- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: We're on a first name basis in this regiment. Your first name is Derek. My first name is Major.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Whisky for the gentlemen that like it. And for the gentlemen that don't like it: whisky.
- [while watching the pipers practice, Barrow notes that some of the men are not wearing the proper caps]
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Colonel, there's a tradition here...
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: I'm all in favor of good tradition.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: I've always let the pipers wear pretty well what they please at band practice.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: Because you've let them wear what they like just doesn't make it a tradition!
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: [about Barrow's death] It's not the body worries me. It's the ghost.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: Do you really think I made it for my popularity? Do you really think that's why I made this decision?
- Major Charles Scott, M.C.: My dear Colonel, we didn't know that you'd made any decision.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: But... you must have heard that the matter's not to go to Brigade.
- Major Charles Scott, M.C.: Yes, we heard that.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: Well?
- Major Charles Scott, M.C.: We thought that was Jock's decision. My dear fellow, we didn't even realize you were there.
- Major 'Dusty' Miller: [getting dressed hurriedly for dance lessons] Hand me my kilt of burning gold. Where are my plimsolls of desire? It's cruelty, that's what it is, cruelty. Margot Fonteyn couldn't suffer more.
- Local boys in street.: [calling after an officer wearing a kilt walking by] Kilty kilty cold bum.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: So, tell me Corporal, are your intentions honorable?
- Cpl. Piper Ian Fraser: Aye, sir.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Then you're a damn fool. You leave "honorable intentions" to fathers like me.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: When you're dying, when you really believe you're dying, you think of the most absurd things.
- Capt. Jimmy Cairns, M.C.: In my war I never had time to think.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: Oh they gave me time, all right. Again and again. When I was in the prison camp, they nearly drowned me, then they brought me round. Then they put a wet cloth over my mouth and kept it wet until I nearly drowned again. And the only thing that pulled me through was the thought that one day I'd come back and sit in the middle of that table as colonel of this battalion, like my grandfather and his father before him. Only I was going to be the best of the lot.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: "The Black Bear" will pull us together and "Scotland the Brave" and some others, Pipe Major.
- Pipe Major Maclean: 'Cock of the North,' sir.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Ah, yon's a cheesy tune. You'll no play that.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: [yelling at the party as the officers are clapping after the pipers have finished playing] Mackinnon!
- 2nd Lt. David Mackinnon: [as the officers stop clapping stunned by Sinclair's outburst] Colonel?
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: [about his cigarette] For God sake, smoke that bloody thing like a man! Stop puffing at it like a ruddy *debutante*.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: [sternly as Mackinnon looks up and down to the cigarette in his hand] Go on laddie, smoke it, smoke it.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: [as Mackinnon starts to smoke] Draw it in, draw it in.
- [Mackinnon exhales a rough cough after a deep drag on the cigarette, with resulting laughter from Sinclair and most of the other officers]
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: [about this display] Am I coarse, Simpson?
- [Simpson doesn't reply but continues to have a disgusted look on his face]
- Pipe Major Maclean: [outside the barracks at night as she was having a clandestine romantic rendezvous with Cpl. Fraser] Miss Sinclair.
- Morag Sinclair: Yes?
- Morag Sinclair: [turning around] Oh it's you, Pipe Major.
- Pipe Major Maclean: Miss Sinclair, a barrack's a very small place. It's not the first time you've been inside at night, I know that, but if your Father found out, there might be bad trouble for you.
- Morag Sinclair: [quietly angry] You've no right to speak to me like that, have you...
- Pipe Major Maclean: Well, I'm only try...
- Morag Sinclair: ... have you, have you. It's nothing to do with you.
- Pipe Major Maclean: I'm speaking to you as a friend, Miss Sinclair. I didn't mean to interfere.
- Morag Sinclair: [thoughtfully about what he just said] And I didn't mean to be rude. Sorry, Pipie. Goodnight.
- Pipe Major Maclean: [as Morag has turned to leave] Goodnight.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Charlie, why the hell'd you shave the whiskers off?
- Major Charles Scott, M.C.: Oh, I don't know. Tickled the ladies.
- Morag Sinclair: Can you not get away?
- Cpl. Piper Ian Fraser: You know what your father's like. I'll be piping all night.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: You got a girl downtown, Corporal? You got a piece of cherry cake? Have we kept you away from her? Well, Corporal, have you got a tongue in your head?
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: The bottle's three-quarters empty.
- Major Charles Scott, M.C.: Nonsense. It's a quarter full.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: It's no right. You nurse them from Alamein to Cassino, from Dover to Berlin, just to get some spry wee gent put over your head at the end. It's no fair, it isn't.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Straight or with water?
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: I'd rather have a soft drink, if I may. Anything will do.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Not a whiskey?
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: Not a whiskey.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: But we all drink whiskey in this battalion.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: Yes, I remember that. Whiskey doesn't really agree with me, I'm afraid.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: A lemonade for Colonel Barrow.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: You'll no go near the place without telephoning me first. There's only one sort of girl seen hanging about a barracks.
- Morag Sinclair: I'm not a child.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: I know you're not. That's what I'm saying.
- Morag Sinclair: I'll go where I want!
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Talking to the corporal there, it's the Pipe Major I should have been. And I would have been good, I would. But that was not the way of it. Hitler saw to that. And Rommel - one desert night.
- Morag Sinclair: What's he like?
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Barrow? Oh, he's a wee man.
- Morag Sinclair: Father, it had to be.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: I just said - he's a wee man.
- Morag Sinclair: It had to be.
- Morag Sinclair: Were you late again last night?
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Ish. Latish. I had to stay to keep the others company.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Oh, lassie. oh. Don't turn away from me. Don't do that. Morag, I only make the rules to help you. But you've got to keep them.
- Pipe Major Maclean: Before the war, at the balls, I mean, the gentlemen did not put their hands above their head.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: I'll put you over my knee. And no just to spank you.
- Mary Titterington: You can forget that.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: The way we dance. I'm well aware that you all know the steps, but some, I feel, need reminding that dancing should be considered a social grace - rather than a noisy ritual. Therefore, starting tomorrow, each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning, at 0715 hours, there will be dancing for three quarters of an hour before breakfast. No one will raise his hands above his head except in the foursome reel. No shouting. No swinging on one arm. The Pipe Major will take the parade and you will report dressed as you are now, but with plimsolls on.
- Mary Titterington: Now, definitely no.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: You didn't used to say no.
- Mary Titterington: You didn't used to be a stranger.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: But, Mary, I'm back.
- Mary Titterington: And stinking. You left stinking, and you're back stinking. You can't turn the clock back.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: We could wind it up again.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: I could make you if I wanted to.
- Mary Titterington: Jock Sinclair, you're the most conceited man I've ever met. You're not all that great shakes. And there's lots know that, I can assure you.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: I'm tired. Fair bashed. Look at me.
- Mary Titterington: Man, it was you that taught me that you could always go on. You had a word. Resilience. The front teeth.
- Mary Titterington: Jock, I lay in bed this morning with my eyes closed, and I looked down a list of men that's too long by half, and I asked myself: What the hell I can show at the end of it except for wear and tear? And I stopped at your name. And I said out loud to the ceiling: I've been held in the arms of a man who was truly brave. For heaven's sake, don't take that away from me too.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: Strange I should stop at this spot. I used to come here sometimes.
- Capt. Jimmy Cairns, M.C.: When was that?
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: Oh, years ago - when the future was bright. I had one pip and no chips on my shoulder.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Spit and polish, eh?
- Mary Titterington: That's it. Shoeshine and shave and back in there.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: If one of my officers had done it, I'd give him one such hell of a row. I took my orders from brigade, but I never had to take my dirty washing there.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Mary, dear, does it sound more like an insult if I say you're a soldier's girl? ...
- Mary Titterington: No, Jock.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: Oh, it's not meant to anyway. If it doesn't say one hell of a lot for your chastity, it's a load about the heart.
- Mary Titterington: Come on. Away and run your bath.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: What does commanding the battalion mean to you? Nothing.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: Nothing? You may have come in here as a boy piper, Sinclair, but I was here before you. I was born with this regiment, born into an idea. The bandaged feet at Corunna, the square at Waterloo, the thin red line. the charge of our Highlanders hanging onto the cavalry's stirrups, and "Scotland the Brave." the mud at Passchendaele, in which my own father fell. And I've kept up with the history. I even know the chapter where you took over in the desert, sitting on the edge of a Bren gun carrier like a - bobby at a tattoo. Accuse me of anything you like, Jock, but don't accuse me of not caring. I've eaten, walked, slept and dreamt this regiment since my first toy soldier.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: There's a world of difference between strength and obstinacy. I didn't want to take action just for the sake of showing it was in my power to do so. In a way, commanding a battalion is a question of compromise, keeping a team together.
- Major Charles Scott, M.C.: In my own humdrum life, I frequently flunked doing something which I ought to do. Told myself after, the reason I hesitated was for humanity or loyalty or even Christianity. Not very dignified. One would have hoped a Colonel would be older than that.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: You won't regret it. You won't regret it, Colonel. I promise you that.
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: I hope you're right.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: I'll tell you who suffers most. Not Morag, not the Corporal, not me, but the, um, uh, you express yourself better than me. Uh, not just the battalion. What was it you said?
- Lt. Col. Basil Barrow: The idea.
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: That's it. The *idea* of the battalion. The living and the dead, all together. The regiment. That's what suffers most.
- Major Charles Scott, M.C.: Jock's in a sweat of loyal affection through there. Why not go back and join the rest of his cronies?
- Major Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.: If you're gonna be a soldier, lad, you must learn to handle both the living and the dead. For that's your stock-in-trade.