The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [121]
Anticipating a scenario where they might need to jump across the fracture lines, Tommy insisted they take a pole each, between two and three meters long. Such props would do no harm to their alibi, since many fishermen took the same precautions when stepping out onto the ice to carve their fishing holes. If they were forced to vault across cracks to stay above the water, the poles might become lifesavers. They could also be used to rescue a freezing man who had fallen through the ice and needed help to claw his way back out of the water.
Tommy had walked over frozen seas before, from Fanoe to the Danish mainland at Esbjerg. He felt sure his experience would help Arne survive too, especially if the pair were tied together with rope. He was determined to do all he could to avoid the tragedy that had befallen the other men a few weeks earlier, though he knew there were no guarantees. ‘Of course I was scared,’ he admitted later. ‘I would have been stupid not to be. But I always forced myself never to show other people that I was scared. If you show fear as a leader, you are not a leader any more.’
Knud Nielsen knew the importance of running checks and crosschecks before stepping onto the ice. At 11.00 p.m., he went over Arne and Tommy’s kit and made sure their clothing was adequate. Over several thermal layers, the two men were wearing bulky white, hooded anoraks and white trousers. Even their boots had been painted white to help avoid detection in the first vital minutes. In order to reach their stepping-off point without arousing suspicion, however, they had realized it would be necessary to wear normal clothing over their whites. If confronted, it would be better to look like locals breaking the curfew for a spot of illegal fishing than to be seen for what they were—highly organized resistance men dressed for an evasive expedition across the ice. Therefore, they put on their naval overcoats before they began the short walk towards northern Skodsborg’s beach.
Knud accompanied Tommy and Arne on this crucial phase of their journey. When the time was right, he would take charge of the discarded overcoats and hurry back to the apartment for the night. Together they carved a path through the deep snow. Each man marched in the footsteps of his predecessor, in order to minimize the evidence they left behind. They also kept in step, to try to sound like just one person. Nights were particularly silent during the occupation, and the crunching sound of three men trudging through the snow at midnight could have raised the alarm even before they stepped onto the beach.
There were dangers lurking on the sea front now. Only forty meters to the left of the point at which they were due to descend to the ice, a police lookout post could be made out in the darkness. Two hundred meters further along the promenade, there was another. Tommy had hoped that neither police box would be manned, but a flicker of light in the first cabin disappointed him. Looking closer, he saw the silhouetted shoulders and head of the policeman; for a moment, it seemed certain the officer would spot them. As he lit a cigarette, however, the lone watchman turned away to survey the promenade in the other direction. All three men managed to hurry to the beach unchallenged, praying their footprints would not be spotted in the gloom. Wasting no time, Sneum and Helvard took off their overcoats and threw them to Nielsen. In that instant, they became virtually invisible. Using their staffs, they then negotiated the six steps down to the beach, tied themselves firmly together with rope, and trudged across the five or ten meters of smooth, snow-covered sand. Without hesitation, they stepped onto the creaking ice and, in seconds, they were gone. Even from a few meters above sea level, Knud now couldn’t make them out. It was as though they had stepped off