Policemen Ali Sokhela and Brian Epkeen investigate the brutal murder of a young white woman, apparently provoked by the availability of a new illegal drug and somehow connected to the disappearance of black street children.

Pte. Thomas Cole: Why is it us? Why us?
Colour Sergeant Bourne: Because we're here, lad. Nobody else. Just us.
Lieutenant John Chard: The army doesn't like more than one disaster in a day.
Bromhead: Looks bad in the newspapers and upsets civilians at their breakfast.
Colour Sergeant Bourne: It's a miracle.
Lieutenant John Chard: If it's a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it's a short chamber Boxer Henry point 45 caliber miracle.
Colour Sergeant Bourne: And a bayonet, sir, with some guts behind.
Adendorff: Haven't you had enough? Both of you! My god, can't you see it's all over! Your bloody egos don't matter anymore. We're dead!
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Sixty! We dropped at least 60, wouldn't you say?
Adendorff: That leaves only 3,940.
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Damn the levies man... Cowardly blacks!
Adendorff: What the hell do you mean "cowardly blacks?" They died on your side, didn't they? And who the hell do you think is coming to wipe out your little command? The Grenadier Guards?
Pte. Henry Hook: Rourke's Drift... It'd take an Irishman to give his name to a rotten stinking middle o' nowhere hole like this.
Bromhead: [mounted, crossing stream] Hot work?
Lieutenant John Chard: [kneeling in stream] Damned hot work.
Bromhead: Still, the river cooled you off a bit though, eh?
[pause]
Bromhead: Who are you?
Lieutenant John Chard: John Chard, Royal Engineers.
Bromhead: Bromhead. 24th. That's my post... up there.
[points into middle distance]
Bromhead: You've come down from the column?
Lieutenant John Chard: That's right. They want a bridge across the river.
Bromhead: Who said you could use my men?
Lieutenant John Chard: They were sitting around on their backsides, doing nothing.
Bromhead: Rather you asked first, old boy.
Lieutenant John Chard: I was told that their officer was out hunting.
Bromhead: Err... yes.
[spurs on horse]
Bromhead: I'll tell my man to clean your kit.
Lieutenant John Chard: Don't bother!
Bromhead: No bother... I'm not offering to clean it myself! Still, a chap ought to look smart in front of the men, don't you think? Well chin-chin... do carry on with your mud pies.
Brian Epkeen: Yebo Baba.
Ali Sokhela: You look like hell.
Brian Epkeen: I'm happy to see you too.
Colour Sergeant Bourne: A prayer's as good as bayonet on a day like this.
Margareta Witt: [of the Zulu] How can they let themselves be married in droves like this - young girls to... to old men?
Reverend Otto Witt: In Europe, young women accept arranged marriages with rich men. Perhaps the Zulu girls are luckier, getting a *brave* man.
[Bourne calls the roll after the battle]
Colour Sergeant Bourne: Hitch... Hitch, I saw you. You're alive.
Pte. Fred Hitch: I am? Oh, thanks very much.
Bromhead: Fire at will!
Pte. Owen: That's very nice of him.
Bromhead: Well done, Adendorff, we'll make an Englishman of you yet!
Adendorff: No, thanks. I'm a Boer. The Zulus are the enemies of my blood. What are you doing here?
Bromhead: You don't object to our help, I hope?
Adendorff: It all depends on what you damned English want for it, afterwards.
Lieutenant John Chard: You didn't say a thing to help, Bromhead.
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Well, when you take command, old boy, you're on your own. One of the first things that the general - my grandfather - ever taught me.
Lieutenant John Chard: [wounded] You're the professional. Take command.
Bromhead: Now listen, old boy, you're not badly hurt. We need you! We need you! Understand?
Cpl. William Allen: [both men are wounded but the soldier distributing ammunition has fallen] Can you move your leg?
Pte. Fred Hitch: [flippantly] If you want me to dance...
Cpl. William Allen: I want you to *crawl*. Come on you slovenly soldier, we've got work to do.
Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: You know what you've got there, my malingering Hector?
Pte. Henry Hook: No, sir. Hook's the name, sir.
Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: You've got a fine glistening boil, my friend. There's one glistening boil for every soldier in Africa. You may not get any medals in this campaign, Hook, but you'll certainly get more boils. For every gunshot wound I probe, I expect to lance 3 boils.
[brandishing a lance]
Pte. Henry Hook: A spot of medicinal brandy would set me up, sir!
Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: Brandy's for heroes, Mr. Hook. The rest of you will make do with boils on your skin, flies in your meat and dysentery on your bellies!
Colour Sergeant Bourne: [Quoting Psalm 46, v10-11 just before the battle] I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of Hosts is with us.
Cpl. William Allen: I hope so. As I live and die, I hope so.
Reverend Otto Witt: Death waits you! You have made a covenant with death, and with Hell you are in agreement. You're all going to die! Don't you realize? Can't you see? You're all going to die! Die! Death awaits you all!
Pte. Henry Hook: [At Maxfield, whom is singing in delirium] Shut up you cripple!
Lieutenant John Chard: Mr. Bourne, there should be 12 more men working on this redoubt.
Color Sgt. Bourne: They're very tired, sir.
[Chard whirls around]
Lieutenant John Chard: I don't give a damn! And I want this wall nine feet high, firing steps on the inside. Form details to clear away the Zulu bodies, rebuild the south rampart, keep 'em moving! Do you understand?
Color Sgt. Bourne: Yes sir... very good, sir.
Cpl. Frederic Schiess, NNC: I belong to Natal Mounted Police.
Pvt. William Jones: Is that true then? He's a peeler, 716. Come to arrest the Zulus.
Reverend Otto Witt: One thousand British soldiers have been massacred. While I stood here talking peace, a war has started.
Bromhead: Chard. One of my men - Hook - do you know him?
Lieutenant John Chard: [preoccupied] No.
Bromhead: In the hospital, malingering under arrest. He's a thief, a coward and an insubordinate barrack room lawyer. And you've given him a rifle!
Lieutenant John Chard: [distracted] What?
Bromhead: In Queen's Regulations, it specifically states - Damn funny. Like a train... in the distance.
[stops as the sound of thousands of Zulu warriors marching toward the mission can be heard]
Lieutenant John Chard: You were saying about Hook?
Cpl. Frederic Schiess, NNC: A Zulu regiment can run, *run*, 50 miles and fight a battle at the end of it.
Pvt. William Jones: Well, there's daft, it is then. I don't see no sense in running to fight a battle.
Lieutenant John Chard: Mr. Witt! When I have the impertinence to climb into your pulpit to deliver a sermon, then you can tell me my duty.
Private Henry Hook: [Throws Sergeant Maxfield across his shoulder] Twenty eight days field punishment! No pay! You know what he did? Sent my money to my Missus.
[Slaps Sereant Maxfield's buttocks]
Private Henry Hook: What did you do that for?
Cpl. William Allen: Heave! Put a bit more weight on that rope, you men!
Pvt. John Williams: He's even got a voice like a corporal!
Pvt. Fred Hitch: Yeah, sort of like a female hippopotamus in labor.
Pvt. William Jones: What's he up to, 593?
Pte. Robert Jones: Oh, I think he wants to be hero, 716.
Cpl. Frederic Schiess, NNC: Haven't you rednecks got names instead of numbers?
Pte. Robert Jones: 'Tis a Welsh regiment, man! Though there are some foreigners from England in it , mind. I am Jones from Bwlchgwyn, he is Jones from Builth Wells, and there are four more Joneses in C Company! Confusing, isn't it, Dutchy?
Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: You know this boy?
Orderly: Name is Cole, sir. He's a paper hanger.
Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: Well, he's a dead paper hanger now.
Color Sgt. Bourne: [doing roll call] Hughes!
Hughes: Excused duty!
[the soldiers begin to laugh]
Color Sgt. Bourne: No comedians, please. Hughes.
Hughes: Yes, Colour Sergeant.
Reverend Otto Witt: [shouting, drunkenly] He breaketh the bow and snappeth the spear in sunder!
Color Sgt. Bourne: [under his breath] I shall be exalted among the 'eathens... I shall be exalted in the Earth.
Bromhead: If 1200 men couldn't hold a defensive position this morning, what chance have we with 100?
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Now there's a bitter pill. Our own damned rifles!
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: It's fear dries the mouth, isn't it? When a man's as thirsty as this.
Lieutenant John Chard: I could have drunk a river.
Lieutenant John Chard: [shouting] Front rank fire! Rear rank fire, reload!
Lieutenant John Chard: [repeats a few times as one line of soldiers fires and the other kneels and reloads their rifles]
Lieutenant John Chard: I came here to build a bridge.
Colour Sergeant Bourne: The Lord of Hosts is with us.
Cpl. William Allen: I hope so... as I live and die, I hope so.
Sgt. Robert Maxfield: You're no good to anyone, except the Queen and Sergeant Maxfield!
Pte. Henry Hook: Well thank you very much, the both of you!
Lieutenant John Chard: What's our strength?
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Seven officers including surgeon, commissaries and so on; Adendorff now I suppose; wounded and sick 36, fit for duty 97 and about 40 native levies. Not much of an army for you.
[to the wounded Hook]
Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: This is going to hurt you a lot more than it will me, I'm happy to say.
Bromhead: [Adendorff has explained the classic Zulu 'buffalo' battle formation] It looks er... jolly simple, doesn't it?
Adendorff: It's, er, jolly deadly, old boy.
Bromhead: [laughs] Well done, Adendorff, we'll make an Englishmen of you yet!
Lieutenant John Chard: Good. I can find work for baritones as well as tenors.
Cpl. William Allen: You slovenly soldier, Hitch.
Hughes: Hey, Hooky... who's doing all that shooting? Who do you think?
Private Henry Hook: Who do you think? Mister flamin' Bromhead, shooting flamin' defenseless animals for the flamin' officers' flamin' dinner.
Private Henry Hook: [after being ordered to help prepare for the Zulu attack] What for? Did I ever see a Zulu walk down the City road? No! So what am I doing here?
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Adendorff, what's wrong with them? Why don't they fight?
Adendorff: They're counting your guns.
Lieutenant John Chard: *What?*
Adendorff: Can't you see that old boy up on the hill? He's counting your guns. Testing your firing power with the lives of his warriors.
Sergeant Windridge: Owen!
Pte. Owen: Yes, Sergeant?
Sergeant Windridge: You've got a voice haven't you?
Pte. Owen: Yes, baritone, Sergeant.
Sergeant Windridge: Well get up on that hill and sing out if you see anything. You too. And take your bandook, you dozy welshman!
Bromhead: At one hundred yards! Volley fire, present! Aim! Fire!
Lieutenant John Chard: [the Zulus are chanting before their final charge] Do you think the Welsh can't do better than that, Owen?
Pte. Owen: Well, they've got a very good bass section, mind, but no top tenors, that's for sure.
[repeated line]
Colour Sergeant Bourne: All right, nobody told you to stop working.
[points towards the fleeing cavalry]
Reverend Otto Witt: The way of the Lord has been shown to us!
Cpl. Frederic Schiess, NNC: What do you know about Zulus?
Pte. Robert Jones: Bunch of savages, isn't it?
Commissary Dalton: Careful! Pop that chap somebody! Good fellow, good fellow!
Pvt. John Williams: Hooky, come on old boy, do something!
Pte. Henry Hook: I'm excused duty.
Pvt. John Williams: Well, I haven't excused you, have I?
Pte. Henry Hook: Oh, YOU want some help? Well, why didn't you say so?
[grabs a rifle and starts defending the mission]
Lieutenant John Chard: Well, you've fought your first action.
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Does everyone feel like this afterwards?
Lieutenant John Chard: How do you feel?
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: Sick.
Lieutenant John Chard: Well, you have to feel alive to feel sick.
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: You asked me, I told you.
[pause]
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: There's something else. I feel ashamed. Was that how it was for you? The first time?
Lieutenant John Chard: The first time? You think I could stand this butcher's yard more than once?
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead: I didn't know.
Lieutenant John Chard: I came up here to build a bridge.
Colour Sergeant Bourne: The sentries report Zulus to the south west. Thousands of them.
Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: Orderly, Damn it! Will you keep the flies away. Fan it! Damn you, Chard! Damn all you butchers!
Bromhead: You mean your only plan is to stand behind a few feet of mealie bags and wait for the attack?
Private Henry Hook: [as Sergeant Maxfield raves deliriously in the hospital] Stuff me with green apples! If a dog was as sick as him,they'd shoot it!