Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier (24 page)

‘Holy fuck! Fucking Prince Harry is here,’ he quipped in his cockney accent.

I told him I’d known for over a week and that I hadn’t been allowed to say.

‘But what’s he doing here? What’s he going to be doing?’

‘He’s our new 2IC. And I’m his gunner.’

‘FUCK OFF!’

I’d got over the initial excitement about the job, it was fairly old news for me, but I could see the excitement on everybody’s faces. By just turning up and saying hello to everyone, he’d made morale rocket through the roof.

We played a few rounds of ten-pin bowling, at the end of which the leader brought Lieutenant Wales over to me.

‘And you remember Trooper Wharton?’

‘Of course I do! How are you, Ronald?’ Harry offered his hand to me and I shook it, telling him I was fine.

‘I’m your gunner for the next four weeks.’

‘Brilliant. Are you any good?’

‘Well, you’re my first commander. So we’ll have to wait and see, sir.’

‘Well, I hope you gun better than you bowl, Ron.’

The ice was broken. I’d wondered whether Harry was going to remember me. I worried that he wouldn’t and I’d have to go through the whole ‘who am I’ situation, which would have involved coming out to him. But he’d remembered exactly who I was.

Almost two years earlier, during the build-up to Iraq, I had a couple of the boys in my room playing on my Xbox one
afternoon
. Harry had joined us for a bit of fun on Call of Duty. Before he left us, he had scouted over my photos which were blu-tacked on the wall and asked me a few questions about who people were and what we were getting up to. I’d pointed out Thom to him and he’d asked if he was my boyfriend. He told me we looked good together. Having a prince tell me that my boyfriend and I looked good together always stuck in my mind. It was a surreal conversation. Over the course of the coming weeks, we’d share an awkward chat about what had happened with Thom. He was both gutted and surprised by the news.

The icebreaker night had worked well, and I could tell the boys
were both enthused and encouraged by the arrival of Lieutenant Wales. As we were leaving the bowling alley, I was stopped by two middle-aged Canadian ladies.

‘Is that Prince Henry of Wales over there?’ The ladies were pointing at Harry.

‘Oh yeah, that’s him alright.’ I walked off and left the women shocked by my confirmation. That would happen a lot over the following weeks.

We had about a week to prepare for our second exercise against a new force of British regiments, during which we put a lot of effort into making sure our vehicles were ready and up for the job. We still enjoyed plenty of downtime as the week went by, finishing early in the afternoon, relaxing a little and then heading out, either to the Longhorn bar or down to Medicine Hat.

Working with us for the next stage of our time in Canada was another infantry regiment. Having had a generally bad
experience
with the Welsh Guards, a lot of us wondered if we’d see much of the same with the new guys, but fairly soon after being introduced we found they were quite different and, similarly to us, extremely close and loyal to each other.

By the time we’d spent three full days on the tank park,
tinkering
away at our vehicles and preparing to deploy, everybody who worked within BATUS had become aware of Prince Harry’s presence and, due to my close link to him, I found that everybody began to know me. I became aware of people pointing at me in the NAAFI during the mid-morning break or in the Longhorn bar in the evenings. I could see people mouthing the words ‘Prince Harry’ and ‘gay gunner’. Clearly word had got around that not only was I the lucky person who was sharing a turret with the prince but also that I was gay. It didn’t seem to cause me much trouble – until one evening in the bar.

The clock had been slowly ticking down to the start of our
two-week deployment, so we’d automatically kicked things up a notch and were really enjoying ourselves. My good friend Danny had been in Canada with us from the start, as had Scoffy. I’d also become very close to a guy called Alex who loved a good time, and my roommate Pank was part of our clique too. After a fairly straightforward day on the tank park, we all decided to head to the Longhorn bar and have a boozy night.

The night progressed and we found ourselves chatting away with some of the infantry guys at the bar. After a little while the conversation had drifted on to Prince Harry.

‘Ask James, he’s his gunner.’

I found myself talking about my commander at length, which was fine as all they really wanted to know was if he was a good guy. It was quite a good chance to break the ice a little with the people we’d be spending the next fortnight on the prairie with.

Mid-chat, one of the infantry soldiers leaned over to me and asked if he could buy me a drink. I was delighted and naturally accepted the offer. He was a younger chap, about nineteen, and looked fairly new to the whole soldier game. I took his beer and carried on the conversation but, for some reason, I felt
something
in the air between us.

Without wanting to make a fool of myself, I checked with Danny what his thoughts were.

‘Danny, this lad talking to me at the bar. I’m sure he’s trying to chat me up.’

‘Really? Are you not just wishful thinking?’ It was a good point. I might have been completely reading the wrong messages. I had been drinking for about two hours.

‘Maybe, but he’s just bought me a beer and he keeps trying to strike up a conversation.’

‘I’ll keep my eye on him and let you know. Fucking James! You’re always a drama!’

The truth was, if the guy was trying to hit on me I wanted him to continue. I was certainly attracted to him. I went back to the bar and finished the pint the guy had bought me. After, I thought it only polite to offer him the same. He accepted my offer and, more than that, he placed his hand on my arm as I asked him. I could see Danny’s eyes light up from across the bar and soon after felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. It was a text from Danny: ‘Well in!’

The night continued, as did my conversation with the guy from the infantry. I’ve never been a betting man but I was totally convinced that this character who’d been talking to me all evening was gay and looking for a friend for the evening. He even asked me which room I was staying in and if anybody else stayed in there. I told him I had my own room as the guy I shared with was away. I texted Pank, who was stood with Danny at the bar, telling him to stay out of the room for the next hour or so. I could see them both shaking their heads at me from across the room. I smirked back at them.

‘I’m heading up to my room now, actually. It was really nice to meet you.’

‘Have you got any DVDs?’

‘I have a few, yeah… Why? Do you want to borrow one?’

‘Yeah, can I? I’ve seen all mine a million times!’

I couldn’t believe what was happening. The guy had invited himself back to my room. He was making his intentions
obvious
. He knew my room was empty, he knew it was the floor below where he lived and he knew I was gay. It was a full-drawn conclusion to me. I’d pulled.

He told me he’d meet me at my room in about fifteen minutes. I thought he was a little worried about being seen leaving the bar with me. I was used to how curious straight guys operated. My life had been made a million times easier by just being open and honest about my sexual feelings.

I reminded Pank that I needed privacy for at least an hour and hastily tidied the room for my impending visitor. I also got a collection of DVDs out on the side ready for him to look through on the off-chance that he was actually coming to borrow an action movie.

Right on cue, a knock came at the door. I opened and he
hastily
made his way inside. He was a lot more nervous than he’d seemed earlier.

‘The DVDs are there, dude.’ I pointed over to them but as soon as I finished the sentence, the guy grabbed me and began to kiss me. I didn’t need encouraging. We ripped each other’s clothes off and spent the next hour having sex.

Afterwards, he got his stuff together and, in the darkness, left my room and went back upstairs, saying very few words before closing the door behind him. I laughed to myself about the whole thing.

The following morning was when I made my fatal mistake.

Some of the boys had been in competition as to who had got ‘laid’ the most while in Canada. It’s something I’ve seen often… The boys go out and the following day they exchange their sordid tales and have a general laugh over each other’s escapades. Pank was finding it particularly painful as the majority of the boys had at least got off the starting line and slept with someone while in Canada. I stupidly allowed myself to enter these
discussions
the following day, stating very proudly that I’d scored the night before.

Immediately, everyone knew who I was talking about. They’d all seen me spending hours chatting away to the lad and found it convenient that we’d both left in fairly close proximity to each other. The worst thing was the lad in question actually worked in the same tank hangar as us. I knew from my own experiences that it wouldn’t take five minutes for the story to swoop the tank park, putting him in a very uncomfortable position.

Prince Harry entered our conversation and found the whole thing quite amusing. He jokingly referred to me as a dirty dog before walking off to do something on our vehicle.

As feared, soon enough the news had circulated and I became aware that the story had sent the infantry boys into overdrive. I could see from the turret of my tank that some of the boys had circled the poor lad and were taunting him and giving him hassle. I felt crushed that I’d caused the whole thing by opening my big mouth. I’d practically outed the poor guy.

Panicking, I dropped down into the turret and began carrying out some maintenance on the gun, hoping that the whole thing would blow over.

‘James? James? Are you in there?’ It was Danny. Standing up, I saw him looking at me with panic on his face.

‘Mate, you need to come down here, it’s all kicking off.’

What on earth was happening? I climbed down and walked over to Danny, who was surrounded by about six of the infantry guys.

The poor lad from the previous night had had a very tough morning. Everybody had heard that he’d spent the night with me in my room and everybody was taunting him. The guy was nowhere to be seen, but standing in front of me were six sergeants and Danny, and they looked extremely angry with me.

‘Have you been spreading rumours about our Martin?’ I didn’t even know that was his name.

‘What?’

‘Why have you been lying, saying you’ve slept with one of our guys? He’s no faggot!’

It appeared that in the heat of everything, Martin had denied the whole thing, understandably I suppose. This was turning into a bit of a situation. Danny was right on my side. He told them everything he’d seen and to back off. Standing in front of the
angry soldiers, I felt under huge pressure. They were looking at me with such disgust.

Danny sent the angry sergeants away and I walked back to my vehicle to find Prince Harry working away at something in the turret. He asked me to help him but I just couldn’t stop the feeling of complete dread in my stomach. I could tell I was about to be beaten up.

‘Sir, I need to talk to you.’

‘Why? What’s up? Are you OK?’ Harry instantly looked concerned.

‘I think I’m about to be murdered by the infantry guys.’

I climbed into the turret and Harry and I talked through exactly what had happened. He had a complete look of bewilderment on his face. I didn’t hold back. I told him about Martin buying me drinks, chatting me up, about my discussion with Danny. I went through the whole thing, including everything that had gone on in my room and then in the tank park that morning.

‘He’s saying I’m lying about the whole thing!’ I really didn’t want to, but I just couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in my eyes.

‘Right. I’m going to sort this shit out once and for all.’

Harry climbed out of the tank and left me and my tears in the turret. Across the tank park I could see Harry having a go at people while trying to collect a group of the infantrymen together. I worried he was about to make the whole thing worse, but I could see he wasn’t holding back. Prince Harry was sorting out my drama. He was actually sticking up for me and my
interests
, and completely putting a stop to the trouble I was facing that morning. Until Harry went over and dealt with everything, I was on track for a battering. I felt rescued.

He came back ten minutes later and told me the problem had been ‘sorted’. I wanted to know what had been said. Was the guy still insisting that I’d made the whole thing up?

‘I knew one of his officers and we both pulled him to one side and cleared everything up. I also told those other lads to back the fuck off, too.’

The feeling of relief was beyond words. A potential nightmare had been averted thanks to Lieutenant Wales. Prince Harry had saved the day.

The day ticked on and, as it did, I could still feel the tension in the air between the infantry guys and me, despite Prince Harry’s efforts. I talked with Scoffy and he told me, in a typical Scoffy way, to ‘man up’.

‘You’ve got your mates around you. What are they really going to do?’

I felt reassured by Scoffy’s words, but I knew walking into the Longhorn later that evening was going to be a nightmare. I decided I wouldn’t head there that night, but Danny and Scoffy insisted I went and ‘faced the music’.

I walked in alone, twenty minutes behind Danny and Scoffy, expecting trouble to ignite immediately. Soldiers put their pints down and looked at me. It seemed to me that it was going to be an evening of unpleasantness. I made my way over to my friends regardless. I was over the difficult part, I thought, to hell with it. After all, I’d done nothing wrong.

An hour went by and the tension was noticeably getting worse by the minute. Danny told a few of the boys to stay behind in case it did kick off and we needed numbers. I was incredibly moved and felt well protected with Danny and Scoffy by my side. It was clear to me that my friends were ready to fight for me against a force that quite considerably outnumbered our own.