2-60（在线收听）

60.

I got up each day, went to the base, did my work, enjoyed none of it. It felt pointless.

And boring. I was bored to tears.

More, for the first time in years, I was without a purpose. A goal.

What’s next? I asked myself every night.

I begged my commanding officers to send me back.

Back where?

To the war.

Oh, they said, ha-ha, no.

In March 2013 word came down that the Palace wanted to send me on another royal tour. Myfirst since the Caribbean. This time: America.

I was glad for the break in the monotony. On the other hand I was also worried about returningto the scene of the crime. I imagined days and days of questions about Vegas.

No, Palace courtiers assured me. Impossible. Time and the war had eclipsed Vegas. This wasstrictly a goodwill tour, to promote the rehabilitation of wounded British and American soldiers.

No one is going to mention Vegas, sir. Cut to May 2013, me touring the devastation caused byHurricane Sandy, alongside New Jersey governor Chris Christie. The governor gifted me a bluefleece, which the press spun…as his way of keeping me clothed. Actually, Christie spun it that waytoo. A reporter asked him what he thought of my time in Las Vegas, and Christie vowed that if Ispent the whole day with him, “nobody’s going to get naked.” The line got a big laugh, becauseChristie is famously stout.

Before Jersey I’d gone to Washington, D.C., met with President Barack Obama and First LadyMichelle Obama, visited Arlington National Cemetery, laid a wreath at the Tomb of the UnknownSoldier. I’d laid dozens of wreaths before, but the ritual was different in America. You didn’t placethe wreath on the grave yourself; a white-gloved soldier placed it with you, and then you laid yourhand singly, for one beat, upon the wreath. This extra step, this partnering with another livingsoldier, moved me. Holding my hand to the wreath for that extra second, I found myself a bitwobbly, my mind flooding with images of all the men and women with whom I’d served. Ithought about death, injury, grief, from Helmand Province to Hurricane Sandy to the Alma tunnel,and I wondered how other people just got on with their lives, whereas I felt such doubt andconfusion—and something else.

What? I wondered.

Sadness?

Numbness?

I couldn’t name it. And without being able to give it a name, I felt a kind of vertigo.

What was happening to me?

The whole American tour lasted only five days—a true whirlwind. So many sights, and faces,and remarkable moments. But on the flight home I was thinking about only one part.

A stop- off in Colorado. Something called the Warrior Games. A kind of Olympiad forwounded soldiers, with two hundred men and women taking part, each of whom inspired me.

I watched them closely, saw them having the time of their lives, saw them competing to thehilt, and I asked them…how?

Sport, they said. The most direct route to healing.

Most were natural athletes, and they told me these games had given them a rare chance torediscover and express their physical talents, despite their wounds. As a result it made theirwounds, both mental and physical, disappear. Maybe only for a moment, or a day, but that wasenough. More than enough. Once you’ve made a wound disappear for any length of time, it’s nolonger in control—you are.

Yes, I thought. I get that.

And so, on the flight back to Britain, I kept going over those games in my mind, wondering ifwe could do something similar in Britain. A version of those Warrior Games, but perhaps withmore soldiers, more visibility, more benefits to participants. I scribbled some notes on a sheet ofpaper and by the time my plane touched down I had the essential idea sketched out.

A Paralympics for soldiers from all over the world! In London’s Olympic Park! Where theLondon Olympics had just happened!

With full support and cooperation from the Palace. Maybe?

Big ask. But I felt that I’d accrued some political capital. Despite Vegas, despite at least onearticle that made me out to be some kind of war criminal, despite my whole checkered history asthe naughty one, Britons seemed to have a generally positive view of the Spare. There was afeeling that I was coming into my own. Plus, most Brits had a positive view of the militarycommunity overall, despite the unpopularity of the war. Surely they’d be supportive of an effort tohelp soldiers and their families.

The first step would be pitching the Royal Foundation Board, which oversaw my charitableprojects and Willy’s and Kate’s. It was our foundation, so I told myself: No problem.

Also, the calendar was on my side. This was early summer 2013. Willy and Kate, weeks fromhaving their first child, were going to be out of commission for a while. The foundation thereforedidn’t have any projects in the pipeline. Its roughly seven million pounds was just sitting there,doing nothing. And if these International Warrior Games worked, they’d enhance the foundation’sprofile, which would energize donors and replenish the foundation’s accounts many times over.

There’d be that much more to go around when Willy and Kate came back full-time. So I wasfeeling supremely confident in the days leading up to my pitch.

But when the actual day came, not so much. I realized how badly I wanted this, for the soldiersand their families, and if I’m being honest: for myself. And this sudden attack of nerves kept mefrom being at my best. Still, I got through it, and the board said yes.

Thrilled, I reached out to Willy, expecting him to be thrilled as well.

He was sorely irritated. He wished I’d run all this by him first.

My assumption, I said, was that other people had done so.

He complained that I’d be using up all the funds in the Royal Foundation.

That’s absurd, I spluttered. I was told only a half-million-pound grant would be needed to getthe games going, a fraction of the foundation’s money. Besides, it was coming from theEndeavour Fund, an arm of the foundation I’d created specifically for veterans’ recovery. The restwould come from donors and sponsors.

What was going on here? I wondered.

Then I realized: My God, sibling rivalry.

I put a hand over my eyes. Had we not got past this yet? The whole Heir versus Spare thing?

Wasn’t it a bit late in the day for that tired childhood dynamic?

But even if it wasn’t, even if Willy insisted on being competitive, on turning our brotherhoodinto some kind of private Olympiad, hadn’t he built up an insurmountable lead? He was married,with a baby on the way, while I was eating takeaway alone over the sink.

Pa’s sink! I still lived with Pa!

Game over, man. You win.