[War] Australia: Mourning

[Daniel Sanderson]

“Mourning”
Monday 14 July
Prime Minister Jack Decker
Australia

The Prime Minister walked across the grounds of Scotch College towards their Memorial Hall. Today, Second Lieutenant William Christianson would be farewelled, and then buried at Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It had taken some time for his body to return from Azerbaijan, after being sent back into Georgia, then on to Australia since his death last week.

Jack wasn’t doing anything at the ceremony. It was up to Christianson’s family to say a few words about someone close to them, rather then hear the PM talk about service and duty and pretend to have known more about William then reading his name after his death. There had been another death in Azerbaijan, an SAS trooper who’d been on a covert mission close to Baku.

Right now, Jack was ready to get stuck into Question Time and stick it to the Opposition. They’d had no qualms about the Azerbaijan mission until Lieutenant Christianson had died, and now they were all up in arms about it. He was ready to give the Leader a piece of his mind this time tomorrow.

As they approached Decker saw a few familiar faces. Admiral Bains was there, along with the local state (Labor) and Federal (Liberal) Members of Parliament and the Premier of Victoria. As he approached, the Premier saw him and made his way over. “Prime Minister.” He said grimly, shaking the man’s hand.

“Paul.” Decker said with a nod.

“Mrs. Christianson’s over here,” he said, guiding the PM over to the woman. “Grace, the Prime Minister.”

Decker took the lady’s hand. “Mrs. Christianson, I wish there was something I could say, but…I’m very sorry for your loss. I didn’t know your son, but he was wearing the uniform, and doing his nation a great service.”

“Thank you sir.” Grace replied. “He was a good boy, I always told him that I didn’t want him to join the Army.”

“My mother didn’t want me to serve either.” Decker said honestly.

“He did it for me.” A gruff voice said behind Decker. He turned to see a large, moustached man wearing a suit with a Vietnam Veterans pin on it.

“This is my husband, George.”

“Mr. Christianson, I’m very sorry.” Decker said, shaking the man’s hand.

“Not as sorry as I am Mr. Decker.” George replied.

“There’s no good blaming ourselves in the end.” Decker stated. “Everyone does what they want in the end.”

“That is very true.” George said with a nod.

“I’ll leave you to your family.” Jack said with a soft smile, and shook their hands once more. “My condolences, again.”

The Christiansons tended to family and friends while Decker slipped back to the perimeter. A minute later Admiral Bains came up alongside him. Tom Bains was a career Naval officer. He was of medium height, and kept himself in a degree of physical fitness, though as the years went by his waist line expanded with it. He’d lost his hair a few years ago.

“Sir.”

“Tom.” Decker acknowledged him with a nod. 

“Poor family.” The Admiral observed.

“Did you ever think about what might happen when you signed up? About your family getting a visit to say you were dead.”

“Honestly, sir? No. Thought I was more likely to get struck by lightning.” Bains regarded the PM out of the corner of his eye for a moment.  “Did you, sir?”

“No…my mother tried to make me think about it, but I never did.” He paused. “What’s the word from Azerbaijan?”

“Baku in a week, according to our friends in the Pentagon. Iranians backed right off, guess they’ll draw us close to the border and if we cross, they’ll put up a fight. Current instructions are for units to hold short of the border.”

The mourners began to move inside, and the PM followed. The service was nice. Decker learned that Christianson had a common Melbourne upbringing, common for certain people anyway. Send off to an exclusive boys school, where he joined their cadet unit. School Captain, missed out on Dux by a hair but was listed in the paper as having got the top score in three of his VCE subjects. Despite his high score he went to the Defence Force Academy, graduating with Honours in a Bachelor of Business.

The military guard carried his coffin out to the song Forever Young. He was buried, and given the 21 gun salute. Decker said goodbye to his parents, and told them to call if they ever needed anything. He was back on the plane to Canberra an hour later.




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