A man named Brown, from Texas, walks into the Apex shipping company's offices in London and hands an eight-year-old letter to an executive, Major Robert Morgan. He tells Morgan the letter is from a prisoner of war who died - his name: Derek Sellers. This releases a flood of memories for the Major and he begins to tell the story of a "heel." They had been rivals for the same girl, and for a single seat on an escape plane. The occupant had to be drawn by lot. Thinking that Sellars had won, Morgan knocks him out and takes his seat on the plane. However, the postwar denouement comes as a shock to everyone.
—GusF