The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [106]
Even closer lay another potential lifeline. A giant sheet of thicker-looking ice appeared before them. Then Sigfred saw a small fishing boat just a few hundred meters away, trying to reach them. It seemed that the boat could come no further because it was blocked by the mighty slab of ice. The fishermen were shouting and beckoning Sigfred to come to them instead, so he pushed on with what little strength he had left, and somehow summoned the energy to reach the more stable ice. Perhaps he thought the others would follow, but Thorbjoern had slumped onto the fracturing ice, unable to keep up. Kaj did manage to stagger onto the thicker ice, closer to the boat, but then he too fell to his knees. If he cried out for help, it appears that Sigfred failed to hear him. At any rate, he didn’t turn back, instead pushing on towards the boat.
It took him minutes rather than the anticipated seconds to reach it, and by then the fishermen were adamant there was no way through to Kaj and Thorbjoern. Oxlund attempted to crawl towards them on his hands and knees, but he was becoming stuck to the ice and didn’t seem able to get any further. Meanwhile, Thorbjoern was now out of sight, even further away, and still on the thin ice.
The emotions experienced by all three Danes, as the fishermen rowed away with only one on board, can scarcely be imagined. The Swedish police report, later compiled with Sigfred Christophersen’s help, told only the bare facts:
Oxlund and Thorbjoern Christophersen were so exhausted as they neared the Swedish coast that they could not carry on to reach a boat which was on its way towards them. Meanwhile Sigfred Christophersen continued and was picked up. As the boat was not able to carry on towards the other two desperate men, they were not taken on board, and the captain of the boat turned around and took Christophersen to the shore. From there he was flown by aircraft to Malmo hospital, and that flight took him back over the ice, where Christophersen could see what had happened to his brother. He lay quietly on the ice, with no signs of life.
The emergency services were alerted as soon as the fishing boat reached the shore. A gyroplane, forerunner to the modern-day helicopter, was immediately dispatched with life-saving supplies. Oxlund would surely have heard the faint drone as the gyroplane neared the scene of the tragedy. But by the time it arrived overhead his military long-coat, already weighing down his weakened body, had become one with the ice.
There was evidence of further horrors as Oxlund refused to give up the struggle for life. He must have fallen forward at some point, probably through sheer exhaustion. In seconds his hands fused with the ice floe. When he pulled them free, the flesh from his palms and the tips of his fingers was torn away. The pieces of skin remained stuck to the freezing surface, gruesome handprints on the ice. Every time he waved towards the aircraft, what remained of his hands spattered the area around him with more blood. He knew he had been spotted, and he must have believed that his rescue was now imminent, but he still couldn’t free his knees or the lower fringes of his coat from the clutches of the ice. No matter how he hacked away, he remained trapped, glued in a position of helpless prayer.
From above, the pilot of the gyroplane, Rolf von Bahr, photographed a man who was still conscious, his head swathed in scarves in an attempt to retain the last of his body heat. Although his lower half was stuck to the ice, his arms were outstretched. Von Bahr noticed the blood smeared all over the ice, and watched in horror as the red patches increased with every frantic wave. Sadly, the Swedish pilot realized the ice was too thin to take the weight of his aircraft. But he knew