The Machine Gunners (Chas McGill #1) by Robert Westall

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

Chas McGill had the second best collection of war souvenirs in Garmouth, and he desperately wanted it to be the best. His chance came when he found the crashed German Heinkel with a machine-gun and all its ammunition intact. All he had to do was to remove it from the plane . . . 

The front cover shows Shaun Taylor as Chas in the six-part BBC serial, adapted by William Corlett, directed by Coling Cant and produced by Paul Stone.