The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [157]
I thought that if I got into the navy then one day I would be flying again, even though the British told me that it wouldn’t happen. They were worried that if I got shot down and survived someone might recognize me and then I would be tortured by the Germans and end up telling them everything I knew, which was plenty. So I became a commando instructor in Plymouth, but that turned out to be a load of rubbish. They weren’t even using live ammunition on key training exercises, and I got very angry about that. How could they ever learn properly if they weren’t exposed to realistic conditions?
I enjoyed my leave more, because I got to drive a truck and there were pretty girls all over the place, out on the road just like I was. You’d drive all day alongside them, listen to something nice on the radio, check into the same hotel and eat together. After that I’d say: ‘What about going up?’ and they’d say, ‘Well, OK.’ Look, I was good in bed and I knew women liked me. That was just a fact. But it didn’t make me entirely happy because what I really wanted to do was fly.
One day Tommy took a break from his amorous routine and returned to London to help a Danish naval colleague who felt he was owed some money by the British. On the way out of the Danish Legation, he came face to face with one of the men he blamed most for having him imprisoned and grounded—Captain Volle Gyth. Sneum refused to shake the hand of the Prince, who himself had escaped to Sweden after the German crackdown. When asked to explain his rudeness, Tommy stated bluntly: ‘You people are traitors and you had me locked up. I think you had better come to lunch right now and tell me why.’ Trying to maintain his composure, Gyth politely declined that ominous invitation, and one for dinner. Then Tommy asked a question which must have sounded menacing in its simplicity: ‘Are you home later?’
‘You don’t know where I’m staying,’ laughed an increasingly nervous Gyth, who had been given an SOE safe-house while he tried to persuade the sceptical British to support Danish Intelligence in exile. ‘And I can’t give you my address because it’s confidential, since my mission here is of a somewhat secretive nature.’
‘I’ll see you this evening at seven,’ Sneum promised confidently.
Tommy explained later:
I knew a place SOE had rented for the use of visitors from Denmark. It was in Romney Court, Shepherd’s Bush, and I decided that SOE were such stingy bastards that they probably hadn’t bothered to spend money on a new safe-house. So I went to the address with a few bottles of beer and explained to the doorman that I was a friend of Captain Gyth, who had asked if I could be let in to make myself comfortable until he got back.
When Gyth came home that evening he got a nasty shock. I had a pistol, and I told him: ‘It’s all over for you tonight, Gyth.’ I was happy to see the fear on his face after everything I had been through because of the intrigues created by Danish Intelligence. He had a good idea that I was going to shoot him unless he told me exactly what had happened to get me locked up in Sweden.
He admitted that Danish Intelligence had told the Swedes to make sure I wasn’t in a position to spy in Denmark again for the remainder of the war. That meant stopping me from getting to England too, in case they sent me back. So the Swedes locked me up on the instructions of the Princes; and therefore it was Danish Intelligence who effectively forced me to make that threat to blow the Swedish agents. Which caused me to be locked up again in England.
Gyth told me that everyone thought I was a loose cannon who took too many risks. By then both the Danes and the English thought I was a bit of a crazy bastard, when in fact I was just more courageous than