The Time Bandit

The story is about two eleven year old children, Sam and Lizzie and the adventures they are sent on when they discover a one-arm-bandit in an old scrap year where they had gone to hide from PC Goodrich, the local police constable. Eager to see if the machine still works, Sam pulls on the lever and much to their horror the two children discover that the seemingly harmless looking fruit machine is in fact a time machine and before they realise what is happening, they are transported back to six hundred and fifty five AD and the boat burial of a Saxon king at Sutton Hoo.

Bemused and thankful, the pair arrive safely back in the scrap yard only to find that
PC Goodrich has discovered their hiding place and is waiting to apprehend them. But just as he is about to make his arrest, unable to resist a go on the fruit machine, before either of the children can stop him, the constable reaches out and pulls down the handle. Moments later and the trio find themselves transported back in time to the banks of the Little Bighorn river in Montana at the very moment that General Custer's is making his last stand. Caught up in the heat of the battle, unable to stop herself, Lizzie risks her life to save a cavalry officers horse named Comanche, and although she wasn't to discover it until later, her act of bravery would immortalise the horse and give it a place in American history which is still remembered to this day.