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There was a moment of peace, then the concrete intervened. I shouted the air from my lungs on impact. My head ricocheted off the restraints and my knees walloped the steering column, then the chassis frame.

Pain flooded my body and bright spots of light burnt into my retinas, but I knew I was all right. In fact, I was livid. I wanted to see the film footage of what had happened.

The car was toast. It had pummelled the wall so hard that concrete dust enveloped the whole Texaco livery. The splayed wheel angles suggested the chassis was museum material.

I was sent to the medical facility for a once-over, but all I wanted to do was see Graham and apologise for killing his car. Things were hotting up outside the medical area. The opposition had protested to the officials about my driving and I was being summoned to the race stewards …

I stared, transfixed, at the footage. The camera had a bird’s-eye view of me leading Colin through Three. We were hellish close. I gave him room; he pulled alongside my rear wheel and then … contact. To my eyes, he steered so hard into me that I never had a chance of saving it before I hit the wall. It was a total waste of a fine machine.

The main steward eyed me nervously through his square glasses and his hands were trembling as he turned off the video. Not a good sign. Obviously, I said, he’d seen the other driver spin me off. No.

In their view, my defensive line was dangerous driving. They were docking all my series points from the weekend, which made it impossible for me to win the championship.

The racing was over for the day and my mind had already shifted on to the ranges, with Ken on my shoulder. But first I directed a volley of profanity at the stewards that would have made him fackin’ proud. Real-ising I wasn’t improving matters, I headed for the land of the brave. In spite of the calamity, I was buzzing from the win.

By the time I reached the Army training area at one in the morning the tiredness that follows a hectic race weekend was kicking in, along with a hangover from my concussion. Geordie sympathetically fed me a brew before leading me down through an abandoned camp of box-like concrete buildings. He gave me a bearing towards my new digs.

Within a few hundred metres a squadron of mosquitoes was gorging on my blood. The bearing led me to their humid HQ, a swampy wood. I squidged through the dank undergrowth.

Johnny was on stag. ‘Good race?’

‘Won one and crashed one.’

‘Welcome to Shangri-la. If the DS don’t get you the mozzies will. Get some repellent on you asap.’

I set my alarm for 0530 and passed out.

I woke early and used the time to prepare for the Combat Fitness Test. I dug my fingers deep into my bloated tendon to get it mobilised, feeling the fibrous tissue scrape against its outer sheath. I warmed up my calf, stretched and cloaked my ankle with the zinc oxide tape. I added a Neoprene layer of synthetic rubber for good measure.

I breakfasted with drugs and hot chocolate and walked down to the assembly area with the boys in full combat gear, bergens and all. It felt like marching to the gallows, but I was ready to run on a stump if I had to.

The DSs disappeared in their vehicles to line the route, and Jones craned his head around for a final look at his prey before moving off.

‘Prepare to double … DOUBLE!’

The opening stretch was downhill, on tarmac. I kept movement in my right leg to a minimum by swinging it like a golf club. We crossed a stone bridge over a brook and began to climb.

The sweat started to work its way through our clothing, and by the time we reached the first peak our tightly packed unit was a steam-pumping locomotive in the morning air. Earlier in the course you might have relished another recruit biting the dust, but not now. Everyone had been through hell to get this far. Tunnel vision had caused guys to break up with their girlfriends or lose their jobs. All that mattered was getting to the end.

My Achilles started to burn and I struggled with the pace. I focused on the others, the rhythm of the march, the distance to the