'On the way back to the Front I ran over a general.' With this opening line you know that Bartholomew Bandy is back, with a vengeance. It may be 1918 and the war may be grinding on, but Bandy will make a difference. Now he's in charge of his own squadron of Sopwith Dolphins, but although the hated Hun is pressing fiercely, Bandy's prime enemy, as usual, is his own Top Brass.

Unable to cope with him, the military commanders post him to Russia, where the Western powers are intervening in the Civil War. Bandy has an exciting spell with the Allied forces in Russia, fighting Bolsheviks, capturing trains, meeting Trotsky, facing Communist firing squads, and, most terrifying of all, being a love slave to the diminutive Dasha Fillipovna.