Spare (19 page)

Britain’s Ministry of Defence
told the world in February 2007 that I was deploying, that I would be commanding a group of light tanks along the Iraqi border, near Basra. It was official. I was off to war.

Public reaction was peculiar. Half of Britons were furious, calling it dreadful to risk the life of the Queen’s youngest grandson. Spare or not, they said, it’s unwise to send a royal into a war zone. (It was the first time in twenty-five years that such a thing had been done.)

Half, however, said bravo. Why should Harry get special treatment? What a waste of taxpayers’ money it would be to train the boy as a soldier and then not to use him.

If he dies, he dies, they said.

The enemy certainly felt that way. By all means, said the insurgents, who were trying to foment a civil war across Iraq, send us the boy.

One of the insurgent leaders extended a formal invitation worthy of high tea.

“We are awaiting the arrival of the young handsome spoiled prince with bated breath…”

There was a plan for me, the insurgent leader said. They were going to kidnap me, then decide what to do with me—torture, ransom, kill.

In seeming direct contradiction of this plan, he concluded by promising that the handsome prince would return to his grandmother “without ears.”

I remember hearing that and feeling the tips of my ears grow warm. I flashed back to childhood, when a friend suggested my ears be surgically pinned back, to prevent or correct the family curse. I said, flatly, no.

Days later, another insurgent leader invoked my mother. He said that I should learn from her example, break away from my family.
Rebel against the imperialists, Harry.

Or else, he warned, a prince’s “blood will flow into our desert.”

I would’ve worried about Chels hearing any of this, but since we’d begun
dating she’d been so harassed by the press that she’d completely unplugged. The papers didn’t exist for her. The internet was off-limits.

The British military, however, was very plugged in. Two months after announcing my deployment, the head of the Army, General Dannatt, abruptly called it off. Besides the public threats from insurgent leaders, British intelligence learned that my photo had been distributed among a group of Iraqi snipers, with instructions that I was the “mother of all targets.” These snipers were elite: they’d recently cut down six British soldiers. So the mission had simply become too dangerous, for me, for anyone who might have the bad luck to be standing next to me. I’d become, in the assessment of Dannatt and others, a “bullet magnet.” And the reason, he said, was the press. In his public statement canceling my deployment, he blasted journalists for their overwrought coverage, their wild speculations, which had “exacerbated” the threat level.

Pa’s staff also issued a public statement, saying I was “very disappointed,” which was untrue. I was crushed. When word first reached me I was at Windsor Barracks, sitting with my guys. I took a moment to collect myself, then told them the bad news. Though we’d just spent months traveling, training together, during which we’d become brothers in arms, they were now on their own.

It wasn’t simply that I felt sorry for myself. I worried about my team. Someone else would have to do my job, and I’d have to live forever with the wondering, the guilt. What if they were no good?

The following week, several papers reported that I was in deep depression. One or two, however, reported that the abrupt about-face in my deployment had been my own doing. The coward story, again. They said that, behind the scenes, I’d pressed my superiors to pull the plug.

I pondered quitting
the Army. What was the point of staying if I couldn’t actually be a soldier?

I talked it over with Chels. She was torn. On the one hand she couldn’t hide her relief. On the other she knew how much I wanted to be there for my team. She knew that I’d long felt persecuted by the press, and that the Army had been the one healthy outlet I’d found.

She also knew that I believed in the Mission.

I talked it over with Willy. He had complicated feelings as well. He sympathized, as a soldier. But as a sibling? A highly competitive older brother? He couldn’t bring himself to totally regret this turn of events.

Most of the time Willy and I didn’t have any truck with all that Heir-Spare nonsense. But now and then I’d be brought up short and realize that on some level it really did matter to him. Professionally, personally, he cared where I stood, what I was doing.

Not getting comfort from any quarter, I looked for it in vodka and Red Bull. And gin and tonic. I was photographed around this time going into or coming out of multiple pubs, clubs, house parties, at wee hours.

I didn’t love waking to find a photo of myself on the front page of a tabloid. But what I really couldn’t bear was the sound of the photo being taken in the first place. That click, that terrible noise, from over my shoulder or behind my back or within my peripheral vision, had always triggered me, had always made my heart race, but after Sandhurst it sounded like a gun cocking or a blade being notched open. And then, even a little worse, a little more traumatizing, came that blinding flash.

Great, I thought. The Army has made me more able to recognize threats, to
feel
threats, to become adrenalized in the face of those threats, and now it’s casting me aside.

I was in a bad, bad place.

Paps, somehow, knew. Around this time they began hitting me with their cameras, deliberately, trying to incite me. They’d brush, smack, jostle, or just straight wallop me, hoping to get a rise, hoping I’d retaliate, because that would create a better photo, and thus more money in their pockets. A snap of me in 2007 fetched about thirty thousand pounds. Down payment on a flat. But a snap of me doing something
aggressive
? That might be a down payment on a house in the countryside.

I got into one scrap that became big news. I came away with a swollen nose, and my bodyguard was livid.
You made those paps rich, Harry! You happy?

Happy? No, I said. No, I’m not happy.

The paps had always been grotesque people, but as I reached maturity they were worse. You could see it in their eyes, their body language. They were more emboldened, more radicalized, just as young men in Iraq had been radicalized. Their mullahs were editors, the same ones who’d vowed to do better after Mummy died. The editors promised publicly to never again send photographers chasing after people, and now, ten years later, they were back to their old ways. They justified it by no longer sending their own
photographers, directly; instead they contracted with pap agencies, who sent the photographers, a distinction without a shred of difference. The editors were still inciting and handsomely rewarding thugs and losers to stalk the Royal Family, or anyone else unlucky enough to be deemed famous or newsworthy.

And no one seemed to give a shit. I remember leaving a club in London and being swarmed by twenty paps. They surrounded me, then surrounded the police car in which I was sitting, threw themselves across the bonnet, all wearing football scarves around their faces and hoods over their heads, the uniform of terrorists everywhere. It was one of the scariest moments of my life, and I knew no one cared. Price you pay, people would say, though I never understood what they meant.

Price for what?

I was particularly close to one of my bodyguards. Billy. I called him Billy the Rock, because he was so solid, so dependable. He once pounced on a grenade someone tossed at me from a crowd. Luckily, it turned out not to be a real one. I promised Billy I wouldn’t push any more paps. But neither could I just stroll into their ambushes. So, when we left a club, I said,
You’re going to have to stuff me into the boot of the car, Billy.

He looked at me, wide-eyed.
Really?

That’s the only way I won’t be tempted to have a go at them, and they won’t be able to make any money out of me.

Win-win.

I didn’t tell Billy that this was something my mother used to do.

Thus began a very strange routine between us. When leaving a pub or club in 2007, I’d have the car pull into a back alley or underground parking lot, climb into the boot and let Billy shut the lid, and I’d lie there in the dark, hands across my chest, while he and another bodyguard ferried me home. It felt like being in a coffin. I didn’t care.

To mark the
tenth anniversary of our mother’s death, Willy and I organized a concert in her honor. The proceeds would go to her favorite charities, and to a new charity I’d just launched—Sentebale. Its mission: the fight against HIV in Lesotho, particularly among children. (
Sentebale
is the Sesotho word for “forget-me-not,” Mummy’s favorite flower.)

While planning the concert Willy and I were emotionless. All business.
It’s
the anniversary, we need to do this, there are a million details, full stop.
The venue had to be big enough (Wembley Stadium) and the tickets had to be priced right (forty-five pounds) and the entertainers had to be A-list (Elton John, Duran Duran, P. Diddy). But on the night of the event, standing backstage, looking out at all those faces, feeling that pulsing energy, that pent-up love and longing for our mother, we crumpled.

Then Elton walked onstage. He seated himself at a grand piano and the place went mad. I’d asked him to sing “Candle in the Wind,” but he said no, he didn’t want to be morbid. He chose instead: “Your Song.”

I hope you don’t mind

That I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you’re in the world

He sang it with a twinkle and a smile, aglow with good memories. Willy and I tried for that same energy, but then photos of Mummy began flashing on the screen. Each one more radiant. We went from being crumpled to being swept away.

As the song ended Elton jumped up, introduced us.
Their Royal Highnesses, Prince William and Prince Harry!
The applause was deafening, like nothing we’d ever heard. We’d been applauded in the streets, at polo games, parades, operas, but never in a place this cavernous, or in a context this charged. Willy walked out, I followed, each of us wearing a blazer and open shirt, as if going to a school dance. We were both frightfully nervous. On any topic, but especially on the topic of Mummy, we weren’t accustomed to public speaking. (In fact, we weren’t accustomed to
private
speaking about her.) But standing before 65,000 people, and another 500 million watching live in 140 countries, we were paralyzed.

Maybe that was the reason we didn’t actually…say anything? I look at the video now and it’s striking. Here was a moment, maybe
the
moment, for us to describe her, to dig down deep and find the words to remind the world of her sterling qualities, her once-a-millennium magic—her disappearance. But we didn’t. I’m not suggesting a full-blown homage was in order, but maybe some small personal tribute?

We offered no such thing.

It was still too much, too raw.

The only thing I said that was real, that came from my heart, was a shout-out to my team.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to say hi to all the guys in
A Squadron, Household Cavalry, who are serving out in Iraq at the moment! I wish I was there with you. I’m sorry I can’t be! But to you and everybody else on operations at the moment, we’d both like to say: Stay safe!

Days later I was in
Botswana, with Chels. We went to stay with Teej and Mike. Adi was there too. The first convergence of those four special people in my life. It felt like bringing Chels home to meet Mum and Dad and big bro. Major step, we all knew.

Luckily, Teej and Mike and Adi loved her. And she saw how special they were too.

One afternoon, as we were all getting ready to go for a walk, Teej started nagging me.

Bring a hat!

Yeah, yeah.

And sunscreen! Lots of sunscreen! Spike, you’re going to fry with that pale skin!

All right, all right
.

Spike—

Okaaay, Mom.

It just flew out of my mouth. I heard it, and stopped. Teej heard it and stopped. But I didn’t correct myself. Teej looked shocked, but also moved. I was moved as well. Thereafter, I called her Mom all the time. It felt good. For both of us. Though I made a point, always, to call her Mom, rather than Mum.

There was only one Mum.

A happy visit, overall. And yet there was a constant subtext of stress. It was evident in how much I was drinking.

At one point Chels and I took a boat, drifted up and down the river, and the main thing I remember is Southern Comfort and Sambuca. (Sambuca Gold by day, Sambuca Black by night.) I remember waking in the morning with my face stuck to a pillow, my head not feeling like it was fastened to my neck. I was having fun, sure, but also dealing in my own way with unsorted anger, and guilt about not being at war—not leading my lads. And I wasn’t dealing well. Chels and Adi, Teej and Mike said nothing. Maybe they saw nothing. I was probably doing a pretty good job of covering it all up. From the outside
my drinking probably looked like partying. And that was what I told myself it was. But deep down, on some level, I knew.

Something had to change. I knew I couldn’t go on like this.

So the moment I got back to Britain I asked for a meeting with my commanding officer, Colonel Ed Smyth-Osbourne.

I admired Colonel Ed. And I was fascinated by him. He wasn’t put together like other men. Come to mention it, he wasn’t put together like any other human I’d encountered. The basic ingredients were different. Scrap iron, steel wool, lion’s blood. He
looked
different too. His face was long, like a horse’s, but not equine smooth; he had a distinctive tuft of hair on each cheek. His eyes were large, calm, capable of wisdom and stoicism. My eyes, by contrast, were still bloodshot from my Okavango debauch, and darting all around as I delivered my pitch.

Colonel, I need to find a way of getting back onto operations, or else I’m going to have to quit the Army.