diff --git a/src/engine/execunix.c b/src/engine/execunix.c
index 87da9b816..90736baf4 100644
--- a/src/engine/execunix.c
+++ b/src/engine/execunix.c
@@ -226,13 +226,13 @@ void exec_cmd
         dup2( out[1], STDOUT_FILENO );
 
         if ( globs.pipe_action == 0 )
-        {
             dup2( out[1], STDERR_FILENO );
-            close( err[1] );
-        }
         else
             dup2( err[1], STDERR_FILENO );
 
+        close( out[1] );
+        close( err[1] );
+
         /* Make this process a process group leader so that when we kill it, all
          * child processes of this process are terminated as well. We use
          * killpg(pid, SIGKILL) to kill the process group leader and all its