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53.

I carried a small overnight bag containing a few personal items, plus one standard-size ironingboard, slung jauntily under my arm like a surfboard. The Army had ordered me to bring it. Fromhere on my shirts and trousers would need to be crease-free.

I knew as much about operating an ironing board as I did about operating a tank—less,actually. But that was now the Army’s problem. I was now the Army’s problem.

I wished them luck.

So did Pa. It was he who dropped me off in Camberley, Surrey, at the Royal Military Academyat Sandhurst.

May 2005.

He stood to one side and watched me put on my red name tag, Wales, then sign in. He toldreporters how proud he was.

Then extended his hand. Off you go, darling boy.

Photo op. Click.

I was assigned to a platoon of twenty-nine young men and women. Early the next day, afterpulling on our new combats, we filed into an ancient room, hundreds of years old. You couldsmell the history—it seemed to come off the wood-paneled walls like steam. We recited an oath tothe Queen. I swear allegiance to Crown and country…The lad beside me shot an elbow into myribs. Bet you say Granny rather than Queen!

That was the last time, for the next five weeks, that he or anyone else would venture a joke.

There was nothing funny about boot camp.

Boot camp — such a benign name for what happened. We were pushed to our limits,physically, mentally, spiritually. We were taken—or dragged—to a place beyond our limits, andthen a bit further, by a stolid group of lovable sadists called color sergeants. Large, loud,extremely masculine men—and yet they all had tiny little dogs. I’ve never heard or read anexplanation for this, and I can’t venture one. I’ll only say that it was odd to see these testosterone-rich, mostly bald ogres cooing at their poodles, shih tzus and pugs.

I’d say they treated us like dogs, except they treated their dogs so much better. With us theynever said: There’s a good boy! They got up in our faces, shouted at us through the clouds of theiraftershave, and never, ever let up. They belittled us, harassed us, shrieked at us, and made nosecret of their intent. They meant to break us.

If they couldn’t break us, brilliant. Welcome to the Army! If they could, even better. Better toknow now. Better that they should break us than the enemy.

They used a variety of approaches. Physical duress, psychological intimidation—and humor? Iremember one color sergeant pulling me aside. Mr. Wales, I was on guard one day at WindsorCastle, wearing my bearskin, and along came a boy who kicked gravel on my boots! And thatboy…was YOU!

He was joking, but I wasn’t sure I should laugh, and I wasn’t sure it was true. I didn’trecognize him, and I certainly didn’t remember kicking gravel on any guardsmen. But if it wastrue, I apologized and hoped we could put it behind us.

Within two weeks several cadets had tapped out. We woke to find their beds made, their stuffgone. No one thought less of them. This shit wasn’t for everybody. Some of my fellow cadetswould confess, before lights out, that they feared being next.

I never did, however. I was, for the most part, fine. Boot camp was no picnic, but I neverwavered in my belief that I was exactly where I was meant to be. They can’t break me, I thought.

Is it, I wondered, because I’m already broken?

Also, no matter what they did to us, it was done away from the press, so for me every day wasa kind of holiday. The training center was like Club H. No matter what the color sergeants dishedout, there was always, always the compensatory bonus of no paps. Nothing could really hurt me ina place where the press couldn’t find me.

And then they found me. A reporter from The Sun sneaked onto the grounds and shambledaround, holding a phony bomb, trying to prove—what? No one knew. The Sun said their reporter,this faux fl?neur, was trying to expose the training center’s lax security, to prove that Prince Harrywas in danger.

The truly scary part was that some readers actually believed their rubbish.