"God, why do they bother?" "!" "Well, it's to kill Jerry, Isn't it, sir?" "Yes, but Jerry is safe underground in concrete bunkers." "We've shot off over a million cannon shellsand what's the result?" "One dachshund with a slight limp!" "Shut up!" "Thank you!" "Right, I'm off to bed where I intend to sleep until my name changes to Rip Van Adder." "Aah..." "Oh, God!" "Bloody Germans!" "They can't take a joke, can they?" "Just because we take a few pot-shots at them, they have to have an air-raid to get their own back." "Where are our air force?" "They're meant to defend us against this sort of thing." "Right, that's it!" "Hello?" "Yes, yes, I'd like to leave a message for the head of the Flying Corps, please." "That's Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Massingbird-Massingbird," "VC, DFC and BAR." "Message reads: "Where are you, you bastard?"" "Here I am, sir." "For God's sake, Baldrick, take cover." "Why's that, sir?" "Because there's an air-raid going on" "And I don't want to have to write to your mother at London Zoo and tell her that her only human child is dead." "All right, sir." "It's just that I didn't know there was an air-raid on." "I couldn't hear anything over the noise of the terrific display by our wonderful boys of the Royal Flying Corps, sir." "What?" "I say, those chaps can't half thunder in their airborne steeds, can't they just?" "Oh, hello, what's going on here?" "Game of hide and seek?" "Excellent!" "Right now, I'll go and count to a hundred." "Er, no." "Better make it five, actually." "George..." "Oh, it's sardines." "Oh, excellent!" "That's my favourite one, that." " George." " Yes, sir?" "Shut up, and never say anything again as long as you live." "Right you are, sir." "Crikey, but what a show it was, sir." "Lord Flashheart's Flying Aces." "How we cheered when they spun." "How we shouted when they dived." "How we applauded when one chap got sliced in half by his own propeller." "Well, it's all part of the joke for those magnificent men in their flying machines." "For "magnificent men," read "biggest show-offs" since Lady Godiva" ""entered the royal enclosure at Ascotclaiming she had literally nothing to wear."" "I don't care how many times they go up-diddly-up-up, they're still gits!" "Oh, come on, sir!" "I'd love to be a flier." "Up there where the air is clear." "The chances of the air being clear anywhere near you, Baldrick, are zero!" "Oh, sir." "It'd be great, swooping and diving." "Baldrick." "Baldrick." "Baldrick, what are you doing?" "I'm a Sopwith Camel, sir." "Oh, it is a Sopwith Camel." "Ah, right, I always get confused between the sound of a Sopwith Camel and the sound of a malodorous runt wasting everybody's time." "Now, if you can do without me in the nursery for a while," "I'm going to get some fresh air." "Ha!" "Eat knuckle, Fritz!" "Ooh!" "How disgusting." "A boche on the sole of my boot." "I shall have to find a patch of grass to wipe it on." "Probably get shunned in the officers' mess." "Sorry about the pong, you fellows," "Trod in a boche and can't get rid of the whiff." "Do you think we could dispense with the hilarious doggy-do metaphor for a moment?" "I'm not a boche." " This is a British trench." " Is it?" "Oh, that's a piece of luck." "Thought I'd landed sausage-side!" "Ha!" "Mind if I use your phone?" "If word gets out that I'm missing, five hundred girls will kill themselves." "I wouldn't want them on my conscience, not when they ought to be on my face!" "Hi, Flashheart here." "Yeah, cancel the state funeral, tell the king to stop blubbing." "Flash is "not" dead." "I simply ran out of "juice!"" "Yeah, and before all the girls start saying," "Oh, what's the point of living anymore," "I'm talking about petrol!" "Woof, woof!" "Yeah, I dumped the kite on the proles, so send a car." "General Melchett's driver should do." "She hangs around with the big nobs, so she'll be used to a fellow like me!" "Woof, woof!" "Look, do you think you could make your obscene phone call somewhere else?" "No, not in half an hour, you rubber-desk johnny." "Send the bitch with the wheels right now, or I'll fly back to England and give your wife something to hang her towels on." "Okay, dig out your best booze and let's talk about me 'til the car comes." "You must be pretty impressed having squadron commander The Lord Flashheart drop in on your squalid bit of line." "Actually, no." "I was more impressed by the contents of my handkerchief the last time I blew my nose." "Yeah, like hell." "Huh, huh." "You've probably got little piccies of me on the walls of your dugout, haven't you?" "I bet you go all girly and giggly every time you "look at me"!" "I'm afraid not." "Unfortunately, most of the infantry think you're a prat." "Ask them who they'd prefer to meet," "Squadron Commander Flashheart and the man who cleans out the public toilets in Aberdeen, and they'd go for Wee Jock "Poo-Pong" Mcplop every time." "Ha ha ha ha!" "So when that fellow looped-the-loop," "I honestly thought that, that, that..." "My God!" "Yes, I suppose I am." "Lord Flashheart, this is the greatest honor of my life." "I hope I snuff it right now to preserve this moment forever." "It could be arranged." "Lord Flashheart, I want to learn to write so I can send a letter home about this golden moment." "So all the fellows hate me, eh?" "Not a bit of it." "I'm your bloody hero, eh, old scout?" "Jesus!" "My lord, I've got every cigarette card they ever printed of you." "My whole family took up smoking just so that we could get the whole set." "My grandmother smoked herself to death so we could afford the album." "Of course she did, of course she did," "The poor love-crazed old octogenarian." "Well, all right, you fellows." "Let's sit us down and yarn about how amazingly attractive I am." "Yes, would you excuse me for a moment?" "I've got some urgent business." "There's a bucket outside I've got to be sick into." "Yooo-hooo!" "All right, you chaps, let's get comfy." "You look like a decent British bloke." "I'll park the old booties on you if that's okay." "It would be an honor, my lord." "Of course it would!" "Ha!" "Ah..." "Have you any idea what it's like to have the wind rushing through your hair?" "No, sir." "He has!" "Lucky devil!" "So I flew straight through her bedroom window, popped a box of chocs on the dressing table, machine-gunned my telephone number into the wall, and then shot off and shagged her sister." "Ahem." "Driver Parkhurst reporting for duty, my lord." "Well, well, well." "If it isn't little Bobby Parkhurst..." "Saucier than a direct hit on a Heinz factory." "I've come to pick you up." "Well, that's how like my girls... direct and to my point." "Woof!" "Woof!" "Ah!" "Tally ho, then!" "Back to the bar." "You should join the Flying Corps, George." "That's the way to fight a war." "Tasty tuck, soft beds and a uniform so smart" "It's got a Ph.D. From Cambridge." "You could even bring the breath monster here." "Anyone can be a navigator" "If he can tell his arse from his elbow." "Well, that's Baldrick out, I fear..." "We're always looking for talented types" "To join the Twenty-Minuters." "And there goes George." "Tally ho, then, Bobby." "Hush, here comes a whiz-bang and I think you know what I'm talking about!" " Woof!" " Woof!" "God, it's like crufts in here!" "I say, sir, what a splendid notion." "The Twenty-Minuters." "Soft tucker, tasty beds, fluffy uniforms." "Begging your permission, sir, but why do they call them the Twenty Minuters?" "Ah, now, yes," "Now this one is in my brooke bond "Book Of The Air."" "Now, you have to collect all the cards and then stick them into this wonderful presentation booklet." "Er..." "Ah, here we are, Twenty-Minuters." "Oh, damn!" "Haven't got the card yet." "Ah, but the caption says "Twenty minutes" ""is the average amount of time new pilots spend in the air."" " Twenty minutes." " That's right, sir." "I had a twenty-hour watch yesterday," "With four hours overtime, in two feet of water." "Well then, for goodness sake, sir, why don't we join?" "Yeah, be better than just sitting around here all day on our elbows." "No, thank you." "No, thank you." "I have no desire to hang around" "With a bunch of upper-class delinquents, do twenty minutes work, and then spend the rest of the day loafing about in Paris, drinking gallons of champagne and having dozens of moist, pink, highly-experienced young French peasant girls" "galloping up and down my..." "Hang on." "Come!" "Ah, Captain Blackadder." "Good morning, Captain Darling." "What do you want?" "You're looking so well." "I'm a busy man, Blackadder." "Let's hear it, whatever it is." "Well, you know, Darling, every man..." "Every man has a dream..." "Hmmm... and when I was a small boy," "I used to watch the marsh warblers swooping in my mothers undercroft, and I remember thinking, 'will men ever dare do the same?" "'" "And you know..." "Oh, you want to join the Royal Flying Corps?" "Oh, that's a thought." " Could I?" " No, you couldn't!" "Good-bye!" "Look, come on, Darling, just give me an application form." "It's out of the question." "This is simply a ruse to waste five months of training after which you'll claim you can't fly after all because it makes your ears go "pop"." "Come on, I wasn't born yesterday, Blackadder." "More's the pity, we could have started your personality from scratch." "So, the training period is five months, is it?" "It's no concern of yours if it's five years and comes with a free holiday in Tunisia, contraceptives supplied." "Besides, they wouldn't admit you." "It's not easy getting transfers, you know." "Oh, you've tried it yourself, have you?" "No, I haven't." "Trust you to try and skive off to some cushy option." "There's nothing cushy about life in the Womens' Auxiliary Balloon Corps." "...And then the bishop said," "I'm awfully sorry, I didn't realize you meant organist." "Thank you, George." "At ease, everybody." "Now, where's my map?" " Come on." " Sir!" "Thank you." "God, it's a barren, featureless desert out there, isn't it?" "The other side, sir!" "Hello, George." "What are you doing here?" "Me, sir?" "I just popped in to join the Royal Flying Corps." "Hello, Blackadder." "What are you doing here?" "Me, sir?" "I just popped in to join the Royal Flying Corps." "And, of course, I said..." "Bravo, I hope, Darling." "Because, you know, I've always had my doubts about you trenchy-type fellows." "Always suspected there might be a bit too much of the battle-dodging, nappy-wearing," "I'd-rather-have-a-cup-of-tea" "Than-charge-stark-naked- at-Jerry about you." "But if you're willing to join the Twenty-Minuters," "Then you're all right by me and welcome to marry my sister any day." "Are you sure about this, sir?" "Certainly, you should hear the noise she makes when she eats a boiled egg." "Be glad to get her out of the house." "So, report back here 09:00 hours for your basic training." "Crikey!" "I'm looking forward to today." "Up-diddly-up, down-diddly-down," "Whoops-poop, twiddly-dee." "Decent scrap with the fiendish Red Baron, a bit of a jolly old crash landing behind enemy lines, capture, torture, escape and then back home in time for tea and medals." "George, who's using the family brain-cell at the moment?" "This is just the beginning of the training." "The beginning of five long months of very clever, very dull men looking at machinery." "Flashheart:" "Hey, girls!" "Look at my machinery!" "Enter a man who has no underwear." "Ask me why." "Why do you have no underwear, Lord Flash?" "Because the pants haven't been built yet that can take the job on." "And that's the type of guy who's doing the training around here." "Sit down!" "Well, well, well, well, well." "If it isn't old Captain Slack Bladder." "Blackadder." "Couldn't resist it, eh, Slack Bladder?" "Told you you thought I was great." "All right men, let's dooooo it!" "The first thing to remember is:" "Always treat your kite like you treat your woman." "How... how do you mean, sir?" "Do you mean..." "Do you mean take her home at weekends to meet your mother?" "No, I mean get inside her five times a day and take her to heaven and back!" "I'm beginning to see why the Suffragette Movement want the vote." "Hey, hey!" "any bird who wants to chain herself to my railings and suffer a jet movement gets my vote!" "Er, right." "Well, I'll see you in ten minutes for take-off." "Hang on, hang on!" "What about the months of training?" "Hey, wet-pants!" "This isn't the Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps." "You're in the Twenty-Minuters now." "Er, sir..." "Sir!" "Prat at the back!" "I think we'd all be intrigued to know why you're called the Twenty-Minuters." "Oh, Mister Thicko." "Imagine not knowing that." "Well, it's simple!" "The average life expectancy for a new pilot is twenty minutes." "Ah..." "Life expectancy... of twenty minutes." "That's right." "Goggles on, chocks away, last one back's a homo!" "Hurray!" "Hurray!" "So, we take off in ten minutes, we're in the air for twenty minutes, which means we should be dead by twenty-five to ten." "Hairy blighters, sir." "This is a bit of a turn-up for the plus fours." "I shouldn't worry about it too much, Blackadder." "Flying's all about navigation." "As long as you've got a good navigator," "I'm sure you'll be fine." "Actually, they're right." "This is a doddle." "Careful, sir!" "Whoops, whoops, a little wobble there." "I'll get the hang of it, don't worry." "All right, Baldrick, how many rounds have we got?" "Er, five hundred, sir." "Cheese and tomato for you, rat for me." "Tally-bally ho!" "What's this, sir?" "Baldrick!" "Baldrick!" "Will you stop arsing about and get back in the plane!" "Ooh, ooh, ooh!" "Hey, sir, I can see a pretty red plane from up here." "Ha ha!" "Woo woo!" "Schnell!" "Da unten!" "Ha ha ha!" "Oh, no!" "Watch out, Baldrick, it's stood right on our tail." "Yes, now this is developing into a distinctly boring situation, but we're still on our side of the line" "So I'll crash-land and claim my ears went "pop" first time out." " Ooh, let's hope we fall on something soft!" " Fine." "I'll try and aim between General Melchett's ears!" "I don't believe it." "A German prison cell." "For two and a half years the western front has been as likely to move as a Frenchman who lives next door to a brothel, and last night the Germans advance a mile and we land on the wrong side." "Ooh, dear, Captain B, my tummy's gone all squirty." "That's because you're scared, Baldrick, and you're not the only one." "I couldn't be more petrified if a wild rhinoceros had just come home from a hard day at the swamp and found me wearing his pyjamas, smoking his cigars and in bed with his wife." "I've heard what these Germans will do, sir." "They'll have their wicked way with anything of woman born." "Well, in that case, Baldrick, you're quite safe." "However, the teutonic reputation for brutality is well-founded..." "Their operas last three or four days, and they have no word for "fluffy"." "I want my mum!" "Yes, it'd be good to see her." "I should imagine a maternally-outraged gorilla could be a useful ally when it comes to the final scrap." "Prepare to die like a man, Baldrick." "Or as close as you can come to a man without actually shaving the palms of your hands." "Good evening." "I am Oberleutnant Von Gerhardt." "I have a message from the Baron Von Richthoven..." "The greatest living German." "Which, considering his competition consists entirely of very fat men in leather shorts, burping to the tune of She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain, is no great achievement." "Quiet!" "And what is your message?" "It is: "Prepare for a fate worse than death, English flying fellow."" "Oh." "So, it's the traditional warm German welcome." "Correct." "Also, he is saying, "Do not try to escape or you will suffer even worse."" ""a fate worse than a fate worse than death."" "That's pretty bad." "Yes, well, you see," "It's all very well for you, isn't it," "Sitting here behind yer, behind yer, behind yer comfy desk!" "Don't you take that tone with me, Lieutenant, or I'll have you on a charge for insubordination." "Well, I'd rather be on a charge for insubordination than on a charge of deserting a friend." "How dare you talk to me like that!" "How dare I?" "Now, then, now then, now, now, then, now then, now then, then now..." "Now then, what's going on here?" "That damn fool Blackadder has crashed his plane behind enemy lines, sir." "This young idiot wants to go and try rescue him." "It's a total waste of men and equipment." "He's not a damn fool, sir, he's a bally hero." "All right." "All right." "I'll deal with this, Darling." "Delicate touch needed, I fancy." "Now, George," "Do you remember when I came down to visit you when you were a nipper for your sixth birthday?" "You used to have a lovely little rabbit..." "Beautiful little thing." "Do you remember?" " Flossy." " That's right, Flossy." "Do you remember what happened to Flossy?" " You shot him." " That's right." "It was the kindest thing to do after he'd been run over by that car." " By your car, sir." " Yes, by my car." "But that too was an act of mercy when you would remember that that dog had been set on him." " Your dog, sir." " Yes, yes, my dog." "But what I'm trying to say, George, is that the state young flossy was in after we'd scraped him off my front tire is very much the state that young Blackadder will be in now." "If not very nearly dead, then very actually dead." " Permission for lip to wobble, sir?" " Permission granted." "Stout fellow." "But surely, sir, you must allow me to at least try and save him." "No, George." "It would be as pointless as trying to teach a woman the value of a good, forward defensive stroke." "Besides, it would take a superman to get him out of there, not the kind of weed who blubs just because somebody gives him a slice of rabbit pie instead of birthday cake." "Well, I suppose you're right, sir." "'Course I am." "Now, let's talk about something more jolly, shall we?" "Look, this is the amount of land we've recaptured since yesterday." "Oh, excellent." "Um, what is the actual scale of this map, Darling?" " Um, one-to-one, sir." " Come again?" "Er, the map is actually life-size, sir." "It's superbly detailed." " Look, there's a little worm." " Oh, yes." "So the actual amount of land retaken is... ?" "Excuse me, sir." "Seventeen square feet, sir." " Excellent." "So you see, young Blackadder didn't die horribly in vain after all." "If he did die, sir." "Tch!" "That's the spirit, George." "If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through." "So!" "I am the Red Baron von Richthoven and you are the two English flying aces responsible for the spilling of the precious German blood of many of my finest and my blondest friends." "I have waited many months to do this." "You may have been right, Balders." "Looks like we're going to get rogered to death after all." "Do you want me to go first, sir?" "Ha ha ha ha!" "You English and your sense of humour." "During your brief stay, I look forward to learning more of your wit, your punning and your amusing jokes about the breaking of the wind." " Well, Baldrick's the expert there." " I certainly am, sir." "How lucky you English are to find the toilet so amusing." "For us, it is a mundane and functional item." "For you, the basis of an entire culture." "I must now tell you of the full horror of what awaits you." "Ah, you see, Balders." "dress it up in any amount of pompous verbal diarrhoea, and the message is "squareheads down" ""for the big boche gang-bang."" "As an officer and a gentleman, you will be looking forward to a quick and noble death." "Well, obviously." "But, instead, an even worse fate awaits you." "Tomorrow you will be taken back to Germany..." "Here it comes!" "...to a convent school outside Heidelberg, where you will spend the rest of the war teaching the young girls home economics." "Er..." "For you, as a man of honor, the humiliation will be unbearable!" "Oh, I think you'll find we're tougher than you imagine." "Ha!" "I can tell how much you are suffering by your long feces." "We're not suffering too much to say thank you."" "Thank you." "Say thank you, Baldrick." "Thank you, Baldrick." "How amusing." "But now, forgive me." "I must take to the skies once again." "Very funny." "The noble Lord Flashheart still eludes me." "I think you'll find he's overrated." "Bad breath and... impotent, they say." "Sexual innuendo." "Ha ha ha ha!" "But enough of this." "As you say in England, I must fly." "Ha ha ha ha!" "Perhaps I will master this humour after all, ja?" "I wouldn't be too optimistic." "Oh, and the little fellow," "If you get lonely in the night, I'm in the old chateau." "There's no pressure." "Ha ha ha ha!" "Pratfall!" "Is it really true, sir?" "Is the war really over for us?" "Yup!" "Out of the war and teaching nuns how to boil eggs." "For us, the great war is finito." "A war that would be a damn sight simpler if we'd just stayed in England and shot fifty thousand of our men a week." "No more mud, death, rats, bombs, shrapnel, whiz-bangs, barbed wire and those bloody awful songs that have the word "whoops" in the title." "Oh, damn!" "He's... he's left the door open." "Oh, good!" "We can escape, sir." "Are you mad, Baldrick?" "I'll find someone to lock it for us." "Ssh!" "Keep-ee!" "Mum's the word!" "Not 'arf, or what?" "Sir, why did you just slam the door on Lieutenant George?" "I can't believe it." "Go away!" "It's me." "It's me." "But what the hell are you doing here?" "Oh, never mind the hows and the whys and the do-you-mind" " If-I-don'ts." "But it would have taken a superman to get in here." "Well, it's funny you should say that, because as it happens I did have some help from a rather spiffing bloke." "He's taken a break from some crucial top-level shagging." "It... it's me, hurray!" "Hurray!" "God's potatoes, George." "You said Noble Brother Flyers were in the lurch." "If I'd known you meant Old Slack Bladder and the mound of the Hound Of The Baskervilles," "I'd probably have let them stew in their own juice." "And let me tell you, if I ever tried that," "I'd probably drown." "Oh!" "Still, since I'm here, I may as well "doooo" it." "As the bishop said to the netball team," "Come on, chums!" "Aah!" "Ow!" "Aah!" "Come on." "Yes, yes." "Look, I'm sorry, chaps," "But I've splintered my pancreas." "Erm, and I seem to have this terrible cough." "C" " Guards!" "C" " Guards!" "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute." "Now, I may be packing the kind of tackle that you'd normally expect to find swinging about between the hind legs of a Grand National winner," "But I'm not totally stupid, and I've got the kind of feeling you'd rather we hadn't come." "No, no, no, I'm very grateful." "It's just that I'd slow you up." "I think I'm beginning to understand." "Are... are you?" "Just because I can give multiple orgasms to the furniture just by "sitting" on it, doesn't mean that I'm not sick of this damn war:" "The blood, the noise, the endless poetry." "Is that really what you think, Flashheart?" "Course it's not what I think." "Now get out that door before I redecorate that wall an interesting new colour called "hint of brain."" "Excellent." "Well, that's clear." "Let's get back to that lovely war, then!" " Woof!" "Woof!" " Bark!" "Not so fast, Blackadder." "Oh, damn!" "Foiled again!" "What bad luck!" "Ah, and the Lord Flashheart." "This is indeed an honor." "Finally, the two greatest gentleman flyers in the world meet." "Two men of honor, who have jousted together in the cloud-strewn glory of the skies, face to face at last." "How often I have rehearsed this moment of destiny in my dreams." "The opportunity to encapsulate the unspoken nobility of our comradeship..." "What a poof!" "Come on!" "Oh!" "Oh!" " Hello, Darling." " Good lord." "Captain Blackadder, I thought you were..." " Playing tennis?" " No." " Dead?" " Well, yes, unfortunately." "Well, I had a lucky escape, no thanks to you." "This is a friend of mine." "Argh!" "Hi, cretin." "Flashheart, this is captain Darling." "Captain Darling?" "Funny name for a guy, isn't it?" "Last person I called "darling" was pregnant twenty seconds later." "Hear you couldn't be bothered to help old slacky here." "Er, well, it..." "It wasn't quite that, sir." "It's just that we weighed up the pros and cons, and decided it wasn't a reasonable use of our time and resources." "Well, this isn't a reasonable use of my time and resources, but I'm going to do it anyway." "What?" " This!" " Oh!" "All right, slacky!" "All right, slacky!" "I've got to fly." "Two million chicks, only one Flashheart." "And remember, if you want something, take it." "Bobby!" "My lord!" "I want something!" " Take it!" " Woof!" "Git!" " Ah, Blackadder, so you escaped." " Yes, sir." "Bravo!" "Don't slouch, Darling." "I was wondering whether, having been tortured by the most vicious sadist of the German army," "I might be allowed a week's leave to recuperate." "Excellent idea." "Your commanding officer would have to be stark raving mad to refuse you." ""You" are my commanding officer." "Well?" "Can I have a week's leave to recuperate, sir?" "Certainly not!" " Thank you, sir." " Baaaaaah!"