by Peter Murphy
I miss Cambridge because so much of my life was formed there. I miss it because of the people who surrounded me daily – those bright vibrant people, so full of ideas and so full of life, steeped in academia but also firmly planted in the world. It was there that I grew into my maturity as a chess player and learned the extent and limitations of my talent for the game. It was there that I learned to see chess as, not merely a game, but an art form which in the right hands could help to transform Society; and from this I gained a broader picture of the importance of art and culture in any Society which places the welfare of its people first. It was in Cambridge that I embraced socialism and accepted it as the antidote to fascism and to the injustices I saw in Society. It was where I formed my vision for a new, changed England. It was where I was accepted into the Brotherhood of the Apostles, and learned from them about the freedom to think and to speak out; about friendship and loyalty to one’s brothers; about placing that loyalty above all loyalties except that of being true to oneself.
I miss Cambridge, not only for its symbolism in my life, but also for its timeless beauty. I miss the colleges; the simple dignity of the Senate House; the magnificence of King’s Chapel; the elegance of the Great Court at Trinity. I miss the river at Grantchester, where at the dawning of a beautiful day I made love to Bridget for the first time, and where we briefly wished we could stay for the rest of our lives. When I look out over the grey concrete of Moscow from the small windows of my flat as the light is fading on a winter afternoon, and realise that I shall never see Cambridge again, it is all I can do to carry on. At those times, some lines come back to me, lines written by Rupert Brooke – a brother Apostle, by the way, in case you didn’t know – three years before his death on foreign soil; expressing his yearning for a time that had passed and the city he would never see again.
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? And Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain?… oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?
That’s all I have to say, really, Bernard. I don’t seek any forgiveness or absolution. I don’t even ask for understanding. I don’t think that will be possible before significant time has elapsed. In a generation or two, the history of our time will have been written, and the world may look rather different by then. At least feelings will have subsided to some extent.
Oh, there is one thing you might do for me, if it’s not too much trouble. Could you pass on the enclosed sheet of paper to Professor Hollander, by way of his solicitor?
Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
James Digby
Moscow
11 December, 1965
Dear Professor Hollander,
Please don’t be concerned. This isn’t in code. There is no hidden message. It’s just a reminder of something beautiful we have in common. A peace offering of a kind, if you will.
London 1912
White: Edward Lasker
Black: Sir George Thomas
1.d4f5
2.e4fe
3.Nc3Nf6
4.Bg5e6
5.Nxe4Be7
6.Bxf6Bxf6
7.Nf30-0
8.Bd3b6
9.Ne5Bb7
10.Qh5Qe7
11.Qxh7+!Kxh7
12.Nxf6+Kh6
13.Neg4+Kg5
14.h4+Kf4
15.g3+Kf3
16.Be2+Kg2
17.Rh2+Kg1
18.Kd2++
Isn’t it wonderful?
Yours sincerely,
James Digby
AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This is a novel. Sir James Digby QC and Professor Francis R Hollander are fictitious characters. But for the purposes of the story, they had to blend into the periods of history and the institutions with which the book is concerned; to participate in certain well-documented events; and to encounter certain well-known historical figures. This inevitably results in some historical anomalies, for which I make no apology. But I have done my best to do justice to those historical institutions, events and figures which feature in the novel – including my Club, the Reform, membership of which I have in common with one or two important figures in my story. To do that required a good deal of research, both about the Cambridge Spies and the world in which they grew up and lived; and about the world of chess, whose fringes I inhabited for a while much earlier in my life. I gratefully acknowledge my debt to the following sources in particular.
Miranda Carter, Anthony Blunt: His Lives, Macmillan (London, 2001)
John Fisher, Burgess and Maclean: A New Look at the Foreign Office Spies, Robert Hale Limited (London, 1977)
Kim Philby, My Silent War: The Autobiography of a Spy, Modern Library, Random House Inc (New York, 1968)
Ben Macintyre, A Spy among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (London, 2014)
Richard Deacon, The Cambridge Apostles: A History of Cambridge University’s Elite Intellectual Secret Society, Robert Royce Limited (London, 1985)
Russell Burlingham and Roger Billis, Reformed Characters: The Reform Club in History and Literature, Reform Club (London, 2005)
Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, 2006)
Dr Max Euwe, Wereld Kampioenschap Schaken 1948, De Tijdstroom, Lochem (The Netherlands, 1948)
Alexander Kotov and Mikhail Yudovich, The Soviet School of Chess, Foreign Languages Publishing House (Moscow, 1958)
Irving Chernev, 1000 Best Short Games of Chess, Hodder & Stoughton (London, 1957)
It is from Chernev’s book that I took the text of Edward Lasker v Sir George Thomas, London 1912. Other sources give a slightly different order for the first few moves. But there is no doubt about the position after 10 … Qe7, or the magnificent devastation wrought by Lasker beginning with 11. Qxh7+!
Copyright
First published in 2015
by No Exit Press
an imprint of Oldcastle Books
P O Box 394,
Harpenden, AL5 1XJ
noexit.co.uk
All rights reserved
© Peter Murphy 2015
Editor: Irene Goodacre
The right of Peter Murphy to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or
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ISBN
978-1-84344-401-5 (print)
978-1-84344-402-2 (epub)
978-1-84344-403-9 (kindle)
978-1-84344-404-6 (pdf)
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