William and Harry (27 page)

He didn’t mind not being able to wash, nor did he miss alcohol or nightclubs. He didn’t even seem bothered by the ‘desert roses’,
mortar-carrying tubes angled into the ground which served as urinals. Apart from the tasteless boil-in-the-bag meals there was little he disliked about being in a war zone. ‘What am I missing the most? Nothing really,’ said Harry, sitting on his cot in FOB Delhi. ‘I honestly don’t know what I miss at all. Music – we’ve got music. We’ve got light; we’ve got food; we’ve got nonalcoholic drink. No, I don’t miss the booze, if that’s the next question. It’s nice just to be here with all the guys and just mucking in as one of the lads … It’s bizarre. I’m out here now, haven’t really had a shower for four days, haven’t washed my clothes for a week, and everything seems completely normal. I think this is about as normal as I’m ever going to get.’

Although it was dangerous, life was also monotonous. In his free time he read magazines, and his well-thumbed collection of lads’ magazines ensured he was popular. He also had time to reflect on his life. At times, he admitted, his thoughts turned to his mother, but he never allowed himself to dwell on the past. ‘I suppose it’s just the way it is. There are other people out here who’ve lost parents … Hopefully she’ll be proud. She would be looking down having a giggle about the stupid things that I’ve been doing, like going left when I should have gone right … William sent me a letter saying how proud he reckons that she would be.’

Like everyone he looked forward to receiving mail, which could arrive as infrequently as every two weeks or even longer. He did not receive his father’s Christmas card until February. To fill in the hours he often played poker with his fellow officers or had a kickabout with a makeshift ball made from loo rolls and gaffer tape. Every week like everyone else he was allowed
thirty minutes on a satellite phone. Harry used these precious moments to call home and speak to his family. From a private corner in the camp, where the service dipped in and out of signal, he also called Chelsy. She would fill him in on her days and make him laugh with tales of the disastrous dinner parties she regularly hosted at her student digs. Cooking, Harry knew, was not her strong point, and a fellow officer told how he burst into laughter as Chelsy relayed how she had burned yet another lasagne. She kept the conversation upbeat, and only afterwards would she allow herself to cry. She was desperately worried for his safety and, according to one of her closest friends, wrote letters to Harry every day. They also managed to communicate intermittently on Facebook, on which Harry used the pseudonym ‘Spike Wells’. ‘F***ing cold here. Like insanely cold bit weird!! Anyhoo, gotta go, lots of love to you, probably see you soon unfortunately for you, hehe! Laters ginge!’ In another he simply told the girl he calls ‘Chedda’ he was missing her. ‘I love you. I mis [
sic
] u gorgeous.’ Their troubles were behind them and it was thoughts of being reunited with Chelsy that kept Harry going. He had a picture of her in his pocket, and according to another officer spoke proudly of his ‘beautiful’ South African girlfriend and how he couldn’t wait to be with her again. Unfortunately for Harry, it would be sooner than he expected.

Cornet Wales stared at the screen forcing his eyes to stay open. He had not slept for seventy-two hours, and as he kept his gaze on Taliban TV beads of perspiration collected on his forehead. It was New Year’s Eve and this was Widow Six Seven’s opportunity to prove his worth. A Desert Hawk drone, a small
remote-controlled spy aircraft the size of a large model aeroplane, had spotted what looked like Taliban fighters in his operating zone. Harry had been watching them using its surveillance cameras and thermal imaging devices for three long nights. Everything had gone through his mind. Was it the Taliban or could the figures be civilians? He knew he could not afford to make a mistake. Targets had to be positively identified and present a threat to coalition forces before he was allowed to call in a strike. Instinct told him his hunch was right – it was the Taliban and it was time to strike. Just to be sure he stayed up till midnight watching the area, and at 10 a.m. the next day his suspicions were confirmed when the enemy opened fire on a small British observation post on the front line. Within hours Forward Operating Base Delhi was under heavy attack and Harry needed to call in an air strike. It was what he had been trained to do, and within seconds he had been assigned two F15s. The warplanes, armed with 500-pound bombs, appeared on his radar six miles from the target, and Harry guided them in. The pilots radioed ‘in hot’, the call sign that they were ready to strike. Sweat dripped from his forehead as Harry calmly issued the authorisation: ‘Cleared hot.’ Within seconds the planes had dropped their munitions and two ground-shaking explosions rocked the network of Taliban bunkers he had been watching for days. As the firing around him subsided, fifteen Taliban fighters emerged from their shelters. It was ruthless but Harry knew what he had to do next. He called the jets back and verified the co-ordinates. A third bomb exploded moments later and suddenly there was no sign of life.

It was Harry’s first strike and a complete success, but it was
just the beginning. Only days later he would see action again. On 2 January Harry started a week at a nineteenth-century fort not far from FOB Delhi, one of the only elevated watch points on the front line. His boss, Major Mark Millford, officer commanding B Company of the 1st Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles, described the area as ‘about as dangerous as it can get’. Harry was just 500 metres from the enemy trenches when twenty Taliban were spotted moving towards his position. The Gurkhas with Harry fired a Javelin missile at the enemy, but they kept advancing. Harry seized a fifty-calibre machine gun and pulled the trigger, the distant plumes of smoke serving as his aim. Wearing earplugs, Harry gritted his teeth, focused on his target and pulled the trigger again. It was the prince’s first firefight, and he grinned as a Gurkha recorded the moment on Harry’s video camera, which he had been using to make a diary. ‘This is the first time I’ve fired a fifty-cal,’ he said, exhilarated by the thirty-minute battle from which he and his men emerged victorious. He was just 500 metres from Line Taunton, the heavily fortified trench system which marks the start of the Taliban-controlled area in Helmand. ‘The whole place is just deserted. There are no roofs on any of the compounds; there are craters all over the place. It looks like something out of the Battle of the Somme,’ he continued as the camera panned around the battle-scarred land.

On the other side of the world the rumour that Prince Harry was fighting on the front line in Afghanistan was beginning to gather momentum. The news had broken in January in an Australian magazine called
New Idea
, which had chosen to ignore
the embargo on Harry’s deployment. There had been no denial from Clarence House or the Ministry of Defence, but fortun -ately the story had not been followed up. General Sir Richard Dannatt was still concerned about the prince’s security, however, and as a precaution the six SAS soldiers who had taken him out to Afghanistan were flown to FOB Edinburgh, where Harry had been stationed for several weeks.

Edinburgh is only seven kilometres away from the Taliban’s heartland around Musa Qala, and the routes to it are heavily mined. The war-torn town had just been retaken in a two-week assault by British and American troops, and the locals were living in fear. The Taliban had wreaked havoc, burning the locals’ houses and destroying their crops and animals. Harry was to join a troop of Spartan reconnaissance vehicles in an attempt to capture the remote village of Karis De Baba, where it was suspected the Taliban were regrouping. It was an honour for the prince to be sent, and a personal tragedy that he never made it. He had come so far and much further forward than he ever imagined he would. At times it was dangerous. During one ground patrol of Musa Qala his Scimitar nearly hit a Taliban landmine. The mine was spotted by a drone just in time, and Harry made light of the incident, insisting he was at no more risk than any other soldier, but he had come perilously close. On another occasion Harry was caught in crossfire. He had been bringing Chinooks into FOB Edinburgh to fly casualties out to the nearest medical base, and without warning found himself under rocket fire, missiles exploding just fifty metres away. He was ordered to take cover and escaped unscathed.

Away from the front line, renowned US blogger Matt Drudge
had picked up
New Idea
’s story and run it on his website the Drudge Report, which is read by millions of people around the world. With the story on the Internet it was impossible to contain, and the news spread like wildfire. Harry was on radio duty on the morning of 29 February, when the first reports started to filter through that his cover had been blown. In London Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Jock Stirrup and General Dannatt spent the morning in meetings. They decided to pull Harry out just after midday. Harry’s evacuation had already been planned and the SAS troopers had a Chinook waiting to take him to Kandahar. It was too risky to keep him in Afghanistan, especially in the Taliban heartland, where Harry would be a prize trophy. Cornet Wales was given no explanation; he was simply told to pack his bags and informed he was on his way to Camp Bastion, the forward coalition base. He had a few minutes to say goodbye to the men he had served with. ‘They were upset, they were pretty depressed for me. They were just like, “It would be nice to keep you here.”’

Prince Harry didn’t smile as he descended the steps of the RAF TriStar passenger jet at exactly 11.20 a.m. on Saturday 1 March. His ginger beard glistened in the sunlight and he still bore a film of fine desert dust on his weathered skin. His combats were dirty, and he was desperate for a bath and a cooked meal, but he was still gutted to be back so soon. He had flown into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire with 160 troops including two seriously injured soldiers from 40 Commando Royal Marines. His father, who told reporters of his relief that Harry was safely home ‘in one piece’, and William were both waiting on the ground for him. ‘I didn’t see it coming – it’s a shame,’ Harry
said when he was asked how he felt about his premature homecoming. ‘Angry would be the wrong word to use, but I am slightly disappointed. I thought I could see it through to the end and come back with our guys.’

For a young man who had always had a fractious relationship with the media, he could not help but feel resentful of the press. ‘I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run the story without consulting us,’ he said. ‘This is in stark contrast to the highly responsible attitude of the whole of the UK print and broadcast media.’ For once the British press wasn’t in the firing line. Prime Minister Gordon Brown described him as an exemplary soldier and said; ‘The whole of Britain will be proud of the outstanding service he is giving.’ Getting Prince Harry to the front line had been a triumph for the army after the fiasco earlier that year, when the decision to send him to Iraq had been reversed. Two months later on 5 May Lieutenant Wales, dressed in desert camouflage, received a service medal from his aunt Princess Anne, who is colonel-in-chief of the Blues and Royals. Chelsy was seated next to the Prince of Wales, who was wearing the Household Cavalry’s burgundy and navy tie, and William at the ceremony at Combermere Barracks. It was the first time Chelsy had been invited to an official engagement and she was delighted to be there. Harry made it clear he had every intention of getting back to the front line as quickly as possible. ‘I don’t want to sit around in Windsor,’ he said. ‘I generally don’t like England that much, and you know it’s nice to be away from the papers and all the general shit they write.’

From the king-sized canopied bed Kate Middleton could hear the sea lapping on the shore. It was midday and not only too hot to sit out; a plague of sandflies had descended on the paradise island of Desroches in the Seychelles forcing the couple to seek shelter in their luxury bungalow. Neither William nor Kate complained. It was late August 2007 and the first time they had been completely alone since their break-up in the spring. William had hired out the exclusive five-star Desroches Island Resort, which consists of luxury bungalows looking out over the turquoise Indian Ocean. With a population of fifty and just three miles long, the paradise island was the perfect escape, but just to make sure they could not be spied on the pair had checked in under the names Martin and Rosemary Middleton. Tanned and happy, they spent their days kayaking and snorkelling in the shallow waters of the coral reef and had swimming competitions in the pool before breakfast.

At night the staff laid a table for two on the sand complete with silver cutlery, crystal glasses and a crisp linen tablecloth, where they enjoyed fresh fish barbecues and bottles of chilled wine. It was just the two of them, and there was plenty of time for talking and plenty to talk about. After getting back together in June, William and Kate had deliberately kept a low profile. Kate had not sat with William at Diana’s memorial concert at Wembley Stadium, nor did she attend the church service at the Guards Chapel. Behind the closed doors of Clarence House, however, William and Kate were seeing each other as often as possible. It had taken just days for the prince to realise that ending their relationship was a mistake, but weeks before Kate agreed to give William a second chance. She had, according to her friend Emma Sayle, been deeply affected by the break-up. ‘William was the love of her life, and she admitted that to me, but she said their relationship was hard because they were constantly in the public eye. When they got back together Kate said they had a lot of issues to sort out.’ Understandably, Kate wanted assurances from William. They had been together for six years and both of them knew that at some point they had to address the future. For a young man who has an inherent fear of tomorrow this was not easy for William, but the tranquil backdrop of the Seychelles was as good a place as any to discuss it.