The McKenzie Break

Guard, halt.

Handcuffs.

Left turn.

Corporal.

Come on, let's have you! Get fell in!

It's roll call! Let's have you!

Sergeant, check the other huts. Quick march, double!

Come on! Move! Move!

Come on! Fall out for roll call, or it's blood for breakfast!

Captain Schleutter's compliments to Major Perry.

He will speak only to the Major.

The P.A.

Captain Schleutter, your men will now fall in for roll call

and 25 of them will be handcuffed, as previously ordered.

Your country started this in violating the Geneva Convention.

Twenty-five British officers were shackled

in Ludwigsdorf Prison in Germany.

After roll call, we must handcuff 25 of your officers, Captain Schleutter.

How do you plan to do that, Major?

There are 600 of us and we don't agree.

You leave me no alternative but to result to force.

Bloody man. I mean, can't he see?

There's nothing for it.

- Bring 'em up. - Yes, sir.

Major Cox, bring those men up here.

Squad, mark time!

Squad, halt!

Sir!

Mr. Cox, enter barracks number one

and place Captain Schleutter under arrest.

Yes, sir! Gates!

Company, double march!

All guard towers.

This is Major Perry.

There is to be no shooting unless a prisoner crosses the trip wire.

Is that understood?

Come out, you kraut swine!

Bastards!

Gas grenades in.

Come on! Double it up!

I want 12 men. Six with me and six around the back.

Those men, pronto! Cover the other side!

Drop back and form a line!

Fix bayonets!

All guard towers.

There is to be no shooting unless they cross the trip wire.

Soldiers, stand guard!

Move it up!

Hurry up! Get in there! Go round that side.

Close the gates!

Send your handcuffs back to London, Major Perry.

Captain Schleutter, I'm entitled by the Geneva Convention

to punish you and your men for this incredible behavior!

You'll be confined to your huts on restricted diet for 48 hours!

All privileges and electric power

will be curtailed for that period.

And at the end of that period

you will fall in for roll call in proper order.

As indeed you are now.

Send your handcuffs back to London and stay out of our camp until you do.

Did you have relations with an enlisted personnel, Captain Connor?

I did, sir.

She was willing.

Did you strike an officer of His Majesty's Navy?

Not at all. I said something or other.

He gave me a sort of push. It wasn't anything.

The police report called it "Aggravated assault."

Did it?

Your past record indicates that you were

drunk with four enlisted men and absent without leave...

Six times.

Even though you are currently awaiting orders for your next posting,

that is not a license to ignore military regulations

and bring disgrace to the uniform.

Yes, sir.

It is within the authority of this review board

to reduce you in rank to the lowest commissioned rating.

However, we have been requested to hold our decision in abeyance

by His Majesty's Intelligence.

- General Kerr wishes to question you. - Ben Kerr?

So it's a balls-up again, Jack?

The army must be in a bad way for generals, makin' you one.

- You've got that bit right at least. - What's an editor do in the army?

Write stories about Hitler's sex life and send 'em off to the newspapers?

We put corrupt and ill-assorted talents like yours to work winning the war.

I've requested your transfer to Intelligence.

Why in hell you want to do that?

You're going to run a P.O.W. camp in Scotland.

God, Benny. I'm not a policeman.

Damn good crime reporter, though.

You've been a chaotic bastard for as long as I've known you.

But you have a perverse sort of genius for setting things in order around you.

When you've a mind to.

I've a mind to go on a holiday at the moment.

Well, that review board will see that you get it.

Jack, I'm saving your royal Irish ass for you

and giving you the chance to do the sort of job you've always been keen on doing.

Prisoners of war? I puke, sir.

Now get stuffed, Jack.

I need you. I need your great nose to the ground.

The German prisoners, all top-line officers

have been raising a peculiar sort of hell at McKenzie the past few months.

Other camps, relative quiet.

McKenzie, veritable state of siege.

Both War Office and Intelligence want to find out if there's any connection.

Any link with the dear old Deutschland.

You have full authorization

to do what you must to bring the camp around

and find out what we need to know.

A Major Perry's in command there.

The Captain tells the Major how to run his camp?

I thought that would amuse you.

He'll be instructed to cooperate with Military Intelligence and so on.

What about that review board?

Have you any ideas how to keep them off my back?

I shall ponder the matter, old boy.

Can you give me something for diarrhea, headache or constipation?

Yes, here he comes, Major Perry!

English. English.

Why are those boys fighting?

Why does that schoolmaster not stop them?

Here he comes, Major Perry!

All the English have fat asses.

Major Perry, Sergeant Cox.

We would like to give them handcuffs.

Put them in a six-feet box.

When the war is gone and finished.

And we win the victory.

Deutschland then will be much bigger.

England then belongs to you and me.

When the war is gone and finished.

And we win the victory.

Deutschland then will be much bigger.

England then belongs to you and me.

We can stay in Camp McKenzie.

For England then belongs to you and me.

It's a bloody English music hall.

You make a lousy English lady, Schmidt.

She's too Jewish looking!

Neuchl, you should take the part. You'd make a hell of an English lady.

Why not bring your friend, Berger, up here to the stage

and do the sketch for us like two English ladies?

Won't you?

Your position, Kapitan, is not so to give me such insult.

My position as your commanding officer is so,

to have you killed for being a coward, if I must.

Are you not a coward?

You are a homosexual, are you not?

Sorry. Your English is poor.

Quite right, Mr. Cox. Fireworks night.

They're flaunting the blackout regulations, sir.

Yes, celebrating my 48-hour punishment.

- We'll see to that, sir. - You'll see to what?

You'll see to it that we're all made fools of once again.

Will you move men in there to enforce blackout regulations?

Jerry will have disappeared by the time you get there, laughing at us.

Your men will get a few more broken heads for their pains.

The bleeding krauts are lightin' up the sky askin' for a raid, sir.

There's never been a raid within 100 miles of this desolate chicken farm!

Only alerts. I mean, why bomb this?

This understaffed, ill-manned outpost of military mediocrities.

Thank you. That'll be all.

Make transport arrangements for a Captain Connor coming up from London.

- The details are in the orderly room. - Yes, sir.

Shall we finish the game, Mr. Hall?

As you like, sir.

Sorry.

I went a bit too far.

I'm damned if I know what Whitehall expects.

"Don't move too aggressively. Thousands of our chaps in German prison camps."

And I quite agree.

"But can't you maintain order there, Major Perry?"

And when I ask for troop reinforcements, they send me a single Captain Connor.

"Let him have a look at the matter." I mean, oh, dear.

It's our Scottish contact.

He'll be waiting for Hochbauer and Schmidt on the Glenfoyle Road.

Good.

English. It wasn't Berlin.

It was our friend here in Scotland,

and he agrees to an earlier meeting with you.

Let's raise a little hell when Perry tries to put on the handcuffs

and you can march straight off and join the British army.

We used to have picnics here when I first came. It was grand.

They were so lonely, the German lads, and they were so nice.

Then they made the rule, I guess. Closed the camp tight.

When was that?

About a year ago, when the headmaster came.

The Major. Major Perry, that is.

When Major Perry came, sir.

Good morning, Captain Schleutter.

Thank you for the list you sent me this morning.

But there are others of us who speak excellent English.

The tunnel was begun before you came here.

Your list, the 28 men who are to escape, are all U-boat men.

None of my men. None of Unger's engineers.

Yes, I've spent a very decent holiday or two in Ireland.

What made you decide to suspend the outside privileges for the Germans?

I felt that my predecessor had taken too many liberties with regulations.

As a matter of fact, Von Westhofen agreed with me...

The German senior officer in the camp until his death last April.