Hank "The Stank" Harrison is a pilot for the United States Post Office Department, carrying mail from New York to destinations as far away as Cleveland.
Or at least he was, until his beloved DH.4 "Bessie" came down hard in a pea-soup fog and ground-looped into a ditch. Now his runs are being flown by some hotshot kid in a patched-up war surplus SPAD with half the capacity and a third the range.
He'll do anything to get Bessie fixed up and airworthy again, and his service in the war prepared him for the worst humanity has to offer.
(No, "The Stank" doesn't refer to his hygiene. His first solo attempt "stank up the airdrome for 50 miles" according to his instructor. The name stuck.)