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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

There is a flash and the shop lurches around them. Plaster rains down from the ceiling. Through the dust, Tom sees the men around him pressed against the walls and floor, hands over their heads. ‘What the hell was that?’ the corporal shouts.

Tom licks his brush, lays it carefully into its slot in the paintbox. I’m finished now, he says to himself. The squares of watercolour are all hidden under dust. All the colours he chose to paint the war, that day in the shop on Great Russell Street. Olive green. Terre vert. Burnt umber. Mars black. Manganese blue. The young lieutenant is adjusting his beret with unsteady fingers. Someone is cursing in the dull sing-song of the newly wounded. Cadmium red. Magnesium brown. Tom forces the box into his stiff left hand. The Bren fires three rounds and the cases dance through the swirling dust. Green gold. Chinese white. He knows exactly how long it takes to load a gun like the one ELAS have just fired at them. He can almost feel his own fingers on the hand wheel, sliding the shell into the breech, gripping the firing lever. In the observation post, someone shouts an order. The men around him are clamping their hands over their ears. There is a bang that drives the breath out of his lungs, and part of the side wall of the shop collapses, then everyone who can move is crawling through into the next shop or through the back door. The wounded man is being dragged by the collar of his smock.

‘Get a move on, Major!’ someone screams at him. Tom looks over at the hole in the wall. If he throws himself across the room, he might just make it, but why should he escape? He is going to see Zoë. She is just a few steps away, out in the burnt grass.

‘I wanted to hear her sing again,’ he says aloud, just in time, as the air goes solid and the shop dissolves into light.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

She runs, dimly aware that she is heading east, towards the market, legs scissoring on the very edge of balance. She tastes blood in her mouth and her nose is full of its iron stench and she wonders if she is hit but she can’t be if she is running.