The Hornet's Sting (14 page)

The only faint hope now was to survive a crash-landing. But the North Sea was a deadly adversary; many others would try to cross this stretch of water during the war and fail. The currents and storms usually finished off anyone unlucky enough to fall into the sea unnoticed. Tommy also knew that once they hit the waves hypothermia would very soon take hold. Even so, he was determined to give them the best chance he could, however slim.

‘Find the life jackets,’ he screamed.

If they did manage to survive the crash-landing, they could maybe use the axe to hack off a wing and stay afloat on it long enough for a ship or another aircraft to see them.

Kjeld searched the cockpit behind him for the life jackets. ‘I can’t find them,’ he yelled.

Then they looked at each other and remembered. The life jackets were still in the turnip field, thrown off as they sweated and chopped at the frame of the barn door.

‘That wasn’t a nice moment, when we realized,’ recalled Tommy later. ‘We were both positive it spelled the end. We said goodbye and thanked each other for our friendship, which had stood the test of time, especially since the German invasion. The flight had been the toughest test of that friendship, because it is one thing to live together as pals, and another to die together.’

Although it was unlikely they would survive, Tommy tried to judge how close they were to the waves. The altimeter, the instrument that should have done that for him, simply couldn’t be trusted. At the moment, it read precisely one hundred meters. Tommy described the dilemma he faced:

Hovering between life and death, Tommy knew he had to act quickly to seize this chance:

That ice had melted as the plane had dropped into warmer temperatures. ‘I could hear solid lumps of things the size of eggs coming loose and clanking against the exhaust,’ Tommy recalled. ‘That must have been chunks of ice.’

Though Tommy hadn’t realized precisely what was going on at the time, he did know that the Moth hadn’t liked the higher altitudes, so he wasn’t going to take her back up there again.

There wasn’t much time for relief, because by now the fuel was running out. Sooner rather than later, the cans in the back of the cockpit, along with the funnel and hose, were going to have to come into play. Which meant Sneum would need to perform the craziest stunt of all in order to keep them airborne. Stepping out onto a wing at a speed of one hundred and twenty knots wasn’t in any pilot’s manual. But someone was going to have to go out there, unscrew the fuel cap and get the hose into it. Tommy had already promised Kjeld that he would do it.

They had made the task a little easier by punching that hole in the fuselage behind the cockpit and just above the fuel tank. But once they had shoved the hose through the hole, Sneum was going to have to face his fears, step out and make things right.

Pedersen’s role would scarcely be pressure-free, though. He would have to fly the plane faultlessly to keep her steady, and Tommy had often poked fun at his friend’s lack of prowess as a pilot. He explained later: ‘Kjeld wasn’t the best of pilots at that time, although he became an excellent pilot later. In Fleet Air Arm he had taken things too seriously, and he didn’t like to take risks. We made fun of him for being very, very careful all the time.’ However, that perceived lack of spontaneity could now become a life-saving strength. If Pedersen lived up to his billing and demonstrated a plodding lack of ambition in the cockpit, then both men might survive. But he hadn’t flown for over a year and this wasn’t a plane he knew well. Tommy revealed: ‘There were pedals for both seats because the plane had originally been equipped with dual controls. But we had only one fork-shaped stick, and that was in the middle. The stick and the rudder bar could be worked properly only from the pilot’s seat. So Kjeld had limited ability to fly the plane from his side.’ Pedersen knew that the smallest error could cost his friend his life, which put him under intense pressure. And his well-meaning advice was less than helpful: ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t fall down,’ he said.

‘Thanks, Pedersen,’ Tommy replied. ‘That was just what I needed to hear.’

As Sneum pushed the heavy hose further through the hole in the fuselage, he remained composed. ‘I wasn’t afraid at that pointt fall daimed later. ‘I wasn’t too happy about doing it, but it was necessary. The alternative was certain death. If I failed and fell off before refuelling, maybe Kjeld could survive with a forced landing. But if I got the fuel tube into the tank and then fell off, he could just continue by changing seats.’

When Tommy tried to fling open the port-side door, however, it slammed in his face, shut fast due to the extreme air pressure. The refuelling process had sounded achievable when they had planned it on the ground. Now the reality was proving very different. In order just to get the door open, Tommy decided that Kjeld would have to decelerate. Sure enough, once Kjeld did this, the door could be opened. But as he poked his head out, Sneum was momentarily unnerved: ‘The wind was howling and it was pretty dark, because you couldn’t see much in the thick fog. It was very cold and in those seconds the full reality and the great danger involved in going out there became clear. I was afraid of getting out.’ Nevertheless, ‘I stepped out onto the wing with my right foot and held on to the inside of the door frame with my left hand. Then I leaned over and pulled the tube further out of the hole in the fuselage, from the outside this time.’

The plane rocked a little with the shifting weight and Pedersen tilted fractionally to compensate. Sneum was thankful that his left arm and foot were still inside the plane, and he hadn’t transferred all his weight outside. But then he brought his left foot out onto the wing too, and only his left hand clung to the inside of the cockpit. At that point he knew that if the plane banked again, he would be gone. ‘I think we were about a hundred to a hundred and fifty meters above the sea,’ he recalled. ‘But it didn’t matter if we were a kilometer up in the sky or twenty meters. If I fell off, I’d had it.’

Tommy tried to concentrate on the task in hand, rather than on what could so easily go wrong. He was struggling for breath and fighting to maintain stability, but he knew that to turn back now would be even more suicidal than continuing. With the hose twisted firmly around his right arm, he flexed the freezing fingers of his right hand and attempted to unscrew the fuel cap. ‘At first I couldn’t do it because my fingers were so numb, and I almost lost my balance,’ he explained. But he summoned the courage to try again, and this time he succeeded.

Tommy grabbed the end of the hose and instantly faced a new, tougher battle. ‘I struggled to bend the hose down into the fuel tank. It felt so heavy all of a sudden, and I was dizzy and tired.’ With one final effort, he pushed it towards the hole and scored a bull’s-eye. Plunging the hose deep into the tank, he ensured it would hold firm. Even if he fell now, at least Pedersen would have a chance of survival. Shivering, Tommy slowly edged back towards the cockpit door. He tried to wrap his left knee around the inside of the cockpit wall but faltered slightly, and for a terrible moment only the increasingly desperate grip of his left hand kept him from disaster. Pedersen watched helplessly, knowing that if he abandoned the controls to try to help his friend, the Hornet Moth might shudder enough to throw Sneum into oblivion. Terrified, Tommy launched himself at the cockpit. A split second later he landed in a heap on top of Kjeld. As Pedersen wrestled with the stick, Sneum slammed the door shut behind him. He took over the controls and saw reflected in the face of his friend the relief that he too was feeling. For a while they sat in silence, eating biscuits and drinking grape soda, waiting for their composure to return so that they could begin the next phase of their daring plan.

While Sneum held the end of the hose with one hand and the joystick with the other, Kjeld inserted the funnel. But when he tried to pour the first five-litre can of petrol down the tube, the air currents whistling through the various holes and cracks in the cockpit wreaked havoc. Tommy remembered: ‘Kjeld was spilling as much petrol down my back as was going into the tank. As it evaporated I felt colder still. I was covered in petrol. And the stench was overpowering.’ Only a fraction of the fuel from that first can found its way into the hose and ultimately into the tank. Not for the first time on the flight, Tommy thanked his partner loudly in his own colourful way. But as the fumes grew unbearable Pedersen was barely conscious to hear him. There was another worry too: any spark in the cockpit would see them going up in flames. If they ever reached Newcastle and were forced to crash-land, the Moth might be an inferno before anyone reached them.

As it was, though, that possibility seemed less likely than freezing to death or ditching in the sea. Pedersen was drifting in and out of consciousness, seemingly lost in an ever-deepening nausea. However, when he vomited again the effort seemed to bring him momentarily to his senses.

‘Come on, Kjeld, I need you now,’ Sneum yelled with a hint of desperation in his voice.

Bravely, Pedersen willed himself to continue with his task. He emptied one can after another into the funnel, retching as the petrol splashed all over him. Although the wastage was still considerable, it seemed to both men that a little more liquid reached the fuel tank each time. Tommy later explained: ‘We used all the five-litre cans and one of the ten-litre cans. We had plenty of spare fuel, which was just as well.’

Finally, after almost forty-five minutes, they decided they had done all they could. It was time to let the stomach-churning smell dissipate, so that they could breathe enough clean air to recover. If this was freedom, they decided, up to now it was overrated.

S
OON A CREEPING, cold monotony became the new enemy. There seemed to be no end to their ordeal, and their strength was fading fast. Their eyelids grew heavy and the gloom invited sleep. It would have been so easy to close their eyes and forget all their troubles. Tommy felt his body shutting down.

Then something wonderful happened to give their fading senses new energy: they felt the warmth of the first rays of morning sunlight breaking over the horizon behind them. And with it came a break in the clouds, as the path to England opened up ahead of them.

‘Look!’ Pedersen suddenly shouted. ‘Land!’

Sneum was confused. It was only 4.30 a.m.; he hadn’t expected to see the English coast for another hour. Yet there it was, what seemed to be a wall of land stretching across the horizon.

‘We’ve done it,’ yelled Pedersen. ‘We’ve done it!’

‘Hang on,’ said Tommy. ‘That’s not land. It’s fog.’

Sure enough, the elements had thrown up an optical illusion, as if trying to shatter the spirits of thetiring pilots. The bank of fog had looked exactly like cliffs in the distance. Nevertheless, Tommy and Kjeld knew if they kept flying west, real land would come soon enough.

By 5.15 a.m. (British time) on Sunday 22 June, they had been in the air for almost six hours. Then they spotted a small island ahead of them. ‘We were sure we could see breakers crashing against rocks and we looked at each other with joy,’ said Tommy. They dropped down to a height of just fifty meters to take a closer look. Although they suspected it was another mirage, soon there seemed no doubt: green vegetation and black rocks beckoned them closer. Then a big white lighthouse came into view. It certainly was an island, and the mainland was now visible beyond it too. A small town. It couldn’t be Newcastle, which they knew to be much bigger. So where were they? On one side, there was a sweeping curve in the coastline.

Pedersen suddenly looked worried. ‘No sign of an island on the map, Sneum. Do you know what that looks like?’

‘What?’

‘The mouth of the Zuiderzee.’

‘I suppose it could be,’ said Tommy, playing along.

‘For Christ’s sake, we’re in Holland!’ There was fresh panic in Pedersen’s face.

‘Fuck off or I’ll throw you overboard,’ Sneum scoffed dismissively, when he thought Kjeld had suffered enough.

‘No, wait, I agree with you,’ said Pedersen in a climbdown so sudden that it confused his fellow pilot. ‘I think this is England.’

‘Why the change of heart?’ Tommy asked.

‘Because of those,’ came the reply. Kjeld pointed, his hand shaking. The sky was alive with Spitfires and Hurricanes. Unbeknown to the Danes, their little sports plane had been spotted as it approached tiny Coquet Island just off the Northumberland coast. David Baston of the Royal Observer Corps was stationed at Gloucester Hill Farm near Amble, the little town seen by Sneum and Pedersen. As soon as the bemused Baston had sighted the Hornet Moth, he had called his headquarters in Durham. The message, quickly relayed to nearby RAF Acklington, had led to four planes being scrambled. Now Sneum and Pedersen were at the mercy of those fighters, which circled and swooped like vultures.