Cold Peace

“What’s wrong?” 

Kiwi wouldn’t look at him. “I — I have something to tell you. Let’s go for a drink somewhere.”

“I’d planned to celebrate at the Savoy—”

“There’s nothing to celebrate,” Kiwi cut him off, but wouldn’t look at him and led the way back down the stairs and out into the street. His eyes scanned the street opposite, and he spotted a pub. “We can go there,” Kiwi announced with a nod of his head.

David did not object. Kiwi had selected a city pub, the kind of place civil servants went for lunch or a quick pint after work. It was designed for the maximum number of nooks and crannies where customers could eat in small groups in maximum privacy. It was furnished with dark carpets, gleaming wood tables and leather chairs. They readily found a table and sat down. 

Kiwi wanted to order something at the bar, but David held him back. “Sit down and tell me what’s happened!”

“I failed.”

“What?” David didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I failed my flight test.”

David stared at him. Not once had he considered that possibility. Kiwi was a brilliant pilot. He’d flown more kinds of aircraft than David had.

“I didn’t get my license on twins,” Kiwi clarified in the face of David’s evident disbelief.

“How? How did you fail?”

Kiwi shrugged helplessly and stared at his folded hands. “I kept coming in too fast and too high to land.”

“If you knew what the problem was, why didn’t you correct it?” It was a rhetorical question. David could see that Kiwi was broken, just as he had been on that night in December when they had first conceived of this business idea. “Had you been drinking the night before?”

“Yes, goddamn it!” Kiwi lashed out furiously. “Yes, I went out and got sozzled — so blotto I don’t remember the name of the girl I brought home with me or— It’s all just a big black haze….” His anger fizzled out. He wasn’t really angry, just ashamed and horrified by what he’d done. 

David knew that. He also knew that he’d been relying on Kiwi, building his future on him. He hadn’t just hired him, he’d given him equity. He’d made him a partner. He was furious. Too furious to speak.

“Please give me another chance, Banks. I swear, I won’t touch a drop and I’ll retake the test at my own expense—”

“When? How soon can you do that? Don’t you realise you need more than the license? You need thirty hours flying the Wellington! We’ve been telling everyone — BEA, Essex Aero, Robin, Emily, Chips and Ron — that we’re going to fly to Berlin on April 1. We’re supposed to start operations almost immediately after that. We’ve been running up debts for three months, and if we don’t start making some income soon, we’re going to go bankrupt. Don’t you realise that? How can you get plastered the night before your flight test?”

“I don’t know,” Kiwi answered honestly. “It just happened.”

“Then how do you know it won’t happen again?”

“I don’t know,” Kiwi admitted. 

They stared at one another. David felt betrayed. He’d trusted Kiwi. He could have hired any one of the thousands of former Bomber Command pilots already qualified on twins and four-engine aircraft. He didn’t have to take a down-on-his-luck ex-fighter pilot as his partner. Kiwi had brought nothing to their partnership so far — not money or business savvy or skills of any sort. Well, except for finding the Wellington and hiring the groundcrew, David reminded himself. 

Kiwi stood. “I’ll ask to retake the flight test tomorrow. I’ll let you know the results.”

“Do that,” David snapped back and let Kiwi walk out of the pub. It was supposed to be a day for celebration and champagne. Instead, he was alone in the gloom no longer sure that everything was going to work out.