Breaker Morant Page #7

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

are committed by normal men

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.

You might still do a couple of years.

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