The Man Who Would Be King Monologues

Two former British soldiers in 1880s India decide to set themselves up as Kings in Kafiristan, a land where no white man has set foot since Alexander the Great.

Peachy, I'm heartily ashamed for gettin' you killed instead of going home rich like you deserved to, on account of me bein' so bleedin' high and bloody mighty. Can you forgive me?

Now listen to me you benighted muckers. We're going to teach you soldiering. The world's noblest profession. When we're done with you, you'll be able to slaughter your enemies like civilized men.

You are going to become soldiers. A soldier does not think. He only obeys. Do you really think that if a soldier thought twice he'd give his life for queen and country? Not bloody likely.

We'll get your riflemen, Peachy, and we'll come back and slaughter the dogs! A drenching in their own blood we'll give them! Riflemen, prepare to advance!

Just looking, Peachy. There's such a thing as admiring beauty for its own sake.

Not for us, thank you. Not after watching Afghans come howling down out of the hills and taking battlefield command when all the officers had copped it.

The more tribes, the more they'll fight, and the better for us.

In any place where they fight, a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find - "D'you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dynasty.

It took him half an hour to fall.

Danny's only a man. But he break wind at both ends simultaneous - which is more, I reckon, than any god can do.

Detriments you call us? Detriments? Well I want to remind you it was "detriments" like us that built this bloody Empire and the Izzat of the bloody Raj, 'ats on!

And old Danny fell. Round and round and round and round, like a penny whirligig. Twenty thousand miles and it took him half an hour to fall before he struck the rocks. But do you know what they did to Peachy? They crucified, him, sah, between two pine trees. As Peachy's hands will show.

Put poor Peachy who had never done them any harm. He howled there and he screamed, but he didn't die. And one day they come and they took him down and they said it was a miracle he wasn't dead and then they set him down and they let him go. And Peachy come home, in about, a year. And the mountains they tried to fall on old Peachy, but he was quite safe because Daniel walked before him. And Daniel never let go of Peachy's hand and Peachy never let go of Daniel's head.

You knew Danny, sir. Oh, yes, you knew, most Worshipful Brother.

Daniel Dravot, Esquire. Well, he became king of Kafiristan, with a crown on his head and that's all there is to tell. I'll be on my way now sir, I've got urgent business in the south, I have to meet a man in Marwar Junction.

Home to what? A porters uniform outside a restaurant, attainin' tips from belching civilians for closing cab doors on them and their blowsy women?

Now, the problem is, how to divide five Afghans from three mules and have two Englishmen left over.

I told you; give me a drink. It was all settled right here in this office. Remember? Danny and Me signed a contract, and you witnessed it. You stood over there. I stood there, and Daniel stood here. Remember?

The same - and not the same, who sat besides you in the first class carriage, on the train to Marwar Junction, three summers and a thousand years ago.

They're savages here, one and all. Leave 'em to go back to slaughterin' babes, and playin' stickball with each other's heads, and pissin' on their neighbors.

Keep looking at me. It helps to keep my soul from flying off.

I have urgent business to the South.

Sir, I resent the accusation of blackmail. It is blackmail to obtain money by threats of publishing information in a newspaper. But what blackmail is there in accepting a small retainer for keeping it out of a newspaper?

By telling the editor what I know about his sister, and a certain government official in these parts.

These here make the jewels in the Tower of London look like… cheap family heirlooms.

There's a bigger one. Why, Danny, we only have to fill our pockets and walk out of here to be millionaires. And all of it... all... would make us the two richest men in England.

And now, if you will take us to this Ootah bloke, we will begin his education.