The old veteran's tears fall freely.
He has come to farewell his old comrade, a man who saved his life more than 70 years ago in the jungles of Kokoda.
They are manly tears and Owen Baskett sheds them unashamedly as he raises his arm to salute the passing casket of his old commanding officer, Capt Bede Tongs.
In November 1942, Owen Baskett was a 21-year-old Digger serving in the 3rd Battalion's 10 Platoon. Bede Tongs was a 22-year-old sergeant who had just taken command after his platoon leader was struck down by a Japanese sniper at Templeton's Crossing.
"I've idolised Bede ever since," says Owen. "He took such care of his men and never asked them to do anything he wouldn't do himself.
"Bede never lost a forward scout. That's a remarkable achievement in a campaign where their life expectancy was measured in days, not weeks."
Bede Tongs was such an outstanding leader that he was later commissioned an officer in the field and was awarded a Military Medal for his bravery at Templeton's Crossing.
There, typically, he refused to put his men's lives at unnecessary risk. Instead, under heavy fire, he crawled up to a machine gun which was holding up his platoon's advance and silenced it with a hand grenade.
Bede led his men through the rest of the campaign with similar care and compassion until he was eventually medically evacuated suffering from malaria, scrub typhus and dengue fever.
Both men returned to civilian life, married, raised families, played prominent roles in their communities and led rich lives into their nineties. They kept in touch and recalled those perilous days over quiet beers. In 2012, 70 years after the battles, they returned to Kokoda together and farewelled their long-departed comrades.
Now Bede finally joins his mates and Owen bids him Godspeed with a soldier's farewell.