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Pedersen must have known how his friend was feeling, because he too had been a pilot in Fleet Air Arm. But that didn’t mean he was so desperate to remember how it felt to fly that he was ready to sacrifice his life for the privilege. This feeble-looking Hornet Moth was a far cry from a Hawker Nimrod. Besides, no one had ever attempted to fly a single-engine aircraft from Denmark to Britain. Pedersen, at least, knew his limitations. ‘I’m not going to fly her,’ he insisted. ‘You must do it.’

‘That pleases me,’ replied Sneum with a smile. ‘You’re not a very good pilot.’

They had intended to wait for a night train to run along a nearby embankment and drown out the noise of the plane’s engine. But with all the upheaval of getting the plane out of the hangar they had missed their intended locomotive. They expected another train at midnight, so all was not lost; and anyway, Sneum was determined to press ahead even if that one didn’t come. He climbed into the cockpit through the port door and checked their luggage one last time. Behind him were several five-litre and ten-litre cans of petrol and the long tube with a funnel attached to one end. Folded neatly were spare shirts and smart naval uniforms for each man. The biscuits and the grape soda sat next to an axe. The broom handle with the two-meter-long white towel nailed to the end had been carefully placed to one side. And nestling innocently among these items were the two cases containing priceless undeveloped cine and still film of the German radar installation on Fanoe. Tucked away equally safely was the detailed report they had just compiled on the military bases where Danish troops were prepared to rise up against the German invaders on a signal from Churchill. To whet the appetites of the British further, Tommy and Kjeld had carefully documented key ports and ship movements around the Danish coast, to guide the bombing of German targets in their country.

By Sneum’s own admission, he hadn’t been quite so thorough in obtaining a detailed map of their destination: ‘Our only map of England was one we had torn from an atlas.’

Britain seemed a far-away place; and it felt like an eternity before they heard the midnight train—just a faint, regular rattle in the distance at first. Gradually it grew louder as the locomotive ate up more track and spewed out more steam. Here at last was the cover they craved. No one would hear a little sports plane above the thunderous roar of the train.

‘Contact!’ yelled Sneum.

Kjeld gave one mighty downward heave on the propeller and ducked clear as the engine burst noisily to life, with the blades soon scything at the air under their own power. The buzz was beautiful, like a promise of freedom, and adrenalin surged through the pilots’ bodies.

As the Hornet Moth began to roll through the turnip fields for the first time in years, clouds of dust flew up in all directions and effectively blinded Tommy in the cockpit. They had a few hundred meters of rough terrain to negotiate before they reached the smoother designated take-off field. During these risky moments, Pedersen ran alongside to act as guide: Sneum could still see his friend, even if he couldn’t see what was directly in front of him. Later Tommy recalled: ‘He had a crazy look on his face, his revolver was cocked and he was ready to shoot anyone who dared to interfere. He had told me that he would kill as many Germans as he could with his pistol and the rest with his bare hands.’ Pedersen pointed and waved so that Sneum could steer the machine through tiny breaks in the ditches between fields. Steadily they headed towards the grassy field that sloped down in a northerly direction and would act as their natural runway.

As Tommy swung the plane into position, Pedersen jumped aboard and tried to take his seat, positioned to the right and fractionally behind his partner’s. But the makeshift flagpole had complicated matters by rolling across Kjeld’s allocated place, where it now lay jammed. Pedersen had no time to release it gently, so he wrenched it upwards with all his strength.