The Great War is over, but twelve-year-old Edward Hawkins's war has just begun. Imprisoned on a remote Scottish lighthouse by his veteran father, his only windows to the world a wireless set and a tattered copy of Treasure Island, he dreams of escaping to a life of adventure on the high seas. But one day a mysterious radio signal launches Edward on a harrowing odyssey that takes him from the bleak shores of Scotland to the deserts of Morocco during the brutal Rif War - a treacherous world of rogues and bandits that takes all his cunning and courage to survive.