The second game went just the same way as the first, except that several curious onlookers had made our circle not just larger but also livelier. McConnor was gazing at the board as fixedly as if he intended to magnetize the chessmen by his will to win; I sensed that he would happily have given a thousand dollars for the joy of crying
»Checkmate!« to his cold, insensitive opponent. Curiously, something of his grimly excited determination passed unconsciously to us. Every single move was discussed far more passionately than before; one of us would keep holding the others back at the last moment before we united in giving the signal that brought Czentovic back to our table.
Slowly, we had reached the thirty-seventh move, and to our own astonishment were in a position that seemed surprisingly advantageous, for we had succeeded in bringing the pawn in file c to the penultimate square c2; we had only to move it to c1 to promote it to a new queen. We didn’t in fact feel particularly comfortable about this over-obvious chance; we all suspected that the advantage we appeared to have won must have been intentionally thrown out as bait by Czentovic, whose view of the situation ranged far wider. But despite intensive study and discussion among ourselves, we couldn’t see the concealed trick. Finally, as the agreed deadline approached, we decided to risk the move. McConnor had already put out his hand to the pawn to move it to the last square when he felt his arm abruptly taken, while someone whispered quietly and urgently, »For God’s sake, no!«
We all instinctively turned. A man of about forty-five, whose thin,
angular face I had already noticed on the promenade deck because of its strange, almost chalky pallor, must have joined us in the last few minutes as we were lending our entire attention to the problem. He quickly added, feeling our eyes on him, »If you make a queen now, he’ll take her at once with the bishop on c1, and you’ll counter with the knight. But meanwhile he’ll take his passed pawn to d7, endangering your rook, and even if you check him with the knight, you’ll lose after nine or ten moves. It’s almost the same combination as Alekhine used against Bogolyubov at the grand tournament in Pistyan in 1922.«
The surprised McConnor withdrew his hand from the piece, and stared in no less amazement than the rest of us at the man who had unexpectedly come to our aid like an angel from heaven. Someone who could work out a checkmate nine moves ahead must be an expert of the first rank, perhaps even a rival for the championship travelling to the same tournament, and his sudden arrival and intervention at this critical moment had something almost supernatural about it. McConnor was the first to pull himself together.
»What would you advise?« he whispered in agitation.
»I wouldn’t advance just yet, I’d take evasive action first! Above all, move the king out of danger from g8 to h7. That will probably make him attack the other flank, but you can parry the attack with rook c8 to c4; it will cost him two tempos, a pawn, and his advantage. Then it’s passed pawn against passed pawn, and if you defend properly you can draw with him. You can’t get anything better.« Yet again we were astonished. There was something bewildering about his precision as well as the speed of his calculations; it was as if he were reading the moves from the pages of a book. But anyway, the unexpected prospect of drawing our game against a grand-master thanks to his intervention was enchanting. We all moved aside to give him a clear view of the board. McConnor asked again,
»King g8 to h7, then?«
»Yes, yes! Evasive action, that’s the thing!« McConnor complied, and we tapped the glass.
Czentovic returned to our table with his usual regular tread, and took in the counter-move at a single glance. Then he moved the pawn from h2 to h4 on the king’s flank, just as our unknown helper had predicted. The man was already whispering urgently:
»Rook forward, rook forward, c8 to c4, then he’ll have to cover his pawn first. But that won’t help him! Ignore his passed pawn, move your knight d3 to e5, and the balance will be restored. Keep the pressure on, advance instead of defending!«
We didn’t understand what he meant. As far as we were concerned he might have been speaking Chinese. But once under his spell McConnor moved as he advised without stopping to think about it. We tapped the glass again to call Czentovic back. For the first time he did not decide on his next move at once, but looked at the board intently. Involuntarily, he drew his brows together. Then he made exactly the move that the stranger had predicted, and turned to walk away. But before he did so, something new and unexpected happened. Czentovic looked up and studied our ranks; he obviously wanted to find out who was putting up such energetic resistance all of a sudden.
From that moment on our excitement knew no bounds. Up till this moment we had played without any serious hope, but now the idea of breaking through Czentovic’s cold pride sent fire flying through all our veins. And our new friend had already told us the next move, so we were able—my fingers shook as I tapped the glass with the spoon—to call Czentovic back.
Now came our first triumph.
Czentovic, who until this point had made his moves standing, hesitated—hesitated and finally sat down.
He sat slowly and ponderously, but from the purely physical viewpoint the action cancelled out his condescending attitude towards us so far. We had forced him to come down to our level, at least in spatial terms. He thought for a long time, eyes lowered and intent on the board, so that you could hardly see his pupils under his dark lids, and in his meditations his mouth gradually dropped open, giving his round face a rather simple expression. Czentovic thought for several minutes, then made his move and stood up. And our friend was already whispering:
»Delaying tactics! Good thinking! But don’t fall for it. Force an exchange, you must force an exchange, and then we can get a draw and no god will be able to help him.«
McConnor did as he said. In the next few moves between the two of them—the rest of us had long since sunk to the status of mere extras—a back-and-forth procedure that meant nothing at all to us ensued. After about seven moves Czentovic thought for some time, then looked up and said, »Game drawn.«
For a moment there was total silence. We suddenly heard the sound of the waves and the jazz music playing in the saloon, we could hear every step on the promenade deck and the quiet, soft blowing of the wind as it came through the cracks around the portholes. We were hardly breathing; it had happened too suddenly, and all of us were left in shock by the improbable way in which this unknown had forced his will on the world champion, in a game that was half lost already. McConnor leaned back with a sudden movement, the breath he had been holding emerged audibly from his lips in a contented
»Ah!« Myself, I was watching Czentovic. It seemed to me that during the last few moves he had turned paler.
But he was good at keeping control over himself. He persisted in his apparently unruffled composure, and just asked in the most casual of tones, sweeping the chessmen off the board with a steady hand,
»Would you gentlemen care for a third game?« He asked the question purely objectively, purely as a matter of business. But the remarkable thing was that he had not been looking at McConnor, and instead had raised his eyes to gaze keenly straight at our saviour. Just as a horse recognizes a new and better rider by his firmer seat, he must have identified his true, genuine opponent during those last moves. Instinctively, we followed the direction of his eyes, and looked at the stranger in suspense. However, before he could think about it, let alone answer, McConnor in his ambitious excitement was triumphantly calling out to him, »Of course! But now you must play against him on your own! You against Czentovic!«
