Harry (25 page)

Harry was never going to subscribe to the conspiracy theory. He was – and remains – a normal human being who does what many other men do, especially in the wild
atmosphere
that prevails in Las Vegas. Not for nothing is the town known to many as Lost Wages. Nevertheless he was
crestfallen
when he returned to the UK after performing so well
on the Caribbean tour and at the Olympics, to receive a stern lecture from his father at Balmoral before setting off for the seclusion the grand Alnwick estate in Northumberland had to offer.

Harry Wales is a brave soldier as well as a deeply
compassionate
man and his fun-loving excesses should not detract from his enormous qualities. He loves children and works hard to support a number of charities that help the
disadvantaged
ones.

Not for nothing does he have the respect of fellow
servicemen
and women – 12,000 of them around the world posed naked for the cameras after the Vegas incident to demonstrate that they supported him, rather than condemning him for his uninhibited behaviour. His postbag at St James's Palace bulged with mail – more than 90 per cent of it positive.

In certain quarters he was criticised for choosing ‘the wrong friends' – people who had become a bad influence on him. But Harry knows he is free to befriend whomever he wishes and he is too strong a character to be told what to do – or, indeed, what not to do – by any of them. In a
discussion
on the subject with his grandfather following his return from America he was told by Prince Philip ‘familiarity breeds contempt'. He listened and nodded affirmatively, but paid little heed to the message.

Harry has done everything he can to be ordinary, to have a normal life. He shops at Marks & Spencer in Kensington High Street when he fancies a sandwich and in Ipswich he is a regular at the Tesco store close to his airbase. No other royal
does that, with the exception of the Duchess of York, who has on occasions been spotted picking out special offers in her local Asda.

When he invited a pal to join him for lunch at the Waterman's Arms in Pembroke, west Wales, Harry took advantage of the pub's midweek ‘buy two meals for a tenner' promotion. And during his US sojourn he loaded a trolley with frozen pizzas, beer and bananas at a Walmart
supermarket
. Inevitably, in the background, there is always the shadowy figure of a royal protection officer and, despite the ubiquitous baseball hat pulled down to hide his face, he is frequently recognised, stared at and followed by other shoppers surprised by seeing a royal in their midst. Being ‘ordinary', when his life is shaped by what he refers to as ‘an accident of birth', is no easy feat. However, Harry does not allow his position to get in the way of his desire to lead a near-normal life.

Harry returned to Afghanistan in the autumn of 2012 to serve with 622 Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps in Camp Bastion. A far bigger base than FOB Delhi where he spent much of his first tour of duty, Bastion is home to 4,000 British troops (a number which will have halved before 2013 ends), 4,350 contractors and 2,000 civilians, and has spread to a town roughly the size of Reading. The Prince's new home was a shared room in an accommodation block made of modified shipping containers.

Harry's second tour of duty was always going to be quite different from his first: there was no secrecy this time around, no ban on media coverage and he posed – perhaps reluctantly – for photographers as he made coffee and stood in line to collect his meal. Unlike his previous tour when he shared a curried goat for his Christmas lunch with Lt Colonel Bill Connor, this time he had a proper seasonal meal and an accompanying cameraman was allowed to photograph him wearing a Santa hat complete with blonde plaits. He talked freely about the adrenalin rush he got each time he ran to his helicopter, adding: ‘Once you're in the aircraft you've got to try and slow yourself down because otherwise you're going to miss something.'

Sometime after his return he was reported – many would say irresponsibly – by
The Sun
to have achieved the kind of ‘success' his father had dreaded by wiping out a Taliban commander. Ignoring General Dannatt's earlier call for a blackout of Harry's activities in war zones and despite criticisms of press behaviour in the recent past, the Murdoch paper carried a story headlined
HARRY KILLS TALIBAN CHIEF
. According to the report, British troops had been tracking a vehicle in which they knew the enemy leader was travelling and they called for a helicopter.

Needless to say, the MoD declined to discuss the matter.

Whether true or false, few reports could have more incensed the enemy to avenge the death of one of their own heroes by stepping up their efforts to capture or kill the British hero
The Sun
had deliberately named as being the man responsible. The report put the lives of Harry and his comrades even more at risk when a foreign newspaper followed up the report by apparently claiming that

Harry let himself down somewhat when, in an interview he gave for transmission following his return, he made some
ill-advised
comments about killing Taliban fighters. He likened pressing the buttons which released his Apache's Hellfire missiles and 30mm cannon on scores of missions, to
computer-game
-playing off-duty, saying it was ‘a joy … because I'm one
of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think that I'm probably quite useful'. He compounded the offence by referring to destruction of his opponents as a matter of ‘taking them out of the game'.

No one was shocked by the news that he had killed many of the enemy during his stint – after all, this was war and that is part and parcel of a soldier's job, especially when handed the controls of such a lethal machine as the Apache. But he seemed to be revelling in it, resulting in headlines such as
I'VE KILLED TALIBAN FIGHTERS, SAYS HARRY
(
Daily Telegraph
). His boast – and that's how it was perceived by many – raised fears for his safety and brought about an upgrade in his
security
. Among his critics was Dai Davies, a former head of the Metropolitan Police Royal Protection Squad who said:

And another former senior officer, Glen Smyth, added: ‘I think it would have been better for Prince Harry to have simply said he had been deployed in an operational capacity and to have left it at that. What he has said has undoubtedly increased his value as a terrorist target.'

He further incensed his critics when he complained that life in the army was ‘as normal as it was going to get… For me it's not that normal because I go into the cookhouse and
everyone
has a good old gawp, and that's one thing I dislike about being here.' A ‘senior officer' who refused to give his name told the
Sunday Telegraph
that Captain Wales had adopted the language of a ‘spoiled, truculent teenager' and sounded more like ‘a disgruntled soldier than an Army officer'. Harry was learning yet again that you can please some of the people some of the time…

One of his close circle said the day after his comments about killing Taliban were broadcast:

A Palace source confirms that Prince Charles simply shook his head and said, ‘This should never have happened. Harry needs some lessons in PR.' Following his subsequent return to the UK, Harry went to the Fulham home of his stalwart friend Mark Dyer before going to Highgrove for a man-
to-man
chat with his father.

However, the impression that he spent all of his precious spare time between his arduous duties engaged in war games on his PlayStation was totally misguided. Something he would have been justified in boasting about was how much of that time he sacrificed to sustain his work for Sentebale in far-away Lesotho. From the battlefield he had also laid careful plans for the charity to expand its work into other
countries
in need of similar help in his beloved southern Africa. Maintaining regular email contact with Sentebale's chief executive, Cathy Ferrier, from Camp Bastion, he urged her to help him come up with ways of raising more money since the £2 million a year it was collecting was inadequate to finance his ambitious expansion scheme.

Ms Ferrier says:

One of the ideas Harry came up with during his second term in Helmand was to have a Sentebale garden at the 2013 Chelsea Flower Show to raise awareness of the charity and attract major sponsors. Not equipped with his father's horticultural skills, he made long-distance calls back home to
ask Jinny Blom, a gold-medal winner in the field, to design a garden which was also to be a homage to his mother. Between sorties in his Apache, he pored over designs emailed to Camp Bastion. He asked Ms Blom to ensure that the garden included forget-me-nots, which would not only serve as a translation of Sentebale but also ensure Diana's memory would be recognised. He was delighted when she included a ‘hearts and crown' motif on a stone-worked terrace and a Trifolium, a genus of herbs containing the trefoils or clovers, including the ‘William' plant. The garden was also to include pollarded willows like the ones found in the damp valleys of Lesotho. It was an instant hit with B&Q who agreed to
sponsor
the garden, and Harry was shrewd enough to realise that it was likely to attract sponsors and donations for the charity itself. It was a brilliant move which ensured support for the suffering in Lesotho as well as paying tribute to Diana.

On his return to Afghanistan one of the first letters he had received was from his beloved Nanny (Olga) Powell
wishing
him luck but expressing her fears for his welfare. Alas, she died a few weeks later, aged eighty-two. His deployment prevented him from returning for her funeral and he did not send a wreath but urged all who knew and loved her as he did to make contributions to Sentebale.

Olga knew more of his secrets than most but always declined to divulge them even if she was offered substantial sums for her story. She did, however, give occasional talks to women's lunches and community events. On one
occasion
she said of Harry: ‘He could be a naughty boy but the
occasional clout soon brought him back into line.' Judging by the splendid way he has grown up – albeit belatedly – it must have been more than an occasional one.

‘A naughty boy' might well have been the description Cressida Bonas applied to him after the Las Vegas episode but, contrary to reports at the time, she was never prepared to give up on him and, between carrying out his duties in Afghanistan, he telephoned her frequently from Helmand using a James Bond-style anti-bugging phone. The romance was seemingly back on and no one could have been more aware of it than Chelsy Davy; the two women had nothing to say to each other when they met up at the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund Carol Concert in London early in December 2012. Chelsy had an unknown man on her arm but there was no sight of Henry Wentworth-Stanley, the ex-boyfriend Cressida had reportedly been reunited with. ‘It's still a love match,' confides a talkative friend, ‘but I would still put my money on Chelsy being the victor even though she once told me that marrying a prince was not the life for her. Only time will tell.'