- Mrs. Alix Kinross: [Christmas dinner toast] Ladies and gentlemen. I'll begin by taking my husband's advice and wishing you all a very happy Christmas. I'm sure Elizabeth and June will back me up when I say I'd like to deliver, on behalf of all wretched naval wives, a word of warning to Maureen who's been unwise enough to decide to join our ranks. Dear Maureen: we all wish you every possible happiness, but I think it only fair to tell you in advance exactly what you are in for. Speaking from bitter experience I can only say that the wife of a sailor is most profoundly to be pitied. To begin with, her home life, what there is of it, hath no stability whatever. She can never really settle down. She moves through a succession of other people's houses, flats, and furnished rooms. She finds herself having to grapple with domestic problems in Bermuda, Malta, or Weymouth. We will not deal with the question of pay as that is altogether too painful. But we will deal with is the most important disillusionment of all, and that is that wherever she goes there is always in her life a permanently undefeated rival: her husband's ship. Whether it be a battleship or a sloop, a submarine or a destroyer, it holds first place in his heart. It comes before wife, home, children, everything. Some of us try to fight this and get badly mauled in the process. Others, like myself, resolve themselves to the inevitable. That is what you will have to do, my poor Maureen. That is what we all have to do if we want any peace of mind at all. Ladies and gentlemen I give you my rival. It is extraordinary that anyone could be so fond and so proud of their most implacable enemy - this ship. God bless this ship and all who sail in her.
- [Captain Kinross hands a hot drink to a sailor that he has just rescued]
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: It's just Bovril - heavily laced with sherry.
- [last lines]
- Narrator: [voiceover] Here ends the story of a ship, but there will always be other ships; we are an island race, through all our centuries the sea has ruled our destiny. There will always be other ships and men to sail in them. It is these men, in peace or war, to whom we owe so much. Above all victories, beyond all loss, in spite of changing values and a changing world they give to us, their countrymen, eternal and indomitable pride.
- [sequence of ships launching and at sea]
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Open fire!
- Narrator: God bless our ships... and all who sail in them.
- [close-up of the Royal Navy ensign]
- Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy: [to Freda and Kath] What you young flibbertigibbets don't realise is that this is a very important war indeed.
- [first lines]
- Narrator: [voiceover] This is the story of a ship...
- [long sequence of ship-building and launch]
- Flags: Very pretty sky, sir. Somebody sent me a calendar rather like that last Christmas.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Did it have a squadron of Dorniers in the upper right-hand corner?
- Flags: No, sir.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: That's where art parts company with reality.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: A happy and efficient ship - a very happy and a very efficient ship. Some of you might think I'm being a bit ambitious wanting both but in my experience you can't have one without the other. A ship can't be happy unless she's efficient and she certainly won't be efficient unless she's happy.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Is that a new dress?
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: No. Oh, no, darling. I've had it for ages.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: I swear I've never clapped eyes on it before.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: Only about 20 times, my love.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Perhaps it's you that looked new. As good as new, anyway.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: Is there going to be a war, do you think?
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: [to Flags and Maureen a Christmas dinner] Stop whispering, you two. You know, Robin, you really oughtn't to have put them next to each other.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: We ought to drink to them. Come on, everybody. To the newly betrothed.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross, Mrs. Alix Kinross, Bobby Kinross, Lavinia Kinross: The newly betrothed.
- Bobby Kinross: What's betrothed, Daddy?
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: The beginning of the end, my boy.
- Albert Fosdick: The Red Sea can be hot, all right. So can the Persian Gulf. I was out there two years ago in the Worcestershire. The fridge went wonky and everything went bad, including the language.
- Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy: I will treat these paltry interruptions with the contempt they deserve, and go on to propose the health of one who is very dear to me. She's a creature of many moods and fads and fancies. She is, to coin a phrase, very often uncertain and coy and hard to please. But I'm devoted to her with every fiber in my being, and I hereby swear to be true to her in word and deed, so help me God. Ladies and gentlemen, HMS Torrin.
- Freda Lewis: There's one thing I shall never get used to and that's you going away all the time.
- Ordinary Seaman Shorty Blake: Well, it's your own fault for marrying a sailor. That's fairly asking for trouble, that is. Can't trust any of 'em an inch. Wives in every port. Always coming home unexpected and catching you having tea with the lodger.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: That first quarrel we had, do you remember? When you went stamping off to listen to the band all by yourself and came back in tears a half an hour later.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: It was only because they were playing "The Blue Danube". You know that always makes me feel sort of pent-up and emotional.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: That wasn't why you were in tears and there's no use pretending it was.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: If I was in tears at all, which I hotly deny, it was probably because that was the very first time I discovered what a horrible, disagreeable character you have.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Still, it was a good honeymoon, as honeymoons go.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: It went awfully quickly.
- [Capt. Kinross whistles "The Blue Danube"]
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: Oh, stop it, Teddy. I refuse to be made sentimental in the middle of a Great Western lunch. Eat up your delicious piece of railway fish and behave yourself.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Now, you probably all know what we've got to do, don't you? The whole British Expeditionary Force is falling back on Dunkirk. Now, in peacetime, as you know, there's a lot of leg-pulling between the services. But the soldiers are our brothers in arms and it's up to us to get 'em off so they can live to fight again. Let them see how much we admire the way they fought. And don't forget, the success of our evacuation is measured by the smallness of the military casualties, *not* the naval ones. The soldiers are our guests, and their lives will be in our hands.
- Bobby Kinross: Mummy, Trafalgar won't eat sausage roll.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: That's because you spoil him so dreadfully.
- British Seaman 1: I'll lay you 10-1 they're all Germans. You'd never get the Macaronis to tackle a job like that, not for love nor money.
- British Seaman 2: The I-ties will do anything for money.
- British Seaman 1: Anything but fight. That's why they were so lousy in the last war. That's on account of their warm, languorous southern temperament.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: We're living in strange times, darling. It's as well to be prepared.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: Yes, I suppose it is.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Were the trials satisfactory? Were you pleased?
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: More than pleased. She's a lovely ship. Does what she's told without a murmur.
- Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy: Look at the Huns, sir. They're jumping overboard in full marching order.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: Darling, you must be exhausted. I'll get you a drink. What would you like? Whisky and soda or a cocktail?
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Well, seeing as it's a gala evening, let's have a Kinross special.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: I guessed it. It's all ready, only wants the ice.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: I made a private bet that you'd forget the Cointreau.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: Wrong again. I had a sort of feeling this was an occasion.
- Mrs. Kath Hardy: I don't believe that Hitler'd be so silly. What would he expect to gain by having a war?
- Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy: World domination, that's what that little rat's after. You mark my words.
- Mrs. Kath Hardy: They haven't got enough to eat in Germany as it is. Mrs Blacket's nephew, you know the one that travels in underwear, came back from Berlin two months ago. He said they was all half-starved.
- Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy: Well, I can't help what Mrs Blacket's nephew says. I think we're for it.
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: However busy you are, and however quickly you've got to get your commissioning done, I should like to come on board just once before you go to sea to give the ship my love.
- Mrs. Kath Hardy: If we have another war, I give up, see, after all we went through last time.
- Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy: After all you went through? How do you like that. You was too young and innocent to know about anything.
- Mrs. Kath Hardy: Don't talk so silly. You know perfectly well how old I am and it's no use pretending you don't.
- Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy: Well, you'll always be young and innocent to me.
- Mrs. Kath Hardy: Will I indeed, now? If you ask me, you've got a hangover from all that beer you put away last night.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Most of you've seen the commissioning program published in Plymouth General Orders. And you will have noted that this allows the customary three weeks. Well, you've all read your papers and you know that Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin yesterday. As I see it, that means war next week. So I will give you not three weeks but exactly three days to get this ship ready to sail. None of us will turn in or take our clothes off or sling our hammocks for the next three days or nights till the job's finished. Then we'll send Hitler a telegram saying, "The Torrin's ready. You can start your war."
- Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy: You won't forget to put those bulbs in when the right time comes, will you?
- Mrs. Kath Hardy: You and your bulbs!
- Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy: I should like to take the opportunity of this festive occasion to drink the healths of one and all present, and to thank a kindly fate for so arranging that my ship should have to come home for boiler cleaning two days before Christmas - a bit of luck which any sailor would tell you is little short of a bloody miracle.
- Mrs. Kath Hardy: Walter, how can you? You know I don't like you using that word.
- Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy: Be that as it may, Kath, that's a highly expressive word. What's more, it's been bound up with naval tradition since times immemorial.
- Freda Lewis: It's just you being away and me wondering what's happening to you that I won't like.
- Ordinary Seaman Shorty Blake: Proceed with the following operations as ordered: 1: Give us a kiss. 2: Chuck us another of Mum's sandwiches. 3: Cheer up and remember this isn't a funeral it's a honeymoon. And 4: Give us another kiss. Now, then, ship's company... 'shun!
- Freda Lewis: Oh, lay off, Shorty! You're crushing my blouse! Someone will see us!
- Ordinary Seaman Shorty Blake: Who cares?
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Just you begin as you intend to go on, Mrs Blake. Keep him in order. My wife rules me with a rod of iron. It's been quite successful so far, hasn't it, darling?
- Mrs. Alix Kinross: Don't talk such nonsense. I'm never allowed to have my own way over anything.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: Thank you all for making my task so easy, and the Torrin a ship to be so very proud of.
- Barmaid: Look here, I've got to close up now. It's no use your staying on any longer. You can't have any more to drink. It's after hours.
- Young Stoker: Well, what's the matter with having some music?
- Barmaid: If you've got a penny, you can have it. If you haven't, you can't.
- Young Stoker: I have.
- Barmaid: Well, put it in the slot, then. That's what it's there for.
- Ordinary Seaman Shorty Blake: Come on, give us a kiss and hop it. No sense hanging about.
- Freda Lewis: All right.
- [gives a hug and a kiss, starts to tear up]
- Ordinary Seaman Shorty Blake: Now, then. None of that.
- Freda Lewis: Go on. Be a good boy. Don't get your feet wet.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: I will not punish a man for an action for which I must hold myself largely to blame.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: You will all be sent to replace men who have been killed in other ships. And the next time you're in action, remember the Torrin.
- Mrs. Lemmon: That letter from Shorty must have cheered you up.
- Freda Lewis: Oh, I wish he was home, and I wish that ship would get a bit damaged, not so that anyone was hurt, mind you, but just so as he could get a little bit of leave.
- Mrs. Lemmon: Never mind, dear. Men must work and women must weep. That's what I always say.
- Captain Edward V. Kinross: The Torrin has been in one scrap after another, but even when we had men killed, the majority survived and brought the old ship back. Now she lies in 1500 fathoms - and with her, more than half our shipmates. If they had to die, what a grand way to go. For now they lie all together with the ship we loved, and they're in very good company. We've lost her - but they're still with her.
- Joey Mackeridge: It's from me young sister. After months of muckin' about in the North ruddy Sea, all I get is a letter from me young sister.
- British Seaman 1: [alarm bell rings] I was dreaming I was in a Turkish harem and some fathead has to go and sound off action stations.
- British Seaman 2: I wondered why you was pinching me.
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