Prince Harry

by Duncan Larcombe

  One senior officer said: ‘The raw intelligence test is exactly that. It is used to assess the potential of all soldiers from those who join the ranks to those who want to become officers. It gives the best indication of a candidate’s IQ. We have seen people with very good degrees get very poor scores and those who have just scraped a few.’

  A score of 10 out of 10 means you are a genius, while one or zero means you are barely functioning. Harry scored just 4 out of 10 – one of the lowest marks of his intake. So before he even started at Sandhurst, Harry knew that he was right on the border of the minimum academic standards demanded of him. This was pressure like he’d never known before.

  Cadets at Sandhurst technically outrank their non-commissioned instructors. As such the very people who would guide, mentor and bully the cadets into shape were required to call their students ‘Sir’. It is one of the peculiarities of becoming an officer but quickly becomes a normal part of daily life at the academy.

  Sandhurst only selects the very best to the prestigious roles of becoming instructors. As a result the staff sergeants who guide the cadets are almost always experienced soldiers who have proved themselves in battle and have clocked up many years in the Army. The academy’s regimental sergeant major is seen as having the most senior non-commissioned officer role within the British Army.

  When Harry first encountered the colour sergeant assigned to his platoon, being barked at in this way would hardly have been a surprise. Nevertheless the third in line to the throne would have rarely been spoken to in this way. Only at home with his parents or at school, when the young prince had stepped out of line, would he ever have been told off. Outside of Eton, the nature of Harry’s upbringing was such that people addressed him as ‘Your Highness’ and then as ‘Sir’.

  Oddly, after Harry recovered from the shock of being told in such a blunt way of how it would work, the encounter was a blessing. One of the things that attracted him to a life in the military was the fact that it was one of the few places where he would be treated like anyone else. The last thing he would have wanted, as he came to terms with his new regime as an officer cadet, was to be singled out because of his Royal status.

  It would have been refreshing therefore that the second the wheels of his car passed the academy’s guardroom that day, he was no longer Prince Harry. From that moment on he was merely Cadet Wales, just a normal recruit facing the same level of treatment that any of his fellow hopefuls could expect.

  If anything, the mountain he had to climb was even greater than those faced by his comrades. One former instructor who recalled Harry’s first day told me: ‘Before Harry arrived all of the instructors were called in for a briefing with the commandant. We were told in no uncertain terms that Harry was to be treated just like anyone else on his course. There were to be no “kid gloves” when it came to the training of Officer Cadet Wales. The commandant explained that Harry’s protection officers would be living on the base and would always be present when we left for training elsewhere. But he said they would blend into the background and we were to quickly forget about the fact they were there.

  ‘Most of the instructors were well used to meeting members of the Royal family. The link between the Royals and the Armed Forces is very strong, and to a man we had rubbed shoulders with them on several occasions throughout our military careers. But this was the first time we were to ignore the fact they were VIPs and we were warned that any of us caught giving Prince Harry any special treatment would face a dressing down.’

  When the big day finally arrived and the instructors got to meet Harry, they were all surprised by their first impression. The former instructor added: ‘My first memory of Harry was that he was very young. Cadets start at Sandhurst after finishing their degrees at university. There are those who go there straight from school, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

  ‘Harry was only twenty and he seemed young at that. We had all read about his antics in the months that lead up to his first day at Sandhurst, the Nazi outfit, the girlfriend, the fracas with photographers. But when he arrived he seemed quite shy, very modest and totally down-to-earth. Some of us were perhaps expecting him to be full of himself and a bit arrogant, and we were looking forward to knocking him down a peg or two. But it was clear from day one that the young cadet had decided to try and keep a low profile and knuckle down.’

  Anyone who has ever experienced officer training at Sandhurst will know what a shock to the system the first five weeks actually are.

  After the longest gap year in history, Harry would now face being woken at the crack of dawn. Sleepy and disorientated, he would have to make sure his small single room was immaculately turned out, kit pressed and folded, boots polished ready for the daily ‘Show Parade’. This is when Harry would have to stand to attention in the corridor outside his room, while the instructor made an inspection.

  For the first five weeks the cadets were forced to comply with the strictest of rules. Creature comforts like posters or pictures of loved ones are not permitted in the rooms. For the entire five weeks they were not allowed off base, they faced a total booze ban, and the days were taken up with physical training, drills on the parade square and yomps around the base while being shouted at by the instructors. This is not a regime for the faint-hearted. More recruits drop out in the first five weeks than at any other stage of the forty-four-week course.

  The former instructor added: ‘The first five weeks are very tough for cadets, and that is for good reason. The idea is to break them down, to get them used to reaching the highest standards of personal admin and taking responsibility for themselves. Harry found this baptism very tough, but then in fairness, everyone does. There is no downtime. The only spare minutes in the evening are spent preparing kit, polishing boots or cleaning your rifles. It was clear from the start that Harry coped with the first five weeks by making friends, mucking in with fellow cadets and making sure he bonded with those around him.

  ‘We were surprised at how this came to him naturally. Some of us had expected Harry to struggle to trust people around him or to make new friends quickly because of who he was. But he clearly had a natural way of getting on with people fast and within a few days he was one of the most popular cadets in his intake. Cadets who go into their shell, who fail to make friends and who keep themselves to themselves are the ones that struggle. Harry was the opposite of this. He made jokes, even played the fool when the instructors’ backs were turned, and his fellow cadets warmed to him very quickly.

  ‘As one of the youngest in his intake he was immature, and let’s just say he didn’t manage to keep a clean record with the instructors. He was a bit clumsy at first, perhaps because he lacked the confidence and composure you would expect from older recruits. There were a number of times when he got a dressing down, when you could hear the NCOs shouting at him. On several occasions he failed to make the grade at the show parades, meaning he got a telling-off and had to prepare his room all over again for an evening inspection. This is always difficult, because when you want to be getting prepared for the following day you have to make sure the room is ready for inspection. As a result there were several occasions when Harry had very little sleep.’

  For five very long weeks Harry’s baptism of fire saw him off the booze, confined to the base and, hardest of all, away from Chelsy. He was often overheard talking about his Zimbabwean girlfriend, telling fellow cadets how much he was missing her and how desperate he was to see her. Harry’s devotion to Chelsy was full-on. He may have previously got used to being thousands of miles away from her, but they were in constant contact and barely a day would go by when they wouldn’t talk.

  When he had his first weekend off, Harry arranged for Chelsy to come and stay with him at St James’s Palace. But for him, like all cadets, the chance of seeing family took second place behind a rare opportunity to catch up on some sleep. Unusually for the couple, they chose not to head out to party and instead just spent quality time together lounging a
round and talking about the ordeal of his first five weeks.

  Once that initial stage of his training was over, things began to get a bit easier for Harry, not least because he and the other cadets would now get the chance to put some of their new skills into practice. There was a trip to the Brecon Beacons in Wales, where the cadets were expected to yomp across the hills using their map-reading skills to tick off checkpoints along the way.

  But it was not until another exercise that Harry would be photographed for the first time in his Army fatigues. Just a few weeks into their training, the cadets made an hour-long journey in coaches for a three-day exercise in the Ashdown Forest in Sussex. The area, made famous as the setting for the Winnie the Pooh books, provided a perfect backdrop for Sandhurst training. Once again the cadets would have to find their way to checkpoints during long marches through the Sussex countryside.

  Unfortunately for the instructors, this regular exercise took place on public land and in sight of dog walkers, cyclists and ramblers. But with Harry among the cadets’ number this time, there was another group of people out in the Ashdown Forest that week. Dozens of photographers had arrived to try and get that first picture of Harry at Sandhurst.

  There had been huge media interest in Harry’s entry into the military, but nothing had been seen of the prince since his first day and the carefully arranged photocall with Prince Charles. Newspapers were desperate to get an image of Harry showing him getting down and dirty as he was put through his paces by the instructors. And, in their wisdom, the academy staff had refused to alter the rigid training programme, deciding to press ahead with the public yomp regardless. By the time they realized the area of heathland was crawling with photographers it was too late.

  Harry was already out with his platoon in full sight of the public. It was inevitable that sooner or later he would be pictured. This didn’t bother his protection officers. They were well aware of the interest in Harry and, after all, they were not there to protect him from being pictured.

  But the sudden realization that the photographers were waiting to pounce seemed to put the instructors into a frenzy. One photographer who was there that day recalled: ‘It was a very surreal sight. There were dozens of soldiers in camouflage and carrying their assault rifles, but as soon as they spotted a couple of blokes with a camera they went into a frenzy.

  ‘We all remember thinking how odd it was that battle-hardened, highly trained soldiers could be sent into a panic by something so simple as a person trying to take a picture. They started getting on their radios and frantically trying to get Harry off the hillside. They even tried to alter the route of the march, which plunged the whole exercise into chaos. It was hard to see how they could be so surprised. It wasn’t as if Harry’s arrival at Sandhurst had been kept secret, so what did they expect?’

  For his part, Harry just took it in his stride. As the instructors continued to panic, he kept his head down and carried on with the exercise. At one point, when a reporter from the Daily Mirror approached Harry’s platoon as they marched through the heathland and tried to interview the Royal, he turned and angrily barked back: ‘This isn’t a joke, you know.’

  The next day the papers were full of pictures of Harry with his new platoon, looking every bit the warrior prince. All these years later it seems funny that the Sandhurst staff got so cross about the pictures. Since then Harry must have been pictured in the course of his work as a soldier thousands of times. But following that incident they wrote to the editors of the national papers asking for them to show restraint and allow Harry’s training to continue as planned.

  Of course the whole thing could have been avoided in the first place, had the palace only had the foresight to release pictures of Harry in training. As is so often the case, the media advisers arrogantly decided not to hand out any pictures until his training was complete. But all this did was to put a bounty on any photographs of the prince throughout the forty-four-week course. And there were many taken. Harry was photographed diving in a quarry in Devon, eating a McDonald’s on the way back from an exercise, and one paper even claimed to have filmed him on the base itself in a scoop exposing slack security at Sandhurst.

  The simple truth was that Harry was big news, and no stuffy colonel who fancied himself as a self-made press officer could do anything to stop him being pictured. Rightly or wrongly there was intense interest in every detail of Harry’s training. When he went to Wales to undergo ‘fixed bayonet’ drills, the story appeared under the headline ‘Killer Wales’; and when he was forced to miss an exercise because of infected blisters on his feet, the papers dubbed him ‘Sick-note’.

  In reality Harry’s presence at Sandhurst was a huge coup for the Army and it certainly shed light on the world-leading training that officer cadets undergo while at the academy. After the Ashdown Forest episode, staff photographers did pull back and only took pictures from a distance to avoid disrupting the training. But there was another reason why Harry’s training would benefit the Army.

  The former instructor went on to say: ‘Harry was seen as a dry run for when Prince William started at Sandhurst. In reality, the staff had no idea of the level of interest there would be when the boys arrived. A lot was written which wasn’t true, but Clarence House were dealing with the press. By the time William arrived at Sandhurst the staff were much better equipped to know what to expect. Harry had cleared the way for when William arrived, two terms after his brother.’

  When William started at Sandhurst Harry was entering his final term. By then he was well into his training and had impressed his instructors. Despite his fears about the academic side of the course, Harry had scraped through and was well on his way to making it to the end of the training.

  To the huge relief of the prince’s advisers Harry had proved his critics wrong. Despite some suggestions that he would be treated with kid gloves during the training, it was clear that Harry had had no special treatment. He may not have been top of the class, but instructors were privately very impressed by the leadership skills Harry had shown.

  He was popular with the other cadets and the NCOs, who had been charmed by him throughout the course. Harry endeared himself to the instructors because he had a natural fascination for all things military. He would often spend downtime asking about the instructors’ careers, where they had served and how they had made it to where they were. This was a young Royal whose enthusiasm for the Army was infectious, and his ability to laugh at himself made Harry one of the most popular cadets of his intake.

  As far as the men in grey suits at the palace were concerned, they had good reason to feel pleased with how Harry’s ten months at Sandhurst had panned out. But any celebrations would be short-lived. With less than a week to go before Harry would parade in front of his grandmother, the Queen, and in the eyes of the world, once again he would find himself at the centre of a storm.

  It was a late night, even by the prince’s standards. With their successful completion of the final exercise safely in the bag, Harry and a handful of fellow cadets from his platoon decided to let their hair down. At this stage in their training, the cadets were entitled to return to base whenever they liked. Gone were the strict rules about getting back to barracks before 10 p.m. The boys had earned the right to sink a few pints off base, safe in the knowledge that all they had left to do was prepare for the passing out parade. So they headed out to a bar just a short drive from Sandhurst.

  In high spirits, the drinks flowed. One of the key aspects of becoming an officer is the bonding you go through with your fellow cadets. By now they were a trusted group of new friends for Harry. As far as they were concerned he was one of them, another young man about to become a junior officer in the British Army. Harry trusted each and every one of them, not least because of everything they had gone through since the difficult days after they arrived at the academy.

  ‘It’s still early, guys, let’s go to a club,’ suggested one of the cadets.

  Harry looked at his watch and then
at his protection officers, who tagged along with him whenever he was off the base. ‘Where can we go around here at this time of night?’ he asked.

  It was not a pre-planned decision, but as the beers flowed and the fun continued, the cadets were not quite ready to hit the hay. It didn’t take long for them to agree that there was still one place that would serve them drinks.

  ‘Let’s go to Spearmint Rhino,’ suggested one. ‘Come on, Harry, you in?’

  There must be times in their lives when Harry’s protection officers wish they had a bit more say over the decisions that are made. But they knew from his reaction that there was no point in even trying to talk Harry into going home instead. When he is drinking, and surrounded by people he trusts, Harry is the last person who would put a downer on the evening.

  And so it was that shortly after 3 a.m. the group of cadets arrived at the doors of the notorious lap dancing club in central London and prepared to go in. Spearmint Rhino is considered one of the more upmarket strip clubs in the UK. The nimble dancing girls who gyrate as they strip off their clothes are well used to quite literally rubbing up against wealthy businessmen.

  But there was little chance someone as famous as Harry would be able to melt into the dark without being recognized. Within seconds of their arrival, the girls had all been told by the door staff that Prince Harry was among that night’s guests. Unsurprisingly, a buzz went around the strippers as they took it in turns to catch his eye. Within minutes one of the dancers made her move. Like many gentlemen’s clubs, the girls are encouraged to ply for extra money by chatting to the punters in a bid to sell them a ‘private dance’. For £10 they will peel off their tops and dance topless for the customer. And for £20 they will lead the client off to a private room for a full nude lap dance.