sabrina. peaky blinders

the interlude

france, mid 1919

The war was over, but the wounds remained.

Some bled. Others didn't. The ones Sabrina tended to most often were the kind no scalpel could touch.

The hospital at Saint-Roch sat in the shadow of a chapel. From the west wing, where they kept the quieter men, she could see the rose window glow with the soft light of early spring. Birds gathered near the sills, chirping without shame, as though they hadn't lived through four years of horror. The cherry blossoms had returned, too, lining the narrow streets with blush-pink defiance.

It was beautiful, and sometimes it made her sick.

She folded a wool blanket tighter around the shoulders of a man named Henri. He didn't speak, not since arriving last December. His uniform was long gone, replaced by a simple linen shirt and grey trousers. His fingers twitched constantly, always miming the shape of something: a fork, a cigarette, a rifle. Mostly the rifle.

"There we are," she murmured, smoothing the blanket like her mother used to do when she tucked her in at night.

Henri didn't respond, just stared out at the wall with wide, water-filled eyes.

Sometimes she envied men like him. Their minds had broken clean through, shattered enough to warrant rest. No one asked them to explain. They were just...left alone. Sabrina had no such fracture. Only a constant, grinding ache. And that ache still let her work. Still let her speak and walk, and smile when expected.

"You're early," came a familiar voice from behind her.

She turned and found Auguste Babineaux standing at the door, leaning on his cane. He was not truly old, not in the way that Henri felt old, but the war had curved his spine and greyed his beard prematurely. He'd once been a professor, then a medic, and now something between both. He still carried books in his satchel, along with gauze and bandages.

"I couldn't sleep," Sabrina replied.

"Did the bells wake you again?"

She nodded.

"I've always found them comforting," he said, coming to stand beside her. "But I suppose for you they are something else."

"They sound like sirens. Just softer."

Babineaux gave a long hum of understanding. He never asked for details. That was what Sabrina liked about him most. He offered company, not curiosity.

"Come," he said after a pause. "I need your help with a new arrival. They say he hasn't spoken since Reims."

She followed him through the ward, past rows of men with sunken eyes and ink-dark shadows under their cheeks. Many were missing limbs. Others only names. Sabrina had learned not to ask what they'd seen. It was usually the same answer. The mud. The screaming. The look in a dying friend's eye when they realised they wouldn't make it home.

The new patient lay in a narrow bed by the window. He was young, no more than twenty, but already his hands trembled like someone twice his age. His face was gaunt, skin pale beneath the dark mess of his hair. A wax seal of silence had formed over his mouth.

"René," Auguste greeted him gently. "This is Mademoiselle Lewis. She's going to speak with you for a little while, if that's alright."

The boy didn't respond.

Babineaux stepped back, nodding once to Sabrina. "I'll be just outside."

She took the chair by the bed and sat with her hands in her lap, saying nothing at first. Silence was its own kind of welcome.