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‘Mastiff received.’

‘Panther received.’

And so on.

The one I kept a close eye on was the 62-tonne Trojan tank with its spike-toothed bulldozer spade hanging off the front. The driver, who was often unsighted, was quieter on the radio than the other three. When we were parked up he had an uncomfortable habit of creeping forward. His thundering engine made your ribs rattle. He could flatten the Evo with a glancing blow and not even feel it, so I was keen to stay out of his way.

Staying ahead wasn’t a problem. Even the 5.9-litre, diesel-powered Jackal, which was capable of 90mph across any terrain, was no match for the Evo when my right foot beat the floorboards. The Mitsubishi had rallying coursing through its veins. It bit into the rubble and thrust the chassis into a majestic four-wheel drift at every opportunity, leaving the Army for dust. The incredible thing with a high-powered four-wheel drive was that regardless how sideways it went, you just kept your foot flat out and the steering practically straight to drive out of it.

The deep ruts in the muddy tracks tested the steel plating. I crashed down them and listened to the panging of rocks smashing the undertray like a sumo wrestler’s dinner gong. Easing off on the straights and taking longer routes around the obstacles kept them close. We were ready to shoot.

The four camera crews deployed on to an area they’d never seen like it was their own back yard. The way they could instantly assess an area and find a beautiful shot said it all. I’d explained during the briefing that vision from the military wagons was poor, but found Iain crouched at the top of a vertical cutting.

‘Morning, big cock, am I all right here?’

‘You’ll get a lovely close-up of the wheels as they crush you. The drivers can only see ground or sky from inside these chutes so best shift further up the side of the bank …’

‘Oh, all right then.’

There was no shortage of machismo from the crew, and in some ways I had become their unofficial safety supervisor. They had impeccable standards, but I rarely slept before a big shoot like this for imagining the hazardous scenarios they might face and ways to overcome them.

A sexy, high-pitched whine rose in the background. I scanned the plateau for its source as a dust devil spun in front of us.

‘Iain …’

‘Got it.’ His first shot of the day.

The clatter of rotor blades suggested we were about to be joined by‘Flying TV’, a Robinson 44 with a gyro-stabilised camera flown by ‘Q’. Quentin Smith was a second-generation stunt pilot, Freestyle Helicopter Champion and the first heli pilot to circumnavigate the world. He was late thirties and lean, with a neat quiff and a prim French moustache to complement his silk cravat and black leather boots. His thoughts regularly ran away with him, but he usually returned intact. Q more often than not puffed on a pipe, but occasionally plucked a Havana cigar from his inside pocket.

‘Castro’ … puff … ‘makes for a bloody fine smoke, hmm, old boy’ … puff.

‘Sure does, Q. I’m kicking up a lot of dust out there, is that a problem for you when we get close to the trees?’

‘Absolutely no problem, old chap. I can cut around those and come down and up, and up and down and shoot through – should be a beautiful shot, yah?’

His hands swooped and dived at the appropriate points to underscore the strategy.

‘Don’t big up your part, Q. All that flying’s a piece of piss. The real skills are in the Evo, right?’

He clapped both my shoulders, gave them a squeeze and marched off laughing. Q was basically God in a flying suit.

The blue 44 pulled gently into a hover a few feet from the ground. I had UHF for talking to Phil and VHF to pick up with Q and co-ordinate our movements. The radio chattered as Phil took to the podium and began to conduct his orchestra.

‘All vehicles are coming through this bumpy lane then across the big open area. Casper and Toby, if you get the big wides … Iain and Dan, get some tight edgy shots. Everyone stand by and no one else comes into this area now, I want complete lockdown.’

I lined