Valet: I’ve taken it in at the back… added wider epaulets and looped gold braiding.
Cornwallis: It’s horse blanket!
Tavington: Oh, I don’t know, my lord… It’s really quite nice.
Valet: Very nice, my lord.
Cornwallis: Very well. It’s a nice horse blanket… Colonel Tavington, why after six weeks am I still here in Middleton place, attending a ball in South Carolina, when I should be attending balls in North Carolina? First, the theft of my personal baggage including my memoirs, on which I spent countless hours. Then half the bridges and ferries between here and Charlestown burned. Colonel, if you can’t protect our supply lines against militia, how do you intend doing so against the Colonial Regulars or the French when they arrive?
Tavington: My lord, they won’t fight like Regulars. We can’t find them.
Cornwallis: Colonel, they’re militia! They’re farmers with pitchforks!
Tavington: They’re rather more than that, I’m afraid, my lord… Made so by their commander, this ghost.
Cornwallis: Oh, ghost, ghost, ghost!… You created this ghost, colonel.
Tavington: My lord?
Cornwallis: Your brutality has swelled his ranks without which this ghost
would’ve disappeared and I would be in North Carolina or Virginia by now!
Tavington: In my defense, my lord…
Cornwallis: Oh, enough! Fine soldier you are, bested by a bedtime story. Give
me the horse blanket.