Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier (25 page)

Another hour went by and, with a few pints in me, I’d found some courage. ‘Fuck it,’ I thought. I wanted to sort the problem out.

Among the infantry guys stood a chap a little older than me who seemed to be the centre of attention. He was tall with short
blond hair and was quite an athletic-looking chap; a token rugby player and probably the ‘popular’ guy of the gang.

From somewhere I found the courage to approach him directly. I wanted to speak with the guys and just attempt to put my point across. Without a doubt, our two regiments were heading for a violent clash that night; by making the first move, in a somewhat diplomatic manner, I realised I had nothing to lose.

Dreading the worst, I tapped the guy on his shoulder.

I expected to be punched square in the face but, very much to my relief, my direct approach and confidence paid off. The guy agreed to talk with me.

We both grabbed an empty table and he eyed me with
curiosity
. I began explaining that I knew there was a clear problem between them and me, and that I thought it best to tackle the issue head on. He seemed to listen, leaning forward and
scratching
his chin. To my surprise, he stopped me thirty or so seconds into my speech and offered me a drink. I told him I’d appreciate a pint and he waved to a friend to get two beers for us both. The situation was bizarre. I looked over my shoulder at Danny and the boys and saw them all sat in silence, watching over us eagerly.

The guy, called Josh, listened to my story and surprised me by saying he understood. He had thought Martin had been making up stories about the previous night’s events to keep face.

‘But I’m angry with you for telling everyone the way you did… He’s been getting picked on non-stop all day. He was crying his eyes out!’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was this whole show of aggression over me outing one of their guys? All day I’d regretted gobbing off about my escapades the night before, but I’d spent the day thinking the guys were out for me for another reason, a more homophobic reason.

‘I told the boys we should teach you a lesson.’ Josh spoke with
a strong Yorkshire accent and, despite the awkwardness of the conversation, I couldn’t help finding him deeply attractive.

‘I’m so sorry… and if there was some way you could tell him, I’d be so glad.’

‘But it is true though, isn’t it? He is gay?’ Josh leaned closer to me as he asked.

‘I don’t know. He might not be…’

‘But last night. It definitely did happen, right?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

Josh sat back in his seat and pondered over our conversation for a few moments.

‘And are you, like, proper gay?’

‘Yes. I’m proper gay.’

‘When did you know?’

Was this actually happening? Josh had now deserted our
original
, somewhat hostile, conversation, and gone down the road of sexuality in general. His entire body language had changed, too. He became a lot more likeable.

I appeased his curiosity for some time. Answering his
questions
, it dawned on me that perhaps Josh was asking them for a different reason. I wondered if Josh had ever questioned his own sexuality, but in the aftermath of the previous night’s events, I was too weary to play detective.

Josh and I ended our conversation and I returned to Danny and the boys. I wanted to tell them about the bizarre turn of events and the randomness of our conversation, but I thought it best not to. I assured them that the trouble was over and that I no longer felt in danger.

Leaving the bar, I went off to check my emails. As I flicked through messages from family and friends, I noticed Josh walk past the window of the room, glancing at me and nodding as he did. I nodded back, half wondering if I wanted to continue our
earlier conversation. Still twice shy from earlier events, I decided against it. It was quite a difficult choice; the more I looked at him the more attractive I found him, and the more I became curious.

After sending a summary of my activities back home,
carefully
missing out the details of the previous day’s events, I logged off and made my way up the stairs to the middle floor, where Pank and I lived. A communal TV room joined four corridors filled with two-man rooms. I was pretty sure only the Household Cavalry occupied the floor, but on walking past the TV room I noticed through the glass windows the figure of Josh sat in the darkness. I naturally wanted to walk by, feeling that this was becoming a little awkward, but as soon as our eyes met he sprang to his feet and opened the door.

‘I didn’t realise you lived on this floor.’ I actually knew full well he didn’t.

‘No, I don’t. I live upstairs,’ he replied. I giggled a little at the toughness of his accent.

‘So what are you doing here then?’ I had completely reverted to my old flirtatious self.

‘I just thought we could chat.’

I sat myself down, trying to avoid looking too keen.

‘No, not in here. Can I come to your room?’ Was there a chance I was misreading the entire situation? Was I hoping for something that just wasn’t going to happen? Did Josh simply need somebody to talk to and nothing else? I suddenly realised that Pank had left the bar before me and was now very likely fast asleep in our room. This was a problem.

‘Wait here. Give me two minutes.’ I rushed off to wake Pank and kick him out, panicking that Josh would get second thoughts and dash off in my absence. I unlocked my room to find Pank sat up in his bed watching a DVD.

Clearly very reluctant to leave his bed and very unwilling to
vacate the room for yet another occasion, Pank responded to my plea with a simple ‘Fuck right off!’

‘Please Pank… I’ll love you forever and I’ll never forget it!’

‘For fuck’s sake! This is so unfair. You’re outrageous!’

I left Pank to get dressed, having agreed he would vacate the room for an hour, and hurried back to Josh, who I was expecting to be gone. Much to my relief he was still sat in front of the large TV, his hood now pulled over his head.

From being the cocksure, centre-of-attention, popular guy I’d just met, Josh, who was suddenly in my room taking off his jeans, was a completely different person. He was visibly nervous about the entire situation he’d put himself in, looking to me and asking questions with a certain innocence. He was still confident but somehow more submissive, impressionable and boyish.

Hardly any words were spoken; simply, ‘Tell anybody and I’ll kill you.’ The whole thing happened quickly. Josh was, in my
opinion
, far more repressed than Martin had been the night before. He had a very clear understanding of the things he was doing and the messages he was giving off. I really liked the guy, although the memories of my stint in Chelsea and Westminster hospital after a similar situation three years ago kept creeping into my mind. To begin with I could tell he was on the verge of grabbing his stuff and walking out at any moment, but once he was over his
nervousness
, Josh let himself go with the moment. I wondered if he’d ever done this before. Once things got underway, he seemed to be pretty fluent in the things we were doing. I almost felt like he was setting the pace. When we finished, he barely said a word, just quickly dressed himself and headed for the door. Before
unlocking
it, he turned to me and reiterated his message: ‘Tell anybody and I’ll kill you.’ I didn’t intend to tell a soul.

Pank returned to the room soon after, prompting me to ask how he’d known we’d finished.

‘I saw him walk past the TV room, his shirt was on inside out and he was sweating. Doesn’t take the brains of a mathematician to figure out he was your guest and you’d fucked him!’

Pank, who’d I’d considered quite straightforward and perhaps even a little dim-witted on occasions, was right on the money. I asked him to respect Josh’s privacy and he agreed. All things considered, I was a much worse roommate to him than he could ever have been to me, even if he did piss on the carpet every time he was drunk. Maybe he did it as payback.

The following morning I intended to maintain my promise to Josh about the things we’d done the night before, even though I thought it unfair the other guys were able to head into Med Hat, sleep with a random stranger, sometimes a hooker, and be able to brag and boast to their hearts’ content the following morning in work. I was unable to do that; anybody I slept with immediately became everyone’s business and gossip always ensued.

When Lieutenant Wales turned up and began packing some personal effects away in the stowage bins at the side of our tank, he looked a little surprised to see me in one piece, unbeaten, and mentioned that I’d ‘survived the night’.

I knew I could trust him and that he was a man of principle, so I leaned over to him and told him I’d done more than survive.

‘Fuck off! Who?’ He looked at me straight in the eyes. He couldn’t believe that I’d done exactly the same thing again.

I left the information there but it was enough for Harry to chew over for the rest of the day. As the morning continued he’d keep muttering words like ‘outrageous’ and the like. He joked that I’d be put on a ‘sex ban’, which I laughed off.

It was the day before our two-week exercise was due to get underway. Our enemy for the fortnight had already been on the prairie for a week, undergoing training in preparation for our arrival. The squadron, with the morale boost that Prince Harry
had brought out to Canada with him, was extremely eager to get out there and give the new enemy a run for their money.

Quite unexpectedly and while we were still pottering around the vehicle, Harry’s mobile phone rang and, much to my
fascination
, he answered it with a ‘Hey Dad! How’s it going?’ I found it incredible that stood next to me was the third in line to the throne, casually on the phone to the first in line to the throne. I chuckled to myself, thinking that all we needed next was Her Majesty to call.

A message got to me from one of the boys that the
squadron
leader needed to see me in his office at the other side of the tank hangar. Walking over, I thought it must be to do with the shenanigans of the past two days and perhaps he was just going to have a quiet word in my ear. Arriving at his office, I knocked on his door and peered in, looking quite sheepish.

‘Ah, Trooper Wharton. Excellent. Come in and sit down.’ Maybe I wasn’t in trouble.

‘I have a very important job I need you to carry out in secrecy.’

I wondered what on earth I could possibly be asked to do. The office door was shut behind me and the leader leaned forward to discuss the important details.

‘Tomorrow is Lieutenant Wales’s twenty-fourth birthday. I want us to mark the occasion when we get out onto the prairie with the whole squadron.’

‘Erm, OK, sir.’

‘I want you to get a birthday cake from somewhere. Can you get transport to the Walmart in Medicine Hat?’ I’d been in the army long enough to know full well that the leader was basically saying ‘Go to the Walmart and buy him a cake.’ It didn’t matter whether I had transport available or not.

‘Righto, sir, mum’s the word.’

The leader thanked me for my time and discretion then sent
me on my way. On reaching the vehicle Harry asked me if all was OK. Making something up on the spot, I told him I had to sort out a clerical issue. He bought it and let me go.

Brilliantly, the motor transport team at BATUS allowed me to loan a vehicle from them just as long as I had it back fairly quickly. I didn’t want to waste my time explaining what I needed it for, although they did persist. I lied and told them one of the boys was very ill and needed treatment. Original, I thought, if not a little inappropriate.

The cake selection at the Walmart in Medicine Hat was slim to none. I had the choice between Sesame Street and 101 Dalmatians. The leader had not provided any money for the task, I was making the shortfall in that department, but I opted for the Sesame Street offering and paid $20. I wasn’t at all bothered about forking out myself; this would be a great tale to tell the family.

An hour later and once the borrowed car had been returned, I headed back to my room, Sesame Street cake underarm, to store it for safekeeping. Pank laughed as I entered the room and made a joke about me holding the cake.

‘Is that for your new friends in the infantry?’

‘No, you dick. It’s for Prince Harry. It’s his birthday tomorrow. And don’t say a fucking word!’

I spent the rest of the night preparing for our time away. I stocked up on Haribo and Liquorice Allsorts, bought copious amounts of Spam and packet after packet of Super Noodles, which I thought were considerably overpriced in Canada as compared to the UK. We sorted our kit out and en masse entered the Longhorn for a final few drinks before deployment.

The following morning would be the beginning of two weeks that would test my professional relationship with Prince Harry, and deal with the highs and lows of hard, conventional war
training
. It would be two weeks I’d never forget.

T
he following morning, I fully took charge of the loading of kit onto our vehicle, having carefully placed the Sesame Street cake in the back bin and covered it with camouflage and a
waterproof
protective sheet. Our driver, a lad called Dan, was in on my secret as I didn’t want him to throw a heavy bag in the back bin and squash Big Bird. The squadron leader gave me an awkward wink, looking for reassurance I’d followed his plans to the letter. I gave him a thumbs-up and pointed to the back bin.

Eventually we rolled out of the back gates and onto the vastness of the Canadian prairie. I enjoyed being a passenger rather than the driver, where I would constantly have my ability scrutinised. I’d vowed never to be as ridiculous as some previous gunners I’d had the displeasure of driving for. Some could be unfair and, to be blunt, turn into whinging backseat drivers.

Initially we had a large move to carry out. We were travelling to the extreme north of the area, a trip that would take three hours easily. In the fortnight since we’d last been out, I could feel the temperature had dropped; to me this was a good thing as I’d found the heat overpowering on occasion during the first exercise. As we bobbed along, occasionally banging our hips on the hatches to our turret, Harry and I shared Haribo and the three of us participated in light conversation and banter over the
vehicle’s intercom system, which was crucial to communication because of the noise of the diesel engine and constant sound of tracks cutting up the ground.

Harry mentioned that he and his brother had been informed some time ago that they were both gay icons. This caused me to laugh.

‘What? What? We are!’

‘I don’t think you are, sir!’

‘Why? We are! Our press people told us!’

‘Honestly, I’m sure you’re not…’

‘Is it because I’m fucking ginger?’

I could hear Dan giggling. Harry laughed a little and we returned our concentration to the task at hand. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally reached our location.

Almost immediately, the leader spoke with me on the quiet and told me to prepare the cake, shoving a bunch of feeble candles into my hand. I carried the cake in secrecy to the back of a Land Rover. The last thing in the world I needed at that moment, as the entire squadron and our infantry friends grouped together to listen to the leader’s address, was gusting wind but guess what? It seemed windier than it had ever been.

I lit the candles, nervously looking over to the men who were about to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the prince. The leader was buying me time by welcoming everyone to the exercise but I could tell he was getting impatient.

Realising I had little choice other than to hope for the best, I shielded the cake and candles from the wind as best I could and made my way into sight of the boys and Prince Harry. On cue, the guys burst into jubilant song.

Upon reaching the prince, who’d been ushered into the centre, I presented his cake, with its extinguished candles, and wished him a happy twenty-fourth birthday. ‘You’ve fucked this up,’ he
joked, shaking my hand. It was exactly the right level of humour required at that very moment. The leader led the applause and everyone wished Harry three cheers. Our entertainment was over.

‘Where the hell did you find that cake?’ the leader asked
afterwards
. I resisted boring him with endless points about the lack of resources available to me considering the time frame I had to work in. In fact, he loved the cake, everybody did. The staff responsible for conducting the exercise told Harry and me that we were the prize target for the training troops, who’d caught wind that Harry was one of the enemies out to get them. They warned us that we would probably be the priority target in every battle throughout the two-week war and that we shouldn’t become too disheartened by the fact.

The enemy had carried out their intel and discovered what call sign our vehicle was. 9.1 had become the main effort for the training troops, but Harry was ready to take on their fight and outsmarted them from the start.

Cleverly, Harry decided to change the numbers on our vehicle with another. The commander of the vehicle in question was quite put out about the whole thing, but Harry held more weight as an officer than the corporal in command of the now doomed vehicle. The decision was made. I’d find this was just one example of the sharp wit and clever tactics I’d remember Harry for.

The exercise got off to a flying start. Between the two of us we had a good tally of confirmed kills and Dan was an excellent getaway driver. We’d taken on some pretty large outfits of men and generally come off the better.

As our time on the prairie progressed, the activities we were asked to undertake gradually became more and more
challenging
. One night we were given a long move to carry out, under the cover of darkness and in full tactical conditions.

It was a painstakingly long drive, which minute by minute became more stressful for me as a passenger in the turret of our vehicle. I realised that I was a much calmer soldier being
responsible
for the safe delivery of a crew, in the driver’s seat as opposed to standing by and relying on someone else.

The calm prairie landscape was interrupted occasionally by a sombre lone white cross, signifying the precise spot where a soldier had lost his life in a training incident. I’d have felt more at ease if there was only the odd one of these but, much to my distress, there were many. I considered the sadness a loved one must feel on hearing the news that their soldier had died in a peacetime accident while training in Canada. After the previous year spent abroad in hostility, I know that news would crush my own mother.

Throughout the move, Harry, much to my relief, had decided on occasion that the landscape was too severe and gave the order for Dan to switch on our headlights. As soon as the immediate danger had past, Harry had the lights turned off again, in
keeping
with our orders.

Dan also had his night-vision sight, used from inside his driver’s cab; Harry was using a night-vision device he’d acquired from somewhere, too. I spent most of the journey hoping for the best with my bare eye.

Suddenly, chaos ensued. We’d been driving along at an
incredibly
steady speed, a little over ten miles per hour, when out of the complete blue, smash! We’d landed in trouble.

The whole thing happened in an instant. While crawling along, none of us had noticed a sudden drop in our path, completely undetectable in the sheer darkness of the vast Canadian plain. The moment we rolled off the edge of the drop, I thought we were driving off a high cliff, heading for the ground far below and our death. The drop seemed to last forever and as soon as
we hit the bottom of the hole we’d driven into, the three of us were knocked and tossed around our small armoured vehicle. I was thrown forward and my head hit the sighting equipment to the main weapon system. I could hear through my headset that Dan was conscious and making a noise. I looked over to Harry, sat just a foot away from me in the centre of the turret, dreading what I’d see.

Like me, he’d been thrown face first into his sights and was rubbing his face after the knock he had just taken. The commander and gunner relationship was quickly forgotten as I grabbed him to make sure he was OK. He was. Although I’d not totally switched off from the fact that he was a high-ranking member of the royal family, he had become familiar enough to me and enough a part of my everyday life to be considered one of the lads.

The three of us climbed out and drew what artificial light we could onto our damned vehicle to survey the damage. The drop, although it had felt severe and long, was actually about two metres. Initially I’d considered the vehicle to be in a
desperately
poor state, but apart from the crushed stowage bins at the front and a couple of smashed headlights, it looked in good working order.

Throughout the move Danny and his crew had been driving behind us. As soon as we were no longer detectable in front, he’d switched his headlights on. With his wealth of experience, he took charge of the situation and oversaw the recovery of our vehicle.

The accident did nothing for my confidence with regard to being a passenger rather than a driver, and I couldn’t help feeling that the incident had really knocked my courage levels in being a gunner. The ditch we’d driven into could easily have been a cliff or even simply a larger hole, resulting in a much worse outcome.
I also felt that Harry had to an extent enjoyed the experience; I think it underlined the dangers associated with armoured
vehicle
tactics and the realism of training for war, maybe reigniting feelings he’d experienced earlier in the year while fighting in Afghanistan. In the hours that followed, after endless
worrying
, Harry told me to ‘man the fuck up and stop acting like a fanny’.

Mid-exercise, Harry was called to a briefing along with the other commanders, reviewing the progress of the exercise. When he returned, he looked more than a little excited.

‘Great news, we’re the call sign with the most confirmed kills!’

He was right, this was great news. To be in the running for ‘top gunner’ on my first exercise was pretty incredible.

‘I want to win this title!’ Harry exclaimed.

We had our carrot, and we intended to see the job through. The infantry soldiers, who like us were steeped in tradition and history, were offering a medal to the call sign crowned Top Gun at the end of the exercise. Within their regiment, one of these medals was seen as a very notable achievement. Although fairly insignificant to us Household Cavalrymen, in reality the competitive streak in both Harry and me really whetted our appetite. We wanted that medal.

Our hunting began in earnest the following day. At one point, it was going so well I couldn’t help considering why we were achieving so many ‘confirmed kills’. Was our enemy simply not as good as us or were they just not putting enough effort into their training?

Throughout our trials, there was one recurring point that marred our impressive tally: my fairly inexperienced drills in turret. Yes, I was getting the kills, but carrying out the correct drills in order for me to get a shot off onto the enemy was continually going wrong. The news that another call sign in
our enemy collective was catching up fast with us only fuelled tensions in our turret.

Harry had tapped into a member of the exercise staff who was feeding him information on how many kills we were on and how many our closest contender was on too. He’d hear daily if we were in a comfortable lead or if things weren’t looking great.

Three days before the end, the gap between us and the other call sign, manned by soldiers from the Royal Tank Regiment, was down to just two. All our hard work had been closely matched and we worried the chance of winning Top Gun was slipping away from us.

Patrolling along in an area where we knew the enemy was hiding, suddenly we encountered a fully exposed main battle tank sat broadside on the top of a hill. It was a dream of a target for me, as all I really needed to do was aim into the centre and fire. I was in position quickly and when Harry gave the order to fire, much to his and my annoyance, nothing happened. Immediately I knew I’d made the same mistake again, only this time things really mattered as we desperately needed to improve our kill tally. By the time I’d sorted the problem and pressed the button I was continuously forgetting to press, the tank had driven off and into cover. A missed opportunity.

Annoyed, Harry turned to me. I knew I was in for an ear bashing.

‘If you forget to do that again, I’m seriously going to knock you the fuck out!’ He wasn’t joking.

I could hear Dan cough uncomfortably in his driver’s seat. Harry was understandably frustrated. It was my responsibility to carry out the drills properly in order to successfully destroy the enemy without hindrance. I’d failed and he was furious.

For about an hour hardly a word was spoken and, as if our day couldn’t get any worse, somebody managed to get a shot off on
us which took us out of the battle. We’d hopelessly managed to add nothing to our kill count, and we fretted thinking about how many kills the other team was getting in our absence.

We remained at the location we’d been destroyed at for about six hours, mock battles still raging around us. We displayed our shamed green flag, signifying our redundancy from the game.

Dan was becoming chattier as the exercise continued. At first, I think he was quiet due to the situation he found himself in. Among the squadron, apart from Scoffy, I was probably the loudest character. The added weight of having Lieutenant Wales meant that he just didn’t seem to make much noise. It was good to get to know him.

Harry took the opportunity of being alone in the middle of nowhere with the two of us to have a bit of a chat. Thankfully, he seemed to have forgotten about the whole gunnery incident and the three of us passed the time by discussing each other’s backgrounds.

Harry asked what our plans were for Christmas and in turn we both told him. The hours passed by nicely and I realised how very surreal and rare an opportunity it was to hold a personal
discussion
with one of the most famous men in the world.

‘When did you realise you were gay?’

‘I always knew to be honest. Just never really wanted to say.’ Harry nodded in understanding. Dan piped up with another question.

‘Have you ever had a girlfriend, like?’

‘Yeah… I had one when I was growing up, nothing too
serious
though.’ I thought that might have been the end of the conversation.

‘Did you ever sleep with her?’ asked Harry.

‘I did, actually. I don’t think I was ever any good at it though. I certainly didn’t enjoy it.’ The three of us laughed at the thought.

‘How old were you?’ asked Harry.

‘About fifteen. It was more about keeping face.’

Dan then explained the circumstances surrounding the loss of his virginity, captivating both Harry and me.