The bombardment seemed concentrated a good deal on this part of the town. Cockie went to observe. Then the plane came back and bombed us, circling across the town, after which the bombardment again opened. Square-Peg developed a spasmodic sprint of extraordinary alacrity every time anything happened or the plane gong rang out, and dressed downstairs. This proved such a nerve-racking ordeal that I proposed to have my tea in my room and then go below. The shells were thumping on the houses just behind us, and I took the precaution to shift over the thick wall side of the room which left just space enough for my servant Amir Bux to miss the doorway. Shell after shell struck the adjoining buildings, shaking our house considerably. Then suddenly there was an awful roar and splitting crash. The room was filled with smoke and dust and plaster, and a terrific thud shook the wall just behind my head. Two segments of shell had flown through the doorway and embedded themselves in the opposite wall. That excellent fellow Amir Bux suddenly asked, "Master thik hai?" And on my assuring him I was all right he pointed to the embedded segment and smiled, muttering "Kismet!" On inspection I found that a Windy Lizzie had crashed through the slender wall of the upper enclosure around the roof on which my room opened (there was no door), and about half the fore-end of the shell had struck the thick wall of my room a few inches behind my head and had gone halfway through the plaster. Another foot and it would have got my scalp precisely.
The show kept on intermittently until 8.30 a.m. The horse lines and hospital have again caught it rather badly. One shell passed under a patient's bed in the General Hospital and exploded on the far wall without hurting anybody. There is not any backward zone worth mentioning in some of these shells. High explosive would have been a different story.
9 p.m.—A few more shells fell this evening. We hear that after all the plane did bomb last night and altogether made a most daring raid. We must give Fritz full marks for excellent bombing. He attended chiefly to Woolpress village over the river. More serious was the damage done by the same plane to the 4·7-inch guns in the horse boats—a very small target. One barge was almost sunk, being suspended by her cables only, and the other gun was jerked out of its socket by the force of the explosion. It appears the bomb touched the edge of the horse boat and fell into the river, exploding under the water. The result was a deluge that heaved the gun out of its pedestal. Reports from Woolpress say he flew within thirty yards of the barges, which for a night performance was highly commendable. Fritz is a German. He had hard luck in not getting one gun at least. We contemplate painting in large letters on the roof of the Serai, our condolences over his bad luck. Tudway is busy towing the barge to the Sumana shelter where it is to be repaired.
Cockie is a first-rate chess player, at least so he has repeatedly informed us. He knows the whole history of Ruy Lopez even to his private affairs, and can at any stage of any game tell you the exact measurement of the sphere for evil of any piece on the board. He does not finger his piece and wave it in mid-air before moving as do smaller fry at the game. Neither does he hesitate for four minutes ever. Attacks, counter-attacks, demonstrations, feints, holding and flanking—he is an artist at them all. At every exchange he gets an advantage in pieces—or position. "Position," he assures us, "is the all in all." He can even nominate the moves without looking at the board. In short, if he did not invariably get beaten, he would be a perfect player, and even Lasker would have to look out. Square-Peg once brilliantly remarked that this tendency to get beaten was the tragedy of it all, but with infinitely more tact, at least to my mind, I added that Cockie was merely a great player and not infallible; in other words, that there were limitations in us all. This Cockie said he denied. And I agreed.
That may seem illogical. But it was necessary. If to beat Cockie is a misdemeanour, then to allude to the fact is certainly a crime—in his eyes. Besides, he isn't invariably beaten, as I have said. That was a mis-statement. For when he has made a bad slip or, let us say, paid too big a price for "position," such as losing his queen for a bishop or maybe a pawn, he frequently goes very red in the face and knocks all the pieces from the board on to the floor, which shows he has the foreseeing eye, a faculty absolutely necessary to a first-rate chess player. Maeterlinck, we are told, has the seeing eye. How much greater, then, is Cockie, who has the foreseeing eye? If, thinks Cockie, it is not always the province of man to anticipate disaster, he can at least forestall it.
"I had the game on my head," Cockie usually bursts out as he sweeps the board. "And it wasn't lost either, don't forget—but the interest in it had all gone."
He did the same the first time he played me when he showed me a new opening—about three moves. He got a piece or two ahead, when after an hour or so I evened things up. Then he made his invariable slip, and before one could strike a match Cockie had the board clean as a skating rink, remarking hotly, "When I play against myself I'm always beaten."
"Thank your God, Cockie," I retorted, "then you admit some one can beat you." Which remark somehow or other he didn't appreciate.
However, since then I'm more awake, and when, which is not often, I bag his queen, or when, which is very often, he makes a slip, my arms are around the board before you could smile. It's the only way to keep the men on. If we were in America I should practise "getting the drop on him with a Colt's revolver" at each crisis.
Poor Square-Peg came to me in trouble on this point the other day.