‘Fucking outstanding, Kev,’ said Carr. ‘Keep shooting, drop as many as you can.’

McMullen hadn’t needed telling. The sound of the shot was only just arriving as he put down two more of the enemy fighters, each of them dying with an uncomprehending stare on his face.

The others finally reacted and scattered, the attack routed before it had even begun.

It was around that time that the Taliban had taken to calling McMullen ‘The Silent Death’ on the comms chatter.

A good man to have in Libya, Carr was sure.

Paul West – known as ‘Fred’, to the eternal amusement of the rest of the squadron, because he was a Gloucester lad from a building family – was the only member of the team who’d not come from the Paras.

Carr had always enjoyed pulling his leg by asking him, good-naturedly, which fish-and-chip outfit he’d served in before joining the Regiment; the answer was the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, and it wasn’t always clear why he’d left his natural home.

Fred’s abiding passion was engines, on trucks, cars, armoured vehicles, bikes, and anything else which you poured fuel into. He could have spent his whole career elbows-deep in grease and spanners, happy as a pig in shit, but he’d decided to go for Selection after a REME mate bet him he’d never get in.

As only happens in the SAS, he’d been put in Air Troop, which was short of manpower, and not the Mobility Troop he’d requested and was best suited to, and he was famous for his fear of parachuting. He hated it with a vengeance – static line was bad enough, but HALO terrified him. Every time he stood on that tailgate of a C130, ready to jump, his legs shook, but it was testimony to the man that he’d never come close to backing out.

A decent amateur boxer and rugby player, with a nose that had been bust half a dozen times, it had taken him a while to develop his infantry skills, but he’d ended up doing fourteen years at Hereford, and had really come into his own as a demolitions instructor.

An exceptional demolitionist, there was nothing he couldn’t do with explosives, and he was particularly known for his innovative and imaginative initiation methods.

On his dems course, the troopers had been tasked with making a victim-operated device.

West had handed in a motorcycle helmet.

‘What the fuck’s this?’ the chief instructor had asked.

‘It’s a motorbike helmet,’ Fred had replied.

‘I can fucking see that,’ had come the reply. ‘What the fuck’s it got to do with this course?’

‘I hollowed it out inside here,’ said Fred, pointing to the interior. ‘Then I put a stick of C4 in. The initiation works via the visor. The cunt puts his helmet on and starts riding. As he builds up speed, visor down… Boom!’