SCHOOLMATES with bowed heads in stony silence fought back tears as they joined family and friends to farewell popular Nudgee College student Christopher D’Arcy on August 24.
As the reality sank in that a second mate in the past month had died from among their ranks, the young men pulled together and gathered all their strength for a final war cry for the Year 11 student while his body was carried away to be buried.
Christopher, the son of former Wallaby prop Tony D’Arcy, died at Holy Spirit Northside Hospital on August 21 after contracting meningococcal disease a week earlier.
It had been just over two weeks since another Nudgee College boy, Year 8 student Daniel Laherty, died from the same disease.
Christopher’s funeral was appropriately held at his much-loved school, where he studied and played rugby, making the First XV.
About 2000 people, mostly students, packed the college’s multi-purpose centre for the funeral Mass.
