The Hornet's Sting (18 page)

When Sneum and Pedersen arrived at the address they had been given, both were both struck immediately by the natural charisma of the man who introduced himself as Colonel Ramsden. They followed him up a flight of stairs and met Thornton, who was waiting in a lounge on the first floor. Since Rabagliati spoke no Danish, he instructed Thornton to ask their guests a general question about the situation in Denmark. Tommy recalled: ‘Thornton spoke no Danish either, so he phrased the question in broken German. I just put him out of his misery by answering in fluent English.’

From that moment Thornton’s role in the meeting was redundant. Before long he excused himself, clearly relieved that his ordeal was over, though somewhat embarrassed that his linguistic limitations had been so quickly exposed.

Rabagliati, who had not lost his air of self-assurance for a moment, quizzed the pair a little more about conditions in Denmark, then came to the point: ‘What do you think about going back there for us?’ The question was direct and shocking.

‘Too dangerous.’ Kjeld was adamant. ‘We’hadmarked men. They’ll already know who took the plane.’

Never imagining they would be asked to return to Denmark as spies, they had left plenty of incriminating documentation in the barn in order to deflect any blame away from Poul Andersen. If they did go back, the AS (Special Affairs) Department of the Danish police in Copenhagen would probably be on to them in no time. The Germans would be informed too, and then there was the risk of a full-scale Abwehr manhunt. No, insisted Pedersen, the best way forward was for the British to let them join the RAF.

‘Look, I’m sure you’re both damn good pilots, you must be to have come this far, and we do appreciate your offer,’ acknowledged Rabagliati rather ominously. ‘But we’re not short of pilots. We’ve got twenty-five thousand in training already. What we’re short of is agents. Your intelligence work so far has been nothing short of brilliant. That’s where you can really help us. What do you say?’

Pedersen was shaking his head again.

But Sneum heard himself reply: ‘I’d be prepared to think about it. If you really think we can be more use as agents than we can be as pilots, I’ll go back to Denmark.’

‘I won’t be joining you,’ said a stunned Pedersen straight away. ‘Sorry, Sneum. We can’t do more than we’ve already done over there.’ He turned to Rabagliati. ‘With your permission, Colonel, I’m going to fly for the RAF, which is why I came here.’

Sneum was disappointed but not angry. He had already put Pedersen in dreadful danger; and he couldn’t inflict more on his reluctant friend. Kjeld had earned the right to fight his war in his own way, and his bravery was beyond question. Besides, the RAF was no easy option. In 1941, mortality rates were still high. He had made his choice and Tommy was bound to respect it.

‘The Germans would be looking for both of us, so maybe it’s better if we split up anyway,’ said Sneum supportively. ‘But if the British want me to do this alone, I’ll go back.’

Although Tommy later recounted this conversation in the full detail shown above, his wartime report on this meeting was rather more protective of Kjeld, whose reluctance to return to Denmark was both sensible and understandable. Sneum wrote:

The following day Sneum and Pedersen were both signed out of the Royal Patriotic School for ever. At first they were installed together in Room 65 at Keyes House, Dolphin Square, in the London district of Victoria. But it was clear that they would soon be going down two very different wartime paths. And once they set off on their respective journeys, it was by no means certain that they would ever see each other again. Tommy and Kjeld therefore decided to enjoy a farewell evening in London. But they had in thaney, and there were no offers of financial help from their hosts. Desperate to have some fun, Tommy looked through their humble belongings and his eye landed on the one item that might fund their big night out. A little later, he pawned the Movikon camera for twenty pounds. And he never returned to the shop to reclaim the piece of equipment which had captured so much vital intelligence for the British.

At the start of the evening, Sneum and Pedersen changed into their Danish naval lieutenants’ uniforms. They didn’t know when they would get the chance to wear them again, and they were still proud of their homeland, despite Denmark’s capitulation to the Germans.

‘You know,’ said Kjeld as they began a pub crawl, ‘I would never have got to England without you forcing me to come with you.’

Sneum smiled because it was probably true.

They tumbled into the Suivie Club, one of the English capital’s great night spots, and were shown discreetly to a table in a dimly lit corner. For a while they were happy just to observe the party. It was a good place from which to identify the most beautiful women on the dance floor, and they believed there would be plenty of time to make a move for their favorites later. So they sat contentedly with their beers, although Sneum put ice cubes in his unbearably warm British ale.

Soon they were approached by a British Army captain, who said something that Sneum didn’t quite catch. Obligingly, Tommy leaned across the table so that he could hear above the swinging music.

‘I said, what are you bloody foreigners doing here?’ demanded the captain.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Sneum, politely. ‘Well, I’ll show you.’

It took one punch. Tommy later recalled with a chuckle: ‘My fist had the force of a mule’s kick in those days.’

Within a minute, Sneum had been thrown out of the club, with the captain carried out close behind him. A proud Pedersen slapped his friend on the back to congratulate him on such an efficient performance. It wasn’t what they had originally planned for the evening’s entertainment, but both Danes had been through a little too much, with the prospect of far worse ahead, to be abused by someone they had risked their lives to help.

Not everyone in England seemed to resent their presence, though. As they cleaned themselves up on the street, Kjeld noticed a prostitute observing them from over the road. He didn’t know when, if ever, he would next have the pleasure of a woman’s company, so he crossed the road to begin negotiations. Tommy took up the story:

Pedersen had little time to enjoy his new lover in the more immediate future, however. On 27 June, just five days after he had landed exhausted in that field in the north-east of England, he was commissioned as a pilot officer in the RAF and left London for Training School 18, Woking, Surrey. His dream to fly with Britain’s finest had come true.

Thomas Sneum, who had shared that same dream, didn’t have long to reflect upon the wisdom of the path he had taken, almost on impulse. To all intents and purposes, he was already an agent of the Secret Intelligence Service.

B
ACK ON FANOE the following afternoon, there was a knock on the door of the Sneum family home. Christian Sneum found Hauptmann Meinicke, the German commander on the island, standing uncomfortably outside. Tommy later received from his father a detailed account of the conversation, which went as follows:

‘May I come in?’ asked the German.

The headmaster was too much of a gentleman to refuse, despite his resentment against the occupation, and showed his uninvited guest into the lounge.

‘Sir, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,’ began Meinicke solemnly. ‘It’s your son Thomas. He took a plane and tried to fly out of Denmark with another man called Kjeld Pedersen.’

‘Tried?’

Meinicke looked even more uneasy as he explained. ‘It seems they were heading for England. But the plane was just a Hornet Moth, a single-engine trainer.’

Tommy’s father asked if they had been shot down, and was relieved at least to hear that they had not. ‘If this is true, is there any chance they may have got to England?’

‘No chance,’ the German officer said abruptly. ‘The range of the plane was too short.’

Asked to explain further, Meinicke pointed out that the maximum range of a Hornet Moth was less than six hundred kilometers, while England was over seven hundred kilometers from Odense. ‘Unfortunately, we can only conclude that your son is now at the bottom of the North Sea. I’m sorry.’

Sneum senior didn’t know what to think. He had been told of the short message that Poul Andersen had heard on the BBC a few days earlier which had confirmed the safe arrival in England of two Danish pilots. Since then, he had allowed himself to believe that one of those pilots was Thomas. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Meinicke saw what damage his news had caused. ‘Mr Sneum,’ he said, just before leaving, ‘I know this won’t come as any consolation, but I’ll say it anyway. At his age, I might have done precisely the same thing, had I been in his shoes.’

A week later Else Sneum would hear another version of what had become of her husband; one that was even less accurate than Meinicke’s. She had already begun to worry about Tommy’s long silence when a letter arrived at her parents’ house in Copenhaen. She had been staying there with Marianne while Tommy supposedly established himself in Aalborg. When she recognized the handwriting on the envelope, it is likely that she thought he had finally got round to summoning the two of them to join him. Instead, the letter, posted locally on 5 July, was much more shocking. Sneum didn’t keep a copy, but remembered more or less what he had written:

Else didn’t know what to think. Had her husband gone off to war or simply left her for a new life in America? Either way, the news was dreadful, and left her with a small child to raise without any prospect of help from her husband.

When a stunned Else and her angry parents contacted Christian Sneum, he apologized on behalf of his son and regretted that he could add nothing to the confused picture. Only Thomas could explain his actions when he was ready; until then, the Sneum family would offer all their support in raising their granddaughter.