Flight of the Maybug (Script)

ACT 1

FRITZ: If anything I'm the only one it'll bloody work for!

MARCEL: And how did you figure that?

FRITZ: The Captain.

WILHELM: He's dead.

FRITZ: Oh not this bloody conversation again, I know. But regardless as to whether or not our dearly departed Captain has passed from this world, which he has, he still represents the two key ingredients to any good military tribunal, blame and structure. You don't cut off the body and hope the head will wither; you do it the other bloody way around! And the Allies will be collecting heads, guaranteed. Now I don't know how it works for the French, medical students or train drivers and frankly I don't give a fuck, but the Captain was my superior, officially might I add, so anything I did, I did because of him. And now what with him being dead, the head's withered, and I, as but a humble body, won't even be looked at twice. So the deal's off, I don't need any unwanted attention.

MARCEL: Interesting.

FRITZ: Interesting? Pine cones are interesting, what I said was bloody fucking monumental!

MARCEL: Except the Allies won't want severed heads. They will however, want heads to severe.

FRITZ: What the hell are you on-?

MARCEL: Be quiet you idiot. Do you really think the Allies will care about an already dead Nazi? Imagine the headline, "Nazi Found! Already Dead Though", awful. Compare that to "Nazi Found! To Be Hanged at Dawn", it's got a bit more...

WILHELM: Panache.

MARCEL: Panache, exactly.

FRITZ: But I'm not a Nazi.

MARCEL: Since?

Pause.

MARCEL: Regardless, I've never met a Russian who was an actual communist, but we treat them the same, don't we? Thus, I'm afraid you forfeited your right to choose your label when you ended up on the wrong side of history with the rest of us. Victors like justice towards a common enemy in their headlines, distracts from any comeuppance they may potentially deserve. So in regards to your situation, you can walk as far west with your merry little band as you like, but then what? Based on your scruffy uniform, yet spotless little face, I'd say you scavenged it from some other poor soul, meaning you're trying to conceal who you really are. Red flag number one. Then I'd ask why you've so desperately traversed the whole of Germany with a 19 year old boy and a cripple in tow, and why you're so far away from your original unit? Red flag number two. And finally, I'd want to know why a medical student and a train driver so readily obey the command of a man who by all rights, they shouldn't even know from Adam. Red flag number three. Conclusion, member of a prominent, now criminal, organisation. Sentence, a piece of rope and a tree. No-one survives that either.

Fritz fumbles his brain for words.

WILHELM: That's a pretty good argument-

FRITZ: I know it's a pretty good argument! Do I look like the sort of person who doesn't know a pretty good argument when it's argued straight to his bloody face?!

WILHELM: I was just saying-

FRITZ: Well don't just say, think, then say!

WILHELM: Okay, I think it's a pretty good argu-

FRITZ: Unless the next few words out your mouth help me in any way at all, shut up, that's an order. Wait no, that's not an order, do what you want, but shut up. But don't shut up because I told you to shut up. Shut up because it's the polite thing to do when someone's just found out that their chances of execution skyrocketed!