Ben Hope had always been a runner. In his mindset, if you weren’t constantly moving forwards, you were going backwards. That had never been an option for a person of his restless disposition, who needed to keep pushing hard from one challenging goal to the next. Somewhere deep in his mind he believed that, like a Great White shark, if he stopped moving, he’d sink to the bottom and die. He’d made himself physically fit from his mid-teens onwards, running and cycling and rock-climbing as though he was being chased by demons. That was before he’d joined the British Army and stern, shouty men in PT Instructor insignia took him to the next level and beyond. During his career he’d been able to achieve a degree of fitness, motivation and commitment that was off the charts. Now, all these years later, he still ran every day.

He liked to vary his routine. Sometimes he could be found pounding the woodland tracks and undulating wildflower meadows around the rural thirty-acre compound he co-owned here in France, a place called Le Val. Other times, he would drive out to this long, lonely stretch of beach just a few miles away on the coast. The beach was where he’d come today, to stretch his legs and put himself to the test during some downtime.

Winter was the season in which Ben liked running the most. A cold wind was blowing in off the sea, carrying pockets of squally rain that soaked him to the bone. This was his element, and the physical discomfort just made him push harder. The adverse weather on this chilly December day meant that the beach was totally deserted except for him and his German Shepherd, Storm, who loved nothing more than to tag along after his master on these punishing workouts with his tail wagging and his long pink tongue lolling out. Ben loved the emptiness. It allowed him to run at his peak and be alone with his thoughts.

A couple of times a week, as he was doing today, he liked to raise the endurance bar an extra notch by carrying a bergen weighed down with forty pounds of sand. Back in the day, he and his Special Forces comrades used to hump much greater loads than that for endless miles both in training and in combat. This was taking it easy by comparison. But it was enough to keep him in better shape than most of the much younger guys who came to be put through their paces at Le Val.