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‘You learned to fly properly yet?’ yelled Sneum across the crowded room.

‘My God, they’ve let you out!’ shouted back Pedersen. ‘They must be mad!’

The Danish pilots met in a bear-hug, their first since falling exhausted into each other’s arms in a field near Newcastle back in the summer of 1941. So much had happened since they landed the Hornet Moth and chose separate paths in service of the British. Kjeld explained that he had only recently heard about Sneum’s difficulties, because he had just come back from North Africa for a spot of leave. He had been there since 6 December 1942, with 33 and 94 Squadrons, flying Hawker Hurricanes. He was due to face another six months running the gauntlet above the German guns in the desert, and had already built up quite a thirst.

‘Well, you’re lucky, because we have money to spend,’ said Sneum with a smile.

‘I’ve got some, don’t worry,’ Kjeld assured him.

Tommy was still grinning. ‘I think I may have a little more.’

‘What is this, a competition?’ Pedersen was reaching for his wallet.

‘Not unless you have about three grand in there,’ said Sneum, grabbing his friend’s arm. ‘Now, we’re going to split it between you, me and Rosy here, and see who can spend the most in a weekend.’

Pedersen’s mouth dropped open. ‘How much?’

The trio took the best shops, restaurants and clubs by storm. For forty-eight hours the champagne flowed, the party raged and cash changed hands in extraordinary amounts. ‘We ate goose-liver paté and drank the best champagne, Dom Perignon,’ Tommy explained. Even then, they found it impossible to get rid of more than a thousand pounds between them.

At the end of their orgy of spending, the trio exchanged wonderful presents. Watches, jewellery and the finest clothes were opened by each laughing participant in turn, to the astonishment of fellow customers in the most elegant restaurants and hotel lobbies. Everything was paid for in cash with perfect nonchalance, to the bemusement of stunned staff in each top establishment. Perhaps it was inevitable that they attracted unwanted attention. They began to notice that they were being followed by young men who looked to Sneum like SIS agents. He didn’t care. MI6 had financed the party, so he thought it fitting that their representatives should be allowed a taste of the anarchy. In full view of the agents of his former employers, Sneum continued to spend like there was no tomorrow. They drank to Helvard. They drank to flying. They drank to living for the moment.

Mrs Knauer, Tommy’s landlady, didn’t understand living for the moment, and she was running out of patience. He explained: ‘Reeny, from the farm, came to London and stayed with me sometimes at the house. Mrs Knauer didn’t like that. But then I was also going out with Rosy and Audrey simultaneously, so the Knauers and Christmas Moellers were angry with me for that, too. I had all this money, I had to spend it, and a lot of it went on whoring and fucking. I’ve always loved women.’

However, he would have swapped it all for the chance to get back into the Danish resistance. Nevertheless, the man he had recruited, Duus Hansen, was doing a fine job in Tommy’s absence. And he was about to make London, Tommy’s playground, a safer place for the duration of the war.

On 16 July Duus Hansen received a radio message from an SIS department known to him as ‘Hannibal.’ It read: ‘Can you report on activity at Peenemunde near Greifswald where enemy are producing and experimenting with long-range rockets. Believe new radio apparatus on Bornholm connected with these experiments. We would like description of rocket and emplacement and scale of rocket and projector production at Peenemunde.’

Even to Duus Hansen, whose network now included the Princes of Danish Intelligence, this must have sounded like an impossible mission. But it was clear that the British were extremely anxious about Hitler’s new rocket technology, because he received a similar request from Ralph Hollingworth of SOE. Once again, rival British departments were vying for center stage