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The stillness of night went unbroken for twenty minutes. Nothing pulsed in the green glow of our thermal imager. Skeletal branches broke up the low moonlit sky like cracks in a pane of glass.

Something caught my attention to our right. One, then two dark figures loomed into view 200 metres away, at the edge of our line of sight.

I kicked Ninja and signalled that we had company. As they came closer we could see more men trudging in line, fifteen at least. It was probably best to let them walk by, but what if it was a test by the DS to see if we were awake? The leading men pinged on their head torches and that clinched it.

I took up a firing position and, as the leader reached us, Ninja nodded and challenged them. ‘Halt. Advance one and be recognised.’

I took a step forward from the trees and aimed at the point man’s face. He froze as his torch beam told him the good news. It took a few seconds for him to clock the 40mm grenade launcher slung underneath the barrel of a foreign rifle. Unlike his SA80, ours were not fitted with adapters for firing blanks.

‘Identify yourself!’

Point man’s feet left the ground as he performed a jumping jack, thrusting his arms into the crucifix position, legs akimbo. Not the DS then.

He didn’t know our password and began desperately pleading for someone called Stu to help him. In a real battle, these would have been his last words. Lieutenant Stu duly appeared and we decided to let his platoon of Royal Marines go this time.

Chapter 16

Pass or Fail

The Army had a way of making you feel invincible. So I decided to run the London Marathon.

The cheering crowd and the folks wearing the daft hats with pointed ears for the Whizz Kidz charity I was running for made the whole experience unforgettable. With 5 kilometres to go, I was handed a Lucozade by a big hero of mine, Jonny Wilkinson. Under different circumstances we might have had more than two words to say to each other, but it was an honour just being alongside the World Cup rugby legend.

The ligament in my knee was less impressed with the whole performance. Back on the military ranges I had to sprint with a limp. On the weekend before the last hurdle of battle camp, the referred strain finally tore my Achilles tendon. The Army medic thought it might rupture and was threatening to withdraw me from the course when Geordie waded into the twat wagon. ‘Let’s not be too hasty with the prognooosis, docta.’ They agreed to keep an eye on me, but if things got worse, it was game over.

There was better news at Top Gear: I was brought back for a second series. The second guest was Paul McKenna, the celebrity hypnotist and mind-bending wizard.

Paul’s smooth baritone voice radiated the calm and control of a reflective mind. His eyebrows converged around his nose like a hawk as he listened to me explaining the laws of speed. I imagined that Paul, being a globally renowned expert in mind management, would just hypnotise the car into running smoothly around the circuit. He took a rather different approach.

From the moment we swapped seats and McKenna put his foot down, it was like watching Mr Hyde strangling charming Dr Jekyll. McKenna’s facial expressions behind the wheel could inspire generations of Picasso impressionists.

Fists of iron clenched the wheel with such force that the blood drained from his knuckles. Every gear change was like a death-blow. The faster he cornered the more his face contorted with rage. When his mouth gaped open and his tongue started lashing his ivories, I began wondering if I had missed the giant Scorpion at Hammerhead. Paul was in a dark place.

I felt thoroughly unprofessional when he caught me laughing, but I explained that he needed to relax to drive fast. I coaxed Paul towards taking a gentler handle on the controls and he posted a very respectable time.

He later hypnotised Hammond into believing he was a baked potato that had forgotten how to drive, so I figured his mind magic might extend to fixing my Achilles. He kindly recommended a healer in North London. I’d maxed out on conventional medicine