IT WAS NOW OFFICIAL. I was no longer Prince Harry. I was Second Lieutenant Wales of the Blues and Royals, second oldest regiment of the British Army, part
of the Household Cavalry, bodyguards to the Monarch.
The “passing out,” as they called it, took place on April 12, 2006. On hand were Pa and Camilla, Grandpa, Tiggy and Marko.
And, of course, Granny.
She hadn’t attended a passing-out parade for decades, so her appearance was a dazzling honor. She smiled for all to see as I marched past.
And Willy saluted. He was at Sandhurst too now. A fellow cadet. (He’d started after me, because he’d gone to university first.) He couldn’t resort to his typical
attitude when we were sharing an institution, couldn’t pretend not to know me—or he’d be insubordinate.
For one brief moment, Spare outranked Heir.
Granny inspected the troops. When she came to me, she said: Oh…hello.
I smiled. And blushed.
The passing-out ceremony was followed by the playing of “Auld Lang Syne,” and then the college adjutant rode his white horse up the steps of the Old College.
Last, there was a lunch in the Old College. Granny gave a lovely speech. As the day petered out, the adults left, and the real partying began. A night of serious drinking, raucous laughter. My date was Chels. There was eventually a second passing out, as it were. I woke the next morning with a wide grin and a slight headache.
Next stop, I said to the shaving mirror, Iraq.
Specifically, southern Iraq. My unit would be relieving another unit, which had spent months doing advanced reconnaissance. Dangerous work, constantly dodging roadside IEDs and snipers. In that same month ten British soldiers had been killed. In the previous six months, forty.
I searched my heart. I wasn’t fearful. I was committed. I was eager. But also: war, death, whatever, anything was better than remaining in Britain, which was its own kind of battle. Just recently, the papers had run a story about Willy leaving a voicemail for me, pretending to be Chels. They’d also run a story about me asking JLP for help on a Sandhurst research project. Both stories, for once, were true. The question was—how could the papers have known such deeply private things?
It made me paranoid. Willy too. It made us reconsider Mummy’s so-called paranoia, view it through a very different lens.
We began to examine our inner circle, to question our most trusted friends— and their friends. With whom had they been speaking? In whom had they confided? No one was above suspicion because no one could be. We even doubted our bodyguards, and we’d always worshipped our bodyguards. (Hell, officially I was now a bodyguard—the Queen’s bodyguard.) They’d always been like big brothers to us. But now they were also suspects.
For a fraction of a second we even doubted Marko. That was how toxic the suspicion became. No one was above it. Some person, or persons, extremely close to me and Willy, was sneaking stuff to the newspapers, so everyone needed to be considered.
What a relief it will be, I thought, to be in a proper war zone, where none of this is part of my daily calculus.
Please, put me on a battlefield where there are clear rules of engagement. Where there’s some sense of honor.
