And Is There Honey Still For Tea? (21 page)

33

Sir James Digby

My father died in June 1937. He died suddenly, and yet not suddenly. My mother found him in an armchair in his study, apparently asleep, early in the evening when he failed to appear for dinner. The official cause of death was hypertension, resulting in a sudden death, and I have no doubt that, medically, that is true. But in broader terms his death occurred gradually, over a period of time. It began with the King's death in January 1936; it included Edward VIII's abdication in December in what, to my father, were profoundly shocking circumstances; and, of course, the most devastating blow – the report of Roger's death in November, followed by George Watson's confirmation of it just three months before his death. In that sense, he died, not at all suddenly, of a broken heart. As for me, I was now
Sir
James Masefield Digby, and the duties I had promised Roger I would undertake as baronet and head of the family, for which I felt utterly unprepared, had become a reality.

After my father's death my mother began to sink into a deep melancholy, from which she never truly recovered. Bridget and I visited her at the Manor as often as we could, and decided that we should be married as soon as possible. We held a quiet ceremony at the village church, and a reception for all our local friends, on the lawns, on a beautiful Saturday in August. Bridget was very conscious of the absence of an heir to the Baronetcy, and that very night we began to make love without any precautions. But no heir was conceived. It was only after two years that it occurred to us to consult a doctor, who discovered that she was incapable of bearing children because of a congenital deformity of the womb. Bridget was devastated. She felt that she had failed in her duty as my wife, and although I assured her that I had never felt that she had any such duty, and that her ability to conceive was not, could not possibly be, a question of fault, she was inconsolable. We talked often about adopting a child, and such talk cheered us up briefly, but her heart was not in it, and we never have. Instead, almost as if she were trying to atone for her guilt, Bridget began to spend long periods of time at the Manor, looking after my mother and helping to run the estate, and sometimes putting in a few hours of book-keeping at her father's surgery.

By the end of 1938, my practice was going well, I was making some decent money for the first time, and we had bought our small mews house in Chelsea, which we both genuinely love. It seemed like home when she was there, and seemed very empty when she was not. My professional commitments meant that I could not go to the Manor as often as I should have, and I was grateful to her for lifting a great part of that burden from my shoulders. But I hated the fact that she did it out of a sense of failure and responsibility, and it has always been an unspoken barrier between us.

* * *

Just after Christmas in 1938 I went to Hastings for a day or two to watch some play in the famous annual international chess tournament. I saw a number of people I knew, including Hugh Alexander who, to my surprise, said he was glad to see me because it had saved him a phone call. He asked me to travel to Buenos Aires in August as a member of the British chess team, to compete in the 8th Chess Olympiad. I was obviously very honoured. It was not the first time I had been asked. The Olympiad is a biennial event, but in 1935 I was preoccupied with starting my career at the Bar, and in 1937 I had been preoccupied with my personal and family trauma in the aftermath of losing Roger and my father in quick succession. But I had played in one or two tournaments in 1938 and, despite my lack of practice, I had done rather well. In the British Championship I had almost snatched the title from Hugh when we met in the penultimate round, but after securing an early advantage I made one careless move, let the advantage slip, and drifted into a textbook drawn endgame. I talked the offer over with Bridget. I was very reluctant to leave her for a month, especially as she was still spending so much of her time at the Manor, but she insisted that I should go. I needed cheering up, she said, and she promised to spend more time with me in London when I returned.

I embarked on the
SS Asturias II
at Southampton on the 5th August with Hugh, Harry Golombek, Stuart Milner-Barry, and Baruch Wood. We had planned to arrive in Buenos Aires in good time to get in some practice and analysis before the tournament began on the 21st. The voyage was a delightful break in itself. The cares of my practice and the estate seemed very far away. One evening, the five of us sat in the dining room late after dinner and talked about ourselves. Like lawyers, chess players are good at talking shop, but often have nothing to say to each other about anything else, particularly intimate details of their lives. But on this evening, for some reason, we talked freely about ourselves, including the part chess played in our lives, and inevitably the conversation turned to the lack of opportunity to play professionally. Hugh and Harry knew many British players for whom it was a dream, but there were too few tournaments and too little money in the game. As a result, no British player could afford to take the risk, and none had ever formally held the rank of grandmaster, even though many would have made the grade given the right opportunities. Hugh and Stuart seemed content with chess as an avocation, but Harry would have gladly been a professional, and had plans to associate himself with the game in other ways, such as journalism, and work as a chess arbiter and referee. Most remarkable of all, Baruch had started his own magazine,
Chess
, about four years earlier, and it was doing well. But all these diversions intruded on the time available for serious study and for playing in tournaments. Fortified by several glasses of red wine, I found myself opening up too, and I told them of my passion for the game, which even a successful career at the Bar would never displace.

Harry mentioned the Soviet Union and, in a striking echo of what Anthony had said about art on the night I learned about Roger's death, he related, without praising it, the Soviet view of chess. The Soviet Union's success in chess was a demonstration of the superiority of Marxist-Leninist thought. The State entered into a pact between Society and the chess player, whereby the player was given the opportunity to show his ability, and if sufficiently talented, would be supported in his profession in return for placing his ability at the service of the State and acknowledging the Soviet State as the creator of, and inspiration for, his success. That night I lay awake in my cabin, watching the dark sea through the porthole, and feeling the rhythmic rocking and swaying of the ship as she made her way through the gentle waves. I tried to imagine my life as it would be if I could live in an England which took the Marxist-Leninist approach to chess. As I fell asleep I was conversing in my mind with Anthony about the artist's responsibility to the Proletariat, and the conversation turned into a dream.

34

The tournament was scheduled to last from the 21st August to the 19th September. It was an extraordinary event. Twenty-seven nations competed, more than in any previous tournament, and there was great excitement about the participation of Cuba, led by the legendary José Raúl Capablanca whose games I had studied with Mr Armitage. We made a good start, and qualified from our group for the finals. But on the 1st September, when the finals were scheduled to begin, we were awakened in our hotel rooms and asked to dress without delay and report to the British Embassy. A car was waiting for us outside.

When we arrived, the Embassy was in a state of high excitement, with officials running in every direction carrying files and telegraphs. We waited in the lobby for no more than two minutes, before being introduced to the Ambassador, Sir Esmond Ovey. Despite the hour – it was now a little after 3 o'clock – he was immaculately dressed in a beige lightweight suit and his Club tie. Without any formalities, he wished us a brisk good morning and led us up two narrow, creaking, wooden flights of stairs to a quiet corner room. On the door was a notice which warned, in English and Spanish, that unauthorised entry was strictly forbidden. Sir Esmond fumbled with a large set of keys for some time before selecting one which admitted us to the room. It was empty except for a small conference table, six chairs, a sideboard with a jug of water and several glasses, a radio transmitter and a bank of cabinets containing massive tape recorders. A large ceramic ashtray, which had apparently escaped the attention of the cleaners, assuming that cleaners were authorised to enter, occupied the centre of the table. An unobtrusive young man wearing a worn light grey suit and a crumpled red tie followed us into the room, donned headphones, and set about activating the tape recorders. We took seats around the table.

‘This room is supposed to be completely secure,' Ovey said, as the young man completed his preparations. ‘I hope to God it is, especially given the astronomic amount of money it cost the taxpayer to set it up.'

The young man nodded to indicate that all was ready.

‘Gentlemen,' the Ambassador said, ‘as from this morning, Great Britain will be at war with Germany.' He looked around the table to gauge our reactions.

The news was not really a surprise. When we had left England, we knew, as did every thoughtful follower of the political situation, that the outbreak of war was more a question of when, rather than if. Personally, I found the news welcome. I was glad that the Government had confronted Hitler and had been forced to abandon Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. I thought that perhaps we had been given a second chance to overthrow fascism after the dreadful defeat in Spain and, of course, I hoped to play some part in taking advantage of that chance, for Roger's sake and my own. Inevitably, the likelihood of war had been a subject of discussion among players from all the competing nations, and the question had arisen of what we would do if war broke out during the tournament. Most players thought that the tournament should continue, despite the diplomatic and political issues which would inevitably arise, and so most teams, including ours, were against an immediate return home. Our Government had different ideas.

‘HMG takes the view that you should all return home without delay,' Ovey continued. ‘There is a sailing the day after tomorrow for Southampton, calling at Le Havre just for an hour or two, and then home. I don't think you are in any danger here in Buenos Aires, but we will extend you diplomatic protection, just in case. We will have people watching you until you leave and we will make sure you get on board ship without difficulty. There will be someone to meet you when you dock at Southampton.'

There was silence for some time. The reference to protection rather baffled us. We were chess players, not high-ranking state officials or generals. Why would we be in danger in a neutral country? Why would there be any need to spirit us out of Argentina so urgently? Hugh was our captain, and we looked to him to reply.

‘Ambassador, we appreciate your concern, of course. But the general feeling at the Olympiad is that the tournament should continue. It will be over in less than three weeks. Surely it would be better to show the flag and not let Hitler send us scurrying home? Do you have any intelligence that suggests we may be in danger?'

Ovey smiled thinly. ‘As I said, Mr Alexander, the decision that you should return at once was made by the Government, not by me. I am only the messenger, so to speak. We have a substantial number of British subjects in Argentina at any given time, and this moment is no exception. We shall give assistance to all of them in getting home as, and when, they must, or wish to do so, but I assure you that we do not have the resources to offer all of them protection, or fight for berths for them on every steamer leaving Buenos Aires. This is an arrangement we are making in your case on express instructions from London.'

Hugh nodded slowly. ‘May we know why?'

‘I have instructions to explain exactly why,' the Ambassador replied at once. ‘That is why we are in a hopefully secure room. Before I do, you all need to sign a form for me.'

He gestured to the young man, who took off his headphones and picked up a small pile of papers from the top of the sideboard. He gave us each one form.

‘You will get used to signing these before long,' Ovey said. ‘You will be doing it quite regularly from now on, I expect. Read it through, please. All it says is that you agree to keep what you are about to hear secret, on pain of being prosecuted. Take it seriously. The consequences of being prosecuted are serious enough in peacetime. I imagine they become considerably more serious in time of war.'

‘The Government,' the Ambassador continued, as the young man collected our signed forms, ‘is about to set up a centre dedicated to breaking enemy codes. It is believed that the ability to penetrate the enemy's communications without their knowing may be a vital factor in securing a quick victory. This cannot be done without men who have the necessary abilities. The Government has been advised that certain people, including mathematicians and chess players, are more likely to have those abilities than others, and they are keen to recruit men with those abilities without delay. So the Embassy has instructions to deliver Mr Alexander, Mr Golombek and Mr Milner-Barry to England as promptly as possible.'

‘Where is the centre to be situated?' Stuart asked.

‘Sorry, I can't answer that,' Ovey replied. ‘If you have any objections to the Government's plans for you, you will have to take it up with them when you get back, I'm afraid. Not my department. My job is just to get you there safely. Your contact at Southampton will give you further instructions.'

Then Ovey looked at me.

‘The Government also has plans for you, Sir James, but they are slightly different. You speak fluent German, I believe?'

‘Yes,' I replied.

He nodded. ‘I am sure that has something to do with it. Your contact at Southampton will put you in touch with the Special Intelligence Service.'

‘MI6?' I asked, surprised.

‘The very same,' Ovey replied. ‘I don't know exactly what the arrangements are, but you will be meeting a man called Burgess.'

‘Burgess?' I fairly gasped. I stared at the Ambassador for several seconds. ‘Not Guy Burgess, by any chance?'

I do not know why I should have made that connection. I knew Guy had left the BBC, but it had been some time since I had bumped into him at the Reform, and I did not know what he had been doing since. Guy was an officer of MI6? In so many ways the thought was ridiculous. Yet Donald was in the Foreign Office, so in a strange way everything seemed possible.

‘Yes,' Ovey replied. ‘Do you know him? Well, anyway, he is in charge of some new group called Section D. God alone knows what they get up to, but I am sure Burgess will tell you all about it himself.'