UNDERGRADUATE PAGE

Campione Del Mondo

By JULIAN BULLARD (Magdalen College, Oxford)

WE tramped into San Sepolcro, Giles and I, about five o'clock on a broiling September afternoon, and made, as usual, straight for the pump. It seemed, as we walked through it, a typical Umbrian town, not on a hilltop, but walled and gated, with messy plaster facades and narrow flagged streets that were either all road or all pavement, according to whether you were a motor-cyclist or a pedestrian. We found the pump, drank, and then tossed for who should go and look at alberghi. Giles lost, and I sat on a step in the shade, guarding the rucksacks and trying with the usual lack of success. to out- stare the passers-by. Not that there were many of them ; indeed, the town seemed strangely empty and quiet, except for an inter- mittent shouting and thumping in some distant street. Before long Giles was back, looking oddly excited. " I've found a hotel," he said, " and there's a crossbow competition going on in the piazza. That's what all the shouting is about." We left our rucksacks at the hotel, securing the usual reduction for self-confessed paupers, and followed the noise in the direction of the piazza.

It was a crossbow competition. The great bolts were twanging out of a shadowy colonnade through sixty yards of sunlight, and thumping into a rough target hung on the wall of the Post Office, where an old man, with vociferous precautions for his own safety, was clawing them out with a huge pair of pincers. His anxiety was not surprising, for the arrows, though not sharp, were flying with tremendous power. One of many wild shots—the marksman- ship was erratic—struck an iron plate on the wall, passed right through it and dug itself into the mortar. Another hit the top corner of the protective planking that surrounded the target, and brought the whole thing crashing down. While the old man struggled to rig it up again with wedges and a mallet, Giles and I walked over to the colonnade.

Firing, we saw, was not a simple business. You cocked your bow, holding it down with one foot and winding up the great string, like the lowest on a double-bass, with a kind of cranking-handle. Then you sat astride a wooden bench, the bow resting on a higher trestle in front. Your friends laid the heavy bolt in its grooVe, iron- tipped and two-feathered ; you took what aim you could through the pair of rough peep-sights ; you clutched the stock of the weapon ; you worked the great trigger with your thumbs, and away went the bolt. It seemed miraculous that the target should ever be hit at all.

Of the noisy mob in the colonnade, perhaps thirty were com- petitors—a very diverse lot. There was the schoolmaster, small and nervous, with long, lank hair, bad teeth and thick spectacles ; one shot of his flopped dismally along the ground, and he cowered as the others derisively beat him over the head with their spare arrows. There was the blacksmith, a monster in a grubby singlet. There was a single mysterious girl, very pretty, but already tending towards the native fatness, who fired a shot or two with an abandon that no one else seemed to share, and who must, we decided, be Miss San Sepolcro 1949. And there was the champion. This was a tall, well-dressed, baldish man, whose lofty forehead wore the slight frown of ineffable superiority, and who moved through the excited crowd in dignified silence, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. While we watched, he fired twice and scored two bulls. The crowd cheered hysterically, but the champion's face never twitched.

We turned to the nearest of the staring children and began to ask what it was all about, answering their own questions with the fluency of long practice. The sport, the boy said, was called Bakstra, and this was the annual competition. (No, we were not Germans, but English.) As far as he knew, it was not found any- where else in Italy. (Yes, we had come quite a long way. How ? On foot.) In a few minutes it would be over, and the new, champion ,declared. (Yes, we know there are buses, but we like walking.)

The old champion ? Gozzi, that bald man over there—but we did not need to follow his pointing finger.

There was a halt in the firing while the schoolmaster did calcula- tions in a child's notebook, then read out half a dozen names, of which Gozzi's was one. This was the deciding round. A new target was brought out ; instead of a normal bullseye, it had a two-foot wooden cylinder projecting towards the firing-point, its near surface a fresh and brilliant white. There was to be no arguing over bulls in this round. The finalists used the newer and more solid df the two bow-rests ; Miss San Sepolcro 1949 still sat at the other, but no one had eyes for her. The great crowd fastened its attention on the successful six, and shouted louder than ever.

The light by now was failing every minute. In an atmosphere of electric tension, the first two fired—on the target, but not in the bull. Then the blacksmith, his enormous frame sweating with concentration, placed his bolt in the geometrical centre of the white ring. There was a wild shout, and I saw the champion's eyebrows flicker ever so slightly. Two more moderate shots, and then it was Gozzi's turn. He gave his cigarette to one eager friend and allowed another to cock his own personal bow, patterned in gun-metal like an old duelling-pistol, to lay it in place and fit the bolt to the string. The noble forehead slightly creased, he sat and peered through the crazy sights. A total silence settled on the crowd, and

a distant horn on the main road seemed obscenely loud. Then a

head moved in front and shut out my view. Simultaneously a bolt flew out into the sunlight—a miserable, wobbling bolt, that drooped in mid-flight and clattered along the flags. It was a horrible moment.

My heart sagged, and there was a stifled sob behind me. Then the head in front moved aside, and I saw the champion still seated at one trestle, while by the other stood Miss San Sepolcro 1949, her bolt gone and her cheeks red with shame. The champion let out his breath with a sigh, and took fresh aim. A pink cloud passed

over the sinking sun, and the white circle sixty yards away shone more dimly. Then he fired. His shot—I record it, though I shall not be believed—split the blacksmith's bolt precisely in two. The champion nodded slightly, and was at once engulfed as the crowd broke up, gesturing, laughing, embracing, shouting: "Viva Cozzi! Campione della Balestra! Canzpione del mondo! " Only two diminutive policemen stood firm, twitching at our trouser-legs and demanding documents of identity. Dazed, we produced passports. For Italians, they were an unemotional pair.

That night, in the hotel which we had chosen, the Crossbow Club held its annual dinner. The feast began at eight o'clock, and at about eleven we returned from our tour of the cafés, warm with

strega. to find the guests on their way out. All the familiar faces were there—all, that is, except Miss San Sepolcro 1949, who had wisely stayed away. The schoolmaster's friends, for no good

reason that we could see, were beating him over the head with table- napkins. The blacksmith, in a clean singlet, was being moun-

tainously playful with the fat padrona. As for the champion, he

moved majestically towards the door, the mob dividing at his approach. On the great brow, its furrows infinitesimally relaxed,

quivered a single bead of sweat. At the threshold he paused, nodded a single comprehensive nod, then stalked away into the sultry night. At his heels trooped and gambolled the blacksmith, the schoolmaster and all the rest of them, their cries growing fainter and fainter as they vanished down the narrow street : " Gozzi! Gozzi-i-i! Campion della Balestra-a-a! Campione del znondo-o-o! " The title was never better deserved.