The captain of the aircraft had given the wind as eight knots on 260 degrees – just south of west. We were going to jump four ks west of our target and fly ourselves in towards it. The sky was clear but the air was full of turbulence, and the Here kept juddering and twitching so that the guys were being jostled against each other as we huddled on the ramp.

Somebody gripped my right arm. I twisted and saw it was the head loadie, asking with thumb up if I was all set. I nodded and gave him a thumb in return. He raised a single finger. One minute to go. Cushy bastard: we were going out into the black night while he was safely tethered to his aircraft by a harness and long webbing strop. By the time we hit the deck he’d be well on his way back to Lyneham and a warm night tucked up in bed . . . I caught myself up. Geordie, I told myself, stop pissing around. You’re in the SAS, and this is what it’s all about. If you did the crew’s job you’d be bored out of your mind.

I passed the signal to Pavarotti and glanced down at my altimeters, one strapped on either forearm: both dials were registering 22,000.1 felt the angle of the floor change slightly as the pilot throttled back, dropping speed for his final run-in towards the DZ. Screwing my head round, I got a glimpse of Whinger Watson, my second-in-command. All I could see was the red light glinting off his goggles, but I could imagine the oath he was muttering to himself: ‘Firekin ell,’ again and again. He and I were the old men of the party: at thirty-six and thirty-seven, we could almost have been some of the guys’ fathers.

Time for last-minute checks: harness straight, bollocks clear of crutch straps, bergen in position, weapon secure, mask tight, gloves on. I reached round and bent the Cyalume light velcroed on to my bergen, cracking the glass phial in the middle and setting the chemical reaction going so that everyone would have a marker to steer towards when they followed me out of the plane.

Thirty seconds to go. Into my mind came a sudden vision of Moscow. For a moment I imagined we were doing a night drop into the heart of the city, heading down towards all those red-brick towers and golden onion domes. I knew that the dark land below us was France, not Russia, and that we were only on a preliminary exercise; but Moscow was our ultimate destination, and for the past few days we’d heard so much about Spetznaz, Omon, Alfa Force, the Mafia and the break-up of the KGB that I’d started seeing red in my sleep.

Then I felt the head loadie grip my arm again. I tensed myself and hunched forward.