Rod Mullinar credited as playing...
Major Charles Bolton
- Major Bolton: How did Lt. Handcock look?
- Corporal Sharp: Like he was thinking, sir... like... I can't think of the...
- Major Bolton: Did he look like he was agitated?
- Corporal Sharp: Agitated? Yes, that's it, sir. Yes, sir, he looked agitated.
- Major Thomas: Objection. Major Bolton is leading the witness.
- Major Bolton: I will rephrase the question, sir. Tell me, Corporal Sharp, how did Lt. Handcock look?
- Corporal Sharp: Agitated, sir!
- Major Bolton: [discussing the death of Reverend Hesse] When he left Fort Edward, you knew that he was going to report back here to the authorities in Pietersburg.
- Harry Morant: I had no way of knowing what he was going to do.
- Major Bolton: But it would have been in your interest, would it not, to prevent him?
- Harry Morant: Well, I hardly know about that. All I do know is that someone prevented him, and I'm still here on trial.
- Major Bolton: I suggest that you instructed Leftenant Hancock to follow the Reverend Hesse and to shoot him!
- Harry Morant: I had sent a message to Colonel Hall in Pietersburg informing him of my intentions towards the Boer prisoners. I have nothing to hide.
- Major Bolton: I find that statement hard to believe.
- Harry Morant: Then I suggest, sir, that you recall Colonel Hall from India. He will confirm it. I don't mind waiting.
- Lord Kitchener: Needless to say, the Germans couldn't give a damn about the Boers. The diamonds and gold of South Africa they're interested in.
- Major Bolton: They lack our altruism, sir.
- Lord Kitchener: Quite.
- Major Bolton: I've been wondering if you realize how anxious your own government is for a conviction.
- Lt. George Witton: What do you mean?
- Major Bolton: Well, you've just become a Commonwealth. Your prime minister, Mr. Barton, wants to dissipate any lingering impressions of a frontier colony. Frontier behavior. You can be quite sure the conviction of these men will meet with Australian approval.
- Major Bolton: Of course, Morant and his friends are guilty.
- Major Thomas: Are they? Why not arrest the firing squad? They did the actual killing.
- Major Bolton: But they were following Morant's orders.
- Major Thomas: That's right. Just as Morant - was following orders.
- Col. Ian (Johnny) Hamilton: Colonials, most of them. Australians.
- Major Bolton: I understand they've been quite effective, sir.
- Col. Ian (Johnny) Hamilton: Very effective. We've just arrested three of them for shooting Boer prisoners and a German missionary.
- Lord Kitchener: I've received, Bolton, a telegraph message from Whitehall. The German government has lodged a serious protest - about the missionary, in particular.
- Major Bolton: Yes, sir.
- Lord Kitchener: The Kaiser, as you know, is our late Queen's grandson.
- Col. Ian (Johnny) Hamilton: The fact is that Whitehall feels the Germans are looking for an excuse to enter the war. On the Boers' side, of course. We don't want to give them one.
- Lt. Col. Denny: You are still introducing irrelevant material.
- Major Thomas: Sir. I wish to establish, and I have made the point before in connection with Mr. Robertson, that a precedent in this war has been well and truly set.
- Major Bolton: Sir, I would like to point out to my *learned* colonial colleague that the fact of the crime being previously committed in no way pardons the behavior of Lieutenant Morant and his friends.
- Major Bolton: Where did you go when you left Fort Edward approximately half an hour after the Reverend Hesse?
- Peter Handcock: I went visiting.
- Court Official: Visiting?
- Major Bolton: Visiting?
- Lt. Col. Denny: Visiting?
