TODAY we have a short but poignant story from the prolific pen of Robert Sidney Bowen. Bowen was a war pilot of the Royal Air Force, as well as the editor of one of the foremost technical journals of aviation in addition to penning hundreds of action-packed stories for the pulps.

“Chunky” Towers was not a particularly good Jerry hunter. As a matter of fact he was just an ordinary product of Field No. 8 at Issoudun, with perhaps a better than the average portion of guts. He was always on the lookout for a possible scrap—especially with a certain German pilot who always flew a pale green Fokker—”Green Bird” as Chunky had nicknamed him. The real name of the pilot he did not know, and he didn’t care. Green Bird was not some great German ace who sent Allied pilots down like so many clay pigeons before his yammering guns. To tell the truth, Green Bird was a very ordinary pilot, and a rotten shot—just as rotten a shot as was Chunky.

They had met several times and on each occasion both spewed costly ammunition at thin air. By some queer trick of fate neither could get in the fatal burst when opportunity offered, and opportunity had not been stingy by any manner of means. It just seemed as though each was immune to the other’s bullets. Until that fateful morning…

Even after the Grim Reaper took over the controls, that Fokker obeyed its pilot—and showed a Yank how the dead repay chivalry.

• Download “Death Takes The Stick” (December 1931, War Aces)