Foyle's War (TV Series)

Enemy Fire (2004)

John Wood: Sir Michael Waterford

Quotes 

• Sir Michael Waterford : I did think of it sometimes... Often... Of taking my own life.

  Christopher Foyle : Why?

  Sir Michael Waterford : Because I know what I am. Because I know I'm a fake. Sometimes living with myself is hard. I was at Messines Ridge, in the summer of 1917, battle of Ypres. For god sake I was their commanding officer. My batman was a man called Martin Drake, Gordon's father.

  Christopher Foyle : Yes, you told me.

  Sir Michael Waterford : What I didn't tell you, that it was hell! In the start it was gas shells, you'd hear them whining, as they came overhead. The gas and the shrapnels and the shells, and the mud and the blood, the rifles, machine guns, the artillery and the noise! And the endlessness of it. I didn't think it would be over until I was dead, ripped to pieces. Young men with their entrances hanging out. I'd had enough. I took out my gun, and I shot myself in the leg. I had to get out of there, it was the only way, that's what I did. Drake saw. He carried me to the field hospital. And as far as I knew, he never told anyone. And he wrote about it to his son. Gordon turned up and showed me the letter. He knew it would ruin me. He made me pay. I've been paying ever since. And in the end, I expect he'd have taken everything I have. Everything except my self-respect. I lost that twenty-five years ago.

• Sir Michael Waterford : But these men are so brave. We call them "the few" but who could have thought this country could produce so many of them?

• [Sir Michael's housekeeper, Mrs. Roecastle, confesses to being the saboteur at the burn hospital] 

  Sir Michael Waterford : Why did you do this?

  Mrs Roecastle : For you, sir. I knew they were breaking your heart, taking over the manor house. I could see what they were doing to you.

  Sir Michael Waterford : No, no, *no*! I don't mind. Those poor young men, so terribly hurt, I'm glad they're here.

  Mrs Roecastle : But you had a gun, sir! You were going to use it on yourself.

  Sir Michael Waterford : Mrs Roecastle, you've done a terrible, wicked thing. And you haven't understood me at all. You've no idea.

  Mrs Roecastle : I did it for you, sir.

• Sir Michael Waterford : [to Foyle, speaking about the badly burnt pilots being temporarily hospitalized at his estate, Dibney Manor]  But these men are so brave. We call them the few, but who could have thought this country could have produced so many of them?