And Is There Honey Still For Tea?

by Peter Murphy

  ‘Tell me about this big tournament they are going to hold in Holland. It’s to decide the World Championship, isn’t it?’

  The question took me completely by surprise. I could not imagine why Anthony would be interested in the World Chess Championship, but at the same time I somehow sensed that he knew all about it without having to ask me.

  ‘The last world champion, the Soviet grandmaster Alexander Alekhin, died in 1946,’ I replied. ‘It was impossible to hold a tournament until conditions returned to something like normal after the War; so there has been an interregnum. When the War ended, the International Chess Federation decided to invite the six best players in the world to compete for the title: three Soviet grandmasters, Mikhail Botvinnik, Paul Keres and Salo Flohr; a Dutch player, Max Euwe, who is a former world champion; and two Americans, Reuben Fine and Samuel Reshevsky. Late in the day, the Soviets replaced Flohr with a younger man called Vasily Smyslov who they think is a future world champion.’

  Anthony smiled as he refilled our glasses.

  ‘But from what I read in the papers, there are only five grandmasters competing?’

  I nodded.

  ‘That is true. Fine decided not to play.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  I drank deeply from my glass.

  ‘He is a research student in psychology. He said that he is too busy working on his dissertation.’

  Anthony allowed some time to pass.

  ‘So work got in the way in his case also?’

  ‘So it would seem,’ I replied. ‘But he also referred to a theory popular in some circles: that the Soviets intend to fix the tournament to ensure that Botvinnik wins.’

  Anthony smiled.

  ‘How exactly does one fix a chess tournament?’ he asked. ‘I can imagine it in cricket – you know, a batsman might deliberately get himself run out for a duck, or a fielder might drop a catch. But chess?’

  ‘The Soviet grandmasters might agree short, friendly draws among themselves,’ I said, ‘so that the western players are playing longer, more competitive games, and getting tired. That makes a difference in a long tournament. If that’s not enough, they might instruct Keres and Smyslov to lose to Botvinnik. It would not be done in an obvious way. It would attract some suspicion, but it would be almost impossible to prove. And even if it could be proved, the Soviets are so dominant that they can afford to shrug it off.’ I paused. ‘I don’t believe it, anyway.’

  ‘Why not?’ Anthony asked.

  ‘For one thing, it is not necessary. Botvinnik is the strongest player in the world now by some margin. You would have to fancy him over a long haul like this.’

  I sipped my drink.

  ‘It would be ironic if Fine did pull out for that reason,’ I added. ‘On current form, he is probably the strongest player outside the Soviet Union. He might have been the only western player with a decent chance of stopping Botvinnik.’

  ‘You don’t think either of the others could do it?’

  I shook my head. ‘Euwe has been playing very badly recently. He seems to have lost his touch. Reshevsky can be brilliant. On his day he can beat anyone, but he is inconsistent and he doesn’t keep up with opening theory, which is essential at this level. He will be more or less on his own, whereas the Soviets will have a team of seconds and other experts available to support their players. There was talk of replacing Fine with Najdorf, an Argentinian grandmaster, but for some reason it hasn’t happened. Even if it did, I can’t see him beating Botvinnik in a long tournament.’

  Anthony allowed some time to pass.

  ‘So you rule out the conspiracy theory and you prefer to see Fine as another western chess player denied his destiny by the capitalist system?’

  I did not reply.

  ‘Shall we get to the point, my dear?’ Guy said, rather petulantly.

  ‘Patience, my dear boy, patience,’ Anthony said. ‘Order us some more port, if you would be so kind, since you seem to have made quite an impression on this bottle.’

  Guy reached over languidly and pressed the call button on the wall by his chair. A waiter appeared almost at once, and Guy held the bottle aloft in his hand. The waiter nodded and returned with a new bottle in what felt like a matter of seconds.

  ‘I understand,’ Anthony continued, once our glasses were again full, ‘that the match is to be split between Holland and Russia?’

  ‘It starts in March in The Hague, where the first ten rounds are to be played,’ I confirmed. ‘Then in April it moves to Moscow for the final fourteen rounds. It will all be over by the middle of May.’

  Anthony nodded.

  ‘How would you like to be there – for the whole thing?’ he asked suddenly.

  I was speechless, taken completely aback. I had no idea how to respond. It was something that I had never even considered. Anthony did not rush me. He seemed content to sip his port and gaze up at Sir Charles Barry’s wonderful cupola which presides in all its glory, from a great height, over the Reform Club’s saloon. I allowed my eyes to follow his.

  ‘Well, obviously, I would love to go,’ I admitted eventually. ‘It is the most important chess event in living memory, perhaps ever. But it is out of the question. I have too much work. My clerk would kill me – if Bridget didn’t beat him to it.’

  ‘What if we could arrange some remuneration for you?’ he asked.

  ‘Remuneration?’

  ‘Yes, what if we could arrange for you to cover it professionally, as a journalist? A chess journalist, covering the tournament for a variety of western newspapers and magazines?’

  ‘But there will be journalists all over the place,’ I protested. ‘Press coverage will have been arranged long ago. Harry Golombek has plans to write a book about the tournament.’

  Anthony nodded.

  ‘I understand that, James. But your duties as a journalist would not be unduly onerous, I assure you.’

  And in that moment, I knew exactly what he wanted of me.

  42

  ‘We are finally in a position to make a difference,’ Anthony said simply. ‘Guy is in the higher reaches of the Foreign Office. Donald is Acting First Secretary in Washington, and is secretary to the British Delegation on the Combined Committee dealing with nuclear development. Kim has been head of Section IX within the Service – the section in charge of operations against communism and the Soviet Union – and is now Head of Station in Istanbul.’

  ‘And Anthony is surveying the King’s pictures,’ Guy added, his speech now rather slurred.

  Anthony smiled. ‘A more than adequate cover, we can all agree,’ he said. ‘And MI5 still consults me from time to time.’ He paused for a sip of port. ‘Altogether a most impressive array of talent in a most impressive array of positions of power. We need to take advantage of our hard work and good fortune, James. We need to strike while the iron is hot.’

  ‘What has that to do with the World Chess Championship?’ I asked.

  ‘It is not about the tournament as such,’ Anthony replied. ‘It is more about the opportunities it affords us. There is information we need to send, and which we need to have sent to us. We have access to so much information now, both British and American information, and it is of such high quality, that we need a regular channel of communication. That channel has to be secure and sophisticated. Meeting people like Alex in some café in Hounslow, or wherever, is no longer an option. Kim and I have given quite a bit of thought to the problem, James, and we have finally realised that the solution was right there, under our very noses.’

  I looked away.

  ‘Chess is the Soviet Union’s window on the world,’ he continued. ‘It is where they meet the rest of the world. It is one of the few opportunities for Soviet citizens to travel abroad relatively freely, and one of the few opportunities for foreigners to visit the Soviet Union with some degree of freedom. The world champi
onship would simply be your introduction to that world. You have the credentials. No one would question you.’

  No one spoke for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, I gathered my thoughts and spoke up.

  ‘I did some of that during the War, as you know,’ I said. ‘Even then I was uneasy about it. What I did was illegal. But we were at war, and I persuaded myself that the usual rules didn’t apply. I justified it in my own mind because then the Soviet Union was our ally. We were fighting side by side against fascism. That is not the case now. It would amount to spying. I would be betraying my country.’

  ‘Would you?’ Anthony asked.

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘It all depends,’ he replied. ‘It all depends on what sort of Britain you see as your country.’

  He leaned forward confidentially, his arms on the table in front of him.

  ‘James, listen to me. I know you quite well, I think, and I knew Roger also. You both came from a privileged background in terms of money and property and social position. But neither of you found any satisfaction in that. You saw the suffering. You saw what capitalism was doing to the people around you, and you saw that our Government didn’t give a damn about it. You saw Europe given over to fascism, and you saw that the Government didn’t give a damn about that either, until it was too late. It was Roger and others like him who saw what was going on and tried to do something about it.’

  I suddenly saw myself at dinner with Roger, here at the Reform Club, the last time I had seen him. I remembered his telling me how his experiences in South America had changed him, how they had turned him into a man willing to die in Spain for socialism and for the right of people everywhere to be treated properly and fairly.

  I felt for those people, and there is no doubt that I had become an intellectual socialist by then. But South America is so far away, and information about what is really going on is hard to come by. I was spending almost all my time on the estate, learning how to run the place, meeting all kinds of important people Father felt I ought to know. I couldn’t even get down to London very often any more. And I suddenly realised that if I went on like this for another couple of years, I was going to forget every principle I had ever learned; I was going to become a country conservative, a loyal son of King and Empire.

  I wondered if that was becoming true for me also. I was becoming a successful barrister, and I was in charge of the estate. I was Sir James Digby. Was I, too, in danger of forgetting the principles I had learned?

  ‘The Soviet Union is still our ally,’ Anthony was saying, ‘but in a slightly different context. The battle against fascism has made some progress, but the battle for socialism is just beginning. Think, James, just think, what a truly socialist Britain would be like, a Britain with social and economic justice for all.’

  ‘A Britain in which art would be at the service of the State?’ I asked. ‘Poussin painting propagandist scenes of industrial realism and parades with endless lines of missiles and marching soldiers?’

  He laughed heartily.

  ‘Nicely said, James. But yes, a Britain where art would be at the service of – well the People, that’s how I would prefer to put it. Chess too, of course. But don’t forget that it works both ways. The chess player is at the service of the People, but the People are also at the service of the chess player. They support him in pursuing his art. In my Britain, Reuben Fine would not have to turn down an invitation to play for the championship of the world.’

  And Paul Morphy would not have to go insane and walk the streets talking nonsense to himself until he died a lonely, premature death, I added quietly to myself.

  ‘I don’t ask you to do this out of considerations of self-interest,’ he added quickly. ‘You are not a venal man, James, I know that. I ask you because I believe you know that it is the right thing to do, for the People and for your country; and because I believe you want to continue what Roger started; and because you are loyal to your Apostolic Brethren.’

  From his semi-comatose position slumped in his chair, Guy raised his right arm and drunkenly held his glass aloft in a mute, self-mocking toast.

  And there it was. There was no moment of epiphany, no vision on the road to Damascus, just the sense that my life had been heading in this direction for almost all my adult life, and that the moment which had now arrived was no more than the mature expression of my own deeply-held values. I could no longer pretend, of course, that I was doing anything other than spying on behalf of a country my Government and its allies regarded as a hostile power. There was no fig leaf any more. But in that moment, I no longer needed one. I was finally committed.

  43

  I arrived in The Hague on 27th February, a Friday. The World Chess Championship was scheduled to begin with a reception on Monday 1st March for the players, the officials from FIDE, the large Soviet delegation of seconds, reporters and assorted minders, and various Dutch dignitaries. The Mayor of The Hague, Meneer Visser, who on the following morning would make the ceremonial first move for Euwe in his first-round game against Keres, made a gracious speech welcoming all the guests to his city. The sense of relief and optimism, the feeling of civic pride which this quintessentially peacetime event engendered was palpable. At last the Dutch people were again doing what they have always done so well, bringing people together, in peaceful causes, in a spirit of celebration.

  A room had been booked for me at the Hotel des Indes in the city centre, which I took to be Anthony’s private joke – the hotel had been notorious as the favourite haunt of the First World War spy Mata Hari. Having been much favoured by German officers during the occupation, it had survived the second War in prime condition, and I was very comfortably accommodated. The tournament was held in a magnificent structure called Het Moors Paleis, or Het Dierentuingebouw, which was the centrepiece of the former Royal Zoological and Botanical Gardens. The gardens no longer had any active role in zoology – that had ended in 1943 because of wartime conditions. But the Moors Paleis remained and was used for functions of every kind, from exhibitions to concerts to dog shows. It was a fantastic building with a wonderful stone exterior, and elaborate, elegant internal halls, a perfect venue for a chess tournament. In many ways it reminded me of Alexandra Palace, but smaller, and capable of being accessed without trudging up a steep hill.

  It had not been easy to persuade either Bridget or my clerk that covering the world chess tournament as a journalist was a sound career move. In fact I had something of a scene with both though, mercifully, both were brief and did no lasting damage. Bridget did understand how important chess was in my life and, after some resistance, she gave her blessing, and agreed to look after the house as well as the estate while I was away. My clerk too, after the mandatory dire warning about how easily absence from London could mark the beginning of the end of any barrister’s hopes of success, took a pragmatic view and gave me a firm date towards the end of May, by which I was to be back in chambers for a trial in the Chancery Division. What exactly my duties were as a journalist was not made clear to me at first. Anthony had provided me with a press pass which gave me access to the playing hall and the press room, where I could mingle freely with other journalists, and the Soviet seconds who, I soon discovered, doubled as shameless propagandists not only for their grandmasters but also for Soviet chess and Marxism-Leninism in general. In due course I learned that I was to write a report on each round, giving the moves of each game, with a few comments of my own, and send it by airmail to an address in London, from where it was to be distributed – mainly, as I was to discover later, to a number of publications which had little connection with, or interest in, chess – though some of my pieces did make an appearance in the newspapers and chess magazines. In the case of a particularly dramatic development – and I could not imagine what that might be – I was to telephone a number in London to make an urgent report. And I was to expect contact from my new case officer.

 
On the evening of Friday 5th March, a week after my arrival in The Hague, I returned to the Hotel des Indes for dinner and decided on a nightcap in the bar before going up to my room to work on my report. The third round was under way and some interesting chess was being played. I was able to collect the moves of each game from the press office, and I found that I was becoming engrossed in the chess, in analysing and writing explanatory notes for my readers. My passion was being re-kindled. In addition to my writing, I gave a short interview to a local newspaper about why Euwe’s run of bad form was continuing, and whether he could recover from his bad start. I could easily have forgotten all about Anthony, and socialism, and my Apostolic Brethren, and immersed myself in the excitement of the event going on all around me.

  But as I sat at the bar nursing a whisky and soda and playing in my mind through Reshevsky’s accomplished third-round victory over Keres, I was conscious of someone sitting down on the stool next to me, to my left, in the corner of the bar. He ordered a vodka. The accent was unmistakable. I turned to look at him. The face registered immediately, but for a few moments I could not connect it to a name. Smiling, he rescued me from my predicament.

  ‘James, how nice to see you. I thought I saw you at the reception the other night, but I was with my own crowd and couldn’t get away. I have not been able to see much of the tournament yet, because of work I have at the Embassy.’

  He held out his hand. ‘Viktor Stepanov. We met in Nuremberg in less happy circumstances.’

  I took his hand. ‘Of course. We played to a draw in our heads.’

  ‘Generous on your part,’ he smiled again. ‘You were about to do me serious damage with knight to d5. You had a clear advantage. Perhaps you will allow me an opportunity to give you more of a game?’

  I looked around anxiously. My very basic war-time training in tradecraft had not quite deserted me. He laughed, extended a hand, and placed it briefly on my shoulder.

  ‘Please don’t be concerned, James,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a minder, I assure you. I am an official member of the Soviet delegation. Not that I am entirely exempt, you understand, but I am in a responsible position and my superiors understand that I need a certain freedom of movement to do my job. They won’t be fretting about me. In any case, I am familiar with how the minders work, and it’s not hard to give them the slip if it should be necessary. I do it just to annoy them, sometimes.’