Electronic Bookshelf/Electronic Bookshelf.iso/stories/3sailors.txt

Text File | 1994-12-22 | 18KB | 328 lines

                The Three Sailors' Gambit

                     by Lord Dunsany


Sitting some years ago in the ancient tavern at Over, one
afternoon in Spring, I was waiting, as was my custom, for
something strange to happen.  In this I was not always
disappointed for the very curious leaded panes of that
tavern, facing the sea, let a light into the low-ceilinged
room so mysterious, particularly at evening, that it somehow
seemed to affect the events within.  Be that as it may, I
have seen strange things in that tavern and heard stranger
things told.
   And as I sat there three sailors entered the tavern, just
back, as they said, from sea, and come with sunburned skins
from a very long voyage to the South; and one of them had a
board and chessmen under his arm, and they were complaining
that they could find no one who knew how to play chess.
This was the year that the Tournament was in England.  And a
little dark man at a table in a corner of the room, drinking
sugar and water, asked them why they wished to play chess;
and they said they would play any man for a pound.  They
opened their box of chessmen then, a cheap and nasty set,
and the man refused to play with such uncouth pieces, and
the sailors suggested that perhaps he could find better
ones; and in the end he went round to his lodgings near by
and brought his own, and then they sat down to play for a
pound a side.  It was a consultation game on the part of the
sailors, they said that all three must play.
   Well, the little dark man turned out to be Stavlokratz.
   Of course he was fabulously poor, and the sovereign meant
more to him than it did to the sailors, but he didn't seem
keen to play, it was the sailors that insisted; he had made
the badness of the sailors' chessmen an excuse for not
playing at all, but the sailors had over-ruled that, and
then he told them straight out who he was, and the sailors
had never heard of Stavlokratz.
   Well, no more was said after that.  Stavlokratz said no
more, either because he did not wish to boast or because he
was huffed that they did not know who he was.  And I saw no
reason to enlighten the sailors about him; if he took their
pound they had brought it upon themselves, and my boundless
admiration for his genius made me feel that he deserved
whatever might come his way.  He had not asked to play, they
had named the stakes, he had warned them, and gave them the
first move; there was nothing unfair about Stavlokratz.
   I had never seen Stavlokratz before, but I had played
over nearly every one of his games in the World Championship
for the last three or four years; he was always of course
the model chosen by students.  Only young chess-players can
appreciate my delight at seeing him play first hand.
   Well, the sailors used to lower their heads almost as low
as the table and mutter together before every move, but they
muttered so low that you could not hear what they planned.
   They lost three pawns almost straight off, then a knight,
and shortly after a bishop; they were playing in fact the
famous Three Sailors' Gambit.
   Stavlokratz was playing with the easy confidence that
they say was usual with him, when suddenly at about the
thirteenth move I saw him look surprised; he leaned forward
and looked at the board and then at the sailors, but he
learned nothing from their vacant faces; he looked back at
the board again.
   He moved more deliberately after that; the sailors lost
two more pawns, Stavlokratz had lost nothing as yet.  He
looked at me I thought almost irritably, as though something
would happen that he wished I was not there to see.  I
believed at first that he had qualms about taking the
sailors' pound, until it dawned on me that he might lose the
game; I saw that possibility in his face, not on the board,
for the game had become almost incomprehensible to me.  I
cannot describe my astonishment.  And a few moves later
Stavlokratz resigned.
   The sailors showed no more elation than if they had won
some game with greasy cards, playing amongst themselves.
   Stavlokratz asked them where they got their opening.  "We
kind of thought of it," said one.  "It just come into our
heads like," said another.  He asked them questions about
the ports they had touched at.  He evidently thought as I
did myself that they had learned their extraordinary gambit,
perhaps in some old dependancy of Spain, from some young
master of chess whose fame had not reached Europe.  He was
very eager to find out who this man could be, for neither of
us imagined that those sailors had invented it, nor would
anyone who had seen them.  But he got no information from
the sailors.
   Stavlokratz could very ill afford the loss of a pound.
He offered to play them again for the same stakes.  The
sailors began to set up the white pieces.  Stavlokratz
pointed out that it was his turn for the first move.  The
sailors agreed but continued to set up the white pieces and
sat with the white before them waiting for him to move.  It
was a trivial incident, but it revealed to Stavlokratz and
myself that none of these sailors was aware that white
always moves first.
   Stavlokratz played them on his own opening, reasoning of
course that as they had never heard of Stavlokratz they
would not know of his opening; and with probably a very good
hope of getting back his pound he played the fifth variation
with its tricky seventh move, at least so he intended, but
it turned to a variation unknown to the students of
Stavlokratz.
   Throughout this game I watched the sailors closely, and I
became sure, as only an attentive watcher can be, that the
one on their left, Jim Bunion, did not even know the moves.
   When I had made up my mind about this I watched only the
other two, Adam Bailey and Bill Sloggs, trying to make out
which was the master mind; and for a long while I could
not.  And then I heard Adam Bailey mutter six words, the
only words I heard throughout the game, of all their
consultations, "No, him with the horse's head."  And I
decided that Adam Bailey did not know what a knight was,
though of course he might have been explaining things to
Bill Sloggs, but it did not sound like that; so that left
Bill Sloggs.  I watched Bill Sloggs after that with a
certain wonder; he was no more intellectual than the others
to look at, though rather more forceful perhaps.  Poor old
Stavlokratz was beaten again.
   Well, in the end I paid for Stavlokratz, and tried to get
a game with Bill Sloggs alone, but this he would not agree
to, it must be all three or none: and then I went back with
Stavlokratz to his lodgings.  He very kindly gave me a game:
of course it did not last long but I am prouder of having
been beaten by Stavlokratz than of any game that I have ever
won.  And then we talked for an hour about the sailors, and
neither of us could make head or tail of them.  I told him
what I had noticed about Jim Bunion and Adam Bailey, and he
agreed with me that Bill Sloggs was the man, though as to
how he had come by that gambit or that variation of
Stavlokratz's own opening he had no theory.
   I had the sailors' address which was that tavern as much
as anywhere, and they were to be there all evening.  As
evening drew in I went back to the tavern, and found there
still the three sailors.  And I offered Bill Sloggs two
pounds for a game with him alone and he refused, but in the
end he played me for a drink.  And then I found that he had
not heard of the "en passant" rule, and believed that the
fact of checking the king prevented him from castling, and
did not know that a player can have two or more queens on
the board at the same time if he queens his pawns, or that a
pawn could ever become a knight; and he made as many of the
stock mistakes as he had time for in a short game, which I
won.  I thought that I should have got at the secret then,
but his mates who had sat scowling all the while in the
corner came up and interfered.  It was a breach of their
compact apparently for one to play by himself, at any rate
they seemed angry.  So I left the tavern then and came back
again next day, and the next day and the day after, and
often saw the sailors, but none were in a communicative
mood.  I had got Stavlokratz to keep away, and they could
get no one to play chess with at a pound a side, and I would
not play with them unless they told me the secret.
   And then one evening I found Jim Bunion drunk, yet not so
drunk as he wished, for the two pounds were spent; and I
gave him very nearly a tumbler of whiskey, or what passed
for whiskey in that tavern at Over, and he told me the
secret at once.  I had given the others some whiskey to keep
them quiet, and later on in the evening they must have gone
out, but Jim Bunion stayed with me by a little table leaning
across it and talking low, right into my face, his breath
smelling all the while of what passed for whiskey.
   The wind was blowing outside as it does on bad nights in
November, coming up with moans from the South, towards which
the tavern faced with all its leaded panes, so that none but
I was able to hear his voice as Jim Bunion gave up his
secret.
   They had sailed for years, he told me, with Bill Snyth;
and on their last voyage home Bill Snyth had died.  And he
was buried at sea.  Just the other side of the line they
buried him, and his pals divided his kit, and these three
got his crystal that only they knew he had, which Bill got
one night in Cuba.  They played chess with the crystal.
   And he was going on to tell me about that night in Cuba
when Bill had bought the crystal from the stranger, how some
folks might think they had seen thunderstorms, but let them
go and listen to that one that thundered in Cuba when Bill
was buying his crystal and they'd find that they didn't know
what thunder was.  But then I interrupted him, unfortunately
perhaps, for it broke the thread of his tale and set him
rambling a while, and cursing other people and talking of
other lands, China, Port Said and Spain: but I brought him
back to Cuba again in the end.  I asked him how they could
play chess with a crystal; and he said that you looked at
the board and looked at the crystal, and there was the game
in the crystal the same as it was on the board, with all the
odd little pieces looking just the same though smaller,
horses' heads and whatnots; and as soon as the other man
moved the move came out in the crystal, and then your move
appeared after it, and all you had to do was to make it on
the board.  If you didn't make the move that you saw in the
crystal things got very bad in it, everything horribly mixed
and moving about rapidly, and scowling and making the same
move over and over again, and the crystal getting cloudier
and cloudier; it was best to take one's eyes away from it
then, or one dreamt about it afterwards, and the foul little
pieces came and cursed you in your sleep and moved about all
night with their crooked moves.
   I thought then that, drunk though he was, he was not
telling the truth, and I promised to show him to people who
played chess all their lives so that he and his mates could
get a pound whenever they liked, and I promised not to
reveal his secret even to Stavlokratz, if only he would tell
me all the truth; and this promise I have kept till long
after the three sailors have lost their secret.  I told him
straight out that I did not believe in the crystal.  Well,
Jim Bunion leaned forward then, even further across the
table, and swore he had seen the man from whom Bill had
bought the crystal and that he was one to whom anything was
possible.  To begin with his hair was villainously dark, and
his features were unmistakable even down there in the South,
and he could play chess with his eyes shut, and even then he
could beat anyone in Cuba.  But there was more than this,
there was the bargain he made with Bill that told one who he
was.  He sold that crystal for Bill Snyth's soul.
   Jim Bunion leaning over the table with his breath in my
face nodded his head several times and was silent.
   I began to question him then.  Did they play chess as far
away as Cuba?  He said they all did.  Was it conceivable
that any man would make such a bargain as Snyth made?
Wasn't the trick well known?  Wasn't it in hundreds of
books?  And if he couldn't read books mustn't he have heard
from sailors that it is the Devil's commonest dodge to get
souls from silly people?
   Jim Bunion had leant back in his own chair quietly
smiling at my questions but when I mentioned silly people he
leaned forward again, and thrust his face close to mine and
asked me several times if I called Bill Snyth silly.  It
seemed that these three sailors thought a great deal of Bill
Snyth and it made Jim Bunion angry to hear anything said
against him.  I hastened to say that the bargain seemed
silly though not of course the man who made it; for the
sailor was almost threatening, and no wonder for the whiskey
in that dim tavern would madden a nun.
   When I said that the bargain seemed silly he smiled
again, and then he thundered his fist down on the table and
said that no one had ever yet got the best of Bill Snyth and
that that was the worst bargain for himself that the Devil
ever made, and that from all he had read or heard of the
Devil he had never been so badly had before as the night
when he met Bill Snyth at the inn in the thunderstorm in
Cuba, for Bill Snyth already had the damndest soul at sea;
Bill was a good fellow, but his soul was damned right
enough, so he got the crystal for nothing.
   Yes, he was there and saw it all himself, Bill Snyth in
the Spanish inn and the candles flaring, and the Devil
walking in and out of the rain, and then the bargain between
those two old hands, and the Devil going out into the
lightning, and the thunderstorm raging on, and Bill Snyth
sitting chuckling to himself between the bursts of the
thunder.
   But I had more questions to ask and interrupted this
reminiscence.  Why did they all three always play together?
And a look of something like fear came over Jim Bunion's
face; and at first he would not speak.  And then he said to
me that it was like this; they had not paid for that
crystal, but got it as their share of Bill Snyth's kit.  If
they had paid for it or given something in exchange to Bill
Snyth that would have been all right, but they couldn't do
that now because Bill was dead, and they were not sure if
the old bargain might not hold good.  And Hell must be a
large and lonely place, and to go there alone must be bad,
and so the three agreed that they would all stick together,
and use the crystal all three or not at all, unless one
died, and then the two would use it and the one that was
gone would wait for them.  And the last of the three to go
would take the crystal with him, or maybe the crystal would
bring him.  They didn't think, they said, they were the kind
of men for Heaven, and he hoped they knew their place better
than that, but they didn't fancy the notion of Hell alone,
if Hell it had to be.  It was all right for Bill Snyth, he
was afraid of nothing.  He had known perhaps five men that
were not afraid of death, but Bill Snyth was not afraid of
Hell.  He died with a smile on his face like a child in its
sleep; it was drink killed poor Bill Snyth.
   This was why I had beaten Bill Sloggs; Sloggs had the
crystal on him while we played, but would not use it; these
sailors seemed to fear loneliness as some people fear being
hurt; he was the only one of the three who could play chess
at all, he had learnt it in order to be able to answer
questions and keep up their pretence, but he had learnt it
badly, as I found.  I never saw the crystal, they never
showed it to anyone; but Jim Bunion told me that night that
it was about the size that the thick end of a hen's egg
would be if it were round.  And then he fell asleep.
   There were many more questions that I would have asked
him but I could not wake him up.  I even pulled the table
away so that he fell to the floor, but he slept on, and all
the tavern was dark but for one candle burning; and it was
then that I noticed for the first time that the other two
sailors had gone, no one remained at all but Jim Bunion and
I and the sinister barman of that curious inn, and he too
was asleep.
   When I saw that it was impossible to wake the sailor I
went out into the night.  Next day Jim Bunion would talk of
it no more; and when I went back to Stavlokratz I found him
already putting on paper his theory about the sailors, which
became accepted by chess-players, that one of them had been
taught their curious gambit and that the other two between
them had learnt all the defensive openings as well as
general play.  Though who taught them no one could say, in
spite of enquiries made afterwards all along the Southern
Pacific.
   I never learnt any more details from any of the three
sailors, they were always too drunk to speak or else not
drunk enough to be communicative.  I seem just to have taken
Jim Bunion at the flood.  But I kept my promise, it was I
that introduced them to the Tournament, and a pretty mess
they made of established reputations.  And so they kept on
for months, never losing a game and always playing for their
pound a side.  I used to follow them wherever they went
merely to watch their play.  They were more marvellous than
Stavlokratz even in his youth.
   But then they took to liberties such as giving their
queen when playing first-class players.  And in the end one
day when all three were drunk they played the best player in
England with only a row of pawns.  They won the game all
right.  But the ball broke to pieces.  I never smelt such a
stench in all my life.
   The three sailors took it stoically enough, they signed
on to different ships and went back again to the sea, and
the world of chess lost sight, for ever I trust, of the most
remarkable players it ever knew, who would have altogether
spoiled the game.