The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [18]
Naturally, Tommy didn’t know any of this. As he began his presentation, he viewed ‘the British’ as one united force lined up against the Germans. He could never have imagined that, behind the scenes, they were squaring up to each other. Starting with something simple and tangible, he told Denham that some German sea-planes had been brought out of the water in the northern Danish port of Thisted and were now arranged on the quayside like sitting ducks. Then he moved swiftly on to the more pressing issue of the installation on Fanoe, and the remarkable capacity of the rectangular devices to pick out planes in the night sky with their searchlights.
Denham and Fleet betrayed no prior knowledge of the installation. If Oxlund’s thick envelope had arrived at the British Legation as intended the previous summer, these officers seemed determined to give the impression that they had not seen it. But Denham had been around long enough to know when he was being told something important. He quickly excused himself, giving the impression that he hoped to contact London for further guidance on what action to take in light of what he had just heard. Tommy barely had time to ask him if he could be put on the next available flight to Britain, so that he could join the RAF and fight the Luftwaffe.
‘Well done on the sea-planes, Flight Lieutenant Sneum,’ said Fleet in his colleague’s absence. ‘We might be able to do something with those. By the way, there’s a Mosquito arriving in Stockholm in the next few days. We should be able to pull a few strings to get you over to Britain on that.’
An elated Sneum felt as though he had almost made it to London already. He chatted for what seemed like hours to Fleet about the situation in Denmark, and what the British might do to undermine the Germans there. Finally they were interrupted by the return of Denham, who was noticeably more intense than before. ‘Look, I’ve got a proposal for you,’ he said.
‘First I have one for you,’ cut in Sneum. ‘There are about twenty Danish pilots, skilled in their jobs, just like me, men who want nothing more than to join the Allied forces and fight the Nazis. There is a large expanse of water at Lake Tissoe, near the west coast of Zealand, where they can be ready for you on any given night. All you have to do is send a message through to one of my people in Denmark. I can give you some names. Lake Tissoe is as big and as easy to recognize as any rendezvous point you could think of. One of your Sunderland flying boats will have no trouble finding it, especially if I coordinate everything.’
‘How could you do that from England?’ asked Fleet.
Tommy didn’t hesitate: ‘If I receive a guarantee in London that the Sunderland will be sent, I’ll volunteer to parachute back into Denmark and prepare my friends for the pick-up.’
Both Englishmen could see that Sneum was deadly serious. ‘We could arrange that for you in theory,’ said Denham cautiously. ‘But maybe you won’t have to parachute into Denmark. Not if you’re already there for us.’
Tommy sensed he was about to be told something he didn’t want to hear. ‘I had hoped you could get me to England,’ he reiterated with as much insistence as he dared show.
But Denham was equally stubborn. ‘This installation of yours on Fanoe may be more important, I’m afraid,’ he explained. ‘We need to understand exactly how these things work. Get as much technical detail as we can.’
‘I don’t see what more I could do,’ replied Sneum.
‘You could take photographs,’ suggested Denham.
Tommy almost laughed. He imagined strolling nonchalantly around the restricted areas like a tourist, taking snaps at will.
‘You could use a little Leica,’ continued Denham calmly. ‘Nothing too conspicuous. And if that works out, you could use a Movikon camera. They take moving pictures.’
Sneum couldn’t believe his ears. Make a film? But he agreed, and at that moment effectively