The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [158]
Perhaps the biggest problem I had was that I was very young in those days, and that made it difficult to get the respect from these people that I deserved. And a lot of it was my own fault because I have never been very diplomatic. If you tell people what you suppose is the truth, you will always be unpopular.
Now, at last, Tommy felt he had heard the truth; not that it made him feel any more diplomatic than usual. And the way that Gyth was sweating suggested that he still believed he was going to die.
He thought I was going to do it, because I pointed the pistol at him and went round to the back of his chair. He must have thought he was going to get a bullet in the back of the head. But I just said this: ‘I’m not even going to touch a dirty dog like you.’ Then I left.
There was a terrible stink about it the next day, after I got back to Plymouth. Security people soon arrived, and I had to explain myself. I told them: ‘None of this would have happened if you had shown the slightest common sense over where you housed Gyth. How can you call yourselves “Security” when your precautions aren’t secure? Or do you call yourselves “Intelligence”? Because you’re not intelligent either.
They were bloody angry, but they knew at the end of our little chat that I wasn’t going to kill Gyth, because I would already have done it. Eventually things died down, and I think some of my old friends in London might have helped me to avoid being locked up yet again.
In May 1944 Tommy decided to use his leave to go to London again, though he was seeking fun rather than revenge over the Princes or SOE. He strolled through the West End on the lookout for pretty girls, but instead bumped into a distinguished-looking Norwegian gentleman whose face he recognized instantly. It was Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, who in his younger days had been a polar explorer. Now aged fifty-four, he was Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. A fine pilot, Riiser-Larsen was also a controversial leader who loved to do things his way, even if his methods antagonized those around him. No wonder he had already taken a shine to young Tommy Sneum, who must have seemed like a chip off the same Scandinavian block.
Tommy recalled:
I had met Riiser-Larsen a few months earlier, while I had been living and working with Christmas Moeller. We had chatted a couple of times at social occasions and got on well because we could talk about flying—he had been a naval pilot too. I had always been in civilian clothes on these occasions, but he soon knew a bit about me. The big difference this time, when we bumped into each other, was that I was dressed in my British naval uniform.
Riiser-Larsen stared at Sneum in mock-disbelief, and said: ‘What the hell are you doing in that uniform?’
‘They wouldn’t allow me to fly,’ Tommy explained, ‘so I joined the navy.’
The Norwegian invited Tommy to a French restaurant he knew, so that he could hear all about it. ‘I told him: “I’ve had some trouble with SOE and SIS. They’re keeping me out.”’
When Sneum had finished his story, Riiser-Larsen sat for a moment in silence. Then he uttered seven matter-of-fact words: ‘You had better come over to us.’ Before the tears in his eyes could embarrass him any further, Sneum was given the confirmation he craved. ‘It’ll be no bother. I’m going to see to it that you fly again.’
Some busy and egotistical men might make a casual promise over a merry lunch and then forget all about it. Tommy knew that he would soon find out if Riiser-Larsen was such a person, or if his own, long-cherished dream was about to come true at last.
‘Eight days later I joined the Royal Norwegian Air Force,’ said Sneum decades later, his delight clearly eternal.
He did so by presenting himself at Kingston House in west London, which acted as the Free