so warm, sharp under his hands, a blade forged in flame. "Pull back the breach and it'll load a bullet. And then you would fire."
Beatrice nodded and detangled herself from him. Hugging the gun to her body, she offered him a smirk. "So it's not that different then, is it?"
He missed her warmth already. "Don't get cocky," he warned.
The gravity of his words landed. Nodding soberly, Beatrice clicked the safety of the gun back on. "Who do you have to make your peace with?"
"Nobody," said Tommy. "My brothers will be on the line with me."
"Polly?"
"Polly won't take my word for anything. She'll just end up ignoring me to pray." He thought of Beatrice's father, a priest he must have seen once or twice walking the streets without fully recognizing him. Ever since her confession that they had seen each other as children, Tommy struggled to stop thinking about how much more time they might've had if he hadn't been so careless as a boy. She had seen him, because even at thirteen, he had a sort of notoriety that he couldn't shake. Arthur Shelby's son, with the cold, reclusive mother and the violent brothers. And now, just like then, Beatrice was only regarded with a second glance on rare occasions. Wallpaper to everyone else. But he couldn't look away. "Are you sure about this? I wouldn't blame you if you left."
Beatrice looked at him, a sadness unfolding her eyes. "I'd blame myself."
He nodded. "Stay by the edges. Too much attention and Kimber will single you out. He already molested you over that game of billiards." The memory caused a shivering, uncontrollable rage to fill his chest.
"I didn't have a gun then," she said. "And now I have a big one."
Tommy began steering them towards the center of the street, facing north. Never cross that line, General Hopkins had warned. Death is in the past and the future. That is not our concern. The war will take years, and yet is only a minute long. Everything all at once. The bullets, the shovels, the landmines, the dirt. Forget your mothers, forget your wives. They are in the past, and the past is nothing. Forget your children, forget your sisters. Would you rather they grow up without you, or they don't grow up at all? The war is only a minute long. Now load your guns.
Several dozen men emerged from the smoke and fog of Garrison Lane. Upon initial observation, his wife seemed afraid, watching Kimber and his boys as they approached. Tommy knew better. Her eyes gleamed with the thrill of a challenge.
"Let's fuckin' show 'em," John mumbled. Tommy's brothers had flanked him at his side, their men following in formation behind them. Beatrice had vanished—good, thought Tommy. She was safer and more dangerous out of sight.
Her estimate was, to his chagrin, more accurate than his own had been. Never mind, though—they were still horribly outnumbered. Kimber's men donned bowler hats and tailored suits, a uniform parallel to the Peaky Blinders' own. This was just as much of a war as France had been—uniforms, rifles. Only difference was that he was standing on the fucking ground instead of swimming somewhere below it.
Kimber himself rode in one of the vans' open back, standing a metre taller than his men. They met in the middle, and he disembarked, that twatty mustache of his painting his face in a perpetual frown. "Get your weapons out, boys, and load them up." A bit of Birmingham leaked through his accent, and Tommy felt a cool reassurance wash over him. They came from the same dirt. Even as his thirty men loaded their guns, encouraged by Kimber to take their time—"Let them see what we've got!"—Tommy was not swayed from his notions of their equally grimy origins. No amount of pomade in Kimber's hair could hide that he had once belonged to the ash of this city, same as Tommy.
"All guns and no balls, right, Billy boy?" John shouted.
Tommy wanted to punch his brother in the jaw. No need to antagonize a crowd of thirty armed men, was there? There existed a difference between strategic confidence and foolish pride that neither of his brothers would recognize if it shot them.
"So what do we do now?" Arthur asked, ever the soldier. "Just give the order."
Tommy sighed. A last offer of peace was in order. "It doesn't have to be like this, Kimber," he shouted across the paces of cobblestone between them. There is a line drawn in the sand—
Dick that he was, Kimber only scoffed. "Too late for all that. You bit off more than you can chew, you little toe rag, and now I'm gonna take over this shit hole."
Behind him, Tommy recognized the sound of a laugh. Beatrice.
"Is that your tart of an accountant back there laughing?" Kimber called. "Tell me, which one of your brain dead brothers is she engaged to?"
"Neither," Beatrice shouted back. "I married the man himself, in the end."
"Whorish thing, aren't you?" Kimber chastised. Tommy fought to keep his finger from twitching on the trigger. "Maybe I'll kill you first, isn't that right?"
"Well, if he have to use guns," Tommy offered, "Let's use proper guns!"
Freddie's heavy boots echoed as he descended one of the parked caravans of their own across the street, a Lewis machine gun in hand. "Sargeant Thorne reporting for duty, sir," he shouted, the massive weapon held heavy in both arms.
Tommy smirked at the way the Kimber boys started to sweat. "You were saying something about being out-gunned?"
Kimber's army aimed. Tommy's army followed. You think you are on one side, and Kimber on the other—
He could see death on the other side of this, a gray city where Kimber took over the Garrison and burned it down, where he and his brothers were buried side to side, where he never got answers from Beatrice. Do not be afraid to look across—
But then there was the matter of Karl, and Ada, and Polly. Forget your mothers, forget your sisters, forget your wives, forget your children—
He would make an orphan of that poor baby twice if he let this go to hell. Across the line in the sand, Birmingham's ghost stared back. It was a city on fire, that smelled like piss and booze and garbage, run by the whores and the gangs, but it was vibrant and pulsing and alive. The war is only a minute long. God was in heaven, and He was starting the clock.
Until He wasn't. "Move!" Ada shouted, and Kimber's army parted like the Red Sea to make way for her, and—oh, hell. Her baby carriage, a wailing Karl lying inside.
Freddie faltered at Tommy's side. "What are you doing?"
"I believe you boys call this no man's land," she said, as if that explained anything.
"Ada!" Freddie protested.
"Shut up and listen," she snapped.
"Have you lost your mind?" Freddie shouted.
"I said shut up!" Ada repeated. A black veil covered her face, the mourning madonna that Polly bore whenever she left the house. Her dress and carriage, too, were black, as if this was a funeral. Death is on the other side of the line in the sand—
Behind Ada, Kimber gave one of his lieutenants a look, as if seriously questioning whether or not fighting a family that seemed ready to destabilize itself was worth the effort. Tommy didn't blame him. If it didn't compromise the cool confidence he had spent the last ten minutes convincing himself of, he might have dragged Ada away himself.
"Now," said Ada, planting herself square in the middle between the two gangs and surveying them. "Most of you were in France, so you all know what happens next." Death is the past and the future, and that is not your concern— "I've got brothers and a husband here, but you've all got somebody waiting for you."
Tommy turned over his shoulder and found Beatrice gaping at him, like she couldn't believe what was happening. What is she doing? Beatrice mouthed. He could only shrug in reply.
"I'm wearing black in preparation," Ada continued. She stepped up towards Freddie, leaving Karl in the middle. "I want you to look at me," she demanded. "I want you all to look at me! Who'll be wearing black for you? Think about them. Think about them right now, and fight if you want to, but that baby ain't moving anywhere, and neither am I." Would you rather Karl and Ada grow up without you, or they don't grow up at all—
Tommy took stock of the baby, his idiot little sister, who should know better by now than to assume the best of men like him. The war is only a minute—
"She's right, you know," Kimber said, turning his back. It would be so easy to fire, if only Karl weren't directly between them. It wasn't as if Tommy trusted his words enough to put any weight on them. "Why should all you men die? It should just be them, who've caused it."
There it was. Now load your guns. Tommy had his pistol lifted before he could think, and then two rounds went off. He recognized, vaguely, that one of them had hit him, but before he could let it sink in, Danny was darting in front of him, taking the second bullet to the chest before hitting the ground, hard enough to knock his soul from his body if the gunshot hadn't done the trick. Immediately, John was at his side, both crowds exploding with shouts, and something he couldn't name—something vital—was slipping away from him, the sharp pain shooting out of the bullet like ivy and wrapping around his heart. He was walking that line like a tightrope, now, and rapidly losing balance.
Something shoved him aside. A third round went off. Tommy blinked, checking his own gun to see if he'd been the one to fire, but then his wife was in front of him, white dress bloodied by an Irish spy, smoking gun in her hand. And Kimber was falling over backwards, his head making a crack as he hit the pavement. "Enough!" shouted Beatrice.
Kimber's men were still poised to fire, and Tommy blinked away the pain, standing up straight. Freddie had joined her at the front of the line, machine gun raised and ready to fire.
"An eye for an eye," she offered. "You took one of mine, so I took one of yours. Let's not make any more widows, shall we?"
Only a minute had passed. Danny was dead, Kimber was dead, and now the blood on his shirt matched his wife's. Tommy felt the tick-tock of the timer coming to an end. While the Kimber boys exchanged looks, checking each other for guidance, he cleared his throat. "Go home to your families," he said. "We fought this one-on-one. Tell your wives and your children you love them. Go home."
A beat passed, and then the crowd began to rustle. Kimber's boys retreated back to their vans, and the Peaky Blinders watched them until they disappeared back into the fog and smoke and ash. Tommy's wife turned to face him. He collapsed to the ground.
A/N: this chapter was a little bit shorter but i wanted to be really precise with it and i'm honestly really happy with how it turned out? this is the longest i've written from tommy's perspective and while i hadn't planned to tell this scene from his pov, i really enjoyed the chance to explore beatrice through his eyes, and all the love he has for her.
thank you so much to everyone who commented on the last chapter, including RachelLynnexx, Idcam, EleanorJames, NotSureHowToMingle, M. Margit W, and wandertogondor! please feel free to let me know what you thought of this chapter as well :) i will be back soon (friday?) for the last full chapter of the fic, and then next week i plan on dropping the epilogue as well as the first part of from embers :o !
Chapter 32 / Creator, Destroyer
"We won, didn't we?" said Trixie, a dopey smile on her face. Tommy nodded. "Well, then. I guess it's time to get divorced."
