Roderick and his company.
RODERICK (V.O.)
Were these memoirs not characterized by truth, I might easily make myself the hero of some strange and popular adventures.
Officers ride by in smoke. Troops marching to the attack.
RODERICK (V.O.)
But I saw no one of the higher ranks that day than my colonel and a couple of orderly officers riding by in the smoke -- no one on our side, that is. A poor corporal is not generally invited into the company of commanders and the great.
Roderick advancing.
RODERICK (V.O.)
But, in revenge, I saw, I promise you, some very good company on the French part, for their regiments of Lorraine and Royal Cravate were charging us all day; and in the sort of melee high and low are pretty equally received. I hate bragging, but I cannot help saying that I made a very close acquaintance with the colonel of the Cravates.
Roderick firing his musket. He bayonets a French colonel, amidst shouts and curses.
RODERICK (V.O.)
And finished off a poor little ensign, so young, slender, and small, that a blow from my pigtail would have dispatched him.
Roderick kills a French ensign with a blows from the butt of his musket.
RODERICK (V.O.)
And in the poor ensign's pocket found a purse of fourteen louis d'or, and a silver box of sugarplums, of which the former present was very agreeable to me.
Roderick taking money and the box of sugar-plums from the ensign.
RODERICK (V.O.)
If people would tell their stories of battles in this simple way, I think the cause of truth would not suffer by it. All I know of this famous fight of Minden, except from books, is told here above.
Captain Grogan is shot, cries out, and falls.
A brother captain turns to Lieutenant Lakenham.
CAPTAIN
Grogan's down; Lakenham, there's your company.
RODERICK (V.O.)
That was all the epitaph my brave patron got.
Roderick kneels above Grogan.
CAPTAIN GROGAN
I should have left you a hundred guineas, Roderick, but for a cursed run of ill-luck last night at faro.
He gives Roderick a faint squeeze of the hand; and, as the word is given to advance, Roderick leaves him.
RODERICK (V.O.)
When we came back to our ground, which we presently did, he was lying still, but he was dead. Some of our people had already torn off his epaulets, and, no doubt, had rifled his purse.
Short cuts to voice over.
Roderick and British troops rape, pillage and burn.
RODERICK (V.O.)
After the death of my protector, Captain Grogan, I am forced to confess that I fell into the very worst of courses and company. In a foreign country, with the enemy before us, and the people continually under contribution from one side or the other, numberless irregularities were permitted to the troops. It is well for gentlemen to talk of the age of chivalry; but remember the starving brutes whom they lead -- men nursed in poverty, entirely ignorant, made to take pride in deeds of blood -- men who can have no amusement but in drunkenness, debauch, and plunder. It is with these shocking instruments that your great warriors and kings have been doing their murderous work in the world.
RODERICK (V.O.)
The year in which George II died, our regiment had the honor to be present at the Battle of Warburg, where Prince Ferdinand once more completely defeated the Frenchmen.
Lieutenant Lakenham is shot, falls, and cries for help.
RODERICK (V.O.)
During the action, my lieutenant, Mr. Lakenham, of Lakenham, was struck by a musket-ball in the side. He had shown no want of courage in this or any other occasion where he had been called upon to act against the French; but this was his first wound, and the young gentleman was exceedingly frightened by it.
LAKENHAM
Here, you, Roderick James. I will pay you five guineas if you will carry me into the town which is hard by those woods.
Roderick and another man take him up in a cloak, and carry him towards the nearby town of Warburg.
In order to get into the house, Roderick and the other man are obliged to fire into the locks with their pieces, which summons brings the inhabitants of the house to the door; a very pretty and black-eyed, young woman, and her old, half-blinded father.
They are at first unwilling to accommodate the guest, but Mr. Lakenham, speaking to them in German, and taking a couple of guineas out of a very full purse, speedily convinces the people that they have only to deal with a person of honor.
They carry Lieutenant Lakenham to bed and receive their five guineas.
RODERICK (V.O.)
We put the patient to bed, and he paid me the stipulated reward. A young surgeon, who desired nothing better than to take himself out of the fire of the musketry, came presently to dress the wound.
In his German jargon, Roderick pays some deserved compliments to the black-eyed beauty of Warburg, thinking, with no small envy, how comfortable it would be to be billeted there.
He starts back to the regiment, with his comrade, when the man interrupts his reverie by suggesting they divide the five guineas.
PRIVATE
I should get half.
RODERICK
Your share is one guinea. Roderick gives him one guinea.
PRIVATE
He gave you five guineas, and I bloody well expect half.
RODERICK
Go to the devil.
The private lifting his musket, hits Roderick a blow with the butt-end of it, which sends him stunned to the ground, allowing his comrade to take the other four guineas from his pocket.
Recovering his senses, Roderick bleeding, with a large wound in the head, has barely time to stagger back to the house where he had just left the lieutenant, when he falls fainting at the door, just as the surgeon exits.
Roderick is carried by the surgeon and the black-eyed girl, into another bed in the room where the Lieutenant has been laid.
LAKENHAM
(languidly, in pain)
Who are you putting into that bed?
LISCHEN
We have the Corporal, wounded, to you bringing.
LAKENHAM
A corporal? Turn him out. Schicken sie Herrn Koporal weg!
Lischen brings Roderick a refreshing drink; and, as he takes it, he presses the kind hand that gave it to him; nor does this token of his gratitude seem unwelcome.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I found Lischen the tenderest of nurses. Whenever any delicacy was to be provided for the wounded lieutenant, a share was always sent to the bed opposite his, and to the avaricious man's no small annoyance.
Lischen serving food.
Various cuts, representing different days. Lakenham behaving as rottenly as Roderick describes:
RODERICK (V.O.)
Nor was I the only person in the house to whom the worthy gentleman was uncivil. He ordered the fair Lischen hither and thither, made impertinent love to her, abused her soups, quarreled with her omelettes, and grudged the money which was laid out for his maintenance, so that our hostess detested him as much as, I think, without vanity, as she regarded me.