Come on then, I said to the enemy: just you do that again. Just have another quick look over the top of that empty oil drum, and I am going to give you what for. And then he did, the poor sucker. His head popped up like a meerkat and pow pow pow I sent down the rain of death and bam bam bam my oily projectiles hit him right where it hurt – or so I assumed.

Everything went quiet. I squinted ahead, and there was a break in the firing. I could hear the breeze in the leaves of this ancient Surrey glade. A pong rose from the puddles ahead. It was time. Like an old cougar plotting his last leap, like Paul Newman at the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I hauled myself forward on my haunches and prepared to explode into the gap ahead. A burst to the left, a burst to the right, and then a Stallone-style roll to the shelter of the next set of drums. That was the plan.

"Yee-hah," I said, or words to that effect. I broke cover – and whap! It was as if some unsporting fiend had hit a squash ball at close range into my left armpit; and then thquap! Another spheroid went into my groin; and blapppp! I was hit straight between the eyes and my head jerked back in amazement and the orange bloom of death expanded over my goggles.