Hugh Carey and Raymond Decker met when HC was 15 and RD was 19. HC was from Edinburgh. He had told his teacher he wanted to apply to Oxford and the teacher had told him to wait, & HC thought—but that’s stupid, if I get in at 15 people will always say He got into Oxford when he was 15. So he wrote independently to Merton to apply to take the exam, & he went down to take the exam.
RD was largely self-taught.
RD had read Plato’s Gorgias even before he came up, and being the type to take things to heart he had taken it to heart. In the Phaedrus the rhetorician Gorgias is said to boast that he can give a long or short answer to any question, and in the Gorgias he says that when it comes to giving short answers he is unsurpassed. Socrates, on the other hand, knows only one way to answer a question, some questions can be answered with one word and others may take five thousand, and the philosopher, unlike the rhetorician or the politician, will take as long as he needs. This placed RD in a terrible dilemma. He had bought copies of past papers from the University Press & now he paced up and down declaiming to HC: All the interesting questions require a minimum of three hours apiece to answer and the rest are so stupid it is impossible to say anything intelligent about them, how can you make an intelligent reply to a stupid question? And he would tear his hair and say What am I to do?
HC was surprised. He had done 13 O-levels because he had heard the most anyone had ever done before was 12, and he had done them at the age of 12 because he had heard when he was 9 that the youngest anyone had ever done more than 5 was 13 & he had instantly decided to beat the record.
He said: Well what did you do for A-level?
RD: I don’t want to talk about it.
HC: Well what about O-level?
RD: I don’t want to talk about it.
HC: Well surely you must have taken some exam.
RD: Of course I’ve taken an exam. It was horrible. Full of questions about long division. I don’t want to talk about it.
Long division? said HC.
RD: I don’t want to TALK about it. And he paced up and down the common room making further anguished references to the Gorgias crying What am I to do?
HC said: Do you play chess?
What? said RD.
And HC said: Do you play chess?
And RD said: Of course.
And HC said Let’s play a game. He took out from one pocket a pocket chess set, and from his other pocket he took out a chess clock which he took with him wherever he went. It was the night before the first exam, and he had been planning to go over the chorus to Zeus of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. He set out the board. RD was white.
HC set the timer & he said: 20 minute game.
And RD said: I don’t play that way.
HC: 10 minutes each.
And RD said: But that’s stupid.
HC: I don’t have time to play longer. I need to look at the chorus to Zeus.
RD: P-K4.
HC: P-QB4.
RD knew many responses to the Sicilian Defence but the question was what could be developed in the time available, still pondering this question he had not even moved his knight to KB3 when the timer went off, he moved his knight now to KB3 and HC said:
Sorry. Game’s over.
RD was furious & he started to argue but in the meantime HC had moved all the pieces back and turned the clock back & this time HC was white.
HC: P-K4.
RD liked the Sicilian Defence himself but debating inwardly the merits in the time allowed of the Najdorf Variation, the Scheveningen (which he generally preferred), the Nimzowitsch & others too numerous to mention he nearly made the same mistake, suddenly pulling himself together (P-QB4) he managed to make 10 moves before falling again into deep thought interrupted only by the timer.
He reached his 10th move & the timer went off before he had moved a piece & HC said game’s over and moved the pieces back again and started the clock.
By now RD was really furious. HC was only 15 and looked young for his age. RD make his first move and HC made his and this time RD made a move the instant it was his turn and HC won in 25 moves.
RD put the pieces back. HC said he had to read the Agamemnon. RD said This won’t take long. He was black. This time he played the defence he knew the best, and he played a version of a middle game he had read in Keres & Kotov, and the end played itself.
He said: Checkmate. And he said: I know what you think you’re doing, but it’s stupid. It’s not the same.
And HC said: It’s a game. It’s a stupid game. Opening, middle game, endgame, opening, middle game, endgame, opening middle game endgame. Let’s set the clock to 5 minutes.
RD said: It’s not the same.
HC said: 10 minute game.
HC set out the pieces and he started the clock. They played 5 games and RD won 4.
RD said: It’s not the same.
They played until 2:00 in the morning. RD kept saying It’s not the same, but he was laughing now because he was winning most of the time. You are probably thinking that HC was letting him win but he wasn’t. HC had none of the Socratic scruples that plagued RD, but he carried sportsmanship to so fanatical an extreme that it had a very similar effect; he knew he would have no real competition if RD was not there, & left to his own devices & composing Socratic answers to Gorgianic questions RD was certainly not going to be there. So even though he could hardly keep his eyes open he said to RD: Don’t think of arguments. Look at a question and say: Queen’s Indian. Sicilian Defence.
RD thought this was ridiculous but no sooner had he dismissed it as ridiculous than it suddenly seemed to him, as a matter of fact, that you actually could start a discussion of the influence of Homer on Virgil using the Sicilian Defence.
Ruy Lopez, said HC, pursuing his advantage.
RD: Ruy LOPEZ! How can I POSSIBLY use the Ruy LOPEZ?
HC hesitated—
RD: If they set the question they are OBVIOUSLY, ALWAYS white.
& he was again briefly plunged into despair.
HC: Black to win in 4 moves. Two knights & a rook, checkmate in 6.
No, said RD, and he stood up and wrapped his arms around his head in a pretzel formation. He paced up and down & at last he said: Yes. NOW I see. He said: You don’t actually ARGUE all the way THROUGH you decide the endgame you want to play you incorporate an opening which might lead to it by REFERENCE as it might be Black played an unusual version of the Queen’s Indian you incorporate the middle game largely by REFERENCE—
Whether this really is what you do or not RD did get in under the impression that you did and get a scholarship on the strength of [opening] [middle game] endgame, and he and HC were friends & rivals. HC made him go in for prizes because if he won a prize RD had not gone in for it would not really count, & every time he had to play chess with RD to counterbalance the hold Socrates had regained on his mind in the meantime.
From The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
