Spare

More ironic, I was filming veterinarians as they put tracking devices on the animals. (The devices would help researchers better understand the herd’s migration patterns.) Until now, I didn’t have the happiest associations with tracking devices.

One day we filmed a vet dart a big bull elephant, then wrap a tracking collar around his neck. But the dart only nicked the elephant’s tough skin, so he was able to gather himself and charge away.

Mike yelled: Grab the camera, Spike! Run!

The elephant was tearing through thick bush, mostly along a sandy path, though sometimes there was no path. The vet and I tried to stay in his footprints. I couldn’t believe the animal’s speed. He went eight kilometers before slowing, then stopping. I kept my distance, and when the vet caught up, I watched him put another dart into the elephant. Finally the big fella went down.

Moments later Mike came roaring up in his truck. Good job, Spike!

I was panting, hands on my knees, bathed in sweat.

Mike looked down in horror. Spike. Where are your shoes?

Oh. Yeah. Left them on the truck. Didn’t think there was time to grab them.

You ran eight kilometers…through the bush…in no shoes?

I laughed. You told me to run. Like you said, the Army taught me how to take direction.

28.

Right at the turn of the new year, 2009, a video went viral.

Me, as a cadet, three years earlier, sitting with other cadets.

At an airport. Cyprus, perhaps? Or else maybe waiting to fly to Cyprus?

The video was shot by me. Killing time before our flight, messing around, I panned the group, gave a running commentary on each lad, and when I came to my fellow cadet and good friend Ahmed Raza Kahn, a Pakistani, I said: Ah, our little Paki friend…

I didn’t know that Paki was a slur. Growing up, I’d heard many people use that word and never saw anyone flinch or cringe, never suspected them of being racist. Neither did I know anything about unconscious bias. I was twenty-one, awash in isolation and privilege, and if I thought anything about this word at all, I thought it was like Aussie. Harmless.

I’d sent the footage to a fellow cadet, who was making an end-of-year video. Since then, it had circulated, flitted from computer to computer, and ultimately ended up in the hands of someone who sold it to the News of the World.

Heated condemnations began rolling in.

I’d learned nothing, people said.

I’d not matured one bit after the Nazi debacle, people said.

Prince Harry is worse than a thicko, they said, worse than a party boy—he’s a racist.

The Tory leader denounced me. A cabinet minister went on TV to flog me. Ahmed’s uncle condemned me to the BBC.

I was sitting in Highgrove, watching this furor rain down, barely able to process it.

My father’s office issued an apology on my behalf. I wanted to issue one as well, but courtiers advised against it.

Not the best strategy, sir.

To hell with strategy. I didn’t care about strategy. I cared about people not thinking I was a racist. I cared about not being a racist.

Above all, I cared about Ahmed. I connected with him directly, apologized. He said he knew I wasn’t a racist. No big deal.

But it was. And his forgiveness, his easy grace, only made me feel worse.

29.

As that controversy continued to spread, I shipped off to RAF Barkston Heath. Strange time to begin flight training, to begin any kind of training. My congenitally weak powers of concentration were never weaker. But maybe, I told myself, it’s also the best time. I wanted to hide from humanity, flee the planet, and since a rocket wasn’t available, maybe an aeroplane would do.

Before I could climb into any aircraft, however, the Army would need to make sure I had the right stuff. For several weeks they poked my body, probed my mind.

Drug-free, they concluded. They seemed surprised.

Also, videos to the contrary notwithstanding, not a total thicko.

So…proceed.

My first aircraft would be a Firefly, they said. Bright yellow, fixed wing, single prop.

Simple machine, according to my first flight instructor, Sergeant Major Booley.

I got in and thought: Really? Didn’t look simple to me.

I turned to Booley, studied him. He wasn’t simple either. Short, solid, tough, he’d fought in Iraq and the Balkans and should’ve been a hard case, given all he’d seen and been through, but in fact he seemed to suffer no ill-effects from his tours of combat. On the contrary, he was all gentleness.