A piece written for @dunkirk-creators november 2020 challenge: hands. rated t for canon-typical violence and swearing. read on ao3 here. gif originally by @madeline-kahn.
Tommy notices a few things about the dark-haired man on the beach immediately - the way his hair flips in the salty breeze, the pierce of his eyes - right through him - and his hands. The way they grip a shovel to frantically move sand back and forth across the surface of the beach. White knuckles.
All of these thoughts fire through Tommy’s head in a flash as he fumbles for his pants, his need to relieve himself suddenly passed. Something about the magnetic gaze of this other person, seeing him, seeing through him, wordless, strikes Tommy to his core.
By all accounts, Tommy should be the one with a look of embarrassment on his face - he’d been the one trying to take a shit just moments before. But the other man’s face softens from surprise and transforms into something that looks a little like fear as Tommy approaches.
He’s digging a grave.
Their eyes meet again and for a moment, there’s a question. For a moment, the man in the sand seems to be frozen. But as soon as Tommy realizes what he’s doing, he knows he needs to help, and he moves to do so.
The thought had briefly crossed Tommy’s mind - in the split-second he realized his ass was out and he wasn’t alone - that maybe this man was doing something he wasn’t supposed to, that perhaps there was a guilty tinge to that first look - but something unspoken in his gaze and the swift, sure movements of the shovel told Tommy deep down, somewhere inside, that whatever this man was doing, it was fine, it was okay, it was maybe even good and that he should help him.
The other man keeps shoveling, hands gripping the shovel like a lifeline. Tommy crouches down to help and begins to move the sand with his own hands.
The man digging the grave has likely just lost whoever it is laying dead in the ground - the planes and the bombs dropping from overhead, sweeping over them and picking them off like fish in a barrel. If Jackson had died out here, on the beach next to Tommy instead of back by that fence while they ran through the streets, wouldn’t Tommy have tried to do the same? To bury his friend’s corpse under the sand to keep it safe, from harm and the elements and animals, from more desecration from the Germans? Of course, he would have.
There aren’t enough medics to move the dead bodies off the beach as it is, and all spare stretchers are for the injured, not for dead men, so perhaps this clandestine grave is the best this dark-haired man can give to his fallen friend.
Tommy can help him do that.
The gravedigger keeps at it with the shovel, Tommy keeps at it with his hands. Between the two of them, they’ll make quick work.
Tommy sweeps the sand around the dead man’s foot. He doesn’t notice the loose bootlaces on the gravedigger’s shoes.
Tommy doesn’t comprehend that the foot in the sand is bare. He’s too busy putting his own hands to the sand, following the other man’s lead.
With the dead man’s feet covered, the gravedigger stops scooping, discards the shovel, and starts lacing his boots.
Deft movements, swift and quick.
It’s cold, and the air and the beach are damp - Tommy’s fingers shake a bit from the chill. But there is something about the movement of this man’s hands that strikes Tommy, still silent.
It’s the way he’s lacing his boots.
Mesmerizing, really.
The crosses, the looping, the linking in and out through the hooks and holes. He’s never seen anything like it before.
Looking back at it, it should have struck him as odd, but it really hadn’t been in the moment. When he looks back on it later, he’ll realize it should have struck him as odd, but it really isn’t in the moment. He’s too taken in while it’s happening. Watching this young man lace his boots is the closest thing to art Tommy has seen in weeks, months even.
His regiment watched a picture before he shipped out to Dunkirk where a girl danced on a tightrope, her feet in ballet slippers, the ribbons laced up her ankles. The way this man’s hands move as he laces his boots reminds Tommy of that - of the way the girl glided across the line, her satin shoes and pointed toes and the crossed ribbons over her ankles, the crossing of her legs as she stepped across the tightrope - the motion of the gravedigger’s hands as he crosses the laces of his boots looks like dancing to Tommy now. White knuckles as he pulls and tightens the ties across the tongue.
It should be a giveaway. No one in the British armed forces laces their boots like that.
Instead, Tommy is entranced for a moment, fully caught up, drawn in, captivated by the fluid motion the man uses to bring the laces together up the side of the boot, his hands making quick work of the complicated pattern.
More striking still is that he isn’t looking at the laces themselves while he does it - he’s looking straight at Tommy, fingers flitting back and forth as Tommy watches him create the pattern.
It’s right as Tommy realizes the man’s been looking at him and not the boot the whole time that he sees a question in the man’s eyes again. No words are said, and since a question isn’t spoken, there isn’t any to answer. Tommy just nods in the direction of the man’s canteen, posing his own wordless question in return.
The other man passes him his canteen to share and their knuckles brush. Tommy feels a kind of tethering at that - another wordless agreement, a silent negotiation.
He takes a drink from the canteen and exhales, letting his shoulders sag for a brief moment of respite. There could be planes above them again at any minute now, but he doesn’t want to think about that. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and passes the canteen back to his new friend.
The other man takes it back with a nod and rises to his feet. Boots securely laced, hands tucking his shirt into his pants. That should be a tip-off, too, but it isn’t. Tommy is too busy thinking about his hands, about the way they’d moved, the pattern they’d crafted on the boots, the way they’d reached in his direction to offer water. And his eyes, the way they’d asked questions and given answers, the way they hadn’t broken away from Tommy’s face as he’d worked his bootlaces.
In these wordless exchanges, hands set to the task of digging a grave and lacing a shoe, silent glances and the brushing of fingers over a shared canteen, a bond is made.
Gibson is this other man’s name, or so his jacket tells Tommy. It doesn’t seem to fit him so well, the sleeves appear to be a bit short. Tommy can see his wrists clearly, notices the blue veins under his new friend’s skin, but the ill-fit doesn’t register as odd.
Maybe it’s a selfish thing to do, to pick up this wounded man on a stretcher, masked as something selfless, but as soon as Tommy nods in Gibson’s direction, there isn’t a need for words. Gibson immediately takes hold of the opposite side of the stretcher and nods at Tommy, a gesture of understanding, of teamwork, of a common purpose. Gibson’s hands don’t shake as they hoist the wounded man on the stretcher and begin to run to the Mole, where the last ship of the day soon to set sail.
They deliver the wounded man and try to stay on the boat but are told to step off, to step aside. Tommy notices Gibson hanging on to the dock and scrambles down to join him. He can see how white Gibson’s knuckles are as he grips the post, and knows that his own hands look the same as they cling to the brackets for hope and safety.
He notices Gibson’s hands again when they get out of the water and climb onto the next boat, the boat they’re sneaking onto now. More wordless exchanges to dunk their heads under the water to make it look like they’d been on the first boat all along, a clasp of the hands to hoist another boy out of the water with them. The water is cold, and they don’t have gloves, and Gibson shakes his hands out over the deck as they climb aboard.
Later on, they shiver in the hull of the abandoned Dutch vessel, and Tommy can see Gibson blowing on his hands, attempting to get them warm again and failing.
Tommy’s always run warm, his mother had always told him so. Even in the winter back at home in Surrey, he’d never needed a sheet atop his bed. While his sister had needed gloves to collect the milk from the stoop in the morning, Tommy had always fetched the cold bottles with his bare hands. Tommy runs hot and hearing the way Alex yells at Gibson, the anger in Alex’s voice breaking like a sharp current, the shaking of Gibson’s head back and forth, the terrified admission that he is French, the words from the other men about how he should step out of the boat and die - Tommy’s blood boils and he reaches out for Gibson’s hand as soon as the boat begins to float. No words are said. Another wordless promise to see each other through whatever horrible thing is happening right now.
Gibson’s hands are still shaking, fingers freezing cold, his knuckles white from fear match the whites of his wide eyes. Tommy sees the worried look in his face and tries not to scream at Alex for being such a twat. They’re all cold, they’re all tired, they all want to get home. What difference does it make that Gibson’s isn’t England, that it’s France? Aren’t they all on the same side, aren’t they all in this horrible circumstance together?
Tommy steadies Gibson’s hand in his own. Alex and the others may be regimental brothers, but Gibson is Tommy’s brother in arms now, and he has to do what he can to keep him warm, to reassure him.
It had felt like the wind had been punched out of him when he’d first heard Gibson’s shaky voice - Francais. Je suis Francais - like it had been a painful admission, something shameful. He squeezes Gibson’s hand then, a wordless reassurance. They hadn’t needed words before all of this, so why bother with them now? Their linked hands can be enough, at least for a moment.
The boat is filling up and they rush to the sides of the hull to plug the holes. Tommy breaks the handhold first, but he doesn’t stay far from Gibson while they both slosh over to the side and stand shoulder to shoulder. It’s partly for warmth and it’s partly for safety and it’s partly because they’re scared and it’s not working. The hull fills with water and the men begin to scramble out and Tommy can understand that but Gibson can’t. He really doesn’t understand English , the thought crosses Tommy’s mind as he begins to make his way to the ladder to get the hell out of there. He yells Gibson’s name, but Gibson doesn’t respond. Tommy doesn’t know his friend’s actual name and there isn’t time to ask him right now, so he just wrenches him by the shoulder and drags him toward the deck. They have to get out and they have to get out now.
“Hey,” Tommy says as they sit on the deck of the rescue vessel. Gibson isn’t looking at him, he’s looking out at the sinking boat, gray-green eyes misty and far away. “Hey,” Tommy repeats, this time lowering his face to the other man’s eye level. He puts his hand on Gibson’s knee, but Gibson doesn’t look at him.
He has to make him understand, language barrier and horrible circumstances be damned. “Hey,” he says one more time, and reaches for Gibson’s hand. This gets the reaction he wants - Gibson turns to Tommy and Tommy sees the tears in his eyes. “You’re safe, mate. I’m safe. You’re safe with me. Okay?”
“Okay,” Gibson parrots back. Maybe he understands, maybe he doesn’t. Tommy doesn’t care, so he keeps talking, the most he’s said in hours.
“I don’t care that you’re French. You saved me. You saved them,” he nods in the direction of Alex and the other highlanders. “And they might be ungrateful bastards, but I’m not. If we stick together, we’ll survive.” He gives Gibson’s hand a quick squeeze, punctuating the end of his sentence.
Gibson still doesn’t say anything. There’s just his quiet tears and their clasped hands.
Tommy’s heart goes out to him then.
Who is this young man, this boy, shivering next to him? Is he crying because of his betrayal that didn’t feel like a betrayal at all to Tommy? Is he crying because he just wants to be home, wherever that is? Is he crying because he’d lied, because he doesn’t understand what Tommy or anyone else is saying, because they’d just seen the flesh burning off one of their uneasy companions just moments before?
It’s all so much. It’s all too much.
Tommy takes Gibson’s hand into both of his own then. They are shoulder to shoulder again, sitting this time. Neck and neck.
Their shared contact is making Tommy feel warm, even though he’s soaked.
For a moment, he’d been afraid Gibson wasn’t going to make it out of the hull, and Tommy thought he might never feel warmth again. But they’re alive. They’re headed home.
And so Tommy reaches for Gibson’s other hand and covers them both with his own. Gibson's fingers are like ice but Tommy's are warm enough for both of them. “I’ve got you, mate. I’ve got you.”
Tommy squeezes Gibson’s hands for good measure, and then he stops talking. The words he’s saying aren’t helping, there’s no point in expending the energy anymore. He’s not mad at Gibson for this - for any of it, really, but for now, he gives up trying to explain.
It’s not a moment too soon, because Gibson squeezes back. “Merci,” he sniffles. “Merci beaucoup.”
“Tommy,” Tommy says.
“Philippe,” Philippe says.
They sit there, clasping hands, all the way to England.
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