Breaker Morant Page #7
- PG
- Year:
- 1980
- 107 min
- 1,376 Views
after the Reverend Hesse?
-I went visiting.
-Visiting?
Who could you possibly have visited?
I went to the farms
owned by the Shielses and the Vanderbergs.
-Why? Who was at these farms?
-Nobody.
I knew the ladies, sir.
And they received you
into their homes alone?
I was quite well known to them.
You mean to tell me
you were on intimate terms
with two Boer ladies?
Yeah, you could put it that way.
Where were the husbands?
One's a prisoner of war
and the other's with the Boer commandos.
I was checking if they were all right.
-Handcock!
-Good day.
Pretty glad to see me?
You spent the full afternoon
at these ladies' homes?
My oath. It was about 5:00
when l got to the Shiels' place.
Good day, Mrs. Shiels, here you go.
I'll just have a cup of coffee.
I'm tired, I've been riding all day.
Okay, you talked me into it.
I would like to present the court
with written depositions
from both the ladies in question.
Lieutenant Handcock, what does
Mrs. Vanderberg mean by "entertain"?
Did you sing to her?
Sir, you can appreciate that these ladies'
reputations are in a vulnerable position
and as these letters confirm
Lieutenant Handcock's whereabouts
on the day in question,
could they not forgo the embarrassment
of actually appearing in court?
-Major Bolton?
-I have no objection, sir.
I must say I find this sort of behavior
from a soldier in the British Army
morally disgraceful.
These were married women.
They say
a slice off a cut loaf is never missed.
Lieutenant Handcock's
personal morality is not on trial, sir.
Regrettably.
Who do you think did kill the missionary?
Me.
What about your lady friends?
That was later.
-Does Major Thomas know?
-No.
And he's not going to.
But we've always told the truth.
Major Thomas has been pleading justifying
circumstances and now we're just lying!
We're lying?
What about them?
It's no bloody secret our graves were dug
the day they arrested us at Fort Edward.
Yeah, but killing a missionary, Peter.
It's a new kind of war, George.
It's a new war for a new century.
I suppose this is the first time
the enemy hasn't been in uniform.
They're farmers.
They're people from small towns.
They shoot at us from houses
and from paddocks.
Some of them are women, some of them
are children, and some of them
are missionaries, George.
-That minister was talking to the prisoners.
-I know.
I'm damn certain that Hesse was the one
who led Simon Hunt into that trap.
-Now he tells me he's off to Leydsdorp.
-Leydsdorp?
Anything can happen
on the way to Leydsdorp.
The main fact of this case,
that Boer prisoners were executed,
has never been denied by the defense.
However,
I feel that that there is no evidence
at all for bringing charges
against Lieutenant Witton.
A junior officer
who had no reason to question
the instructions of his superiors.
And his only crime
was that he shot a Boer
in self-defense.
And further,
no one denies the admirable
fighting qualities of the Boers,
nor, in general,
their sense of honor.
However,
those Boers fighting
in the Northern Transvaal
in commando groups
are outlaws, renegades.
Often without
any recognized form of control.
Addicted to the wrecking of trains,
the looting of farms.
Lord Kitchener himself
recognized the unorthodox nature
of this warfare
when he formed a special squad
to deal with it.
The Bushveldt Carbineers.
Now, when the rules and customs of war
are departed from by one side,
one must expect the same sort of behavior
from the other.
Accordingly, officers of the Carbineers
should be,
and up until now, have been,
given the widest possible discretion
in their treatment of the enemy.
Now I don't ask
for proclamations condoning
distasteful methods of war.
But I do say
that we must take for granted
that it does happen.
Let's not give our officers hazy,
vague instructions
about what they may and may not do.
Let's not
reprimand them on the one hand
for hampering the column with prisoners,
and at another time
and another place,
haul them up
as murderers
for obeying orders.
Lieutenant Morant shot no prisoners
before the death of Captain Hunt.
He then changed a good deal
and adopted the sternest possible measures
against the enemy.
Yet there is no evidence to suggest
that Lieutenant Morant has
an intrinsically barbarous nature.
On the contrary.
The fact of the matter is
that war changes men's natures.
The barbarities of war
are seldom committed by abnormal men.
The tragedy of war is
that these horrors
in abnormal situations.
Situations in which
the ebb and flow of everyday life
have departed
and have been replaced
by a constant round of fear
and anger and blood and death.
Soldiers at war
are not to be judged by civilian rules.
As the prosecution
is attempting to do.
Even though they commit acts,
which, calmly viewed afterwards,
could only be seen
as unchristian and brutal.
And if in every war,
particularly guerilla war,
all the men who committed reprisals
were to be charged and tried
as murderers,
court-martials like this one
would be in permanent session.
Would they not?
I say
that we cannot hope to judge such matters
unless we ourselves
have been submitted to the same pressures,
the same provocations
as these men
whose actions are on trial.
Steady, don't spill a drop.
Thank you.
To Bushveldt Carbineers,
-the best fighters in a bad cause.
-Bloody hell.
-Where the hell did you get this from?
-One of the jock guards.
-What do you mean, a bad cause?
-I thought we cleared up all their stills.
Sorry.
The bad cause was the Boer War, you know.
Half a million men
fighting a few thousand farmers.
Every bugger we kicked
out of the Carbineers came down...
You volunteered.
You can't always choose which side
you're going to fight on, can you?
And these days it's so very easy
to be on the wrong side.
Especially if you leave Australia
one step ahead of the debt collectors.
Watch your language.
"When a man hath no freedom
to fight for at home
"Let him combat for that of his neighbors
"Let him think of the glories
of Greece and Rome
"And get knock'd on the head for his labors
"To do good to mankind
is the chivalrous plan
"And is always as nobly requited
"Then battle for freedom wherever you can
"And, if not shot or hang'd
"you'll get knighted"
You write that, Harry?
No, it was a minor poet called Byron.
-Never heard of him.
-Like I said, he was a minor poet.
I know some good poems, too.
That surprised you, didn't it?
"There once was a man from Australia
"Who painted his arse like a dahlia
"The color was fine, likewise the design
"But the aroma, that was a failure"
Champagne from two of the court members.
You've been officially acquitted
on the Hesse case.
You beauty!
That's it, Harry. Why don't you
leave the dust around Bathurst!
Don't get too carried away.
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"Breaker Morant" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/breaker_morant_3352>.
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