Spare

The storm was getting worse. We had to go. We restarted the boats, cruised away. Goodbye, we whispered to the elephants. I eased into the middle of the current, lit a cigarette, told my memory to hold on to this encounter, this unreal moment when the line between me and the external world grew blurry or disappeared outright.

Everything, for one half second, was one. Everything made sense.

Try to remember, I thought, how it felt to be that close to the truth, the real truth:

That life isn’t all good, but it isn’t all bad either.

Try to remember how it felt, finally, to understand what Mike had been trying to say.

Shine a light.

39.

I got my wings. Pa, as Army Air Corps Colonel-in-Chief, pinned them to my chest.

May 2010.

Happy day. Pa, wearing his blue beret, officially presented me with mine. I put it on and we saluted each other. It felt almost more intimate than a hug.

Camilla was on hand. And Mummy’s sisters. And Chels. We were back together.

Then broke up soon after.

We had no choice—yet again. We had all the same old problems, nothing had been solved. Also, Chels wanted to travel, have fun, be young, but I was once again on a path to war. I’d soon be shipping off. If we stayed together, we’d be lucky to see each other a handful of times over the next two years, and that was no kind of relationship. Neither of us was surprised when we found ourselves in the same old emotional cul-de-sac.

Goodbye, Chels.

Goodbye, Hazza.

The day I got my wings, I figured she got hers.

We went to Botswana one last time. One last trip upriver, we said. One last visit to Teej and Mike.

We had great fun, and naturally wavered about our decision. I tried now and then, and talked now and then, of different ways this might still work. Chels played along. We were being so obviously, willfully delusional, that Teej felt the need to step in.

It’s over, kids. You’re postponing the inevitable. And making yourselves crazy in the process.

We were staying in a tent in her garden. She sat with us in the tent, delivering these difficult truths while holding hands with each of us. Looking us in the eyes, she urged us to let this breakup be final.

Don’t waste the most precious thing there is. Time.

She was right, I knew. As Sergeant Major Booley said: It’s time.

So I forced myself to put the relationship out of my mind—in fact, all relationships. Stay busy, I told myself as I flew away from Botswana. In the short while left before you ship to Afghanistan, just stay busy.

To that end, I went to Lesotho with Willy. We visited several schools built by Sentebale. Prince Seeiso was with us; he’d co-founded the charity with me back in 2006, shortly after losing his own mother. (His mother had also been a fighter in the war against HIV.) He took us to meet scores of children, each with a wrenching story. The average life expectancy in Lesotho at that time was forty-something, while in Britain it was seventy-nine for men, eighty-two for women. Being a child in Lesotho was like being middle-aged in Manchester, and while there were various complicated reasons for this, the main one was HIV.

A quarter of all Lesotho adults were HIV-positive.

After two or three days we set off with Prince Seeiso towards more remote schools, off the grid. Way off. As a gift Prince Seeiso gave us wild ponies, to ride part of the way, and tribal blankets for the cold. We wore them as capes.

Our first stop was a frozen village in the clouds: Semonkong. Some seven thousand feet above sea level, it lay between snow-tipped mountains. Plumes of warm air spurted from the horses’ noses as we pushed them up, up, but when the climb got too steep, we switched to trucks.

Upon arriving we went straight into the school. Shepherd boys would come here twice a week, have a hot meal, go to a class. We sat in semi-darkness, beside a paraffin lamp, watching a lesson, and then we sat on the ground with a dozen boys, some as young as eight. We listened to them describe their daily trek to our school. It defied belief: after twelve hours of tending their cattle and sheep, they’d walk for two hours through mountain passes just to learn maths, reading, writing. Such was their hunger to learn. They braved sore feet, bitter cold—and far worse. They were so vulnerable on the road, so exposed to the elements, several had died from lightning strikes. Many had been attacked by stray dogs. They dropped their voices and told us that many had also been sexually abused by wanderers, rustlers, nomads, and other boys.

I felt ashamed to think of all my bitching about school. About anything.

Despite what they’d suffered, the boys were still boys. Their joy was irrepressible. They thrilled at the gifts we’d brought—warm coats, wool beanies. They put on the clothes, danced, sang. We joined them.