The Secret Battleplane
1916
March 1916. A blizzard rages across England as two teenage friends, Athol Hawke and his steadier companion Dick Tracey, find themselves stranded in Shrewsbury with a sputtering motorbike and a rapidly worsening wheel. Their ill-timed joyride across a nation bracing for war takes an unexpected turn when they seek shelter and encounter Desmond Blake, a secretive inventor who has spent months hidden away building something extraordinary: a revolutionary battleplane that could change the course of the war. What begins as a tale of mechanical mishap and frozen roads evolves into a high-stakes adventure as the boys throw their lot in with Blake, helping prepare his aircraft for a daring demonstration to military authorities while navigating the shadows of wartime espionage. The skies above England crawl with enemy aircraft, and not everyone wants to see Blake's invention succeed. Westerman captures the giddy optimism of early aviation, when the boundary between impossible and inevitable was measured in propeller rotations. This is adventure fiction at its most earnest: two boys, one extraordinary machine, and a war that makes every ordinary act of courage feel urgent. Perfect for readers who fell in love with Emblem of Britain and are hungry for more intrepid youth in dangerous times.
