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‘You are still a mystery,’ I told him.

‘Well, I think a mystery is rather a good thing to be,’ he replied with a smile.

The British Secret Service’s refusal to release Tommy’s file only perpetuated that mystery, and we all knew time was running short. When I asked him how he wanted to be remembered, he had obviously already thought about it.

‘As a fighter,’ he said simply.

It was an apt self-portrait. Sneum fought against everyone who tried to control and tame him. That was the essence of the man. Now his fighting days were nearly over. The last time I saw him was in November 2006.

‘I feel bloody old,’ he said with a familiar throaty chuckle.

‘You’re not even ninety,’ I told him. ‘What are you moaning about? Eighty-nine is nothing these days.’

‘Shut up and pass me the whisky,’ he ordered, still smiling.

When he issued an order, it was unwise to cross him.

Tommy Sneum died on 3 February 2007, still a few months short of his ninetieth birthday. Like all the best spies, he took some of his secrets with him. His passing wasn’t sad, because time had worn out his body. For such an active man that meant the moment had come to move on.

Tommy’s son Christian organized a fitting funeral service in Denmark, and his death notice in the Danish papers included an English line: ‘If they survive, the men who go first are rarely popular with those who wait for the wind to blow.’ That poignant observation from R.V. Jones provided one last swipe at those who had treated him shabbily in his own country. Tommy’s ashes were taken to the Sneum family’s resting place on the island of Fanoe, where his story had begun.

Over in England, the Sneum family gave me the honor and responsibility of marking Tommy’s passing in an appropriate manner. I immediately contacted St. Clement Danes, the church in the Strand, London, where Arne Helvard’s name, among those of many other fallen heroes, was already commemorated. A plaque on one of the outer walls confirmed that this was also the right place to remember Thomas Christian Sneum. It read:

St. Clement Danes

Built by the Danish community in the ninth century and rebuilt by William the Conqueror.

Built again by Sir Christopher Wren in 1681, the steeple added by James Gibbs in 1719.

Gutted by German incendiary bombs leaving only the damaged walls and steeple 10 May 1941.

Adopted in 1956 by the Royal Air Force, restored by Antony Lloyd and reconsecrated in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 19 October 1958 as the central church of the Royal Air Force.

By sheer coincidence, in two days’ time the church was due to hold its Battle of Britain Commemoration Service, and RAF men of all generations would be there in strength. The Reverend Richard Lee of the RAF was most courteous, and agreed to remember Tommy in his prayers. I attended, hoping simply to hear his name read out. What followed was entirely unexpected, and some of us will be eternally grateful to the reverend for his extraordinary warmth and generosity of spirit.

In a church packed with serving RAF officers and veterans, Reverend Lee climbed into the pulpit and began his sermon. Luckily, the event was filmed, so what he said was recorded. The first part went like this:

Welcome to St. Clement Danes—central church of the Royal Air Force. It is no stranger to conflict, since it has been torn down and built up many times. The church was built first of all to reconcile the community of Denmark with the community of England, which is particularly fitting today as we remember in our prayers a man called Thomas Christian Sneum. You may never have heard of him. But he was an exceptional man. He was a pilot, he was a Dane. And when his country was invaded he escaped in an aircraft called a Hornet—which I’m told is a rather souped-up Tiger Moth, if such a thing could exist—carrying secrets about radar. He flew across the North Atlantic—the North Sea, sorry, just testing the navigators among you—he flew across the sea and halfway across of course he had to refuel. So he stepped