The Charge of the Light Brigade

Draw...

...swords.

11th Hussars present and ready for your inspection, my lord.

I do not propose to recount my life in any detail what is what.

No damn business of anyone what is what.

I am Lord Cardigan. That is what.

Them Cherrybums, you see them tight, I keep them tight.

10,000 a year out of my own pocket I spend to clothe them.

A master cutler sharps their swords, and I keep them tight-stitched...

...cut to a shadow. Good.

If they can't fornicate, they can't fight...

...and if they don't fight hard, I'll flog their backs raw...

...for all their fine looks.

Nolan. It's Nolan.

There. Lewis!

Nolan!

He's seen us.

I've not seen him for years, and yet it will be like yesterday.

I hope I can love him as you do.

Dear friend!

- This is Clarissa? - This is my dear Clarissa.

I've landed two days. We were handed letters at Aden.

You do scribble a lot, William. Still, dear friend, I'm here.

I am gazetted to the 11th Hussars, you know that.

My brother is to join the 11th Hussars, Capt. Nolan.

I'm playing the spy in Mufti.

I've not joined yet, so I took the opportunity of a spy's eye at them.

Are they good, William?

They look good. Cardigan has them looking good.

Yes, the mounts do look pretty dressed up.

Still...

...it is good to see you both, and here of all places.

It is good.

England is looking well.

- Fanny! - Clarissa!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure you will all be very glad to join with me...

...in wishing the young couple long life...

...happiness, and all that they wish themselves.

Hear, hear.

The bride and bridegroom.

Young men of London, fall in and follow me, boys.

If you would not be starved by cruel masters...

...if you would not be ruled by anyone except the Queen, God bless her...

...but who do have the urge to seek wealth, fine clothes, and glory...

...you can do no better than to enlist...

...for the 11th Regiment of Hussars.

Culloden. Flanders. Salamanca. Waterloo.

An escort to Prince Albert on the occasion of his wedding...

...after which he called us his own. God bless him.

Our dress is bright and warm.

Our mounts is mastered and mannered, gentle in ride and calm in battle.

Our officers just whisper.

They being of the opinion, like myself...

...that more can be done glorious by leading from the front...

...than can ever be brought off by prods up the arse from the rear.

Hold your head up, sir.

I believe you would look a rare treat in stable dress.

- Are you respectable? - I've often thought of enlisting.

I thought you had, by the fine way you carry yourself.

I'm a bad character, just out of jail.

In that case, you've already served Her Majesty.

Lord Cardigan's Cherrybums, follow me.

Keep yourselves clean, that's important.

You'll never want for money, and the glitter of a Hussar...

...is something I've seen the gay ladies pearling their eyes after.

Be obedient, be clean.

What is a pitfall is drink.

That will not concern me, for I do not drink.

What will concern you is, you'll never speak to an officer in that manner again.

Attention!

Scrub the scum clean.

Old Swaddy will settle you into your troop, show you the way of it.

Bossing your kit and being clean.

Right, strip off.

- What is the condition of them? - They're all wobbly-boned.

Recruits in England are mostly wobbly and bad-formed.

There is no such thing as a wobbly officer.

What you sergeants never seem to understand...

...is the state of responsibility that an officer is in.

They worry. They hardly never wobble.

There is no place happier than a cavalry mess.

If one is a stupid, inconsiderate and lazy man...

...one can fit as a round peg into a snug round hole.

At times I am so pent up with their languor I could grab of two of them...

...and bang their noddles together till their doodles drop off.

I'm Codrington. I've come to join.

- Come to join, young fellow? - Yes. Fond of riding are you?

- He's as green as grass. - Or soon will be.

A fine growed-up fellow, though, with very neat feet.

Rupert.

You're a madman, sir.

And you are on your arse, sir.

I'm thirsty.

It's the salt from the mutton.

- Have you got no money? - I have none.

- In your clothes. - It was...

- I did have money in my clothes. - Did you?

I'm out for a wet, a drop of beer.

Pongelow is the drink, they call it.

”How d'you think I paid her? I met her in the barracks yard...

”... and gently down I laid her. ”

Private Metcalfe, for the wives. Get back in there.

Lady Scarlett is giving a ball.

- Capt. Nolan. - Lewis, how do you do?

Clarissa, Mrs. Morris, it is wonderful to have you back...

...you both back, it is wonderful. Come on.

I danced as a boy on the eve of Waterloo.

- There was a war. - That was a war.

I don't think I belong, Duberly.

I'm sure I do. Oh, I'm sure you do.

I'm more a scientific poet.

- Scarlett. - My lord.

All this swish and tit gets me sniffing nose up.

I shall have to fetch it off tonight, Squire.

Had me Cherrybums out today, always makes me randified.

Duberly says he is despised by his officers and feared by his men.

Duberly says the 11th have become a laughing stock...

...for the shortness of their jackets and the tightness of their britches.

He says it is wicked, he commands over the heads of gifted officers...

...when he is such a blockhead.

They tell me that her pitcher has been too often to the well.

Duberly says I must stop looking at Lord Cardigan...

...as if I want to be ridden by him.

Duberly says he has left his wife...

...and is the most notorious casual person with women...

...immoral and licentious.

I want to dance with Lord Cardigan more than anything else in the world.

Is he not the very picture of the finest Englishman?

Has he not an exquisite head?

I've just been introduced to Squire De Burgh, charming fellow.

- I believe the next is a gallop. - I believe it is. I don't have a programme.

I don't gallop very well with ladies indoors, but may I have the honor?

- I shall be pleased. - Excuse us.

You have a clever officer in Nolan, Lord Cardigan.

He has written a book, which is not a diary but of a scientific nature.

- To do with soldiering. - What, some damn novelist?

I do envy soldiers' way.

What it must be to hunt one day and fight the next. Is war terrible?

It is the stuff. It is the stuff we're all hoping for.

Soldiers do, Fanny, those that are waiting to use their talents.

What is most a talented officer should have? Courage and dash?

Some of that. A soldier should have some courage, of course.

Most of all, to know what is right.

Judgment, a feeling for decision.

A cavalry officer depends on the strike in his eye.

When and where to use it.

Comradeship. How high is that regarded in military things?

High. But true comrades are rare, like the truly loving wife is rare.

- William has talked of you constantly. - I shall tell him to stop.

He says you are the finest horseman in England.

Does he say I'm the finest dancer? I'm not.

He goes further than that. He says, probably in Europe, also.

He exaggerates. William is indeed fortunate.

Are you happy to be a soldier's wife?

Should soldiers have wives, Capt. Nolan?

William should.

That's the Duke of Wellington's statue.

It was subscribed for by the whole nation, and now they don't know where to put it.

There is great concern.

- He was a fine soldier. - So are you, I am told.

I learned from a friend that you have a system.

I'd like to write an article on you for the Times.

Come on, now!

That is Cardigan's system.

A shilling a man it costs him. Can you beat that?

He reckons to train up a troop horse in less than 14 days, is his system.

- Capt. Nolan. - And his system.

I am not one of your new lights with tea and a Bible canteen.

It is not a revelation.

Both of you have plenty of it.

You, dear friend, I know, and you, Russell, I am sure.

It is, in a word, kindliness.

- How are you today, my beauty? - She's very well, sir. Thank you, sir.

Pridmore. Dismount.

Prepare to mount. Mount.

Move like a Highgate whore, put some spring into your back.

You'll not learn nothing from watching this...

...but I should stay watching.

I want you, what your name is, on the right.

Your name, on the right! Do you not know your right?

You, on the right! Where I'm pointing now!

You! I want you to watch this blade...

...for should it waver, slice it down fairly through my head...

...as hard as you can. Face front!

You've got no hooks on! Sergeant, on the left.

Hooks is spurs.

- Name? - Metcalfe.

You will wear your hooks at all times.

Sgt. Smith, what he is doing, don't look down...

...is marking you right from left.

He can read, so he knows his left from right.

What you've got there is a new foot...

...an army foot you've never had before.

It's like a foreign language to them.

They don't know any direction, back or front.

They'll never find their front when there isn't a black face to it.

I always tell them, they'll know their front...

...from the many black nigger faces waving knives at them.

What we will do now is finding left.

Try it.