Ashley-Pitt Quotes in The Great Escape (1963)

Ashley-Pitt: [watching Hilts be brought back into camp] I didn't think he'd get caught so soon.

Bartlett: He wasn't caught.

Hendley: Right.

Bartlett: Dennis, maps and surveys. Colin, you'll take your usual job. Eric, have you thought how you're going to get rid of this dirt?

Ashley-Pitt: Yes, I have. The usual places. I hadn't anticipated three tunnels, but we'll manage.

Sorren: Roger, who's going to handle security for all this?

Bartlett: You are. I want a system of stooges covering this compound from front to back, checking every goon in and out. I want a signal system so perfect that if ever a ferret gets within fifty feet of any of the huts in which we're working, we can shut down without a sign.

Willie: This is the dirt from the compound.

Danny: This is from the tunnel.

[Mac takes a handful of tunnel dirt and sprinkles it onto the mound from the compound]

MacDonald: Wherever we put it, they're going to spot it a mile away.

Willie: Well, maybe we could put it under the huts. The dirt's dark there.

MacDonald: Nah. No, it's the first place the ferrets would look. I saw one measuring the height under a hut yesterday.

Willie: Well, maybe we could dry it out the same color.

Danny: We'll have fifty tons of it.

Willie: Well, I was just thinking out loud.

Bartlett: If you must think, for God's sake, think clearly. Where the devil is Ashley-Pitt?

MacDonald: We can't destroy the dirt, and we can't eat it. The only thing left to do is... camouflage it. That's as far as my thinking takes me.

[Ashley-Pitt enters]

Bartlett: Didn't they teach you promptness in the R.N.?

Ashley-Pitt: You'll never believe it, but I think I have the solution. The problem is somehow to get rid of this tunnel dirt over the compound.

Bartlett: Well, of course.

Ashley-Pitt: Would you mind?

[Eric hands Danny and Willie a blanket, which they set on the floor, while Eric gets his contraption ready]

Ashley-Pitt: Now... you fill these bags with the dirt from the tunnel. Then, wearing them *inside* your trousers, you wander out into the compound, where you pull these strings in your pockets. Out come the pins...

[Eric pulls the pins out to demonstrate]

Danny: Eric, it's good.

Ashley-Pitt: All you have to do is... kick it in. Unless you're a complete fool, the ferrets will never see a thing.

MacDonald: It's indecently brilliant. What do you think, Roger?

Bartlett: We'll try it first thing tomorrow.

Ashley-Pitt: I already have. It works.