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Back The Black Earth Save as PDF
Chapters (56)
  1. Cover
  2. THE BLACK EARTH
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. BOOK I
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. CHAPTER TWO
  8. CHAPTER THREE
  9. CHAPTER FOUR
  10. CHAPTER FIVE
  11. CHAPTER SIX
  12. CHAPTER SEVEN
  13. BOOK II
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  25. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY
  27. BOOK III
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. BOOK IV
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  54. About the Author
  55. By Philip Kazan
  56. Copyright

We’ll be pushing north again tomorrow and I will go too, but I’m going to write to the OC of my brigade and beg him to take me with him if and when he goes. We’re all beggars these days, but some of us are luckier than others. The children in Rimini were pitiful. I’m not eating much at the moment – a little piece of shrapnel is working its way out of my head and I feel slightly sick most of the time – so at least I was able to give away my rations to a few of them. Is it worse in Greece? It must be. General Tsakalotos didn’t strike me as the sort of chap to worry very much about ragged children. But I’m going to try and think more positively. At some point, things have to start going right.

With all my love,

Tom

BOOK IV

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Sorrento, October 1944

The only oil paints Tom can find in Naples are dark, gloomy, oppressive. He has a single tube of giallo primario, a slightly acidic yellow, and two of cobalt blue. The rest are dark browns, ominous reds, blacks (there is a selection), sinister greenish blues. He wonders, as he lays them out on the sun-warmed table, if this is because the only artists who came to Naples before the war wanted to paint those hackneyed views of the bay, the kind of thing you can find in every Italian restaurant in London. The sinister colours suit his purpose, though. He begins slowly. His palette is a broken dinner plate and he has scrounged his easel from an abandoned school. The hotel has sold him a small can of white house paint as primer. It is a long time since he has worked in oil and he has to remember how to do it. But he knows exactly what he wants to get onto the canvas.

Dear Major Collyer,

In reply to your last letter of 21st September, the Committee agrees to extend your present contract to cover the expedition to Greece …

‘Thank God,’ Tom said aloud as he opened the letter from Mr Gregory of the WAAC. That was been over a month ago, in a dug-out somewhere near the Fiumicino River.

… with the stipulation that you proceed first to Naples and cover the negotiations for the Greek provisional government, making your way to Greece with them …

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’