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Sneum recalled: ‘The storm from the south-east had brought all the water in from the Baltic, which had lifted the ice and made it break up again. That was the greatest danger to our survival. The ice all around that line was breaking into flakes, and we didn’t know when we were going to have to step onto a flake that wasn’t big enough to carry our weight.’

Their wooden poles came into play again as they reacted instinctively to avoid the bubbling veins of water now appearing at their feet. ‘As soon as a crack opened up, we jumped in unison,’ said Tommy. But for a few perilous moments they lacked firm direction. Sneum was the one who finally came to a decision. ‘Come on!’ he yelled, pulling on the rope which tied them together. ‘Back to Hven. It’s our only chance.’

The main fracture was almost upon them. If they didn’t outrun it, they would surely fall through. But Helvard hesitated for a crucial moment, apparently frozen in fear. Tommy explained Arne’s confusion: ‘Helvard hadn’t been to sea until he joined the navy. He didn’t understand the ice like I did, because he’d been brought up in the country. He had never been in a situation like this before and I think he must have been more scared than me. I knew we had to turn back to Hven, but Arne didn’t turn as quickly as I did.’

Since they were still attached by the rope, it looked certain that they would both be killed, but the fracture deviated slightly as it tore past them. Even so, the consequences appeared to be no less devastating than a direct hit under their feet:

When the biggest crack in the ice opened up, it blocked our path back to Hven. It was as wide as a bed is long, and I screamed at Arne to run at it and use his pole when I did. If you didn’t have a run-up, you didn’t have the momentum to get yourself lifted into the air, or the forward movement to land where you wanted to. It was a bit like pole-vaulting, but there was no real bend in the pole because it was made of wood. All the more reason why we really had to run at it.

Helvard snapped into action and they both charged at the ice as it ripped apart in front of them. Ramming their staffs into the softening surface and leaping for their lives, both men hung in the air long enough to land in a heap on the other side. Sneum, struggling for breath, was first to drag himself to his feet. He pulled Arne up quickly and said: ‘Come on, keep moving, let’s get out of here!’

They stumbled back towards Hven, their only chance of survival. Adrenalin kept their exhausted limbs pumping as they skipped across the crumbling surface, praying all the time that they wouldn’t fall under. The sleet and snow whipped into their eyes as the worst of the storm caught up with them. Tommy began to notice more matchstick men, moving towards them from the island. At first they seemed far away, unreachable; but Sneum and Helvard fought on like men possessed until the matchsticks became real people. All of a sudden their rescuers, Swedish policemen, grabbed each man by the arm and dragged him away roughly. ‘We thought they were our saviors but they treated us like criminals,’ Tommy observed wryly. ‘Still, at least they were dragging us onto solid ground, and that was good to know.’

For five or six hours, Sneum and Helvard had been tormented by the creaks and groans of the ice beneath their feet, and had felt the vast slabs shifting menacingly as they moved to the rhythm of the silent currents below. Now they were being scraped across a beach by their captors, towards a grim-looking building on the cliffs above.

It might not have been the mainland, but it was at least Sweden. And perhaps the first firm stepping stone back to London.

Chapter 37

SPILLING THE BEANS

TOMMY SNEUM AND ARNE HELVARD were trapped in Malmo Prison. The governor, Einar Karstengren, was rumoured to be a Nazi. Since their escape to a supposedly neutral country, life had been full of strange twists and turns. On the island of Hven they were locked in a shed as punishment for refusing