Jayson Bend: Queen and Country Page #4

this soldier refused to go to Korea

after attending your lectures?

It may have been the freezing

conditions I warned them of, sir.

Wait outside, Sergeant.

You can forget the court martial.

He didn't seduce the man.

Didn't even flirt with him.

With respect, sir, did you not

find his answers subversive?

Of course he's up to no good.

But should we indict The Times,

the bible of the ruling class?

You'll have to ride this one out.

We have to charge the boy,

Private Kitto, for refusing an order.

Major, my advice would be to bury it.

Post Kitto to somewhere far away

and unpleasant.

The jungles of Malaya

or up against the Mau Mau in Kenya,

where he can get shot at

without troubling his conscience.

Case dismissed and a 48-hour pass.

Well, don't looked so chuffed.

It depresses me.

- Where are you going?

- That girl. I'm going to find her.

- You don't even know her name.

- I know her college in Oxford.

You're nuts.

We need to talk, Percy.

You can talk in front of Bill.

We're up sh*t creek, mate.

Disappointed in you, Redmond.

The ultimate Skiver.

I thought you'd relish this.

Skivers do not take on the Army, Percy,

not head-on, they don't.

They skin around it, duck under it.

You think you're a Skiver.

Well, skivers keep their head down.

You're not a Skiver, Percy.

This is not skiving.

This is like sticking your head up

over the trench without a helm et.

Give it back. You're both nuts.

- I may never come back.

- Yes, you will.

Because deep down,

or just below the surface,

you are a f***ing ninny.

Just put it back, Percy.

They'll find it.

No, they won't.

The f***ing RSM has me haunted.

He knows I done it.

No, he doesn't.

He's working me nuts off in the mess.

You've dropped me in it.

Just give it back, Percy.

I can't. It's gone. Gone forever.

The woman lies invitingly on the cushions.

The man looms over her,

his phallic pole

sliding through his fingers.

My family live on the Thames,

downstream at Shepperton.

I've been pulling punts

since I was nine years old.

Pity.

It was such an attractive metaphor, William.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

What would you like to do, later?

Everything. Nothing.

There's a film opened up called Rashomon.

Everyone's talking about it.

It's a Japanese director.

- Kurosawa.

- Yes.

And while we're on names, what is yours?

I keep meaning to ask.

I think you should name me, William,

seeing as you were clever enough to find me.

How about Ophelia?

Why?

Unhappily in love.

- Suicidal.

- Why do you say that?

Your eyes.

Oh.

- And have you come to save me?

- Of course.

It's brilliant. We're shown three versions

of the same event but each one different.

And which one's true? We don't know.

Completely original technique.

How can you be so passionate

about something so abstract?

In all the versions, there was one constant.

The woman was raped.

That's what the film was saying.

It can happen in different ways

but the woman is always raped.

- Were you ever?

- Raped?

No, not raped.

Seduced, conquered, possessed.

I gave up, gave myself up.

I despise him

but my body does not, it seems.

Stroke.

Stroke.

Stroke.

You let Bill see.

Through the window.

That's different.

God. It's so tedious having to go

through all these steps and stages.

Hand on bra. Bra off.

Hand on breast.

We're going to get there in the end.

Why delay it

with all this phoney resistance?

- Okay, let's do it.

- Good. When?

Now.

- Right now?

- If you like.

Here... Here in the open,

in the broad daylight?

Why not?

You've never done it, have you?

Course I have.

How many times?

Uh...

I lost count.

Excuse me.

Percy.

What is it, Percy?

I just saw a ghost.

Sorry, I can't.

Sorry it's such a mess

but so am I.

- Will he come?

- Yes.

Are you sure?

Yes.

Then we'll wait.

- Seducing a soldier?

- From the course of his duty.

Are you really going to kill this Bradley?

I know it sounds crazy sitting here.

But there, in that camp,

it feels normal, necessary.

Is there nothing good you can take from it?

- The Army?

- Yes.

I did my basic training with these boys,

from every walk of life.

We lived together in a barrack room

and the more they brutalised us

and broke us down,

the closer we got.

We felt each other's pain,

knew each other's thoughts.

None of us would ever admit it but

there was a lot of love in that room.

Love and laughter.

Well, one week,

it was the day before pay day

and we were broke.

There wasn't even a single cigarette

left between us.

When we got back from training that day,

one boy, Lionel Barker,

found a parcel waiting for him.

We all gathered round it because

we knew that whatever else was in it,

there would be a packet of cigarettes.

- Oh, no.

- What's that?

- Jam.

- Oh, sh*t.

- Oh.

- Oh, God, no.

Of the 20 of us,

I was the only one that didn't smoke.

Gentle.

Tweezers...

Give him your tweezers.

Lionel... Lionel...

- {soldier 2] Easy!

Yes!

Yes.

Like a surgeon at work.

Go on, that's it.

The cravings of those 19 boys

were so intense

that it somehow seeped into me,

by osmosis or something.

I think they're ready.

Come on, boys.

- Right, they're dry.

- Yes!

Come on.

Give us a light.

I who had never smoked,

was craving a fag dying for a cigarette.

So that was my first cigarette.

It was pink and swollen

and strawberry-flavoured.

- He hasn't turned up.

- He will.

Good.

You're very kind to do this for me, William.

I don't have the will to end it on my own.

I know what it's like with kind men.

You give,

console and offer oceans of sympathy.

And the girl soon finds

she has this great debt of goodness

that finally needs to be rewarded.

And you get what you wanted all along.

On the whole,

women prefer to be seized and taken,

not have their resistance worn down.

Oh, William, I do like you.

If I got my body back,

I would probably give it to you.

Send me a postcard when it happens.

Oh, please don't go, William.

I need your help.

William,

this is Paul, my tutor

I was telling you about.

Well, William, it's time for you to leave.

Paul! Stop!

Don't hurt him any more.

Oh, darling, oh.

Paul, I'm so sorry.

Are you all right?

Order! O-R-D-E-R.

You'll be typing like girls in no time.

What are you flouncing about, Henderson?

I'm still trying to type like a girl,

like you said, Sarge.

Are you a Nancy boy, Henderson?

No, Sarge, I'm not.

But I've f***ed a lot of boys who are.

- Well? What happened?

- I found her.

- The mysterious lady?

- Yes.

- Well, how was it?

- Eventful.

Come on, out with it.

I fell in love, got in a fight.

- Did you win?

- Won the fight, lost the girl.

I don't understand them.

- Women?

- Yes.

I mean, no, I don't.

Silence!

The new Hitchcock film opened

this week, Strangers on a Train.

These two guys

both have someone they want to kill.

Yes, they exchange victims.

That way each would have an alibi.

Exactly.

Now, if we could find someone

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes