The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [27]
‘Don’t worry, we’ll get some more tail fin bolts,’ whispered Sneum, ‘when we order the new bolts for the wings.’
‘We can’t,’ warned Kjeld.
‘Why not?’
‘Molybdenum isn’t available in Denmark any more. And certainly not at short notice.’ Kjeld, who had been sceptical even before he had seen the plane and discovered the shortage of bolts, now thought they should abort the whole project before it killed them. ‘Come on, Sneum, there’s nothing to hold this plane together. I know we’re desperate, but this is suicide.’
Tommy refused to throw in the towel. ‘We’ll find some bolts. They don’t have to be molybdenum.’
‘They do if you don’t want the bloody thing to fall apart halfway across the North Sea,’ maintained Kjeld.
Sneum didn’t see it that way. ‘Compressed carbon steel bolts may be softer but they can do the job. It’s only one flight.’
‘One bloody long flight,’ warned Pedersen. ‘She’s got to be able to withstand some pretty fearsome pressure up there.’
‘We can do it,’ insisted Sneum. ‘We’ll order everything to precise specifications. We’ve got enough mates from Fleet Air Arm to do that. Are you still in?’
Grudgingly, Pederson replied, ‘If the engineers say it can be done.’ He seemed pretty sure that they would say the exact opposite.
At 7.30 a.m. farm workers appeared in the fields around the barn, just as Tommy and Kjeld were about to leave. The pilots hid under sacks at the back of the hangar. It was a frustrating morning, but they feared discovery if they dared to move. One man slept while the other kept an eye out for any nosy laborers. Tommy took the first nap and woke mid-morning with a stretch and a carelessly noisy yawn. Kjeld scrambled frantically towards him, with one forefinger pressed to his lips. With the other, he pointed to the far corner of the hangar. At the base of the corrugated-tin wall, where the ground had crumbled away, a crouching man was creating a stench, and the pilots realized that the relative privacy afforded by the hangar walls meant that the area had been designated as the farm workers’ unofficial lavatory.
At lunchtime the workers left the fields at last, but locals out for a Sunday stroll had begun to pass regularly on a road just fifty meters to the north of the hangar. Tommy wondered if they would ever be able to get out without being noticed. Luckily a cornfield, with the crop already half a meter high, caressed the western wall of the hangar, and offered just enough cover if they kept low. After much uncomfortable crawling and cursing, the two men reached the road, picked themselves up and brushed themselves down. No sooner had they done so than a party of German officers appeared on horseback, just where the road forked off to nearby Sanderum. The Germans viewed the young men suspiciously, but their commander seemed reluctant to interrupt his ride. After a moment’s hesitation, which seemed like an eternity to Tommy and Kjeld, the horsemen continued on their way without demanding papers or a reason for the Danes’ presence in the area.
Relieved, Tommy and Kjeld slipped away down a country lane, only to be confronted with the sight of a newly built drill-ground for German soldiers. It was less than a kilometer from Elseminde. Privately, Tommy wondered whether this escape plan was cursed, but he assured himself that the occupiers couldn’t hold parades around the clock, no matter how disciplined they were, and therefore he and Kjeld would still have the opportunity to fly away if they chose their moment carefully.
They made it back to the capital using the skeleton Sunday transport services, and launched a search for petrol cans or drums. These containers needed to be small enough to carry without attracting suspicion, and practical enough to be used in Sneum’s outlandish plan to refuel in mid-air. No