Privates

What would you do if you was the one Barrowman had it in for?

Find his weak point. Aim your fire at that.

Corporal, I'm worried about Wratten. He said he couldn't carry on.

No!

White-Bowne doesn't get exemption unless somebody else gets selected as Tory candidate.

Some things were said about Grandpa Gilbert.

What kind of things? He couldn't do it. The shooting started. He ran.

Connie, am I pregnant? Yes.

The whole act gets a bit tedious after a while. So it is an act?

It's not about getting out. It's about taking a stand. Putting things right.

As always, Remembrance Day should be a very humbling and stately occasion.

Dignitaries and officers' wives here on the left,

Major Cunnicliffe and the officers here on the right

as I give my address on the theme of sacrifice and renewal.

Father McGregor from St Luke's has accepted my invitation to read the prayers

and dedications this year. After the dedi...

What in hell's name is that?

A delivery, sir, for the Quartermasters. Wasn't meant to happen till tomorrow.

Get it moved, Sergeant. Actions like that can undercut the solemnity of the moment.

Yes, sir. A telegram for you, sir.

Corporal Barrowman has always carried the regimental colours with great dignity.

Will he be fit for duty today? I hope so, sir.

Jolly good. Carry on.

The 11th day of the 11th month.

Any other year, I'd be polishing my buckles by now.

Looking at my face in the toecaps of my best boots.

What's so different about this year?

I am.

Today, until the Conservative selection panel call me in for the interview,

I need to think, talk and act like a Tory.

I need to out-White-Bowne White-Bowne.

Here you are. A white poppy from the Peace Pledge Union.

What do you think?

I think for a long-haired sandal-wearing Utopian like you

and your misguided Socialist friends

it may seem like a symbol of the futility of wars in which nobody wins,

but, as a Tory, I think it's deeply disrespectful to those who lost their lives

so that shirkers like you could live free of the tyranny of the jackboot and rule of the mob. I'm impressed.

Not too over the top? Pull it back a little.

You'd vote for such a fine chap as that, wouldn't you, Wratten? Wratten?

Corporal Barrowman was a walking time bomb. Yeah, and we set him off.

We performed a controlled explosion.

I'm sorry the telegram brought such bad news.

Obviously you were very close to your grandfather, Davies.

Yes, sir. We will arrange leave so that you can attend the funeral.

Thank you, sir. I understand he served.

Yes, sir. The King's Own Rifles. Really?

Perhaps you're not aware that the King's Own were once based here at Bleakly Marsh.

Yes, sir. It might be fitting to include your grandfather's name in the Roll of Honour today.

At the Remembrance Service.

Um...

Maybe not, sir.

If that's all right. Of course.

I'll take a white one.

So you're feeling yourself today, Lomax? No movie speeches?

I don't like the red one.

It's supposed to commemorate those who suffered on all sides of the war.

It's a symbol.

A signal? So we can recognise each other.

"We"? The enemy...

won't attack us with a great big bomb.

They'll do it with a million small explosions...

..all detonated in our heads.

Right. Explosions called ideas.

Planted right in our brains.

Yeah?

White poppy? The idea is to remember and disarm.

Keenan, will you just leave it? Nearly 50 years since the war to end all wars. SHUT UP!

I don't want to hear it.

And I don't want a stupid white poppy!

Oh dear(!) Seems like your "man of the people" image is crumbling, Keenan.

I just think you shouldn't rush into something like this without thinking, Colin.

I have thought.

And it's the right thing to do for our marriage, for our future.

The only thing I'm not sure about

is whether to give my resignation to Cunnicliffe before or after the Remembrance Service.

Today?!

You think it's possibly a little too theatrical?

I just think it wouldn't hurt anything to wait a while.

Why? I know I'm not going to change my mind.

And we'll look back on this as the day our new life began.

Suddenly, things don't at all seem complicated.

What's all this I hear about white poppies?

It's in remembrance, sir. It's not meant disrespectfully.

Poppies are red around here.

Is that an order, Sergeant?

It's useful advice.

There's no shortage of lads won't appreciate the niceties.

Unless, of course, you want to lose some teeth?

I'll take my chances, Sergeant.

Private Keenan, if you want to do something useful,

would you keep an eye on Davies for me?

He just heard his grandfather died.

Fall in, Private Keenan.

Are you ready to lose Keenan's bet for him, Mr Rothman?

I'm looking forward to seeing you grovel, Mr White-Bowne.

And I'm looking forward to seeing Keenan lick my boots clean.

Really? I thought Lomax was the deluded one!

If you're so certain, why not make it more interesting with a bet on the side?

What's wrong? Suddenly not so confident?

Just feel bad about taking money off you, White-Bowne.

Two Section! Two Section, quick march!

Squad...halt!

What we have here is 500 mess tins,

1,000 water bottles, 2,000 sets of eating irons -

all needs to go to the Quartermaster's stores to be logged in.

But before that, in here, we have 2,000 used pairs of boots

and 5,000 no longer issued tin helmets.

All these items need to be cleared out before the new delivery can be brought in.

Question, Sergeant. Private Rothman?

Once we take all the stuff from this store room, where does it all go?

That, Private Rothman, is a very good question.

"Down In The Bottom" by Howlin' Wolf

Squad halt!

Right turn!

The kit you move from the Quartermaster's will be stored here.

But before that can happen...

..it needs to be cleared out.

Removed and sorted into three piles.

Big stuff, small stuff, and stuff that is neither big nor small.

Do you understand, Two Section? Yes, Sergeant.

Carry on.

Private Lomax, I presume.

Now, I hope...

"You claimed to have a breakdown, didn't you?"

I" don't think I'll have one today, thank you.

"You see, Doctor,

"the maternal instinct springs from an urge to control."

Ah. That was everything I was led to expect.

You never loved me.

You never even wanted me!

Step into my parlour, Private Lomax.

Sergeant Butcher told me.

About your grandfather.

I'm sorry.

I just can't believe I'm not going to get the chance to talk to him again.

I had this idea, right.

That I'd come back from some posting,

seen a bit of action,

not too much, mind,

but enough.

And I'd go and see my Grandpa...

And he'd just know what I was talking about.

I know a bit about what he went through in the trenches.

And then what?

I don't know. I'd... I'd just ask him...

..straight out...

..when the shooting started, did you turn and run?

And if he says yes,

would you have thought any less of him for it?

I don't know.

I'm going to miss all of this. Sir?

I've always thought of you as a good man, Butcher.

A loyal support. And I shall miss that, too.

I'll be handing a letter of resignation to Major Cunnicliffe today.

Resignation, sir? For, let's just call them domestic reasons,

although very positive and optimistic reasons.

Oh, God, here come the press gang to steal our personnel!

Captain Gulliver. Eileen Babcombe, chairman of the Conservative party selection panel. Welcome.

Though the welcome is tempered with some regret.

Whatever your decision today, we'll lose one of our men

and the army never likes losing men.

Please, if you'll follow me.

Why does the army keep all this junk?

It's not junk.

It's the story of some soldier's war you've got there.

What, and this? It's not exactly Montgomery's pistol, is it?

You might think more of it if you'd had to dig yourself in under mortar fire in the Sinai Desert.

The Suez Crisis? That wasn't a real war.

Are you serious? You should try telling that

to the boys who faced the bullets and the shells.

No, Hoy's right. All these scraps from obscure places only some professor's heard of,

they weren't proper wars. Exactly. Compared to the big ones.

Compared to the Great War and that last business sorting out Hitler.

These lads had an easy time of it. Hoy, shut your mouth.

You don't know what you're talking about.

I'll tell you something. I would go out of my way

to do something nice for her,

to make her happy, and she would never give me any acknowledgement...

Come to finish me off, Wratten?

I just wanted to apologise.

For what?

I didn't get anything I didn't deserve.

I didn't mean for it to happen like that. Yes, you did.

You wanted to get the better of me.

And you did.

The problem is, Jimmy, you didn't trust me to understand you.

You filled me up with big plans

and then you chose the army over me.

Norah, if you've come here just to talk about that... And...

after all that, I'm sat here now...

..and I'm still wearing your ring.

That either means I'm stupid

or I think there's something worth trying to hold onto here.

And the honest truth, Jimmy, is...

..I don't know which it is.