Zulu Dawn [1979]
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Zulu messenger: I bring greetings from your friends the British and from the great Lord Chelmsford.
Ceteseyo: And what do your masters say?
Zulu messenger: They are angry and send these demands. They say that you rule in old ways that are wrong; that you kill your people without trial. The Great White Queen herself cannot kill her lowliest subject, though she rules forty lands, each greater than all of Zululand.
Corporal Storey: All this way to be shot by a bloody bullet from Birmingham.
Lt. Raw: Then a bottle of good claret for each man in the mess will be charged to your account.
Lt. Coghill: If that is too expensive, then you can always send the bill to your father in the House of Lords. No offense, Vereker.
Lt. William Vereker: None taken, Coghill.
Lt. William Vereker: Hello, Frederick.
General Lord Chelmsford: Hello, William. I saw your father before I left England. He told me you had taken to farming near Zululand.
Lt. William Vereker: Yes. It was either come here or join the Zulu.
Lt. Coghill: Vereker, you didn't really have to choose between your own country and the Zulu, did you?
Lt. William Vereker: Yes, and a damn close thing it was too.
Lt. Col. Pulleine: Lord Chelmsford assures us that there is no way the Zulu can get around us without our knowing.
Col. Durnford: Zulu generals have a nasty habit of doing the unexpected. It might be wise to picket the hills.
Norris-New: Crealock, old fellow... had it drummed into my thick head that no commander should ever split his forces before he knows the position of the enemy.
Col. Crealock: Yes, Nogs. If we were facing a European enemy your point would hold. I might also remind you that I am only His Lordship's secretary and do not make the strategy on which you comment.
Norris-Newman: Yes, you may only be his secretary, Crealock, but if he falls; you fall with him.
Col. Durnford: Sergeant Major! Take my horse. Ride to Natal. Tell the Bishop; that is, tell his daughter, that I was obliged to remain at Isandlawahna with the infantry. Go with God.
Sgt. Maj. Kambula: I go because you order me; but I leave God here to help you.
Norris-Newman: This one's a grandfather at least. If he were a Zulu warrior in his prime I would have given odds on your lancer, Melville.
Boy Pullen: You afeared of the Zulus then, Quartermaster?
QSM Bloomfield: One Zulu is only one man... and I'm afeared of no one man... but the Zulu, they come in the thousands... like a black wave of death... in the thousands... and them assegais... stabbing!
Corporal Storey: To the soldier next to him, referring to the ammunition: Soft 'eaded buggers these. Flatten out against the bone. Smash 'em out.