The Enemy Below Quotes

[the ship has just avoided two torpedoes]

Lieutenant Ware: The Miami yacht races were never like this.

Doctor: I guess you're finding the Sun kind of hard to take, after the North Atlantic.

Captain Murrell: Oh, it doesn't matter. It's always either too cold or too hot, wherever there's a war on.

Doctor: Well, in time we'll all get back to our own stuff again. The war will get swallowed up, and seem like it never happened.

Captain Murrell: Yes, but it won't be the same as it was. We won't have that feeling of permanency that we had before. We've learned a hard truth.

Doctor: How do you mean?

Captain Murrell: That there's no end to misery and destruction. You cut the head off a snake, and it grows another one. You cut that one off, and you find another. You can't kill it, because it's something within ourselves. You can call it the enemy if you want to, but it's part of us; we're all men.

Doctor: Remember our talk on the bridge - the weighty one, death and destruction? You might be interested to know that I've seen another reason for hope. Found it in a funny place, too... in the middle of an ocean, right in the middle of a war.

Captain Murrell: You had to come a long way to find it, though, didn't you, Doc?

Doctor: It was worth the trip.

Captain Murrell: Maybe.

[last lines]

Von Stolberg: I should have died many times, Captain, but I continue to survive somehow. This time it was your fault.

Captain Murrell: I didn't know. Next time I won't throw you the rope.

Von Stolberg: I think you will.

Von Stolberg: [to a temporarily-crazed sailor] Give me the wrench. Give it to me!

[he does]

Von Stolberg: You will come to attention.

[he does]

Von Stolberg: It's part of our work to die. But we are not going to die. Do you believe me? *Do you believe me*?

[he nods, calmed. Von Stolberg returns the wrench]

Kunz: He gets more accurate, Herr Kapitan. He will tear us apart the next time.

Von Stolberg: What do you suggest, Kunz?

Kunz: Surface, Herr Kapitan. Surrender.

Von Stolberg: Holem?

Von Holem: I am not concerned, Herr Kapitan.

Von Stolberg: Schwaffer?

'Heinie' Schwaffer: I say go on.

Von Stolberg: Mueller, what is the condition of the ship?

Mueller: We have not yet been hurt.

Kunz: But we cannot escape!

Von Stolberg: It will be your privilege to die for the new Germany.

Kunz: [salutes Von Stolberg for the order] Jahwol, Herr Kapitan.

Von Stolberg: That boy needs to learn we do not salute at sea.

'Heinie' Schwaffer: I don't see how we could have missed at that close range.

Von Stolberg: We shouldn't have. This American captain is no amateur. Well, neither am I.

Doctor: Captain Murrell oughtn't to be here at all. He's as weak as a kitten. A man that gets his ship torpedoed and spends 25 days on a raft in the North Atlantic oughtn't to have to hit the ball again with only a few days in the hospital. I guess there aren't enough commanding officers to go around. Well, at least they gave him an easy ship.

Lt. Bonelli: Huh! Boy, easy's no word for it. Listen, he'd get more rest on this boat...

Lieutenant Ware: Ship!

Lt. Bonelli: Ship, boat, what's the difference? He'd still get more rest here than he would if he were in a feather bed. Me, I'd like something to happen once in a while.

Lieutenant Ware: If the Navy ever gets a load of this salty crew in battle, they'll send us all back to boot camp. I'll look so ridiculous with my head shaved.

Lt. Mackeson: [Discussing the new captain] I still don't see why they didn't move Ware up. He's been exec long enough.

Lieutenant Ware: [Joking] My dear Mackenson, the only craft I've ever commanded was a yawl in the Miami yacht races. And the nearest I ever came to winning that was twenty-ninth. The Navy may have been desperate enough to put me in uniform, but not foolish enough to let me sail away by myself.

Von Stolberg: I am sick of this war. It's not a good war. You don't remember the first one. I was a Fähnrich in the U Boats. How proud I was! We went out in those little sardine tins, and if we submerged we couldn't always be sure we would come up again. Oh it was a good game we played! The Captain would look through his periscope and sight the target... and then he did arithmetic in his head! And said 'torpedo loose!' And you know something? Sometimes the torpedo wouldn't even leave the tube. And if it did, we were most lucky to hit something! And now... now I look in the periscope and it gives me the distance and the speed. I pass this information to the attack table, and machinery turns, and lights flash, and we get the answer. The torpedo runs to it's target, and there is no human error in this. They've taken human error out of war, heini. They've taken the human out of war. War was different then. It put iron in a country's backbone, gave them brave memories. And even in defeat it gave them honour. But there is no honour in this war. The memories will be ugly, even if we win. And if we die... we die without God. Do you know that, Heinie?

'Heinie' Schwaffer: I listen to what you say, Herr Capitain.

Von Stolberg: It's a bad war. It's reason is twisted. It's purpose is dark. It's not for a simple man.

BMSN Robbins: Hey Corky, how do you suppose the captain knew when to turn this old tub?

BMSN Corky: Because he's the captain, and that's the reason he is and you ain't!

Doctor: What was your work, Captain?

Captain Murrell: This, the sea.

Doctor: You mean you were a sailor?

Captain Murrell: I was third officer on a freighter out of Boston to Liverpool, Le Havre, and back again.

Doctor: Some of our crew will be glad to know that. Our saltiest boys were complaining mightily about getting a civilian skipper. A 'feather merchant', I think they called it.

Captain Murrell: Well, I am a feather merchant.

Doctor: Well, yes, but not exactly.

Captain Murrell: No, exactly. On the freighter, we were men against the sea; here, we're men against men. Like every other civilian in the war, I had to learn a new way of thinking.

Doctor: Why did you change over to the Navy?

Captain Murrell: Well, the freighter I was on was cut in half by a torpedo. Thought I's like to be on the shooting end for a change.