Expatriates: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse

47 STAR OF COURAGE

Chuck tapped on the brigade commander’s door. After Colonel Reynolds shouted, “Enter!” Chuck stepped into the office and found the colonel tapping away at his laptop keyboard. Looking up, he smiled and said, “Good to see you, Nolan. Do shut the door.”

After Chuck had closed the door behind him, Reynolds flipped the laptop screen closed and said, “How are things getting along with your Inventory, Destruction, and Safe Storage project? We’ve been hearing the explosions from quite a distance.”

“It’s all gone quite well. It was my pleasure to stay on for an extra couple of weeks to see it all wrapped up. The dugout space for the captured artillery rounds and other explosives was limited, so we had to be selective about what we destroyed, what we sold, and what we put into storage. Much of it had no commonality with our logistics and no civilian use, so that material was burned in place, or for any contained explosives—like artillery rounds and mortar bombs—blown in place.”

The colonel nodded, and Chuck continued, “There was a large quantity of the Indo’s bulk explosive in twenty-kilogram bags, essentially a clone of commercial AMEX explosive. Along with that was about twenty thousand feet of detonating cord. That stuff is identical to commercial Cordtex or Primacord except for its outer casing color. Those explosives and det cord would have been a shame to burn up, so it was disposed of at auction via a six-way phone conference call. The high bidder was a big mining supply company in Malaga. They bought it with the understanding that they had just four days to haul it away. It was all gone by Wednesday. At this point, I’m just down to having someone proofread the report that you requested, and scheduling my last day.”

“I think Saturday should be your last paid day, assuming that you get your report in tomorrow. No need to come into the office on Saturday, mind you. Does that sound good?”

Chuck smiled. “Yes, sir. So what is the procedure for ending my contract?”

“Well, Chuck, it’s pretty simple when we’re talking about an open-ended ‘at will’ contract. In essence: you stop showing up for work, and we stop paying you.”

Both men laughed.

Chuck asked, “Okay, now what about my SLR—how do I go about turning that rifle back in?”

The colonel cocked his head and smiled. “You know, in all the confusion and tumult of combat, there was a tremendous amount of materiel that was captured by the Indos, destroyed, or otherwise went missing. Why, even my own AUG went missing and had to be replaced with one that came from a wounded trooper who was sent off to hospital. In your case, your SLR will be logged as an ‘unavoidable combat loss, captured by the enemy with no possibility of recovery’ or some such.”

Chuck grinned in response and said, “That has a nice ring to it: ‘unavoidable combat loss.’ Thank you, sir.”

Within three weeks of the cease-fire, most Darwinites had returned to their homes. Many parts of Darwin and its suburbs were just as the refugees had left them. But even in the untouched houses, the lengthy power outages had left refrigerators and freezers a stinking mess. Nearly all of these had to be discarded and replaced. Livestock that was left out to pasture generally fared well, although the Indos had helped themselves to some steak on the hoof. On two farms, dozens of cattle and sheep had been indiscriminately machine-gunned and left to rot.

One family in the Darwin suburb of Berrimah came home to find a sink full of dirty dishes and a garage stacked full of cases of Indonesian Composite Rations and more than a hundred cans of 5.56, 7.62 and .50 caliber ammunition. Their garden shed was stacked full of diesel fuel cans. They assumed that their house had been used as a TNI-AD supply cache of some sort.

Another family in the posh Darwin suburb of Cullen Bay returned to find that an Indonesian officer with a penchant for larceny had occupied their house. In just a few weeks he had accumulated thousands of pieces of loot, including dozens of oil paintings from several different galleries, sacks of gold and silver coins, dozens of pocket watches and wristwatches, several stamp collection albums, nearly a thousand audio CDs and Blu-ray DVDs, seventy-five laptop computers, 127 iPads, twenty-three Kindle readers, seventy-eight smartphones, and more than a dozen high-grade shotguns. It took months to track down the owners of these items.

Peter Jeffords reunited with Rhiannon and Sarah, and the three found that their rental house was just as they had left it, except for the musty smell that permeated all the rooms. It took three days to air out the house to Rhiannon’s satisfaction.

Ava Palmer and her parents returned home to find that their house was also fine, except for a rank-smelling fish aquarium and a lawn that had grown so tall that their gas-powered lawn mower’s grass catcher had to be emptied five times to complete the job. Their three vegetable gardens survived quite well despite the depredations of birds during their absence.

Chuck proposed to Ava Palmer two days after his army contract ended. She immediately accepted. Given the calamitous times they had just survived, neither wanted a long engagement. They decided to get married two weeks later at Casuarina Baptist Church. Ava’s parents were delighted.

On the first weekend between his proposal and their wedding, there was an awards ceremony at Robertson Barracks. Caleb Burroughs was one of the organizers of the event. He arrived wearing his olive green Ceremonial Dress Uniform with Sam Browne belt and saber.

Chuck Nolan and Quentin Whittle were both to be awarded the Star of Courage. This silver star with a red and orange ribbon was awarded to civilians for “acts of conspicuous courage in circumstances of great peril.” They were among just fifteen civilians awarded the medal for their service in the recent conflict with Indonesia. Nine of those commendations were made posthumously, mostly to CAAAF volunteers.

Before the ceremony began, Samantha Kyle caught Caleb’s eye, and he approached her. Smiling, he said, “Well, it’s good to see you again. Miss Claymore, was it?”

She laughed and replied, “It’s Samantha Kyle. I promise I’m not here to beg you for any more Claymore mines. They’re going to give me a Commendation for Brave Conduct, for emplacing a few remote-control goodies. But honestly, I don’t think the trifling things that I did deserve any recognition.”

Caleb shook his head. “Oh, quite the contrary! I’m told that it was the loss of their key leadership that made the Indos blink, and that it may have changed how everything got sorted out. You do deserve a commendation.”

After a pause he added, “Can I be so bold as to ask you to dinner, this evening?’

“Wouldn’t that be considered fraternizing, since you’re an officer?”

“Well, since you had prior service in Other Ranks and are now a civilian, technically no, it would not be considered fraternization. And I’d consider it an honor if you would accompany me.”

Samantha smiled and said, “Then yes. I’d be delighted.”

The church was well known locally as the Food for Life charity church because they operated a food bank. It was also a source of controversy after the church opened its doors to foreign asylum seekers who were held in detention. Most of them had been arrested immediately after arriving on Australian soil. Each Sunday, buses from three of the four detention centers around Darwin arrived and SERCO contract guards wearing their insipid pale blue uniforms escorted the detainee “clients” into the church building. The Christian detainees included Afghanis, Iranians, Nepalese, Sri Lankans, Turks, and Vietnamese.

The pastor, who had been a fireman earlier in his life, conducted the wedding ceremony. Caleb stood up as Chuck’s best man. The church was quite crowded with the regular congregation, plus Ava’s many local friends and several of Chuck’s coworkers from AOGC, as well as several friends he had recently made while working at Site G. The Jeffords family was there, along with Paul Navarro, his grandson, Joseph, and Joseph’s girlfriend.

Ava wore a white wedding dress that she had been preparing for six months. (She had seen the proposal coming.) Chuck wore his black “weddings and funerals” suit with a crimson red tie. It was a wool suit but made with lightweight fabric, in deference to the Texas climate, so it served him well in Australia. Ava insisted that Chuck wear his Star of Courage on his suit pocket.

Since the wedding was to be held immediately after the church service, the asylum seeker “clients” asked to stay late to attend. Many of the wedding pictures included both asylum-seeking detainees as well as their detention center guards in uniform. The pastor asked Chuck whether the extra guests bothered him, but he didn’t mind. “The more the merrier,” Chuck said. “It was already an international wedding, so this just adds some more international color.”

One of the guests at the wedding was Samantha Kyle. Caleb had been courting her in earnest since they saw each other at the awards ceremony. Even though she had worked with Chuck only for one day—wiring the explosives at Robertson Barracks—she came to the wedding as Caleb’s guest. Caleb was clearly smitten with Samantha. He took Chuck aside and confessed that he was already thinking about asking Samantha to marry him. Not wanting to discourage his friend, Chuck still considered it his duty to advise Caleb to be just a little more patient.

The ceremony was brief, but it included a gospel message for those attending in the Baptist tradition. They sang just one hymn, which dated back to eighth-century Ireland, “Be Thou My Vision”:

Ava had long been considered the most eligible and attractive young lady in the congregation. After the ceremony, as Chuck and Ava shook hands with everyone in a receiving line, one of the detention guards summed up how many of the young men in the church felt when he commented, “You don’t know how many hearts you’ve broken today, Ava, but we all wish you half your luck.” This confused Chuck, who had never heard the expression. He just smiled and gave Ava a quizzical glance. Later, Ava explained to him that “half your luck” had been derived by shortening the phrase “I’d be happy if I had half your luck.”