The Last Valley

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Go away, we don't want beggars here.

I'm not a beggar, I'll pay...

for food and lodging for the night.

If you want to pay,

give me seeds or new tools...

give me a horse,

raise my sons from the dead...

or stop this stinking war.

Go away or we'll drive you away.

I'll work or write letters...

or tell you about

the places I've seen, anything.

I need only a little food.

Can't you see we are starving? Go away.

Live, die. What difference does it make?

Jesus has forsaken us. Go away.

Plague.

Where are the others?

I don't know, I came here alone.

Not a soul, Captain, except this bastard.

Where are your friends?

And where are your cattle?

Wake him up.

I don't know.

I came here alone this morning after food.

I've never seen this valley before.

That won't do. Speak fast.

I lost patience 12 years ago.

Two ears are better than 40, Captain.

You can't bargain with me.

I can crush you and your village

like a bedbug.

That's what I want to talk to you about.

Break open every house.

Gather all we can use in that barn...

nothing in your own saddlebags.

We'll round up the peasants...

and fire the village at leisure.

Korski, over there. You, come with me.

I don't like secrets.

You can come, too, Korski.

Well?

There's famine all over Germany...

plague, pestilence, even now...

and winter's coming.

In 10, 20 years,

have you seen a richer valley?

I don't answer questions.

Take their grain and cattle,

and they starve this winter.

I'm tiring of you. Come to your point.

I'm there now, Captain.

Take all this food back to your army,

and down it goes into a thousand stomachs.

Why such waste?

Winter here, occupy the valley.

What?

Winter here.

Live while your army dies.

You'll never get another chance like this.

Is this scum asking us to desert?

Is that it?

A soldier has no future and no past...

and a full belly covers the present.

You talk too much, and not like a peasant.

What are you? A stinking priest?

I don't know which side you're on, Captain.

But I'll wager half your men don't care.

What of those who do care?

Get rid of them.

Good ideas are rare these days.

Very rare.

You are a priest on the run?

No, I was a teacher.

- What's your name?

- Vogel. Yours?

Captain. Where are you from?

From nowhere, everywhere, Captain.

Yes, I have almost forgotten...

where I was born, also.

You have fever?

No, it's nothing.

Didn't you say, "Get rid of them"?

Yes, but it was so sudden.

And clean.

One moment alive, one moment dead.

You philosophers are such hypocrites.

I only do what is necessary.

No more.

If to kill is necessary,

I do it without conscience.

Now, make peace

with whatever God you worship.

Peasants hate soldiers, Captain.

Soldiers hate peasants.

I'm not a soldier or a peasant.

I could speak to them

just as I can speak to you.

I can help.

You'll need help. I'll be very useful.

I'll give you two days to prove it.

No more looting, Captain?

No.

We eat the place at leisure

and drink it dry by spring.

Spring?

We'll eat while the army starves.

By the Madonna,

I'd give my life for a winter of peace...

with good food, decent women,

and maybe no killing.

Where's Korski?

Where else would Korski be, but on watch?

We found the valley, other patrols could.

Ours, or enemy.

That's right, Captain.

What about our women?

Yes, I have a wife and family back there.

What about the army and the baggage train?

Listen to Hansen...

plenty of women

where there's plenty of food?

Has it ever been different?

And isn't one as good as another?

But we've been winning all year.

How much pay we got?

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