The English Patient Page #18

Hana stands holding the flare. She can't see Kip, can only hear him

scrambling.

HANA:

Kip?

He runs up the sandbags, right up into the rafters. He collects the

other end of the rope which is attached to Hana. Holding onto it, he

just STEPS OFF INTO THE DARKNESS.

SIMULTANEOUSLY HANA IS SWUNG UP INTO THE AIR, her startled yelp echoing

around the Church. Kip touches ground, while Hana swings through

space, coming to rest about three feet from the FRESCOED WALLS, painted

by Piero Della Francesca. Hana's flare makes a halo around her head.

Now Kip, on the ground, still holding the rope, walks forward and

causes Hana to SWING to the right. She lets out a giddy laugh,

exhilarated and nervous, and she flies, illuminating - en passant -

faces, bodies, angels. Kip guides the rope as if they were making

love, which in a way they are.

Hana arrives, hovering, in front of THE QUEEN OF SHEBA TALKING TO

SOLOMON. She's overwhelmed. She reaches out to touch the giant neck of

the sad Queen.

Kip slowly lets her down, paying out the length of the rope. Hana's

face is full of tears. He smiles, holds her.

140INT. THE PATIENT'S ROOM. EVENING.

Caravaggio is with the Patient. He sits in the window. Fiddles with

the bandages of his hands.

THE PATIENT:

There was a general who wore a patch

over a perfectly good eye. The men

fought harder for him. Sometimes I

think I could get up and dance.

What's under your bandages?

Caravaggio goes to him, holding out his hands, the bandage ends

trailing.

CARAVAGGIO:

Hold the ends.

The Patient holds them. Caravaggio walks backwards, the bandages

unraveling and unraveling.

141*.INT. TOBRUK. BRITISH HEADQUARTERS. JUNE 1942. DAY.

Caravaggio, thumbs intact and wearing a crumpled linen suit, walks

through the mangled corridors of British HQ. Smoke is rising from

buildings, the ominous scream of Stuka dive-bombers in the distance as

the harbor is pounded, the steady thud of explosions. TOBRUK IS UNDER

SIEGE. BHQ is a place in the throws of dismantling itself.

SECRETARIES are visiting braziers manned by ARAB BOYS who stoke the

fires as boxes of papers are fed into them. ASHES hover in the air.

142*.INT. BHQ. TOBRUK. DAY.

Caravaggio walks through a large room crowded with desks. From one of

them, a young woman, AICHA, kisses him, frowning at the chaos and the

shelling.

AICHA:

He's waiting for you.

Some doors are open, revealing men and women in uniform urgently

SHREDDING DOCUMENTS. Caravaggio knocks at an office whose door is ajar

and where the incumbent, FENELON-BARNES, is stripping the room of his

personal possessions- photographs, stone branches, a cricket bat.

142a*.INT. FENELON-BARNES OFFICE. BHQ. TOBRUK. DAY.

Caravaggio enters.

FENELON-BARNES

(barely looking up)

What a bloody flap, eh? I heard from

Alexandria this morning - apparently

no-one there is accepting British pounds.

And if you pick up a telephone

everybody's practicing their German.

(holds up some gramophone records)

What do you do - do you take these

things?

(then, awkward)

Look, Moose, we need you to stay in

Tobruk. A bit of a short straw but

the thinking is we'll be back - I mean,

we will be back - but...and in the

interim we need eyes and ears on

the ground.

A BIG BOMB lands nearby. The building shudders and plaster dust drops

from the ceiling. Almost oblivious, the two men head out of the

office. Fenelon-Barnes lugs the TRUNK last glimpsed in his tent by

Alm�sy, until Caravaggio takes over.

143*.INT. CORRIDOR OF BRITISH HEADQUARTERS. TOBRUK. DAY.

Fenelon-Barnes and Caravaggio make their way down the stairs and to the

entrance.

CARAVAGGIO:

We have 30, 000 troops in Tobruk.

What are they going to be doing?

FENELON-BARNES

(continuing to pack)

Giving Rommel a bloody nose. That's

my suggestion. But did you hear

the BBC last nigh? Tobruk is of no

strategic importance - makes you wonder.

AICHA is at the bottom of the stairs. She falls into step.

FENELON-BARNES

Jerry's got our maps you know. Swines.

Before the war we helped them run about

the desert making maps - and now they

get spies into Cairo using our maps, they'll

get Rommel into Cairo using our maps.

The whole of the desert like a bus route

and we gave it to them. Any foreigner who

turned up - welcome to the Royal Geographic,

take our maps. Madox went mad, you know -

you knew Peter Madox? - after he found

out he'd been betrayed by his friend.

Absolutely destroyed the poor sod. Shot

himself in a church in Dorset.

Caravaggio opens the door, Fenelon-Barnes goes through.

144*.EXT. BRITISH HEADQUARTERS. TOBRUK. DAY.

The Fenelon-Barnes trunk is taken from Caravaggio and joins the pile of

luggage and artifacts, which wait to be shipped out.

FENELON-BARNES

I'd like to get that bastard Alm�sy -

settle the score, eh? That's my

fantasy - said he, clearing out.

Must have been a spy all along.

145DELETED.

146*.EXT. TOBRUK DOCKSIDE. DAY.

A GERMAN TROOP CARRIER rumbles forward passing a line of BEDRAGGLED

BRITISH POWS as they're marched along the side of harbor.

146a*. EXT. TOBRUK RUINED QUARTER. DAY.

A HILL OF SALVAGED ARMY BOOTS is being explored by a couple of GERMAN

SOLDIERS in search of better footwear. Below them the POWS trudge by,

one of them barefoot. ONE OF THE GERMANS tosses down a pair of boots

then continues his own perusal.

146b*. EXT. TOBRUK SQUARE. DAY.

A crowd of Tobruk CIVILIANS - French and Italians among the MOSTLY ARAB

FACES. Their papers are being thoroughly checked by officers sitting

at open desks. IN A LINE, WEARING HIS SHABBY SUIT, IS CARAVAGGIO. AN

ARAB WOMAN in front of him is arguing over the identity of her

ominously CAUCASIAN-LOOKING CHILD. An INTERPRETER mediates. The

OFFICER doesn't believe the woman. She's getting frantic at the

possibility of losing her child.

Suddenly there's a disturbance as a WOMAN is dragged along the line by

her hair. She's bloodied, and has been tortured, and it's hard to

recognize her as the pretty AICHA. She touches a couple of people in

the line. They're horrified. Soldiers pull them away. Caravaggio

doesn't look, stares straight ahead. An officer watches him AS HE

TURNS BRIEFLY AND HELPLESSLY OUT OF CONCERN FOR HER. THEIR EYES CATCH

FOR AN INSTANT AND THE OFFICER SEES IT.

CARAVAGGIO RUNS, bolts for cover, vaulting the rubble which blocks one

corner of the square. The CONGREGATION throws itself to the ground

until the square has only standing soldiers and a running man.

146c*. EXT. TOBRUK. INTERIOR OF RUINED BUILDING. DAY.

Shots pursue Caravaggio as he disappears behind the rubble, then bobs

up again as he darts inside a blasted building. He clambers up some

ruined stairs, heaves over the wall.

146d*. EXT. TOBRUK. FACADE OF RUINED BUILDING. DAY.

CARAVAGGIO grabs a metal bar on the facade of the building, from which

he hangs, looking for the next foothold. Soldiers appear along the top

of the building, shouting, rifles ready. AN OFFICER arrives and stops

the soldiers firing, and the others begin to laugh as Caravaggio hangs

from the bar fifteen feet above a balcony, slowly losing his strength.

Another SOLDIER waits for him in the balcony below. Now he starts to

laugh. Caravaggio hangs.

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