Carr thought about correcting him but decided against, on the basis that it might worsen the young trooper’s discomfort. Instead, he smiled, strapped on his Kevlar helmet, and grabbed his Diemaco C7 – a Special Forces M4 variant fitted with a heavy duty barrel, night-sight, and a flash suppressor.

The vehicle moved forward, and each vehicle behind followed on.

The time to target was twenty minutes.

They picked their way north, past shuttered shops, burned-out cars, and fire-gutted houses. Before the war, Dora had been a predominantly Assyrian Christian neighbourhood, but in the chaos of the early occupation the lunatic fringe had moved in and begun a programme of religious cleansing. It seemed like every third house was daubed with symbols which had been used to identify their occupants as Shia, or Christian, or Mandaeists – whatever they were.

The streets were deserted – you had to be crazy to be out and about at this time of night. But that meant that anyone on the streets was crazy, so the men manned their vehicle-mounted weapons and scanned the route for enemy activity as they progressed to the target area.

As they passed the bloated corpse of a donkey, Carr looked at his map with the route marked on it.

‘Next left, Wayne,’ he said, glancing at the young Brummie.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Rooney.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Carr, under his breath. He shook his head and grinned: it was too far back to remember, but he’d probably been just as bad himself as a new trooper.

Twenty minutes after leaving the FOB, the vehicles pulled over and went static at the LUP.

The teams all dismounted and shook out into the order of march, ready to move towards the target, each man going down on one knee and scanning the immediate area for any threat, the pitch black turning green in their night vision.

Carr walked over to Geordie and the Squadron Commander for a final brief.

Everything was good, no issues.

Carr keyed his radio mike, and sent one transmission. ‘All teams, move to final assault positions.’

The men started to go forwards slowly towards the target. It was only two hundred metres, but it took a full ten minutes, moving quietly, carefully: they’d been in Dora enough times to know that the locals would react aggressively as soon as they worked out what was going on. Every man in the area owned a gun, and most would relish the chance to have a pop. They’d all wake up as soon as the explosive charges effected the breaches, but there was no sense in giving them a head start.

Eventually, the assault teams were at their final positions, and awaiting the radio transmission for the show to commence.

Carr carried out a check on the comms to confirm that everyone was ready to go.

All team commanders confirmed.

Carr gave the OC – Evan Forrest – a thumbs-up.