Breaker Morant (1980)

Sentry : Do you want the padre?

Harry Morant : No, thank you. I'm a pagan.

Sentry : And you?

Peter Handcock : What's a pagan?

Harry Morant : Well... it's somebody who doesn't believe there's a divine being dispensing justice to mankind.

Peter Handcock : I'm a pagan, too.

Harry Morant : There is an epitaph I'd like: Matthew 10:36. Well, Peter... this is what comes of 'empire building.'

Major Thomas : Matthew 10:36?

Minister : "And a man's foes shall be they of his own household."

Harry Morant : As a matter of interest, how many courts-martial have you done?

Major Thomas : None.

George Wittow : None?

Peter Handcock : Jesus, they're playing with a double-headed penny, aren't they?

Major Thomas : Would you rather conduct your own defence?

George Wittow : But you have handled a lot of court cases back home, sir?

Major Thomas : No. I was a country-town solicitor. I handled land conveyancing and wills.

Peter Handcock : Wills. Might come in handy.

Major Bolton : How did Lt. Handcock look?

Corporal Sharp : Like he was thinking, sir... like... I can't think of the...

Major Bolton : Did he look like he was agitated?

Corporal Sharp : Agitated? Yes, that's it, sir. Yes, sir, he looked agitated.

Major Thomas : Objection. Major Bolton is leading the witness.

Major Bolton : I will rephrase the question, sir. Tell me, Corporal Sharp, how did Lt. Handcock look?

Corporal Sharp : Agitated, sir!

Major Thomas : 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 Situations in which the ebb and flow of everyday life have departed and have been replaced by a constant round of fear and anger, blood and death.

Harry Morant : [Thomas is visiting Morant on the morning of his execution] Cheer up. You look as if you were going to a funeral.

Major Thomas : Harry...

Harry Morant : It's all right, Major. I've had a good run. There's nothing for me in England anymore. And back in Australia, well they say if you need a couple of stiff drinks before you climb up on a wild horse, you're finished.

Lt. Col. Denny : [reading depositions from two married women who are providing an alibi for Handcock] Lieutenant Handcock, what does Mrs. Vanderberg mean by "entertained"? Did you sing to her?

Major Thomas : 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?

Peter Handcock : New South Wales Mounted? What sort of a lawyer are you?

Major Thomas : They haven't locked me up, yet. What sort of a soldier are you?

Lt. Col. Denny : I must say, I find this sort of behavior from a soldier in the British Army morally disgraceful. These were married women.

Peter Handcock : Well, they say a slice off a cut loaf's never missed.

Major Thomas : Leftenant Handcock's personal morality is not on trial, sir.

Lt. Col. Denny : [under his breath to a fellow officer] Regrettably.

Sentry : [to Major Thomas] Excuse me, sir. I was in a public house last night, sir.

Major Thomas : Were you, Sergeant?

Sentry : Yes, sir. I overheard one of the witnesses talking about the prisoners. In his cups he was, sir. A very indescreet gentleman.

Major Thomas : [later in court, questioning Corporal Sharp] Have you not been saying in the local pubs that you would walk barefoot from Cape Town to Petersburg to be on a firing party to shoot Lieutenant Handcock?

Corporal Sharp : [visibly shaken] Well, sir I might have said something like that over a pint, sir. It may have been the beer talking, sir, not me, sir.

Major Thomas : Tell me, Mr. Robertson what was Lt Hancock's reason for putting Boer prisoners on open cattle cars on the trains.

Capt. Robertson : Well the Boers had been mining the lines and blowing up a lot of trains. He thought it might stop them.

Major Thomas : Well did it?

[Robertson looks at the prosecutor]

Major Thomas : Did it?

Capt. Robertson : Yes, but I don't think...

[he's interrupted]

Lt. Col. Denny : This evidence is completely irrelevant.

Major Thomas : Irrelevant? Irrelevant when l have established that it was common practice among the Bushveldt Carbineers to shoot prisoners? Why would an officer of Captain Hunt's spotless reputation invent an order, sir?

Lt. Col. Denny : We all admire your zeal in defending your fellow Australians, Major Thomas, but intemperate speech and wild accusations do not further your cause.

Lt. Col. Denny : You are impertinent, Major Thomas. Are you suggesting that the most senior soldier in the British Army, a man venerated throughout the world, would be capable of issuing an order of such barbarity?

Major Thomas : I don't know, sir. But I do know that orders that one would consider barbarous have already been issued in this war. Before I was asked to defend these men I spent some months burning Boer farmhouses, destroying their crops, herding their women and children into stinking refugee camps where thousands of them have died already from disease. Now, these orders were issued, sir, and soldiers like myself and these men here have had to carry them out, however damned reluctantly!

Major Bolton : Of course, Morant and his friends are guilty.

Major Thomas : Are they? Why not arrest the firing squad? They did the actual killing.

Major Bolton : But they were following Morant's orders.

Major Thomas : That's right. Just as Morant - was following orders.

Major Thomas : 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.

Major Thomas : 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.

Major Thomas : When the rules and customs of war are departed from by one side, one must expect the same sort of behavior from the other.

Major Thomas : They're looking after you here? Looks a bit Spartan.

Harry Morant : Well, it's not exactly the Hotel Australia.

Peter Handcock : More like a coffee palace. No grog.

Major Thomas : We've got a few witnesses of our own tomorrow, anyway.

Peter Handcock : Not many. Just about anyone with a good word for us has been sent to India.

Major Thomas : You're the best witness the prosecution's got, Harry. Better watch your temper.

Harry Morant : Yes, I'm sorry. It's my great failing. Impetuosity. Most un-British.

Major Thomas : [to Handcock] You better watch yourself, too. This is a British court-martial, not a backbox pub.

George Wittow : Do you think they're going to imprison us or cashier us, sir? My father, if he found out...

Major Thomas : Haven't they told you? There are several murder charges. The penalty is death.

Lt. Reed : Why is it he's referred to as Breaker Morant?

Lt. Baxter : Ladies' man, perhaps? A breaker of hearts.

Major Thomas : No, he was a horse breaker. I understand, the best in Australia.

Lt. Col. Denny : You are still introducing irrelevant material.

Major Thomas : Sir. I wish to establish, and I have made the point before in connection with Mr. Robertson, that a precedent in this war has been well and truly set.

Major Bolton : Sir, I would like to point out to my *learned* colonial colleague that the fact of the crime being previously committed in no way pardons the behavior of Lieutenant Morant and his friends.

Major Thomas : 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.

Major Thomas : 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?

George Wittow : To freedom and Australia.

Harry Morant , George Wittow , Peter Handcock , Major Thomas , Capt. Alfred Taylor : Freedom and Australia!

Harry Morant : To freedom, Australia and horses.

Harry Morant , George Wittow , Peter Handcock , Major Thomas , Capt. Alfred Taylor : Freedom, Australia and horses.

Peter Handcock : Freedom, Australia, horses and women!

Harry Morant , George Wittow , Peter Handcock , Major Thomas , Capt. Alfred Taylor : Freedom, Australia, horses and women!

Harry Morant : Live every day as if it were going to be your last. One day, you're sure to be right.