- Pvt. Cole: Why is it us? Why us?
- Colour Sergeant Bourne: Because we're here, lad. Nobody else. Just us.
- Colour Sergeant Bourne: It's a miracle.
- Lieutenant John Chard: If it's a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it's a short chamber Boxer Henry point 45 caliber miracle.
- Colour Sergeant Bourne: And a bayonet, sir, with some guts behind.
- Lieutenant John Chard: The army doesn't like more than one disaster in a day.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Looks bad in the newspapers and upsets civilians at their breakfast.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Damn the levies man... Cowardly blacks!
- Adendorff: What the hell do you mean "cowardly blacks?" They died on your side, didn't they? And who the hell do you think is coming to wipe out your little command? The Grenadier Guards?
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: [mounted, crossing stream] Hot work?
- Lieutenant John Chard: [kneeling in stream] Damned hot work.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Still, the river cooled you off a bit though, eh?
- [pause]
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Who are you?
- Lieutenant John Chard: John Chard, Royal Engineers.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Bromhead. 24th. That's my post... up there.
- [points into middle distance]
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: You've come down from the column?
- Lieutenant John Chard: That's right. They want a bridge across the river.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Who said you could use my men?
- Lieutenant John Chard: They were sitting around on their backsides, doing nothing.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Rather you asked first, old boy.
- Lieutenant John Chard: I was told that their officer was out hunting.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Err... yes.
- [spurs on horse]
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: I'll tell my man to clean your kit.
- Lieutenant John Chard: Don't bother.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: No bother... I'm not offering to clean it myself. Still, a chap ought to look smart in front of the men, don't you think? Well, chin-chin Do carry on with your mud pies.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Sixty! We dropped at least 60, wouldn't you say?
- Adendorff: That leaves only 3,940.
- Lieutenant John Chard: Well, you've fought your first action.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Does everyone feel like this afterwards?
- Lieutenant John Chard: How do you feel?
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Sick.
- Lieutenant John Chard: Well, you have to feel alive to feel sick.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: You asked me, I told you.
- [pause]
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: There's something else. I feel ashamed. Was that how it was for you? The first time?
- Lieutenant John Chard: The first time? You think I could stand this butcher's yard more than once?
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: I didn't know.
- Lieutenant John Chard: I came up here to build a bridge.
- Lieutenant John Chard: [the Zulus are chanting before their final charge] Do you think the Welsh can't do better than that, Owen?
- Pvt. Owen: Well, they've got a very good bass section, mind, but no top tenors that's for sure.
- Pvt. 593 Jones: What's he up to, 593?
- Pvt. 716 Jones: Oh, I think he wants to be hero, 716.
- Cpl. Frederic Schiess, NNC: Haven't you rednecks got names instead of numbers?
- Pvt. 716 Jones: 'Tis a Welsh regiment, man! Though there are some foreigners from England in it , mind. I am Jones from Bwlchgwyn, he is Jones from Builth Wells, and there are four more Joneses in C Company! Confusing, isn't it, Dutchy?
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: [Adendorff has explained the classic Zulu 'buffalo' battle formation] It looks er... jolly simple, doesn't it?
- Adendorff: It's, er, jolly deadly, old boy.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: [laughs] Well done, Adendorff, we'll make an Englishmen of you yet!
- Lieutenant John Chard: What's our strength?
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Seven officers including surgeon, commissaries and so on; Adendorff now I suppose; wounded and sick 36, fit for duty 97 and about 40 native levies. Not much of an army for you.
- [Bourne calls the roll after the battle]
- Colour Sergeant Bourne: Hitch... Hitch, I saw you. You're alive.
- Pvt. Hitch: I am? Oh, thanks very much.
- [to the wounded Hook]
- Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: This is going to hurt you a lot more than it will me, I'm happy to say.
- Private Henry Hook: [Throws Sergeant Maxfield across his shoulder] Twenty eight days field punishment! No pay! You know what he did? Sent my money to my Missus.
- [Slaps Sereant Maxfield's buttocks]
- Private Henry Hook: What did you do that for?
- Cpl. Frederic Schiess, NNC: A Zulu regiment can run, *run*, 15 miles and fight a battle at the end of it.
- Pvt. William Jones: Well, there's daft, it is then. I don't see no sense in running to fight a battle.
- Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: You know what you've got there, my malingering Hector?
- Private Henry Hook: No, sir. Hook's the name, sir.
- Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: You've got a fine glistening boil, my friend. There's one glistening boil for every soldier in Africa. You may not get any medals in this campaign, Hook, but you'll certainly get more boils. For every gunshot wound I probe, I expect to lance 3 boils.
- [brandishing a lance]
- Private Henry Hook: A spot of medicinal brandy would set me up, sir!
- Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: Brandy's for heroes, Mr. Hook. The rest of you will make do with boils on your skin, flies in your meat and dysentery on your bellies!
- Narration spoken by: In the hundred years since the Victoria Cross was created for valour and extreme courage beyond that normally expected of a British soldier in face of the enemy, only one thousand three hundred and forty four have been awarded. Eleven of these were won by the defenders of the mission station at Rorkes Drift, Natal January 22nd to the 23rd 1879. Frederick Scheisse, Corporal, Natal native contingent. William Allen, Corporal, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Foot. Fred Hitch, Private, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Foot. James Langley Dalton, acting assistant commissary, Army Commissary Department. 612 John Williams, Private, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Foot. 716 Robert Jones, 593 William Jones, Privates, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Foot. Henry Hook, Private, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Foot. James Henry Reynolds, Surgeon Major, Army Hospital Corps. Gonville Bromhead, Lieutenant, B Company, 2nd Battalion of the 24th Regiment of Foot, South Wales Borderers. John Rouse Merriott Chard, Lieutenant, Royal Engineers, Officer Commanding, Rorke's Drift.
- Private Henry Hook: Rourke's Drift... It'd take an Irishman to give his name to a rotten stinking middle o' nowhere hole like this.
- Lieutenant John Chard: Mr. Witt! When I have the impertinence to climb into your pulpit to deliver a sermon, then you can tell me my duty.
- Cpl. William Allen: [both men are wounded but the soldier distributing ammunition has fallen] Can you move your leg?
- Pvt. Hitch: [flippantly] If you want me to dance...
- Cpl. William Allen: I want you to *crawl*. Come on, you slovenly soldier, we've got work to do.
- Hughes: Hey, Hooky... who's doing all that shooting? Who do you think?
- Private Henry Hook: Who do you think? Mister flamin' Bromhead, shooting flamin' defenseless animals for the flamin' officers' flamin' dinner.
- Cpl. Frederic Schiess, NNC: I belong to Natal Mounted Police.
- Pvt. William Jones: Is that true then? He's a peeler, 716. Come to arrest the Zulus.
- Adendorff: Haven't you had enough? Both of you! My god, can't you see it's all over! Your bloody egos don't matter anymore. We're dead!
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Well done, Adendorff, we'll make an Englishman of you yet!
- Adendorff: No, thanks. I'm a Boer. The Zulus are the enemies of my blood. What are you doing here?
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: You don't object to our help, I hope?
- Adendorff: It all depends on what you damned English want for it afterwards.
- Reverend Otto Witt: [shouting, drunkenly] He breaketh the bow and snappeth the spear in sunder!
- Color Sgt. Bourne: [under his breath] I shall be exalted among the 'eathens... I shall be exalted in the Earth.
- Lieutenant John Chard: [wounded] You're the professional. Take command.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Now listen, old boy, you're not badly hurt. We need you! We need you! Understand?
- Margareta Witt: [of the Zulu] How can they let themselves be married in droves like this - young girls to... to old men?
- Reverend Otto Witt: In Europe, young women accept arranged marriages with rich men. Perhaps the Zulu girls are luckier, getting a *brave* man.
- Lieutenant John Chard: Mr. Bourne, there should be 12 more men working on this redoubt.
- Color Sgt. Bourne: They're very tired, sir.
- [Chard whirls around]
- Lieutenant John Chard: I don't give a damn! And I want this wall nine feet high, firing steps on the inside. Form details to clear away the Zulu bodies, rebuild the south rampart, keep 'em moving! Do you understand?
- Color Sgt. Bourne: Yes sir... very good, sir.
- Lieutenant John Chard: You didn't say a thing to help, Bromhead.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Well, when you take command, old boy, you're on your own. One of the first things that the general - my grandfather - ever taught me.
- Pvt. John Williams: Hooky, come on old boy, do something!
- Pte. Henry Hook: I'm excused duty.
- Pvt. John Williams: Well, I haven't excused you, have I?
- Pte. Henry Hook: Oh, YOU want some help? Well, why didn't you say so?
- [grabs a rifle and starts defending the mission]
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Chard. One of my men - Hook - do you know him?
- Lieutenant John Chard: [preoccupied] No.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: In the hospital, malingering under arrest. He's a thief, a coward and an insubordinate barrack room lawyer. And you've given him a rifle!
- Lieutenant John Chard: [distracted] What?
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: In Queen's Regulations, it specifically states - Damn funny. Like a train... in the distance.
- [stops as the sound of thousands of Zulu warriors marching toward the mission can be heard]
- Lieutenant John Chard: You were saying about Hook?
- Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: Orderly, damn it!, will you keep the flies away! Fan it! Damn you, Chard! Damn all you butchers!
- Reverend Otto Witt: Death waits you! You have made a covenant with death, and with Hell you are in agreement. You're all going to die! Don't you realize? Can't you see? You're all going to die! Die! Death awaits you all!
- Cpl. William Allen: Heave! Put a bit more weight on that rope, you men!
- Pvt. John Williams: He's even got a voice like a corporal!
- Pvt. Fred Hitch: Yeah, sort of like a female hippopotamus in labor.
- Color Sgt. Bourne: [doing roll call] Hughes!
- Hughes: Excused duty!
- [the soldiers begin to laugh]
- Color Sgt. Bourne: No comedians, please. Hughes.
- Hughes: Yes, Colour Sergeant.
- Colour Sergeant Bourne: [Quoting Psalm 46, v10-11 just before the battle] I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of Hosts is with us.
- Cpl. William Allen: I hope so. As I live and die, I hope so.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Adendorff, what's wrong with them? Why don't they fight?
- Adendorff: They're counting your guns.
- Lieutenant John Chard: *What?*
- Adendorff: Can't you see that old boy up on the hill? He's counting your guns. Testing your firing power with the lives of his warriors.
- Margareta Witt: Why do they carry those little daggers, Father?
- Reverend Otto Witt: It is a symbol of their chastity.
- Private Thomas: Why worry about a calf? I thought I was tired of farming. No adventure in it. But when you look at it, this country's not a bit as good as Bala and the lake there. Not really green, like. And the soil. There's no moisture in it. Nothing to hold a man in his grave.
- Hughes: Colour Sergeant Bourne! What's that shooting?
- Colour Sergeant Bourne: A rifle, Hughes.
- Hughes: Eh?
- Colour Sergeant Bourne: If you're sick in hospital, I'd suggest you go and lie down.
- Hughes: Yes, Colour Sergeant.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Do you know my father was at Waterloo?
- Lieutenant John Chard: He was?
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: He got his colonelcy after that.
- Lieutenant John Chard: Did he?
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: And my great-grandfather, he was the jonny who knelt beside Wolfe at Quebec.
- Lieutenant John Chard: Did they make him a colonel too?
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: No, you don't see what I'm driving at.
- Lieutenant John Chard: You're telling me that I'm the amateur and you're the professional.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: No, what I mean is, I wish right now I were a damned ranker. Like Hook, or Hitch.
- Lieutenant John Chard: You're not, are you? You're an officer and a gentleman.
- Reverend Otto Witt: One thousand British soldiers have been massacred. While I stood here talking peace, a war has started.
- Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: You know this boy?
- Orderly: Name is Cole, sir. He's a paper hanger.
- Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: Well, he's a dead paper hanger now.
- Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: You mean your only plan is to stand behind a few feet of mealie bags and wait for the attack?
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