sweet french. peaky blinders

29

Lucille smiled and turned around to face him, but she shook her head. "It's not myself that I'm worried about."

He paused a moment, looking down at her under his long eyes lashes. He spluttered out a small laugh after understanding what she had meant by her statement.

"Should we go over it again? Will that help?" Tommy asked, in reference to their plan of action, as Dawson had suitably named it.

"I suppose so." She said, before she twisted her body around to face all three of them in the car, as Tommy shuffled back. She began, "I'm dropping you off two streets away from the station. I go in with the papers and I find the animal cart. I then go to the fence in the far end of the courtyard at the back of the station."

Lucille listed out her part of the plan robotically, as if it had been transcribed by hand into her memory. And it may as well have been, given that they had spent hours on end making sure each person would remember their part. Even though it could be called a rather simple plan, it was crucial that they got it right. There were not many situations that were called 'life and death', but their's was definitely one of them, and Lucille and the boy's didn't wish to meet their end at a train station of all places.

"That's where me and Dawson will be. We'll have guns each hidden and there'll be five minutes until the guard will be in that position." Tommy continued on the plan from his task of the operation.

"Then Lucille cuts us through by the time we get around the guard and we get to train as quietly as possible. There'll just be the metal thorns to get passed but we're counting on the fence being loose for that to be easy." Dawson took over the narration and Lucille sat back with a sigh.

Although their intentions were in the right place, she felt no better. In fact, she felt worse. It had made her realise just how much of the 'mission' was dependent on her actions.

"No hassle. Everything will be fine." Eugène tried to comfort them, but she still frowned.

"Everything will be fine." She repeated, attempting to make words the truth, as she turned to watch the hills roll past for the remainder of the drive.

"We're here." Lucille was shaken from her daydreams by the silence of the engine and Eugène's gruff voice.  "Good luck, when you're with Aunty Beatrice you'll be fine."

The three of them climbed out of the car and stretched their tired limbs as they glanced around. The village that they had reached was small and quaint, no different to the one that had left behind. They had driven for half an hour to get to the nearest station. It had taken many sly backroads and swirling of wheels to pass the two checkpoints of the roads, but as of that moment, they were safe.

Eugène said his goodbyes and good lucks from in the car and, before he left, Lucille leaned in. "Thank you, Eugène. Thank Amélie for me please."

"Are you ready." Dawson asked, as they finally turned away and began to walk down the street and toward the train station.

"I'm going to have to be." She said, with a dismissive shrug- though they all knew she was nervous.

"Have you got the papers? And the cutters?" He asked and Lucille sighed, stopping in her tracks. She held the papers up and motioned to her coat. "Yes they're hidden in the powder right where they're supposed to be."

The rest of the way, they walked in silence. All three of them were scared to say a single word, in case they gave themselves away. As they reached the middle of the last street, they parted: Tommy and Dawson headed sneakily to the back while Lucille went to the line with her papers.

"See you on the other side." She whispered to herself, as she watched them go before moving to do her part.

As she reached the front of the line, Lucille was surrounded by three guarded officers who looked her up and down.