-
2-32
32. From Shawbury I moved on to Middle Wallop. I now knew how to fly a helicopter, the Armyconceded, but next I needed to learn how to fly one tactically. While doing other things. Manyother things. Like reading a map and locating a target and firing
-
2-33
33. Over several months Nige the Ninja managed to show me how to fly a helicopter while doingother things, countless other things, and, what was more, to do so with something approachingself-love. These were flying lessons, but I think back on them a
-
2-34
34. Nige eventually released me, set me free like a wounded bird restored to health, and with hiscertification the Army pronounced me ready to fly Apaches. But nopeit was a trick. I wasnt going to fly Apaches. I was going to sit in a windowlessclassr
-
2-35
35. The seating arrangement eventually became less of an issue. Day by day the Apache felt less alien,and some days it even felt good. I learned to be alone in there, to think alone, function alone. I learned to communicate withthis big, fast, nasty,
-
2-36
36. Near the tail end of my Apache training, at Wattisham Airfield in Suffolk, I got one moreinstructor. It was his job to put on the finishing touches. Upon meeting, shaking hands, he gave me a knowing smile. I smiled back. He kept smiling. I smiled
-
2-37
37. I was turning twenty-five in a few days, and it felt like more than just another birthday. Mates toldme twenty-five was the Watershed Age, the moment when many young men and women come toa fork in their personal road. At twenty-five you take a co
-
2-38
38. A group of us piled into flat-bottomed boats and steered upriver. We camped for a few days, explored some remote islands. No one for miles and miles around. One afternoon we stopped off on Kingfisher Island, and mixed up some drinks, and watchedt
-
2-39
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 wesaluted each other. It felt almost more intimate than a hug. Ca
-
2-40
40. Soon after we returned to Britain the Palace announced that Willy was going to marry. November 2010. News to me. All that time together in Lesotho, hed never mentioned it. The papers published florid stories about the moment I realized Willy and
-
2-41
41. My plane landed on an archipelago called Svalbard. March 2011. Stepping off the plane I did a slow turn, taking it all in. White, white, and more white. As faras the eye could see, nothing but ivory, snowy whiteness. White mountains, white snowdr
-
2-42
42. On the eve of the wedding Willy and I had dinner at Clarence House with Pa. Also present wereJames and ThomasWillys best men. The public had been told that I was to be best man, but that was a bare-faced lie. The publicexpected me to be best man,
-
2-43
43. Upon reaching the top of the world, the four wounded soldiers uncorked a bottle of champagneand drank to Granny. They were kind enough to phone me and let me listen to their joy. Theyd set a world record, raised a truckload of cash for wounded ve
-
2-44
44. It was hard seeing Chels at Willys wedding. There were loads of feelings still there, feelings Idsuppressed, feelings I hadnt suspected. I also felt a certain way about the hungry-looking mentrailing after her, circling her, nagging her to dance.
-
2-45
45. I stopped sleeping. I simply stopped. I was so disappointed, so profoundly dejected, that I just stayed up nightafter night, pacing, thinking. Wishing I had a TV. But I was living on a military base now, in a cell-like room. Then, mornings, on ze
-
2-46
46. Id barely recovered from Bodmin Moor when word came down from Granny. She wanted me togo to the Caribbean. A two-week tour to commemorate her sixtieth year on the throne, my firstofficial royal tour representing her. It was strange to be called a
共 11页159条 - 首页
- 上一页
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 下一页
- 末页
