In Which We Serve (1942)

Noël Coward: Capt. E.V. Kinross R.N. - Captain 'D'

Photos 

Quotes 

• [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] 

• 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.

• 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.

• 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?

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Captain Edward V. Kinross : Any more Kinross special left in the shaker?

• Captain Edward V. Kinross : Swim to the float! Swim to the float!

• 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."

• 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 : You did damn well. I'm very proud of you.

• Captain Edward V. Kinross : Thank you all for making my task so easy, and the Torrin a ship to be so very proud of.

• 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.

• 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.