PITY IN HISTORY
Pity in History was commissioned by BBC Television, Birmingham, 1982. It was
transmitted on 4 July 1985.
CAST
BOYS A Sergeant………………….Paul Jesson
Soldiers
SPONGE……………………………...Roger Frost
SPILLMAN
…………………………..Paul Dalton
SKINNER…………………………….Ian Mercer
APPS…………………………………Patrick Field
CROOP
Chaplain ……………………Alan Rickman
FACTOR
Officer…………………….Patrick Malahide
MURGATROYD
A Cook…………...Ian McDiarmid
GAUKROGER
A Mason ……………Norman Rodway
POOL
An Apprentice ……………….Steven Rimkus
VENABLES
A Widow………………Anna Massey
Directed by………………………….Sarah Pia Anderson
Scene One
The nave of a cathedral. The slamming of massive doors
and a cacophony of voices. MURGATROYD,
a dying man, is singing from his stretcher at full pitch. A squad of SOLDIERS,
crazed by battle, shout a catechism initiated by a SERGEANT to
restore discipline.
MURGATROYD (to the tune
of 'A-roving'). I'm dy-ing, I'm dying, who shot me, was it Private Apps,
I'm dy-ing, I'm dying bas-tard mates!
BOYS:
Why are we fighting?
SOLDIERS:
Because we are right!
BOYS:
Why will we win?
SOLDIERS:
Because we are stronger!
BOYS:
Why are we stronger?
SOLDIERS:
Because God's on our side!
MURGATROYD:
I can see you, Apps, I watch you. Apps,
eyes right to the stretcher, look, the dead man's eye!
BOYS:
Are we right to be ruthless?
SOLDIERS:
It shortens the pain!
MURGATROYD:
Whose pain? What do you know about
pain, you know nothing about pain, I got the pain, not
you!
BOYS:
When shall we show mercy?
SOLDIERS:
The day we have won!
MURGATROYD:
You ain't gonna win, you don't deserve
to win, you're all dead men, I cooked
yer breakfast you ungrateful parasites!
BOYS:
And when will it be?
SOLDIERS:
As soon as God wills it!
MURGATROYD: I tell you a funny thing about dying-a
funny thing about dying-listen, will
yer, it's a dead man talking! When I die you all die too-it's a fact you
disappear the moment I do and serves you right I never liked you, least of all
you, Apps, I been trying to poison you for six weeks, never trust a cook-----
BOYS:
Don't look at 'im, Skinner----
MURGATROYD:
Don't look at me, Skinner, oh, Skinner, it 'urts, Christ, Skinner. . .!
BOYS:
Why do we say that God's on our side? Spillman!
SPILLMAN:
Because-----
BOYS:
Spillman!
SPILLMAN:
Because the enemy-is degenerate-and worships false idols----
BOYS:
Sponge! Why do we say that God's on our side?
SPONGE: Because it says so in Mark 17----
MURGATROYD:
Oh, very good, Sponge, you creep, Sponge,
you murderer, Sponge, call Apps!
BOYS:
Who started this war, was it us?
SOLDIERS:
It was not!
BOYS:
Who did, then?
SOLDIERS:
It was them!
MURGATROYD:
Who murdered the cook!
BOYS:
Why did they?
SKINNER:
Because of---
BOYS:
Not you, Skinner, Apps!
MURGATROYD:
Yes, Apps, why did you, you were messing about with your rifle. Apps, and off
it went, Apps, that's what the trigger's for, Apps, you daft bugger-----
BOYS:
What do we fight for?
SOLDIERS:
Our honour! Our rights!
MURGATROYD: I want to protest! Is anyone
in touch with God? That man! (He points to the CHAPLAIN, as the SOLDIERS
lower the stretcher to the floor.) Yes, you! I was standing with the
ladle making soup; the salt-box in the left hand and the ladle in the right,
and this bullet comes through the canvas, through the tent, no warning, what's the explanation you know God, it
stands to reason bullets should be deflected from the cooks! Is the sun going
down or is it me?
The SOLDIERS
drift away.
CROOP:
Rest now, you have your pain in a perfect cause-for
Christ
and justice---
MURGATROYD
(grabbing his arm tightly). Where's
the justice
in this mush?
CROOP:
We have, each one of us, our time of coming and our
time
of going.
MURGATROYD: Not
good enough!
CROOP: His will is unknowable----
MURGATROYD: Not good enough, mush! Where are they going I saw enough of yer
when I was king of the bacon! I'll tell yer a story, there was a cook and he
'ad seven children---correction! Seven
orphans!
CROOP
(standing up). You make it hard for yourself.
MURGATROYD:
'Ard for you, you mean! And he joined the army to cook the soldiers' breakfasts
and to steal a little of their rations that
is accepted practice-(CROOP turns away.) Don't go, ain't I dying
quick enough, my most sincere apologies, Murgatroyd, snuff in silence you will
depress the spirits of the troops. Look
you are goin' 'orne and I am not, ain't that a bleedin' scandal? (He
falls back on the stretcher.)
Scene Two
An apprentice brings a sandwich to a mason.
POOL: A soldier is dying!
GAUKROGER:
Rain falls. Dogs bite. Nurses steal. Shall I go on? Where's the pickle?
POOL:
There ain't no pickle. The grocer's boarded up and the baker's been arrested.
GAUKROGER:
Pity. I fancied some pickle.
POOL: They've piled their rifles on the altar----
GAUKROGER: You call this a sandwich? It's a
floorcloth.
POOL: I'm sorry, guvnor, there's a war on----
GAUKROGER (intimidating). I'm sorry there's a
war on? You come on like that and I'm sorry I will smack your arse-----
POOL:
I was only----
GAUKROGER:
You come on like greengrocers and whores and I'm sorry I will turn you out, I'm
sorry you are an apprentice and you'll find pickle when I want it!
POOL:
There ain't no pickle. There ain't no shops, only soldiers.
GAUKROGER:
Well, I don't make monuments for shopkeepers after this. Let 'em do their own
scrolls and epitaphs for running off with the mustard. I hate grocers and I
hate their daughters.
POOL:
Everybody's run, except 'er at the big 'ouse. She won't move for nobody. 'Let
them crucify me on the door' she says. Will they?
GAUKROGER:
She is a passionate woman. More than that I won't say.
POOL:
She says Cromwell's men tear pictures with their teeth. Do they?
GAUKROGER: They keep telling us the rebels never get
enough to eat. I believe anything, lies especially. Here--- (He shoves the
remnants of the sandwich at POOL, gets up to work.) And if the
soldiers trip you, laugh, and if they cuff you, thank 'em. See, I teach you
everything... (POOL carries the toolbag. Sounds of MURGATROYD singing deliriously. )
Scene Three
MURGATROYD: I'm not
dead, I'm only pre-tendin', I ain't in pain, it's a joke, God never borrows,
'e's only lend-in', 'e's a bugger to blokes who've gone broke!
CROOP: Because he
blasphemes, Christ scourges him. And the more he is scourged, the worse he
blasphemes. I never knew a man die so badly, it dishonours the regiment.
FACTOR: You could barely
get good morning out of him once...
MURGATROYD: Christ was
on the cross, yer see, Christ was on the cross, says Christ, I can't stick much
more of this, I been dyin' for eight hours, I should be very grateful if one of
you lot would stick a spear in me---it was a terrible pain, yer see, it was
making him turn against God, so along came this soldier named Apps, yes Apps was 'is name, Appsius Appsius,
it's a fact.
CROOP (walking). This
is a place full of sin. Do you feel it?
FACTOR: Which sin?
CROOP: The worship of
idols. The mocking of the Lord. Look around you, it is not a place of worship
it's a wedding cake. Dead men's tombs
higher than the altar. Vanity offends Him, pomp makes His wounds bleed. What do
you say?
FACTOR:
Christ went into the temple, and threw down the tables of the money-changers.
Coins tinkling down the steps...
CROOP:
Smash it then. Call the soldiers
FACTOR:
They went barmy today, killing the killed several times over. . .
CROOP: They were filled with the fury of God.
FACTOR: At lunchtime the only cadaver they'd seen was
their grandad, by tea-time they'd walked through an acre of brains. . .
CROOP:
What are you saying?
FACTOR: The sergeants could hardly restrain them. Had them drilling and shouting their names. . .
CROOP: Was not Samson furious, and in his fury pure?
FACTOR: Yes, but give them their dinner.
CROOP: Dinner?
FACTOR: And after
dinner, discussion. (CROOP looks disappointed.) Don't fret, Mr Croop,
we'll take hammers to the screens, and send the noses of the angels flying
through the glass. . .
GAUKROGER
(with exaggerated unction). Good battle, gentlemen? I understand the
casualties were suitably high? The effect of cannon fire, I gather, is even more
devastating than the manufacturers suggest?
CROOP: Who's this?
GAUKROGER: We listened from the tower, I said to Pool,
I hope this will not be another skirmish, just cuts and grazes, then we heard
the cannonade and I knew, this was
History coming over the hill. Gaukroger's the name, I can produce any pattern
of memorial, in greensand or granite, granite's dearer because it has to
travel.
FACTOR: What are you?
GAUKROGER: There's a war on and everybody's barmy, so I'll
make you an offer, name and number, thirty bob, choice of biblical verses, half
a dollar, crossed swords a tanner----crossed swords are cheap because I have
at last drummed crossed swords into my apprentice----his lettering leaves
everything to be desired, and his Latin!
FACTOR: We bury the
dead on the field.
GAUKROGER: What about
an obelisk?
CROOP: God knows their sacrifice.
GAUKROGER: Yes, but man might easily forget. What do
you say to a twenty-foot pillar with Corinthian caps, or reclining warrior with
toga and shield askant, with swags in the entablatures--Pool, work this out--or
simple urn and bas relief of spoils?
POOL:
Fifty bob-----
GAUKROGER: Fifty bob, plus
cheese and pickle.... (They stare at him coldly.) Cheese and pickle I can't quote for,
under the circumstances of war.
FACTOR:
What are you, a craftsman, or a profiteer?
GAUKROGER: How about angels
over a sacophagus? No one catches angels' wings like me. I might have groomed
the real thing I am so perfect. Ask Pool who is the best angel carver south of
Lincoln.
POOL:
You are.
GAUKROGER:
I am, he says so. There's Bert Catheter of Bristol, but he's arthritic.
CROOP:
There will be no monuments. Monuments are finished.
GAUKROGER: Christ, what's in, then? I've trained Pool
for redundancy! Quick, boy, go and sign up with a printer. What's in, gents?
Bibles? Or a gunsmith, would you
recommend? I promised him a trade, I swore it to his mother. Go and carve rifle
stocks for left-handed blind men.
CROOP:
Do you find something to mock in the army?
GAUKROGER: No, killing must
be done or I lose half of my commissions. (He turns to a nearby tomb.) Here's
a captain of marines got murdered on an island. I did that twenty years back----I
was never very good at skulls, not that there's a call for skulls now.
Necrophilia's got unfashionable, they all want swag and trophies.
CROOP:
This is God's army, and we rinse out all sin. . .
GAUKROGER:
Amen...
CROOP:
We demolish all pagan ornament----
GAUKROGER:
Well, it's only mass production, half of it----
CROOP:
You pander to the ostentation of the vulgar. Pack up your hammers and grow
potatoes. (He goes off. Pause.)
FACTOR:
Sometimes History comes into the quiet man's drawing room, and goes barmy in
his china.... were you never a soldier?
GAUKROGER: I was spared the indignity of
murdering mothers' sons I'd never met. Nor did I make my trousers dirty. Nor
run at other men's commands, nor wanted to scream at pimply boys. I admit in
this I am obviously abnormal.
FACTOR:
You are a contemptuous old man...
GAUKROGER:
Don't flatter me, I can't lend you a penny.
FACTOR:
Things have to be broken. He says for God. I say for man. You think you carve,
but you carve out slavery when you lend dignity to greedy squires.
GAUKROGER:
Tell him when he wants to bust my work, I have a heavy mallet...
(Pause.
FACTOR
looks at him curiously.)
FACTOR:
Why?
GAUKROGER:
I bear no grudges and I like to sleep at night.
When I die my coffin will be kicked about. Nothing rests, in peace or
otherwise, does it? You spend three years on a chancel-screen and twenty yobbos
break it. Across the floor the bits go, and end up in a garden. Come another
century, some antiquary restores it, lovingly, with brush and ruler, then a
cannon brings it down again. Well, only a fool cries at chaos, it's the
condition. I foresee nothing, I expect nothing, and because I do an angel's
wing near perfect gives it no rights, no more than a lovely woman expects to
win forever, down she goes to dust and wrinkle, do I depress you?
FACTOR:
Yes. To hear human endeavour so casually dismissed. Yes, that depresses me.
GAUKROGER:
Rejoice in a sandwich, I do.
FACTOR
(seeing POOL): All that's to spare himself. An excuse
for spilling skill in trivia.
POOL:
Don't listen to what he says. See what
he does. Mind you, it's out of date. (Pause)
So what, it's out of date.
Scene Four
MURGATROYD against a pillar.
MURGA TROYD: La, la, la, la-la, la! It's all right,
leave a dead man alone, that's decent of yer, I appreciate that, yer doin' it
for me, of course you are, yer think the sight of all that 'ealth and vigour's
only goin' to depress me. I do think that's
bleedin' considerate----- (He catches
sight of someone.) What's that! I saw death creepin'
round the pillar! Back you bastard----la, la, la, la-la la! Oh, it's Apps,
it's Apps, hopin' for forgiveness! Forgive you? I will spit my last bit of froth at you and it will poison your life!
APPS:
Shuddup, will yer!
MURGATROYD: I accuse the army of failing to instruct
its soldiers 'ow to die! They teach you 'ow to kill, what about dying, I
will raise this with my MP! Regulations
on dying gracefully!
APPS:
Look, I never did it, yer know I never----
MURGATROYD:
You shot me, you hungry liar, wasn't
the bacon salt enough?
APPS
(to BOYS who enters). Why does 'e keep sayin' it was me?
BOYS:
He's delirious. . .
MURGATROYD
(mocking). He's delirious... He's delirious. .. say something sensible
and they call you delirious, proper sergeant's talk that is, mother, will you
light a candle, there's a scratching in the room. . .
BOYS:
See what I mean
MURGATROYD:
I'm teasin' yer!
BOYS:
Look, John----
MURGATROYD:
Don't John me, I'm not John, call me
Corpse-----
BOYS:
John----
MURGATROYD: Corpse is the name! (BOYS turns to
go, bitterly.) You want me to forgive you, 'ow nice if corpse forgives you,
everything's smooth, everything's symmetrical, lie down in yer 'ole and let us
get on with it, I don't forgive you, not
this corpse, not Cromwell nor the 'ouse of Commons neither? You got my blood on yer!
FACTOR:
Be quiet, and find a little dignity.
MURGATROYD:
A little dignity? A little dignity! Have you seen a little dignity? I saw one a
minute ago but it disappeared down a crack. Find a little dignity, you outlandish rascal you!
FACTOR:
Then just be quiet.
MURGATROYD:
Is that an order? Come again? Look, you can't control me 'cos you 'can't punish
me! What are you going to do? Take my leave away! I've lost my leave forever you! Really, the impertinence of
officers, giving dead men orders, it's a frightful habit, I hear they dip their
wives by numbers, take yer armour off, you look ridiculous. There was a captain
once, who when they took his pips off, his jacket fell to the ground----there
was nothing inside, just a shouting jacket, get yer own breakfast, I'm cooking
for Christ now.
FACTOR: This is a regiment of honest and
God-fearing men-----
MURGATROYD: Oh, you don't want to be afraid
of God, I know, I'm 'alfway to His bosom, I would rather be with my wife's old
tits any day, I shall never see 'em again, oh.... I'm so lonely 'ere....
FACTOR
(at his side). Have I been a good officer to you?
MURGATROYD:
You 'ave and you 'aven't.....
FACTOR: When have I not
been?
MURGATROYD: When you were an officer. When you were a
man you were all right, for a few seconds before bed. At cocoa time I saw
something human, fluttering on the edges of your eyelids.… what is this place?
Is it Heaven? Spare us an afterlife if you lot turn up. . .
FACTOR:
We build a new country here, a new freedom, very sweet, out of our labour and
your pain. . .
MURGATROYD: Don't tell a
dead man about the future. 'ave you got no tact?
(FACTOR rises slowly to his feet. MURGATROYD's eyes close, he breathes
hard.)
FACTOR: Remove him to the
crypt. We can't have him here, upsetting
the soldiers.
(BOYS and APPS bend to lift the stretcher.
)
APPS: What is it---what is it like to die?
BOYS: Marvellous in a good cause, rotten
in a bad one. Pick up!
APPS:
But why, though...
BOYS:
The question has no answer, and because it has no answer, it is not a question.
APPS:
It is a question!
BOYS:
No, it is not a question, it's a mood. Real questions have real answers. How do
you govern? Who needs a king? Who owns the land? Who owns the river? All you
can do is ask real questions, and the moods will sink to the bottom.
Scene Five
Part of the cathedral. CROOP in
a colloquy.
CROOP: When you look around you, what is it you see?
(Pause. They look at one another.) You see what?
SPILLMAN: Pride.
CROOP:
Good. And how expressed?
SPILLMAN:
In idols.
CROOP:
Yes. And would Christ like it?
SPILLMAN:
No. 'e would be furious.
SKINNER:
'e would go barmy. 'e would go on the rampage
'ere.
CROOP:
He would say, in pretending to honour me, you
honour
yourselves, you hypocrites.
SPILLMAN: So 'e would fill our 'earts with anger, an' we
could
bash away, an' God would say, look, my soldiers bash
the temple down, good lads.
CROOP:
Honour my troopers who deliver me from sin----
SPILLMAN:
Down with vanity an' greed.
CROOP:
Good, for we fight Christ's war and carry out His gospels!
SPONGE: 'old on. (They look at him.) Sorry.
'old on. (Pause.) 'Cos 'e says, chuck the money changers out the temple.
'e tips the tables over, right? (CROOP looks at him.) I mean... what's
'e mean, I mean?
CROOP:
Christ comes into----
SPONGE:
'old it-----sorry------'old it-----
SKINNER:
Get it out, Mick-----
SPONGE:
I mean, I feel I wanna bash the 'ouses....
CROOP:
It's God who is offended in his house------
SPONGE:
No. It's me. (Pause.)
SKINNER:
Go on.
SPONGE:
It's me 'o's offended. . .
CROOP: We are not at war with property.
Only idolatory...
SPONGE: That is idolatory. Ain't it? When
we got in the big 'ouse at Harborough, we was 'ot with fighting, an' we broke
the winders, an' we got into the rooms, an' I went up these stairs, the stairs
that was wider than my mother's 'ouse, an' at the top of the stairs was this
room, an' the room looked bigger than a field, an' it was full of bits, like
pictures, an' this furniture, an' it was all there, like it was a church, an' I
wanted to smash it, an' I smashed it 'cos it was idolatory. Inlaid whatnots,
splinterin', an' vain pictures of geezers fifteen foot 'igh, rip under my boot.
.. an' I loved it... I was full of the Lord... I fuckin' was... (Pause. CROOP
looks at him intently.)
CROOP:
Vandal. Not Christ's trooper.
SPONGE:
Somethin' was in it... in all that stuff...
CROOP:
Property is the basis of all order.
SPONGE:
There was somethin' in that stuff----
CROOP:
God's soldiers do not spoil----
SPONGE:
Worshipped an' precious an' gorgeous stuff----
CROOP:
We fight for the rights of property against injudicial
kings----
SPONGE:
Shuddup, will yer! (Pause, shock.
A WOMAN is
staring
at them.)
VENABLES: They will cut your hands off, and nail them to a
tree.
Every hand lifted against the King and God. Hand tree.
(She
goes off, watched by them.)
Scene Six
Part
of the cathedral. GAUKROGER is
working on a monument of a reclining figure.
GAUKROGER
(at last). You're not watching me.
POOL: I was.
GAUKROGER: No, you were looking at me, but not
watching.
POOL
(turning away). What's it matter, anyway?
GAUKROGER (stopping). What's it matter? I turned down
twenty boys who would have stuck their
eyeballs to the chisel
blade to learn things you're so casual of.
POOL:
They're gonna smash it anyway. Boot it, crack and
split
and scatter it.
GAUKROGER: You have all the sculpture in the world
stored in your fingertips if you
watch. And if they do not crush your fingers you can make it all again, like
the books can be re-written and all the pictures painted over again, unless they
murder all the painters, which can't be done because painters are born every
minute, unfortunately. I say unfortunately because there's too much talent and
it's got cheap.
POOL:
Pack up and run, I say.
GAUKROGER:
Where to?