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Tommy grabbed the end of the hose and instantly faced a new, tougher battle. ‘I struggled to bend the hose down into the fuel tank. It felt so heavy all of a sudden, and I was dizzy and tired.’ With one final effort, he pushed it towards the hole and scored a bull’s-eye. Plunging the hose deep into the tank, he ensured it would hold firm. Even if he fell now, at least Pedersen would have a chance of survival. Shivering, Tommy slowly edged back towards the cockpit door. He tried to wrap his left knee around the inside of the cockpit wall but faltered slightly, and for a terrible moment only the increasingly desperate grip of his left hand kept him from disaster. Pedersen watched helplessly, knowing that if he abandoned the controls to try to help his friend, the Hornet Moth might shudder enough to throw Sneum into oblivion. Terrified, Tommy launched himself at the cockpit. A split second later he landed in a heap on top of Kjeld. As Pedersen wrestled with the stick, Sneum slammed the door shut behind him. He took over the controls and saw reflected in the face of his friend the relief that he too was feeling. For a while they sat in silence, eating biscuits and drinking grape soda, waiting for their composure to return so that they could begin the next phase of their daring plan.

While Sneum held the end of the hose with one hand and the joystick with the other, Kjeld inserted the funnel. But when he tried to pour the first five-litre can of petrol down the tube, the air currents whistling through the various holes and cracks in the cockpit wreaked havoc. Tommy remembered: ‘Kjeld was spilling as much petrol down my back as was going into the tank. As it evaporated I felt colder still. I was covered in petrol. And the stench was overpowering.’ Only a fraction of the fuel from that first can found its way into the hose and ultimately into the tank. Not for the first time on the flight, Tommy thanked his partner loudly in his own colourful way. But as the fumes grew unbearable Pedersen was barely conscious to hear him. There was another worry too: any spark in the cockpit would see them going up in flames. If they ever reached Newcastle and were forced to crash-land, the Moth might be an inferno before anyone reached them.

As it was, though, that possibility seemed less likely than freezing to death or ditching in the sea. Pedersen was drifting in and out of consciousness, seemingly lost in an ever-deepening nausea. However, when he vomited again the effort seemed to bring him momentarily to his senses.

‘Come on, Kjeld, I need you now,’ Sneum yelled with a hint of desperation in his voice.

Bravely, Pedersen willed himself to continue with his task. He emptied one can after another into the funnel, retching as the petrol splashed all over him. Although the wastage was still considerable, it seemed to both men that a little more liquid reached the fuel tank each time. Tommy later explained: ‘We used all the five-litre cans and one of the ten-litre cans. We had plenty of spare fuel, which was just as well.’

Finally, after almost forty-five minutes, they decided they had done all they could. It was time to let the stomach-churning smell dissipate, so that they could breathe enough clean air to recover. If this was freedom, they decided, up to now it was overrated.

Chapter 12

THE WELCOME

SOON A CREEPING, cold monotony became the new enemy. There seemed to be no end to their ordeal, and their strength was fading fast. Their eyelids grew heavy and the gloom invited sleep. It would have been so easy to close their eyes and forget all their troubles. Tommy felt his body shutting down.

Then something wonderful happened to give their fading senses new energy: they felt the warmth of the first rays of morning sunlight breaking over the horizon behind them. And with it came a break in the clouds, as the path to England opened up ahead of them.

‘Look!’ Pedersen suddenly shouted. ‘Land!’

Sneum was confused. It was only 4.30 a.m.; he hadn’t expected to see the