Colonel Nicholson: What have I done?
Maj. Warden: You'll go on without me. That's an order. You're in command now, Shears.
Commander Shears: You make me sick with your heroics! There's a stench of death about you. You carry it in your pack like the plague. Explosives and L-pills - they go well together, don't they? And with you it's just one thing or the other: destroy a bridge or destroy
yourself. This is just a game, this war! You and Colonel Nicholson, you're two of a kind, crazy with courage. For what? How to die like a gentleman, how to die by the rules - when the only important thing is how to live like a human being!... I'm not going to leave you here to die, Warden, because I don't care about your bridge and I don't care about your rules. If we go on, we go on together.
Colonel Saito: Do you know what will happen to me if the bridge is not built on time?
Colonel Nicholson: I haven't the foggiest.
Colonel Saito: I'll have to kill myself. What would you do if you were me?
Colonel Nicholson: I suppose if I were you... I'd have to kill myself.
Colonel
Nicholson: [raising the glass of scotch he previously declined] Cheers!
Colonel Nicholson: [looks at the completed bridge] I've been thinking. Tomorrow it will be 28 years to the day that I've been in the service. 28 years in peace and war. I don't suppose I've been at home more than 10 months in all that time. Still, it's been a good life. I loved India. I wouldn't have had it any other way. But there are times... when suddenly you realize you're
nearer the end than the beginning. And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything - or if it made any difference at all, really. Particularly in comparison with other men's careers. I don't know whether that kind of thinking's very healthy, but I must admit I've had some thoughts on those lines from time
to time. But tonight... tonight!
Commander Shears: I can think of a lot of things to call Saito, but "reasonable"... that's a new one.
Colonel Nicholson: [recognizes Shears] You?
Major Shears: [lunges at Nicholson] You!
Major Clipton: The fact is, what we're doing could be construed as - forgive me, sir - collaboration with the enemy. Perhaps even as treasonable activity.
Colonel Nicholson: Are you alright, Clipton? We're prisoners of war, we haven't the right to refuse work.
Major Clipton: I understand that, sir. But... must we work so well? Must
we build them a better bridge than they could have built for themselves?
Colonel Nicholson: If you had to operate on Saito, would you do your job or would you let him die? Would you prefer to see this battalion disintegrate in idleness? Would you have it said that our chaps can't do a proper job? Don't you realize how important it is to show these people that they can't
break us, in body or in spirit? Take a good look, Clipton. One day the war will be over, and I hope that the people who use this bridge in years to come will remember how it was built, and who built it. Not a gang of slaves, but soldiers! British soldiers, Clipton, even in captivity.
Major Clipton: Yes sir.
Colonel Nicholson: You're a fine doctor,
Clipton, but you've a lot to learn about the army.
Colonel Nicholson: It is quite understandable; it's a very natural reaction. But one day - in a week, a month, a year - on that day when, God willing, we all return to our homes again, you're going to feel very proud of what you have achieved here in the face of great adversity. What you have done should be, and I think will be, an example to all our countrymen, soldier and
civilian alike. You have survived with honor - that, and more - here in the wilderness. You have turned defeat into victory. I congratulate you. Well done.
Maj. Warden: [to Col. Green] Sir, it's most annoying. They say, in view of the time element, they don't think a few practice jumps would be worthwhile.
Major Shears: No?
Maj. Warden: No, they say if you make one jump, you've only got 50% chance of injury, two jumps, 80%, and three jumps, you're bound to catch a packet. The consensus
of opinion is that the most sensible thing for Major Shears to do is to go ahead and jump, and hope for the best.
Major Shears: With or without a parachute?
Maj. Warden: I belong to a rather rum group called Force 316. Our headquarters is up in the botanical gardens.
Commander Shears: Protecting rare plants from the enemy?
[after speaking with Nicholson and Saito, neither of whom will relent]
Major Clipton: Are they both mad? Or am I going mad? Or is it the sun?
Major Hughes: Jennings has a plan, sir. He seems to think...
Colonel Nicholson: Yes, I'm sure Jennings has a plan. But escape? Where, into this jungle? That fellow Saito was right: no need for barbed wire or fence, one chance in a hundred of survival. I'm sure a man of Commander Shears' experience will attest to that.
Commander
Shears: I'd say the odds against a successful escape are about 100 to one. But may I add another word, Colonel? The odds against survival in this camp are even worse.
Colonel Saito: Attention, English prisoners! Notice I do not say "English soldiers". From the moment you surrendered, you ceased to be soldiers. You will finish the bridge by the twelfth day of May. You will work under the direction of a Japanese engineer, Lieutenant Mioura. Time is short. All men will work. Your officers will work beside you. This is only just. For it is they who
betray you by surrender. Your shame is their dishonor. It is they who told you: "Better to live like a coolie than die like a hero." It is they who brought you here, not I. Therefore, they will join you in useful labor. That is all.