The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [110]
But Lunding still knew no more about SOE than Tommy Sneum knew about SIS. As far as each man was concerned, he was simply dealing with ‘the British.’
Turnbull’s meeting with Lunding took place at the house of the Swedish SOE chief, Sir Peter Tennant. It continued into the early hours of the following day, and Lunding used the occasion to present the so-called P-Plan formally, on the understanding that it would be passed up the chain of command to British Chiefs of Staff as quickly as possible. This plan promised a coordinated uprising against the Germans by a secret Danish army on a given signal from London. The timing would be all important, since it had to correspond precisely with an Allied invasion of Denmark. In order to ensure maximum impact, argued Lunding, in the meantime the Danes would give the impression that they were happy to cooperate with the German occupation.
Turnbull listened enthusiastically to a proposal that effectively provided the Danes with a chance to sit on the fence until the very last stages of the war. He agreed to the P-Plan wholeheartedly, and shared Lunding’s opinion that, for now and the foreseeable future, it was best to do nothing to make the German occupation any less stable or comfortable.
Seeing that he had the young Scot in the palm of his hand, Lunding next sought and received a guarantee that no more British agents would be sent into Denmark without the Princes’ consent. He argued that too much chaos had already been caused by those dropped the previous year. Since neither man had any knowledge of the scientific intelligence uncovered by Sneum, or indeed the links he had established with Duus Hansen, it’s easy to see why Lunding and Turnbull were in complete agreement about future policy. Politically, at least, Sneum’s fate was all but sealed by the guidelines they drew up.
Turnbull enthusiastically encoded the P-Plan and added his own personal endorsement. Later that day he sent his communication to Ralph Hollingworth in London:
This morning I completed my conversations with the Prince ... The Prince made it clear to me that he and his colleagues wanted as much peace and quiet as possible in order to be able to send the balloon up with a bang at the right moment ... With comparative peace and quiet during the next twelve months they are confident that they can throw in to our help a considerable force at the right moment.
So, a matter of hours after the heroic Kaj Oxlund had met a dreadful end on the ice, Hans Lunding had turned the misfortunes of Denmark’s SIS spy circle to his advantage. For his part, Turnbull had made it clear that he wanted London to call off any mission that might cause an unwelcome ripple in Copenhagen. Had there been any substance to the Princes’ P-Plan, this might have been a sensible strategy. Had the Princes not already missed the Freya radar stations in their own back yard, the break-out of the Bismarck, Copenhagen’s importance as an intellectual battlefield in the atom-bomb race, and the importance of Duus Hansen, they might well have been able to claim with justification that they were the right men to handle British affairs in Denmark. In simple terms, the P-Plan made the Princes and Ronnie Turnbull look good. It would also make the ill-fated SIS operation look even uglier than it already was.
As he returned to Denmark, Lunding now felt free to decide how best to deal with Tommy Sneum.
Meanwhile, Gerda Nielsen had the grim task of visiting Tulle Oxlund in hospital and telling her that the man they had both loved was dead.
Chapter 33
SURROUNDED
BY 12 MARCH 1942, events were taking a turn for the worse in Malmo. Having given Sneum a little time to take evasive action, Sigfred Christophersen was persuaded by Kriminal-Kommissarie Runerheim to start telling the truth. The Swedes knew that he was not Erik Moeller, and Runerheim warned him that to continue to lie would make matters even worse for