"Some bright kid's got a gun and 2000 rounds of live ammo. And that gun's no pea-shooter. It'll go through a brick wall at a quarter of a mile."

Chas McGill has the second-best collection of war souvenirs in Garmouth, and he desperately wants it to be the best. When he stumbles across the remains of a German bomber crashed in the woods—its shiny, black machine-gun still intact—he grabs his chance. Soon he's masterminding his own war effort with dangerous and unexpected results. Robert Westall's first novel for children is presented here with a bonus short story, "The Haunting of Chas McGill," and an extended biography of the author.Macmillan Publishers Ltd (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group) is an international publishing company owned by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.